We drove for hours, stopping often to explore and investigate anything that caught Thut’s fancy, the king questioning each official in turn about his area of responsibility. It was a beautiful day, the sun hot, fields emerald green, their fringes colored with flowers, waterways glistening, groves of tall palms casting cooling shade, the air alive with birdsong and the buzzing of insects. Nefer and I pointed out the estate’s features: orchards of lemons and apricots and guavas and mangoes, poultry farms, herds of grazing cattle, beehives, great fields of emmer and barley waving gently in the breeze, vineyards being prepared for the coming harvest and pressing. We, and his overseers, showed Thut granaries, the herd of donkeys that transported our excess grain to nearby market towns, workshops, melon patches, the fishing boats Nefer had ordered constructed for use in nearby waterways and other vessels to transport our products, some bound for Mennefer, some for Waset, one piled high with stone that Nefer was bringing from the quarries near Mennefer so she could expand the harem. Nefer described how she had ordered trees felled along the river to create even more cultivable land.
It was after midday when Thut parked the chariot in the shade of palms along the waterway. He and Nefer and I sat together in the grass to eat a meal that servants prepared for us. The overseers departed; only the bodyguards remained. Fields stretched all around us. The water flowed musically past. The harem was visible half a mile to our south.
Thut gazed at the marshland on the far side of the water, its thickets alive with birds. “Looks like good hunting land,” he observed as he bit into a mango.
“Ostriches, gazelle, antelope, hyena, foxes, crocodiles, hippos – almost every kind of game you like to hunt, Thut,” I said.
“But no elephants.”
“No,” I laughed. “No elephants.”
Thut looked at Nefer thoughtfully. “You’ve done well, Neferure. The harem is marvelous, clearly well run and productive. Mery was right when she talked me into using your talents.”
“You’ll let me do more in the future?” Nefer asked hopefully.
“Yes,” Thut said. “I’ve a mind to set you to work on some construction projects – temple enhancements, monuments – perhaps my tomb.”
“Thank you, Majesty.”
I was happy. Nefer was taking another step down the path I’d hoped for her.
A large boat approached the harem’s quay from the south. Oarsmen were poling it towards shore, and others were lowering bumpers over the sides. “I see the hostages are arriving. I should greet them,” I said, rising.
“I was hoping the two of you would show me the pyramids this afternoon,” Thut said.
“I’ll go to the quay,” Nefer said, getting to her feet. “You take him, Mery.”
“Are you sure, Nefer?” As much as I wanted to be alone with Thut, I thought it more important that she get to.
“Go on.”
Thut spoke to one of his bodyguards. “Drive my wife back to the harem.”
And so I was left alone with Thut and several Medjay. We finished our food, climbed into the chariot. He tried to take the reins. I yanked them away. “I’m driving this time. Its my chariot,” I said. “You gave it to me.”
Thut looked it over closely for the first time. “So I did.”
“Besides, you don’t know the way.”
With that, I slapped the reins on the backs of my horses and we were off, headed towards the pyramids and temples of the kings. Two more chariots trailed us, manned by Medjay.
“Are you happy here, Mery?” Thut asked as we moved past the green fields and onto the flat lands at the margin of the lake.
“It’s hard to be separated from you. And you’ve seen how it is for Nefer, when your mother’s around. Nefer needs me, Thut, as I’ve always said. Your mother doesn’t make her life easy.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Thut said. “But Mother is headstrong and bears a grudge that festered for decades. It’s going to take time before she treats Neferure better. If she ever does. But you’re dodging my question. Are you happy?”
“How could I be, missing you so much?”
“That’s your fault, not mine.”
