Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

  “We teach them everything the other children are taught,” Nefer interjected. “As well as geography and botany, and especially the history of the Two Lands.” She gazed at Thut, though her words were clearly intended for Nebit and Iset. “The subjects you were particularly fond of when we were growing up, Majesty.”

  “Perhaps I should put them to the test and see what they’ve learned,” Thut said, and with that he strode to the front of the area where the hostages I’d been teaching were gathered. Thut took my seat. Nefer seated herself on the floor in the midst of the youngest children off to his right. One of the girls climbed onto her lap. A few servants hastily brought chairs for Thut’s wives and mother to sit on along the wall facing him. The other teachers and their assistants sat down on mats just behind the hostages. The royal children and children of officials sat on their own mats on the opposite side of the room.

  “Geography and history… who can tell me how the Faiyum came to take its present shape?” Thut asked the hostages.

  Without the slightest hesitation several of the boys stood simultaneously, faces eager. Thut half–smiled and called on one. Thut too had been the student when we were growing up who couldn’t wait to display his knowledge in the classroom.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Helkath, Majesty.”

  “Near Aruna Pass?”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “I’ve traveled through Aruna Pass.”

  “I know, Majesty. My lady Mery has taught us how you won your triumph at Megiddo, using Aruna Pass to surprise the wretches arrayed against you.”

  Thut smiled approvingly, at both the boy and me. “Your answer.”

  “Majesty, the Faiyum is connected to the river by a long channel that flows north from Assuit after passing through a narrow opening in the western cliffs. The Faiyum is separated from the river by a low ridge that is no more than five or ten miles wide. In the times of the first kings, when the inundation came each year, both the Faiyum and Ta–mehi became part of the Great Green, so widely did the water spread. Only hillocks rose above the surface for miles and miles. Nearly 450 years ago a great king, the second Senwosret, began reclaiming the Faiyum.”

  “Why?” Thut asked.

  “To increase the amount of land available for cultivation in his kingdom.”

  Thut called on another of the standing boys.

  “You are from?”

  “Hadara, in the district of Damascus, Majesty.”

  “How did Senwosret reclaim the Faiyum?”

  “He built regulators to control the amount of water flowing into and out of the Faiyum for use in irrigation. And he built a wall 27 miles long to hold back Lake Miwer, so the land surrounding it could be planted. The king’s successors continued his work, especially the great king, the third Amenemhat, who ruled Kemet for many decades.”

  “Very good,” Thut said.

  Another boy leaped to his feet without waiting for the king to recognize him. His words spilled out in a rush. “Once the land was reclaimed, great fields were planted with emmer and barley and other crops, and villages were constructed for the workers, and temples and per’aas were built by the kings. A new town, Hetepsensuret, was erected for the workers who built the mortuary temple and pyramid of the second king Senwosret. The town flourished for two centuries and had 250 houses and a fine villa on a rock outcrop in their midst, no doubt the king’s, though it was eventually abandoned and is now in ruins.”

  “You’ve seen this town?” Thut asked.

  “Our teachers, the ladies Neferure and Mery, have taken all of us to visit the town, and King Senwosret’s limestone–clad pyramid, and the third Amenemhat’s pyramid, and the elaborate temple at its base.”

  “The temple has three thousand rooms connected by winding passageways,” another boy announced breathlessly. “We explored it.”

  “I used to go exploring when I was young,” Thut said.

  “Lady Mery told us,” the boy said.

  “And King Amenemhat erected two colossal statues of himself at Biyahmu, overlooking Lake Miwer,” a girl added. “He was the first king depicted in a sculpture as a high priest, wearing a leopard skin and menat necklace and carrying standards topped with gods’ heads, and he was depicted as the kings were in the earliest dynasties, with long ringlets and a full beard.”

  “He built a temple to Sobek at Shedet, east of the lake,” another child interjected. “There are crocodiles buried there.”

  “Our teachers took us to visit the chapel of Renenutet,” a second girl said. “She’s the goddess of the harvest, you know,” she added confidentially.

