This book made available by the Internet Archive.
For my mother Airini and my father Lloyd, with love
I owe a debt of gratitude to the staff at the Extension Library of the University of Alberta at Edmonton for their excellent service, and I must also thank the authors of those works I have consulted. Their lifelong and painstaking dedication to the collation of facts on ancient Egypt has enabled me, a mere neophyte, to write this book, and I am sorry that the list is so long that I cannot name them all.
I have done this from a loving heart for my Father Amun;
I have entered into his scheme for this first jubilee;
I was wise by his excellent Spirit, and I forgot nothing of that which
he exacted. My Majesty knoweth that he is Divine. I did it under his command; it was he who led me. I conceived no works without his doing; it was he who gave me
directions. I slept not because of his temple; I erred not from that which he
commanded. My heart was wise before my Father; I entered into the affairs of his
heart. I turned not my back on the City of the All-Lord, but turned to it
the face. I know that Karnak is God's dwelling upon earth; the August Ascent
of the Beginning; The Sacred Eye of the All-Lord; the place of his heart; Which wears his beauty, and encompasses those who follow him.
Prayer composed by King Hatshepsu I on the occasion of Her Jubilee.
Prologue
She went to her couch early, signaling to her slave and slipping from the hall almost unnoticed while the food still steamed on the little gilded tables and the fragrance of the flowers, scattered everywhere, moved in an invisible cloud with her down the colonnaded walk. There was a flurry of clapping behind her as the musicians took their places and began a quick, lilting rhythm, but she strode on, Merire almost running to keep up with her. When she reached her own apartments, she ignored the salute of her guard, sweeping into the bedchamber and kicking off her sandals.
''Shut the doors," she said, and Merire obeyed, swinging them closed. She turned with wary eyes, trying to gauge her mistress's mood. Hatshep-sut sank onto the stool before her mirror and gestured. 'Take it all from me.
"Yes, Majesty."
The competent hands lifted the heavy, elaborate wig, gently removed the glowing gold and carnelian necklet and slid the jingling bracelets over nerveless hands. The room was pleasantly warmed by the two charcoal braziers in each corner, and the lamps barely flickered to disturb the shadowed depths, for at that hour the gay, color-splashed walls were muted, scarcely visible; only the odd, rapid dart of a leaping flame picked out a point of frozen movement here, licked along a spark of precious metal there. The room, unlike its taut and angry prisoner, slumbered.
Hatshepsut stood as Merire released the shoulder straps of the delicate linen sheath and drew it from her. She poured hot, scented water and began washing the kohl from the dark eyes, the red henna from the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands. The older woman continued to stare at herself in the burnished depths of the huge copper mirror.
When Merire had finished, Hatshepsut walked to the head of her couch and leaned on it, her arms folded.
When the palace was filled with the comings and goings of my court, and all night and day at my command the incense rose in the temple, then all were willing to serve me to the death. Yes, yes, but whose death? Whose? Where are they now, the brave boasters? And what have I done
that it should all end like this? For the gods I have poured out gold and slaves. I have built and labored. For this country, my eternal, my beautiful Egypt, I have given of my Divine Self, sweated and lain wakeful and anxious in the night so that the people should sleep and be safe. Now even the fellahin in the fields can talk of nothing but war. War, not raids for plunder, not border skirmishes, but full battles for the acquisition of an empire. And 1 can do nothing but watch, impotent. This country is not a country suited to war. We laugh, we sing, we make love and build and trade and work, but war is too solemn for us and will destroy us all in the end.
Merire took away the water and returned with the sleeping robe.
But Hatshepsut waved it aside. "Not tonight. Just leave all as it is. You can tidy it in the morning. Now get out."
It was not death that she feared. She knew that the time was close, very close. Perhaps it would come the next day, and not a moment too soon, for she was weary of living and wished to rest. But she was finally lonely, and the silence of an empty room unsettled her. She slid to the couch and sat quite still. ''O, my Father," she prayed, ''Mighty Amun, King of all gods, it was thus, naked, that I entered this world; and it is thus, naked, that I shall be carried to the House of the Dead."
