Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

  “Because you love horses so much?” I asked.

  “I rode before I could walk, as you know,” Thut said proudly, “and I’ve trained them for as long as I can remember. So that’s part of the reason.” He wiped sweat from his brow, for the day had grown hot. “But mostly because charioteers are the army’s elite.”

  “Do you suppose you’ll go to war soon?” I asked, a little fearfully.

  “Not until I’m fully trained, Mery. And the army doesn’t fight year round anyway – usually only during harvest months, so that we can pillage enemy crops and not have to carry all of our food with us. And anyway, Father hardly used the army, except at the beginning of his reign. No one threatens our borders right now.”

  I saw the fire in Thut’s eyes as he talked about his future. I was happy for him, that he knew exactly what he wanted and was putting himself in position to get it. But I was sad for myself. I lay my head against his shoulder, not caring who saw. “I’m going to miss you very much each and every day that we’re apart, Thut.”

  He put his arm around me. “I’ll miss you too, Mery. But I’ll still see you often enough. I’ll travel to Waset for festivals, and you’ll come to Mennefer for visits.”

  “But I won’t see you every day, like I always have,” I pouted.

  Suddenly Iset was at our side. Thut released me and I straightened and moved a step away. She glared at me, as she always did, then ignored me. “Thutmose, after we disembark, I will introduce you to the officials who will serve you in the North.” She pointed to the quay. “That’s Kenamun, both mayor of Mennefer and a royal butler.” She indicated a young man with a maat symbol on a chain around his neck in the midst of the crowd. “That’s Neferweben, vizier of Lower Kemet. He’s the son of Aametshu, the vizier who controls Upper Kemet from Waset and works alongside that woman.”

  I did not miss her disdainful reference to Hatshepsut.

  “Even so, you can trust him. In fact, you can rely on and trust all the advisors I’ve selected for you. And me, of course. I will be at your side from now on, wherever you go.” Her eyes narrowed. “But trust no official from Waset, Thutmose. They’ve helped the Regent split the kingdom in two. They don’t have your best interests at heart.” Iset gazed at Nefer, where she stood beside Hatshepsut amidships. “Nor your sister either, I fear. The sooner you two are married, and she’s out from under the influence of her mother, the better for you both.”

  With those cryptic words, Iset took Thut by the elbow and propelled him towards the gangplank. Thut looked at me over his shoulder and rolled his eyes as his mother dragged him away.

  ***

  Two days later, Senenmut took Nefer and I to visit Peru–nefer. I hardly slept the night before I was so excited. The harbor district was my favorite section of the city. Unbeknownst to anyone, every time I’d come to Mennefer in the past I’d managed to slip off by myself for half a day or so, wandering among its docks and warehouses and workshops, seeing their wonders. It was the one advantage I had as a commoner over Nefer and Thut. I could go anywhere I wanted in Kemet without being noticed. For them such a thing was virtually impossible.

  As always, Senenmut was enthusiastic about the opportunity to teach us. “I’ve wanted to visit the North with you on my own for a very long time, Nefer,” he said. “There’s no city like Mennefer in all the world. Today I’ll show it to you. And in the weeks that follow, we’ll visit Ta–mehi – the delta. And then every major town and temple along the river as we journey home. We’ll be traveling separately from your mother, so that we can take our time and explore. We’ll be gone for months. I’ll also spend the time teaching you about what lies beyond our borders. It is important that you know as much as possible about every aspect of this country, so that you can someday help your brother rule properly.”

  It was very early in the morning. The three of us had left the per’aa on foot, unaccompanied by guards, Nefer and I wearing dresses borrowed from serving girls, unadorned with jewels or finery so as not to draw attention to ourselves or mark Nefer as a royal. Senenmut wanted us to experience the city as its residents did, not disrupt it as we passed through. The truth was that I already knew the city so well I could have guided us to the harbor, but I kept that information to myself. I feared future restrictions on my movements if anyone found out.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Senenmut told Nefer, “for nowhere else in Kemet will you obtain a better sense of the world you live in. There’s no substitute for personal observation. Remember, Nefer – what you see with your own eyes best informs your mind.”

