Sun Thief

When I get to the house, Imi’s hair is neatly braided and she’s showing off a new tunic and a brightly coloured belt. She jumps up when she sees me and throws her arms around me. I give her a little ram I made earlier and she runs into the house to say goodbye and thank you to her aunt.

Who comes out into the street in order to be rude to me.

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ she says.

‘Of course it’s him,’ Imi says. ‘Who else would it be?’ She doesn’t say it sarcastically. She doesn’t understand sarcasm.

‘Never you mind. He’s late.’

I open my mouth to protest, but decide it’s not worth it.

‘Look, he brought me a sheep!’ Imi holds up the little ram. The aunt snatches it and holds it out at arm’s length, squinting the way old people do.

‘Blasphemy,’ she says. ‘I should grind it to dust. The Aten is the one true god and the blessed one has eaten all the old gods.’

‘So if he’s eaten them, how could this be a god?’ I ask innocently. ‘It’s just an animal.’

The aunt looks at me suspiciously, but hands the clay model back to Imi.

‘Right, Imi, time to head off,’ I say.

Please note, the aunt has not asked me if I want a drink of cool, refreshing water or a place to rest before setting out on the long journey home.

‘You’ll have to hurry if you want to get back before dark,’ is all she says.

‘Yes, Aunt.’

She hates it when I call her aunt. Auntauntauntauntaunt.

‘And don’t just stand there gawping.’

‘Yes, Aunt.’

‘Off you go then.’

‘Yes, Auntie.’

‘What did you call me?’

‘Auntie, Aunt.’ I get the scowl I was waiting for and off we go. Imi is skipping along and holding a bunch of weeds that she manages to make look like a posy of flowers. I’m walking quickly because I don’t want to be seen running after my little sister, but don’t want her to get too far ahead either. And everything’s fine until we get to the City of the Dead. Then Imi stops right at the gate and looks through it.

‘Come on,’ I say, walking past very deliberately. ‘It’s getting late.’

It’s true. The sun’s already disappearing behind the pyramids and bats are fluttering between the houses of the dead, black scraps patted by an invisible wind.

‘Let’s go that way.’ Imi points down the street that leads straight into the heart of the shadowy city. ‘It’s much faster. You go down there and turn left and then there’s a hole in the wall and you’re home.’

‘It may be quicker, but it’s too dangerous,’ I say. ‘We’ll get lost and then we won’t get home at all. And you know you’re not allowed.’

‘It’s not dark yet,’ Imi says, holding the ram up so he’s pointing in the direction she wants to go.

‘It will be soon.’

‘Are you scared?’ she asks.

She’s not teasing me, I know, but it still niggles. ‘NO!’ I snap.

‘Silly. Come on!’

‘I’m not . . . no, IMI! COME BACK!’

Because she’s running through the gate and straight into the City of the Dead.

I make a sound that’s a cross between a shout and a whisper. Make too much noise and the ghouls will hear.

She disappears between two buildings. I can hear the pat-pat-pat of her feet. Fine dust hanging in the air is the only sign of her.

‘IMI! ’

I take a step, then another down the long straight street and try to look straight ahead. My footsteps paff-paff through the dust, beating out the words: angry, hungry ghouls; angry, hungry ghouls. Outside the houses are the dried-up remains of meals left for the dead: empty bowls, sheaves of grain, the odd goose bone . . . Some of the doors have crumbled or been kicked in and even though I don’t want to look, I can see long pale shapes in the darkness.

Mummies.

My heart starts whacking away inside me like it wants to escape and my stomach’s chasing it up my throat. I reach the place where Imi turned off the main street. It’s an alley between buildings so narrow I have to turn sideways to fit. Another lane crosses it in a T.

Left or right? I think I hear the patter of Imi’s sandals and follow the sound, but the alley jinks around a corner and stops dead at a sagging wall. I want to howl with despair.

‘IMI. This isn’t a joke!’ I do the shouty whisper again and look up. The sky’s darker now and I can see stars behind the pyramids rising above the rooftops. I jump as something flaps off into the air. Too big for a bat. An owl. It must be an owl.

Imi, I hate you!

I backtrack and take the first turning in the direction of home. It’s another alleyway, very dark and narrow, but the gloom seems to lessen in the distance. Perhaps I’m nearly on the other side. But when I get there I stop dead. I could not be more wrong. Instead of heading out of the City of the Dead, I’ve been going right into the middle of it.

