City of the Dead

hearth.
GEB
The earth god, represented as a man.
HAPY
The god of the Nile.
HATHOR
The cow goddess; the suckler of the king.
HORUS
The hawk god, son of Osiris and Isis, and therefore a member of the most important trinity in ancient Egyptian theology.
ISIS
The divine mother.
KHONS
The god of the moon; son of Amun.
MAAT
The goddess of truth.
MIN
The god of human fertility.
MUT
Wife of Amun, originally a vulture goddess. The vulture was the animal of Upper (southern) Egypt. Lower (northern) Egypt was represented by the cobra.
OSIRIS
The god of the underworld. The afterlife was of central importance to the thinking of the Ancient Egyptians.
RA
The great god of the sun.
SET
The god of storms and violence; brother and murderer of Osiris. Very roughly equivalent to Satan
SOBER
The crocodile god.
THOTH
The ibis-headed god of writing. His associated animal was the baboon.

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS OF CITY OF THE DEAD

    (in order of appearance)

    Fictional characters are in capitals, historical characters in lower case.

    Tutankhamun: Pharaoh, 1361—1352 BC
    Ay: His wife’s grandfather. Co-regent
    Akhenaten: The disgraced recent predecessor of Tutankhamun, now known as the Great Criminal
    Horemheb: Co-regent with Ay and rival to the succession Ankhsenpaamun (Ankhsi): Tutankhamun’s Great Wife
    Tey: Ay’s Chief Wife
    Nezemmut: Horemheb’s wife
    HUY: Former scribe
    TAHEB: Shipowner. Widow and heiress of Huy’s friend Amotju
    KENAMUN: Police chief. Former priest-administrator in the Southern Capital
    AHMOSE: Courtier
    NEHESY: Chief huntsman
    SHERYBIN: Charioteer
    INENY: Ay’s secretary
    Zannanzash: Hittite prince
    MERINAKHTE: Doctor
    HORAHA: Chief doctor
    SENSENEB: His daughter
    HAPU: His steward
    AAHETEP: Nehesy’s wife
    NUBENEHEM: Brothel keeper

ONE

    The king bit his lip. The interview had gone badly. He watched the general’s retreating back with murder in his heart. How much longer would he have to put up with the curbs of this ambitious old man?
    To begin with, he had been grateful for Horemheb’s experience, and he had leant on him. But it was four floods since his coronation, and at seventeen years old, he was still pharaoh in name only. The army, his spies told him, remained loyal to Horemheb, its commander since the days of his predecessor, the disgraced pharaoh Akhenaten. He would have to work on getting them to transfer their loyalty to him. Then he would see about sending Horemheb off on a diplomatic mission to some remote province. He toyed with the idea of assassination, but knew that the day when he felt secure enough to have that done was still far off.
    Then there was Ay, even older, but just as ambitious, and as much of a thorn in his side. The king was well aware that both these men — joint regents in doubtful alliance during his minority — wanted only one thing — to wear the pschent themselves. He made a point of having the red-and-white double crown of the Black Land placed on his head at every meeting with his two advisers, as they now liked to be called, though down the years General Horemheb, the stronger of the two, had got the young king to confer a greater string of titles on him than any commoner had ever carried in the entire history of the country, and that stretched back through one and a half recorded millennia, and eighteen dynasties.
    Ay had been Akhenaten’s father-in-law. Another commoner. The son of a Mitannite whose sister had the good fortune to become Great Wife of Menkheprure Tuthmosis, grandfather of Akhenaten, he had put it about — and the pharaoh could not disprove it — that he was also the brother of Tiy, Akhenaten’s; mother. Ay had further consolidated his position in the royal household by marrying off his daughter Nefertiti to Akhenaten. The girl, the most beautiful ever seen in the Black Land, became the king’s Great Wife, by whom he produced seven daughters. The present king was married to the third daughter, who had much of her mother’s beauty. But the family net Ay had woven around the young pharaoh had not endeared him.
    ‘I am king. Nebkheprure Tutankhamun.’ He said his name to himself as the high steward removed the heavy crown and replaced it with a blue-and-gold headdress — lapis and gold leaf over a light leather frame. The king sniffed the leather, enjoying the smell. His name gave him confidence. He wanted it on the people’s lips, on columns, pylons, temples and city gates. He would be the redeemer of the country, the man who would bring