She rose and began to pace about, her bare feet making no sound on the red and blue tiled floor. She walked to the water clock and watched it drip for a moment. It lacked four hours to the rising of the sun. Four hours. And then another day of wearing frustration and enforced idleness, sitting in the garden, sailing on the river, taking her chariot round the circuit in the army's training ground to the east of the city. The same chariot that had been presented to her by her own body of troops that bright, fresh morning. How young she had been then. How hei heart had fluttered with fear and excitement, and how she had clutched the burnished sides of the golden chariot as her horses thundered across the hard, sunbaked sand, cleaving the blazing, still desert air with fire and death!
Now it was winter, the month of Hathor, a month that seemed to reach back forever, although it had only just begun. In the chilly nights, the days only a little less breathlessly hot than those of summer, she began to feel a rising desperation born of inaction. And the old pain, the pain that was always new, began to tug at her so that she opened her eyes. Before her, far back in the dimness, her own image swam in the half-light, beaten silver, a huge relief that formed a portion of the wall. The haughty chin holding the Pharaonic Beard was lifted high, the eyes steady and unyield-
ing beneath the weight of the tall and regal Double Crown of Egypt. She smiled suddenly.
So it was, and so it shall always be that I was King of Egypt, I, Daughter of Amun. And in times to come men shall know and wonder, as I have done regarding the monuments and works of marvel that my forefathers did. I am not alone. I shall, after all, live forever.
Although the north wall of the schoolroom opened onto the garden, the prevailing summer wind did not blow between the dazzling white, color-splashed pillars. It was suffocatingly hot. The students sat cross-legged on their papyrus mats, knee to knee, their heads bent over the pieces of broken pottery, laboriously copying out the day's lesson. Khaemwese, his arms folded, felt sleep steal into his head, and he cast a surreptitious glance in the direction of the stone water clock. Almost midday. He coughed, and a dozen little faces were turned up to him expectantly.
**Are you all finished? Who shall read back to me today's wisdom? Or should I say, who has the wisdom to read back to me today's lesson?" He beamed at his witticism, and a polite ripple of laughter ran around the room. 'Tou, Menkh? User-amun? Now I know that Hapuseneb can do it, so I will not ask him. Who will volunteer? Thothmes, you will."
Thothmes struggled unhappily to his feet while Hatshepsut, sitting at his side, poked him and made a face. He ignored her, holding the pot in both hands and peering at it in distress.
"Begin. Hatshepsut, sit still."
'*! have heard that thou—that thou—"
'Tollowest."
'Tes, followest. I have heard that thou followest pleasures. Turn not thy back on my words. Dost thou give thy mind to all—to all—"
''Manner of deaf things."
''Oh. To all manner of deaf things?"
Khaemwese s
ighed as the boy's voice droned on. It was certain that Thothmes would never make an informed and enlightened man. He had no love at all for the magic of words and seemed content to drowse through his lessons. Perhaps the One should consider putting his son into the army early. But Khaemwese shook his head at the vision of Thothmes, bow and spear in hand, marching at the head of a company of hard-bitten old campaigners. The boy was stumbling again, waiting, his finger under the offending hieroglyph, a dumb bewilderment in his eyes as he watched his teacher.
The old man felt a spark of anger. "This passage," he said waspishly.
stabbing at his own scroll with petulance, "refers to the judicious and wholly deserving use of the hippopotamus whip on the posterior of a lazy boy. Perhaps the scribe is thinking of just such a boy as yourself, Thothmes? Do you need a taste of my hippopotamus whip? Bring it to me at once!"
Several of the older boys began to snigger, but Neferu-khebit put out her hand in distress. *'Oh, please. Master, not again! Only yesterday he was beaten, and father was angry!"
Thothmes flushed and glared down at her. The hippopotamus whip was an old and well-worn joke, being only a slender and springy willow switch that Khaemwese carried under his arm from day to day like a general's staff of office. The real thing was for criminals and malcontents. To have a girl speak out on one's behalf was salt in an already throbbing wound, and the boy muttered under his breath as the master peremptorily motioned him to sit down.
''Very well. Neferu, seeing that you wish his sentence commuted, you may take upon yourself his task. Rise and continue."