I’m looking down a wide, straight street lined with the grandest buildings I have ever seen. They’re built of stone with pillars and porches. The walls inside the porches are painted. I can just make out a man fishing, a woman being waited on by dancing girls. The relatives of the rich dead folk didn’t just leave meals, they left feasts: piles of grain, pitchers of beer, jars of wine – all dry, all dust, all pecked by birds and gnawed by dogs. Under the blown sand, I feel smooth flagstones beneath my feet.

Ahead of me the pyramids loom above the rooftops. They’ve never seemed so big and black and jagged. The ghouls are gathering – I know they are – and I can’t see Imi anywhere.

My steps slow. I am awed by the grandeur of everything around me. I’m sure I can hear dark things calling me in whispers. Dread seeps through cracked walls. I stare into a doorway under a wide porch and am backing away from it when something clutches my ankle . . .

I stumble and fall backwards, too shocked to make a sound. A hand flutters over my mouth. I screw my eyes shut, feel breath on my face . . .

‘Sssss! ’ the ghoul hisses. ‘Shhh.’

Then: ‘Open your eyes. It’s me!’

I open my eyes. Yes, it’s Imi, but she looks terrified.

‘Shh! People. Here!’

When you’re well-behaved like Imi, getting caught is unimaginably bad – even worse than ghosts – but I’m so relieved to see her that I stop being scared for a moment. Her beautiful new tunic, once so white it glowed, is filthy now, but I don’t care.

Then I hear the voices too. They’re coming from both ends of the street so we’re trapped. Some families hire guards to watch over the graves. If it’s them, we’re in trouble. I look for places to hide. The porches are wide open to the street. It’ll have to be inside one of the houses of the dead.

The nearest door is twice my height and set with copper panels. It scrapes open just enough for us to slip in. Half the roof has fallen in so I can just make out a broken chair, a bed, furniture, musical instruments, smashed jars. There are shelves all the way round stacked with mummies – people on the left, cats and other animals on the right. They’re lying this way and that, like there’s been an earthquake, and the floor is crunchy with shattered tiles. The air is musty and musky.

Imi starts to whimper. ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like it.’

I almost snap, IT’S YOUR FAULT, but control myself.

The voices outside are getting closer. Greetings are called. I lift Imi on to a shelf, clear a space, then slide her behind a family of mummified cats.

They’re right outside now. I dive behind a mummy lying on the bottom shelf, but it’s so light it falls to the floor. Something quick and dark scrabbles away.

‘What was that?’ A startled voice comes from right outside the door. There’s no time to pull the mummy back on to the shelf, so I roll off and pull it on top of me. It’s big enough to hide me, but I’m breathing in mummy scent and mummy dust. I’m breathing in . . . someone dead.

‘It came from in there.’ A second voice, cold and sneering.

They heard me. They’re coming in.

I hear a third voice: ‘What? In here?’ I think I’ve heard it before, but I can’t quite remember when. It sounds slow and rather stupid.

Three voices then: one cold and sneery, one worried and jittery, and one slow and stupid.

‘What do you think it is?’ Worried and Jittery asks.

‘Only one way to find out,’ Cold and Sneery answers.

‘What?’ Slow and Stupid joins in.

‘Go and look,’ Cold and Sneery snaps.

‘Why is it always me?’ Slow and Stupid grumbles.

Where have I heard him before?

‘Because you’re so brave,’ Cold and Sneery sneers coldly.

The door scrapes across the floor. I hope and hope and hope it’s too dark for them to see our footprints in the dust.

‘Anything?’ Worried and Jittery sounds, well, worried and jittery.

‘Can’t see,’ Slow and Stupid says. ‘It’s dark and I don’t like it. It’s full of . . .’

‘You’re not scared, are you?’ Cold and Sneery interrupts. ‘Just get a move on.’

Footsteps shuffle across the floor. Something skitters away in the darkness. Slow and Stupid shrieks out a sound like WHUFFLE! which brings the others running. I pull my mummy as close to me as possible and then it starts to move, with a scraping and a scratching, as if the body inside is trying to get out.

A scream gathers in my chest.

‘What?’ says Worried and Jittery. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Something’s moving. It ran across the floor!’

