by Marié Heese
“Tell me.”
“The Great Commander Thutmose prepares for a major campaign,” he said, echoing what Khani had told me. “The soldiers are getting their gear ready. There is much admiration for the Commander. They are saying he is strong, he is aggressive, he is a lion whose roar will be heard as far as the Euphrates.”
“Go on,” I said, thinking: This is bad news. If there is already this kind of talk in the taverns, the plan must be well advanced, and other than Khani’s message this report is the first I have heard of it. “What else are they saying?”
The discipline of the army is strict and Thutmose, he who would be King, is a stern commander who punishes loose talk. Yet in their cups men will let things drop, and Bek can make himself invisible; he crawls beneath tables and nobody notices him.
“They are saying the Great Commander is decisive. They are saying he will not hesitate to do whatever is necessary to defend the Black Land. They are saying he would not be attending to building operations and gardens while our enemies muster on our borders,” he said. He avoided my eyes as he whispered, staring down at his sandals, from which his small toes protruded like a row of olives.
He knew what he was reporting was serious in the extreme. It was criticism of the Pharaoh; implied, oblique, but criticism nonetheless. It was treason.
I sent him away with a deben of silver for his trouble. He who would be King is moving in on me. It is time for me to gather my resources.
Here endeth the second scroll.
It is true that there is much admiration for the Great Commander Thutmose. His soldiers and officers revere him, but the general populace admire him also. I have seen him myself, for although he is stationed in Memphis, where the army undergoes training, he comes to Thebes for the festivals. Indeed, he was here only three months ago, for the Celebration of Nehebkau, when all Khemet rejoices in the rebirth of Osiris. The festivities rivalled those of the New Year, with grand processions, marching bands, dancing, singing and roistering, and there was beer and food aplenty supplied to everyone from the Pharaoh’s stores.
Commander Thutmose took part in various athletic games and competitions, winning almost every time – and there were no allowances made for his status. His physical strength and abilities are truly extraordinary. I was present for the archery competition on the last day, in which several officers of the army and some younger nobles pitted their skills against each other. In the final round, there were three targets instead of just the one, set up a few strides apart, and the test was to shoot at them from a military chariot moving past at speed.
It was a demonstration of the high level to which the soldiers have been trained, for quite a number were able to hit all three. But then the targets were moved further back and at last only Thutmose and one other, a standard bearer from the Division of Horus, were left. The standard bearer, one Metufer, was taller than Thutmose by almost a full head, slender and lithe, and it was a delight to watch him draw his bow to loose off one arrow after another with smooth and practised grace. A cheer went up from the watching crowd as his arrows struck home.
Then the chariot bearing Thutmose came thundering along the circuit. His charioteer was driving it at an even faster pace than Metufer’s, whipping the sturdy brown horses into a tearing gallop, the white plumes streaming from their heads. In comparison with the taller man, Thutmose looked almost squat, but one could see the powerful muscles in his naked torso and upper arms rippling as he snatched his arrows from the quiver on his back with economical movements and sent them winging from the tremendous bow that, rumour has it, few other men can bend. The roar that greeted his third bull’s eye could, I swear by the breath of Horus, have been heard in Memphis. Since Metufer’s arrows had not all struck the exact centre of the targets, Thutmose was the winner.
The prize was a golden bracelet awarded by King Hatshepsut. The Pharaoh was enthroned on a wooden dais and as Thutmose strode up to it the crowd broke into a chant, rhythmically repeating: “Thutmose! Thutmose! Thutmose!” He turned and acknowledged the adulation of the crowd with a victorious salute, his oiled skin gleaming in the sun. The women around me were shrieking with excitement. He passed close by to where I stood, squashed between sweating female bodies, and I noted that he grinned at them, showing his white, somewhat protruding teeth. He has the intense physical presence of a predatory animal. It made me shiver.
