Intef peered down at the crumbling temple, searching for its caretaker. She was usually praying this time of day, but he had not yet seen her cross the temple’s small courtyard to the inner sanctum where she went each morning to make her offerings.
He focused his attention on the small hut just down the valley. A column of smoke twisted up through an opening in the roof. That was where she was—still inside her hut, cooking.
The day before, he had watched her kill a gazelle from a position high in the cliffs. The beast had been bounding across the valley below at great speed, but her skill with the arrow was too sharp. The gazelle never even had a chance.
He hoped that he would not soon be sharing a similar fate.
He waited patiently, admiring how the sun god stretched his rays across the hilly landscape—giving here, withholding there. Some plants would wait until noon to receive his blessings.
For eighteen months, he had searched for her—first in Thebes, then north to the Delta, then through the Western Desert and everything in between. He had asked traders on their routes and priests in their holy sanctuaries. He had probed bustling markets and lingered at busy docks. A woman with eyes the colour of the sea? No one like that here.
The last place he would have guessed was Amarna—the abandoned city of the heretic King. But of course she would have come here. It was the one place in all of Egypt where religious lines could be crossed. Here, the sun god Aten was still worshipped in secret, far away from the Amun priests. It was a place of old gods and forgotten kings and quiet tolerance—the one place in Egypt where she could worship her Pharaoh in peace.
A woman with eyes the colour of the sea? Yes, there is one who lives in the hills outside of the village. We call her the Mad Woman of Amarna.
Soon Aya emerged from her hut, a vision in flowing white linen. She always dressed well when she went to the temple, though the rest of the time she donned a tunic so brown and ragged that it might have been spun from Seth’s own loom.
She had bathed herself, as usual, and her black hair shone like the fertile earth against the rugged brown landscape she traversed. In her arms she carried a platter of the freshly cooked gazelle and over her shoulder she had slung her bow. As she walked up the hill to the temple, she kept vigilant watch, as if she expected a challenge.
Intef’s heart squeezed. In the four months he had been watching her, she had not been visited by a single soul. There was no one to challenge her or even to befriend her in these empty hills. Not even wandering dogs or curious cats from the village ventured this deep into the desert. Aya was utterly alone.
At last she arrived at the old temple of Aten, the ancient sun god that Akhenaten had lifted above all others. She stepped up to the gate between two crumbling pylons and bowed, then walked into the courtyard—though with only two walls standing he would not have even called it that.
She kept her pace slow and even, her bearing stiff and formal. She was acting as if she were in a real temple, as if she imagined brightly painted walls and reliefs of the gods all around her.
She stepped between the second set of pylons and into a roofless hall studded with pillars in various stages of decay. Over the months he had watched her clear the rubble from the floor of the space, though there were some pieces of collapsed roof that even she could not manage to move.
She walked around them gracefully now, then disappeared into the sanctuary, where she would remain for about an hour. Then she would return to her tiny hut and go about her midday chores, returning to the temple again at sunset. He hoped, however, that on this day she would not be returning to the temple at all.
He tightened the straps of his sandals and started off down the hill. His heart was beating wildly. He had been labouring for months to prepare his apology and had no idea if she would even be willing to hear it. Part of him feared for his life. There was nobody in the world he had wronged more than Aya. He only hoped that if she was going to kill him, she would first allow him to show her what was in his heart.
By the time he arrived outside the temple, she was already on her way out. He could hear the gravel crunching beneath her feet as she crossed the open courtyard and he pressed himself against the pylon gate, not wanting to startle her. He let out a friendly whistle.
The crunching stopped. He continued to whistle, hoping the crunching would resume. It was a tune that he had whistled before—surely she recognised it. The crunching resumed, but instead of moving towards the source of the noise, it sounded as if it was moving away from it.
She was running back into the temple. Intef rushed to the gate and gazed across the courtyard. He caught sight of her white tunic disappearing behind a giant column inside the pillared hall. ‘Aya!’ he called.
He ran to the entrance to the pillared hall. ‘Aya!’
‘Identify yourself!’ she called from behind a pillar.
‘I am Intef, son of Sharek.’
There was a long silence. He saw her bow emerge from behind a pillar.
‘Where are they?’ she asked, glancing about the hall.
‘Where are who?’
‘The other soldiers?’
‘There are no other soldiers.’
‘I do not believe you.’ She stepped out slowly from behind the pillar and his stomach flipped over on itself. It had been so long since he had seen her, yet she looked as beautiful and familiar as the sun itself—and just as dangerous. She stretched back her arrow.
‘I am telling the truth. I swear it before the gods,’ he said.
‘You have come to capture me and take me back to Rameses.’
‘That is my fault.’
‘What do you mean? What is your fault?’
‘That you do not trust me.’
He could see the emotions at war inside her: pain, joy, fear, anger, happiness. And it was happiness. He could see it in the way she held her brows high above her eyes, in how her lips seemed to be fighting back a grin.
I see you, he wished to tell her. I love...