“I know, Thut.” I sighed deeply. “I guess you could say I’m content, at least when your mother isn’t around. She won’t let anyone but your wives and children into the family quarters. When she’s in residence I have to sleep apart from Nefer, eat with the common serving women, stay out of the garden in the evening when the wives gather. But I absolutely love teaching the hostages and learning from them. And the Faiyum is beautiful. I don’t miss the desert looming so close, like it does at Waset and Mennefer.” I looked at him shyly. “But I miss you desperately, Thut. I’m afraid for you every time you go on campaign. I pray constantly to the gods the whole time you’re away, that you’ll come back to me. Every night I go up on the roof of the sleeping quarters and lay on my back and look up at the stars and imagine you’re doing the same and I say my prayer for you.”
“How does it go?” Thut asked, almost as if he didn’t believe me.
I recited. “May Amun bring you home safe and sound, so that I can lock you in my embrace; and may you return alive, safe and sound, the gods saving you from weapons and stones, arrows and every outrage which is in that land where you are, and may the gods of this land bring you home to Kemet and deliver you to Amun of the thrones of the Two Lands.”
“It’s worked so far,” Thut said, and smiled. “And I shall indeed lay on my back and look up at the stars from now on when I’m on campaign, and think of nothing but you, Mery.”
By now we were approaching the two colossal statues of the third king Amenemhat that loomed over Lake Miwer. We got down from our chariot and craned our necks looking up at them. The seated kings were each over sixty feet high. I knew there were no statues so large anywhere in Kemet, and I doubted in the world. Though they were nearly four hundred years old, they were barely weathered, and every inscription on their base was clearly legible. Thut spent considerable time translating them. Our language had evolved in that span of time, and it wasn’t easy to understand the meaning of all the hieroglyphs.
When Thut finished I pointed into the distance. “Over there is the narrow channel where the waterways spill through strips of desert into the Faiyum. The closest pyramid belongs to the second King Senwosret, and beyond it is that of the third Amenemhat. Senwosret’s is on high ground at the edge of the desert, encased in limestone. His mortuary temple and the town of his workers, Hetepsensuret, is at the edge of the floodplain at the junction of two waterways. The town flourished for two centuries, first hosting those who raised the pyramid, then, after the king’s death, those who served his mortuary cult. The town once had 250 houses crammed together, a villa for the king on an outcropping in the midst of them, and nine or ten estates nearby for his officials.” I pointed again. “That small town over there is Shedet, where Amenemhat erected a temple for Sobek, and nearby is Renenutet’s chapel.”
We got back in and I drove Thut to Amenemhat’s temple. It rose magnificently from the flat plain, at the junction of two canals, encased in limestone. We got out.
“His mortuary temple is unlike any ever built before or since,” I told Thut. “Three thousand rooms, connected by winding passages. It’s a thousand feet long and more than eight hundred wide, and there are crocodiles buried everywhere. His wives lie here along with him in tombs of their own.”
We went inside one chamber that had no doubt been opened by tomb robbers hundreds of years ago.
“See how the walls are monolithic slabs, the ceilings each consisting of a single stone?” I asked.
“The kings who came before me were incredibly powerful, to create such structures,” Thut said as we sat down in the shade of the pyramid, our backs resting against the cool stone. His guards watched from nearby, out of hearing but not out of sight.
“You’ll surely outshine them all,” I said, and I was not trying to flatter him. I meant it.
“If the gods a
re willing.”
“How goes your plan to catch Durusha?” I asked.
“Slowly, I’m afraid. Killing Durusha is just one piece of a giant puzzle General Djehuty and I are assembling, one that will take years to complete.”
“Your campaigns are part of this puzzle?”
“Retenu and Setjet must be stable before I can complete my empire, Mery. They aren’t yet. And I don’t have the manpower to occupy so much territory, and would only build resentment among its peoples if I tried. So, for now, I let local rulers rule by my grace, and keep them in fear of me by marching my army north each year, letting them know I can level their towns at will, and by demanding tribute. I garrison only a few strategically–placed forts and harbors, so I can react quickly to rebellions if I must, without tying up too many soldiers. Long term, my strategy depends on the hostages I’ve taken, of them caring more for me than they do their homelands, of ruling based on my interests when I send them home. That’s why what you and Neferure are doing is so important to me.”
“I supposed as much,” I said.