Neferu-khebit was a year older and considerably more intelligent than Thothmes. She had just graduated from the old, fragmented pots to papyrus scrolls, and she finished the lesson with ease.
The class ended as usual with the Prayer to Amun. The students rose as Khaemwese left the room, and then a babble broke out.
''Never mind, Thothmes," Hatshepsut said brightly, rolling up her mat. ''Come with me after the sleep, and see the new gazelle in the zoo. Father shot its mother, and now it has no one to love it. Will you come?"
"No," he snapped. "I do not want to go running all over the grounds with you anymore. Besides, now I have to go out to the barracks and practice with the bow and spear every afternoon with Aahmes pen-Nek-heb."
They walked to the corner and laid their mats in a pile with the others while Neferu-khebit signaled to the naked slave waiting patiently by the big silver ewer. The woman drew water for them and presented it, bowing.
Hatshepsut drank deeply, smacking her lips. "Lovely, lovely water! What about you, Neferu? Would you like to do that with me?"
Neferu smiled down at her younger sister. She ran her hand over the smooth, shaved scalp and straightened the tousled youth-lock so that it hung decorously once more over the left shoulder. "You have ink on your kilt again, Hatshepsut. Will you ever grow up? Very well, I will come with you if Nozme gives permission. Just for a little while. Will that do?"
The little girl hopped in delight. "Yes! Come for me when you get up!"
The room was empty of all save the slave and the three of them. The
other children were drifting home with their slaves as the heat increased to a solid weight of stifling air that seemed to bend their heads and fill them with the desire for sleep.
Thothmes yawned. *'I am going to find my mother. I suppose I should thank you, Neferu-khebit, for delivering me, but I wish that you would mind your own business. The other boys find the spectacle amusing, and you humiliate me.''
''Would you rather be beaten than made to look silly?" Hatshepsut snorted. ''Really, Thothmes, you have too much dignity. And it's true. You are lazy."
"Hush!" said Neferu. "Thothmes, you know that I only acted out of concern for you. Here's Nozme. Behave yourselves. I will see you later, little Hat." She dropped a kiss on the top of Hatshepsut's head and drifted out into the glare of the garden.
Nozme was allowed quite as many liberties with the royal children as Khaemwese. As Royal Nurse she scolded them, wheedled them, occasionally spanked them, and always adored them. She was answerable to Pharaoh for their safety with her life. She had been hired by Second Wife Mutnefert as wet nurse when the little boy twins, Uatchmes and Amun-mes, were born, and Divine Consort Aahmose had retained her for Nefe-ru-khebit and Hatshepsut. Mutnefert herself had nursed Thothmes. He was her third son, and she watched over him like an eagle, for a son was precious, particularly a royal son, and her two little boys had died of plague. Nowadays Nozme was acid-tongued, hatchet-faced, and so emaciated that her thick, businesslike linens hung loosely on her gaunt frame and flapped around her bare ankles as she flew here and there, screaming at the slaves and admonishing the children. They no longer feared her, and only Hatshepsut still loved her, perhaps because, with the fickle selfishness of childhood, Hatshepsut was loved by everyone and so feared no check to her desires.
Seeing Nozme come sweeping in from the dimness of the hall, Hatshepsut ran to her and hugged her.
Nozme returned the hug and shrieked to the slave, "Get rid of that water now, and wash the basin. Sweep out the floor for tomorrow's lessons. Then you can go to your room and rest. Hurry up!" She glanced sharply after Neferu-khebit, but now that the young woman wore the sheath of adulthood and her head was no longer shaved but covered in shining black tresses that hung to her shoulders, Nozme's authority had almost come to an end. She contented herself with a muttered "Where is she going at this time of day?" Taking the little girl by the hand, Nozme led her gently through the maze of pillared halls and dark porticoes to the door
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of the children's apartment, adjacent to the women's quarters.
