We prostrated ourselves before the dying Pharaoh, and anyone familiar with death could tell that all Ptahor’s skills were useless here. But throughout the ages, the skulls of Pharaohs have been opened as a last resort, if natural death had not already supervened, and it had to happen also now, as we set about our task. I opened the ebony box and in the sacred flame purified once more the scalpels, bores and forceps and gave Ptahor the holy flint knife. The court physician had already shaved and washed the head of the dying man, and Ptahor ordered the stauncher of blood to sit upon the bed and take Pharaoh’s head in his hands.

Then the great royal consort Tiye stepped to the bed and forbade him. Hitherto, she had stood by the wall with her arms raised in the gesture of grief, motionless as an image of god. Behind her stood the young heir to the throne, Amenhotep, and his sister Beketamun, but I had not yet dared to raise my eyes to them. Now that a stir ran through the room, I looked and recognised them from the royal images in the temples. The prince was of my own age but taller. He held his head high, his long chin upright and eyes tightly closed. His arms were sickly and lanky, and his eyelids and cheek muscles trembled. Princess Beketamun had noble and beautiful features with large, oval eyes. Her mouth and cheek were painted ginger and her dress was of royal linen, so that her arms could be seen through like the arms of a goddess. But more majestic than either was the great royal consort Tiye, though she was short and becoming plump as she aged. Her complexion was very dark and her cheekbones broad and prominent. It was said that by birth she was a simple woman of the people and had black man’s blood in her veins, but I do not know if this was so, for it was but hearsay. I only know that even though her parents bore no honourable titles in the inscriptions, her eyes were intelligent, bold and piercing, and her whole bearing radiated power. When she moved her hand and looked upon the stauncher of blood, he seemed as dust beneath her broad, brown feet. I understood her feelings, for the fellow was an ox driver of low birth and could neither read nor write. He stood with bent head and hanging arms, with his mouth open and a vacant expression on his face. Unskilled and untalented though he was, he yet had the power to stop the flow of blood by his mere presence, and therefore he had been called from his plough and his oxen to be paid his fee in the Temple, and despite all

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cleansing ceremonial the smell of cattle dung clung about him. He himself could not account for his powers. It was not a skill nor even an act of will, for he merely possessed them, as a jewel may be found in a clod of earth, and his powers were such as cannot be acquired through study or spiritual exercises.

“I do not permit him to touch the god,” said the great royal consort. “I will hold the god’s head if it be needful.”

Ptahor protested that the task was a bloody and unpleasant one. Nevertheless, the great royal consort took her place on the edge of the bed and most carefully raised the head of her dying husband into her lap, heedless of the saliva that dripped onto her hands.

“He is mine,” the Queen said, “and no one else shall touch him. It is from my arms that he shall enter the realms of death.”

“He, the god, shall step aboard the ship of his father, the sun, and sail straight to the land of the blessed,” said Ptahor, incising the King’s scalp with his flint knife. “Of the sun was he born, to the sun shall he return, and all people shall praise his name from everlasting to everlasting — In the name of Seth and all devils, what is that blood stauncher about?” He had been talking to distract the royal spouse’s thoughts from the operation, as a skilful doctor will talk to a patient to whom he is causing pain. But the last phrase was hissed at the peasant, who was leaning against the door post with sleepy, half-shut eyes. Sluggish blood had begun to well from Pharaoh’s head and run down into his consort’s lap so that she flinched and her face turned a yellowish grey. The blood stauncher roused himself from his thoughts. Perhaps he was thinking of his oxen and his irrigation ditches, but now he remembered his duty, approached the bed and looked at Pharaoh, raising his hands. The flow of blood ceased at once, and I washed and cleaned the head.

“Forgive me, my little lady,” said Ptahor, taking the bore from my hand. “To the sun, yes indeed, straight to his father in the golden ship, the blessing of Amun be upon him.” While he was speaking, he spun the bore swiftly and deftly between his hands so that it grated its way into the bone. Then the heir to the throne opened his eyes, took a step forward, and his face quivered as he said, “Not Amun, but Ra-Horakhty

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