Out of the Black Land (26 page)

Thus the lady Mutnodjme became my lover indeed, just as palace gossip said she had always been, and I never argued with palace gossip.

But the night remained unaccountable. Something had come to us, even to Ptah-hotep the scribe and Mutnodjme the priestess, who had lain down together on a sacred night in an Egypt which had abandoned its ancestral gods.

Chapter Eighteen

Mutnodjme

That strange possession, that pouring into the human vessel of the spirit of the gods, had never happened to me before, though I recognised it from the description of a priestess of Isis who had lain down with Osiris-priest one night of Tybi and had risen forever changed.

It was so strong that it felt as though Ptah-hotep had been branded on my body. For days after that Isis and Osiris mating I could feel the phallus inside me, the hip bones butting the inside of my thighs, the sense that I was inside him and he was inside me. After much thought I concluded that it had been the gods, seeking a place where they could meet and mate, and my lover Ptah-hotep and I had been willing receptacles for their divine lust. I was honoured, though bruised.

The day of the sed festival dawned fresh and clear. I clothed myself in a long robe, hoping to escape the notice of the others, though I was wasting my effort. They all knew. Widow-Queen Tiye told me solemnly not to watch the worship of Aten from the window this morning, as it was patent that I was not ritually clean. I was not. But I felt exalted, raised high, pure. I wondered if my lord felt the same.

I could see him, standing by the King Akhnaten, outwardly collected and calm as he always was; inwardly worried about the festival, the organisation, the weather—would a sandstorm blow today of all days when everyone was required to be outside?

I came away from the window as ordered, but not before I knew that I had just seen into another human’s heart. I knew what Ptah-hotep was thinking. Not exactly as to this matter and that, but what he was worrying about.

This was new, and I did not know what to make of it.

Merope relayed the sight to me as I sat on the floor, nursing the mortally sick child of my sister Nefertiti, the little Princess Setepenre. As my dear Kritian talked, life gently left the little body and it slowly cooled. I had seen many babies die—some fathers do not even see a child under two years old, because in a bad season more than half of them will perish—but her little body was so light and her life had been so brief that I wept quietly as Merope told me of the festival.

‘The king is out in the courtyard, wearing a loincloth. Now he is surrendering his crown to your father, who is dressed in his leopard’s skin. He looks indescribable. He can hardly move under the weight of his decorations. Now the king is running, it’s a pity you can’t see this,’ she broke off to laugh. ‘He’s come to the eastern corner and bowed to it and is being splashed with water. Now he is running to the west, and there is a priest with a torch for fire. Now to the north, for earth; and now the south, for air; but he’s slowing down—will he make it? Yes, he’s back before Father Ay. Now there’s a ritual combat. He has to kill a bull. They’re leading it in now.’

‘Give me the child,’ said Queen Tiye, and took the lax body out of my arms. ‘I will dispose of her fittingly. I do not fear the touch of the dead.’

She took the baby from me and cradled it in her arms, moulding the little limbs into their final position and wrapping the body in a long, heavily embroidered cloth. She gave the parcel to Sahte, who nodded and slipped away. Royal children under five are not embalmed, but buried fittingly in the nearest royal tomb. Setepenre would join her father indeed, although Sahte would have to send her back to the Valley of the Kings for that purpose.

I wondered who in this City of the New Sun was willing to carry out the duties of Osiris Priest. Sahte, however, knew everyone. I was sure that the small dead creature would be in a suitable tomb by nightfall tomorrow. It is not proper to mourn over the death of a baby, for it happens so often that if full rites were observed no family would ever be out of mourning.

‘The mother will have to know of this, but not yet,’ said Widow-Queen Tiye to me in an undertone. ‘Princess the lady Setepenre has gone to her father Amenhotep-Osiris in the Field of Reeds, and he will care for her. Better so, perhaps, than the fate which might meet her in the Black Land. Now, what is happening outside the window? Has my son killed his bull?’

