by K. T. Tomb
“Why do you make these cartouches, princess? I thought you wanted the Book to remain hidden but at the same time you are leaving directions,” Melia said.
“I have been tricked by so many men in my life, Melia,” she replied. “These messages are my security. If anything happens to me or this priest decides to betray me, then I can still hope that one day there will be someone who is clever enough to follow my trail and find these words. If they are wise enough, they will find the Book and do what needs to be done with it.”
When she was finished, they replaced the moss they had stripped away from the base of the stone and the caravan was packed up hastily and moved out of the oasis shortly after her return to the wagon; it was obvious that they were now in a hurry to get out of the region. The oxen were whipped and the guards rode their horses up and down the line inspecting the road ahead and watching the desert around them keenly for any signs of approaching men.
They didn’t even pause to eat or sleep that night; food baskets were brought to the wagons by the guards on horseback along with skins filled with watered wine. After eating supper, the girls played hand games and guessing games to pass the time. Usually Melia and Ankhesenamun would be content to just watch them in their amusement but tonight they joined in. It wasn’t often that the princess could be reminded that she was really still a girl like they were, but tonight she felt young and happy. When they were too tired to play any longer, they all fell asleep among the cushions and furs.
When she awoke, the caravan was still on the move but it seemed strangely quiet. She couldn’t hear the lowing of the oxen or the cracking of the whips that drove them, no horses whinnied or galloped past alongside the wagon; in fact, there was no sound of the other wagons. In a panic, Ankhesenamun threw back the curtains and was instantly blinded by the reflection of the sun on the white, parched desert sand. As her eyes adjusted she looked ahead and groaned loudly. The servant girls were now awake and scrambling in beside her to look out of the window. When they saw what lay ahead of them, they threw themselves to the floor of the wagon and wept loudly. Melia came to sit beside the princess and then she looked out the window as well. Sprawling out before them on the horizon were the walls of Luxor. The towering columns of the palace and the Temple of Amun-Ra were unmistakable. Melia caught Ankhesenamun’s head in her hands as the princess collapsed on her in tears.
Suddenly, she sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. She straightened her shoulders and hushed the weeping servants.
“Shut up, you girls!” she said harshly. “Your wailing will only draw attention to us. If the guards know that we are aware of our whereabouts they will secure the wagon more fiercely. Be quiet.”
The princess reached for her cosmetics box and opened it. She took out her kohl, malachite and ochre. As if on cue, Melia held up the polished bronze mirror for her. Patiently, Ankhesenamun painted her eyelids with the green malachite, and then outlined her eyes with kohl. She applied a little ochre to her lips and then put everything back in the box. She put her veil over her head and wrapped it about her shoulders, so that her face was covered, and then she sat and waited.
“Melia and you girls,” she said quietly. “Do not follow me. Stay in the wagon and cry if you want to, but do not follow me. They will kill you if you do.”
Soon the wagon was making its way up the road that led to the temple, they would go past it and then a little further to the palace gates. The wagon slowed down as it neared the temple steps to allow the people to clear the way ahead of it. She waited patiently with her hand on the door and as soon as it came to a stop, Ankhesenamun threw the door open and jumped down into the street. She raced around the back of the wagon and up the steps of the temple, pushing past the people who were walking by and the priests who stood out front collecting offerings for the altars. She heard the guards dismounting their horses and chasing after her. It was all they could do; they would not fire arrows at the princess. She burst through the temple doors and ran up to the altar.
“Lock the doors, my lords,” she cried. “They are trying to kill your Queen.”
The priests pushed the heavy stone doors shut and formed a human wall in front of her as she knelt before Amun-Ra’s altar praying fervently. It wasn’t long before the guards forced the doors aside and stormed into the temple. They roughly threw the priests aside and cleared their way to where she knelt praying.
She stood regally, refusing to be dragged from the sanctuary like a beggar or a criminal. Before she took her eyes off the altar, Ankhesenamun formed her last plea to the god in the form of a curse.
“As long as a subject sits on the throne of Egypt, there will be nothing but war in the land. No more than nine harvests will pass before he will breathe his last and his house will be scythed from the earth as the wheat from the field. The seeds will be gorged on by the birds so they cannot take root.”
“The Queen has spoken,” said one of the priests, reciting the ritual favorable ending to a prayer of which they approved.
“Amun-Ra has heard her,” the others replied in chorus.
There was fear written on the face of every soldier when they heard the priests endorsing the curse Ankhesenamun had prayed. She looked around at them and saw the shame and anguish in their expressions, not one of them could meet her gaze. Satisfied, she turned and straightened her shoulders. Then she clasped her hands in front of her and walked, with her head held high, out of temple and up the street towards the palace gates. The people fell to their knees and reached out to touch her feet or the hem of her dress as she passed them.
“Ankhesenamun- Tasherit- Ma’at, our Queen!” they called out to her, as they lay down papyrus reeds for her to walk on.
