by LJM Owen
Hidden among the throng of mourners, Tausret allowed her tears to flow. It wasn’t becoming for Pharaoh to be seen grieving over a mere physician, so Tausret had disguised herself as a member of Seben’s family in order to join the funeral procession. Directing her attendants to apply the simple makeup of a businesswoman, she had donned a coarse wig and the plain clothes of a contracting accountant, and ordered six of her most trusted Medjay to dress as regular merchants to accompany her. They clustered around her as the wailing crowd pressed in.
‘Your mouth is opened by Ptah,
Your mouth’s bonds are loosed by Tawaret.’
Surrounded by a haze of incense, the Priestess of Nephthys waved one knife blade after another over the painting of Seben’s mouth, then smeared the raw, bloodied end of a calf’s leg across the coffin’s painted lips. Seben needed her mouth fully opened in the afterlife, else she would not be able to breathe or eat…else, when they were reunited in the Land of Two Fields, Tausret and Seben would not be able to whisper confidences to each other.
‘Thoth has come fully equipped with spells,
He looses the bonds of Seth from your mouth.’
Twisting her feet into the burning sand of the Great Field, Tausret allowed her voice to soar alongside Seben’s much-married sister’s, crying, screaming at the top of her lungs with the mourning women she had hired for Seben’s funeral. The wails that echoed across the valley mirrored the song in Tausret’s heart.
‘Atum has given you your hands,
They are placed as guardians.’
A bald-headed priest rattled his sistrum at Tausret, then at the woman beside her, as he wandered among the multitude of mourners. Between the crashing cymbals, booming drums, and mosquito drone of wind and stringed instruments, Tausret caught snatches of gossip. They said that the funeral procession was so elaborate, the number of hired funeral celebrants, musicians, dancers and priests so great, that this Seben must have been a royal person, possibly a granddaughter of Ramesses the Second.
‘Your mouth is given to you,
Your mouth is opened by Ptah.’
Tausret glanced skyward. A falcon that had hovered overhead during the entire ceremony, drifting on eddies for half the afternoon, was still there. He had soared over the Aur as Seben’s funeral procession sailed to the west bank. He had floated back and forth on outstretched wings as they travelled the Road where Re Sits, and on into the Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Pharaoh’s Millions of Years. He had drifted on, ever-watching, as Tausret’s disguised Medjay carried Seben’s canopic jars into her tomb.
‘With that chisel of metal,
With which he opened the mouth of the gods.’
Tausret knew the falcon was the god Horus, there to remind her of her obligations as Pharaoh. She must bear the burdens of her position, must return herself to a state of balance, else her heart would be judged too heavy in the Hall of Two Truths and she would not reunite with Seben in the afterlife.
‘You are Sekhmet-Wadjet who dwells in the west of heaven,
You are Sahyt among the souls of On.’
The Chief Priestess of Nephthys, her elaborate dress, jewellery and wig glinting in the sun, signalled for Seben’s family to accompany her coffin into her tomb. The crowd gasped as they glimpsed the enchanted walls within, for Tausret had built an eternal golden resting place for the spirit of her beloved Seben.
In the daze of grief that had followed Seben and Siptah’s murders, Tausret ordered that both their tombs be completed in record time. While Siptah’s tomb was to be appropriate to his status as a king, Tausret wanted Seben to live in refined beauty for ever. She had ordered golden coffins, golden walls, and golden statues to fill the burial chamber, all studded with the brightest of diamonds, the bluest of sapphires, the reddest of rubies, and the greenest of emeralds. She had paid workers to labour day and night to complete it.
During Seben’s mummification process, Tausret had visited the royal embalmers repeatedly, weeping at the sight of her lost companion’s slashed face, and enclosing Seben’s favourite writing brushes in the folds of her linen wrappings. She had fussed over the detailed artistry on Seben’s cartonnage, her three coffins and her sarcophagus, to the point that she caused a breakdown in the Chief Embalmer. Tausret sent parcels of food to his family in apology.
‘Pass safely into the Land of Two Fields,
Be greeted by the loved ones of your youth.’