She set her jaw into a tight line. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I have come to ask for your forgiveness.’
She cocked her head. ‘Fine, you are forgiven. Now go away.’ She turned and began walking back into the sanctuary.
‘Wait!’ cried Intef. He started after her, but she threatened him once again with her arrow.
‘I told you to go away,’ she said. Sunlight filtered in from above, lighting up her eyes and illuminating the shape of her body beneath the linen. He wanted so badly to embrace her.
‘I wish to show you something important,’ he said. ‘A tomb. It will take us only an hour to reach it.’
‘I do not wish to enter any more tombs with you.’
‘Please, Aya. It is my own tomb that I wish for you to see.’ It was not really a lie.
‘You have a tomb?’
‘In a sense, yes.’ She appeared confused, but at least he had captured her attention. ‘Please?’ he asked. ‘I beg you.’
She had never thought this day would come. Now that it had, she did not trust it. She could not trust it. It was simply too good to be true.
He had come back to her. The only man she had ever loved.
He said he wanted forgiveness. Well, he had it. She had forgiven him the moment he had pressed the arrowhead into her palm and told her to get herself free.
Still, she feared his intentions. It was possible that he had bound himself even more tightly to General Setnakht. Now that he had found the true heir to the Rameses line, he would simply pick her up and take her back to Rameses’s harem where she belonged.
She could not decide what to do. She only knew that she wanted to hear his voice a little while longer.
She looked around at the hills surrounding the temple. It was near to midday and not a single creature moved. To the east, lazy plumes of smoke marked the cooking fires of the village. Soon it would be too warm to work and all the residents of Amarna would lie down for their midday rest. Even the birds would cease to fly and the wind would whisper through the abandoned temples and empty buildings like the voices of those long gone.
‘Live your life, Aya.’
She slung her bow around her shoulder. ‘Go ahead, then,’ she told him. ‘Lead the way.’
She followed behind him a good twenty paces, for she did not trust that he travelled alone. She scanned the desert continuously, aware that at any moment a whole gang of soldiers could emerge from the hills and drag her away.
She would not go down without a fight. She had her bow and a whole quiver of arrows, and she knew the hills better than anyone. If Intef had come to take her back to Rameses, he would be woefully disappointed.
She would never again fall for his trickery.
Though it seemed that she had quite instantly fallen for his whistle. The moment she had heard it her treacherous heart had leapt with joy. Against her own will, she had smiled—had nearly laughed—and wished for nothing more than to leap into his arms. She was not sure who had betrayed her worse—Intef or her own heart.
What was he doing here and, more importantly, why was she so happy about it? And she was happy—terribly, horribly happy. She had hoped that time passing would make her thoughts of him fade. Instead, they had grown more vivid.
Some nights, she would lie awake on the roof of her hut and gaze up at the formation of the archer sparkling overhead. She would picture herself in that pose, but not alone. He was always behind her, his body pressing against her back, his arms covering her own, guiding them.
When she lifted her bow during a hunt, sometimes she could not even see her prey. She could only indulge in the rosy memory of his arms stretched out over hers, his warm breath on her neck, his deep, masculine voice quietly encouraging her.
She even seemed to miss their arguments. Despite his feigned indifference to her ideas, he always took them seriously. She loved how they sparred—his mocking reveries against her good sense—though of course he did not see her sense as always good.
And she was glad of it. Their differences did not bother her. On the contrary, they made her feel as if the world was somehow larger than she had ever conceived. ‘Perhaps you do not know everything,’ he loved to tell her.
Perhaps not and thank the gods.
Curse him. He was like the sun—impossible to avoid, warming her wherever she went. She could not rid herself of him, just as she could not rid herself of the desire to eat or sleep or gaze at the stars. They had spent only a few days together, yet she would never be the same. He had awakened her body, inspired her mind and healed her soul. Somehow, he had taken her darkness and brought it into the light.
But then he had betrayed her.
Why did her heart not think about that? He had lied to her about the most important thing in the world—the sanctity of Tausret’s tomb. He had not only violated her trust, he had tipped the balance of ma’at. He was the very reason Tausret’s spirit had nothing now.
Aya was the only thing standing between Tausret’s soul and total oblivion. Her tomb had been cleaned out, her name erased. She no longer had a home. It was all Aya could do to keep her alive with offerings of beer and bread inside a crumbling temple at the edge of nowhere.
‘Why do you walk so far away?’ Intef called.
‘Because I do not trust you,’ she called back.
‘You can mistrust me much more easily by walking beside me.’
He was flashing his handsome grin—yet another reason to keep her distance. Still, if he did plan to try to seize her, he would not be so foolish as to do it in the open. He would wait until they arrived at his so-called tomb.
‘How did you escape Rameses?’ he called to her. ‘Please, I must know.’
‘I fashioned a bow,’ she called back.
‘A what?’ he asked.
‘A bow!’ she cried, holding up her bow. ‘I fashioned a bow.’
