Egyptian Enigma

by LJM Owen

  —

  Surrounded by bubbles, Elizabeth inhaled deeply. Her return to Egypt after a three-year absence had reminded her of the joy of her first visit, a blissful few weeks spent trowelling and sifting for artefacts in the al-Fayum oasis. Her future as an Egyptologist, and a lifetime spent uncovering treasures and deciphering ancient texts, had seemed certain. Then, with a pang, she relived the shock of her father’s death and the terrible moment that had ended her well- laid plans…

  Elizabeth worked the cartouche of Tut-Ankh-Amun’s name, a gift from her father, back and forth along its silver chain. She wondered what her life might be like now, if Dad were still alive. Different, certainly. But there was no point in that particular game of ‘what if’. She needed to focus on the year ahead, on being a good librarian, a better sister and the best first-time tutor of Mesoamerican Archaeology 101 that her university supervisor, Dr Marsh, had ever seen.

  She held her breath and slid down into the water, allowing her head to sink beneath the clouds of foam. Still, her responsibilities lay in the future. For the remainder of her trip she could abandon herself to exploring the sites, monuments and museums of ancient Khemet, wringing every last drop of enjoyment from her time on Egyptian soil.

  Feeling refreshed, she donned a light, cream-coloured cotton gallabiya, the ubiquitous and eminently practical full-length, long-sleeved dress worn by almost everyone in Egypt. Taming her wet hair in the mirror – wondering if she could wear the gallabiya on the streets of Canberra during a scorching summer day – Elizabeth heard someone moving in her room. ‘Henry? Do you need some money?’

  The sounds ceased.

  She opened the bathroom door. ‘Are you…’

  A short woman in black robes stood in the middle of her room. Wide, kohl-rimmed eyes met hers.

  ‘What…’

  The woman grabbed Elizabeth’s journal from the table and sprang toward the door leading to the hallway. Elizabeth lunged at the thief as she passed, but her fingertips only brushed the woman’s back. She hesitated briefly, then dashed after her.

  Three or four steps behind the thief, Elizabeth caught the front door of the suite on the backswing. The woman encountered a confused Henry in the corridor, who zigged when she zagged, unintentionally delaying her almost long enough for Elizabeth to catch her. Eventually the thief shouldered past him, jostling the basket of fruit he was carrying, threatening to spill its contents. She dashed for the stairs to the foyer below.

  As Elizabeth ran down the corridor she caught Henry’s eye for a split second. Reassured that he was simply surprised, she calculated a way to cut off the thief: if she jumped over the railing between the corridor and the stairs she could alight on the half-landing. That would put her in front of the woman, half a flight below. Primary school gymnastics, don’t fail me now!

  Grasping the railing with both hands, Elizabeth swung her legs up and over, pulling them underneath her as she dropped. She landed on both feet in front of her quarry. Yes!

  She lifted her right foot to step forward and reclaim her journal but became entangled in the skirt of her gallabiya. She fell on her hands and knees with a groan. Her trajectory calculations over the balcony might have been spot on, but apparently her attire wasn’t up to the task.

  Wincing, she glanced up to see the woman in black bounding down the stairs, then adroitly dodging across the lobby. The thief escaped through the hotel entrance and melted into the ever-present Cairo crowd outside.

  Henry came barrelling down the stairs, followed by a cascade of oranges. ‘Are you okay? Why did you jump like that? Who was she?’

  Elizabeth could see a member of staff from behind the lobby desk hurrying over, hands flapping. ‘I’m fine. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And I have no idea, but she stole my diary.’

  Insisting that she remain on the floor, Henry spoke to the flustered concierge. ‘We’ve been robbed. Call the police. I need a first-aid kit here now – and a bottle of raki added to our dinner order.’

  As Henry checked her ankles for bruising or swelling, Elizabeth wondered who the woman had been and why she had wanted the journal. What value could a used notebook possibly have on the streets of Cairo?

