by Jerry Dubs
Everyone was busy and content except for Neferhotep who had been assigned, through Maya’s intervention with Pharaoh Hatshepsut, to the house guard. He was bored in the capital and longed to be with Thutmose III, Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s stepson, who was leading the army in Sinai. Consequently he raced his chariot too fast along the main river path and spent his nights away from home.
Imhotep saw his own lost son Tjau in Neferhotep – the longing for excitement, the realization that, at eighteen, his life was racing past. Remembering how quickly and unexpectedly Tjau’s life had ended, he argued now on Neferhotep’s behalf, surprising himself by suggesting to Pentu and Maya that perhaps Neferhotep should be allowed to join the fighting army.
Life, Imhotep realized, had once again become something he enjoyed.
He was challenged with the temple plans and with helping to organize the trip to Ta Netjer. He enjoyed the company of Pentu, Senenmut, and Nehsy, surprised at their tolerance and with the freedom Pharaoh Hatshepsut gave them to argue against her, something King Djoser did not encourage. His evenings were generally spent with Maya, Pentu, and Akila, learning how society and the court operated and, from Akila, learning the history of Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
Having met Pharaoh Hatshepsut and seen the warmth and respect her advisors held for her, he was beginning to understand how she kept her stepson at bay. Thutmose III, Imhotep knew, would become pharaoh and, in the distant future, he would be regarded as the Napoleon of ancient Egypt. That Hatshepsut was able to hold onto the throne, and even trust him with the army, was amazing to Imhotep.
Her delegation of power, her astuteness in choosing her advisors and commanders, and her willingness to let them think and advise freely were the reasons she had a power base among the priests, the educated, and the wealthy. And they were the reasons Imhotep found himself walking now with Admiral Ahmose.
The admiral was worried about the small size of the expeditionary force and Pharaoh Hatshepsut had urged Imhotep to talk with him. Either Ahmose would sway Imhotep to his thinking or her strange new advisor would persuade Ahmose that a small trading mission was the better plan.
The sharp, spicy scent of cedar floated above the salty stink of sweat as Imhotep and Ahmose paced the length of the fifth ship, still under construction. To protect the wood from warping, the ships were being built under a huge awning of linen stretched from tree to tree along the banks of the river.
Four completed ships waited along the river bank, swaying in the river’s current and gently tugging on palm fiber ropes that tethered them to the bank. Small splashes – fish snatching lacewings and stoneflies among the reeds – filled the space between the grunts of the shipbuilders, the thud of wooden mallets, and the scrape of saws and planes.
Ahmose was portly, his arms pushed tight against his dark skin, forming deep creases at his elbows and wrists. The back of his neck was ringed with lines also, each of them leading to the folds of another chin. Yet he carried himself with energy, fueled by heaving breathing and recharged with frequent pauses punctuated with quick hand movements, as if he were gathering energy from the air.
“The trouble is,” Ahmose said, “Pharaoh keeps changing her mind. It’s your fault, you know.” He stepped over a bundle of reeds. Stacks of them, intended to be used as caulking, lined the length of the ship, more than thirty of Ahmose’s waddling paces.
He twisted his neck to look at Imhotep who kept pausing to admire the ship, to touch the long palm trunk mast that lay beside the ship, to kick gently at the reed bundles.
“She was planning an invasion.” Ahmose paused, put his hands on his hips, let them idly slide away and said, “You told her that it was a trading expedition. And now she hesitates.
“We could build a real fleet, something to carry chariots and several companies of soldiers, that’s all it would take. We could sail there.” He stopped and stared at Imhotep. “You do know where we are going, right?”
Imhotep smiled diplomatically in reply.
He had no idea where the Land of Punt lay. But then he had had no idea how to build a pyramid. All he had was the confidence that history recorded that things had been done and so he felt assured that, somehow, they would be accomplished.
Akila had told him that Pharaoh Hatshepsut had sent a fleet of five ships on a trading expedition to the Land of Punt. So, he reasoned, it would happen. And with five ships.
