by Marié Heese
But Hapi would not speak to me.
Last night I had the dream again. This time it was again different in some ways. As always, I was once more on that battlefield, on foot and alone. Armed with my dagger. As ever, I felt the burning sun beat down upon my head. But this time I was surrounded by absolute silence. There were no sounds of strife, no cries, no groans, no pleas for help. No horses whinnied, no chariots rolled by. Around me on the sand lay the corpses of our slain enemies. I could smell the sweetish stench of rotting flesh. The furtive dark shapes of jackals slunk among the dead. Looking up, I could see vultures circling overhead in the clear blue sky. I waited for the soldier to come towards me as he always did. But this time he did not come.
I have already killed him, I thought. Approaching a prone form, I rolled it over with my foot. My own face looked back at me. I myself lay among the dead.
All day I have been weak and shaky, as one who is ill. I need time to collect myself, time to grieve. But Pharaoh is Pharaoh and matters of state must be attended to. This afternoon my troubled rest was interrupted by the arrival of a courier from the North, bearing news of an attack upon the forts that protect the Horus road. At once I called my advisers to an emergency session. The counsellors, who had hastily gathered, looked grave. Nehsi, I noted, suddenly seemed to have lost his usual energy and appeared for the first time to be an old man, stooped with shaking hands. He was very fond of Khani, I know, ever since he took the young Nubian prince under his wing and introduced him to the Kap. He is clearly distraught at the sudden death of his protégé. I would that we could comfort each other for this loss that hurts our hearts, but there is no time for that.
“Majesty,” he said when he saw me, “should you be here? Should you not rest … the shock …”
“I am Pharaoh,” I said, “my place is here.”
The courier entered the audience chamber looking travel-stained and utterly weary. He knelt and kissed the floor.
“Well?” I demanded. “What have you to report?”
“Majesty, it was a concerted action,” said the courier. “Well planned and executed. They must have waited until our divisions returned to Khemet and then they swooped down and fell upon the forts in huge numbers. Our guards were decimated and the forts are burning.”
Thutmose gave an exclamation of disgust. “We should have sent an entire army straight away, not merely a few divisions,” he exclaimed angrily. “I said so at the time!”
“Who leads the rebels?” I enquired.
“The Prince of Kadesh, Majesty,” replied the courier.
“He must be taught a lesson he will never forget,” growled Thutmose, “one that his children will inscribe upon the tablets of their hearts. We must go to war.”
“How will we feed an army?” I demanded. “Here our people can subsist on vegetables grown near the river, but that cannot sustain thousands of marching men.”
“Precisely why we should take to the Horus road without delay,” he insisted. “I have information that there are plentiful stores of wheat in Megiddo. We can mete out punishment and save our people, if we act quickly and decisively.”
The counsellors present were nodding in agreement. “The Great Commander speaks the truth, Majesty,” said Nehsi.
“I concur,” added Seni. “The arrogant Prince of Kadesh must be taught a lesson. And we need wheat.”
“And if the army fails to secure the wheat held by our enemies, those that are not killed or taken prisoner will starve,” I argued.
“We will not fail,” stated Thutmose. “We have the finest corps of fighting men the world has ever seen. We will prevail. By the breath of Horus, Majesty, I swear we will prevail! We must go to war!” Such was his anger that it seemed as if his protuberant eyes were starting from his head.
“The decision is still mine to take,” I told him coldly. I would not let it seem that he had given the command. “I will consider it.”
He looked as if he would like to spit. But he bowed, as did they all.
War is inevitable now. I know it. How we shall feed an army I do not know. Yet march we must. Egypt cannot allow its vassals to make a mockery of us. We must assert our absolute supremacy. And at the same time, we must wrest from them the wherewithal to save our hungry people here at home. Oh, yes, I know it – Thutmose is right. I can delay no longer, I shall order the soldiers to march forth. But my heart aches for Khemet. Already Thebes has a pall of smoke and blood. It seems that the time has come when, as it is written: “Merriment has ceased and is made no more, and groaning is throughout the land … the land is left to its weakness like a cutting of flax.” Alack the evil day!
