The Murder of King Tut: The Plot to Kill the Child King Read online

  Newberry lay nearby. Like Carter, he had spent the night in the tomb, for they had arrived after nightfall and had nowhere else to sleep.

  If this was to be Howard Carter’s first day as an Egyptologist—and it was—it couldn’t have gotten off to a more atmospheric start.

  From Alexandria, Carter and Newberry had taken the train to Cairo, where they spent a week with Flinders Petrie, whom Lord Amherst had called “the master” of Egyptian excavation for his years of experience in the tombs.

  Those days spent in the Egyptian metropolis had been exciting, but soon it was time to move on. From Cairo, Carter and Newberry chugged south.

  The tracks hugged the Nile, but while the scenery on the train ride from Alexandria had been lush and green through the river delta, just outside Cairo it had turned barren and desolate. A thin strip of greenery sprouted along either side of the Nile, thanks to its annual habit of overflowing its banks, but otherwise the sensation of being surrounded by desert was powerful indeed.

  After two hundred miles, the men disembarked at Abu Qirqas station, where they hired donkeys—one each for themselves, and one each for their luggage.

  Carter had no problem handling his animals, thanks to his many years living in the country.

  “Just watch me,” he told Percy Newberry. “Do as I do, and you’ll be fine.”

  The fertile black loam of the riverside path soon turned dry and rocky. The sun was setting, and Carter and Newberry knew that it would be a race just to get to the tombs before dark.

  They lost.

  The trail became increasingly narrow and rugged as it climbed an escarpment. But eventually they reached the tombs, which provided acceptable shelter from the wind and nighttime cold. Their remote location allowed the two men to simply step through the ancient stone doorway and stretch out for the night.

  Now Carter shuffled outside to see for himself what the Egyptian desert looked like at dawn. He wasn’t disappointed.

  “The view was breathtaking,” he later wrote in his schoolboy prose style. “The Nile Valley glowing softly in the sunlight, stretching far into the distance, the edges of the tawny desert contrasting amiably with the fertile plain.”

  He was in a land that couldn’t have been more different from the verdant pastures of Swaffham.

  But Howard Carter felt like he had finally come home.

  Chapter 9

  Thebes

  1347 BC

  THE MAD ROAR OF THE CROWD penetrated the temple’s thick stone walls, shaking them to their foundations. It was bedlam of the most unnerving sort on the streets of Thebes—deafening noise mingled with the spectacle of men and women frantically making love in back alleys, oblivious to the stench of stale urine, desert dust, and whiskey vomit.

  Such was the Sed festival in Thebes, a time when all of Egypt celebrated the immortality of the pharaoh. But the partying was happening on the other side of these sacred walls.

  Queen Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten and stepmother of Tut

  Inside the temple at Karnak, Queen Nefertiti was oblivious to the noise of the masses. A slender, shaven-headed package of genius and raw sexuality, she had the habit of making men weak in the knees by her mere presence. (Her name means “a beautiful woman has come.”) Nefertiti was also known for her poise, but at the moment she was seized by an urge to slap someone hard across the face.

  Whether it should be her anxious wimp of a husband or the silly sculptor with the peasant beard who was taking hours to draw a simple sketch, she couldn’t decide.

  So Nefertiti settled onto her throne and tried to see her husband through the eyes of the sculptor. Amenhotep IV was in his early twenties and at the height of his power and virility. Yet he had generous hips and the breasts of a woman, as well as hideous buckteeth and long spidery hands. And those ears! Could they possibly get any bigger?

  Yet she loved him in her way. All his life, her husband had been a freak. But he was her freak, and that freak happened to be the pharaoh, which made her queen.

  And what a queen she was turning out to be—performing sacred rituals once reserved just for pharaohs; frequently wearing the Nubian wig that only men had worn prior; even driving her own chariot with the skill of a man.

  Much of this was possible because Egypt had always treated women better than other ancient civilizations had. Women could conduct business, own property, represent themselves in legal disputes, study and become doctors. Women had even become pharaoh, and queens with the strength of Nefertiti could control their much weaker husbands.