Her Majesty had the expression of one who has bitten into a sweet date with a rotten tooth, but she congratulated him graciously enough. His obeisance was sketchy at best. Then he arose and slipped the bracelet over his arm, thick as a mooring rope. Again he turned to wave at the cheering crowd. The chant accompanied him to his chariot: “Thutmose! Thutmose! Thutmose!”
The women around me were going crazy, leaping to try and get a good look at the champion. All that jiggling bounty pressed up close against me was dizzying to the senses, especially as it was accompanied by a somewhat piscine scent growing more powerful by the minute in the hot and humid air. I fought my way clear, desperate for a cooled beer. As I trotted to the nearest tavern, one that I often frequent, I found to my embarrassment that I had to carry my linen bag of scribe’s tools in front of my kilt in order to preserve my dignity.
There was a slave girl serving at the tables whom I have noted before, a well-fleshed wench with plump arms and dimples in her round cheeks. A Syrian, I think, brought here as a child after a punitive expedition in the time of Thutmose the Second, may he live. She was jiggling too, as she threaded her way through the crowded room balancing a loaded tray on an upraised hand, calling saucy answers to the raucous patrons. Her face creased into a huge smile when she recognised me.
“Well, well, the little scribe is here! And walking like a duck!”
I fell onto a chair. “I am not walking like a duck,” I said indignantly. “I have hurt my heel. Now bring me a jug of beer and some bread.”
“Of course, great lord,” she said, and winked.
I sat fanning myself, contemplating Commander Thutmose. He is a dangerous man who has the admiration of the people as well as the respect and loyalty of the army. An outstanding leader of men, who has shown himself to be both crafty and courageous, winning battles through clever stratagems coupled with discipline and utter determination. Yes, yes, indeed a dangerous man.
Truly, the Pharaoh should watch her back.
THE THIRD SCROLL
The reign of Hatshepsut year 20:
The first month of Peret day 12
I now continue with my task of setting out the proofs that I am the chosen of the gods. I loved hearing the tales of Hathor who had suckled me and Hapi who had cradled me. But the one I loved best was the story of Apophis, who had spared me from a certain early death. Apophis, the serpent god who lives in the nether regions of the world and is the enemy of men and gods, terrified Inet so greatly that she disliked even saying his name. As a child who was assured of safety, I greatly enjoyed the sense of danger that the tale gave me. “Tell me about Apophis,” I would beg her.
“Speak not of him,” said Inet, clutching at an amulet that always hung about her neck to stave off evil spirits.
“But he is on my side,” I said. “Otherwise I would be dead. Unless, of course,” and I glanced up at her sidelong through my lashes, “you have always lied to me about it.”
“Sitre, Great Royal Nurse, does not lie,” she said, her small black eyes narrowing to furious slits. She was own cousin to Hapuseneb and so of noble descent, although she had not been educated as he was. Sometimes she could be quite imperious.
“So tell me. It was two years after I sailed in the coracle, wasn’t it?”
“One,” said Inet, reluctantly. “You had four summers. In fact, it was the middle of the fourth summer of your life. The midday meal was over and everyone was resting in the heat of the day. It was extremely hot. Even your brothers were resting in their rooms.”
“It was here, in this very palace, wasn’t it?”
“In this
very palace, right here, in hundred-gated Thebes. You and I were on this self-same portico with the stone pillars that looks out across the flower gardens.”
“I could hear the fountains splashing and the doves murmuring in the palms. I remember that.”
“I was resting on a wooden day-bed with cushions stuffed with wool,” went on Inet, “and a slave had been keeping me cool with an ostrich-feather fan. You lay on the floor on a thin cotton rug because the tiles were cool, and soon you fell asleep.”
“So did you,” I said. Another reason why Inet hated to tell this tale.
“Just for a minute,” she said, defensively. “It was so hot. And it was so quiet. Even the cicadas seemed to have gone to sleep.”
“And the slave went away,” I said.