Here endeth the twenty-eighth scroll.
THE TWENTY-NINTH SCROLL
The reign of Hatshepsut year 21:
The fourth month of Peret day 3
I am exceedingly weary. I cannot sleep, and I have pondered many things. I have looked back over my life and suddenly it does not appear so very significant. It seems to me now that many of the things that one believed important at the time were trivial. Men grow like the grain, and like the grain they are mowed down. One must provide a harvest as best one can, before going into the ground whence Khnum took the clay to mould one’s body and one’s Ka.
I tried to sleep, but I could not. So I arose again, and I have taken up my pen and begun a new scroll. Since I have nobody to share my thoughts with, I will talk to my journal.
I ask myself: Who have I been? What have I been? What can I say to the dread tribunal I must face in the Afterlife?
I think back to the time when I was a child and had great dreams. I recall the songs of the blind bard that made me dream of greatness. It seems to me that I can smell the perfume of the wax cone scented with myrrh that Inet tied on top of my head that night, the night of my first banquet, so that it kept me cool as it melted gradually. I remember that the hall was hot and noisy and that there was too much food and that the Syrians grew drunk and boisterous. But mainly I recall the songs of the blind bard, whose eyes gleamed milky white like pearls, with his bald head shining in the lamplight like polished cedarwood. I see still his gnarled hands sweeping across the strings of his small harp, and I hear the music that sang like water running over stones and the plaintive notes of the double pipes and the young girls clicking the menat.
First he sang of love, telling us all to cherish our beloved: “Weave chains of blooms to give to your beloved, Rejoice in the days of youth …” because the time would come all too soon “When to the land of silence, You and your love will both be gone”. Yes, the truth that a life is but a single breath, but one brief exhalation of Khnum, is one that only the old ever know, and for them it is too late. As for myself, I renounced my beloved; I put love from me. And yet it was there, always present. Even if it ran hidden like an underground stream, it sustained my life. Others – now, alas, gone to the gods – gave me their love. Also I had the love of my people; I did have that.
It is strange, now that I think about it, that the bard sang of the land of silence. Did he truly mean that the Afterlife is a place of silence? I have always imagined the Netherworld to be a dread place filled with the howls of monsters and the unregenerate damned, while in contrast there should be singing, the calls of the birds and gentle breezes sighing through the trees in the Fields of the Blessed; and surely the progress of the God’s solar barque across the heavens must be accompanied by celestial music of the most marvellous harmony. Silence? But perhaps he merely meant that none speak to us from there, that we cannot communicate with those who have gone to the gods.
I remember that the Syrians, who were drunk, misliked the song about mortality and demanded instead a song of great deeds. That was when the bard sang The Song of the Godlike Ruler, a song that all my life thereafter has echoed in my dreams. Especially I would hear the words:
“He was a shining one clothed in power.
And all the people praised him.”
A shining one clothed in power, whom the people
loved: That was my dream, and it became my life. As Pharaoh, how do I compare with the godlike ruler whose praises the blind bard sang?
He told first of the Pharaoh who came forth as the Avenger and Destroyer, who smote the enemies of Egypt and bathed in their gore. Only once, at the beginning of my reign, did I take the field of battle. We did triumph, but what I experienced then made me believe that war is the enemy of Ma’at, and ever since I have avoided it if at all possible. Nevertheless, when military expeditions were essential, I sent the army to do its duty. I did not shrink from it.
Now I must send the army forth once more, but this time it must be a major campaign of conquest. Nothing less will do. In the dark of the night, I took that decision. I will convey it in the morning. I will give the Great Commander what he wants, and send him forth upon the Horus road, be it to death or glory. Yes, I will do it. Perhaps, having decided this, I can sleep now.
