The Gardener and the Assassin

by Mark Gajewski

  “I was present all three times,” the old man said.

  “Were you honored as well, My Lord?”

  “No.” The old man smiled.

  “I’m sure you were very brave too,” I said consolingly. “Perhaps Pharaoh was too busy to witness what you did in the heat of battle.” I didn’t want to make the old man feel bad.

  He shrugged.

  “Grandfather was horribly wounded in the leg during his final battle – it’s still hard for him to get around – so he couldn’t serve Pharaoh as a soldier anymore. For a while he was assistant to Nedjemger, overseer of the garden in the Ramesseum. Nedjemger was the husband of Naushaat, the chantress of Amen–Re. Grandfather succeeded Nedjemger when he died. Grandfather planted the garden here in Djeme’s forecourt. He designed it.”

  The old man ran his fingers along the wooden box. “Was placing flowers on the stairway and figuring out how to water them so ingeniously his idea?”

  “No, My Lord. It was mine.”

  “Oh?”

  “I got the idea from watching farmers bring water to their fields from the river and save it for use after the inundation in great basins. I thought it a good way to water these plants more quickly and thoroughly. Grandfather’s workers built the boxes and reservoir upstairs under my supervision while the royal family was attending a festival in Abu. One gardener fills the reservoir daily and I water the plants.”

  “How long have you been one of Pharaoh’s gardeners?” the old man asked.

  I poured water into a large pot that held a small acacia tree. “Since I became a widow a little over two years ago.”

  “You are a lovely woman, Neset,” the old man said. “Are the men blind in Ta Set Maat that none has claimed you in all that time?”

  I felt myself blush. I bent to water another plant so the old man wouldn’t see. I wasn’t about to explain my history to this stranger, kind as he seemed, nor tell him that I’d vowed never to put myself in another man’s power. Because of Mesedptah I’d never trust any man ever again. “My husband brought great dishonor upon me before he died,” I said simply. “I find it easier to assist Grandfather here and avoid those I once lived among.”

  “It’s their loss, then.”

  “I need to shut off the water now.” I ascended the stairs to the room and closed the baffle.

  The old man followed me. He moved to the window in the west wall and looked out over the garden. “It’s quite beautiful from up here,” he said. “You and Meniufer have done a good job.”

  “Thank you, My Lord. Truth be told, I love being in the garden with my hands in the dirt, digging, fertilizing, watering, making plants and trees grow, seeing petals turn to follow the sun, watching flowers and leaves and palm fronds dance in the breeze, smelling their perfume in the air – far better than observing from on high.”

  “Wait until you’re my age and your knees don’t bend as readily as now,” the old man laughed.

  With the break of day people were beginning to flow into Djeme through the tunnel below us, officials and workmen and deliverymen and others. Guards were sleepily emerging from barracks attached to Pharaoh’s stable. A few horses whinnied. Voices rose from both sides of the gate below my feet, casual conversations.

  “My Lord, do you know Pharaoh personally?” I asked.

  “Certainly.”

  “What’s he like, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  “You’ve never seen him?”

  “Only from a great distance, during festivals. And I’m only inside the per’aa when the royals are asleep. A gardener should hardly be wandering about when they’re awake, don’t you think?”

  “What business do you have in the per’aa, Neset?”

  “I place freshly cut flowers in the audience hall and corridors, to brighten them up. I water the plants growing in earthenware pots.”

  The old man chuckled. “Pharaoh’s been on the throne a long time, close to thirty years. He’ll soon celebrate his first Heb–Sed festival to renew himself. When he was young he fought many campaigns to keep our land safe from those who invaded, as you know so well. He models himself after his predecessor Ramesses the Great – life, prosperity, health – the great god, justified. He seeks to build just as extensively – although, since he’s so far ruled less than half as long there’s much more for him to do. That desire may yet come to pass if the gods give him years enough. His children are far fewer as well. He’s been unfortunate that so many have already gone to the Afterlife.”

  “I’m sorry for that,” I said sincerely.