“And I must kill Durusha.” Thut’s voice grew hard and determined. “He’s the key to everything, because all by himself he could destabilize the North. He’s proven that already. But once he’s dead, once the North is stable, I’ll have a solid base from which to launch my move against Naharina.” He looked out over the Faiyum. “I will hold all the land between Kemet and Naharina someday, Mery, as I vowed. I will have my empire. And after that, I’ll push my border south, past Wawat, deep into Nubia.”
“It seems you’ve turned the whole land to pursuing your dream of empire, Thut.”
“I have. And I’ve never thanked you for urging me to reveal that dream when we were camped before Aruna Pass. I think it made the difference when we launched our attack on Megiddo.”
“I’d bought into your dream many years earlier,” I said. “I thought everyone else should have the chance too.”
“Your instincts were right,” Thut said. “And the long years I spent training under Djehuty, of preparing myself and my army, are paying off now. Everyone is aware of what to do and when to do it. My governors and administrators know that soon after the spring rains cease in Setjet and Retenu that my army will appear. So they begin collecting and stockpiling food and supplies from those towns that are beholden to me for my army to use on campaign, so I don’t have to haul great quantities of supplies with me. Once my army lands in the North, my herald, Intef, precedes me by a day or so along my line of march. He arranges nightly quarters for me in towns and cities, and gathers the local officials to swear fealty to me. Of course, when we reach the enemy country and prepare to fight, I sleep in my tent, among my men.”
“And the whole time you’re gone I pray for your safe return,” I said fervently.
“There may come a day when I ask you to go with me again, as translator,” Thut said.
“Gladly.”
He took my hand in his, raised my fingers to his lips, kissed them. “I would still have you as my wife, Mery.”
“And though I desire it above anything, I still can’t marry you,” I said sadly. “Not as long as Iset lives and hounds Nefer. Not as long as the two of you remain estranged. And, besides, your mother would never accept your marriage to a commoner. She makes Menwi’s life hard too, just because she’s foreign.”
“I know,” Thut said. “But I’ll never stop asking you, Mery. Believe me, I’m capable of waging more than one type of campaign.” He stood and helped me to my feet. “Now, lets slip off somewhere my guards can’t see us for a bit, shall we?”
I raised no objection.
1450 BC
Regnal Year 30 – Thutmose III
“Ahead lies Ta Set Maat, the Place of Truth,” Ineni told Nefer and me, “home to the workers who will excavate and decorate His Majesty’s tomb.”
A month earlier, Thut had charged Nefer with locating a site in the Great Place and arranging for construction of his final resting place. To that end, Nefer and I had traveled to Waset from the harem at the Faiyum. Now the two of us, plus Ineni, were bound for Ta Set Maat to meet Kha, the overseer of construction, who was in charge of the village’s laborers.
Ineni had served Thut’s house as architect for as long as anyone could remember. He’d erected Thut’s grandfather’s red granite obelisks at Ipet–Isut, the first to be located there, had dug the king’s tomb in the Great Place, had supervised Thut’s father’s constructions, had been involved with Hatshepsut’s buildings at Ipet–Isut and Ipet–resyt and Djeser Djeseru. Though he had grown feeble with age, Ineni’s eyes still sparkled with life. Designing and building was his passion. At various times, he’d served the kings not only as architect but as overseer of the double granary of Amun and mayor of Waset. He’d been one of Hatshepsut’s closest advisors. Nefer and I had known him all our lives.
That Thut had called on Nefer to arrange the construction of his tomb had not surprised me. Nefer’s creation and oversight of the harem in the Faiyum had convinced Thut that she could in fact be of use to him, and he had gradually come to entrust her with a variety of projects throughout Kemet. In the past three years Nefer’s life and mine had settled into a semblance of a routine – when Iset was with Thut, Nefer lived at the harem, overseeing the estates and linen production and the education of hostages and royal children. Whenever Iset returned to the Faiyum for an extended stay, Nefer and I were sent elsewhere to oversee construction of the king’s latest project that he was financing with foreign tribute. Each year Nefer expanded the harem as well; Thut’s campaigns – he continued to wage one annually, for the King of Kadesh still eluded him – added more wives and hostages and retainers to our number.
