The Order of Ka

Prologue

Around 3300 years before our era, somewhere above the Euphrates, in the land of Sumer.

The man moved forward with a limp across the empty plain, sweat running in heavy drops down his broad forehead. In the distance, mountain lines took shape. Never had he seen them so clearly, he who so rarely left the city. And as he imagined himself resting in the shade of thick foliage to shield his dark skin from the burning sun, he knew that, even if his leg had worked properly, he would never have enjoyed having to travel repeatedly, as his ancestors had done in a time not so distant. Had he been born even a little earlier, he would never have survived childhood. He had no doubt about that.

He smiled at the thought of the bewildered looks his kin gave him each time he voiced such reflections aloud.

‘What are you talking about now, Nummuru?’ his sister would have said. ‘It is the Anuna who created our people, not what you call “nomadic tribes”.’

Nummuru would then have tried to contradict her. To make her understand that it was humans, like her and him, who had built the world they knew, and not gods. That not so long ago, his people had lived far to the south of these lands, fighting each day to eat and finding each night a place to sleep in safety.

Only, Nummuru had grown weary of the look cast upon him. As a child, the elders told him that many things must be happening inside his head. And generally, they were astonished by what he managed to invent to improve their daily lives, whether in the fields or at home. He preferred, in fact, to remain with the adults rather than with those his own age, who mocked him relentlessly and refused to let him join their games.

Alas, upon becoming an adult himself and continuing to see life so differently from others, he had only deepened the gulf between himself and society.

He could not explain where the stories about the gods came from. Who had first created these beliefs, nor why they were now passed down from generation to generation. And even if he knew the truth, he could not speak it aloud. People needed to believe, and to give meaning to things. At least, that was what he had repeated to himself until now. Only, having learnt the unimaginable a few days earlier, he could no longer remain silent.

And for that, it was essential that he force himself to keep moving, no matter how much his leg tormented him and how fiercely the sun burned him. The stakes went beyond his fatigue and his pain.

He eventually caught sight of a young woman seated beside the river he had been searching for since morning, her skin as brown as his own. When she lifted her harmonious face, her intelligent brown gaze lit with a relieved gleam.

‘I feared something had happened to you!’

‘Forgive me, Ama.mah, I did not pay attention to the sun’s position. I had an urgent matter to settle.’

‘More urgent than what we have to do?’

Ama.mah had not taken a reproachful tone. But the inflection in her voice betrayed her incomprehension, and Nummuru could only agree with her. Nothing was more imperative than what had brought them together in secret at this moment. So why had he struggled to set out? Helping to repair a toy for his brother’s child was far from an emergency. Even if the little one had cried so loudly that he himself had felt sorrow wash over him for a simple broken toy.

Noticing the questioning look with which Ama.mah was watching him, Nummuru shook his head imperceptibly to focus on the present moment. He then saw the clay object placed beside the beautiful young woman with the athletic frame. She had remained seated in the grass, her indigo-blue robe falling between her slender calves, a rolled belt encircling her waist as her toes dipped into the river.

Nummuru settled beside her and imitated her, savouring the cool softness of the water as his skin touched it. Then he drew out a tool he had hidden beneath his tunic.

‘Would you like me to take care of it?’ Ama.mah asked.

‘No,’ Nummuru replied at once. ‘It falls to me. Even if it disgusts me, you know as well as I do that there are things that fall to each of us, and that this is why we came into the world.’

Ama.mah did not argue and merely nodded. Yes, she knew.

Nummuru then set to work. He took the blank tablet Ama.mah handed him and placed it upon his thighs. With his reed stylus, he began to trace the marks into the clay.

It took him a long time to inscribe the symbols which, together, became far more than mere vertical and horizontal strokes shaped like nails. Ama.mah read over his shoulder and did not utter a single word the entire time he worked.

When at last he finished, the sun was slowly disappearing behind the mountain range.

‘How can we be certain it will be found in time?’ the young woman asked anxiously.

Nummuru smiled as he gave her the tablet.

‘I cannot say whether the tablet will be found in time. All I can tell you is that it will be found at the moment it must be.’

Then Nummuru rose and held out a hand to Ama.mah to help her do the same.

‘Go now. Do what you came into this world to do, and conceal these writings.’

Ama.mah nodded and looked one last time at the man before her, understanding that she would never see him again. He was neither handsome nor ugly. His face and his whole appearance were of the simplest banality, to which was added the handicap of his leg. This meant he passed either unnoticed or as someone inferior within their people. Yet Ama.mah knew he was in no way comparable to other humans.

PART ONE

“Is it possible that the entire history of the universe has been misunderstood? Is it possible that, despite all inventions and all progress, despite civilization, religion, and philosophy, we have remained on the surface of life?”