  Chapter One

  Year 12, Reign of Pharaoh Seti II (1192 BCE)

  Men-nefer, Khemet (now Memphis, Egypt)

  Tausret, Divine Wife of Amun, Chief Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Seti the Second, Daughter of a King and Granddaughter of a King, gazed past the gleaming walls of the Enduring and Beautiful Capital to the eternal desert sands. Beyond the city’s brilliantly coloured statues, Tausret’s ancestors rested in their ancient pyramid tombs, bathed in god Ra’s divine light.

  ‘We have reports of five villages south of Thebes being raided in the past seven days,’ Chief Royal Physician Seben said.

  Through the window Tausret could see swallows wheeling in the sky, calling to each other. How she wished she could join them, wished she could leave the meat of this body behind and fly into the infinite blue embrace of goddess Nut, free of her worldly duties. ‘Do we have sufficient enforcers in the region?’

  ‘Yes, Mighty Lady, though it appears the culprits were refugees from nearby villages whose own grain stores were exhausted.’

  Tausret lifted one arm; a servant began to shave the exposed skin. ‘Nevertheless, we can’t allow such flagrant disregard for law and balance to go unpunished.’

  ‘Yes, Mighty Lady, though there have been rumours that some of the Medjay, some from your own guard even, suffer from hunger too.’

  Tausret exhaled heavily.

  Physician Seben, Tausret’s personal secretary, head spy and most trusted confidante, shuffled through her scrolls. ‘There have also been reports from the delta of new outbreaks of stomach death.’

  ‘How many are affected?’

  ‘More than ten thousand.’

  For the fortieth year in a row the Aur had failed to flood properly. Khemet’s people were starving, disease flourishing, and the country’s priesthood fighting among itself almost as viciously as Tausret’s own family.

  Determined to restore order, Tausret had charged Seben with scouring the papyrus collection in her personal House of Wisdom, seeking guidance from the ancients. After poring over hundreds of scrolls, the scribe had finally identified a familiar scenario, along with a warning.

  Nitocris, Pharaoh more than a thousand years previously, and granddaughter to the famously long-lived Pharaoh Pepi the Second, had cautioned those who followed her. Unrolling Tausret’s personal copy of the scroll, Seben hesitated briefly as she counted, then began moving her finger along the glyphs, translating the message from Nitocris as she went:

  When old men have ruled too long; when Isfet, god of Chaos, has wrested control from Ma’at, goddess of Balance; when the Aur fails to flood, preserve its life-giving waters. Else the people of Khemet will perish.

  ‘Please raise your other arm, Mighty Lady,’ said the servant, breaking Tausret from her reverie.

  ‘We must begin building the dams,’ Tausret growled. As the servant lathered, then scraped her armpit, Tausret reviewed the current obstacles to her plan. Between them, she, Seben and Seti had devised a scheme to establish a series of dams and irrigation channels along the Aur. If they could retain enough of the silt-laden waters from each meagre flood, they might be able to irrigate a sufficient area of fertile ground to support the population. If not…

  The major stumbling block was, of course, Khemet’s chief priests. The religious institutions knew that channelling state funds to an irrigation program meant less going into temple coffers. More than one allegedly pious priest had lobbied for his own luxuries ahead of food in the bellies of his congregation.

  ‘Have we found a reliable bribe for the chief priest of Amun?’ Tausret asked.

  ‘I believe so.’

  Thankfully, the chief priestesses were less gr
eedy, but still lobbied for the maintenance of their existing wealth. ‘And secured suitable relocation for the Temple of Hathor?’

  ‘Yes. It will be costly, but we need that site for a weir.’

  ‘Good.’

  Firm hands guided Tausret to a stool and pushed her head forward. Tiny bright flecks fell from her scalp, catching the light as they drifted to rest on the tops of her feet. Like all her full-blooded siblings, Tausret had the brilliant red hair of her mother and father, who had inherited the colouring from their own father, Ramesses the Second.

  Tausret’s only grandfather – for Ramesses the Second had been both Tausret’s father’s father and her mother’s father, as well as her mother’s mother’s father – had ruled for more than sixty years. And, as Nitocris had warned, men who rule for too long could bring devastation.

  Blinded by delusions of his own divinity, Ramesses had bled Khemet dry with his expansionist wars, obsessive monument building and vain attempts to stave off death. He had built one hulking statue of himself after another, ignoring all warning signs during the last twenty years of his reign that drought threatened his land and his people.

