At breakfast the next morning a strange telegram arrived. It was the latest from Mrs Mendoza’s contact in Cairo, who kept her up to date on events in the Valley of the Kings. In the few days we’d been travelling, Mr Carter had been worryingly busy. He’d cleared sixteen sunken steps, at the bottom of which appeared to be a sealed-up doorway. Yet today’s message had a rather queer ring to it.
‘That poor canary,’ was Mrs Mendoza’s first reaction on reading the telegram.
We all stopped eating.
‘Apparently Lady Evelyn – that’s Lord Carnarvon’s daughter – brought a canary to the dig so they could check there weren’t any poisonous gases before going inside the tomb.’
‘Did the bird die?’ I asked.
‘Apparently a snake killed it.’ Mrs Mendoza tutted. ‘Hardly thrilling, though, is it? How am I going to write a lead story about that?’
‘What sort of snake was it?’ Oz asked, looking up from his book. He never ate in front of other people, Tulip told me, yet he happily came to every meal just to sit there and read.
‘Does that matter, darling?’ But she read the message again, her finger trailing under the words. ‘Bird bitten by cobra. Death almost instantaneous. Carter and Lady Evelyn trying to calm anxiety over possible curse.’
‘Death shall come on swift wings,’ Tulip reminded us. ‘Looks like Mr Carter knows about the curse, but he’s being block-headed and refusing to be scared off by it.’
More fool him, I thought grimly.
‘Isn’t the cobra a protector in Egyptian mythology?’ I asked.
Oz nodded eagerly. ‘Uraeus. The rearing cobra. Guardian of kings and queens.’
‘Sounds to me like Tutankhamun’s curse is trying to keep the archaeologists out,’ said Tulip.
I hoped it succeeded, at least until we got there. Mrs Mendoza, though, looked positively cheered.
‘You’ve given me a story, darlings, so thank you!’ And she went off to type it up.
*
Later that day, the train made a stop at a little country station. Oz said it was in Yugoslavia, though I wasn’t sure how he could tell. The platform was empty but for an old woman selling lemonade.
‘Looks like someone’s joining the train,’ I said, pointing to a motorcar that pulled up just as we did.
Whilst Tulip and I were speculating on who was in the car – she thought a film star, I reckoned a spy – Oz announced he wanted some lemonade, so I said I’d fetch him one. By the time I’d done so, the motorcar had dropped its passenger and driven off. The man now on the platform was young, thin, not very remarkable-looking, so probably more a spy than a film star, I decided. Slopping lemonade, I hurried back to our part of the train. But not before the man called out to me: ‘I say, where do I get on for second class?’ because all of a sudden there wasn’t a train guard in sight.
I pointed further down the train to the big ‘2nd’ painted on the door, but he seemed a bit confused. He had two suitcases and a bag that kept slipping off his shoulder, and a not-quite-there-ness that reminded me of Dad.
Tulip was beckoning me furiously to hurry up. Thinking it the quickest way to get back on the train, I took the man to the second-class door, then hopped in behind him. Almost straight away, the train lurched forwards, and we were off.
‘Thanks for your help,’ the young man said, touching his hat brim. He had a straggly beard and a nasty scar under his eye. But his smile was a nice one.
Finally, a guard appeared, asking to see our tickets. I didn’t have mine on me.
‘Where’s your destination, young miss?’ the guard wanted to know.
‘I’m going to Luxor,’ I told him.
‘Are you?’ The young man perked up hearing this. ‘Then I hope you’ll be keeping an eye on Howard Carter.’ Though he smiled as he said it, I’d heard enough about Mr Carter to detect an edge to his voice.
‘I still need to see your ticket,’ the guard interrupted. ‘Who are you travelling with?’
‘With Mrs Mendoza in first class,’ I explained. ‘And her children, Oz and Tulip. I can fetch my ticket if you like.’
The guard was actually quite jolly about it. The young man, though, who showed his ticket all fair and square, looked so very startled I felt sorry for him.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked him. ‘Have you got on the wrong train or something?’
‘What? No … no, I’m fine, thank you.’ He smiled his nice smile. ‘Keep an eye on Carter, though.’
‘I will.’
And I gave him the lemonade because he looked in need of it.
*
Twenty hours later, we finally reached Athens. Just as we got off the train a new telegram arrived for Mrs Mendoza. My heart sank when I saw who’d sent it.