  “He has surpassed Ramesses the Great in one thing, though – he’s planted more than five hundred–forty gardens throughout this land. He takes great delight in sitting in them.”

  A servant poked his head into the room, spotted us, then approached the old man and bowed low. “Majesty, the high priest awaits you at the entrance of the sanctuary to awaken the god.”

  My heart almost stopped. Majesty? Ramesses? I’d been talking to Pharaoh himself? I fell to my knees, mortified. I covered my face with both hands, bent forward and touched my brow to the floor. “Forgive me, Majesty!” I cried. For all I knew he could have me killed on the spot for my impudence. He was, after all, a god, the breath of life, who made all men live when he shone upon them.

  I heard soft steps, saw his sandaled feet beside me.

  “Rise, Neset,” Pharaoh said gently, then laughed.

  I stood, my face hot, eyes downcast. “I didn’t know who you were,” I explained, trembling. “I’ve never seen Pharaoh… you… life, prosperity, health, Majesty.”

  “If you’d known me I wouldn’t have had such a pleasant and frank conversation.”

  “Majesty…” the servant said uneasily. “The high priest…”

  “Do you come every morning at dawn to water my flowers?” Ramesses asked, ignoring the servant.

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “I expect when you encounter me here from now on you’ll treat me as the old man you didn’t know, not the pharaoh you think you should fear. Understood?”

  I raised my eyes. “Yes, Majesty. I will. Thank you, Majesty.”

  Pharaoh surveyed the garden again. “I’d like even more flowers throughout the per’aa now that I’m living at Djeme. You’ll see to it?”

  “Yes, Majesty. Of course.”

  “From now on you’ll place the flowers in the audience hall when I’m there listening to petitioners, not when I’m lying abed. I do so like being surrounded by beautiful things… flowers… women...”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Inform Meniufer that to lighten his workload I’ve just appointed you overseer of Djeme’s garden.”

  I couldn’t believe what Pharaoh had just done. I bowed low. “You honor me far beyond what I deserve,” I said humbly.

  “We’ll talk again tomorrow morning, Neset,” Pharaoh said. “I’ll expect you to tell me what changes you’d like to make to this garden below us, now that you’re in charge of it, and perhaps about planting one within the inner courtyard of my per’aa itself. And tell me more about the garden you would plant to honor the third Thutmose.”

  “Yes, Majesty. I will,” I promised, nodding my head vigorously.

  I bowed again as Pharaoh walked to the stairs and descended. I was in shock. I – a widow, a gardener – was now one of Pharaoh’s overseers? Grandfather was never going to believe what had just happened.

  1156 BC: 30th Regnal Year of Ramesses, Third of His Name

  Akhet (Flood)

  Neset

  I finished arranging freshly–cut flowers in the lower tower room where Pharaoh and his family relaxed each evening after they finished eating dinner in the per’aa. I’d been decorating the room late in the afternoon every day since I’d met Pharaoh, at his request. The guards who stood at the foot of the tower stairs were used to me and let me pass without question. Both rooms in the tower were amazing, the walls etched and brightly painted with images of Ramesses and female musicians and flowe
r bearers and even one of him playing Senet with a concubine. The furniture in the lower room was elaborate and spectacularly beautiful. A slew of ebony chairs were covered with gold or inlaid with faience and precious stones. Highly polished ebony tables were scattered about. Fans were propped in a corner for use by Pharaoh’s fan bearers, their long white ostrich feathers set in gold bases, their shafts ebony. Beside them were numerous musical instruments. The upper room held storage chests full of platters and bowls and serving dishes, and cups of alabaster and gold and copper. Shelves contained jars of wine and beer and various foodstuffs that were replenished daily from the per’aa’s kitchen. The royal family didn’t hunger late at night. Bowls of oil with linen wicks strategically placed in the lower room cast light after night fell, though I’d never been in the tower late enough to see them lit. I was always gone long before the royal family appeared. I was running behind schedule today, though, because flowers hadn’t been delivered to me on time from Grandfather’s fields in the valley.