They called her loudly by her divine name, ‘Ankhesenamun, the younger, goddess-wife of Ra’, so the guards, and whoever were taking her back to the palace by force, would know that they had recognized her. She hoped that would prevent anything violent from happening later on in fear of inciting a riot. When she arrived at the palace steps, she turned to the crowd and waved to them. As they stood and watched, she sat at the door and her feet were washed by a servant, then she carried the basin down the steps and sprinkled the water over them with the papyrus brush. They had shown her that she was their Queen, so now she would have to act like a Queen.
The guards escorted her inside and led her to the royal apartments where she was locked inside. Melia and her other servants were already there, some of the girls showed signs of having been whipped; possibly for information about the location of the Book. It was a very angering situation for Ankhesenamun, but she remained silent refusing to breakdown in front of her servants who she knew must be in a much more fragile state than her own.
A guard came for her after supper and escorted her to the Pharaohs’ apartments. She entered as she would have when those rooms had been occupied by her beloved husband, Tutankhamun. Holding her head high, she walked into the presence chamber and sat in the chair on the raised dais at the front of the room. When her royal husband was alive there were two chairs there, one for him and another for her; she noticed that now there was only the one she was sitting in. She took up a cup from the table and lifted it for the servant to pour her some wine, which she drank with a passive look on her face. Ay watched her disbelievingly for a moment, and then he jumped to his feet and shouted at her.
“Where is the codex?”
“Ay,” she said calmly. “Why do you behave like this? I always told you that you should be careful about your deportment, but look at you now. Are you jumping up and down and raising your voice at the Queen like a common virago? It could never be!”
She raised the cup to her lips demurely and drained it, holding it up to be filled again.
“Do not speak to me like that,” he retorted. “I am the King.”
“Really? I would think rather that you are the consort of the Royal Queen of Egypt.”
She turned to the wine servant and said, “Call the Vizier!”
&n
bsp; Ay did not like the turn that the conversation was taking. He was beginning to realize that the modest, soft-spoken woman he had tricked into marrying him had changed drastically on her little excursion into the desert. This new Ankhesenamun was no third-born child-princess any longer; the person who sat in front of him was a woman, a Queen, and he knew that he had better tread carefully.
“Why do you want to see the Vizier?”
“It occurred to me as I was in the desert scurrying away from you like a three-toed jerboa, that if my great mother, Queen Nefertiti was alive to see how I was behaving she would have thrown me to her feet and whipped me until I bled. The shame she would have felt would have set the fields of Luxor on fire. So, when I realized what I was doing, I was not proud of myself. My Queen Mother ruled this country after my father died so that vipers like you would not throw us into the midst of civil war. She was strong and very popular among the people; she ruled well.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Ay asked skeptically. It was becoming clear that he was worried about what Ankhesenamun was about to do.
“We will wait for Vizier Tamose to arrive,” she replied, sipping more wine from her cup.
There was a long and awkward silence as they waited for the counselor to arrive at the Pharaoh’s apartment. When he came in he bowed to Ay and then, with a look of surprise, he bowed to Ankhesenamun.
“Good evening Grand Vizier Tamose,” she said smiling. “You look surprised to see me. Come here and touch my feet, I want to talk to you.”
Tamose approached the Queen and touched his hand to his forehead and then to her feet. When he rose she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on both his cheeks.
“How may I be of assistance, my Queen?”
“You see how he addresses me, husband?” Ankhesenamun said, tauntingly. “Tamose called me ‘Queen’.”
“Indeed, he did,” Ay replied, quietly.
“Tamose, I want you to witness my decision and put it into immediate action as soon as I am finished,” she said.
“Yes, my Queen,” Tamose answered.
“I, Ankhesenamun-Tasherit-Ma’at, Royal Queen of Egypt have decided that I will create myself Pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt and rule this country in my own right.”
“What?” Ay shouted, jumping up from his seat. “You cannot do that, I am Pharaoh.”
“Ay, behave,” she said, raising her hand for silence. “You are not a king here, you are of common birth so you cannot sit on the throne. It was my mistake to make you believe that you had the right to do so as my husband, but I realize now that it is wrong. Tamose, let the record show that Ay’s title is now officially, Chief Consort of the Royal Queen, Pharaoh Ankhesenamun.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Tamose replied.
Ankhesenamun stood from the chair and handed the cup to the wine servant. She looked down from the dais at Tamose, who quickly lowered his eyes, then at Ay who stared at her with defiance in his. When she did not lower her stare, he finally lowered his. Satisfied, she stepped down from the dais and walked towards the door.
Turning back to face the room, she added, “Tamose, I am going to my apartments to gather my things. Ensure that Ay has been assigned appropriate rooms among the apartments of the consorts. I will be occupying these royal rooms from now on.”
She had turned the tables on her adversary. As Ankhesenamun walked back to her apartments, she felt regal. Her fears melted away and the strength and pride that she remembered admiring her mother for, now resided inside her as well. She could feel the blood of her father, a pharaoh, rushing through her veins and she knew she had done the right thing.
