Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

  “So, to preserve Kemet, we must act,” Vizier Aametshu said decisively, eyeing the others. “We are agreed?”

  One by one, they answered in the affirmative.

  Only I, it seemed, had any doubts. And no one cared what I thought.

  ***

  A fan bearer swished brown and white ostrich feathers back and forth behind Nefer. The feathers were fastened in a gold lotus flower–shaped base atop a long wooden shaft. Senenmut and Nefer and Aachel and I were standing in the shade of one of the half–dozen stone kiosks that lined the three–mile long processional way between Ipet–Isut and Ipet–resyt – the Southern Sanctuary. Hatshepsut had erected that small stone shrine to serve as the birth house of Amun, specifically for this Opet ceremony. Even in the shade it was brutally hot, and I was sweating. The priests who had been carrying the wooden sled upon which rested the barque containing the shrine concealing statues of Amun and Mut and Khonsu were inside the kiosk, downing beer and bread. The sled and its contents were heavy and this was their third rest stop so far.

  Celebrants were strung out for quite a distance to the north behind us on the broad processional way that Hatshepsut had constructed. Just behind us was Isheru, the small sacred lake that wrapped around the southern half of Mut’s mud–brick temple, just south of Ipet–Isut. To the west of the processional way was a narrow strip of land bordered by the river, to its east the jumbled warren of low mud–brick houses that comprised Waset. Gardens dotted with small pools and groves of palms separated the path from both town and river. Senenmut had told me that sphinxes with Hatshepsut’s head and the body of a lion were to be carved from stone brought to Waset from the quarries at Swenet; some day one hundred would edge each side of the path, marking the entire route.

  Chantresses and priests were clustered around the kiosk in the hot sun, waiting for the signal to resume. Hatshepsut had built this kiosk as well as the others. Waset’s residents and local farmers stood five and six deep behind the gardens on both sides of the path, all the way from the northern temple to the southern, observing. Now that the annual inundation had reached Waset, farmers would not be able to attend to their flooded fields for several months, and so were at liberty to participate in the Opet. The river had overflowed its banks and now filled the valley, heavy with blood–red dirt, flowing much faster than usual, reaching all the way to the edges of the desert on both east and west, the cultivated strips submerged beneath it, isolated groves of palms rising from the waters, wavily reflected there. The river was crowded with small boats, most made of reeds, a few of short lengths of wood skillfully cobbled together, each full of spectators, each being rowed, each matching its speed to that of the procession on land. Many men and women and children watched from the flat roofs of Waset’s houses, some of two stories, some just one, lending the town a jagged appearance. Most of the children were naked, the women in skirts, the men in kilts.

  Opener of the Gate of Heaven Hapuseneb gave a signal and the shrine bearers – half wearing jackal masks, half falcons – lifted the sled, which had a pole along the base of each side, to their shoulders. They carried it from the kiosk onto the path. Second prophets Puyemre and Mahu and the lesser Amun priests led the way. I recognized Hori in their midst. I noticed that Aachel hardly took her eyes off him. Statues of Amun and Khonsu and Mut rested within a shrine on the barque atop the sled, each swathed in linen, bedecked with garlands of flowers, shielded from the view of the common people, who were never allowed to gaze upon the gods. The white–skirted chantresses began to play crotal bells and sistrums and small drums and shake their menat necklaces, the priests to swing gold containers of burning incense. Hatshepsut, wearing a white linen dress and many jewels and the regalia of God’s Wife of Amun, carrying the broad–bladed symbol of her office, fell in line behind the high priest, flanked by her fan and sandal bearers. Iset, wearing the vulture crown of a king’s wife with its tall white plumes, moved behind Hatshepsut. Nefer followed after them, with Aachel and me at her side.

  I nudged Nefer in the ribs and indicated a group of boys and younger men, from their dress the sons of officials, lining the path across from us. “They were staring at you the whole time we waited at the kiosk. And rightly so. You already put your mother to shame, Nefer. You’re stunning. You’re the most beautiful girl in the kingdom. Don’t you agree, Aachel?”