‘No, he’s chasing it around the courtyard. Now the priests are holding it still. The blade comes down, so!’ commented Merope. ‘A bad blow, but Divine Father Ay has completed it and now the bull is dead. What happens next, Lady?’

‘There will be an offering of roasted flesh to the god and then a great feast,’ said Tiye. ‘Come down from the window, daughter. We should sit down on the floor. The little princess is dead.’

‘Oh, ‘Nodjme, you should have called me!’ said Merope. ‘Poor little princess. The season has been cruel. And I fear that Neferneferure is ailing, as well. She will not suckle. The nurse was here this morning, asking if we had any healing infusions for the baby. I told her to ask the palace physician.’

‘That idiot will infallibly murder the baby,’ said Widow-Queen Tiye. ‘Why did you not supply her with some poppy?’

‘Because the King Akhnaten has forbidden any woman to practice medicine, and I do not want to be deprived of nose and ears and sent into exile,’ said Merope frankly. ‘I would not mind if they were going to send me home to the Island in the Great Green Sea, but lately they have been sending prisoners into the Red Waste, and nothing lives there for long except snakes and scorpions.’

‘No women can practise medicine? What nonsense!’ said Tiye wearily.

‘The Lord King says that only outmoded and forbidden cults teach herbs and spells, so that they must not be used.’

‘Gods of all Egypt, that my early sins should be punished by such a son!’ Tiye got up with some difficulty and straightened her back. ‘Send the poppy to the nurse, Merope, in my name.’

‘Lady,’ I said, touching her arm. ‘He might kill you if you disobey his orders.’

‘Then let him kill me, for if they are foolish orders I will disobey them. But he would never dare,’ said Tiye without heat.

I hoped that she was right.

Meanwhile, I was glowing, in love with a man for the first time in my life. I would see him at the great sed festival feast. Ptah-hotep, Great Royal Scribe. My lover. The thought was new and intoxicating.

We spent the rest of the day in bathing and combing our hair and anointing ourselves with our favourite perfumes. I always liked the river-scents. Labdanum, a tree-resin, and galbanum, an oil derived from the scented rushes which fringed the river wherever papyrus would not grow.

A scribe from the office of the Great Royal Scribe was admitted, however, a little after noon, and he gave into my hands a small flask made of alabaster, made in the shape of a nesting bird. In it was oil of cinnamon and cassia, a precious gift from my lord Ptah-hotep. Combined with my usual scents, it was a new compound, erotic and cool, hot and considered. Very like, I thought, our relationship, which had been formed in conspiracy and was now heavily-charged with emotion. The others exclaimed at the delightful smell.

‘There is more in you than meets the eyes, Mistress of Isis,’ said Widow-Queen Tiye, inspecting me with her slate-coloured gaze. I flicked a glance at the scribe, but he preserved a blank countenance as though he had not heard the King’s mother using the name of a forbidden god. I bade him thank my lord Ptah-hotep for his present, and he left with one of my finger-rings wrapped in a veil as a return gift.

‘If I didn’t know better I would swear that the perfume was a morning-gift,’ said Tiye may she live forever. ‘But such is only for the first time, not for lovers of such long standing as you and the Great Royal Scribe. Fortunate Mutnodjme, to have such a grateful lover!’

Widow-Queen Tiye’s guesses were always close to the mark and I turned away to sniff at my wrist, where the new blend was ripening into a truly devastating scent.

‘Was it good?’ asked Merope wistfully. I was unwilling to talk about the mating, it had been so strange, but I owed her something. Merope would not lie with a man again. Theoretically she now belonged to the heir of her husband, which was King Akhnaten. She knew as well as I did that her body would not be demanded by that King.

‘Tell me about making love to Amenhotep-Osiris,’ I said, and she drifted away into erotic reminiscence of the old man, his soft mouth, his gentle ways, his sure fingers which found the way to every centre of response. The account sounded remarkably like my experience of Ptah-hotep, and I said so.