‘It’s just a rat! Come out, you idiot!’ Cold and Sneery laughs.

The mummy shifts. Squeaks. Then I realise it’s not a dead person trying to get out of the mummy, it’s rats – a disturbed family of rats. I feel around until I find the rat hole. The last thing I want is baby rats crawling out all over me and the first thing I want is for those men to go away.

But they stay. Of course they stay. They go back outside, stand under the big covered porch, and they start to talk.

Cold and Sneery starts off with, ‘Well? I told you it was a good place to meet in secret. I’d have thought you were used to tombs by now.’

‘Not with bodies in, I’m not,’ Slow and Stupid says. ‘Not like Jatty.’

‘Oh, I forgot. You just dig the tombs and leave the hard work to everyone else. And don’t use names, you idiot,’ Cold and Sneery says.

‘It’s hard work digging tombs,’ Slow and Stupid says.

‘Not as hard as breaking in and finding out that they haven’t mummified the body properly and the first thing you touch is an oozing grave shroud,’ Worried and Jittery answers.

‘Enough with the hard-luck stories,’ Cold and Sneery says. ‘What have you got to report?’

‘We think we’ve found him,’ Worried and Jittery answers, talking fast. ‘He’s staying nearby. Bek’s description matches: big, ugly, moon-faced, scary bloke. Keeps himself to himself.’

‘What did I say about names? Oh, never mind. Where exactly is he staying?’

I’ve got a pain starting in the arm that’s trapped under my body and I think the baby rats have found the hand that’s blocking the hole in the mummy’s side because I can feel their warm noses and itchy whiskers against it. But when I hear the answer, I forget all discomfort.

‘An inn. This side of town. Got an old shrine round the back.’

‘And you’ve checked this out?’

‘I did,’ says Slow and Stupid. ‘He came into town by the north road and I followed him. Had a drink at the inn and took a room.’

‘You did?’

‘No, he did. Think I’m stupid?’

‘Yes. Did he recognise you?’

‘No. I saw him on a job years ago. He never noticed me then and he didn’t notice me now.’

I remember where I heard the voice before. He was one of the men at the inn yesterday. Without a doubt, the Quiet Gentleman is the ugly, moon-faced, scary bloke.

The man with the cold voice is talking again, sounding excited. ‘That double-crossing rat. The first thing we have to do is search his room. He won’t have got rid of it. Trust me. And if he’s hidden it we can make him talk. No, I’ve got a better idea. We’ll wait and see whether he’s moving on or staying put, and then we’ll . . .’

At last they start walking away and their voices grow fainter before they fade to nothing.

I push the mummy off me and stand up. It’s darker outside now and almost pitch-black inside. I can’t see the shelf Imi’s on and whichever way I turn it’s just going to be mummies everywhere.

‘Imi,’ I whisper. ‘Imi.’

No answer. I force myself to think. The door must be ahead of me so Imi’s to my left. I feel for the shelf I left her on, scattering mummified cats and birds and not caring how many rat families I’m disturbing. My fingers touch something warm.

‘Imi?’ I whisper again.

‘Yes?’

‘You all right?’

‘I was asleep. The cats were trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying because they were talking cat language.’ I feel her sit up. ‘Can we go home now?’

That’s Imi – instead of being frightened by cat ghosts, she talks to them. I almost hug her.

Outside, the pyramids bite black-toothed chunks from a bright field of stars.

The wheel turns, the wheel burns . . . The old woman told me the rhyme was all about the gods as they go wheeling across the sky. I can see the sphinx up there, and the ram, and think about the great boat below the horizon that carries the sun across the underworld sea so it rises fresh and new in the morning.

Fresh and new.

It would be good to feel fresh and new and hopeful and not scared, but I’m not stupid. I know who those men were: tomb robbers, the worst criminals in the world. Ruthless, violent and secretive. They’ll kill anyone who knows who they are, and from what they were saying, it sounds like the Quiet Gentleman is one too. And if that’s not enough to worry about . . .

. . . I’m in trouble.

How much? Quick answer: a heap. Long answer: trouble, trouble with more trouble piled on top and then doubled. Double, double, double trouble. And my mother doesn’t care who knows about it.

