Out of the Black Land (37 page)

Ptah-hotep

The boat was not a royal barge, but a big fishing vessel, high-prowed and deep-keeled, able to take to the Great Green Sea. On the shrunken Nile it was wallowing, and the lady Nefertiti was sick.

I had found myself under hatches and wondered if I had been abducted or whether this was some strange dream from which I might wake to defy the Pharaoh and burn. But it felt very real. The sound of the water lapping against the side, the smell of the river, the noise of a queen vomiting into a bucket—not the stuff of a death dream. I might have had a queen in my last vision, but she would not have been so sea-sick.

In any case, my love was already given away. I wondered how my lovers had taken this escape. I hoped that they had not mourned me for too long. Doubtless they were even now receiving an explanation from the Widow-Queen. I could do with some explanation myself. I examined my surroundings.

I was in the hold of the boat. I shared it with a queen and a large collection of baskets, which to judge by the way a cat was staring fixedly at one corner, contained grain and a few attendant rats. Sitting composedly in the middle of the hold was a soldier, the golden feathers of his headdress marking him as one of the Widow-Queen’s personal guard.

‘Good morning,’ I said to him.

‘Good morning, lord,’ he replied. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Better than the lady,’ I replied. ‘Where am I, where am I going, and what is happening?’ I asked, three good questions.

‘Lord, you are on the boat
Thousand Fishes In A Net
. You are safe, you are going to a place owned by one of the Widow-Queen Tiye’s daughters, and you have been saved from certain death,’ he replied. Three good answers.

‘Have we anything to drink?’ I asked. I was coated with ash from head to foot and some of it had dried out my throat. The young man gave me a flask of mixed wine and water and I swilled, spat, and then drank thirstily.

‘Can I go up on deck?’

‘No, lord, I have orders to make sure that you are not seen by anyone. We will put ashore as soon as it gets dark. Then you may go up and breathe the air,’ he responded.

‘This seems to have been a very well-conducted rescue.’

‘Lord, the Widow-Queen planned it, and there is no better strategist. I am her chief of the guard, Lord Ptah-hotep. My name is Aapahte.’ He bowed slightly from where he sat and I nodded.

Then he went on in a worried tone, despite his crisp military delivery, ‘I have been with her for years, the red-headed woman. I and my men are the Sekmet guard. I have never known her to make a major tactical error. Though I am worried about her now. If the king or his two slimy ministers saw her in the courtyard of the Phoenix, she may be in danger. She never agreed to initiation into that cult.’

‘But what about the body of the queen? I saw it myself, it was definitely Nefertiti may she live.’

‘No, lord, it was…’

‘Yes, what was it?’ asked the queen, her nausea abated. ‘He meant to kill me, to burn me to death, my husband meant to kill me! I have done all he wished, comforted him and soothed him, given him children, even watched over dreadful things done in his name and the name of his god. And then he tried to kill me; he really meant to kill me!’ Her voice rose to a tearful wail.

I did not know if it was in the least proper, but I accepted her as she flung herself into my arms and held her close.

She wept for some minutes, racked with pain, then demanded of Aapahte, ‘Who went into the flame instead of me? Not Mutnodjme, not my sister—tell me that it was not her!’

‘No, lady, it was a model, a huge puppet such as the dancers for Osiris used to make and carry around the streets,’ said Aapahte. ‘The best sculptor in Amarna made it. He has the measurements of your face, lady, and he made a carving, a mask which fitted over the puppet’s head. It wore your jewellery and your wig, lady. It looked just like you.

‘Meanwhile you had been drugged and smuggled out of the palace. I myself had the honour of carrying you. The Widow-Queen did not know whether you might be consenting to that sacrifice, lady, perhaps out of love for your husband. She could not afford to chance asking you.’

‘I see that,’ said Nefertiti slowly. ‘Yes, if my lord Akhnaten had put it to me that I would rise again as myself, I might have consented; but he did not. He just sent Huy to tell me to ready myself for death, because I was old and no longer fertile and he was marrying my daughter Mekhetaten that night. I suppose he must have married her by now. No, the Lady Tiye acted rightly, though not in accord with my royal dignity,’ decided Nefertiti.

I began to think that perhaps she was not very intelligent.

‘Lady, why did you ask Aapahte here to tell you that it was not Mutnodjme who died in your place?’ I asked.

‘Oh, that odious Huy told me that if I would not die, then Mutnodjme would have to die in my place. I told him that it could not be her. She was initiated, of course, but I was the avatar of the Phoenix so it would have to be me. The very idea!’