Seben’s coffin was gently lowered into the stone sarcophagus of her tomb. As the carved lid was dragged into place, Tausret darted forward and slipped her treasured golden bangle from her wrist, letting it fall onto Seben’s coffin. A piece of Tausret’s ka would rest with Seben for eternity.
‘Rest, rest, for all too soon you will sail on mighty Ra’s boat.’
Watching priests seal the door to Seben’s tomb with wax and clay, the painted figure of Anubis crouching across the entrance, Tausret wondered how she could possibly face the remainder of her day.
As the funeral procession returned to the cool waters of the Aur for a feast, Tausret noticed a vulture perching on a distant stony hill. The goddess Nekhbet, the bestower of the divine right to rule, had come to reinforce Horus’ message. Tausret must maintain Ma’at’s balance or disaster would befall the land of Khemet.
So, as the light faded, Tausret returned to Seben’s tomb with a contingent of Medjay, priests and embalmers. The wax and clay door seals were removed and, with minimum ceremony, seven linen-wrapped corpses carried inside.
With her final breaths in this life Seben had revealed Chancellor Bay’s co-conspirator: Tausret’s full-blooded sister, Neith. With a few brief words Seben had explained Neith’s lifetime of lies.
The reason Siptah had looked so much like Neith’s children was that his uncle, Bay, was in fact the father of Neith’s children. Ptah, Neith’s husband, had not overcome his aversion to women after all. Bay had plotted to place his own eldest son with Neith on the throne, making Neith the Mother of a King and himself Regent of Khemet.
In the days that followed Siptah and Seben’s death, Tausret had issued private orders to her most trusted Medjay to despatch Neith and her five children, and have their bodies transported to a private royal embalmer. The deaths were not to be made public; Tausret decided to allow rumour and supposition to fill the void of their sudden disappearance.
Tausret had also given orders for Bay’s mummy to be retrieved and for Bay, Neith and their five children to be buried in a secret chamber hidden behind a false wall in Seben’s tomb. Out of respect for the divine royal blood in Neith’s veins, and in recognition of the innocence of her children, she included figurines of Neith and each of her children with their names carved on them in the tomb, ensuring their souls would have somewhere to reside. Bay, of course, would receive no such consideration. Tausret had his body mummified, but no figurine or name given, so that his spirit would wander homeless, lost and wailing for all eternity.
Tausret stifled a sob at the sight of the smallest linen- wrapped corpse being loaded into the space behind the false wall in Seben’s tomb, then set her ka on a course of abject service to Khemet until the blissful release of death.
—
‘Ka nakht mery Ma’at; Gereg Kemet waf khasut; Sat Ra meryt en Amun, Tausret greets you,’ the Vizier Hori recited: Strong Bull, Beloved of Ma’at, Founder of Egypt, who vanquishes foreign countries, Daughter of Ra, Beloved of Amun, Mighty Lady.
Tausret, seated on the throne of the Enduring and Beautiful Capital of the Black Land, did not feel mighty or strong. In the months since Siptah and Seben’s funerals she had felt diminished beyond all repair. Though she struggled on, there was no joy to be found in life, and as yet no respite from it.
‘Step forward, Tiy, Daughter of a King and Granddaughter of a King,’ Hori continued.
Shifting uncomfortably on the throne of Khemet, Tausret wondered that
the cushion beneath her rump was so thin. Why did everything hurt her bones?
‘Do you, according to the laws of Ma’at, accept the burdens of the role of Great Wife of Amun?’ Hori asked.
As Pharaoh, Tausret could no longer perform the role of the high priestess of the god Amun. As her mother and father’s eldest surviving daughter, Tausret had in her veins the most divine blood of all Ramesses the Second’s female descendants. Tiy was the next in that line.
Tiy inclined her perfectly painted face, the gleaming strands of her wig falling beautifully about her shoulders. ‘Yes.’
Tausret had asked her sister to step into the role, in exchange for making Tiy and her husband Setnakhte’s eldest son, another Ramesses, the heir to Khemet’s throne.