  We walked west into the city from the king’s per’aa, then worked our way south. Ptah’s temple dominated the skyline to our right, scarlet banners snapping from tall gold–tipped flagpoles before massive pylons at its front. The royal district was lush and green, the houses surrounded by walls and gardens, the streets broad and clean, lined with many trees and flowers and channels flowing with water. Once beyond it the majority of the greenery disappeared, the bright colors replaced by the drab brown and beige of mud brick. The dusty streets were laid out in a grid, teeming with people and animals, choked with refuse. We dodged donkeys burdened with sacks, women in ragged skirts herding half–naked children, porters bent nearly double under their loads, water carriers, craftsmen, finely–dressed merchants preceded by servants clearing a way for them through the crowd. Cats slunk in the shadows. The heat was intense and the smell incredible. I saw Nefer cover her nose with her sleeve.

  Senenmut reacted to the disdain in her eyes. “If not for people like these, Nefer, Mennefer would not exist,” he said. “If not for the farmers who make up most of the king’s subjects, no one in this city would eat. And without both, your family would not live in luxury.”

  “So, you’re saying the people of Kemet are layered like a pyramid, with officials at the very top, farmers at the base, and everyone else in the middle?” Nefer asked.

  “Exactly. And the higher you are on the pyramid, the fewer of you there are, and the more dependent you are on those below. That’s something that all who seek to rule should keep in mind.”

  Most of the mud–brick houses we passed were small, crammed closely together, multi–storied, with flat roofs providing additional living space. Senenmut pointed out a large cluster of houses surrounded by four high walls. “That district is inhabited by weavers. There’s another one not far away for potters, another for carpenters, more for other trades. Each district has its own specialized marketplace, where its people trade their products.” He pointed to a group of men with thick curled hair and aquiline noses and long pointed beards, gathered to the side of one intersection. “Bedouin from the desert,” Senenmut informed us. “No doubt they trade wine or dates.”

  There were wonders around every corner in Mennefer – great temples surrounded by walls and gardens and topped with banners, walls with brightly painted inscriptions, crowded markets where vendors sold baskets full of vegetables and fruit and fish and dates, streets nearly covered with cloth that had been unrolled by weavers trying to entice buyers, barbers and manicurists and pedicurists and hundreds of others plying their trades in the shade of walls or the doorways of their homes, calling out to Nefer and Senenmut and me to sample their wares, fragrant and exotic and familiar and horrible smells, trees, small canals, crying children, braying donkeys, the noise and bustle of hundreds of thousands of people going about their lives. Everywhere we went men and boys stared at Nefer. That happened whenever she appeared in public, for she was beautiful and seemed to grow more so every day. But Senenmut kept close to her and none dared approach.

  About midday we reached the southernmost of the two east–west canals that joined the river to the canal that ran north–south along the western edge of the city. A small boat manned by royal guards was waiting to ferry us to the south bank of the canal, where towered the mud–brick warehouses of the massive trade district. The canal bisected a huge rectangular harbor a little west of the river that was thick with docks, cram
med with trading vessels of all sizes and shapes and nationalities. South of the canal I noted the villas of the elite and high officials.

  “The walls around the villas hide gardens and pools,” Senenmut told us as we disembarked.

  That part of the city seemed less packed and more orderly and clean to me than the part we had just traversed. Senenmut stopped at the stand of a vendor and obtained bread and onions and beer. We perched atop sacks of emmer at the side of one of the docks, and ate and observed what was happening around us.

  Thousands of men, many strangely dressed, their hairstyles unusual, were hauling leather and reed baskets and earthenware jars and wooden boxes full of goods from the boats into a plethora of warehouses, or from warehouses onto the boats. Boats were continually entering the canal from the river, those from the north quickly lowering their sails and poling into any space along the docks being vacated by a departing merchant. The noise was almost deafening – the barked orders of ships’ captains and overseers, the cries of merchants, the grunts of porters heaving their burdens, the shouts of vendors. Exotic smells drifted on the breeze, and a babble of tongues.

  “How fares your family, Senenmut?” Nefer asked as she munched an onion.

  “Well, thank you,” he answered.

  “Do they still reside in Iuny? Your brothers Pairy and Minhotep and Amenemhat, and your sisters Ahhotep and Nefrethor, and your father Ramose, and your mother Hatnufer?”