Still, however, sleep eludes me. I keep returning to the song of the blind bard. I recall that he praised the Pharaoh’s actions in repairing what he had found ruined. Well, most of what was destroyed by the Hyksos, who ruined our temples and desecrated our gods, has been restored under my rule. There has been much rebuilding and building anew in my time. In particular there is Djeser-Djeseru. It is like nothing that has ever existed; there is no other such in all the world. I believe the God may be pleased with it. Yes, all over the Black Land the temples are whole again, and the rituals are faithfully carried out. As Pharaoh I have given the Kingdom of the Two Lands a period of stability and healing. That much is true.
Of course the core of the bard’s eulogy was that the Pharaoh had held the Black Land safe in his hands, that he had triumphed over evil. That he had restored Ma’at.
The night air is chill, and the oil lamp that lights my scroll begins to dim. I shall have to write faster. I have served Khemet; I have done my duty, I must write a full accounting. Even if my enemies strike my records from the living stone, my deeds must yet be known.
Throughout my reign festivals and feasts were held on their due dates. I have done what is prescribed, honouring the gods and renewing my kingship; the necessary daily rituals have been carried out, nothing being omitted. I have always been mindful of my duty to link the earthly and the spirit worlds, to guard against malevolent influences and to keep chaos at bay …
Finally, in the early hours of this morning, the oil lamp guttered and went out and I had to lay down my pen.
Yet still I could not sleep. I paced my portico, up and down, up and down. I saw the night grow pale and I watched as the barque of Amen-Ra cast its brightness over the sleeping land. My city was still covered in a haze from the fires of yesterday and it glowed like a cloak of gold. One might have thought it a sign of the God’s benediction had one not known it was in truth the very opposite. For a brief while the scene was beauteous, scented with the sweetness of lotus flowers on the cool dawn air. Then the sun rose higher and the detritus of destruction was mercilessly revealed. The wind brought the bitter scent of ash.
This morning I sent a message to the Vizier that I do not feel well. I am unutterably weary and I cannot face any audiences today. All I feel able to do is to write once more in my journal. I must complete the record. I must leave nothing out.
The question that tortures me is this: Why is it that the inundation has not come? Why has the bountiful river god turned away from Khemet? Why in this time of sowing do the river banks lie dry and barren under the brilliant sun? Why have the priests’ prayers, incantations and sacrifices failed to move the gods to pity? Why does Thebes groan under a pall of smoke and blood? I know not why the gods are angry and do not speak to me.
Or is it possible that I, the Pharaoh, have earned their anger and their enmity? Can it be my fault that the Two Lands suffer? Could I have been wrong in believing myself to be the chosen of the gods?
So much of my strength of will has been expended on keeping the young Thutmose from wielding power. I have held back from war, not only because I have had a horror of it – and indeed, indeed I have – but also, let me admit it here, to block him from great achievements that would have earned him the adulation of the people. My people. I wanted to be always first and foremost in their hearts. He has warned of grave danger, of losing our vassal states, of being attacked by a foe grown bold because we do not act. Now that I have decided to give the order I should – admittedly – have given long before, it may be too late. I may have failed to keep my people safe.
In the light of morning this thought has come to me: Perhaps, when the sacred barque bowed to the child Thutmose in the great temple of Amen-Ra, it was in truth the God speaking to Khemet. Perhaps, through my struggles to maintain my supremacy upon the Double Throne, I have spent my life in wrestling with the gods. Obstructing the will of my heavenly father, Amen-Ra. Perhaps the young Thutmose should have reigned.
It may be that the inundation failed because I, Pharaoh, failed. Nor will it return while I still reign. No, there will be no blessings from Hapi, and the lack will be due to my own actions. Humbly, I confess it. I have tried to reign wisely over this land that the God gave into my care; but I – I, Pharaoh – have contravened Ma’at.
This will hold back the flood: I gave the order to have Khani killed. Khani, my faithful informer, my loyal supporter, my dear friend. I allowed the devils of Seth to crawl into my heart and sow mistrust of a person who always loved me and who has always had my love. I believed that he was a turncoat and a danger to the state, and I gave orders to have him eliminated. I should have been patient and prudent; I should have waited and watched, and I should have had him followed to discover whether he was in truth a traitor or not. But I was afraid and I acted hastily, and I was completely and unforgivably wrong. But I could not reverse my orders before he had proved me wrong and it was too late.
