Tutankhamun by Nick Drake

Author:Nick Drake
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Suspense, Mystery & Detective, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780552152457
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Limited
Published: 2010-11-15T01:15:02.187000+00:00

Live your ka

And may you spend millions of years

Lover of Thebes

With your face to the cool north breeze

Beholding happiness

‘It is a beautiful poem,’ said the King in his light, high voice.

He had entered without my noticing. I replaced the goblet carefully. Then I bowed and offered him my wishes for his peace, health and prosperity.

‘“Live your ka…” an enigmatic, but beautiful phrase. I hear you once wrote verse yourself. What do you think it means?’ he asked.

‘The ka is the mysterious force of life in all things, in each of us…’

‘It is that which differentiates us from the dead, and from dead things. But what does it mean to live it fully, in truth?’

I pondered.

‘I suppose it is an invocation to each person to live according to that truth, and in so doing, if we are to believe the poem, to gain happiness, which is to say eternal happiness. “Millions of years…”’

He smiled, revealing his perfect little teeth.

‘It is indeed a great mystery. I, for instance, feel at this moment I am finally, truly living my ka. This journey and this hunt are my destiny. But perhaps you do not believe in the sentiments the poem expresses?’ he asked.

‘I struggle with the word happiness. I am a Medjay officer. I don’t get to behold much happiness. But perhaps I am looking in the wrong places,’ I replied carefully.

‘You see the world as a harsh, dangerous place.’

‘I do,’ I admitted.

‘You have reason on your side,’ he replied. ‘But I still believe it can be otherwise.’

Then he sat down in the only chair in the room. Like everything else, it was no ordinary chair, but a small throne made from ebony, partly covered with gold foil, and inlaid with geometric patterns of glass and coloured stones. I was surprised to glimpse, just before he sat down, at the top, the disc of the Aten–the symbol of his father’s reign and power, now long banned. He adjusted his slippers upon the inlaid footrest and its picture of Egypt’s enemies, the bound captives, and gazed at me with his strange intensity.

‘You are puzzled by this throne?’

‘It is a beautiful object.’

‘It was made for me in the time of my father.’

The monkey jumped up on his lap, and watched me with its nervous, moist eyes. He stroked its tiny head, and it chattered to him briefly. He fed it a nut. He fingered a beautiful protection amulet on a gold chain around his neck.

‘But the symbolism is no longer permitted,’ I commented carefully.

‘No. It is forbidden. But not everything about my father’s enlightenment was wrong. I feel I can speak of this to you of all people, isn’t that strange? I was raised in his religion, and perhaps for that reason in spirit, if not in the letter, it feels true to me; as rightful as one’s true heart.’

‘But you led its banishment, lord.’

‘I had no choice. The tide of time turned against us. I was merely a child. Ay prevailed, and at the time,

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