Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows by Nick Drake

the welcome, familiar moon, towards the long, low silhouette of the palace complex, and then–my heart compelled by the mystery ahead, and my feet by necessity–we entered a great gloom.

6
    The Keeper of the Royal Household took a lit oil lamp from a niche. Everything seemed hushed, lavishly decorated and sealed from the outside world. All along the corridor, down which we marched at speed, were beautiful statues and carvings set upon plinths. I wondered what went on in these side chambers; what meetings, what discussions, what resolutions with what great consequences reaching down through the hierarchies, and out into the unsuspecting and powerless world? We moved on, taking turns to the right or to the left, passing through high, echoing halls where occasional groups of officials conferred and guards were stationed, making our way deeper and deeper into the complex. It was a labyrinth of shadows. Sometimes a servant or a guard passed, their heads bowed low, pretending not to exist as they tended the lights of the oil lamps.
    Chamber after chamber of walls painted with glorious scenes of elite pleasure and leisure–birds in the reed marshes, fish in the clear waters–appeared and disappeared in the light of the lamp. It would bedifficult to find my way back. My footsteps sounded all wrong–a disturbance in the vast hush. Khay moved ahead on his costly, quiet sandals. I decided to make more noise, just to annoy him. He refused to dignify my behaviour with even a backwards glance. But it is strange and true that we can read a man’s face by the back of his head.
    We passed swiftly through a checkpoint, as Khay waved away the elite guards of the royal quarters, and then he led me into the inner sanctum, along another high passageway, until finally we paused before great double doors of dark wood inlaid with silver and gold, beneath a carved, winged scarab. He knocked precisely, and after a pause the doors opened, and we were admitted into a large chamber.
    Opulent surfaces and furniture were illuminated by large hammered bowls, set all around the walls, whose flames burned very still and clear. The furnishings and decor were immaculately restrained. Here, the room seemed to say, life could be lived calmly, with elevated feelings. But it also had the air of a stage spectacle: as if behind these glamorous facades one might discover masons’ rubble, painters’ brushes, and unfinished business.
    A young woman entered quietly from the courtyard beyond the open doors, and paused at the threshold, between the firelight from the great bowls and the dark shadows that surrounded everything. She seemed to carry something of both with her. Then Ankhesenamun stepped into the light, closer now. Her face, for all its youthful beauty, was engagingly confident. She wore a fashionable, braided, lustrous wig that framed her features, a pleated linen gown tied beneath her right breast, whose flowing cut seemed to sculpt her elegant, neat form, and a broad gold collar, fashioned from row upon row of amulets and beads. Bangles and bracelets shifted and tinkled elegantly around her wrists and ankles as she moved. Rings of gold and electrum flashed on her delicate fingers. Gold disc earrings glittered in the lamplight. She had carefully painted around her eyes with kohl, and drawn out the black lines in a style that was slightly old-fashioned–I realized, as she gazed at me, the ghost of a smile on her lips, that she had deliberately made herself look very much like her mother.
    Khay quickly bowed his head, and I copied him, and waited, as protocol demanded, for her to begin the conversation.
    â€˜I am not sure if I remember you, or if what I remember is from stories I have been told.’
    Her voice was full of self-possession, and curiosity.
    â€˜Life, prosperity and health. You were very young, majesty.’
    â€˜In another life. Another world, perhaps.’
    â€˜Things have changed,’ I