Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

Surveying the quay, Senenmut loudly praised Hatshepsut for the success of her mission. The gathered officials echoed him.

  “As my father Amun promised.” Hatshepsut swept her eyes across the goods. “Tomorrow we shall all worship at his temple in Ipet–Isut,” she announced. “I will bestow the best of these fruits on Amun there, in thanksgiving.”

  ***

  “In a few days, once I’ve rested, I intend to go north to inspect Amun’s estates,” Nefer casually told Hatshepsut as we strolled towards the per’aa after the ceremony. “I need to see what’s changed in the past nine months.”

  We’d practiced the story over and over on the trip back as cover for going to Thut.

  “I’ve kept my eye on things,” Senenmut told Nefer. “I can assure you, all of Amun’s domain is in order.”

  “Still, you’re the one who told me years ago that I should trust my own eyes,” Nefer replied. “It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.”

  Senenmut laughed. “So I did.”

  Hatshepsut put an arm around Nefer’s shoulders. “Wait a few days, at least. I want to hear all about your trip. I’ve missed you so much. I hardly recognize you anymore. You’ve grown even more beautiful. You’re taller, I think. You seem so happy. I can’t give you up so soon.” She kissed Nefer’s brow. Her voice became serious. “Besides, you need to get caught up on everything that’s happened in the Two Lands while you were gone.”

  “That sounds ominous,” Nefer said. “There hasn’t been trouble with the Nine Bows again, has there? Surely the Nubians haven’t rebelled.”

  Hatshepsut stopped dead in the path and the rest of us along with her. She turned to face Nefer. “Your brother took two brides while you were gone – Sitiah and Nebtu are their names, daughters of courtiers at Mennefer. Sitiah is eighteen, Nebtu a year younger.”

  “No!” Nefer raised her hand to her lips.

  I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach. This couldn’t be happening. What Nefer and I had planned on the way to Punt, the salvation of maat in the Two Lands, their marriage – my marriage, the realization of my dream – was gone, just like that. Oh, Thut! I thought, anguished. How could you? You know this ends our chance to be together. Don’t you love me anymore? Did Iset convince you Nefer had something to do with taking your throne? Did she convince you I did?

  “He’s been active in his bedchamber,” Hatshepsut continued. “Sitiah has already given him a daughter – Nefertiry – born a week ago. Iset is furious because the child isn’t a boy, or so my informants tell me. Now she’s counting on Nebtu to deliver a son. She’s pregnant too. We’ll know in a couple of months.”

  One look in Nefer’s eyes told me that her dream of being Thut’s Great Wife, of their child ruling the Two Lands after them, was dead. “Why now, Mother?” Nefer asked calmly, giving no hint of the devastation she must surely be feeling. “Why did he marry them now?”

  “Iset’s doing, no doubt,” Hatshepsut said. “You’re my heir. You’ll succeed me some day. She knows that. You’re old enough to marry and have a son to perpetuate our line. She probably assumed that you’d take a husband as soon as you returned from Punt, so she wanted a grandson of her own to outrank one you might produce, before you had the chance.”

  “Are you telling me the Two Lands are now permanently divided?” Nefer asked.

  “No. Thutmose and I remain equal,” Hatshepsut said. “But Thutmose does love playing at soldier. If he dies in battle the throne will become mine alone, because of my pure blood, and then yours after me. Iset seeks to confuse the issue by raising up a male heir to Thutmose. If something happens to Thutmose, she’ll argue that his heir is the new king, with her as its regent, of course. Then the Two Lands really will be divided, and likely at war – his heir and Iset against me, or you. We’ll have the bureaucrats and priests behind us for sure. The army? Anyone’s guess.”

  ***

  Nefer and I talked deep into that night, back once more in our old familiar quarters. The optimism with which we’d awakened that morning on the last day of our journey from Punt had died on the path to the per’aa. Aachel was absent, with Hori, already sharing his bed.

  “What now?” Nefer asked, more calmly than I’d expected.

  “You could still go to Mennefer and marry Thut,” I said, desperately clinging to the faintest of hopes that disaster could be averted. “He doesn’t have a son yet. Maybe its not too late.”

  “But if this Nebtu gives him one, what then?” she asked. “Nebtu would be his Great Wife. Her son would be Thutmose’s heir.”