She shouts at me so loudly as I walk into the courtyard, with Imi holding tightly on to my hand, that it’s a wonder the walls don’t fall down. We’re late. It’s dark. Anything could have happened. We could have been attacked by robbers, by wild dogs, by lions. And look at the state of Imi: what did I do? Did I try to kill her out of black-hearted jealousy?

It’s a rare busy night and all the drinkers at the inn are nudging each other and shaking their heads, and in case you’re wondering why I don’t run off and hide, my father is gripping my arm so tightly he leaves a bracelet of bruises around it.

And there’s nothing I can say. We got lost in the City of the Dead, the one place I was forbidden to enter? We were trapped there by tomb robbers? That just means more danger for Imi and more trouble for me.

A couple of my father’s cronies start to mutter about bad blood and how I need a good thrashing, when the Quiet Gentleman, who’s been sitting on his own on his usual bench, stands up.

‘You’ve said enough,’ he tells my mother, who shuts up like she’s lost the power of speech.

‘And why don’t you let go of the boy’s arm?’ This to my father, who obeys.

‘And why don’t you step back?’ This to my father’s cronies.

‘There,’ the Quiet Gentleman says, ‘that’s better for everyone. And now we ask the little girl what happened.’ His smile reminds me of a split in an overripe melon.

This is where we get to the bit where you understand why I actually like my sister.

‘I ran away from him,’ Imi says, looking up at the Quiet Gentleman. ‘And I got lost and then I was scared, but he came looking for me and found me and he rescued me from the ghosts and brought me home.’

Perfect answer.

The Quiet Gentleman looks around. As well as the drinkers, a small crowd has gathered at the gate, attracted by my mother’s screeching. He says: ‘All these people want to buy a drink. You’d better get busy, boy.’

I get busy and my parents sell more beer and wine than they have since the shrine became illegal, and I get more tips than I’ve had in my life and a few slaps on the back for being a good boy.

But I don’t tell the Quiet Gentleman about the men who were talking about him in the City of the Dead. I don’t try to warn him. Why? Because if I tell him what I overheard it’ll be like pointing a finger at him and saying tomb robber.

And then he’ll have to kill me.

Next morning I get up early, fetch water, sweep the courtyard, then buy fresh bread and goat’s milk for breakfast.

By the time I’m back, the Quiet Gentleman is sitting in his usual place on the bench. The morning sun’s not too hot and he’s closed his eyes and tilted up his head towards it. He’s found one of my mud animals – a sphinx – and he’s holding it up to the sun as well.

As soon as he hears me, his eyes open sleepily. Whatever I do, wherever I go, he watches me like a dog watches an ant.

When I pass close to him, carrying a heavy leather bucket of water to sluice the kitchen floor, he says: ‘Stop right there, boy.’

I freeze.

‘Look at me.’

Very deliberately I stare past him.

He says: ‘Three questions. You call the innkeeper and his wife mother and father, but you look different. What’s your story?’

‘They found me in the river,’ I say with a shrug.

‘How?’

‘My father used to be a fisherman, too poor for a boat, so he had to throw his nets from the shore. One day he was out fishing late and heard a noise in the bulrushes. He thought it was a kid or maybe a lamb and waded in to get it. It was me. I’d been wrapped in a cloth, put in a little reed boat and sent off down the river. Anyway, he brought me home to my mother and she . . . Well, I don’t know. Maybe they liked me until Imi came along. Maybe she always thought I was a waste of space.’

‘And now he’s an innkeeper. Interesting. Second question: why are you so eager to please him and the woman? All they do is abuse you.’

‘You made them look stupid last night so they’ll take it out on me today,’ I say. ‘I just try to give them fewer excuses.’

‘No one likes a cringer,’ he says.

That hurts like a slap in the face. I don’t say anything, but I feel a hatred for him so deep and strong that I can hardly breathe.

He nods. ‘All right,’ he says in that quiet voice. ‘There’s a bit of life in you, boy. Third question: what’s changed?’

‘What does the master mean?’ I say, adjusting my tone. Submissive, sullen, sarcastic. I know how to annoy guests.

‘The master means what he says,’ he answers right back.

‘Because the master stood up for me last night, I now have money,’ I say. ‘That’s changed.’ I take the tips from my purse and offer them to him. ‘Does the master want a cut?’

‘No.’

‘Then I don’t know what the master means.’

‘The master will tell you, boy. When I arrived at the inn, you were curious about me. But from the moment you walked in last night, you’ve been keeping something from me. So what’s changed?’