“I am sure that you will find it,” Imhotep said. “And the mission will be a great success. It will be remembered forever.”
Ahmose snorted.
“You say these things,” he held up a pudgy hand, “and, mind you, I am not saying that I personally disbelieve you, but ... ”
Imhotep leaned on his staff and looked at the nearly completed ship.
“The fleet will be five ships. You will sail the Great Green and return with exotic animals, gold, gems, incense, and thirty-one baskets of myrrh trees.”
“Trees,” Ahmose repeated. “I don’t think we’ll be bringing back trees. And if we did they would be cedar, something strong and useful.”
But even as he spoke, Ahmose wondered at Imhotep’s implacable assurance: not just baskets of myrrh trees, but thirty one of them!
I will count them myself, Ahmose thought.
- 0 -
Maya had a secret.
Her eyes sparkled and moved from face to face, unable to meet the return gaze of anyone. She ate the cucumbers, onions and beef, she drank the wine, she heard the excitement in Akila’s voice as she described a papyrus Sitre had found that described something to do with cutting open a brain. She heard appreciative laughter as Imhotep told them that Senenmut had suggested an extra large bedchamber in the mortuary temple because Pharaoh Hatshepsut was ‘unusually energetic.’
She was chewing bread slowly, allowing it to dissolve into sweetness, when she realized that no one was talking.
She looked at Pentu. Her husband’s head was cocked as he stared at her. She looked at Akila, who was stifling a grin and then at her father who was shaking his head and smiling.
“What?” she said.
Pentu reached out and laid a hand over hers. “Sweet Maya, what is your great secret?”
“Secret?” she said.
“It is your eyes, my love,” he said with amusement. “They dance, they sing, and then they hide.”
She glanced at each of them and then, straightening her back, she said, “Yes, I have an announcement.”
Pentu raised his eyebrows. Akila crossed her arms. Imhotep leaned forward, dreaming of another grandchild.
“I am going to be pharaoh!”
There was a quiet moment as Imhotep looked at Akila with questioning eyes. She gave a small shrug in answer as Pentu said jovially, “Wonderful, I can begin collecting titles as Senenmut has done.”
“Just for a little while,” Maya said. “And you can’t tell anyone.”
“What are you talking about, Maya?” Imhotep asked, his eyes darting once more to Akila.
Maya leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Pharaoh Hatshepsut has decided to travel with you to Ta Netjer.”
“No,” Akila said without thinking, “she didn’t go along.”
Pentu said mildly, “Pharaoh Hatshepsut has proven that what she wants to do, she will do. Perhaps your memory is mistaken, Akila. Or perhaps your history failed to record it.”
“Or it was kept secret,” Imhotep said, looking at Maya. “I know that I have little experience here, but, Maya, will you be safe?” he asked, his voice flat and serious. “There are always court intrigues, always someone with an eye on the throne.”
Justice
Governor Seni had bathed and eaten breakfast – fruit and bread that carried little flavor to his heart. Now he stood in his tired white robe in front of the gate to his palace. His right hand held a long, black and white ostrich feather, around his neck was a golden necklace and dangling from it was a lapis lazuli representation of the goddess Ma’at.
Standing behind him, Sabestet
held a small stack of papyri. Before him was a small group of men, each of them eager for ma’at.
It was a day of justice and Seni was now priest of Ma’at, arbiter of the law.
He took a deep breath. Arid and lifeless, the air filled his chest but did not lift his spirits. He was waiting for Wepwaret to come and lead him to the Field of Reeds. He was eager to see Mut-Nofret – would she be in the form of the girl he had held, or the woman he had loved from afar?
Seni blinked slowly. The sun, almost directly overhead, seemed to set the reddish earth on fire and he could feel the oil on his arms gather its heat. A trickle of sweat formed under his black wig and ran down the back of his neck.
“Governor Seni, breath of Pharaoh Hatshepsut,” Sabestet announced, his voice taking on a false depth as he opened the court, “Priest of Ma’at, Guarder of the Gate will hear your claims.”