  Thut leaned forward. “I do know,” he chuckled.

  “One time our teachers loaded us on a boat and we went all the way to the north shore of the lake,” one of the younger boys piped up. “We climbed a low ridge and found many old fire circles that had been drifted over with sand, and sherds of pottery…”

  “And several hundred very large clay storage bins, set into the ridgetop itself,” a girl interrupted. “One of our sailors wrestled the lid off of one of them. We found grain inside. Our teachers said farmers must have lived along the lakeshore a very long time ago. They said the grain means the lake region was not always desert, like much of it is now.”

  “Amenemhat was the last great king in his line,” a boy of ten or eleven who’d been waiting patiently to speak announced solemnly.

  Thut leaned back in his chair and smiled, both impressed and amused by the eagerness and knowledge of the hostages. “Was Amenemhat the greatest of his family?” he asked.

  Naunakht stood. The son of Thut’s mortal enemy, Durusha, I considered Naunakht to be the most promising of the hostages. He was about seventeen now. “No, Majesty. The greatest was the third Senwosret.”

  Thut’s favorite king. He leaned forward a bit in his chair. “You’re certain of this?”

  “Majesty, he was a mighty warrior and builder and ruled for almost forty years. He was six and a half feet tall, and a fearful sight at the head of his army. He pushed our border all the way to the Second Cataract.”

  “Our border?” Thut asked sharply.

  If he’d expected Naunakht to be flustered by his challenge, Thut was disappointed. “Kemet is my land now, Majesty,” he answered evenly. “So, yes, our border.”

  “Go on,” Thut said. His eyes met mine for an instant. I could tell he was pleased.

  “The king built seventeen forts between the first two cataracts, and created a permanent army to hold his territory. He extended trade into the north and east and built widely throughout the land. And he reorganized the bureaucracy, took back the power that had been seized by nomarchs in the years before his house came to the throne, and educated the sons of those nomarchs and sent them back to rule in their places, much as Your Majesty will do with all of us.”

  “You’ve learned well, all of you,” Thut said, his eyes sweeping over the children. “And you’ve taught them well, Neferure, Mery. I have a feeling the towns and cities of my empire will be in good hands in the decades to come.” He stood, and all the children stood with him. “I must go now. But be assured,” he said with mock seriousness, “I’ll come back with more questions for you. I’ll expect answers.”

  “Yes, Majesty,” they answered in unison, and all fell to their knees as he moved towards the door.

  Thut stopped momentarily, addressed the royal children. “That goes for all of you, too.” He beckoned to me. “Mother’s taking me on a tour of the harem. You should come. You too, Neferure,” he called.

  “That’ll be all for today,” Nefer told the hostages. She had to disengaged herself from some of them as she moved towards the doorway. Iset watched her disapprovingly – after five years she still resented that Nefer had been put in charge of their education. She’d certainly find a way to take out on her what had happened today – her pet Nebit being shown up, Nefer’s educational program ordered to be followed by all the children in the room.

  A
s I reached Thut he looked over my shoulder at the now–milling children and asked “who’s she?”

  I turned to see one of the older girls, about fifteen, close by Naunakht, giggling, looking up at him with what was clearly adoration in her eyes. “Amunet, Majesty. She’s Aachel and Hori’s oldest daughter.”

  “Aachel is that slave you rescued?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Hori – the man who would have served Neferure as high priest at Ipet–Isut.”

  “Yes. And would have served her well.”

  Thut let that pass. “Why is Amunet here?”

  “She helps Nefer and I teach astronomy. Hori taught her.”

  “She appears to be in love with that boy,” Thut observed. He gave me a knowing glance.

  “Several of the older hostages you took at Megiddo have already taken Kemetian wives,” Nefer said. “Another tie to bind them to the Two Lands and ensure their loyalty to you.”

