Egypt (22 page)

Hattusa looked askance, and cleared his throat.

‘We were not aware of your presence in the city, sir. You were known to be away, at the wars, with your battalion. Otherwise, your royal presence would have been first in our thoughts.'

The Crown Prince studied him, reaching out for a bunch of grapes, and began to stroll around, eating them slowly.

‘Welcome home, Ambassador. How did you fare in the famously treacherous court of the Egyptian King? And why have you invited this Egyptian to dinner? I would have preferred it if you had returned with his head only…'

His friends laughed loudly. The ambassador glanced at the Chief Steward, in a silent plea for assistance.

‘The King himself has invited the Royal Envoy Nakht. There will be an audience tomorrow. No doubt he will insist upon your presence–now that you are known to be here,' replied the Chief Steward.

The Crown Prince seemed to respect his uncle's authority. He nodded curtly, but continued to eat his grapes, one by one.

‘I will insist upon it myself. I am fascinated to hear the contents of the letters of the aged and infirm King Ay, who we hear is a very decrepit shadow of a man, fit only for his tomb. Or perhaps the ambassador brings news that the Egyptian King is already dead, and so, in despair and weakness, the Royal Envoy has come to press for peace. Which we will never grant!'

His companions cheered, and the crowd in the chamber set about laughing dutifully, as seemed necessary. In the silence that followed, Nakht had to respond.

‘Peace would be valuable to both our great empires,' he replied carefully.

But now some of the nobles were booing. The Crown Prince grasped his advantage.

‘Peace is a word spoken only by cowards, the vanquished and the weak! We are Hittites. We yearn for a war of such glory that it will bury all Egypt in its great calamity for thousands of years!'

The young men, and others in the hall, shouted their agreement. Nakht seemed to be losing control of the situation.

‘Egypt has come to speak to our brother, the Sun, the King of the Hittites, whom we respect as our equal, in war and in peace. We have come to remind ourselves of our good relations. May all go well with him, and with us,' he cried out, in the careful formulas of international diplomacy.

The crowd laughed scornfully at this, and the Crown Prince made the most of it, turning to his audience, his eyebrows raised in scorn like a comic actor. Hattusa looked deeply embarrassed.

‘Good relations? Is it not wonderful to behold, nobles! Egypt has come crawling across the world to us! Indeed, may all go well with you, but you are no brother of ours,' replied the Crown Prince in an ironic tone. ‘Until tomorrow, as a Hittite guest you shall be duly honoured. But as our enemy, know this: whatever golden words you pour into the ear of my father the King, the Hittites will never accept peace. We have conquered three empires in one generation. And we have hardly begun, for soon we will conquer Egypt, and your monuments will be as ruins, and all your carved names will be destroyed, and your glories will be dust. Your Gods will despair and abandon your temples and your lands, and we will trample you and smite you to death in your own palaces. So much for good relations!'

The young men now gathered around Nakht and roared their approval directly into his face. It was astoundingly disrespectful. Nakht met this hostility with implacable diplomatic manners.

‘We hear the words of the Prince of the Hittites, and remember them well. We bring good wishes and gifts of gold from our great King. We bring respect for the glories of the Hittites. We bring the wisdom of honour to our discussions. We remember your father's great work in creating the treaties that once bound us in amity, and may do so again, to our mutual advantage.'

The Crown Prince gazed back at Nakht, his lip curled in contempt. Then he turned to the Chief Steward.

‘Uncle, I would speak with you later, perhaps once you have concluded this–feast of cowards.'

His uncle nodded, and the Crown Prince, ignoring Nakht, walked swiftly out of the chamber, followed by his retinue of aggressive young nobles. The delicate atmosphere of the occasion had been shattered. Nakht did not resume his seat.

The Chief Steward spoke quickly, seeking to redress the harm that had been done.

‘On behalf of our King, may I express our honour at your presence. The Crown Prince seems not to have been informed of your arrival. He is therefore dismayed, and unprepared. Hence his speech…'

‘We are honoured by his royal presence. Nevertheless we note his words carefully,' said Nakht precisely.