A week later, the priests of Amun-Ra came to the steps of the palace carrying the royal palanquin. The throne of the Pharaoh had been placed on top of it and bundles of blooming papyrus decorated it on all sides. Dressed in new white linen, Ankhesenamun stepped onto the palanquin, took the throne and was taken to the temple where she was crowned Pharaoh by the High Priest. The crowd shouted out her name and prayers for her long life as she walked through the crowd back to the palace, again she sprinkled her subjects with the water that had washed her royal feet.
That night, she stood on her balcony and watched the offering fires that burned all night in front of the temple. The people were making many offerings in her name; it was plain to see that they were happy. When she had washed and changed her clothes, she lay down on the tigers’ furs that covered the Pharaoh’s sleeping couch and looked up at the ceiling. The paintings there were of her family. She saw her father and mother seated side by side on their thrones. The Aten was shining down on them as they extended their right hands to their six daughters. She looked up lovingly at the images of her sisters; Meritaten, Mekitaten, Neferneferuaten, Neferneferure and Setepenre.
Such beauties we all were, she thought, Princesses of the blood.
Another fresco showed Nefertiti, wearing the crown of the Pharaoh with Tutankhamun, the Crown Prince, sitting on her knee. Ankhesenamun missed her husband, she had been in love with him from the day that he was born and they had been inseparable. She fell asleep with the thought of them sitting and holding hands on the banks of the Nile at Amarna.
She awoke late in the night, startled. There was someone in her bedroom but she couldn’t see anything. The candles had been extinguished and there wasn’t a servant or a guard in sight. It was very strange because there was always someone moving about the royal apartments whether day or night. Suddenly, she saw him, standing in the shadows watching her.
“Who is it?” she asked.
The figure was dressed in full black and he did not answer her.
An assassin! she thought.
She prepared to shout, but before the words could escape from her mouth, the figure ran forward with its sword raised and cut the Queen’s head clean from her neck.
Chapter Four
The drive north was pleasant despite the searing heat of the desert.
The road was well maintained and except for a fair amount of tour buses heading in both directions, there wasn’t much traffic. They knew the precise moment they started getting close to the Qena city limits; the city had spread over the length and breadth of the ancient oasis, blending into the surrounding landmarks and towns. Modernization was in full swing there. Tourism and the natural source of spring water had attributed to the city becoming a perfect location for a thriving metropolis.
When they arrived at their first stop in Dendera, it was becoming increasingly clear to them that locating any of Qena’s ancient remnants was going to be extremely difficult. Chyna remembered Dr. Nassir’s advice and decided to stick to his simple guidelines. They searched the ferry yard for anything that looked as if it had been standing there for three thousand years. Everything at the Dendera crossing was newly concreted and story-boarded for the tourists to enjoy, excepting a colossal obelisk in the center of the ferry yard entrance. They searched the structure for anything that looked like a cartouche but there was nothing there.
As they were analyzing the ancient markings at the base of the obelisk, Oscar noticed an Egyptian woman in a black hijab and an ornate abaya. The beautiful embroidery and decoration on the garment was what had initially caught his eye but the woman was so beautiful and strangely familiar that Oscar was forced to take closer notice of her. She was watching them openly; her curiosity with what they were doing was unsettling, but not enough for him to mention it to the girls.
After a thorough search of the obelisk and the area at the front of the ferry yard, the team was finally satisfied that there was nothing to be found at the Dendera ferry crossing. They were back on the road in a few minutes, again heading northward and on the way to the city. Soon, they passed the sign that announced they had crossed into Qena city limits. Chyna looked at her watch; it was twelve thirty and her stomach was grumbling so she pulled the Jeep over at a quaint looking roadside bed and breakfast so they could have some lunch and discuss their next step. As she parked the car, Oscar loo
ked out at the road just in time to see a black Toyota sedan drive past; the woman at the wheel was wearing a decorative abaya and had her hijab bundled around her neck and shoulders. There she was again.
They sat down at a corner table in the hotel’s little restaurant and when the waitress came over, Chyna selected falafel, ful medames, kushari and flatbread for them. Of course she knew that all the traditional condiments like harissa, pickled chili peppers, fresh olives and raita, which she loved, would accompany the food whether she ordered them or not. The waitress brought bowls of warm water with slices of lemon in it to the table just before their food was ready and they washed their hands and dried them with the tiny towels provided. When the food came to the table, it was steaming hot and smelt heavenly. Immediately, they all developed a healthy appetite and plunged into the meal, plate after plate.
After they had eaten, the waitress brought another set of bowls and they washed up again. It amazed them all how such a simple gesture of hospitality could bring a touch of luxury to an otherwise simple and satisfying meal. When she had cleared the table and gone to get their tea, Oscar spoke up.
“There was a woman back there at the ferry crossing who seemed very interested in what we were doing,” Oscar finally disclosed.
“Really?” Lana replied. “Why didn’t you say anything.”
“I wasn’t sure it was worth mentioning, Lana,” he said.
“So why say something now?” Chyna chimed in.
“Because I think she’s following us,” he replied. “I didn’t think much of her as she watched us at Dendera but when we parked outside, I saw her drive past going towards the city. I guess it could still be nothing but if I see her again, I’d be inclined to think that something is up.”