‘It’s from Mr Pemberton!’ I whispered to Tulip. ‘We’ve been rumbled!’
Tulip’s mouth tightened – a sign she was annoyed.
‘I don’t believe this … man!’ Mrs Mendoza cried, shaking the telegram in disgust.
‘What’s he saying?’ Tulip asked.
‘He’s pretending I misunderstood him,’ Mrs Mendoza exclaimed. ‘Doesn’t he remember the telegram he sent last week?’
‘It’s probably just a mix-up,’ Tulip said quickly. I didn’t know how she kept so calm when my insides were squeezing like a mangle.
Mrs Mendoza snorted: ‘Well, he’s ordering me back to London at once, the stupid fool. Says he’s already sent a replacement man to report on the Carter story.’
I was horrified. We couldn’t go back with our tails between our legs, not when we’d come all this way.
As we stood there, fretting, I caught sight of the second-class ticket man again. He almost looked like he was coming over to speak to us. Then Oz turned around, frowning, which seemed to put him off. He touched the brim of his hat before melting into the crowds.
‘It really must be a mistake, Mama,’ Tulip was still saying. ‘All your tickets are booked, so someone at your newspaper obviously knew you were coming.’
‘Let’s keep going. We’re only a boat ride away from Egypt,’ I pleaded.
But it was Oz who said the exact right thing. ‘And Mr Pemberton’s sent another man, Mama.’
Mrs Mendoza straightened her shoulders. ‘He can stuff his orders. We’re not going to be beaten to the best story by some young pup, are we?’
I can’t tell you how eagerly we agreed.
*
The telegram goaded Mrs Mendoza into action. Instead of stopping in Athens overnight we were now carrying straight on to Egypt. There were no more passenger sailings that day. But Mrs Mendoza refused to wait till the morning.
‘I’m a reporter chasing a story!’ she reminded us.
By the time we reached the port it was raining. A cold wind had picked up, and beyond the harbour walls the waves were white-topped and rather large for my liking. The English Channel had been relatively flat; just the look of the sea today was making me queasy. A few US dollars later and a man with an enormous moustache agreed to have us on his boat.
As soon as we got on board it was obvious we weren’t the only cargo. From the hold of the ship came sounds of bleating. The smell was eye-wateringly bad.
‘Ugh!’ Tulip pinched her nose. ‘What’s that stench?’
‘Goats,’ Mrs Mendoza said cheerily.
I was, my stomach was beginning to tell me, not a very good sailor. But at least we were moving. At this rate – and if we got a decent connection in Cairo – we’d be in Luxor by Sunday. By my reckoning this was a whole day earlier than planned.
It was less smelly in the fresh air, so we stayed up on deck until the boat left the harbour. Surprisingly quickly, the coast of Greece shrank away behind us. What replaced it on all sides was the sea, as dark and steep as mountains. Though I clung on to the handrail for dear life, I’d soon had enough of being battered by spray.
‘I’m going to lie down,’ I told Tulip.
‘I’ll come too,’ she agreed.
Our cabin was basic. The bunks were bare mattresses, the windows little misted-up portholes. But at least there was a slop bucket in the corner which, if my guts were anything to go by, I’d be acquainted with very soon. Oz was already here. He’d commandeered one of the bottom bunks by spreading out Alex’s old Egyptian books, his own sketchbook, pencils, pens.
‘How can you read in this weather?’ I groaned.
‘Easy,’ he replied, without even looking up.
Outside it was getting stormier, and darker, and it was still only mid-afternoon. As Oz kept on reading, Tulip and I lay on our bunks, lolling this way and that with the waves. Every now and again there’d be a massive one that made your stomach drop like you were going over a bridge. All the while, I tried not to think about food, which for me was very unnatural.
When one particularly huge wave smacked into the side of the boat, it sent us and the cases sprawling across the floor. In a cabin so small there wasn’t far to fall. But my suitcase came open – I already knew the catch on Mum’s case wasn’t the strongest. All my clothes scattered across the floor, Professor Hanawati’s translations in amongst them. So too did the old cardigan I’d wrapped the jar in, but it unravelled somehow, and the jar was no longer inside.
Immediately I was on my knees, searching frantically through my clothes. Oz crouched beside me and peered under the bunk.