‘His words were hasty,' offered the Chief Steward.

‘His words were extremely insulting to the King of Egypt,' replied Nakht uncompromisingly.

I noticed the Chief of the Royal Guards looked at some of his colleagues at this moment, as if silently dissenting from this attempt at diplomatic reconciliation. It seemed clear now that any offer Nakht might make of a peaceful resolution to the wars would be met with huge internal political hostility. I wondered whether Hattusa and Nakht had anticipated this.

‘We will retire now. Tomorrow is an important day,' said Nakht.

There was a flurry of activity, everyone stood up, and suddenly we were following Nakht out of the chamber. Simut's guards fell into position. Weapons were poised; at any moment they might be used. I quickly surveyed the hostile crowd. And then I sensed something that made me look up: I glimpsed a man staring at Nakht, through the crowds, from the far side of the chamber. His face bore the features and the colouring of a Levantine. He wore a conical hat. I was struck by the intensity of his gaze. As I stared at him, he noticed me, too–but then a crowd of Hittite nobles walked between us, and we passed through the doors and into the passageway, and into the shadows of the palace, and he was gone.

I mentioned the man later to Nakht, as we prepared to take our first night of rest in the city.

‘Give me an exact description,' demanded Nakht.

I did so. Nakht listened very carefully.

‘I'm sure he was not a Hittite,' I added.

A little furrow of worry appeared on Nakht's brow.

‘Did you also see him?' he asked Simut, who shook his head.

‘I did not. But I saw a great deal I did not like or trust. The Crown Prince was open in his threats.'

‘We are in the heart of our enemy's land. Many here will have fought against Egypt, or lost brothers and fathers in the wars. Many will hold a deeply entrenched hatred of us, their mortal enemy,' said Nakht. ‘It is to be expected.' But he suddenly seemed uncertain, as if the events of the evening had shaken his confidence. He turned to me quietly: ‘Keep an eye out for that man, and tell me if you notice him again. We can't be too careful. Tomorrow is our only chance to persuade the King of our proposal, and I have no doubt if Aziru is here he will be working behind the scenes to destroy any chance of a peaceful settlement between the two empires. As we saw tonight, even within the Hittite royal family, there is great internal dissent…'

‘How many princes are there in the royal family?' I asked, to restore us to the solid ground of facts.

‘Five. There is Arnuwanda, who we met tonight: he is heir to the throne. Then there is Telepinu, who has been instated by his father as Viceroy of Aleppo, and made Priest of Kizzuwanta, which is an extremely important position; and Piyassili, who is now Viceroy of Carchemish; then Zannanza, and finally Mursilis, who is still underage,' he said.

‘So the Hittite King has been as lucky with his sons as the Queen has been unlucky in her own offspring,' I said. ‘How strange that the destiny of empires comes down to the fruit of a woman's womb.'

Nakht nodded.

‘Indeed. But there is another dimension to the Hittites' own problems of succession: having loyally provided him with five sons, the Queen Henti has recently been banished by the King, and in her place he has married the daughter of the King of Babylon. Her name is Tawananna.'

‘So I assume she isn't very popular with the sons…' I suggested.

‘It makes for an additional complexity in the political situation between the father and the sons, and perhaps what we witnessed tonight is testimony to that tension–something which we must take advantage of. Families are so strange and unaccountable, one sometimes wonders why people actually have them…' he added. I saw he was only half-joking.

‘All families are complicated. But royal families are surely the most complex of all–for they squabble over power and gold and revenge, not just over who has the last bowl of soup…' I suggested.

‘No matter how poor a man may be, if he has family he is rich,' Nakht quoted the old proverb back at me. ‘As you know.'

Then he lay down on his couch, and prepared himself to sleep, as if nothing were the matter, as if he were not carrying such a great weight of responsibility upon his narrow shoulders.

