Out of the Black Land (39 page)

‘Mutnodjme was never beautiful. She was wilful and far too sharp for Mother Tey’s liking. The only thing I can think of which would convey me to her is a flask of my perfume. It was mixed from the finest oils, precious and distinctive.’

‘If the ingredients can be found, daughter of the sun, can you make some of this perfume for me to send to your sister?’

‘If the ingredients are here,’ she said carelessly, ‘I can probably make some for her.’

I kissed her feet and left the courtyard. I knew what shared incident I could use to convey my existence to Mutnodjme. And if the two items, a little carved potsherd and a flask of perfume, were delivered to Mutnodjme, my most beautiful lady—far more beautiful to me than the lady now honouring the lotus with her attention—then she would understand in a matter of seconds that she was not alone, that I was not dead, and that I still loved her.

And if they were delivered with their origin-mark as a shield and crossed arrows—the symbol of the city of Sais but also of the goddess Neith—then she would know where I was.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Mutnodjme

I had been a month the wife of the General Horemheb and I was not accustomed to being Mistress of the House.

It was intensely frustrating. The general had had no household to speak of, only a few servants to keep him clean and fed, after a fashion. Their idea of dinner appeared to be bread and a dish of beans, and their idea of a large festival dinner was bread, beans, and a piece of dried salted goat.

This had to change. After a few days of sulking and a few more days of outright defiance, the three original servants settled down with the seven new ones and began to form alliances and foster feuds. I did little to discourage this, while doing nothing to encourage it. While they were vying for my favour, I thought, they were probably not plotting mutiny. The general had given me a free hand, stating that the household was my concern and he would never question my governance of it, but that meant that I had to rule it as mistress or I would never be able to take some time away to pursue my studies in cuneiform. I did not mean to tolerate a group of servants who could not be relied on to manage the house from one moment to the next, and that is what I had.

So I listened to hours of complaint from my new cook, about the old cook who had been relieved of burning roasts and boiling beans to pursue his natural talents—which were complaining, and a remarkable skill at carving wood where he had shown no flair for carving meat. None of them had to do lowly work like carrying water; and all of them were well-fed and well-housed. After a week spent being served grudgingly by the household, who resented my advent and were taking advantage of their master’s absence, I gathered them together for a conference.

There were my four house-women, my own choice and therefore my own fault. Ankherhau and Ii had been priestesses of Isis, though one would never guess it from the way they had reverted to the Amarna ideal of women—brainless and promiscuous. Takhar the cook was a young woman who had just been cheated of marriage by a manservant and who had become despondent. Wab was a little girl who had been mistreated in the kitchen, whom I had personally rescued.

There were my six manservants, ranging from Ipuy, a surly old soldier whom I had inherited from Horemheb—he had been in his first campaign and I assumed that he had sentimental value —to Kasa, a pouting boy of about ten who had a vague connection to the cook.

They all came in and knelt before me. I sat in the chair of state, missing Horemheb and especially missing Ptah-hotep. He was always in my mind, my sweet scribe. What would Ptah-hotep have done with this collection of grumblers? He would have found a weak point in all of them, and used it.

I considered, allowing them to shift from knee to knee, awaiting my pleasure.
Every man has a lever, and he who governs men must find it
, the Divine Amenhotep-Osiris had said, and he was famed for his wisdom.

What did this crowd have in common? Naught but General Horemheb and me. Horemheb was fighting Tushratta’s war on the border; therefore they would have to contend with me.

I took a deep breath and made my announcement. ‘I have listened to you all for a decan, and I cannot judge between you in your quarrels. I am willing to dismiss anyone who wants to leave, though I will make no presents-of-parting.

‘None of you have served me well and you deserve nothing of me. However, anyone who does not wish to continue in my service can leave now, with no penalty. You,’ I pointed to the sulky maiden Wab, ‘can go back and be beaten in the kitchen.

‘You,’ I pointed to Ipuy the old soldier, who had caused most of the trouble, ‘may be pensioned off to go to your acres which Pharaoh awarded you so long ago, as you keep reminding us all.

‘You and you,’ I indicated the servants who were brothers, ‘may go back to your father and take your sister with you. The same applies, one for all. I see no reason why I should not dismiss all of you and begin afresh with some people who wish to serve a very powerful general and to live in his well-conducted household.

‘I do not have time to adjudicate small quarrels between people who should know better. And if, as you may think, the state of the kingdom means that you may skimp and laze and complain endlessly, I am here to tell you that you are wrong. I want a household that can rule itself, and I mean to have it. The next things I have to say will relate to the internal workings of the General’s household, so anyone who wishes to leave will please leave now.’

I waited. No one moved. I stared from face to face, and each one nodded, even the old man Ipuy. Kasa burst into tears.