‘It’s here,’ he said. Being smaller, he was able to slide his hand right in under the slats and pull it out again.
‘Oh, thank you!’ I took it from him. The jar was dustier than ever now, but luckily didn’t seem damaged. Yet seeing it again – unwrapped, in daylight – made the back of my neck prickle. There was strange magic in this jar, all right. Tulip seemed to sense it too, for she started briskly rubbing her arms like she was cold.
There was something else not right with it: as I turned it in my hand it looked lopsided, like if you put it on a table it’d topple over. Worried that I’d damaged it, I held it to the light for a better look.
‘It’s the lid,’ Tulip pointed. ‘It’s moved.’
She was right: the Anubis-head stopper was facing the wrong way. Anyone with eyes could see it had come loose. It didn’t take much to open it, either, which was astonishing considering how before, when we’d heaved and pulled, it hadn’t moved a jot. Now, all it took was a gentle twist, a dry, gritty grinding noise and the Anubis head was in my hand. The jar was open.
I glanced at Tulip, at Oz. In a flash, we were all peering inside.
‘I can see something white,’ Tulip said eagerly. ‘Have a look, Lil.’
Slipping my hand in sideways, I touched what felt like very thick paper. Oh so carefully, heart in my mouth, I pulled out what looked like a scroll, neatly folded and tied with leather. I’d seen paper like this before in the British Museum: it was papyrus, made from a plant, Grandad told me, that grew in swamps near the Nile.
‘Whoa!’ Oz breathed in sharply. ‘I bet that’s very old!’
‘What is it?’ Tulip pressed. ‘Can you open it?’
The papyrus looked so ancient it was almost flaking. I was pretty sure what it was, by now. It made it doubly exciting, and doubly important to see it all in one piece. Very gently, using just the tips of my fingers, I eased the scroll open a little way.
‘I think it’s Lysandra’s account,’ I told the others. ‘The rest of it, I mean. Professor Hanawati mentioned he’d found it in the jar. Looks like he put it back there …’
Tulip whistled under her breath. ‘Did he finish translating it?’
‘I don’t think so.’ What I’d read only took us up to Maya choosing the tomb site. So if this was the whole account, the end of Kyky’s story would be here too. The problem was, I wasn’t an Egyptian scholar. Lysandra’s tiny scrawl was visible through the paper, and backwards, forwards, upside down, I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
‘I might be able to work some of it out,’ Oz offered. ‘With the help of these.’ And he patted Alex’s books, one by one, like talismans.
Dear Oz. His serious, big-eyed face gazing at the jar as if the secrets of the universe lurked there. Maybe they did. Maybe this was a chance for him to put into practice all the things his big brother had taught him, and he’d learned for himself. Or maybe it was simply the only choice we had.
‘Do your best,’ I said, handing the paper over.
Through the smeary porthole windows, late sunshine poured in. The storm outside seemed to be easing at last. Time passed. We lit lanterns and shared some biscuits. When Mrs Mendoza stuck her head round the door, we told her everything was fine.
*
It was morning before we knew it, and through the cabin porthole, Tulip announced, with a yawn, that she could see land. Together, we stood on tiptoe, staring at what almost looked like a line of cloud on the horizon.
‘Is that really Egypt?’ I asked.
Tulip smiled. ‘Got to be.’
It was incredible to think we were nearly there.
‘That’s perfect timing.’ A voice wafted up from the bottom bunk, making us both spin round. It was the first time in hours that Oz had uttered a single word.
‘Did you manage to make sense of it?’ I asked eagerly. ‘Is it the ending?’
In answer, he patted places for us to sit not-quite-next to him, so we could hear the story he’d been poring over all night long.
Just when the gods seem to be smiling on us again, reports arrive of a battle in the north. Land that is ours has been seized by outsiders.
‘We must teach them a lesson!’ Horemheb roars from the palace steps. ‘They cannot take what is not theirs!’
He asks for chariots, weapons, able fighting men. There’s tension in the streets, people are scared, but no one is ready to volunteer.
It’s Kyky who suggests an alternative: invite the northern troublemakers to the palace for ‘talks’. I’m astonished that Horemheb and Ay take him seriously. Yet, after much deliberation in secret, they do.