  “Yes, Majesty. Perhaps we’ll stop at Iuny on our return to Waset and visit them,” Senenmut said. “But first, in the morning we’re going to leave Mennefer for Ta–mehi. There’s much for you to learn about the plants and wildlife and geography of Lower Kemet.”

  “Will we go as far as the Great Green?” Nefer asked.

  “Most assuredly, Majesty.”

  “I’ve long wished to see it.”

  I noticed a woman eyeing us from a few paces away on the deck of the closest merchant vessel. She was older than me – she looked eighteen or so – and taller than average. The boat was a poor one, battered and unpainted, by its design likely from Retenu. The girl matched its condition – filthy, skirt ragged and torn, so scrawny I could count her ribs. Her dark brown hair was long and tangled and unwashed. “Are you hungry?” I asked in what I expected was her tongue. I held out my piece of bread.

  “You speak other languages, Mery?” Senenmut asked, surprised.

  “A passable amount of several,” I replied. I’d put my hours spent around the docks at Mennefer and Waset to good use.

  “Mery’s being modest,” Nefer laughed. “She struggles to keep up with me in my studies, as you can attest, but she picks up languages like a native. And she knows more than just a ‘passable amount.’”

  “Why haven’t I discovered this before now?” Senenmut asked.

  “There’s no reason to speak any language but our own in the harem,” I replied.

  The girl cautiously surveyed the deck of her boat. Certain no one was watching, she stepped onto its railing, then lightly dropped onto the quay. She approached me timidly, as if she was uncertain of what I might do to her. She seized the proffered bread and ripped into it hungrily with white, even teeth. After a few bites she looked at me with gratitude. Her eyes were dark and compelling. The bread was gone an instant later.

  “Sit,” I said, and after a moment’s hesitation she moved to the sack beside me. I handed her my cup of beer and she drained it thirstily. “I’m Meryetneith. You can call me Mery,” I said. “This is Neferure, and this is Senenmut.”

  “I am Aachel.” She nodded respectfully to each of us.

  “You’re from Retenu?”

  “We call it Canaan,” she replied. “I was raised in Yehem, a village south of Megiddo, which is a very large and important town.”

  I told Senenmut and Nefer what Aachel had said. I handed her an onion and she bit into it immediately. She’d clearly been starving.

  “Is the merchant your father?” I asked, indicating the vessel.

  Aachel spat. “I was taken by bandits ten years ago, in the mountains near my home. My master bought me from them. He’s from Yapu, a great walled city with a harbor, right on the coast.” She paused. “I see to his comfort.”

  I didn’t dare ask what kind of comfort Aachel was forced to provide. It was obvious. I filled the others in on what she had told me.

  A shadow suddenly loomed over us. “Get back on my boat!” A man cuffed Aachel on the side of the head and she tumbled to the dock with a pitiful cry. He kicked her in the ribs as she tried to rise. She cried out again.

  I was immediately on my feet, Senenmut beside me. “Leave her alone!” I commanded.

  I guessed him to be the merchant who owned the boat, the man Aachel had called her master. He sneered. He was missing several teeth. Despite the heat he was dressed in a dirty cloak, belted around his waist. He had a hat on his head. A thin beard framed his chin and a mustache drooped below his nose and his hair was long and curled. “She doesn’t concern you. She’s mine to do with as I please.” He kicked her viciously once more.

  In a flash Senenmut pinned the merchant against a stack of boxes, pressed his dagger against the man’s throat, seized the man’s hair with his free hand to control him. The merchant struggled to get free, spluttered angrily, pulled fruitlessly at Senenmut’s hand. I saw faces peering at us curiously from the dock and nearby boats. I noted laborers rushing towards the commotion to see what was going on. Aachel sprawled at the merchant’s feet, her eyes wide with terror.

  I moved forward and leaned close and whispered in the merchant’s ear. “My companion is Neferure, daughter of the great king Aakheperenre and his wife, Regent Hatshepsut. She is sister of the great king Menkheperre.” I indicated the crowd that had gathered. “One word from her and you’re dead. And your whole crew with you, if it comes to that. Do you understand?”

  The merchant’s eyes darted between Senenmut and me and Nefer, scanned the deck of his vessel. His handful of men stood there as if frozen. None seemed inclined to come to his aid. “Yes,” he hissed through clenched teeth. Sweat was suddenly beading on his brow.