I was, for the most part, satisfied with my life, though unfulfilled. Thut visited the harem at the end of every campaign and sometimes on the way to one of the various religious festivals in the northern part of the river valley, and so I was able to see him at least somewhat regularly. On those visits he rotated among the beds of his foreign and minor wives and concubines – except for Nefer’s, though with time her hatred and his indifference had both lessened somewhat. I sometimes caught the briefest glimpse of their childhood affection when they were together. Nefer still had not forgiven Thut for his treatment of her in the audience hall; he still did not fully trust her. He had many children now by his various women, though only those of his three major wives were recognized as being in the line of succession. Adding the children of nobles and staff and retainers, the nursery and children’s wing of the harem were ever–growing and raucous and always crowded. I dined with Thut and his wives when he visited, conversed with him in the evenings, even rode with him around the estate to survey the fields. We always created an opportunity to be alone. Thut never failed at those times to ask me to be his wife; I still wouldn’t allow my love for him to come between me and Nefer.
Ineni clung to the chariot at my side with clawlike hands. I was driving much slower than usual on his account. He wore a fine white shendyt embroidered at the hem with turquoise, a gold broad collar on his chest, gold arm and wrist bands, and a cloth covering on his bald head to keep the sun off. His eyebrows were white and his face deeply lined. He was a legendary figure, and had I not known him so intimately I would have been awed to be in his presence – this would be the fifth tomb he’d designed and built in the Great Place and its vicinity, beginning with Amenhotep and ending with Hatshepsut. Because of Ineni’s age and frailty, Thut had asked Nefer to directly oversee construction of the tomb, to take as much of the daily burden off him as possible.
After breakfast, sailors rowed the three of us across the river in a small boat. We landed at the edge of the western desert about a mile south of the per’aa, across the river from Waset and Ipet–resyt. Nefer and I both wore simple linen dresses; a gold uraeus diadem circled her brow. I wore only the Hathor amulet around my throat and the fish in my hair, as I always did when crossing water; old habits died hard. The inundation had reached
Waset a month earlier and the river covered the entire valley from desert edge to desert edge, the water blood–red, the current swift. Every farmer’s fields lay under the water, being renewed with mud. The flood gates of dikes atop the submerged riverbanks stood open, not to be closed until the river began to recede, to trap the precious water in basins for use in the coming months. On the desert’s fringe we’d stepped into a chariot pulled by two fine horses, which I had driven a short distance west and then north up a broad dusty path into a narrow valley, the hill of Qurnet Murai to our right, the rocky slope of the sacred mountain to our left. A mountain peak, the Qurn, towered over the north end of the valley, the home of the goddess Meretseger – “She Who Loves Silence.” At the end of the path I could see the village, surrounded by a high wall, greenery poking from plants in large earthenware pots on a few of the rooftops. The hills rose steeply to right and left, so that the village practically filled the narrow valley, its many houses appearing to me like a single long low building.
We encountered a seemingly endless line of donkeys heading towards the village and drove around them. They were laden with water in earthenware jars, and sacks of grain and vegetables and meat and fish. A couple of donkeys at the end of the procession bore utensils made by local potters. More were piled high with wood, no doubt for the house’s ovens.
“Because the Place of Truth is in a waterless desert valley, the daily needs of its residents have to be supplied from outside,” Ineni told us.
We reached a mud hut a few hundred yards from the village before which donkeys were being unloaded. Scribes were busily registering what they carried.
“The scribes will divide these bulk provisions into rations, then distribute them to the families in the village,” Ineni told us. “Those rations are the workers’ payment. The higher the rank, the more the worker receives. The grain comes directly from the warehouses of His Majesty, the fish from the village’s own river fishing boats, the vegetables from the village’s own fields.”
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