  I turned to go. Too late. A young boy’s high–pitched voice carried up the stairs, and a sharp one, probably his mother’s, ordering him not to run. I flattened my back against a wall as a clutch of young serving girls hurried into the room. They all wore linen skirts of finer material than I’d ever seen. I fell to my knees as the boy and numerous women entered. Pharaoh’s wives and his youngest son. I’d glimpsed them from afar a few times since their move from Pi–Ramesses, but I’d never been in their presence. The women were all dressed finely and glittered with jewels. None wore wigs. A very beautiful woman entered after them, wearing only a girdle of carnelian beads; based on her age, about eighteen or nineteen I estimated, she was probably a concubine. Likely Pharaoh’s current favorite if she was spending the evening with him and his family.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” a woman snapped.

  I glanced at her then immediately lowered my eyes to the floor. Iset, Pharaoh’s Great Wife, God’s Wife of Amen, the most imposing and important woman in the valley. She was over sixty years old, like her husband, yet traces of her youthful beauty remained. “Pharaoh tasked me with placing flowers in these rooms daily, Majesty,” I said in a quavering voice.

  “Look up when you speak to me.”

  I raised my eyes. “Yes, Majesty. The flowers came late today. I was just leaving.”

  “Ramesses gave the order himself?” Iset asked.

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Hmph.” She addressed the woman next to her. Tyti. The second–ranked wife. Perhaps a year or two younger. “Seems another serving girl’s caught our husband’s eye.” She turned to the concubine. “Can you believe this is your competition, Heket? She’s not half as pretty as you. Must be the red hair. Either that or you’re not keeping Ramesses satisfied. He doesn’t usually tire of his concubines so quickly.”

  The concubine tensed. Her eyes flashed angrily, both at me and Iset. But she clearly dared not talk back to the great wife.

  “Majesty, I’m not a serving girl,” I corrected. “I’m overseer of His Majesty’s garden in the courtyard below.”

  “You oversee men?” Tiye scoffed. She was the mother of the man who’d condemned my husband to death. The youngest of Pharaoh’s wives, she wasn’t yet forty. She was quite beautiful.

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “I’ve heard that long ago women supervised female weavers or wig makers or dancers – but never men. There haven’t been female overseers in this valley for hundreds of years,” Iset countered.

  “Neset is indeed an overseer.”

  Pharaoh. I automatically fell to my knees. The boy, probably ten or eleven years old, ran to him and grabbed him around the waist with both hands and hugged him. Ramesses patted him on the back.

  “Why are you surprised, Tiye?” Ramesses asked. “You know I’ve made it easier for women to go about freely in the valley. I appreciate women with talent.” He stepped towards me. “Rise, Neset.”

  I did. “Grandfather?”

  He was standing directly behind Pharaoh, leaning on his cane.

  “I’ve invited Meniufer to spend the evening with me,” Ramesses announced. “You’ll stay too, Neset. I want to talk over plans for several new gardens with the two of you. You’ve saved me some time being here, Neset – I was going to send for you.”

  Ramesses settled himself in the most comfortable chair. The boy climbed onto his lap. The women took adjacent seats. Young female fan bearers moved into position behind them. Though the day’s heat had broken no breeze was stirring and the room was hot. Grandfather hobbled to a vacant seat and I settled in an adjacent one, facing Pharaoh.

  “This is Meniufer, my chief gardener,” Pharaoh told his women. “You’ve already met his granddaughter, Neset.” He addressed Grandfather and me. “These are my wives – Iset and Tyti and Tiye.”

  I kept my eyes averted from Tiye. I’d never told Pharaoh about my thieving husband or his son sentencing Mesedptah to death. I could only imagine what these women would do to me if they ever discovered my background and my omission. As Pentawere’s mother, Tiye was most likely to find out.

  At a noise in the courtyard the boy jumped from Ramesses’ lap and dashed to the window. “That’s Setherkopshef, my youngest son,” Pharaoh chuckled. “Always on the go.”

  A woman entered the room, a few years younger than Tiye, her bearing regal.

  “Ah! My daughter Duatentopet, wife of my son Ramesses,” Pharaoh said.