Households are asked to prepare food as if we’re welcoming guests from afar. For the next few days we bake bread, make honey cakes. Our house is unbearably hot but smells delicious – good enough, I hope, to bring about peace.
The evening before the visitors arrive is moonless and mild. Just as Maya and I are readying for sleep, a familiar limping figure appears at our doorway.
‘Lysandra!’ Kyky hisses. ‘I’ve had another dream.’
I beckon him inside. These days I’m wary of who might be listening.
‘Was it the same again?’ I ask.
‘No.’ Kyky rubs his temples like he has a headache. The old insect bite on his face is inflamed. ‘There was a battle here, inside the palace. I had no weapons. I tried to fight people off with lamps, dishes, whatever I could find, but there was blood, Lysandra, so much blood.’
I fill with dread; this must be an omen for tomorrow.
‘My only escape was through a door in the wall,’ Kyky goes on. ‘This time the door opened, and I was so glad, so relieved to walk straight through.’
I glance at Maya. He’s gone pale. We both know what the open door means.
Kyky speaks first. He’s shivering: ‘I’m going to die tomorrow, aren’t I? This visit is a trap. I should never have suggested it.’
Maya tries to comfort him. ‘It might not be so.’
‘Horemheb’s lured the visitors here to kill them,’ Kyky argues. ‘He’ll kill me too in the heat of the fight, then claim he was trying to defend me.’
I think of the broken chariot wheel, the whisperings at the window. People are plotting against our king, and have been for some time. Ay is impatient to take over as pharaoh. He cannot wait for his godson’s life to take its natural course. I’m relieved Kyky believes us now, though it makes things far more dangerous. The scorpions and their poison are all around us.
‘Dreams this vivid rarely lie,’ I remind them both.
Kyky nods. He’s terrified.
‘If anyone attacks we fight back,’ Maya says.
He’s being serious, but the truth is my brother’s no warrior, and Kyky looks ill again. His injured leg still isn’t sound, either. Against an army or an assassin, they don’t stand a chance.
More importantly, I can’t shake the dream. It’s telling us Kyky will begin his journey to the afterlife tomorrow wherever he is, whatever he’s doing. He might be murdered by his uncle’s men. Or he might die peacefully in his sleep, or choke on his morning bread and honey. If it is to be his last day in this life, I believe he should spend it well.
‘I’ve a different suggestion,’ I tell Kyky. ‘If you could do anything tomorrow, what would you wish for? Where would you want to be?’
Kyky and Maya look at me, surprised, as if ideas are their job, not mine.
Yet they understand what I’m saying and just before dawn they sneak off on foot, out into the desert, as far from the palace as the day’s walk will take them. They’ll throw fruit, hunt rodents, doze in the shade. They’ll be their best and happiest selves. Meanwhile here within the city walls, I hope Horemheb and Ay’s plans will fall as flat as a griddle on the fire.
The guests from the north arrive on horseback. As they ride up the main street towards the palace, we’re meant to be welcoming them but instead, their strangeness makes us stare. The men are fair-haired, squat, ugly. Their horses look the same but with kinder eyes. Before they even dismount, Horemheb and his advisers appear on the palace steps, carrying swords. More of our men gather behind them, blocking the entrance to the palace. All are heavily armed. With a shudder, I think of Kyky’s dream, and who this show of swords and daggers is really for.
Mother, like the others watching, is confused. ‘Why aren’t they letting them in? Did we not invite them here to make peace?’
I don’t need to tell her. Word soon reaches us that the king is missing. He isn’t here to receive his guests. The visitors are sent away, as confused as the townspeople, only with sorer tempers. From the palace, I hear shouting and the crashing of things being thrown across a room. As Mother and I go back to our chores, I pray that Maya and Kyky will stay away as long as they can.
Mid-morning, we’re drawn from our work by a sudden darkening of the skies. The sandstorm is upon us in moments. Mother and I rush to bring pots, carpets, chickens inside, as gusts of wind tear through the courtyard. All along the central street, palm trees flail like horsewhips.
Once the shutters are closed at all the windows, Mother lights a lamp.
‘It’s a bad omen,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Things have not gone well today.’
I’m nervous too as we wait out the storm, listening to the wind and the sand pelting our walls like a million tiny stones. My only hope is that Maya and Kyky have found shelter.