He shook his head. ‘I cannot hear you.’
Finally, she caught up to him. ‘I said that I fashioned a bow.’
He resumed walking. ‘You are too thin,’ he observed, but there was a smile in his voice.
‘And you remain as rude and manipulative as ever,’ she said.
‘How did you fashion a bow?’
‘With a curtain pole.’
He laughed. ‘A curtain pole? Impossible. And the arrow?’
‘The poker of a brazier,’ she said. He was trying not to show it, but she knew he was impressed.
‘How did you get out of Thebes?’
‘I took the river.’
‘You hired a boat?’ She flashed him a grin. ‘You swam?’
She nodded, working to conceal her delight.
‘But did you not fear crocodiles?’
‘Of course I feared crocodiles, but I loved freedom more.’
‘Freedom?’ He looked at her and she dared to return the glance. His eyes were more luminous than she remembered and vastly more dangerous.
‘Yes, freedom.’
‘Is that what you are now...free?’ He glanced in the direction of the crumbling temple. ‘In the village they say you worship a strange spirit—one you have invented.’
‘I worship the spirit of Tausret. I keep her alive.’
‘You have given your life for hers, then.’
‘It is the duty of a beloved servant.’
‘But you are not a servant. You are her daughter.’
They crested a rise and Aya stopped. She gazed down into a cleft between the hills very similar to the valley where Tausret’s tomb was located. ‘What does it matter if I am Tausret’s daughter? What will it change? It will not bring her back from the afterlife. It will not keep her ka, her eternal spirit, fed or clothed, or help her ba recognise her when it needs to rest. Pharaoh’s tomb has been pillaged, her death mask destroyed. I am the only one on this earth left to help support her and protect her in the next life.’
He continued walking. ‘You are not the only one left protecting Tausret,’ he called behind him.
They descended into the small valley and soon were standing outside an opening in the side of a hill—obviously the entrance to a tomb. He disappeared through the entryway and returned with a torch, and she watched him strike flint to stone. The flame erupted in moments and she felt a wave of yearning for days past.
‘Why did you do it?’ she asked suddenly.
He bowed his head. ‘You already know why, Aya—to save men’s lives,’ he replied.
‘I do not refer to the pillaging of Tausret’s tomb. I understand why you did that.’
‘Then what?’
‘Why did you follow Setnakht in the first place?’
‘At first I did it for my father,’ Intef explained. ‘I had failed him in life and wished to atone for my mistake. But I also believed the stories the priests told us—that Tausret was a weak and corrupt ruler, that she was leading the country to ruin. I was so certain that I was doing right by following General Setnakht that I never thought to question the veracity of those stories—until I met you.’
Aya searched his eyes, looking for the lie. Still she could not find it.
‘Now I realise that I cannot trust everything I hear,’ he continued. ‘I should not trust the priests, or even Setnakht himself. I am not just a soldier, not just some wooden ushabti in somebody else’s game of power. I am a man who can think on his own. You have shown me this, Aya. For the past four months, I have been labouring for what I have decided on my own is true and good. Will you not let me show you what it is?’
The first thing she noticed was the walls. Intef flashed his torch across them and she was struck by the intricacy of the scenes, all of which were accompanied by columns of text. In one scene, the sun god in the form of a scarab beetle passed beneath the horizon. In another, the figure of a child sat in a boat, floating past a landscape teeming with plant and animal life.
‘These are from the book of what is in the Underworld,’ she remarked.
‘Do they please you?’
‘Of course. But I do not understand. The text of that sacred book is for the tombs of Pharaohs only.’
‘I know it is,’ said Intef.
‘Then why have you placed scenes from that text inside your own tomb?’ He was walking away from her again. ‘Intef?’
‘Come.’
They made their way deeper down the corridor and Aya caught sight of an image of a woman making an offering of incense to Horus, the god of kingship. The woman was clad in a body-shaped tunic adorned with the half-moon of a colourful beaded pectoral over her chest. She might have been beautiful, but her image was distorted by the long dark beard jutting out from her chin: the pharaonic beard of kingship.
A chill travelled across Aya’s skin. There was only one person it could have been. Moving further down the hall she began to see more images of the beautiful bearded woman. Then Aya was stepping into a chamber that felt oddly familiar.
Intef lit a lamp at each corner of the space until the room was illuminated with a soft glow. Adorning the walls were the same scenes from the Book of Caverns and the Book of the Earth that had adorned Tausret’s own tomb. At the chamber’s centre was a giant sarcophagus, its lid propped beside it.
Aya felt a surge of joy as her heart comprehended what her mind was still trying to understand. She crossed to the sarcophagus and peered inside.
‘Tausret.’ There she was—her beloved Pharaoh. There were her lovely limbs, her long straight hair, her perfect fingernails. And there, atop her head, the splendid mask of death that would allow her spirit to recognise her body in the afterlife. It was Tausret—just as beautiful and whole as the day she had been laid to rest.
Aya burst into tears.