Nefertiti had clearly been shocked by the notion. She put back a lock of intrusive hair and sighed. She was terribly beautiful and very stupid, but she had at least not offered up her sister to the fire in her place. Any other woman may have leapt at that chance to save her own life. Or at the next offer which she proceeded to disclose.

‘Huy then laid a hand on my thigh and told me that if I mated with him he would save me. He smirked at me, the animal! The Great Royal Nurse Tey urged me to accept, but I had the soldiers throw him out. I was so shocked by my husband’s perfidy that I resigned myself to die. Then the soldier from the Widow-Queen Tiye came and offered me a potion to deaden the pain. I thought that it might be poison, to cheat my husband of his sacrifice—the Widow-Queen Tiye has never liked me—but I took it anyway, and woke up here. It is very strange and I suppose I should be grateful, but how could he? How could he?’ She wept again.

I met Aapahte’s eyes over the bowed royal head. He shrugged. I allowed my burden to cry for a little longer, then shook her gently. I needed more information.

‘What then of Mutnodjme, lady? Is she safe?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ That wasn’t enough and she saw or felt that. ‘Yes, the Widow-Queen said that she would look after her. Besides, Mutnodjme is strong and clever. She should have been a man. And your friend is the scribe of the general, of Horemheb Cunning in Battle, isn’t he? He won’t let any harm come to her. But what will become of me? Not queen anymore, my children abandoned to the care of their father who does not love them, what will become of Nefertiti?’ she lamented, and this time I let her weep unmolested.

What would become of all of us? I still felt that mysterious connection to Mutnodjme, and all I felt was sorrow. Deep, aching sorrow, which lay on the stomach like lead.

I slept with sorrow and woke with mourning. I was perhaps mourning my own life, Meryt and the Nubians lost, my office and titles stripped from me by my own hands, the loss of all that I once owned. My wealth would now go to satisfy the greed of Bakhenmut’s wife. Henutmire would enjoy my lands and my estates, probably converting them into jewels to decorate her already overdecorated person.

Fortunately, she could not retrieve what I had rightfully given away in my lifetime. My parents would still own their estate, my Master Ammemmes his house full of old scribes and his vineyard. Both those gifts had been from my private fortune, the salary and presents which the lord Akhnaten—may the breath of life be removed from his nostrils—had given me freehold. Once they had changed hands not even Ay the miser could get them back.

So here I was. Free of all burdens. Possessed still of my scribal tools. Possessed also of a despondent queen of Egypt, a pectoral of eye stones belonging to the Widow-Queen Tiye, a monumental headache and with all I loved lost and gone.

For the moment, just for the moment. The red-headed woman would inform Kheperren and Mutnodjme of my safety and whereabouts, and even though I might not see them, perhaps for years, I would know they were there. And surely Kheperren would pass the palace of Sitamen, which was where I surmised that we were going, and perhaps if Mutnodjme tired of Amarna she could come and live with me.

That thought was comforting, and I slept until I woke in the morning loaded with misery, and wondered if both of them were imprisoned or worse, for they had seen my ‘death,’ and the mad king might have taken revenge upon them. If they were dead I thought I would have known, but this twin-feeling was too new and untried to rely upon.

Morning bought brisk activity on deck. Feet thudded over our heads. The vessel rocked and swayed as they pushed her into midstream. The doleful queen Nefertiti and I ate bread and salt fish and drank sour beer. She could not eat much, saying that the food was coarse, which it was. I was weighted down with a dread for which I could not account. I was in little danger here, under guard in a boat on the Nile, and in any case known to be dead. Anyone who saw me would assume that their eyes had deceived them. I should have been elated. I had defied the Pharaoh, I had not done a vile deed in the name of his god, and I had escaped, moreover in the company of the most beautiful woman in Egypt.

But I was close to tears. I shook myself.
Thousand Fishes in a Net
heeled a little then the current caught her; we were going towards the Delta. I curled up on my fish-scented boards and watched the ship’s cat, who was still staring at the same corner of the same basket.

She did not move for hours, and I found my attention entirely engaged by the hunter. She was a slim stripy cat, very like Basht, the cat belonging to the little princesses Merope and Mutnodjme in the days before terror and madness had ruled Egypt. The cat was resting easily on all four paws, her tail out behind her to act as a balance for any swift movement. I concentrated on her, the alert ears, the spread whiskers, the eyes never moving from the place where her prey must, eventually, emerge. The cat had immense patience. She would stay where she was until she caught that rat. Its doom was already written in the book of life.

