The Season of the Hyaena by Paul C. Doherty

Author:Paul C. Doherty [Doherty, Paul C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Egypt, historical, religious, military
ISBN: 9780755350445
Google: gyFWNLWCbxsC
Amazon: B00GU38F7G
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2012-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

Splendid are you against the heaven’s light,

Oh Living Aten, creator of life

When you rise in the eastern highlands,

You fill every cloud with your beauty.

You are magnificent, great and radiant.

‘Very good, very good,’ I murmured. ‘So you know the hymn to the Aten. But if I were you I wouldn’t sing it too loud here. You say the Veiled One sent you, but I tell you, the Veiled One is dead. Akenhaten is no more.’

‘Did the sun rise this morning?’ the warlock replied. ‘Will he not set tonight? Will he not sustain the light in the darkness? Does he not show his magnificence to everyone? So, how can you say he dies? No man dies, Mahu. The Aten is the God of the living, not the dead. In the eyes of the Aten, no man dies.’

‘Is Akenhaten dead?’ I edged closer. ‘Did he truly send you?’

‘Is Akenhaten dead?’ the warlock whispered back. He stretched out swiftly and touched my chest before I could flinch. ‘Has he died here, Mahu? Here, in your heart?’

‘Whoever has sent you,’ I replied, as the warlock edged away, ‘tell him that in my heart, no one dies. But why trouble us now? Why leave us in the first place?’

‘A soul has to be purified,’ the warlock replied. ‘Look around at the glory of Memphis, Mahu, and weep, for one day it will be no more. Keep your promise. Keep your promise to your master.’

‘About the Prince?’ I pleaded.

‘Keep your promise,’ the warlock repeated, nodding his head.

He scurried away as swift as a monkey. I called out, but he became lost in the crowd. I rose to my feet and stared up at the sky. In a few heartbeats all my past seemed to come rushing back along that busy avenue: ghosts and memories were never far from the caverns of my soul, ever ready to haunt my heart. The Veiled One! I had given Akenhaten that name when I had first met him when he was a prince, kept hidden from public view by his father, who regarded him as a misshapen grotesque, an abomination in the eyes of men. I had met him out in the woods of the Malkata Palace, worshipping the rising sun . . .

I was acting so strangely, a kind peasant woman seized my hand, her direct eyes red-rimmed from the dust.

‘Are you well, sir?’

I fumbled for my purse and handed over the last piece of silver I carried, muttering that it was nothing. I went across to a narrow beer house erected in the shade of a date palm tree. I shouted at the owner that I was Lord Mahu and the palace would pay. The poor man, frightened out of his wits, handed me a cracked earthenware jug and provided a tawdry stool for me to sit on. I crouched and waited for the shock to pass. It was like the clash of battle, arrows winging out of the curling dust. Akenhaten! Years ago, when we had first met,

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