Seni nodded and sat on the tall, straight-backed chair he used now. In earlier years he had stood during court; the energy and joy of maintaining balance in the Two Lands had given him strength. But, although he had maintained ma’at in Ta-Seti, the goddess had not deigned to restore balance to his life.
He thought of Hatshepsut again and of the other-worldly warrior named Bata who had saved her. He thought of simple, awkward Akheperenre. The boy had been born with a raised knot atop his head. A sign from the gods, but was it a blessing or a curse?
As the boy grew older, it was clear that he had not been blessed. He was slow to speak, slow to walk, slow to grow. A year after Amenmose and Wadjmose had been killed, Thutmose died. Akheperenre and Princess Hatshepsut were married, transforming Akheperenre into Thutmose II. Because the new pharaoh was only ten years old, a regent would rule with him for a few years. Perhaps longer – the boy was slow.
Sitting in the hot sun, Seni’s thoughts drifted to those heady days.
The funeral for Thutmose I had been magnificent. There had been feasts, progressions from one temple to another, dancers, musicians. The incense and aroma of roast oxen, the sounds of chanting and harps filled his memory.
And across the rooms or open plazas, he and Mut-Nofret would catch each other’s eyes, smiling in anticipation. She was mother of the new ruler, soon to be regent. Soon to be Seni’s lover once more.
And then, that ancient bastard Hapuseneb, first priest of Amun, had led Hatshepsut before the throng and announced that the god had told him that fifteen-year-old Hatshepsut, God’s Great Wife, would be regent until her young husband came of age.
“Governor Seni?” Sabestet said softly from behind the chair.
Seni shook his head. The sounds of the crowd cheering Hatshepsut faded, but the feeling of despair that accompanied the memory stayed with him. Slowly he raised his eyes and saw two men and a baboon.
Now what?
“Heqanakht claims injury from Menena,” Sabestet repeated, the first announcement having fallen unheard on Seni’s distracted ears.
“Which of you is Heqanakht?” Seni said, focusing his attention on the men.
A man wearing a dirty loincloth and a dirtier bandage wrapped about his right calf raised his hand and started to speak. Seni raised his hand.
“And you are Menena?” he said to the other man who was holding the leash of the baboon.
The second man nodded. “He is a thief!” he shouted, pointing to Heqanakht.
Seni looked at Heqanakht, who had edged a step away from Menena and was staring at the baboon, which was sitting quietly staring at the ostrich feather Seni held.
Seni pointed the feather at Heqanakht. “Are you a thief?” he asked.
“No! I was at his stall, he sells fruit, most of it rotten and soft. I was looking over some dates, trying to separate the fruit from the roaches. His stall is filthy, covered with roaches.”
Seni saw Menena nudge the baboon with his foot. The monkey jumped at Heqanakht, who screamed a high-pitched yelp and stumbled backward. The crowd of petitioners laughed and the baboon, reaching the end of its tether, bared its teeth menacingly at Heqanakht and then knuckle-walked back to sit at its owner’s feet.
Half turning in his chair, Seni asked Sabestet, “What is this case about?”
“The thief, and no one argues that Heqanakht is not a thief, was bitten by the baboon. He seeks compensation.”
“And what did he steal?”
“In this case, nothing, Governor Seni. He was thwarted by the baboon.”
Seni turned back to the crowd. The baboon was bent forward to pick at its anus. A long, thin, red penis stood erect below its belly. Menena shifted his weight from foot to foot and smirked at Heqanakht who was standing well beyond the reach of the baboon and shaking in fear.
I could have been stepfather to Pharaoh Thutmose II, Seni thought. Instead I am sitting in the sun so far from the Two Lands that they might as well not exist. I have been exiled from all that I love and I spend my days watching a monkey scratch his ass.
- 0 -
Back in his chambers following the court session, Governor Seni stood with arms overhead while Sabestet, standing on a stool behind him, pulled off Seni’s official robe. Sabestet stepped off the stool and, holding the robe carefully over his arm, he said, “Should I send for your masseuse?”