My lady Nefertiti, finding me disinclined for conversation, took herself to a corner and began to comb out her hair with a crude bone comb which must have belonged to a sailor. Her head must have been shaved recently, for the hair was no more than a span long, but it was gummed to her head with sweat and dust. I heard her exclaim every time she found a knot, and after a while I heard her weeping.

I was too tired to rise and comfort her. I lay on the decking and watched the intent face of the cat.

We had sailed all day. I had been interrupted once by Aapahte coming to see that all was well with his prisoners, and several times by sailors bringing food or loading split fresh fish into the salt-baskets which lay on the other side of the hold.

Their advent did not disturb the cat, or me. I thought it sensible that the vessel
Thousand Fishes in a Net
was behaving as it usually would. We did not want to attract any attention. By the number of fish which were being deposited, she was also living up to her name.

I wondered how the queen—clad only in the gauze cloth suitable for the City of the Sun—was feeling about having naked sailors carry burdens past her as she lay in her corner. But they were extremely well behaved, passing her as though they did not see her. They ignored me, too, except for the one who apologised for treading on my foot.

We had turned and I heard the order for oars. We were rowed into a harbour, perhaps, or the jetty of a city. Aapahte came down to tell us that we had arrived. He had just set foot on the boards when the striped cat sat back on her tail and batted something with a skilled deadly paw. It flew through the air and landed beside my hand, and she was on it in a flash. It was, however, quite dead. Its neck had been broken by that ferocious blow. A huge rat, almost as big as she was. The cat hoisted her prey proudly in her mouth and carried it away to show her captain, its tail trailing on the ground behind her.

A good omen, perhaps, to mark the arrival of Ptah-hotep and Nefertiti at the palace of the Widow-Queen’s daughter—the Great Royal Lady of Amenhotep-Osiris, Daughter of the King’s Body Whom He Loves, Sitamen, devotee of the goddess of hunters, Lady of the Arrow, Neith.

I was so weary that it was all I could do to drag myself across the landing-plank, up the steps, and fall into a ‘kiss-earth’ at the Princess Sitamen’s bare, calloused feet.

Chapter Twenty-six

Mutnodjme

We wailed for the little princess, and for a wonder I saw the King Akhnaten—may he perish—weeping. He was now completely isolated, I realised. No one still lived who might have told him the truth. He had disposed of his wife, who although foolish and ambitious had loved him; and his Great Royal Scribe, who would always have been truthful because it was his nature. His most blasphemous and horrible ceremony in the courtyard had lost him the most beautiful woman in the Black Land and his new little Great Royal Wife had died the next day. He would have to wait some time before the next princess, Meritaten, suffered under the phallus of the Divine Father, though she was ten and youth had not given her sister any immunity.

Things had changed a great deal in a few years. When he had established the city of Amarna, Akhnaten may he die had a wife and six daughters. Now the king had lost his wife, three of his daughters—for little Neferneferure had died of the summer fever a week after her sister Setepenre—and he had to endure growing unpopularity. The dispersal of the Royal Women had been seen as disgraceful. The sacrifice to the Phoenix would not increase his reputation. Even in an Egypt grown corrupt and cynical, such things were not done in the courts of the Pharaoh.

I looked at the royal family at the Window of Appearances. Standing next to the king was the boy Smenkhare, a slim youth with a very new wig-of-state. Before my eyes, the King Akhnaten kissed the boy on the mouth, pinching between his thumb and forefinger the nipple on the flat chest.

Standing next to his brother in this strange gathering was Tutankhaten, the last remaining child of Amenhotep-Osiris. Both Meritaten and Tutankhaten were dusted with the ash of mourning and I could see tears on their cheeks. Ankhesenpaaten had her arms around her brother’s shoulders and he was leaning back into her embrace. I reflected that of all those present the princess Ankhesenpaaten was the only one who appeared to be finding something useful to do.

The rest just stood there, the ministers of state with their mouths open. Huy looked even more like an unsuccessful ass-seller than ever, and Pannefer appeared to have been struck dumb. Mekhetaten’s untimely death had surprised them all and disarranged their plans.