I recall the words of my royal father, when we made the journey to Abydos: “You should remember that it is easy enough to be ruled. To be a ruler, that is far more difficult. To rule oneself is the hardest thing of all.” My greatest failure has been that I did not rule myself.
So I grieve for my dear friend and I grieve for the Pharaoh Ma’atkare Hatshepsut, whom the gods have rejected, and for good reason. Hathor no longer supports me with her everlasting arms. Horus does not stretch his protective wings over my head. Wadjet will not spit venom into the eyes of my enemies. Nor will Hapi be bountiful. In vain do I implore the mercy of the gods. Egypt lies barren and it is my fault. I, whom the Divine Light placed upon the earth of living mortals to judge human beings and satisfy the will of the gods, I who am sworn to displace disorder, lies and injustice with the harmony of Ma’at – I have not been worthy.
Yes, I grieve and I am much afraid. For I fear that my heart will weigh heavy on the scales of justice when I move on to the Afterlife. I see Anubis, the jackal-headed one, awaiting me with angry eyes, and I imagine that the hound of hell, Ammit, will have a heart to feed on when I reach the portals to the Netherworld. I greatly doubt that the best entreaties of the priests will effect a safe passage for me. All their amulets, scarabs, spells and incantations will not suffice. No, despite all that the priests can do, my heart will rise up to testify against me.
I shall not see my father Thutmose, may he live for ever, nor my mother Ahmose nor my beautiful Neferure nor my little son, he who was not named and should now be a man. I am sure that I would know him, and he should be beautiful. Nor shall I see my devoted Senenmut again. I shall not ride with my heavenly father in his solar barque. Nor shall I join the never-dying circumpolar stars.
Perhaps the bard was right. Perhaps we go to silence. Nothing else. If that be so, it will be more than I deserve. Whatever the truth of this, at least I will finally be free of the burden that my heart has borne ever since I lost my Neferure and my little son who had no name and never breathed. My mother told me that one carries the sorrow of a lost child like a large and heavy stone for all one’s days; I did not believe her then. I have learned t
he truth of it. I shall be glad to lay that stone down at last.
One good thing has come from me and will, if the gods are kind, remain to be a blessing to this land that I have loved. That is the small Amenhotep, who should be Pharaoh if he lives to grow to man’s estate. He has the pure blood royal, having passed from my loins through the pinched and narrow vessel that is his mother into the light. He has begun to take lessons in the palace school and his tutor speaks well of his abilities. He will, I do believe, be a good and a great Pharaoh.
He is coming to visit me today with his mother. I have fetched out the little war chariot that he loves and I have ordered his favourite grape juice and tiger nut sweets. I think I hear their footsteps approaching and his delightful laugh. He is a child of the sun. Heavenly father, please let him breathe. Let him become Pharaoh and give him the strength and courage to maintain Ma’at.
May his life be sustained by love, as mine has been. May he too understand this: To love and to be loved is the best way to face the certain knowledge that one must go into the tomb; that one must travel to that land of silence of which the blind bard sang.
Here endeth the twenty-ninth scroll.
As I write this, the tears are dropping onto the papyrus and I must pause to mop my eyes for fear of blotting the ink. Her Majesty called me to receive the scroll, as usual. Then she invited me to stay and share some cooled wine, and to meet her grandchild, whom she clearly adored. I did stay to meet the child, and I saw that his fond grandmother did not dote foolishly. He is indeed a happy child and a loving one.
But wait. I am when all is said and done a scribe and I must note what I observed as accurately as I am able. No tears, I shall shed no more tears.
I noted, first, that Her Majesty was looking ill and weary. She had grown very large of girth and had lost the energy with which she always spoke and moved. But when she saw the child, her eyes sparkled again and she called him into her arms. He is a sturdy boy, I think about eight or nine years old now, with a child’s side lock over one eye, and he wore only a light kilt, for the day was warm.