I try to hide my shock and start to bluster. ‘I don’t understand the master. I’m only a poor serving boy. The master knows how grateful I was. Am! I’m still grateful. That is what the master sees.’

My dumb act only amuses him. ‘Anyone who can make this –’ he holds up the little mud sphinx ‘– has got more than nothing going on between his ears. It’s not grateful I’m seeing. It’s something else. You went away to pick up your sister. You came back filthy and knowing. Now, how do two little brats get dirty like that? From playing? I don’t think so. From running? Maybe. From hiding?’

The shock must show again because he says: ‘I can see through you like water, boy. Where were you hiding?’

‘The City of the Dead,’ I say, resistance crumbling.

His eyes narrow. ‘Why would a cringer take his sister into the City of the Dead?’

I shake my head. ‘She ran into it on the way back.’

‘Why did she do that?’

‘She said it was a short cut. And she thought it was funny that I was scared and she wasn’t.’

He closes his eyes slowly. It’s like his mind is chewing what I say to get the full flavour of it. Then the eyes open. ‘But last night the little girl said she had been scared. Not of the dead or she would have stayed away. Why is that?’

I feel I’ve just walked into a trap that I knew was there all along. My mouth opens and closes.

‘You tell me if you know so much,’ I just about dare to say.

He shakes his head, then stands, those awful, thick arms heavy by his side.

‘We’ll get to the bottom of it, boy. I’m going for a little stroll, but we’ll talk again when I come back.’ And he walks out of the courtyard.

I’m so scared that I want to be sick.

I try to settle down at the wheel to make more plates and beakers, but it’s like he’s put a spell on me. My hand can’t shape the mud, can’t make it rise and hollow into a beaker or thin into a plate.

This has never happened to me before, but my hands find something else to do. They pick up a lump of mud and start to shape it. A big, round head, piggy little eyes, nose like a broken rudder and an oddly full mouth. The Quiet Gentleman is the colour of mud anyway and no one seeing my model of him could mistake it for anyone else. Or mistake what I think of him.

I leave it on his bench, then retreat into my corner to think.

No one likes a cringer, the Quiet Gentleman says. Well, I’ll show him what a cringer can do. From the way the tomb robbers were talking, it’s clear he’s brought something valuable with him, so when I go off to sweep his room, I check for soft earth where he might have dug a hole in the floor.

Nothing.

I run my hands over the walls, looking for missing bricks. All present and correct. A sudden burst of certainty sends me up a ladder to check the roof, but there’s nothing up there either. Now I have to hurry, because how long can he be out strolling for?

Come on, come on . . .

My father comes out of the kitchen and scratches himself in the morning sunshine. He looks at me warily. I will him to notice that the courtyard has been cleaned from the night before and I’ve been out to get milk and bread.

He notices all right. He clears his throat, spits and says: ‘Have you cleaned the shrine? It must be filthy. Take a broom down there and make sure you do a good job.’

It’s like a sudden handclap of understanding. That’s the place I should be searching.

Once, a long time ago, there must have been a temple or palace where our inn is now. If you dig in the courtyard you can find huge blocks of smooth stone just a little way down. All gone now but for a sort of hut with the goddess in it and that’s our shrine.

I’ve never liked visiting the shrine. Now the gods are hiding, the statue down there is not much more than a stone corpse.

The light comes through the holes in the roof so she’s always half lit, a worn lump of rock with an animal head and a woman’s body. I think she was meant to be Sekmet, goddess of war and plague, but my father thought there were more commercial possibilities if she was one of the fertility goddesses, so he borrowed a chisel and hacked away until she looked a bit more like a hippo and said she was Tawaret, the goddess of making babies.

It worked, I guess, because Imi arrived, but I still think the goddess looks more like Sekmet, and a pretty angry Sekmet at that.

I stand in front of her. She doesn’t look at me, just keeps on staring at the entrance with her badly painted eyes, like she’s wondering where the crowds have gone. I put a coin between her stone feet and say: ‘I’m going to look behind you. I hope it’s not rude. Please don’t give me the plague if you’re Sekmet, or a baby if you’re Tawaret. I don’t know why the king killed you off, but it doesn’t matter really, does it? You’re still here and you’re not going anywhere. Thanks.’