‘How can you just sleep like that, when you know tomorrow you hold the destiny of our land in your hands?' I said, in amazement.

‘No great task was ever undertaken without a good night's sleep. Wars are lost through weariness and won after a good night of rest. I have prepared as thoroughly as possible. Nothing has been left to chance. I know what I have to do. Lying here awake all night worrying, and waking up tomorrow, before dawn, with red eyes and nothing in my brain will hardly help our cause. So if you don't mind, please would you provide me with the silence necessary to allow me to get some rest? Good night.'

And he closed his eyes firmly. Simut and I tiptoed around him, and went outside to check his guards were in position for the night watch. We could trust no one here but ourselves, and as the Crown Prince's behaviour had confirmed, we were unwelcome guests for many of the Hittites. We knew at any moment we might be attacked. Outside the entrance to the building, Hittite guards had also been posted. They stared at us, and our own Egyptian guards, with antipathy.

I glanced up at the night sky, full of stars, and a new moon's crescent, which had slipped into the corner of the vast heavens.

‘Well, here we are,' I said to Simut.

He nodded. ‘And I'm already looking forward to going home. This place gives me the creeps.'

‘Me, too. For some reason I keep thinking of snakes.'

He laughed.

‘It's a palace. All palaces are full of ambitious men, women and children who'd eat each other alive for advancement. They're all supposed to be the elite, but they clamber over each other, and behave with a viciousness and cruelty that would shock a dumb animal. That Crown Prince is a nasty piece of work. He's no friend of ours.'

‘He'd love to see our Egyptian heads impaled on the city walls,' I replied. And I thought about the strange Levantine I had seen, and his twisted face.

Simut decided to stay up with his guards for some of the night watch, so I returned to our chamber. Nakht was already breathing lightly, like a child. I gazed at his elegant head resting on its sleeping stand, and at the fine, delicate features of his face. I couldn't tell if he was truly asleep or not. This journey had made me realize I did not know this man, my old friend, as well as I thought. We had been close for so many years. But even now, I never could be quite sure what was happening behind those hazel, hawk-like eyes, now closed in sleep. His face was a mask of calmness.

I sniffed the flask of water, to check it for poisons. It seemed fine and clear, so I drank a draught. It didn't kill me at once, anyway. And I soon fell asleep, into a deep dream of high places, and drifting mists, and my family calling to me from very far away…

We were made to wait, and we were not alone. In the stifling antechamber a crowd of petitioners, bureaucrats, army officers, rich merchants, magnates and vassal rulers had come to pay their respects and to report on their territories. Every time a new person and his retinue appeared, everyone looked up to see whether they should rise, out of respect, or remain seated, out of pride. When we had entered, we had been assessed and then deliberately slighted. No one had stood up. The ambassador was embarrassed, but Nakht refused to allow the slight to offend him, nor the greater one of the long wait–even when the morning sun approached its zenith, and the air crackled with the day's heat and the whir of crickets, and we had been waiting on the King for many hours, and had seen almost all others pass before us into his presence.

‘This is nothing,' he said. ‘Sometimes envoys and ambassadors are made to wait for days, even weeks, for a royal audience. And as for messengers, most of them are lucky if they only have to wait a year for a reply to carry home.'

And he returned to his private contemplations. But suddenly, when I had begun to think we would indeed have to wait a year ourselves, the doors of the antechamber creaked open, and we were summoned.

The palace guards escorted us in a grim silence through several colonnaded courts, each larger and more impressive than the preceding one, and then up a wide flight of stairs to a higher floor, which opened into a vast terrace containing a spacious courtyard surrounded by a large, elegant colonnade. We were shown to bowls of clean water, and then our hands and feet were scrupulously washed by royal attendants. The pungent scent of branches of burning herbs haunted the air. Finally, we were led to magnificent doors, carved with the royal symbol of the lion and covered in gold leaf. There was absolute silence. Hattusa nodded to a royal herald, who knocked three times with his ceremonial mace on the door, and we were admitted.