Seni shook his head. Watching the children perform had grown tiresome. The girls were never as sensual as he remembered Mut-Nofret. The boys were always too eager to perform, not willing to be led by the girls.
While he waited for Wepwaret to take him to the Field of Reeds, he needed a new distraction.
“Wine?” Sabestet asked, waiting patiently beside Seni.
“Yes,” Seni said decisively. “Bring it to my office. No, no, to the treasury. That’s where the maps are, isn’t it.”
“Maps?” Sabestet asked, trying to following Seni’s thoughts. “Yes, Governor Seni, there are maps in the treasury. But there are more in the library.”
“The library then,” Seni said, turning away and stalking toward the door.
- 0 -
Pharaoh Hatshepsut could keep secrets. Maya and Pentu, Imhotep and Akila, they knew how to hold their tongues. But shipbuilding demanded wood, and trees were scarce in the Two Lands, especially the tall cedar that were split and shaved to make planks for a ship's hull.
And so word had spread that ships were being built for a great expedition. Riding the tail of the rumor came reports that a great canal was being dug through the eastern desert from the river Iteru to the Great Green.
The rumors had followed the river north to the delta and they had swept south to the first cataract and then beyond it to Ta-Seti, finally whispered into the ears of Governor Seni who stood now in a loincloth and leaned over a map of the Two Lands.
With a finger he traced the rumored path of the canal, east from Waset to the Great Green. Across the Great Green were the Terraces of Turquoise, home of the goddess Hathor. But there were ferries to take men across the Great Green. A new fleet of ships wasn’t needed for that trip.
His finger followed the sea north toward Sinai where the land pinched together. There was no place for ships to sail northward from there.
So they must be headed south, he thought, already knowing where his thoughts were leading.
He followed the Great Green south, the lines that defined it ending abruptly as the map came to an end.
Shuffling through a stack of papyrus sheaves, he found another map, one that his Medjays had confiscated years ago from a merchant. It showed a path that left the river south of Kerma. The eastern desert was uncharted there. No one knew the location of the wadis that would provide firm footing on the shifting sands, no one knew the hidden watering holes in that wasteland.
Even this map, turning brown with age, was vague. But it did show a trail heading eastward. And written on the right edge were characters so faded that Seni had to carry the papyrus to a window and lean his old eyes close to it.
Out of practice in reading hieroglyphs, he had to mouth each symbol. Pursing his lips for the square that
stood for a stool, opening his mouth for the sound of the hare, touching his tongue to the roof of his mouth for the water ripple and flicking it forward to make the sound shown by the bread loaf, he slowly gave breath to ‘P-wn-n-t.’
Lastly he read the mountain symbol of ‘land.’
“Pwenet,” he whispered. He nodded: Pwenet was the name given to Ta Netjer, Land of God.
He hurried back to his table and laid the fading papyrus beside his map of the Two Lands. His finger shaking from excitement, he followed the canal to the Great Green, down the Great Green to the edge of the map. Looking at the older map, he followed the river south, then east to Ta Netjer.
Pharaoh Hatshepsut is sending ships to Ta Netjer, he thought. But only five ships, not a military force, a trading mission.
Seni closed his eyes.
It was perfect!
He could not reach into the Two Lands and harm Pharaoh Hatshepsut. There was no way that he could get past her guards, although it was said that Bata, the warrior sent by the gods to save Hatshepsut so many years ago, was now gone. Recalled by the gods.
May he be engulfed in crocodile shit and his ka languish forever!
No, Seni thought, I can’t reach into Waset, into the palace and strangle her as she strangled my hopes. But here, he gripped the papyrus so hard that the dried fibers crumpled, if she reaches out to Ta Netjer, I can cut off her hand.
Deception
Pharaoh Hatshepsut stood on a dais in the stone-paved courtyard in front of the House of Amun, the largest temple in the sacred, ever-growing complex known as Ipet-isut, The Most Selected of Places.