The only person who had maintained their demeanour was my father Ay. He was not smiling, but he looked full-fed and satisfied. Whatever befell the royal family, Ay’s position was secure. He was, in a way, a pure man. He had no human ties, though he was perhaps a little fond of Nefertiti and my mother Tey in his way. But he was devoted, body and soul, to gain. There was only one thought in his mind, how to own more and more of everything; not to do anything with it, but to own it. His rape of the little princess would have had no lust in it. The likelihood that he would have to lie with possibly all of the remaining Amarna princesses in blood and against all propriety did not concern him either, if it meant that by committing any foul action he could increase his wealth. He did not even want power. Just wealth.

I repeated the Widow-Queen Tiye’s little curse on him as I watched the bearers bring out the litter. Mekhetaten was going to the House of Life, and after forty days her embalmed body would lie in the new rock-cut tombs to the east of the city. I had no more tears.

When the litter had gone and the wailing had died away, I went back inside. I needed to speak to the Widow-Queen Tiye.

But when I came to her door, I found my way barred by the king’s guard.

‘The lady is in mourning for the Princess Mekhetaten,’ they told me. ‘She has given orders that she is not to be disturbed for forty days, until the child is buried.’

‘Can you tell her that I am here and I will share her mourning?’ I asked.

‘The lord Akhnaten may he live has ordered us to let no one in or out,’ he said solemnly. ‘The lady is in mourning.’

‘Surely she will see me?’ I persisted. ‘Ask her, if you please, captain.’

For the first time he met my eyes. In his face I saw the stolid inflexibility, the puff-faced righteousness, of a man doing something which he knows is wrong because he has been ordered. The captain was taking refuge in his orders, and against that I had no argument which would succeed in getting the door open.

‘If she should ask for me, I will be with General Horemheb.’

‘If she should ask,’ he said, ‘I will tell her.’

I knew, just from the way he said it, that she would not ask. I hurried away to find Kheperren. The Widow-Queen was imprisoned. I did not know if she were dead or alive, though she was probably alive; she had said that her son would not dare to kill her and she was probably right. But now I had no one to advise me. What to do? Ptah-hotep would know, I thought. But he would not be able to advise me, because he was dead. I missed him suddenly with an almost unbearable pang. My dearest love, my sweet scribe.

I gathered my strength. I could not expend the rest of my life in weeping for him. He was gone. If I was lucky and managed the remainder of my days well, I might meet him again in the Field of Reeds, for I was sure that he would be there. After all, he knew all of the Book of Coming Forth By Day and if the judges would not hear him because his body was ash then there was no justice. I felt weary beyond belief. I stopped and looked out of a window, leaning both palms on the sill, trying to focus. For some reason, I could smell the river, the dock smell of water and fish and tarred ropes. I sniffed again and it was gone. All I could smell was the stench of spices and the usual palace smells, perfumed oil and people. Grief was making me hallucinate.

Kheperren was with his general and they both looked grave.

‘Lady Mutnodjme, I have done a thing which you may not like,’ began the general.

‘Tell me,’ I said, sinking down onto the floor at his feet. My head ached. He leaned down from his chair. His big hands took my shoulders and began to massage them. He was very strong but he did not hurt me, and some of the pain began to ease.

‘I am anxious to protect you, lady. You are at the mercy of your father and mother if you remain unmarried. I do not trust the motives of either.’

‘Neither do I.’ I closed my eyes as the wise fingers found knots and kneaded them.

‘And now your sister is dead, your mother is ill and the Widow-Queen Tiye has been put under house arrest by her son, if it is no worse,’ continued Kheperren, taking my hands in his.

‘This is all true,’ I agreed.

‘So we thought to find a way to give you an unassailable place, Lady Mutnodjme,’ rumbled Horemheb. ‘A position which even the king may think twice about violating. You need an establishment of your own. And failing that, you need a line of retreat. A good general always secures a line of retreat for his soldiers. One must never assume that one is going to win a battle, even if the omens are excellent.’

‘Indeed,’ I murmured. Who would have thought that those big spade-like hands had this much sensitivity?

‘Kheperren, who might be an acceptable husband, is not of sufficiently high rank to offer for the dead Queen Nefertiti’s sister and the daughter of Divine Father Ay,’ said the general, still holding my shoulders. ‘So I have asked for you in marriage, and I have been accepted.’

This news did not sink in immediately. Then instead of pulling away from him, I considered as the clever hands took away some of my pain. The general’s position was, indeed, very high. As long as he commanded the Klashr he had ten thousand soldiers and a possible levy of thirty thousand more to back any decision he might make. If Divine Father Ay tried to have him dismissed, there was a good chance that his faithful Klashr might rebel and stay with their general, and that would leave him in possession of the throne, if he wanted it. I would survive as the wife of Horemheb against anything which my parents or the mad king might want to do to me.