  The woman who’d someday replace Iset as the land’s chief woman. She nodded perfunctorily at Grandfather and ignored me. She too was a beauty. She wore a pendant depicting Khonsu around her neck. I recalled she was that god’s chantress, a position second in importance only to God’s Wife.

  “Where’s my grandson?” Pharaoh asked.

  “In the stables. As always,” Duatentopet sighed.

  “What does a chief gardener do?” Tiye asked Grandfather disparagingly. “Muck about in the dirt planting things?”

  “I’m in charge of twenty overseers and about three hundred men and women, Majesty,” he replied.

  “It takes that many people to maintain gardens?”

  “Every temple has a garden, Majesty. Pharaoh also has vast fields on the floodplain that my gardeners plant after the inundation and weed during the growing season and of course harvest. My porters and boatmen transport flowers daily to Djeme and the temples of millions of years and Ipet–Isut and Ipet–Resyt. My girls arrange those flowers in the gods’ sanctuaries and temple precincts. Plus, my gardeners care for plantings in tens of thousands of earthenware pots so there will always be fresh flowers available during the months the fields are covered by the inundation.”

  “We grow and arrange more than a million flowers each year just for Ipet–Isut’s festival days,” I interjected proudly. “Bouquets. Flowers in bundles or strings or heaps or loose or inserted in ankh–shaped containers. Wreaths. Lotus garlands to drape around women’s necks during celebrations.”

  “Neset personally places flowers throughout the per’aa,” Ramesses added.

  “An overseer who places flowers?” Tiye snorted.

  “At my request,” Pharaoh reiterated. “Neset has an eye for making pleasing arrangements.”

  “Several gardeners work for me too, Majesty,” I told Tiye. “We meet every morning and I give them directions for the day. Then I oversee them as they water and plant and weed and prune and transplant and fertilize and do everything necessary to keep Pharaoh’s garden in the courtyard and the new one I’m creating inside the per’aa in perfect condition. I make sure the irrigation channels that bring water from the river to fill the garden pools flow freely. I care for bees in a large clay hive in a corner of each garden. I see to the feeding of the sacred geese that paddle about the pools. The last few months I’ve installed stone benches at scenic spots in the midst of flowers and in the shade of trees beside channels and pools so Pharaoh and you have places to rest as you wander through the garden in the courtyard bel
ow in the evening. I created winding paths of stone through the beds of flowers. Aside from that, I spend as much time each day as I can on my knees, my hands buried in the rich soil, doing what I love best, working side by side with the others to keep the gardens green and healthy.”

  “The benches and paths are a welcome improvement,” Tyti admitted.

  Setherkopshef returned from the window. The long white scar on Grandfather’s leg caught his eye. “How did you get hurt?”

  “Meniufer and I fought together against the valley’s enemies decades ago,” Ramesses told his son.

  “Like my uncles are doing right now, in Retenu and Setjet?”

  “Yes, Majesty,” Grandfather answered. “I spent the early part of my life protecting your father in battle, just as my ancestors protected the kings and pharaohs they served. Just as my descendants will protect you and your descendents.”

  Tiye eyed me. “How will you protect this family, girl? By squashing insects in your garden?”

  The wives laughed in unison.

  I felt my face grow hot. They were justified in their ridicule. I was just a girl who’d certainly never wield a sword or bow as Grandfather had. But I knew enough of my family history not to discount the possibility that the falcon god would someday use me for that very purpose, to protect a pharaoh, the same way he’d used a number of my ancestors. “However the gods guide me, Majesty.”

  “Well said, Neset,” Pharaoh chuckled.

  “Unfortunately, a wretches’ knife thrust ended my soldiering, Majesty,” Grandfather told Setherkopshef, tracing his scar with a finger.

  “Are those flies of valor?” Setherkopshef asked.

  “They are.” Grandfather removed one of his three necklaces and slipped it over the boy’s head.

  Setherkopshef inspected the flies with delight.

  “Meniufer’s the only man I’ve ever awarded flies to three times,” Pharaoh told his son.