“To fetch some cooled fruit juice, so he claimed. Since we would be thirsty when we awoke. And indeed, I did awaken. I am sure I had only just dropped off. But I sensed a presence,” said Inet, warming to the drama of her story. “An evil presence. An imminent danger. I looked around, but I could see no human being. And then I looked down at where you were sleeping. And in the shadows, on the edge of the portico, close, oh so close to your little sleeping head, with your child’s lock of hair falling across your face, cheeks rosy with the heat …” Inet clutched her amulet and made a sign to ward off the evil eye, her voice falling to a whisper … “there he was.”
“Apophis,” I said, shuddering deliciously.
Inet gulped and nodded. “Apophis,” she confirmed. The serpent god. The narrow-hooded cobra, who attempts to ambush Ra when he sails through the nether regions of the world in his solar barque.
“Swaying from side to side,” I added.
“Five cubits of dark evil, coiled up,” said Inet dramatically. I think that the snake grew in length with each telling of the tale, but no matter. “I was petrified,” said Inet. “I was truly turned to stone, like a statue hewn from granite with my feet planted in rock. I could not move. I could not utter.”
“And I slept,” I said.
“Praise be to the gods, you slept. The evil one swayed and his tongue flickered and he looked at me. I knew I looked at death. Nothing moved. And there was no sound. It was as if I had gone deaf as well as dumb.”
“I did not move either.”
“No, you did not move. Just breathed a little faster than usual because of the heat. And then Apophis lowered his head. And he slid forwards.” Her voice dropped even further. “Right across your body. Clear across your chest. I swear it. But you did not move. And then he slipped over the edge of the portico and he disappeared into the shadows of the apple trees and he was gone.”
“And the slave returned with the juice,” I said.
“He did. And then I screamed and he dropped the pitcher, which shattered on the tiles, and I rushed forward and picked you up and hugged and kissed you and you were frightened by my anguish, so you cried, and …”
“It was general mayhem,” I said. I liked that phrase.
“It was. But soon we all calmed down and the floor was mopped and we drank some juice.”
“Apophis spared me for my destiny,” I said with satisfaction.
This event finally confirmed Inet in her belief that I was the chosen of the gods. Suckled by Hathor, cradled by Hapi, and spared by Apophis: How could I not have a high destiny? It must, she devoutly believed, be so. Of course, when I was a little girl and my brothers the princes were still alive, it was not clear exactly what the gods had called me to do. Perhaps, suggested Inet, I might become the God’s Wife of Amen, a position of great influence and power. She did not whisper the supreme title of Pharaoh in my ear. Yet within a few years of the visitation by Apophis, the Crown Prince was dead. Well I remember the day.
There was consternation in the palace. Just after midday, when as a rule the rooms were silent, with only the splash of water from the courtyards and the occasional soft footfall of a barefoot slave to be heard, there were suddenly voices exclaiming, people rushing about and weeping and wailing.
“What is it, Inet?” I demanded to know. “What has happened? Has war broken out?” I rather wished it had, for it seemed to my youthful imagination that it would be very exciting.
“No,” said Inet grimly. “I think not.” She vanished into the passage and reappeared soon after, shaking with shock.
“Inet! Inet, what has happened?” The palace women were now rending their clothes and tearing their hair. I had not seen this before and it was frightening.
“It is your brother Wadjmose,” she said, in a tone of disbelief. “He has gone to … to join the … the Fields of the Blessed.”
“Wadjmose is dead?” I was too young to understand that one did not use such terminology in Egypt.
“Hush. He will be with the gods,” she told me, but somehow she did not look delighted by the news.
“But just yesterday he was playing with his pet lion cub,” I said, stupidly. “He can’t be … he can’t have … gone anywhere.”
“It was a flux,” said Inet, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “They say … they say his bowels turned to water, black water, and he … and he … he could not live. My child, you must come. The Queen your mother wishes to tell you herself.”