And I did not greatly care what happened to my body now that Ptah-hotep was gone. If the general wanted Mutnodjme, then he should have her. That, too, I could survive.

‘Lord, I am unworthy,’ I said. I felt their astonishment. Clearly, they had anticipated disagreement, and had marshalled all their arguments in favour of their action. I did not need to hear them. I knelt and laid my hands on the general’s feet in token of submission, though he knew that I was not submitting and so did Kheperren.

‘Lord, it is very kind of you to take me, knowing that I loved another man and am devastated by my loss. It is very kind of you to want to protect me and the action you have taken will do so. I will serve you faithfully.’

‘I accept your service.’ Horemheb put his hand on my head. ‘I will reward your fidelity with love and your loyalty with gold. You are a remarkable woman, Lady Mutnodjme. I do not require your body if you do not wish to give it, and if you wish to lie with my scribe Kheperren then it shall be consummation of this contract as if you were lying with me.’

This was doubly gentle of my husband Horemheb. He knew that marriages have to be consummated or they can be annulled. He knew that I could not have borne the touch of a new lover with anything but cold jaw-clenching endurance.

But Ptah-hotep had loved Kheperren and they were sufficiently similar that I could lie with the scribe almost as though I was lying once again with my heart’s love. I hoped that Ptah-hotep, who should have got past the various doorkeepers by now, would understand. I was sure that he would.

‘Tonight, husband, we have a ceremony to perform, and I cannot eat or make love before that is done,’ I told General Horemheb. ‘But tomorrow, if it pleases you, I will consummate this marriage with your scribe in your place.’

‘That will please me,’ he said. ‘In four days we will be gone and I will not trouble your household or your manner of ruling it. This marriage does me honour, Mistress of the House. Now sit down again, if you will. There is a knot in those neck muscles which I still have not smoothed out.’

***

Kheperren and I laid the pitiful collection of dust and charcoal which had been our lover Ptah-hotep in a niche in the tomb which would one day contain a royal body. The ashes were in a mummiform case. We poured the libations and made the sacrifice, a lamb made out of pastry for we dared not risk a bleat being heard, and a vessel of the best wine. Four soldiers stood impassively on guard as we whispered all the prayers, consecrating our lover to the trial of the weighing of the heart in the name of the abandoned gods, Osiris and Isis and Maat who is truth. Then, because blood was required, we cut our wrists and sprinkled our blood over the tiny casket as we bade farewell to Ptah-hotep and wailed for him as Isis and Nepthys had called to Osiris, ‘Come to thy house!’

Then the soldiers escorted us back to the City of the Sun. I tightened a bandage around my wounded flesh and stemmed Kheperren’s bleeding with another. We could not die yet.

‘He will wait for us,’ I comforted my scribe and brother. ‘He will build for us a little hut amongst the reeds.’

‘He will miss us, even in the Field of Offerings,’ he responded. That was true. The sand crunched beneath our feet. The stars blazed.

‘You are the only woman I have ever lain with,’ he told me as we came close to the city. ‘I had thought myself impotent with women.’

‘You are not,’ I assured him. ‘Let doubters ask Mutnodjme, if you need references.’

‘This consummation will not be against your will, then?’

I took his hand. If I had to lie with a man again, better it should be with this my brother, who loved the same man as I loved.

‘It is with my will,’ I said.

And the next day I lay down against Horemheb’s thigh in the general’s bed, in the manner required of any substitute consummation. In such a way had the King Akhnaten watched the violation of his daughter by Divine Father Ay.

I dismissed the thought from my mind. This was a willing sacrifice. If I closed my eyes, Kheperren felt like Ptah-hotep; the same long muscles, slim body, hard hip-bones, the same scent of cinnamon oil, the same soft hair tickling my face. Washed clean of the ashes and thirst of our mourning, slaked of our fasting and half-drunk on the last of the wine, I caressed Kheperren and he caressed me. I tasted tears on his lips. With a sudden, almost desperate movement, his phallus was inside me, eased in its passage by the oil with which I had been anointed. Horemheb stroked my breasts which were pressed against his body, pinching the nipples which were engorged and hard. I had not expected a climax, but when I felt seed spring inside me, it came. Fast and hard, a joy close to pain, instantly extinguished in remembered grief.

Thus I was married to General Horemheb, and no one could take me away from him.