  “I do. But they were staring at you too, Mery.”

  I blushed.

  Nefer giggled. “We can all three do better.”

  “You, certainly. You’re going to marry Thut,” I replied. “And Aachel’s going to marry Hori.”

  “Mery!” Aachel exclaimed, flushing bright red. But I noted that she didn’t make any effort to deny it.

  “But as for me, well, Nefer, I’m not the daughter of a king,” I said.

  “But you’ll always be my friend.” Nefer grasped my hand. “I’ll find you a suitable match, Mery. I promise.” She leaned close, whispered. “And as far as me and Thut ever being married… your guess is as good as mine after what was decided yesterday.”

  Uneasily, I reflected that Nefer was probably right. Her future relationship with Thut was very uncertain now. Which meant my future with him was uncertain. He was the man I wanted for my husband. It was obvious to me that Hatshepsut seizing the throne was going to complicate the plan for Thut and me that he’d so carefully thought out. Our marriage hinged completely on Nefer marrying Thut. But once Hatshepsut took the throne, would he still do so? Would his advisors and mother let him? Would Hatshepsut let Nefer? Or would battle lines be drawn and war declared between the two kings? If so, I would have to make a choice between Nefer and Thut. I loved Nefer like a sister. But things had changed between us, from my perspective at least, since the cataract. I loved Thut too, in a way I had never imagined I would, just as deeply as I loved Nefer. A sword was dangling over my head, put there by Hatshepsut and her advisors, and how it fell would determine my fate.

  Senenmut moved beside us. He bent towards Nefer, his voice low. “Child, your life, and your mother’s, and the king’s, are going to be very different after today.”

  That could only mean one thing. “Hatshepsut’s going to seize the kingship today?” I couldn’t keep the shock from my voice. “So soon?”

  Aachel regarded me curiously. Neither Nefer nor I had told her about what had happened in the audience hall.

  “Keep your voice down!” Senenmut hissed at me, indicating Iset a short distance ahead of us. “Not seize. Be proclaimed. By the Oracle of Amun.”

  “How do you know this, Senenmut – what the Oracle will say – and that he’ll say it – before it happens?” Nefer asked.

  “It’s been arranged in advance.”

  So the conspirators had left nothing to chance. “Arranged by Hapuseneb?”

  “And myself. And others. I’m telling you this because you need to be prepared.”

  My worst nightmare was coming true. The plot discussed yesterday had come to fruition. Nefer was going to be pitted against Thut. I’d lain awake all night, thinking about what had happened in the audience hall of the per’aa. I’d prayed that the plan would fall apart, that everyone involved would come to their senses overnight and let it die. I’d even considered sending a messenger to warn Thut about what was about to happen. I felt if I didn’t I’d be as guilty as those who had actively plotted to take away his throne. Though, realistically, had I somehow been able to send a messenger, he’d be only a few hours into his journey right now, too late to do any good. And besides, I had no authority to send anyone on an errand such as that. Still, I feared that someday Thut would find out who had been involved in the plot – and that I had known of it and done nothing – and that he would be powerful enough to make all of us pay, both for what we’d done and for what we’d failed to do. I whispered a prayer that when that day came he would have mercy on me. I did not expect his forgiveness.

  We reached the small stone shrine at the southern end of the processional way. The barque beare
rs and the rest of the officials paused in the courtyard before its entrance. Hatshepsut had replaced a much older mud–brick shrine just three years earlier with this structure and renamed it “Ipet–resyt.” Musicians and singers awaited us there, all women, all in skirts of white or blue or yellow, their hair unbound, gold girdles around their waists. The shrine was dedicated to the cult of the royal ka, the element of the king’s nature that joined him to the gods and all of his royal ancestors. For while each of us had a ka, Senenmut had taught me, there was also a single royal ka, one that passed from king to king as each took his throne, starting with Horus–Narmer and now residing within Thut. The shrine’s brightly painted walls and columns were carved with images of Amun and scenes of the Opet Festival. Within the shrine, I knew, was a birth house built especially for the Opet where the king retired during the ceremony for several hours to be joined with Amun; during that time both were symbolically reborn and restored. Thut had done so twice before; today, obviously, Hatshepsut would take his place in the birth house.