  That Nefer had referred to Thut formally was chilling. Her calm demeanor must be cloaking a bitter anger at his betrayal, I thought.

  “Nefer, we always knew Thut would take several wives,” I pointed out. “Even if one gives him a son before you, only yours will be of pure blood. Don’t you think he’d make him the heir, even if he isn’t born first?”

  “And what if he doesn’t, Mery? I’d be relegated to third wife – maybe second, if he’d put Sitiah behind me. I’d no longer have a chance of being the mother of a king. I’d no longer be God’s Wife of Amun. I’d probably never see my mother again. Do you think she’d stand for such a betrayal?”

  “But if Nebtu gives him a daughter?” I pressed. “Thut would make you his Great Wife in a heartbeat. You’d still have the chance to be the mother of the king. I know it’s a gamble, Nefer, but…”

  “He could make me Great Wife now, and I could fail to give him a male heir, and either of the others could, and then I’d be nothing. They’d take my place, Mery. I’d spend my life in his harem, making linens or some such, while his primary wife traveled the river with him, seated on a throne at his side. All my talents, all my knowledge, locked away, wasted.” Nefer sighed deeply. “It seems to me the odds of both being married to Thutmose and being a king’s mother are stacked against me. Don’t you agree.”

  There was no use denying the obvious. “Yes.”

  “So, if I am to be the mother of a king, Thutmose will not be its father,” Nefer said.

  “You’ll marry someone else, then?” I asked, surrendering to the inevitable.

  “Thutmose has given me no choice,” she said, her voice suddenly hard. “Don’t ever forget, Mery – this is his doing! I was prepared to go against my mother, give her up, even give up my post as God’s Wife now and the throne later, just for the chance to bear his heir. He made that impossible.”

  I couldn’t begin to wrap my mind around what had happened, how our plan had disintegrated so quickly and completely. “What now?”

  “Now I will embrace the plan Mother has for me,” Nefer said, all doubt gone from her voice. She’d already faced facts, adjusted herself to a new future, something I was struggling to do. “I accept that I am Mother’s heir. I’ll succeed her as king. Someday, I’ll have a son or daughter who will follow me on the throne. There’s no other way for my line to survive.”

  And so someday you’ll have to fight Thut, and he has an army and you don’t, and you’ll lose, and you’ll either be dead or imprisoned and I’ll be separated from both you and Thut forever. I had gambled at Mentuhotep’s temple and again at the cataract, putting Thut off, choosing Nefer over him, setting my own happiness aside for hers, and I had lost. They would never be married, never rule the Two Lands together, never have a child. And so I’d never be Thut’s wife. I’d thrown my lot in with Nefer, abandoned Thut, and now I faced the consequences – a life of emptiness and loneliness and longing for what I could have had, but now never would.

  1467 BC

  Regnal Year 13 – Thutmose III; Regnal Year 6 – Hatshepsut

  Hori gazed at the lightening sky in the east. “Its time, Majesty.”

  Nefer moved from my side along the partially–constructed wall of the Per’aa of Maat that Hatshepsut was erecting in the courtyard just west of Senwosret’s Temple of Amun in Ipet–Isut. The wall was currently waist–high; when finished, the roofed per’aa and its many rooms would fill the entire space once
occupied by Amenhotep’s calcite chapel and the courtyards to its north and south. Hatshepsut had recently moved that chapel some distance south of the walled portion of the temple complex, close by a new pylon she was erecting across the processional way she’d established between Ipet–Isut and Ipet–resyt. That pylon was the first on a new north–south axis she was creating in Ipet–Isut, perpendicular to its original east–west orientation. She’d replaced the calcite chapel with a beautiful chapel of red quartzite; its entrance was aligned with the western wall of the Per’aa of Maat. Once that structure was complete, the Red Chapel would be entirely enclosed within it.

  Nefer glanced upward. Re was about to break the horizon. He’d washed the last of the stars from the sky. She nodded, sniffed the air. “It promises to be a glorious first day for the Beautiful Feast of the Valley.” She was dressed as God’s Wife of Amun, and Hori in his priestly garb. I wore a simple linen shift, my Hathor amulet, and gold earrings and bracelets, and anklets inlaid with carnelian.