  “You look divine,” purred Nefertiti now, though it was she who felt beautiful. The sheer white gown, floral headdress, and priceless golden amulets decorating her arms accentuated her physical attributes and radiance. The makeup, which she and the pharaoh both wore, did more for him than it did for her.

  “I am divine,” laughed Amenhotep IV. It was their little joke.

  “Is it so difficult to show me as I am?” he finally barked at the artist. He was a new pharaoh and still didn’t understand that raising his voice showed weakness. His father, Amenhotep the Magnificent, had died from a painful infection of the mouth. Now Amenhotep IV, who had briefly served alongside his father as co-regent, stood to flick a bee off his shaved chest.

  He missed.

  Nefertiti stepped forward and brushed away the bee before it could sting him, then held her husband’s hand. She saw that he looked all too human on this, the day Egypt was supposed to bask in his strength as pharaoh.

  This was a problem: The pharaoh needed to prove his immortality by galloping a chariot through the teeming masses outside. Even under the best of conditions, it was a bold and reckless ride that could easily end in a crash, which would be a disaster for the young pharaoh.

  As palace insiders were all too aware, Amenhotep IV was very poor at the reins of a chariot. This ritual race could become a suicide run for him.

  Yet if by some miracle he pulled it off, his claim to Egypt’s throne would be secure. No longer would his masculinity be questioned. With one death-defying ride, Amenhotep IV would demonstrate his power in a most public way. Egypt would know that he was their one true pharaoh.

  But if anything went wrong—if Amenhotep IV got thrown or dropped the reins and crashed into the crowd; if a wheel somehow broke off, and the chariot spun out of control—it would be obvious that the strange-looking man claiming to be the pharaoh was no god. And if a pharaoh was not divine, the temple high priests would find another to take his place.

  A pharaoh’s chariot, lightweight and sleek

  Somehow they would kill him. And possibly his queen as well.

  “How are you?” Nefertiti asked. “I have nothing but confidence in you, sire.”

  “You lie—so beautifully,” the pharaoh replied.

  “How much longer?” Nefertiti whirled and shouted at the sculptor.

  “At least thirty minutes.” The callous little man crumpled a sheet of papyrus to start fresh.

  “You have ten.”

  “But Queen—”

  “Not a second more.”

  “I’ll do my best,” the sculptor replied.

  Nefertiti pursed her lips in a thin crocodile smile—and made a mental note to have the so-called artist killed once the statue was complete.

  Chapter 10

  Thebes

  1347 BC

  THE PRIESTS, PREENING AND PRATTLING, filed into the temple room when the sculptor finally left. They were as haughty as the queen’s famed cats. Nefertiti despised their power and how they used religion to make themselves rich. Indeed, Ptahmose, the high priest, was one of the wealthiest and most feared men in all of Thebes.

  “Where to next?” Amenhotep IV said to the aged Ptahmose, slipping back into his ceremonial Sed cloak. The priests now attempted to set the pharaoh’s schedule for the busy festival day ahead.

  “The temple of Wepwawet awaits, sire. We must apply holy ointment to the standard.”

  “I do not honor that god,” Amenhote
p proclaimed. “Wepwawet is nothing to me.”

  The priests shuddered at this heresy. Even Nefertiti was shocked, though her religious belief was much the same as her husband’s. Egypt was a land of several gods, and all were to be worshipped according to law.

  Before Nefertiti could say something diplomatic, Amenhotep grabbed her hand and yanked her down the smooth stone corridor toward the street. “I know what I’m doing!” he told her as the raucous crowd grew so loud the pair could hear nothing else.

  The royal couple entered the reviewing stand through the back and stood where they could observe the assembled masses without being seen themselves.

  Nefertiti was awed at the sight of the crowd. “They are here for you,” she told her husband. “They love you, as I do.”