  ‘We will persevere, my Lady,’ Seben said, focusing Tausret’s attention. ‘As long as there is breath in my body, as long as my ka resides within, I will fight to save Khemet.’

  Tausret smiled at Seben, who sat nearby on an intricately carved cedar stool, Tausret’s favourite cat in her lap. As a feisty palace kitten he had lost one ear when attacking his siblings, so Tausret had named him after Maahes, the son of goddess Sekhmet, fierce warrior lioness. Maahes was currently missing two chunks of fur, evidence that his fiery nature had not cooled with the passage of time.

  Now shaven from head to toe, Tausret held her breath as she was rinsed and patted dry. Moving her head as directed, she patiently endured the application of stinging, oily white paint to her face, then dry red pigment to her lips and cheeks.

  ‘It seems three of the recent plots to remove your husband from the throne have gained momentum.’ Seben moved on to the latest intelligence from her network of spies.

  Though all of Ramesses the Second’s sons had passed into the next life, as had many of his grandsons, hundreds of direct descendants survived. Plots and intrigues wove among the twisted branches of Tausret’s family tree. The attempts to usurp Seti’s throne were never-ending. ‘How close are any of them to succeeding?’

  ‘At present they each seem to rely on bribing one or another of your guards, all of whom remain loyal.’

  ‘How certain are you of that?’ Tausret closed her eyes. The lids received their mandatory patina of green powder. ‘If some of the Medjay are not receiving sufficient food, are they susceptible to betrayal?’

  ‘It is possible.’

  ‘Please take as much as is needed from my personal reserves and arrange for additional rations to be delivered to the barracks and households of every Medjay, with Seti’s compliments. A man’s loyalty to his stomach overrides everything.’

  Tausret glanced in the mirror as an artist applied her black eyebrows. ‘A little thicker.’ The servant nodded and obeyed.

  ‘Have you identified conspirators here, within the House of Women?’ Tausret asked. Her attendants shifted nervously – they knew that even the suggestion that one of them might be involved could mean summary execution for all.

  ‘Not yet,’ Seben replied. ‘But at least one of the women must know something. Constant vigilance is required.’

  Constant vigilance. Constant duty. Constant ritual and responsibility, pain, sacrifice and the threat of death. Not for the first time, Tausret looked forward to her journey on Ra’s boat to the Land of Two Fields, and a carefree eternity of shared joy with her loved ones. Tausret had no doubt her heart would be judged sufficiently light when weighed against the Feather of Ma’at to allow her access to the afterlife, for she had shirked no duty, broken no law of Ma’at, and had nothing to fear in the Hall of Two Truths.

  Wishing for her own death would break the laws of goddess Ma’at, though, and might make her heart too heavy to pass the final test. So, holding her breath as her lashes were encased by a fine line of kohl, Tausret stiffened her resolve. She could continue to endure the burdens of this life, for it would be as just one day compared to the everlasting relief of the next.

  Tausret’s chief attendant clapped her hands twice. Tausret stood and held both arms out from her body. Her skin was anointed with the lightest of perfumes, her signature blend of white lily, iris, cardamom and myrrh. The finest of linens was draped about her spare frame, her favourite wig, golden necklaces, earrings and bracelets added by practised servants.

  Tausret adjusted a fine gold bangle on her right wrist, a present from Seti on the occasion of her one and only pregnancy. ‘Thank you for your reports, Seben. Please accompany me to the throne room this morning.’

  ‘Yes, Mighty Lady.’

  Her chief attendant clapped her hands again. Maahes sprang from Seben’s lap as the physician rose to her feet.

  The first ritual of the day was complete.

  Her ka life spark strong inside her body, her ba spirit determined, Tausret, sister-wife of Pharaoh Seti the Second, set forth to join her brother and save their people from the ravages of famine.

  —

  Leaving her chambers, Tausret entered the purposeful buzz of activity that filled the foyers and sumptuously decorated rooms of the House of Women. Lustrous white walls were covered with gold mirrors and frescos of goddesses. Elaborately carved wooden tables and stools supported Tausret’s favourite adornment: cats. The beloved children of Bastet had seemingly taken possession of the House, dipping paws into fountains, chasing each other around soaring painted columns, or calling with distress from the uppermost reaches of courtyard palm trees. Tausret’s ka strengthened at the sight.