Rainer Maria Rilke

Chapter I

Present day, London, England.

A gust of wind, accompanied by drizzle, lashed Elya’s face just as she lifted her eyes towards the majestic colonnades adorning the front of the British Museum. As always when she found herself there, memories of her childhood flooded her, and she saw herself once more wandering through the gigantic halls, marvelling at the splendour of objects belonging to the past. And, as always, a feeling of unease settled deep in her stomach.

‘Elya, what are you doing?’ a familiar voice called out. ‘Hurry up!’

Realising she was standing frozen between the imposing columns, staring at the museum entrance with a dazed expression, she hurried inside before anyone else could notice her strange behaviour.

Melissa was waiting for her, both amused and impatient. Elya couldn’t help thinking that with her olive skin beneath her thick, glossy black hair, her friend always looked radiant despite their life under the English grey skies.

‘What were you thinking about this time, lost in your daydreams again?’ Melissa asked bluntly.

She was used to seeing Elya disconnect from reality like that, her face suddenly taking on a concentrated expression while her gaze seemed to observe something no one else could perceive. And Elya knew her “absences” exasperated those around her. Unfortunately, she could do nothing about it.

When she was a child, a therapist had told her parents she suffered from attention disorders. Elya had let them accept that explanation, knowing deep down that the doctor was wrong. Still, how could she possibly admit to her family what truly happened during those troubling moments when she seemed to detach from the present? They would think her mad and have her committed, she was certain of it.

If only they had the slightest idea of what unfolded in her mind, she thought, feeling that familiar sense of solitude and frustration wash over her under her friend’s exasperated stare.

‘Why did you want me to come here on my day off?’ Elya asked.

‘I’m supposed to guide a secondary school class through the Ancient Egypt section, but I’ve got an important appointment at two o’clock. You’re passionate about Antiquity and you know absolutely everything by heart — could you take the tour for me, please?’

The pleading tone and imploring look would have been enough to give away the nature of her friend’s appointment, but it was the pink, shimmering threads forming in the young woman’s mind that revealed Melissa’s excitement.

‘It’s a date?’ Elya replied at once.

Melissa sighed just as Elya saw the threads of her thoughts tint themselves a pale red.

‘I’ll never understand how you manage to be so perceptive.’

Elya continued to study Mélissa’s large dark eyes. In truth, it wasn’t her friend’s face she was observing. It was her psyche, which she saw as clearly and tangibly as her reproachful features.

An instant later, the tangle of threads representing the young woman’s thoughts lost its reddish hue and returned to a bright pink. An image formed, and Elya perceived the features of a handsome man with curly hair emerging between the threads. Letters suddenly traced themselves across his face, forming a name: Ahmed.

Melissa grabbed Elya by the wrist and pulled her towards the toilets, speaking in a low voice.

‘His name is Ahmed. He’s a journalist I met a few days ago, and he’s invited me to a picnic early this afternoon. Isn’t that adorable and original?’

Elya wanted to reply, “A picnic in this weather? Not sure that’s wise,” but seeing the pink threads moving rapidly in her friend’s mind, betraying her excitement, she kept quiet so as not to spoil her joy.

As they entered the toilets, Melissa added:

‘With the bank holidays, there are practically only temps and young interns around — no one will know you’re not supposed to be working today and that you’re covering for me. Besides, you’re the most respected curator here; if the director walks by during the tour, he won’t be surprised to see you explaining Ancient Egypt to the children. Will you do it, please?’

‘Of course!’ Elya replied, as Melissa’s features lit up with gratitude.

Being a curator, Elya loved talking about history — it was her greatest passion. Even if she was supposed to be off today.

Melissa removed her guide’s jacket and handed it to Elya. Then she swept her hair back into a loose bun that highlighted her angelic face and high cheekbones, before applying a glossy red to her full lips.

‘How do I look?’ she asked with a wide smile.

‘Beautiful, as always.’

Which was true. The young woman had always been very successful with men. Unlike Elya.

Melissa chuckled and placed a light kiss on her saviour’s cheek before hurrying out of the toilets.

Elya slipped on her friend’s work jacket and examined herself in the mirror. Her long blonde hair, with its soft reddish highlights, had puffed up in the rain, making it frizz. She hated when it did that. She felt like a bedraggled dog caught in a downpour. She tied her mane into a ponytail and wiped away the mascara that had slightly smudged beneath her hazel eyes — that rare blend of brown, green, and golden yellow.

As usual, she had dark circles above her pale cheeks, sprinkled with very light freckles that also dusted her fine, straight nose.