Despite her elevation to future Mother of a King, Tiy had kept her distance from Tausret ever since the disappearance of their sister Neith and Neith’s children. Tiy obviously suspected that she was responsible, even though Tausret had issued the order for an official investigation. Whenever she attempted to converse with Tiy, her younger sister focused all conversation on the best methods of preserving her skin or maintaining the perfect shape of her limbs, avoiding any other topic.
Deep inside, Tausret was paralysed with grief. Neith’s betrayal had cut too deeply. Without Seben at her side, and with her only companion her suspicious and vain sister Tiy, she felt unequal to the task of maintaining Ma’at for her country.
Perhaps, though, with the death of Neith and Bay, she had finally quelled the rebellion against her – it was her only hope. If she could but put the horrendous losses of Seben and Siptah behind her, she might finally be able to push her irrigation program through and save her people from starvation. As Horus and Nekhbet had warned on the day of Seben’s funeral, the fate of all of Khemet rested on her shoulders.
—
Year 5, Reign of Pharaoh Tausret (1183 BCE)
Men-nefer, Khemet (now Memphis, modern Egypt)
Tausret clawed at the hands around her throat, then at Setnakhte’s eyes. She succeeded in causing him sufficient pain that he loosened his grip. Then she stumbled backwards and fell to the floor. Desperately, she tried to call out but her throat was too raw from being choked.
Since Seben’s death, she had maintained solitude at night. There was no bed companion to raise the alarm. Not that it would have helped: if Setnakhte had managed to steal into her chambers, it meant her Medjay were incapacitated or dead.
Her one option for defence was a poisoned needle she kept beneath her mattress. Scooting backwards on her elbows, she attempted to distract her assailant. ‘You would murder Pharaoh with your own hands? How can you serve Isfet? How can you betray Ma’at so?’
Setnakhte stood over her, his liquid black eyes unnaturally calm. ‘You’re not Pharaoh. A woman’s job is to bear Pharaoh, not be Pharaoh. You’re the reason the Aur does not flood. You’re the reason Khemet falls. By taking your place I will restore balance and Khemet will prosper once more.’
Tausret managed two more shuffles towards her bed. ‘I have more right than any other to sit on the throne. I have more divine blood than you!’
Setnakhte kept pace with her. ‘I’m descended from the Great Ramesses and his first wife, and from an older son than you. After Seti’s death the throne should have passed to me, not that sickly boy. I will found a new dynasty and my children will rule for ever,’ he said calmly.
Despite her impending death, Tausret snorted.
Setnakhte’s nostrils flared. ‘What could possibly amuse you in this moment?’
‘The House of Wisdom is filled with accounts of men, Pharaoh after Pharaoh, who had the same thought and failed. And as my heir your son Ramesses would have sat on the throne, regardless.’
‘Perhaps, but there was no certainty. Bay was right. The child Siptah was weak, as are you…’
Tausret continued to edge toward the needle beneath her mattress as Setnakhte spoke.
‘The role of Pharaoh is not to fawn over the health of citizens, it’s not about directing the flow of the Aur into the fields. Under your rule we may have lost the country…’
Almost there.
‘Being Pharaoh is about expanding our territory through conquest, building wealth, controlling our neighbours, appeasing the gods with temples and monuments…’
Tausret’s shoulder pressed against the linen of her cot. She had only to reach one hand up behind her back and pull the needle out, being careful not to pierce her own skin.
‘It’s about increasing Khemet’s power, making it greater than ever before. That will happen under my rule. And don’t think I will allow you to strike me with whatever it is you’ve hidden beneath your bed.’
From a corner somewhere, Maahes hissed. Tausret noticed a movement in the shadows as her fingers sought the hidden needle. Another person had entered her chambers. Had someone heard their struggle? Was there still hope?
‘Hurry. Finish it,’ came the whisper.
Those three words ended Tausret’s fight for her life. She slumped on the floor. ‘Tiy. Why?’ she begged her sister. ‘I made your son my successor. I would have shared the throne with him, if only you’d asked.’
