The Murder of King Tut - James William Patterson [67]
Despite the death of Aye, the mood today was festive. Perhaps that was on account of the wine or maybe it was because Aye was far from beloved.
Still, Horemheb hoped it would be like this when he died, with celebrants coming from all over Egypt. He loved a good party.
The sun was directly in Horemheb’s eyes, but in a moment it would dip behind the rocky plateau ringing the valley. He shielded his face with his hand.
In the distance he could hear the whinny of horses and knew that his groom was hitching his chargers to the chariot. Horemheb was in a mood to bring the reins down hard on their flanks and race all the way back to Thebes at top speed.
What sort of pharaoh will you be? he asked himself.
Magnificent. Like Amenhotep III.
Yes. I will be magnificent. Let them attach it to my name.
Horemheb instantly knew what he must do next: wipe the slate clean.
Then and there, the fierce general resolved to level Amarna, the city that had been erected by Akhenaten.
The entire city.
All of it.
Gone.
And wherever the names of Tut and Aye were carved on the temple walls, they would be chiseled off. His name alone would remain.
His soldiers would search throughout the land. The job might take years, but the names of Horemheb’s predecessors would be obliterated. Pharaohs like Tut would molder in their tombs, edicts undone and commandments overruled. It would be as if Tut and that pretty young wife of his had never existed.
Horemheb was deep in thought as he took hold of the reins to his chariot. Now that he was pharaoh, a procession of bodyguards traveled with him, but he did not acknowledge them. Instead, as he raced down the dusty road back to Thebes, all Horemheb thought of was his plan to erase history.
For more than three thousand years, it had actually worked.
Chapter 97
Palm Beach, Florida
Present Day
I SAT IN MY OFFICE looking out at the view of Lake Worth and the large homes across the water, but my mind was lost in the desert. When I am writing a draft of a book, I occasionally scribble the words Be There at the top of a page. This reminds me to make each chapter come alive for the reader, to place myself in the scene. I knew this story was vivid—in my imagination at least. And nothing could be more stunning than what happened to poor Tut in 1925, more than two full years after his tomb was discovered. I could hardly believe it myself.
The investigation would have been impossible without Howard Carter, of course. It had taken him years just to extract Tut’s remains from the burial chamber. The process began the moment the plaster wall separating the anteroom from the burial chamber was knocked down. Reporters clustered outside the tomb and breathlessly awaited news. Doubters in the Egyptology community still believed that Carter had found nothing more than an elaborate closet. And still there was no sign of Tut’s mummy.
Poor Carter! And it only got worse for him.
Once his workers had pried the wood apart at the joints and hauled away the protective panels, he was surprised to be looking at another, smaller shrine.
This too had to be disassembled, piece by piece.
But inside was another shrine. And then another.
In all, there were four shrines, one within the other, like Russian nesting dolls.
Finally, however, Carter reached the sarcophagus. He saw that the lid was made of pink granite and cracked across the center, as if someone had struck it with a hammer or stone club. But who would do such a thing? And for what reason?
At least Carter was fairly certain he had found Tut. The two outer coffins were opened. Politics intruded. Carnarvon died mysteriously. And the Egyptians expelled Carter for a year.
He returned in October 1925 to open the final golden coffin. The mummy was coated with black unguent. When Tut was seen for the first time in modern history, he