  Thousands of people who had lined the processional way and who had now hurried ashore from the boats on the river swarmed closely around us on three sides, so that it seemed we were an island in the midst of a sea. At a signal from Mahu, the musicians next to the shrine’s outer wall began to play drums and lyres and guitars and tambourines and flutes and pipes and cymbals. Dancers swirled into a small unoccupied space before the shrine’s door in time to the music, stirring up the dust. They were all young, some dressed in opaque skirts, some wearing only colorful girdles, some nothing, their hair long, eyes and lips and cheeks colored, feet bare. The red and green and blue faience beads they’d fastened to the ends of their hair and on cords around their waists rattled in time to their acrobatic movements.

  “Your mother and Hapuseneb and the barque bearers will enter the shrine alone,” Senenmut told Nefer. “The Regent will complete a circuit around the inside walls to honor Amun–Min, the aspect of Amun associated with fertility, and then present offerings to Amun–Re. She’ll receive the Blue Crown from that god. Then Hatshepsut and the gods’ barque will enter the sanctuary itself, where your mother will offer consecrated meat before Amun’s statue. Then she’ll pour libations and burn incense for the god, becoming divinized and young again. She’ll then be ritually crowned with the Red and White crowns by Hapuseneb and emerge from the dark sanctuary to be greeted by the people, who will celebrate her renewal, and Kemet’s.”

  As soon as the dignitaries entered the shrine, Senenmut and Nefer and Aachel and I took seats on leather–bottomed chairs in the shade of a pavilion to one side of the courtyard. A fan bearer stood directly behind us. The rest of the officials were not so lucky, milling about restlessly in the hot sun before the temple. Hori, I noted, was among the lucky few able to take shelter in the shade of the temple wall. From the riverbank some fifty yards to the west rose the cries of vendors selling food and trinkets; from the number of people gathered around them they appeared to be doing a brisk business. Others were already taking advantage of the free bread and beer being supplied by Hatshepsut, pushing and shoving to get their share, their shouts raucous. Small boats beyond counting bobbed along the shore nearby. The pennants atop poles before the shrine’s entrance hung limply, for there was virtually no breeze.

  After a moment Iset joined us, took the seat on my left, pointedly ignored Senenmut. She’d returned to Waset from Mennefer specifically for the Opet. No doubt being here had given her an excellent opportunity to question whatever spies she employed in the southern capital. I wondered if they’d learned of Hatshepsut’s plan and reported it to her, though if they had I doubted she’d be acting so calmly. Her fan bearer took his station directly behind her. We all settled down to what I expected would be a long wait. Serving girls brought each of us a cup of wine. As Iset sipped her drink I leaned close.

  “Those are beautiful bracelets,” I told her, trying to make conversation. They were gold, inlaid with carnelian. Three decorated each wrist.

  “Thutmose gave them to me for my thirtieth birthday, just before he left for the South,” she said pleasantly.

  “You must be very proud of him, Majesty, now that he’s a captain among the charioteers.”

  “How did you know?” She sounded surprised.

  “He told me when we were together at the cataract a month ago.”

  “What were you doing there?” Iset’s voice was suspicious.

  “Bringing back the obelisks that are being raised at Ipet–Isut. Our journeys coincided.”

  “Thutmose is a marvelous sight,” Iset said, pride in her voice, “pounding across the desert, the sun gleaming on his bronze helmet, red and green streamers trailing behind.”

  “I rode with him in his chariot last year,” I told her proudly. “He let me drive it, too.”

  Iset looked at me disapprovingly. “Isn’t that kind of thing better left to men?” she asked. “That was always the problem with you, Meryetneith – not only did you not know your place, you thought you could do whatever my son did.”