  The revived Beautiful Feast celebrated Hathor of the West, protector of the realm of the dead. Today, for the very first time, statues of Amun, Mut and Khonsu would be carried from Ipet–Isut and transported across the river to the partially–constructed Djeser Djeseru and the new shrine to Hathor located there. Several priests followed Hori and Nefer and I towards the Red Chapel. All wore masks – half jackals, half falcons. Their job today was to bear Amun’s barque from temple to boat to temple and back again.

  I glanced at the Red Chapel’s decorated walls in the flickering torchlight. I saw Nefer’s image beside hieroglyphs spelling out her title as God’s Wife of Amun. She was featured in many scenes – with a male priest ritually destroying the names of Kemet’s enemies, worshiping gods, being purified in a sacred lake, following Hatshepsut into the sanctuary. I noted images of the obelisks Nefer and I had transported from the first cataract to Waset, then glanced over my shoulder at their actual golden tips, rising high above the pylons west of this very court. On the carved block of stone was an image of Hatshepsut dedicating them. I pointed. “Has it been six years already, Nefer?” I asked.

  It hardly seemed possible. Those years had passed at blinding speed. Nefer was twenty–one now, no longer the young regent’s daughter who had traveled the river to help perform the sacred ceremonies at the cataract, but God’s Wife of Amun and King’s Great Wife and king’s heir. My life was much the same, but Aachel had been a wife for two years now and a mother for one. She still ran Nefer’s household by day, her daughter Amunet cared for in Hatshepsut’s harem along with the children of officials; her nights were spent with Hori. She remained Nefer’s and my closest friend and confidant. She’d never once even hinted to Nefer of the secret I’d revealed on the journey to Punt; somehow, she always managed to sense when I was missing Thut the most and appeared in my room to cheer me up and dry my tears, especially those times I questioned how Thut could have married others instead of Nefer if he truly loved me. I envied Aachel, that she was wife to a man who couldn’t live without her.

  As for Thut, I hadn’t seen him even once in the past five years, not since the expedition to Buhen. Much had changed with him too, from what I’d heard. He was, at twenty–two, in command of an entire wing of charioteers, and had led his men on several expeditions into the eastern and western deserts to protect miners and caravans from attack by Bedouin. When not in the field he resided at Mennefer, overseeing affairs in the North and communicating with Hatshepsut at long distance. Mennefer had supposedly grown even larger, the harbor district more extensive, Ptah’s temple more magnificent. Thut’s family was growing too. Nebtu’s child had been stillborn and she hadn’t gotten pregnant since, so Thut had taken a third wife, Meryetre–Hatshepsut, daughter of Huy, an adoratrix in Amun’s temple who was known to both Nefer and me; their daughter Meryetamun was half a year old now. A few weeks before her birth, Sitiah had given Thut a son and heir to go along with their daughter – Amenemhat. He was reported to be thriving. Iset had, by all accounts, been ecstatic, seeing in Amenemhat the perpetuation of her son’s line. Nefer had met that news in silence; she had spoken to almost no one, including me, for several days thereafter. I sensed that somewhere deep in her heart she had clung to the faint hope of someday bearing Thut’s heir, even though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Amenemhat’s birth had killed that hope for all time. For Nefer, there was now no backing down from the path she had embarked on.

  As for me, I still dreamed of Thut. I couldn’t help it. I still loved him, craved him, even after what he’d done. I had no idea if he still thought about me after so many years apart, or even cared for me anymore. With three wives sharing his bed, I doubted he remembered our time at the cataract, or even how we’d felt about each other then. The love that had once burned so hot for him felt, sometimes, when I was depressed, like nothing more than banked coals. I missed him very much, but I’d accepted we’d never be together and had tried to move on. I’d had my share of suitors these past years and had spent many pleasant hours with them at festivals or in the garden or sailing the river, but none ever measured up to Thut, and so I never seriously considered marrying any of them. I wasn’t about to settle for someone just for the sake of being married. Being a wife, after all, was not my ambition in life. Being Thut’s wife was. Nefer, too, was literally surrounded by men almost all the time; as heir to Hatshepsut’s throne she was the most eligible young woman in the entire world, and drew attention from men of many lands. But she took none of them any more seriously than I did. Knowing she would someday rule Kemet, she was prepared to wait to espouse someone who could be her equal.