The storm, though fierce, blows over quickly. I’m anxious to know what’s happening at the palace, so am glad to open the shutters again and have an excuse to be outside. Everything is coated in desert dust. There are drifts of it at our door, our gate. Servants are already clearing the palace steps, shaking out carpets and brushing down seats. Then one of them stops to stare into the distance. He points, says Maya’s name.
I rush to the gate. They’re back too early. The storm must have driven them home again. Yet the moment I catch sight of them it’s clear something else is wrong. Maya is carrying Kyky over his shoulder, his head and arms lolling down my brother’s back. He rushes into the palace without a word. Fear makes me follow him inside.
I find Maya in the main hall surrounded by men with swords. They won’t let him pass.
‘What’s happening?’ I cry. ‘Let my brother inside at once!’
‘Ay’s orders,’ one of the men says. ‘We’re not allowed to let anyone go beyond this point.’
‘But you can see he’s carrying the king! He’s unwell! He needs tending!’
Maya tries to quieten me. The noise brings Ay out into the hall, where he observes the scene with dead-on-a-platter fish eyes.
‘My godson has returned, I see,’ he says, but when he realises Kyky’s condition, there is no disguising his shock.
‘Is he—?’
‘Dying?’ Maya interrupts. ‘Yes. This time, I believe he is.’
We make Kyky as comfortable as we can. Medicines are sent for, bowls of cool water brought, but I don’t think either will do much good. The bite on his face, the wound to his leg, both are red and blistering. I remember him last night rubbing his head, shivering. He was falling ill even then.
‘What happened?’ I ask Maya.
My brother tells me how they’d travelled only a little way when Kyky asked to stop, the sweat running off him like rivers. He collapsed to the ground. Closed his eyes. He didn’t get up again. No fruit was thrown, no rodents hunted.
‘We’d already taken shelter when the sandstorm hit,’ he explains.
All day Maya and I sit with Kyky. We try not to cry, try instead to count his slowing breaths and be thankful that he’s been in our lives. When evening comes, as we light lamps and burn incense to cleanse the air, Kyky’s breathing changes. His eyelids flutter. He opens his eyes.
I’m astounded. He’s recovered! He’s survived!
When I look at Maya he’s laughing – laughing and crying at the same time. ‘Are you staying in this life after all?’ he asks.
Kyky gives a tiny shake of the head. ‘No, but I don’t want to leave you both. I’m scared.’
‘The afterlife will be wonderful,’ I tell him. ‘Full of all the riches you could wish for.’
‘Riches haven’t brought me happiness,’ Kyky says. ‘All I want is to be with my friends.’
‘Then don’t die!’ Maya insists, holding tightly on to Kyky’s hand. ‘What will I be without you? Who will I throw pomegranates at?’
‘I can think of a few possibilities,’ Kyky says, smiling.
He closes his eyes, then. A long, sighing breath leaves his chest. I sit silent, waiting for more, but no others follow. It’s me who cries now. Maya gently slips his hand from Kyky’s.
‘Safe journey, my friend,’ he says. ‘I promise you this isn’t the end, but a brilliant new beginning.’
The rituals start the next morning. Though sadness lies thick as smoke over the town, Kyky’s body must be prepared for its glorious final journey, and it’s a long, detailed task that will involve many. So often in Kyky’s short life we’ve come close to this moment – fevers, accidents, a new limp, a different pain; it’s hard to believe his time has finally come.
It helps us to be busy. Maya takes a bigger team of workmen back to the tomb site in the valley. They must carve rooms from the rock face, paint them, fill them with all the treasures our king needs for his new life. It’s work that would normally take years, yet now has to be finished in just seventy days.
At the palace, Mother and I are summoned to wash the body. Poor Kyky is a small, wasted figure, his arms and legs thinner than mine. With its old insect bites and new wounds his skin looks like a battlefield.
‘He’s still warm,’ Mother comments, as we wash and shave his scalp.
‘It’s the fever,’ I tell her. My hands, though, start shaking as I realise my terrible mistake.
My grandfather would never have made the error. He’d have listened to Kyky’s dream, weighing it in his hands, and he’d have noticed the telltale signs of fever. His dream was confusing, bewildering, but it wasn’t an omen – not a strong one. It was mostly nonsense, as fever dreams are.
