Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows by Nick Drake Page A

said.
    â€˜Look up,’ she said, quietly; and with an enigmatic flash of her dark eyes, she turned away, expecting me to follow her.
    We moved into the courtyard. Khay did not withdraw but followed discreetly, at a distance where he could still hear us, but pretend not to. A fountain trickled somewhere in the shadows. The dark air was cool and scented. She moved along an ornamental pathway, lit by more flickering lamps, further into the moony dark.
    I remembered the little girl I had met years before: full of petulance and frustration. And here was an elegant and accomplished young woman. Time itself seemed to be mocking me. Where had the years gone? Perhaps she had grown up very suddenly, too quickly, in the way people do when devastating change falls upon them in youth. I thought of my own girls, their ease with their changing lives and themselves. They had no need, thanks to the gods of fortune, for such strategy and appearance. But they too were growing up, growing away, into their own futures.
    â€˜So you remember me,’ she murmured, as we walked.
    â€˜You had a different name in those days,’ I replied, carefully.
    She glanced away.
    â€˜I have had little choice in the matter of myself. I was an awkward unhappy girl, never much of a princess, unlike my sisters; and now they are all dead, it turns out I must be so much more. I have been reinvented, but perhaps I have not yet felt worthy of the role for which I have been–appointed. Is that the word? Or destined?’
    She sounded as if she were talking about a stranger, not about herself.
    We arrived at a long pool of black water at the centre of the courtyard, with oil lamps placed at each corner. The moon was reflected there, lilting slowly in the water’s dream. The place felt romantic, and secret. We strolled along the pool’s edge. In some way I felt we were moving towards the heart of the matter.
    â€˜My mother told me that if I was ever in real danger, I should call for you. She promised me you would come.’
    â€˜And here I am,’ I replied quietly. I had sealed her mother’s memory in a box in the back of my mind. It was too potent, and too hopeless, to do anything else. And the fact that she was dead now made no difference, for she lived on where I had no power to control her, in my dreams.
    â€˜And since you have called for me, and I am here, you must be in real danger.’
    A fish broke the immaculate surface of the water, and concentric rings spread out, lapping silently at the pool’s walls. The moon’s reflection broke apart, and then slowly unified again.
    â€˜I am concerned by signs. Portents…’
    â€˜I am not a great believer in signs and portents.’
    â€˜So I have heard, and that is important. We are too easily alarmed, my husband and me. We need someone with less superstition and less fear. I think of myself as modern, as a person not easily frightened by things that are not there. But I find it is not so. Perhaps this palace does not help. It is so vast and empty of life that the imagination populates it with everything it fears. A wind blows from the wrong direction, down from the Red Land, and already I sense malicious spirits stirring at the curtains. These rooms are too big to sleep in without fear. I keep the lamps lit all night, I rely upon magic, I clutch amulets like a child…It is ridiculous, for I am no longer a child. I cannot afford to indulge the fears of a child.’
    She looked away.
    â€˜Fear is a powerful enemy, but a useful friend.’
    â€˜That sounds like something only a man could say,’ she replied, amused.
    â€˜Perhaps you should tell me why you are afraid,’ I said.
    â€˜I hear you listen well.’
    â€˜That is not what my daughters tell me.’
    â€˜Oh yes, you have daughters. A happy family…’
    â€˜It is not always as simple as that.’
    She nodded. ‘No family is simple.’
    She paused,