  Tiy and Neith, Tausret’s two remaining full-blooded sisters, and her favourite cousin, Meryt, approached as she walked with Seben toward the throne room. They brought a tide of children behind them, including Neith and her brother-husband Ptah’s five, the youngest of Tiy and her cousin-husband Setnakhte’s brood, and Meryt’s multitude of children and grandchildren.

  ‘Chief Great Royal Wife, we greet you in the name of goddess Ma’at,’ Lady Tiy said.

  Noting that, as usual, Tiy’s makeup was even more perfect than her own – where did she find her staff? – Tausret signalled Seben to halt.

  ‘And I you,’ Tausret replied formally. She greeted one of the children – her half-brother, Siptah – with a gentle tug to his dark side lock. While Siptah and Tausret had shared a father, Siptah’s mother had been a Canaanite concubine, a gift to Tausret’s father from an ambitious foreign bureaucrat.

  ‘Greetings, son of my father.’

  The six-year-old grinned up at her cheekily. ‘Greetings, Mighty Lady.’

  ‘How are you all today?’ Tausret asked.

  ‘Late, I’m afraid,’ Lady Neith apologised. ‘My youngest soiled his linens just as we were leaving our chambers, and I have several meetings with contractors to attend to.’

  Despite the chaotic flurry of the women, children, bureaucrats, workers, servants and felines who roamed the halls of the House, it was run with precision by the royal matriarchs. Responsible for generating their own income by managing its lands and investments, the mothers and grandmothers took great pride in outstripping the profits of the men on the other side of the palace – in most years, by quite some margin.

  Neith was one of the most promising matriarchs the House had produced in living memory. ‘I assume these merchants are new to dealing with the House?’ Tausret said.

  ‘Of course,’ Tiy said, poking Neith with a delicate finger. ‘No-one who had dealt with our sister before would voluntarily repeat the experience.’

  The corners of Neith’s eyes crinkled as she bounced her young son on her hip.

&nbs
p; ‘Perhaps, if your schedule allows, we might break bread together soon, Mighty Lady?’ Lady Meryt said.

  Tausret’s heart lightened. She had been remiss in yearning to enter the afterlife when she was able to spend time with her trusted family members here and now. ‘Seben, could you please arrange a private banquet for the five of us this evening?’

  ‘Of course, Mighty Lady.’

  Turning toward her destination, Tausret watched Siptah limp away with his aunts and cousins. She wondered at the child’s good nature; he never seemed troubled by his shrunken, twisted leg.

  Continuing her journey to the throne room, Tausret reflected on how strongly Siptah resembled his cousins, despite his Canaanite heritage. Her entrepreneurial sister Neith had produced five children with their full-blooded brother Ptah, meaning Neith’s children were descended from a single great-grandfather, Ramesses the Second. Yet Siptah, who was half foreigner, could easily have passed for another of Neith’s brood. It was as though Ramesses the Second’s blood had overwhelmed Siptah’s Canaanite legacy.

  Puzzling at the vagaries of children’s resemblance to one parent or the other, Tausret signalled for a contingent of her personal Medjay to form a protective barrier around her and Seben. They exited the House of Women and headed toward the centre of the palace complex of Men-nefer, divine capital of the great Black Land.

  —

  Tausret sat erect on a comfortable linen sling-bench next to Seti’s chair, the glorious cedar and ebony throne of Khemet, its gold overlay and precious stones glowing in a shaft of light. Trying to concentrate on the trickle of a distant fountain and focus her eyes on the forest of painted lotus flowers on the walls around her, she practised patience as required by the laws of Ma’at.

  Some days Seti took twice as long as Tausret to complete his morning prayers, be shaved and prepared by his servants, and enter the throne room. As he would be presenting military awards at the appearance window this afternoon, honouring those who defended Khemet against the Sea Peoples, Tausret assumed he had been delayed because he was haranguing his servants into making him appear more regal.