My grandfather would have told Kyky to go home and take to his bed and rest. No doubt he would have advised an armed guard or two at his bedchamber door, but he’d never have sent him out into the desert where he thought he’d be safe, when he was hardly well enough to stand.
The mistake is mine. I am broken.
Other mistakes quickly follow. The tomb is in a difficult place. Fault lines in the rock mean it’s dangerous to cut deeper into the hillside. Special equipment is needed, more plans, more workers, otherwise the whole mountainside will collapse. Ay tells Maya to choose another spot.
‘But it has to be here, in this exact place,’ Maya insists. ‘I’ve measured the sun.’
Ay tells him there’s no time for such details: burial rules state our pharaoh’s tomb must be ready in seventy days. So it’s no surprise when Ay takes over the plans. He chooses a new site at the base of the rock face. It’s a shadowy, unlikely place for a royal tomb. Maya is furious: this alternative is a very poor second best. My brother wants to grab Ay by the throat and shake him. It takes all Mother’s soothing to calm him down.
The preparations continue all day and into the next. Early in the morning, Ay corners me as I cross the courtyard. He reminds me of my duty as a scribe.
‘These are important times, Lysandra,’ he says. ‘I’m relying on you to keep an account of all that is happening as we move from one king to the next.’ This last he says with a proud tilt of the chin; I’m only glad Maya isn’t here to see it.
Though my guilt over Kyky’s death is strong, I hide it deeply. I find comfort in being busy, being involved. A priest is called to lead the embalming: I’m relieved it’s his knife that cuts into Kyky’s belly. We take the liver, lungs, stomach, intestines that he passes us. Their faint meaty smell makes me think of a butchered animal; this is no longer the Kyky I knew, which makes it a little easier. Mother and I, with a couple of the healing ladies, pack each organ in salt for drying. The same is done with the gaping hole in Kyky’s torso. All that remains inside is his heart.
The priest is quick but careful. Inserting his hook up Kyky’s nose, he teases out a grey shape with the look of fish gills. The brain is near complete, enough for Mother to scoop it up in her hands and place it in a basket on the floor. Later, we will burn it. Brains have no place in the afterlife.
Forty days pass. Forty soft spring days in which, as the grass plumps and the fruit trees bud, Kyky’s body shrinks away. Ay becomes our new pharaoh: this is no surprise, either. Even Horemheb, who’s always had the look of a leader-in-waiting, makes little fuss. It’s Maya who concerns me. His anger is like a flame waiting to catch. Though I confess my mistake about Kyky’s final dream, he refuses to think differently of Ay.
‘That man has ice where his heart should be,’ he says.
The tomb-building is not going well, either. The workmen Ay has hired are lazy and unskilled, their chisels making a mess of the walls that even last-minute plastering cannot disguise. The rooms are small, there are fewer than befit a royal tomb. When the sarcophagus is lowered in, ropes snap, a man’s leg is crushed. The chamber that has been recently dug out is now full of rubble again, which only adds to the work. Night after night, Maya comes home cursing.
At the end of the forty days, we are ready to bind the body. At the palace, Mother and I take the organs from their salt, wrapping each in linen strips and packing them into the canopic jars.
When we uncover the body, something is amiss. The priest’s knife wound has reopened. It’s red and fresh. I’m startled. Mother tuts, says these things happen and not to make a fuss. We’ll seal the wound with wax. But Kyky’s left arm has also moved. Though we’d folded it across his body, it now lies at his side. The centre of his chest looks sunken. When I touch it, it feels hollow because there’s nothing underneath.
‘Mother,’ I whisper in shock. ‘His heart isn’t here.’
She tuts again, reaches over the body to check it herself. ‘It’s no business of ours, Lysandra,’ is all she says. ‘Stop poking and pressing. We’ve work to do.’
But when she thinks I’m not looking she takes an amulet – a small one, shaped like the sun – and puts it in the place where his heart should be.
We wash the body, then rub it with scented oil. The eyelids and nostrils are plugged with resin-soaked fabric. All the time I’m thinking about Kyky’s heart. Both Mother and I know it’s not normal to remove it: a person needs their heart to live on in the afterlife. It’s the centre of their being, what makes them who they are.
We put sawdust into his empty torso to give it shape, then just as Mother said, we seal the wound with wax. With prayers recited and incense burned, this alone is a whole day’s work. Even by the end of it I’m still troubled by the missing heart. Someone close to the king has been meddling, taking what isn’t theirs.