  The god’s gilded wooden barque – Userhat–Amun, “Mighty of Prow is Amun” – rested on a wooden sled atop a block of limestone in the center of the Red Chapel. Two upright oars were attached to the barque’s stern, and ram–headed images of Amun–Re at both bow and stern. An enclosed shrine occupied the center portion of the barque; within resided Amun’s statue. The masked priests would carry the barque from this shrine in a few moments; the statue would remain concealed inside the cabin for his travels this day. Hatshepsut and Hapuseneb already stood beside the open door of the shrine; I could see the statue inside. Hatshepsut wore a finely pleated white dress with sleeves that fell to her elbows, a mantle over her shoulders, and a gold girdle around her waist. She carried a sistrum in one hand and a bouquet in the other, and on her head was a nemes headdress.

  Hori stood next to Hapuseneb, to help him prepare Amun for the celebration. Nefer moved forward and the three of them awakened the statue, bathed it, dressed it, burned the daily offerings. Then Nefer draped a garland around its neck, closed the shrine, veiled it with linen, bedecked it with flowers. The priests passed long carrying poles through bronze rings along the side edges of the sled and raised it to their shoulders. They followed Hatshepsut and Nefer and Hapuseneb and Hori from the Red Chapel.

  Priests carrying censors of burning incense were waiting outside. They led the procession into the Wadjet Hall, preceded by a number of chantresses, the incense rising sweetly into the air. The Wadjet Hall was packed with the selected dignitaries who were to accompany us, some hidden from my view behind two rose–colored obelisks and the many statues of the first Thutmose that ringed the inner walls. I recognized many of those dignitaries: Divine Adoratrix Seniseneb, second prophets Puyemre and Mahu, priest and scribe Merimaat, Third Prophet Kaemheribsen, the wab priest Manenemhet. The procession reformed, the chantresses playing their drums and crotal bells and shaking menat necklaces, singers chanting ancient hymns, priests swinging censors, more priests carrying the sacred barque, the rest of us trailing behind. We exited the Wadjet Hall through the western pylon and entered the brightly–painted Festival Hall, passed the first and second Thutmoses’ obelisks, exited the final pylon, stepped onto the broad processional way that sliced through the garden, headed towards the stone quay on the bank of the river. The veiled statues of Mut and Khonsu already rested on that quay atop limestone pedestals
, attended by their own priests and chantresses. As we neared I recognized Montu’s priest Aakheperkare and Mut’s high priest Ken and his wife Meryt. A pall of fragrant smoke hung over the quay and we stepped into it. Amun’s priests set his barque on his pedestal. Priests opened the door to his shrine and then placed the two gods’ statues inside, flanking him. They closed the door, then censed the shrine and barque again and recited prayers. Then they carried the barque to Hatshepsut’s royal boat, bobbing at anchor alongside the quay.

  It was a magnificent vessel, nearly two hundred feet long, with a cabin occupying the rear third, every surface either covered with gold or brightly painted. Both bow and stern rose high and curved gracefully, shaped like lotus blossoms, decorated with the eye of Horus. Scarlet pennants fluttered from atop the mast; the sail itself was furled. Hatshepsut seated herself on a throne and Nefer sat beside her. Fan bearers moved behind them to keep them cool. Sailors poled the boat into the channel, then fifty men on each side began to pull at oars, propelling the craft directly west, swiftly crossing the river.

  The west bank was completely occupied, both north and south of the landing place, by farmers and craftsmen and women and children from town and farm, as well as workers from the Place of Truth. The Beautiful Feast of the Valley was a holiday for everyone. Tonight, after the royal ceremonies were concluded and the gods put back to sleep in their temples, the people of Waset and the west bank would gather at the tombs of their ancestors in the nearby hills and feast by torchlight, singing, dancing, getting drunk, not returning to their homes until dawn. But now they crowded the shore and both sides of the processional way that led to the distant gate in the limestone wall surrounding Djeser Djeseru.

  We tied up at the temple harbor that had been cut into the west bank. Sailors lowered the gangplank. Priests carried Amun’s barque to land, and the rest of us followed. Many limestone blocks were piled high beside the harbor; it would be years yet before Hatshepsut’s temple was fully complete. A column formed at the beginning of the hundred–foot wide processional way. The valley temple planned for this point had not yet been started; Hatshepsut still hadn’t decided whether to actually build one. She’d told Nefer one day that, seeing Djeser Djeseru’s magnificence, she didn’t want to detract from it.