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looming grey against the yellow of the desert. Years ago a small gold mine had been worked here, but now all that remained of it was a cave-like opening among the rocks, and the broken remains of water jars. They were not far off the main route from the Southern Capital to the port on the Eastern Sea from where the swift coasters departed for Punt, but the desolation of the desert covered them like a pall. The chariots fanned out and, the horses slowed to a trot, rode round the rocks at a distance. From the jagged grey shapes, softer ones began to detach themselves as the large, brown-grey animals raised their heads with the great swept-back horns to regard this intrusion with curiosity and caution.
    The king exchanged his spear for a bow and arrow. Nodding to Sherybin, he steadied himself in the footstrap on the floor of the chariot and drew on his archer’s glove.

    The hunt lasted all morning, but it was not a success. Three animals lay drawn up on the sand, but they were elderly, only having fallen prey to the archers because they had lost their nimbleness. There was no honour in their deaths, and the king had called off the pursuit in disgust. This was not the way to celebrate the arrival of his child. He returned moodily to camp. His humour was not improved by news from Sherybin that his chariot had a damaged axle, and that a new one would have to be brought from the capital; but he gave his charioteer permission to absent himself from the hunt for the second day in order to fetch the spare part. On that day he hunted with Nehesy, but the only living thing they saw were golden desert rats which popped up from their holes to gawp at them.
    On the last day the king was awakened early by an excited Sherybin.
    ‘The trackers have brought news,’ said the charioteer, scarcely able to contain his enthusiasm.
    ‘Of what?’ The king squinted past him at the sky outside the tent. Could the trackers be back already?
    ‘Wild cattle,’ Sherybin told him in a triumphant whisper.
    Tutankhamun’s heart leapt. If the news were true, then the omen had been good after all. Wild cattle! That would be a prize worthy of the great Tuthmosis himself. Only the pharaohs were allowed to hunt them, and if he could bring down a bull...!
    His ambitions raced ahead of him.
    ‘Waken the others. We must set off immediately.’
    Sherybin quietened him. For a moment they were two excited men, equals, eagerly discussing the merits of an important hunt. ‘No. Not the others. You know how nervous wild cattle are. If we go in a big group we might panic them and then they’d be gone before we could get one decent shot at them.’
    ‘But if we go alone we’ll have fewer chances of getting anything.’
    ‘More than a group would ever have. I know your shooting. You are the best in the Black Land.’
    Tutankhamun had trained himself to bite the metal of flattery to see if it was good. But coming from so experienced a hunter and charioteer as Sherybin, this was to be taken as a compliment without question.
    ‘We will leave word with one of the guards to say what direction we have taken,’ continued Sherybin, allaying the king’s other unspoken fear without being asked. ‘Come, if we delay we will miss our chance. They must be crossing the desert from oasis to oasis and they will not be caught in the open once the sun is high.’
    Convinced, the king rose, washing and dressing at speed, strapping on his leather armguard himself, and brushing aside the attentions of his body servant. He stepped out of the tent into the keen blue night and the cool silence of the desert. No one stirred, though not far from the encampment he was surprised to see his chariot ready harnessed, one of the trackers standing by the horses. Sherybin spoke swiftly and urgently to a guard as he came forward into the glow from the fire, and then helped the king on to the footplate of the chariot, where the right weapons were ranged ready. The long-limbed tracker ran ahead,