  Rich and poor, scribe, surgeon, and farmer, had come from all over Egypt. They had cheered with delight when their pharaoh oversaw the morning’s cattle census. An even larger group gasped in wonder as he donned the Sed cloak at noon. But that was six hours ago.

  Now the crowd numbered in the tens of thousands. A combination of too much sun and too much ale had turned their enthusiasm into restlessness. Artisans, shopkeepers, even slaves were chanting as one, demanding to see their pharaoh make the dangerous chariot run.

  How could he possibly fail—if he was divine?

  Chapter 11

  Thebes

  1347 BC

  NEFERTITI GLANCED AT HER HUSBAND, expecting to see him trembling in fear. Instead, Amenhotep wore a look of serenity. “When I am done with this, I will have put my mark on all of Egypt,” he told her. “No longer will I allow those pompous buffoons in the temple—”

  “You speak that way about the priests?” Nefertiti whispered. She had little respect for the priests but knew better than to talk like this. What was happening to her husband? Was he saying all this because he knew he was about to die?

  “That’s right. You heard me. No longer will they have any say in how I rule my kingdom. Starting tomorrow, Amun, Re-Harakhty, and all their other pitiful gods will be banished.”

  “You speak heresy,” Nefertiti said. She felt faint. Had Amenhotep gone mad? Was it his terror speaking now?

  “We will worship Aten—and Aten alone.” Aten was the sun god.

  “Do the priests know? Any of them? Does Ptahmose know?”

  Her husband’s cunning smile answered her question.

  “They will be furious!” she said. “They will come after you. And me as well.”

  “That won’t matter. Do you want to know why?”

  Actually, she didn’t. In his current state, Amenhotep IV was likely to say something utterly crazy. He didn’t disappoint.

  “I’m building a new city for us.”

  “I don’t understand, Pharaoh,” said Nefertiti. “What new city? Where would it be? Why haven’t you told me before?”

  “It will lie halfway between here and Memphis,” he continued. “It will be the greatest city in the world. I will never leave there. Not even to wage war or collect tribute. Thebes and Memphis can return to the desert for all I care.”

  The crowd was loudly chanting the pharaoh’s name, but Nefertiti wasn’t ready to let him go. She clung to her husband and said nothing more. But then he pulled away and began walking up to the reviewing stand—without so much as a kiss or a good-bye.

  “Oh!” he said, turning around to her. “I have saved the best for last. Tomorrow I will change my name to honor our god’s greatness. No one will ever again confuse me with my father.”

  “What will I call you?” the queen asked, her mind reeling and her knees weak.

  “Akhenaten.”

  And then, to deafening applause, the pharaoh strode to his chariot and began his ride to immortality.

  Chapter 12

  Thebes

  1347 BC

  AN EVEN GREATER ROAR echoed through Thebes as the pharaoh’s horses picked up speed.

  High atop the reviewing stand, Nefertiti watched… Akhenaten… and tried to appear calm.

  Meanwhile, two deep-set eyes leered at her. They belonged to her husband’s royal scribe, a powerfully built man in his late thirties named Aye.

  The populace was mesmerized by the horse-faced pharaoh galloping his favorite chariot, but Aye could have cared less. He was tantalized by the nervous young queen—and then aroused when she slipped her index finger into her mouth to bite her painted nail before remembering that thousands might witness her insecurity.

  The royal scribe licked his lips. He could have almost any woman in Egypt, but she was the one he wanted. Aye studied her graceful neck and the rest of her, down to the gentle sway of her hips. She was much smarter than the pharaoh, who was a freak undeserving of her, Aye thought. Having served under his father, Aye knew how a pharaoh should look and behave—and Amenhotep was no such man.

  But if not Amenhotep, then who should reign? Aye wondered.

  He answered his own question: me.

  Nefertiti suddenly turned his way. She caught him staring but pretended not to notice. She never seemed to notice him.

  Aye smiled and glanced down to the street. Miraculously, the pharaoh had survived the first leg of his journey and was now making the turn for home.

