My hands and feet were bound like a captive of war, and I was dragged out into the courtyard, and thrown down next to Prince Zannanza and Simut, who were both bound and gagged. Simut stared at me in amazement and something like contempt, and then turned his face away.
The compound buildings were on fire. Gusts of bitter smoke drifted into my eyes. Beyond the walls, in the great opium fields, fires raged hugely, turning the great sky dark red and black. The sun was a pale disc, trapped among the thick, billowing clouds of smoke. Everywhere, I heard screams and cries. I knew then that Nakht could not have escaped alive.
The Egyptian troops moved confidently and swiftly around the destroyed ground of the compound. I watched them pick up crying children, and the women who held them close, and hurl them by the arms or legs into the burning pyres, where they fell screaming amid little explosions of bright sparks, and rushes of crackling flame. It seemed to me the God Seth had truly returned to the world, destroying everything in his rage.
Horemheb strode among the horror, issuing orders, and calmly assessing the progress of the massacre. He turned to a line of Inanna’s men, and one by one smote each of them like a king, caving in the backs of their skulls. Their bodies were cast on to the pyres as well. Inanna watched the execution of her army and the destruction of her kingdom with her head held high. On her face I saw a noble melancholy that touched me. And when it was all done, Horemheb ordered his men to hold her up by the hair. Her face was lit by the light of the fires. She looked around her world, knowing this was the end of her life. Finally, her gaze rested on me, and she gave me a look I will never forget, of pity and of loss. And then Horemheb slashed his sword across her throat; blood flowed down her bare breasts, and slowly she slumped forward. Then, in a final act of remorseless triumph, before she was dead, an officer hacked her head from her neck, impaled it on a pole, and stuck the pole in the ground. The soldiers cheered obediently.
And then Horemheb turned his attention to us. His blue-black hair was combed precisely from his imperious forehead. He wore a cuirass made of many overlapping black leather scales that imitated the feathered wings of a falcon. His shield, slung over his shoulder, was covered in cheetah skin, gilded along the edges, and with a gold plate in the centre bearing his name and office. These were the self-conscious trappings of a King; and he looked utterly self-possessed and confident wearing them.
His eyes were stony with contempt as he glanced at the three of us. He nodded to one of his men, who quickly removed the gags from Simut and Prince Zannanza. They coughed and spluttered, gasping at the smoky air.
‘The Prince Zannanza, pointless son of our great enemies, the Hittites. The Commander of the Palace Guard, Simut. And Rahotep, Seeker of Mysteries,’ he said. ‘I remember you well. You are a loyal servant of the Queen. And that of course is why you are here.’
‘I am here by her command,’ I said. ‘Life, prosperity, health to her. I am truly her loyal servant.’
‘Much good it will do you now. For with those futile words you have condemned yourself. And speaking of loyal servants, where is the Royal Envoy Nakht?’ he said.
None of us replied.
‘I know he was here with you. He cannot have escaped. My soldiers have conquered this valley and encircled this miserable hovel; they have orders to bring him to me alive. He will then be interrogated and executed. Stand up, Prince Zannanza, son of the Hittites.’
Zannanza did so, mustering all his courage to confront the general.
‘So this is the weak boy they thought to marry to the Queen of Egypt,’ he said. ‘They thought with this trivial juvenile they could prevent my great victory.’
He paused and glanced at his men. They laughed subserviently, coldly. But Horemheb did not laugh.
‘What should I do with you?’ he said, his face now very close to Prince Zannanza’s.
‘Let me go home,’ whispered the Prince. ‘Let me go home…’
Horemheb cupped his ear, as if he had not heard properly.
‘Speak up! Don’t whisper like a girl.’
‘Let me go home!’ cried Zannanza.
‘The Hittite prince wishes to go home!’
Horemheb’s men sniggered. Horemheb made an exaggerated gesture to the Prince.
‘Go, then. Please, sire. You are free! Do you know which way is home? I suppose it is a long way, so you had better start now.’
Prince Zannanza’s face took on a new depth of despair.
‘Go!’ yelled Horemheb, whacking him hard on the back of the head. The Prince shuffled forward, his ankles and wrists still bound, taking tiny, terrified steps. Horemheb’s men, in silence, opened up a path for him to pass through, towards the gates. Once he fell, but was hoisted to his feet, and pushed on. Finally he lost all strength, and sank slowly to his knees in despair. Horemheb came to stand before him.
‘Are you still here, Prince?’ he said mockingly.
The Prince raised his face. Horemheb slowly produced his sword. It was long and sharp.
‘What are we going to do with you?’ he said, as if to a truculent child.
‘He is innocent. Do not kill him. Release him to his people!’ I shouted.
Horemheb turned to me.
‘None of you will be released. You are all traitors.’
And then he turned back to the Prince.
‘Your time has come. Pray to your Gods now.’
Prince Zannanza uttered a few words of a prayer in his own language, and then the sword sang through the air, separating his head from his body, with a gust of blood, which spattered across the ground and raised a grim, mirthless cheer from the assembled soldiers.
Horemheb picked up Zannanza’s head by the hair.
‘Send this to his father, Suppiluliuma of the Hittites. And tell him there will be no marriage between Egypt and Hatti. Tell him there will never be peace. Tell him I, Horemheb, hold the royal crook and flail of the Two Lands, and Egypt has no need of his weak son!’
The officer bowed briefly, ran to a horse, and swiftly galloped out of the compound, Zannanza’s once-beautiful head dangling from his fist and staring back sightlessly, as if he wanted to tell me something. The hairs on my neck bristled; I suddenly remembered Khety’s screaming head in my opium dream; and an idea came to me.