The next day we begin to wrap the body. We use linen strips around each finger, each toe. Occasionally between layers we stop to say a prayer to Amun or Osiris, or to tuck a lucky amulet between the folds to help Kyky on his journey. The process is meticulous. It takes days and days – fifteen in total. By the end of it our backs are ready to break, yet Kyky’s form is strong and robust – far more than it ever was in life.
With the tomb as ready as it can be, the burial takes place. It’s a bright, windy day as we walk the path down into the valley, the sounds of weeping women echoing off the rocks. Seventy days have passed, yet my guilt still hurts, and I miss our dear friend like a part of our family has gone. I’m no wiser about the whereabouts of his heart, either.
All through the ceremony, my brother is sullen, silent. The Opening of the Mouth ritual is performed by Ay himself. As he touches the place where Kyky’s mouth is, I glance at Maya. My brother stays quiet. The air all around us is thick with things unsaid.
The first and second coffins are glorious and gold. Maybe Ay has done his godson proud, after all. Yet when the final lid is lowered on to the sarcophagus, it’s clear it won’t fit. There’s an awkward, embarrassed pause. Ay starts blithering and blaming others. Maya thumps a wall, then storms out. I’m scared they’ll go after him, but no one does. They’re too concerned with the lid.
A workman is called. The outer coffin’s feet are too big.
‘Hack them off,’ Ay says, bluntly.
The workman does as he’s told, grunting over his saw until a pair of feet land on the floor with a clumsy thud. It makes me wince. The mistake is then hastily covered with stinking resin. It’s an ugly business, hardly befitting a dog, never mind a pharaoh. In the tomb itself, the walls are covered with pictures – so crude and rushed the paint is still wet.
The ceremony continues. How jarring it is to be asking the gods to guide our pharaoh when a pair of feet sit before us on the ground. Finally, the prayers over, we file outside. I’m glad to be back in the sun.
Next, the tomb is filled with random objects: chariot wheels, baskets of linen, walking sticks, trumpets, fruit platters, oil jars, flowers tied in bunches. There are shabtis to guard the doors, swords, trunks. Apart from the sticks, I can’t imagine Kyky needing any of this in the afterlife. None of it looks like items he once owned or was attached to. I’m wondering if Ay has simply cleared out an old back room at the palace and dumped its contents here.
High above us on the mountainside a white-clad figure catches my eye. Someone is up there, scrambling over the rocks. They’re heading for the half-dug hole where Kyky was meant to lie. My mouth goes dry. It’s Maya. I’m terrified he’s going to jump or throw stones down on us in anger. He does neither: he disappears into the mountain.
It’s then, like a lock unclicking, that I know what has happened to Kyky’s heart. My brother has taken it. Without it our pharaoh is not complete, which means his journey to the afterlife won’t be possible.
And this is Maya’s plan.
He knows how Kyky longed to be an ordinary boy. The day he was made king was the unhappiest of his short life – that’s what he told Maya. His true joy was in his friendships, not in the bitter wrangling of his own family, whose only interest in him was to further their own needs. To continue as a pharaoh in the afterlife would be torture for Kyky, not a reward. Perhaps this way, with his heart hidden inside the mountain, our dear friend will find some peace at last.
Wiping tears, I glance at Ay, fearful he’s noticed what’s happening above us. But he’s still watching over the burial, swimming in his own glory. He thinks he’s done well today, shown respect for the godson who in life he treated infernally. He will never read my account of Tutankhamun’s last days. When he asks to see it, I’ll lie and say it fell into the fire.
Meanwhile, if Maya’s calculations are correct then on one treasured winter day each year the sun will align with Kyky’s mountain resting place. I look at my brother, so thin, so awkward, and these days far too serious, and think of a saying Kyky’s beloved grandmother used to use: ‘The nut doesn’t reveal the tree it contains.’
What it is, I think, is a saying about happiness. A nut that looks so dead and dry, given time, will grow into something lush, green and beautiful.
Rest assured, I won’t be burning my account in any fire. I’ll bury it in the same quiet place where Maya has laid our dearest friend to rest. Then, when my time comes – and Maya’s too – we’ll join him. And we’ll be in the afterlife, all together.