  Just then a wheel flew off, bouncing wildly into the crowd and nearly beheading a spectator. Screams rent the air. Terrified onlookers fled, certain that the chariot would careen into them and kill dozens of innocents.

  The pharaoh was thrown forward out of the basket onto the flank of the horse in front of him. He somehow managed to hold on to the reins but he dangled facedown over the side of the animal. The frightened team galloped faster and faster, dragging the chariot, hooves perilously close to the pharaoh’s face.

  Aye turned toward Nefertiti, whose hands now covered her mouth. Even as the future of Egypt hung on what happened in the next few seconds, Aye couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was extraordinary in every way, truly a queen, possibly the most impressive person in all of Egypt.

  Then the crowd exploded with a roar so loud that the ground beneath the reviewing stand shook.

  Aye flicked his eyes back toward the street and saw that the pharaoh had somehow righted himself and pulled himself up onto the back of the horse. He now sat astride the white charger, fully in control as the team galloped on. Down came Nefertiti’s hands. Away went the look of horror. She was a woman renewed, glowing with pride and love.

  As the pharaoh halted the horses at the base of the reviewing stand, the crowd screamed in adulation. He looked up at Nefertiti, his eyes relieved and confident. He dismounted and walked slowly down the center of the boulevard, basking in the divine certainty that he was both ruler and god.

  And then Nefertiti placed her lips to Aye’s ear. He could smell her perfume and feel the heat of her skin. More than ever, he lusted for this beautiful woman.

  “Starting tomorrow, Aye,” she told him, “Egypt will be changed forever. Mark my words.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. The only thing that mattered was the beating of his heart and the way his name had sounded in her mouth.

  “And Aye?”

  “Yes, my queen?”

  “If I ever see you looking at me that way again, I will feed your heart to the crocodiles.”

  Chapter 13

  Amarna

  1345 BC

  ONLY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD was such a thing possible—such a miracle in architecture. In just two years, the city of Amarna was complete. Aye had been in charge of the site, and now he sent word to the pharaoh. He figured he had three weeks, maybe four, until Akhenaten and his host of minions arrived.

  But he had underestimated the earnestness of his king’s desire to flee Thebes.

  A week after his message was received, Aye was sipping ale on the terrace of the new royal palace. He was bored and lonely. His wife was still in Thebes. Even worse, so were his harem girls.

  He gazed out at the Nile, marveling at the view. It truly was a gorgeous afternoo
n. The sky was a clear blue, and the heat tolerable if he stayed in the shade.

  Then the royal vizier saw a sight so shocking that he nearly dropped his ceramic mug.

  Cruising up the Nile was an armada of ships. Dozens. No, make that hundreds of vessels. Their great trapezoidal sails were visible from miles away. Aye could see thousands of citizens from Thebes lining the decks, ready to start their new lives in Amarna.

  And on the prow of the largest barge, to see firsthand all that he’d created, stood Akhenaten. The stunning Nefertiti and their three coquettish daughters were at his side.

  Akhenaten raised the royal standard in triumph, but Aye was focusing on Nefertiti and those three girls.

  No boys. Just girls.

  “I’ll kill him,” Aye said in a flash of inspiration. Of course. It was the perfect solution.

  Magnificent as she was, Nefertiti had not yet borne the pharaoh an heir. And with no male heir, there was no clear succession. If the pharaoh died—suddenly—there was no one to stop Aye from declaring himself pharaoh.

  No one but Nefertiti, the queen bee.

  “I’ll deal with her when the time comes,” Aye mumbled, already planning his crime. But he couldn’t afford to make a mistake. To kill the pharaoh and go undetected would require a perfect murder. He would have to be patient, choosing just the right moment and the right means of execution.

  Aye pursed his lips. If nothing else, he was patient. The plan had been revealed to him in an instant, every detail and twist, but it would take some time to execute.

  “Someday I will be the pharaoh,” he said boldly.

  Chapter 14

  Amarna

  1892