  I thought back on the shooting contest at Swenet. “I still do, Majesty,” I said cheerfully.

  “I’m sorry my brother is missing the Opet,” Nefer interrupted, no doubt trying to defuse an exchange that appeared to be heading towards dangerous ground.

  “He has to attend to his duty in the South. So I’ve come to represent him.” Iset looked at Nefer sideways. “Which you would be doing instead of me if you were his wife.”

  “Something I desire above all else,” Nefer assured her pleasantly.

  “Hmph. Two years more and Thutmose will sit the throne without a regent, and then you will belong to him.” Iset lifted her cup to her lips and turned from us.

  I shifted my attention to the festivities. Senenmut was watching everything that was going on between shrine and river, his brow slightly furrowed. Aachel was watching Hori and he was watching her. Nefer had fallen silent, her eyes sweeping the crowd around us, occasionally smiling at some courtier she knew. I was soon lost in my own thoughts, afraid, knowing what was going to happen when Hatshepsut exited the shrine, knowing that Nefer’s and Thut’s and my world and life were about to change, probably in ways I couldn’t even imagine.

  After nearly two hours Hatshepsut and Hapuseneb reappeared, the ceremonies within the shrine complete. She now wore Sekhemti, the combined Red and White crowns. I heard the sharp intake of Iset’s breath, her muttered “how dare she!” The waiting crowd greeted Hatshepsut with a roar. That the common people of Waset and the gathered officials and courtiers loved her was evident, their enthusiasm no doubt fueled by two hours of free beer. Iset rose from her chair and headed towards Hatshepsut. Was she actually going to confront her in front of all these people?

  Senenmut leaned close to Nefer and indicated Hatshepsut standing regally in the shrine’s doorway. “Remember the inscription your father wrote about your mother on the wall in the per’aa? ‘To look upon her was more beautiful than anything; her splendor and her form were divine; she was a maiden, beautiful and blooming.’ It’s true. Your mother is a spectacularly beautiful woman.”

  I’d never heard Senenmut speak so familiarly about Hatshepsut. Yesterday I’d seen devotion in his eyes when he gave her his support. Now I was certain he loved her. And all those titles she’d given him proved to me that his feelings were reciprocated. When Hatshepsut became king would she take Senenmut to husband, take him from Nefer, as she was taking Thut’s throne from him? Suddenly, resentment spilled from me.

  Just then a priest rushed out of the doorway and into the open space before the shrine a few paces from Hatshepsut and Hapuseneb. Iset froze in her tracks a few paces away.

  “The Oracle of Amun,” Nefer whispered to me. “And so it begins.”

  The oracle’s eyes were wild, his arms flailing, as if he were in some kind of trance. “Behold!” he cried in a voice that silenced the vast crowd. “I speak as Amun, chief of the gods, has commanded, just now, in his name, conce
rning his beloved daughter, Khnemet–Amun Hatshepsut.”

  “Amun speaks!” someone called from the mass of people. I recognized him, a butler in the per’aa. I wondered if Hatshepsut and Senenmut had planted people in the crowd to stir them up in support of Hatshepsut.

  “‘Come to me,’ says Amun,” the Oracle continued, thrashing about, kicking up dust, his robe swirling, “‘you dignitaries of the king, nobles, companions, officers of the court, chief of the people, that you may do homage, that you may set the person of my daughter before me in my per’aa.’” He pointed to Hatshepsut. “‘I say to you – this is my daughter, Khnemet–Amun Hatshepsut – who lives. I have appointed her as my successor upon my throne. Assuredly it is she who will sit upon my wonderful seat. She will command the people in every place in the land. She will command you, and you will proclaim her word. You will be united at her command.’” Then the oracle sank to the ground, apparently overcome by his contact with the god.

  “Amun’s words are clear,” Hapuseneb called in stentorian voice, feigning surprise, raising both arms into the air. “He has appointed Hatshepsut to be king of the Two Lands, equal to her nephew Menkheperre – life, prosperity, health.”