  “Get back on your boat. Leave immediately. Never return to Kemet. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aachel is forfeit. Go!” I addressed Senenmut. “Release him.”

  Senenmut shoved the merchant, hard, then stepped back.

  The merchant took one look around, then hurried onto his boat and started barking commands.

  I bent and helped Aachel to her feet. Her cheeks were wet with tears and I hugged her close. “You’re safe now,” I said soothingly.

  She trembled against me. She was half a head taller. Her eyes were locked on the merchant’s vessel. She was not convinced she was free.

  “You’re coming to live with Nefer and me,” I told her. I turned to Senenmut. “Looks like Nefer and I now have a tutor to teach us more fully the language of Retenu.”

  The crowd on the quay began to dissipate. Ten minutes later the merchant’s vessel was underway, his boat nosing into the canal and heading towards the river. Once it entered the wide channel, Senenmut and Nefer and Aachel and I moved from the quay onto the street lined with warehouses. Not for an instant did Aachel let go of my hand. She was still trembling, not yet believing she had just shed her old life.

  “Peru–Nefer is the crossroads of the world,” Senenmut told Nefer and me. “Our emmer and gold and other products flow from here south to Wawat and Kush and north and east to Setjet and Retenu and Naharina and the lands beyond – by boat on the sea and river, by caravan across the desert. The goods of those lands are carried to us here. Everything useful and wonderful in the world passes through this district at one time or another.”

  Senenmut led us into the nearest warehouse. It, and the rest we visited that afternoon, was cavernous, of mud–brick, its walls high, goods stored in mud–brick lined pits and great pottery jars set in storage cellars, and stacked from floor to ceiling in rush and leather bas
kets. I’d never seen such a variety of items: knives, arrowheads, grinding palettes, malachite and hematite pigment stones, copper tools, shell ornaments, beads, wooden containers, polished jars, amulets, spices, olive oil, tanned leather, cedar, natron, copper, obsidian, jewelry, emmer, gold, amethyst, alabaster, ebony, ivory, incense, perfume, skins of lions and leopards, ostrich feathers, dates, wine.

  “The raw materials in these warehouses are distributed to craftsmen throughout Kemet, who all work for the king,” Senenmut explained. “They labor in workshops under the watchful eyes of master craftsmen. Many of those workshops are here in Mennefer, many are in Waset, many are in the larger towns and cities along the river. Since the time of the first king, Horus–Narmer, craftsmen have created items in a style approved by the king, following conventions that now reach back a millennium and a half. Every item tells the common people a story in a manner defined by the king.”

  “And the emmer and wine and other food?” I asked.

  “All of it is the tax paid by farmers, since the king owns both the land and crops of Kemet,” Senenmut replied. “What the king needs to ensure his people are well–fed is stored in granaries throughout the land, and distributed by the king’s officials from state granaries and by priests from temple storehouses. The emmer in these warehouses is surplus and will be exported to other lands.”

  “Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet taught me that the state granaries protect the land from famine,” Nefer volunteered.

  “He is correct. There are Nilometers the length of the river that measure the height of the inundation each year. Knowing that height, officials can predict if the harvest will be large or small and plan accordingly.”

  “Ahmose told me that the kings have tamed the river.”

  Senenmut laughed. “I don’t think the river will ever be fully tamed, Nefer, but we have learned to control it, at least a little. Before the first kings, the river wandered where it would each year. Sometimes the inundation deposited rich soil all the way to the edge of the desert; sometimes it bypassed sections of riverbank entirely, leaving tangled masses of brush and marsh that served as homes for crocodiles and wild cats and hippopotami and other vicious beasts. Towns sprung up only in locations where the inundation was reliable enough for the land to support agriculture, leaving many stretches along the river vacant and unutilized. But generations before Horus–Narmer unified the Two Lands, the chieftains and local kings of Upper Kemet began to dig irrigation ditches to carry water closer to the desert’s edge, and dikes along the riverbanks to keep precious water from flowing back into the river, and huge basins to store it in for use during the long hot dry months. Over the course of hundreds of years, our ancestors expanded that network of dikes and ditches and basins to reclaim ever more land, and learned to use the network to grow several crops each year. That transformed the river valley into the world’s breadbasket. Never forget, Nefer – emmer is the true wealth of Kemet.”