I was ushered into the chamber where my mother sat: the Great Royal Wife, clad only in a thin linen shift, her head that normally bore an intricate wig topped with a crown now shaven and bald, her face hard yet wet, as if hewn from basalt and naked to the rain. I looked at her and I turned and fled. This could not be. I could not bear it. I ran from the palace as if Seth and all his devils howled at my heels and I headed straight for the river bank. Such confusion reigned that nobody stopped me, at least not until I had almost reached my goal. Then a hand shot out to grab my arm.
I blinked away my tears. It was Thutmose, my half-brother, borne to my father the Pharaoh by the Lady Mutnofert, a minor wife; he was walking up from the river with a fishing pole on his shoulder. I knew him from the palace school, where I had just begun to learn, painstakingly, to write a clean hieratic script, and he was among the seniors, since he was eight years older than me.
“Little sister,” he said, “where do you rush to so heedlessly?”
“T-to the river,” I stuttered, hiccupping. “Wadjmose has died of a flux, and everyone has gone mad and Mother … and Mother …” I could not find words to convey the horror of my regal, self-contained and always beautifully groomed mother stripped to the bone by grief.
“Wadjmose has … gone to the gods?” He was astounded. “You are sure of this?”
I gulped, and nodded. “It was a f-flux,” I whispered, wiping my running nose on my bare arm.
He handed me a linen kerchief. “Indeed,” he said. “And you are going to the river to … ?”
“To talk to Hapi,” I told him. “I often do.”
He nodded as if this made sense to him, put his arm around my shoulders and began to walk with me. “They will not seek me for some time,” he said, “nor you, I think. Let us go and sit upon the bank.”
So we went down to the river’s edge, and we stared at the water surging by; it was at the time of the first rising and the Nile was green, promising a good inundation and rich harvests to come. I wept on my brother’s shoulder and his hands were gentle as he stroked my hair. The humid air was scented with damp earth and rotting leaves. I could not tell him that it was not so much my brother’s passing for which I wept, but for my broken mother with her naked suffering skull. My world was rent. Mothers did not weep. Divine royalty did not weep. I wanted somebody to tell me that the thing that had happened was not so.
He held me till I finally became calm.
“How do you talk to Hapi?” he enquired.
I peered at him from between my clotted eyelashes. Was he laughing at me?
“Is it necessary to speak aloud?” He appeared to be truly interested.
“No,” I said. “You can just … you can just … think.”
“Then l
et us think together.”
We were quiet for a while.
“And does Hapi ever answer you?” he asked at length.
“Sometimes … sometimes it seems to me … that an answer comes,” I said. “Sometimes she sings to me.”
“And today?”
I tilted my head, listening. Today there was nothing but the wash of the water through the reeds and a croaking frog.
“Nothing,” I said, forlornly.
“Your question, no doubt, was why?”
Of course he was right. I nodded.
“And you hear nothing.”
I agreed wordlessly.
“Not quite nothing,” he pointed out. “I hear the water. And the water is rising. What has that meant, little sister, for many thousands of years?”
“It has brought life,” I said. “Hapi brings life.” For every year the great river swells and floods its banks, so that the entire land looks like an enormous, turgid brown lake in which villages sit like islands and the trees seem half their size; this annual inundation deposits rich black earth all along the banks of the great river. Then when it recedes men can plant new crops, so that seeds may germinate under the sun, and harvests sprout and mature and be brought in.
I still did not understand why our brother had had to go to the gods, but the images conjured by the rushing water comforted me. Thutmose’s understanding presence comforted me. In truth, before he was my husband and the Pharaoh, he was my friend. I put my hand in my brother’s hand and struggled to my feet. “They will be looking for us,” I said.
“Yes. We must return. But, little sister …”
“Yes?”
“You have a personal slave? One who can taste your food?”
“Yes.”
“Eat nothing that has not been tasted,” he warned me.
“But I … but I am only a child,” I said.
“A child who bears the blood royal,” he reminded me.
“And there is still Amenmose,” I argued, “and … and you.”