Petite and timid-looking, people often told her she was pretty. But she knew she blended easily into a crowd, especially when standing next to women with the presence of someone like Melissa. And that suited her. She had never liked drawing attention to herself and avoided any situation where she was forced into the spotlight — the opposite of her friend, who adored it.

Elya left the toilets and climbed the grand staircase in the British Museum’s entrance hall before taking the corridor leading to the section devoted to Antiquity. She knew this part of the museum like the back of her hand; her parents had already often brought her there when she was a child. Many of her classmates would have been bored stiff, preferring to do sport or play outside. But Elya was not that sort. She had always loved losing herself in museums and contemplating things that belonged to another time.

As she walked past the Ancient Greek pottery, she suddenly felt a brief wave of dizziness. A golden veil quickly spread before her eyes, then vanished as swiftly as it had appeared.

Elya acted as though nothing had happened, fully aware of the visitors around her. Anyone would find it strange to see a young woman suddenly stop dead, looking as if she were somewhere else, and they would inevitably ask if she was all right. She hated being asked that kind of question, knowing she had no choice but to answer yes.

Perceiving the minds of the people around her did not bother her all that much; she had learnt to live with it. What disturbed her far more was the sensation that overwhelmed her whenever she was in places steeped in history. As if something she could not see were desperately trying to impose itself on her.

It was because of this, in fact, that she had given up her lifelong dream of becoming an archaeologist. At the end of her studies, every time she had found herself on an archaeological site, she had been overcome by a feeling of malaise. Threads, like those she usually saw in people’s thoughts, would appear around the remains of the past. Increasingly frightened, she had found it impossible to concentrate, because instead of seeing the dust-covered find before her, she would see golden threads surrounding the object and restoring the shapes and colours of what it had once been. She thus passed either for a genius in the eyes of her mentors, capable of placing such an object in its context, or for a naïve young woman with too much imagination who extrapolated instead of focusing on real facts.

And yet, what she saw was very real.

Because of this, she had abandoned archaeology and applied for a job as a curator at the British Museum. There, the unease that seized her in places laden with history was still present, but less intense than on excavation sites.

Hearing children suddenly shouting, she was brought back to the present moment and realised she had reached the Ancient Egypt section. About ten pupils had their faces pressed against a display case, staring in disbelief at the bandage-wrapped body inside.

‘Do you know who this mummy is?’ the teacher asked, a woman of a certain age perched on such thin stiletto heels that Elya wondered how she managed not to break an ankle with every step.

‘It says Cleopatra,’ a blond boy replied, pointing at the label.

‘Oh, I know who Cleopatra was, Miss!’ a little girl with two plaits on either side of her face exclaimed at once, making her look even more childlike.

‘This isn’t the Cleopatra you’re thinking of,’ Elya cut in, guessing the girl imagined she was looking at the last queen of Egypt.

Instantly, all the children and the teacher turned towards Elya, who suddenly felt uncomfortable with so many eyes fixed on her.

She cleared her throat and explained:

‘Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, was buried in Alexandria and her body has never been found.’

‘Why?’ the little girl asked.

She had an intelligent air beneath her round glasses, which magnified her curious gaze. At least, more curious than most of her classmates, who had already lost all interest in the mummy lying behind the glass and were now looking around for something more exciting than the guide’s explanations.

‘According to historians’ writings, Cleopatra is said to have taken her own life after the death of the man she loved, Mark Antony, a Roman. She is thought to have died from a snake bite. Her body is believed to have been buried alongside Mark Antony’s in Alexandria. But today that ancient city lies beneath the sea, which makes it difficult to carry out archaeological excavations there to search for their remains.’

Speaking about this Egyptian queen, known for her great intelligence and beauty, made Elya forget her embarrassment, and she led the children on through the rest of the visit, telling them with passion the story of one of the first civilisations to have appeared and vanished more than two thousand years ago, at the death of Cleopatra VII.

At the end of the tour, while the teacher thanked her warmly for the time spent with the pupils, Elya felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She took it out and saw a message from Melissa appear on the screen:

‘Thanks for today, I owe you one. Meet me at eight o’clock at our bar in Soho.’

Elya smiled, even though the idea of going out in Soho with the usual Friday night crowds did not particularly appeal to her. Still, wanting to please her friend, she replied with a thumbs-up emoji before putting Melissa’s work jacket back in her locker.

As she left the British Museum, Elya remembered she had promised her parents she would visit them at their bookshop.

Born to a French father and an English mother, the young woman considered herself lucky to have been raised between two cultures. She spoke both English and French fluently, had done her schooling in London before going to study archaeology in Paris, where she had spent most of her Sundays roaming the Louvre. Then, at the end of her studies, she had decided to return to London.