  “I’ve encouraged such marriages, Son,” Iset interjected, though she of course had not. She’d actually forbidden every one Nefer and I had suggested. We’d eventually stopped asking and arranged the marriages when Iset was at Waset and couldn’t interfere.

  “That’s good, Mother,” Thut said, rolling his eyes at me. “And now, on with our tour.”

  Thut and I trailed everyone from the room. “I’m very pleased with what you and Neferure have done,” he told me in a low voice. “I was particularly impressed with the last boy who answered, the one Amunet was hanging all over.”

  “Naunakht.”

  “From what I observed today, he speaks our language perfectly, knows our history. It appears to me that he’s embraced Kemet as his homeland. And the girl will only make that more certain. When its time I’ll gladly send him to rule in his father’s place.”

  “Then you’d better get busy and capture his father,” I laughed. “He’s Durusha’s son. And you’re right – after the way his father abandoned him and his mother and sisters at Megiddo, he has fully embraced Kemet – and you.”

  “In that case, accelerate Naunakht’s education. And get him married to that girl.”

  We exited the education room.

  The harem was not far from the south shore of Lake Miwer, sited atop a low plateau that overlooked the vast reed–choked delta at the point where the channel from the south emptied into the lake. The lake itself, more than fifty miles across at its widest, occupied the bottom of a huge depression, ringed by increasingly higher plateaus and terraces in every direction. They reminded me of stair–steps. Hundreds of years ago the lake had overflowed its banks each year when the waters of the inundation poured through the channel, but Senwosret had built a high earthen embankment to hold back the lake, thereby creating a substantial amount of permanent farmland. Water was carried to the crops we grew there by an intricate network of irrigation ditches. The Faiyum was green and peaceful, its skies alive with flocks of birds, its thickets crawling with wildlife. If it hadn’t been for the crocodiles who sunned along the shore in the thousands near the delta, the lake region would have been perfect. As it was, sitting on the heights, watching the sun set over the vast lake and turn the plateaus and terraces and desert beyond the irrigated plains gold and red and yellow and orange and then finally blue, never failed to stir me.

  Those of us who resided in the harem permanently lived in luxury. We supported ourselves; the harem’s high mud–brick walls were surrounded by rich and extensive fields where our farmers grew flax and emmer and barley and our herdsmen grazed livestock, and vast marshes where our huntsmen stalked waterfowl, and waterways where our fisherman hauled in vast catches. Scores of specialized craftsmen and laborers saw to our every need, from baking bread to making furniture to firing pottery to constructing ever more buildings of mud–brick for our constantly increasing population. The workers lived in a number of small towns separate from but within sight of the harem.

  The four wings of the harem were arranged around a large open space, partly paved with stone, partly covered with shallow lotus–choked pools and tall shade trees and colorful flower gardens. Birds sang from the trees, and bees buzzed from hives set up in one corner. Vegetable gardens occupied the area between the outer walls that surrounded our complex and the harem’s buildings. Our main industry was a flourishing textile business; in one wing of the harem was a room where flax was prepared, and another filled with looms where the flax was turned into fine linen for the use of the royal court and rougher fabric to clothe our workers and their families. A second wing contained the kap, or royal nursery, next to the room where Nefer and I taught, and a third wing our sleeping quarters. That wing was by far the largest, housing several hundred girls and women, so many, in fact, that some of them now slept in a stand–alone building near the outer wall. All the males lived in a separate building near the wall as well. The fourth wing was used by the staff who supported us – cooks, washerwomen, physicians, magicians, servants, wet nurses, tutors, potters, wood and leather workers, jewelry makers among others. It also held storerooms crammed with supplies. A chapel dedicated to Amun, three granaries, and several warehouses were on the grounds beyond the wings, also inside the outer walls.

  I pointed out the room next to the education room. “That’s the kap, Majesty. Only a few people are allowed inside – wet nurses, children, magicians, a couple of overseers.”

  Thut poked his head in the door. The room was crowded with the very youngest children – infants at the breasts of their wet nurses, others sleeping in reed baskets, still more crying in their nurses’ arms. All were being cooled by slave girls in white skirts who were slowly waving large ostrich feather fans over them.