I would never reveal, because no one would ever believe me, the sudden intimacy with his mind as well as his body, the sense of fusion of opposites into one being. Even sitting with Merope in the Widow-Queen’s apartments and combing the long hair of Tiye may she live I could feel Ptah-hotep’s concern for many matters; feel also his memory of me, which was precious to him, as he was precious to me. I had no words to describe this experience. They all belonged to mysteries, where there was a fusion of worshipper and worshipped, and it had not been like that. We were equals, primeval, one flesh.

‘He was sweet, so skilled that he melted my stiff sinews and made me cry out,’ I said, and Merope sighed. ‘I loved the fragrance of his skin, and here he has given me his own scent. His chest was a pillow for my head and his mouth delighted me. And if I add a little oil of unefer, you shall perceive him as we lay together.’

I dropped a little oil of unefer on my wrist and the perfume became unbearably erotic. I stank of mating. The mingling of scents came to Merope and she closed her eyes and blushed red.

‘We are glad that you have found a lover, Mutnodjme,’ the Widow-Queen told me. ‘But leave us to mourn, dear daughter, for I cannot bear to smell that scent anymore.’

‘I will wither,’ wept Merope. ‘I will dry up. My flesh will contract on my bones like a corpse laid in the sun. My dearest love is dead, is dead, and no man shall desire me again!’

‘I will grow old,’ said the Widow-Queen in response. ‘My hair will become grey and then white and lines will etch themselves on my face. My heart is with my love, my dearest love, who was taken from me, who waits for me, but I will come to him an old woman, and no man will lie with me again.’

I took myself and my scent of mating out of the room, and their litany went on, and I hope that they comforted each other. I had no comfort for them and no comfort to carry, for I was going to tell my sister that her youngest child was dead.

Fortunately I found Tey in the corridor of glossy marble, lined with fresh pictures of bearers of tribute to the Aten. I caught at her arm as she hurried past me and knelt on the cool stone, a picture of submission.

‘Great Royal Nurse, please wait. Your humble daughter has that to carry which is heavy news for her sister, and wishes to consult with you about when to deliver herself of it.’

‘Setepenre is dead?’ snapped Tey, looking down into my face. I nodded.

‘Your behaviour is most becoming, daughter. I will tell the Great Royal Spouse. Make sure that no one else knows of this who might tell it carelessly. She will be sorry, but it can’t be helped. The body is disposed of suitably?’

‘By the Widow-Queen Tiye and my sister Merope, Lady.’

‘Good. Daughter, have you lain with the Great Royal Scribe?’ She knew this as well as I did.

‘Yes, lady, but I have obeyed your orders. I will not marry him.’

‘It is as you like,’ she said carelessly. ‘Your dowry will be paid to him by the temple of the Phoenix, so it does not concern your Divine Father Ay.’

It was typical of my mother that she forbade me to do something one day and then acted as if it was of no importance the next. Being Tey’s daughter had kept me on my toes for years, never certain from whence the next blow would come. The noise of the sed festival, which was attended with a lot of people blowing horns, came to us dully through the stone walls. A squad of soldiers passed, on the run, spears lowered. Still Tey kept me on my knees. Fortunately the service of Isis had given me strong limbs. I did not move and she relented. If I had been palace trained I would have been in agony, and I allowed a wince to appear on my face. It would never do to let Tey know how little she was inconveniencing me.

‘Very well, daughter,’ she touched my bowed head and went on. I let her get a good way along the passage before I climbed to my feet, rubbed my flattened kneecaps, and walked away.

I could not see Nefertiti in case she asked me about the baby, I did not have any tasks, and the royal women were mourning their loss. There was no room of books in the palace of the Aten, as the texts were still being written. I could not while away the time until the feast by consulting some old writings, because Amarna had no history. I still smelt divine and I wondered whether my lord was feeling as kindly towards me as I was to him.