Horemheb turned to Simut and me. The opium was betraying me again. I felt an intense frustration in my skin. I was crawling with something-it felt like spiders, or ants. I desperately needed to scratch myself, but my hands were bound.
‘And here we have the leftovers. Kill them, and then burn everything. Leave nothing but ash,’ said the general, and turned away. His men approached us, calmly unsheathing their swords for yet more bloodshed.
‘If you kill us, you will never hear what I know,’ I shouted to his back.
Horemheb turned back to me.
‘What has happened to you, Rahotep? You are an opium addict-look at you, shaking like a lunatic. You are a disgrace to Egypt,’ he said.
He turned away again.
‘A platoon of the Egyptian army is smuggling opium into Thebes,’ I said.
An expression of authentic surprise slipped unguarded across his haughty face.
‘What did you say?’
‘The General of the Armies of the Two Lands would wish to know if one of his own platoons had betrayed him,’ I said.
‘You are lying to save your skin,’ he sneered. ‘Besides, I have heard this story before. It was not true then and it is not now.’
‘I am not lying. It is a platoon within the Seth division,’ I said.
‘You dare to accuse the Seth division of such corruption?’ he drawled.
‘Release me, and I will tell you why,’ I said.
He hit me across the face.
‘Do not bargain with me.’
I was beginning to feel awake again. My mind was clearing.
‘The opium is not transported as a liquid, in jars. They have found a way to distil it into bricks, which are transported to the southern end of the valley, where they are collected, and paid for. These opium bricks are then smuggled all the way to Thebes, where a new gang has taken over the whole business from the old gangs.’
‘How do you know this?’ he demanded.
‘It started with an apparently simple murder, in Thebes. Just another execution of five street kids, who were working for the cartels. They had been decapitated, as usual. But I saw it had been done expertly. Then a close colleague, a friend, was also assassinated, by the same gang. By the same killer. And everywhere they left their sign. I have it on a papyrus in my robe. Release me, and I will show you.’
He gazed at me for a long moment. Then he cut the ropes round my hands and I produced the papyrus of the black star, now tattered.
‘This is the sign of the Army of Chaos. But the cartel in Thebes operates with similar ruthless efficiency and skill. They also leave this sign on the bodies of their victims,’ I said.
Horemheb stared at me.
‘Then the Army of Chaos has a foothold in Thebes, which is impossible.’
‘Impossible. But there is another explanation…’
‘Continue,’ he said.
‘Until recently, only relatively small, unreliable quantities of opium could be smuggled across the desert, or by river; just the usual petty black-market operation. But suddenly all that’s changed,’ I said.
‘If you have a point, make it now,’ he interrupted, glancing up at the sun, as if he had somewhere else he needed to be.
‘A rogue platoon within the Seth division is smuggling the opium. They buy it from here. They transport it themselves down to Egypt. They also control the Thebes operation.’
For a long moment he said nothing.
‘Kill him,’ he ordered, and began to walk away again.
‘They are smuggling the opium inside the corpses of dead officers, killed in the wars, and then repatriated for burial…’ I shouted.
Horemheb stopped in his tracks. My life was in the balance. He could laugh, and then slice my head from my neck in the next moment. But he did not.
‘What evidence do you have for such a grotesque, insane accusation?’ he said.
‘I am sure of what I say,’ I offered. ‘Evidence could be found. I know where to find it.’
‘Where?’ he demanded.
‘In Bubastis. In Memphis. And in Thebes,’ I replied.
‘All you have is a series of assumptions and suspicions.’
‘I have information. I make interpretations. It is what I do. I am a Seeker of Mysteries. And I know I am right,’ I replied.
Horemheb considered me carefully.
‘I despise the corruption of opium,’ he said. ‘It causes weakness and it undermines order. If there is any sign of this corruption within my army, it must be annihilated. I will see to it.’
Suddenly I felt my position slipping.
‘There is no point destroying the supply chain! You have to attack the heart of the problem. You have to identify the culprits. There is a man, in Thebes. He is the overseer of all of this. They call him “Obsidian”. Let me go, and I will bring you proof. And then you can annihilate the entire cartel. If I fail, kill me,’ I said.
He turned his cold grey eyes on me.
‘You have ten days. If you bring me this evidence, then I will act, and your life will be saved. If you do not, then I will arrest your family, and you will never see them again in this life, for they will be sent to Nubia, to labour in the gold mines for the short time left to them before the heat and the disease kill them.’
He approached closer.
‘There is much at stake in these last days of the Queen Ankhesenamun’s corrupt and dying dynasty, and my triumph will not be denied,’ he said.
‘I need the help of my colleague, Simut,’ I said quickly.
‘He is a prisoner of war, and he will be returned to Thebes for trial as a traitor of the new order,’ he responded brusquely.
‘He is essential to my investigation. He carries royal authority. Without him, it will be impossible for me to examine the army ships, to infiltrate the warehouses, to question witnesses…’
‘I will give you that authority,’ he said.
‘I must not be identified with you in any way during the course of this investigation. It would reveal too much, if I were caught. This has to be clandestine. I must remain invisible, and all connections between us must remain secret,’ I said, trying not to plead.
‘Do not try my patience. I will not release him. He will still stand trial. He is a traitor. As are you.’
‘If I succeed, grant me his life,’ I said.
‘There is a new order coming to Egypt, and I will not be persuaded by arguments of care. There will be no forgiveness. There will only be retribution. Starting with those who undertook this treasonable mission to marry the Queen to a Hittite and bring him to the throne of Egypt.’
And then he was gone.