  “The birthing room is behind that door,” I told Thut. I’d assisted there twice, both times when Menwi’s children were born.

  We hurried to catch up to the others in the open square at the center of the harem. Tall dom palms around the square’s edge cast welcome shade and brought relief from the sun, already fierce, though it was only mid–morning. The square was crowded; women were crossing it to get to living quarters and storerooms and workrooms, gardeners were on their knees digging among the flowers, young children not yet old enough for school were chasing each other along dusty paths beneath the trees, their nursemaids watching from seats alongside the pools. Many of the children released from further study this day rushed past us and swarmed into the garden. I heard the omnipresent clacking of the looms from the large rooms where women were weaving linen.

  Iset pointed out several Medjay guards who stood at attention in the shade of one of the wings. “As you can see, Son, I guard the hostages well. None has yet run off. There are more Medjay in the fields, looking after the slaves you have sent to us. I can assure you, the overseers make sure they perform their labors in the very best fashion, or answer to my wrath. As do those who labor within the harem’s walls – these servants and slaves you see all around you. They work tirelessly, or I punish them. That is one reason that the amount of linen increases each year.”

  “It seems you’ve made the harem prosper, Mother,” Thut said.

  Both Nefer and I were biting our tongues. It was certainly true that Iset spent a fair amount of time taking almost everyone to task over the slightest infractions, and punishing those she accused of slacking off, but she had nothing to do with the actual operation of the harem. The overseers politely listened to what Iset had to say when she was in residence, then went to Nefer to get their actual orders.

  “I’d like to see the estates now,” Thut said.

  “Go without me,” Iset said. “In this heat…”

  “I’ve already sent word to the overseers to expect you,” Nefer told Thut. “Chariots await outside the walls.”

  We headed toward the harem gate that opened onto the fields that ran half a mile north to the shore of Lake Miwer. Through it we could see, at the edge of the lake itself, a host of men making mud–bricks; thousands were already drying in the sun. A line of heavily–burdened po
rters snaked from the drying field through the gate and into the harem compound, where a partially–erected building was taking shape.

  “More sleeping quarters,” Nefer told Thut. “I ordered them built in anticipation that you’d bring us more hostages after your campaign.”

  “You mean my mother ordered them,” Thut said, then laughed. It was clear he knew who really ran his harem. “Someday this harem and its estate may need to double or triple in size, when my empire reaches its height.”

  We passed through the gate. To the right was a deep canal, and a quay where Thut’s royal boat was tied up. That quay was where we received supplies and the raw materials that we did not produce ourselves on the harem’s estates. Currently a number of small fishing vessels were being unloaded, having returned from the lake via the canal. It wasn’t unusual to see foreign boats docked at the quay either; even though we made vast quantities of pottery for our own use, we imported some from Setjet and Retenu, as well as other luxury goods.

  A number of chariots and their restless horses were drawn up on the plain to the left of the gate, along with a plethora of overseers and Thut’s bodyguards. All bowed to Thut respectfully. He paused and gazed into the distance. The Faiyum was vast, bright green nearby, gray green in the distance, its sizeable shining lake edged by low hills, encircled by a dike, colorful patches of flowers carpeting every area that had not been planted. Beyond the irrigated fields all was sere and brown, bone-dry desert. Thut and Nefer and I stepped aboard my chariot, the one he’d given me at Megiddo. Normally I drove Nefer around the estate in it; today Thut took the reins. With a loud cry he urged the horses forward. He drove rapidly. Dozens of officials trailed us, trying to keep up. Nearly every rough spot in the path threw my body against Thut’s, and every time I felt a surge of desire. It had been so long since I’d touched him, felt his arms around me, tasted his lips on mine. I trusted we’d find a way to slip away together for an hour or two before he left the harem for Mennefer. I avoided looking at Nefer; I didn’t want her to see the guilt in my eyes.