‘You’re young still,’ Tiy sneered, as Setnakhte pulled Tausret away from the bed by the long red locks she had allowed to grow. ‘You may live for ever, like Grandfather.’ Tiy grasped Setnakhte’s free hand. ‘We want to rule now.’
‘Tiy, please. Thousands of our people die from hunger. Will you continue my work to feed them?’
‘It matters not. There are always more people.’
‘Our borders are threatened and we need to show unity. There’s no need to kill me. Please, we can work together to protect Khemet.’
‘Soft-heartedness was ever your weakness,’ said Tiy. ‘Armies can be built, invaders can be bribed, or turned, or crushed. The priests are behind us. The merchants are with us. Even the Medjay support us.’
Tausret continued to argue with them out of habit, not any real hope that she might see another sunrise in this life. ‘Not all of them.’
‘Enough. The others are expendable,’ Tiy said.
‘You will plunge Khemet into civil war. Everyone will lose.’
‘Wrong. We will win,’ Setnakhte said. ‘We have, this day, already taken five cities in Upper Khemet.’
‘My husband will sit on the throne, and I will be next to him. We will be the divine rulers of Khemet, and my eldest son and daughter will take our places when the time comes.’
Tausret laughed.
‘Stop that!’ Tiy snapped.
‘You kill me – your own sister – to take my place. Yet you believe the next usurper will not come for you? What example do you set for your children?’
Tiy unsheathed a knife from beneath her gossamer robes. ‘Exactly, my children. Your one great failing.’
Tausret could see the blade was coated, a dark stain covering more than half the surface.
‘You were not able to furnish the throne with an heir,’ Tiy continued, ‘whereas there will be no shortage under our reign. Our children will love and revere us. They belong to us.’
Tiy bent down and slashed Tausret’s leg, her face riven and crazed in the moonlight. ‘Now I am Chief Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh!’
The poison was fast-acting. Tausret, certain that her heart would be lighter than Ma’at’s Feather, sank gladly toward the afterlife. She had sacrificed her joy, her happiness and her loved ones in this life in adherence to the laws of Ma’at. As promised, her reward would be life everlasting with Seben and her precious baby daughter.
As she looked into the perfectly painted face of her duplicitous sister, her last thought was to wonder if she would meet Nitocris in the Land of Two Fields. If so, she would tell the Pharaoh from a thousand years ago that she had been right: when old men rule for too long, when the silt-laden waters
of the Aur fail to flood, failure to capture the meagre flow will result in catastrophe across the land.
Outside Tausret’s chamber Hori the Vizier stepped around several deceased Medjay, a forest of arrows protruding from their chests. He scuttled toward the throne room, preparing to announce Setnakhte’s ascension to the throne of the Black Land.
Chapter Twenty
Now
Canberra, Australia
‘Lizbet, Lizbet, wake up,’ Matty whispered through her bedroom door. ‘It’s Christmas!’
As Elizabeth patted Billy’s purring orange head, wished Oliver a Merry Christmas, and left her dream in the phrenic library, she reminded herself of the undertaking she had made just a few hours earlier. Wrapping Mai’s presents the night before, she had promised herself she would let today wash over her like a soothing balm, soaking in the good things and letting the difficulties of the year float away.
‘Lizbet, come on!’
‘Coming,’ she whispered back.
Tiptoeing to avoid known squeaky points on the floor, Elizabeth opened her door to find a rumpled Matty, drowsy Sam and alert Mai gathered outside. The excited grin on her older sister’s face made any amount of sleeplessness entirely worthwhile.
All four cats joined in the adventure, their well-groomed tails quivering with excitement as they padded down the stairs. They had received a thorough brushing the day before as part of the Pimms Furball Minimisation Program, during which Mai and Seshet had discovered a mutual rapport.
Elizabeth, Sam and Matty hung back, letting Mai go first through the loungeroom door into the icy cold, heavily decorated winter wonderland. A banner in deepest purple was strung across the front of the bauble-laden tree, ‘Merry Christmas Mai’ picked out in huge gold letters.
Mai turned to her siblings, her mouth an O, eyes sparkling.