The palace hung in a drugged, hot silence. Even the birds were quiet. Outside, beyond the gardens, the great river flowed on, burning silver. No boat moved on its surface, and below, in the cooler, muddy depths, the fish lay waiting for evening. The whole city slept as if under a spell. Beershops were closed, markets were shuttered, and porters nodded in the shade of their little alcoves under the protecting walls of the nobles' great estates that bordered the river for mile upon mile. On the docks nothing moved except the little beggar boys who hunted for the gleanings of spilt cargoes. Over the river, in the Necropolis, the City of the Dead, the temples and empty shrines shimmered in the haze, the heat making the brown clifls beyond dance and shake. High summer. The wheat and barley, clover, flax, and cotton standing tall for the harvest. The irrigation canals slowly drying out despite the frantic, backbreaking efforts of the fellahin to keep the shadoofs in motion. The dusty green date and doom palms, the march of trees along the riverbank, and the ripe green of the reedbeds all turning slowly brown. And always the white-hot, eye-searing glory of Ra, pouring down eternally from a cloudless and limitless deep blue sky, mighty and invincible.
In the apartment of Her Royal Highness the Princess Hatshepsut Khnum-Amun there was a stirring of air. The wind catchers on the roof funneled down whatever breezes there were out of the north, making little eddies of hot, stale air. As Nozme and her charge entered the room, the two waiting slaves sprang together into obeisance and picked up their fans. Nozme ignored them. As she removed Hatshepsut's white linen kilt, she barked an order, and another slave appeared bearing water and cloths. The nurse quickly washed the wiry little body. 'Tour kilt is covered in ink again," she said. ''Must you be so messy?"
"I am truly sorry," the child replied, not sorry at all. She stood sleepily as the blessed water ran down her arms and trickled across her brown belly. "Neferu-khebit also frowned at me for my dirty kilt. Truly I do not know how the ink got spilled."
"Did you have a good lesson today?"
"I suppose so. I do not like school very much. There is too much to learn, and I am always waiting for Khaemwese to jump on me. I do not like being the only little girl there, either."
"There is Her Highness Neferu."
"That is quite different. Neferu cares nothing for the smirks of the boys."
Noz
me sniffed. She would have liked to reply that Neferu seemed to care nothing about anything, but she remembered in time that this
bright-eyed, handsome youngster, yawning copiously as she walked to the couch, was Great Pharaoh's special joy and doubtless prattled to him every word spoken in the nurseries. Nozme disapproved of any break with tradition, and the idea of girls, even royal girls, studying with boys was a continual source of irritation to her. But Pharaoh had spoken. Pharaoh wanted his daughters to be educated, and educated they were. Nozme swallowed the heresies rising on her tongue and bent to kiss the little hand. ''Sleep well. Highness. Do you need anything more?''
''No. Nozme, Neferu promised to take me to see the animals afterward. Can I go?"
The request was as usual, as predictable as the child's constant appetite for sweetmeats, and Nozme flashed a rare and gentle smile. "Of course, if you take a slave and a guard with you. Now rest. I will see you presently." She signaled to the silent, stiff figures standing in the shadows and left the room.
The two women came forward, sweat shining on their black skin, and their fans began to dip and sway slowly above Hatshepsut's head, making no sound.
Small ripples of air moved over her body, and for a moment she watched the feathers quiver and swish as a feeling of security and peace stole over her. Her eyelids closed, and she turned onto her side. Life was good, even if Nozme snapped at her and Thothmes scowled a lot these days.
I don't know what he has to be so grumpy about, she thought dimly. I would like to be a soldier and learn how to shoot the bow and throw the lance. I would like to march with the other men and fight.
Above her, one of the Nubians coughed, and from beyond the doorway she heard Nozme climb heavily onto her couch with a long sigh. Hatshepsut's small ebony headrest felt smooth under her neck, and dreams began to wash her mind. She slept.
When she awoke, the sun was still high but had lost its bite. All around her the palace shook off lethargy and began to lumber to the end of another day, like a great hippopotamus rising from the mud. In the kitchens the cooks chattered, and the pots clanked; and there was laughter and the scurrying of many feet in the hallways. As she stepped outside, clean and fresh and eager, the gardeners were already back at work, their bare backs bowed, weeding and trimming the acres of exotic foreign flowers and watering the hundreds of sycamores and willows that made the royal confines a sun-dappled, sweet-smelling forest. The sudden bright flash of gay birds on the wing was everywhere, and the sky was as blue as her mother's eye paint. She began to run, slave and guard striding to
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