‘Do you all wish to stay?’ I asked, and ran my gaze along the faces again. Each person said, ‘I wish to stay.’

‘Very well. Here are the orders, and they come from the general, as well as me. But the general is not my source of power, my household. The source of power in this house is me. I am the Mistress of the House and I will be obeyed, and any repetition of behaviour such as I have endured this last decan will earn you instant dismissal. Do you all understand? You no longer have the luxury of serving me a slopped-over bowl of cold soup in place of dinner. You will not tear my cloths or burn holes in them because you are distracted when carrying a full lamp by a flirtatious comment from another servant. And you will not behave like children if I give you an order.

‘If we all do our part we will be comfortable and eventually we may even be friends. But for the moment we will strive for comfort. This is the way this household will conduct itself, beginning tomorrow. The cook Takhar will rise and make breakfast for all of us when the sun rises; no later and no earlier. Her cooking stove is to be kept supplied by Kasa; always supplied, with no excuses and no loud quarrels as he is slapped and sent for more fuel. If Takhar needs more fuel, she will ask for it the night before, not make a riot at daybreak.

‘Then my own maids will help me rise and care for me as I require, which is not much. My butler Bukentef will draw the household allowance of wine and other things as required. He must keep a list of what is expended so he can draw more ahead of time, not rush around borrowing from our neighbours at the last moment. Think ahead.

‘We are still going to eat tomorrow, so draw enough for tomorrow as well.
Today’s wine will not quench tomorrow’s thirst
, to paraphrase Amenhotep-Osiris the wise.

‘There is not much to do. You are not being worked to the bone. I must be able to leave you and not come back, as I came today, to find Kasa snuffling in a corner, Bukentef drunk, Ipuy snarling insults and Takhar beside herself because she has nothing to cook and nothing to cook with. Four of my guards had gone to a dice game out of earshot. I find Ii mating with a soldier who should be on guard and the other two women quarrelling about who burned a hole in a fine linen cloth. Is that the behaviour expected of grown people?’

They hung their heads. Their knees must have been getting sore, as well. I kept them there a little longer.

‘The next quarrel which comes to my ears, I will dismiss both of the contestants. Instantly. Now, consider for yourselves if you want to defy me. I mean what I say and I am a woman of my word.’

My household inspected me for signs of weakness or bluff. They must not have found any. I was not bluffing. My mother had many evil ways and weak points, but she knew how to be obeyed and that, I suspect, I must have inherited from her. After this little intimate talk I had no further trouble with my household.

Bukentef began to write notes on an ostracon which was always kept by the kitchen door, and stopped running out just before dinner because he had forgotten to draw enough wine for dinner. Takhar, who was a good cook, began to exhibit her talents. Kasa gained confidence from not being slapped and began to adopt a lordly air with the other boys. My maidservants remembered what they had learned in the service of the Unnamed Lady and began to talk of other things than clothes, jewels, and who was lying with whom. The old man Ipuy softened after being threatened with banishment. He and his wood carving tools were ensconced in a cool corner of the outer apartment, where he could talk to the soldiers on guard.

More than anything, I now had leisure to miss everyone; Kheperren, the general, Ptah-hotep. But I could not scold my household for laziness and sit musing over my broken heart all day while they were working. I helped wherever I was needed, folding linen with the maids or cleaning armour with the soldiers. Nebnakht, the soldier whom I had surprised in mating with Ii, taught me how to sharpen a spear, and the old man Ipuy listened to the sliding gritting noise with pleasure.

‘That takes me back,’ he said in his gruff voice, poising his knife over the spine of a horse he was carving for Kasa. ‘I was beside the general when he fought his first battle. Ay, I was there with him, climbing along a ridge with a scared boy—what was his name?—beside me.’

‘I haven’t heard of this battle,’ I said. ‘Go on, Ipuy.’

‘They were aiming to take us in ambush, but he out-foxed them, my general. No one can outmanoeuvre Horemheb. That’s why they call him Cunning in Battle. He had authority, Mistress, like you have. He made his charioteers dismount and climb the mountains in case the enemy were lurking; and he was right and they were, and we came down on them like falling boulders and killed them all, and the boy fought like a lion, saved Horemheb’s life, and then was sick as a lizard. Kheperren, the general’s scribe, that’s the name. Brave and faithful, lady. A good boy.

‘But that’s where I got a spear through the leg, and it never healed right. It got so I couldn’t march any more, and the general said I could live here and mind his household, and that’s what I’m doing.’

‘And I am glad to have you,’ I said truthfully, for he was faithful and valiant and that, said Horemheb, is what one wants in soldiers and in dogs. I quoted the saying to Ipuy and he laughed aloud, a strange sound from his old throat, and said ‘He chose well in choosing you, Mistress. The general, he chose well.’

I was beginning to think that he had chosen well for me, as well as, perhaps, for himself. His household was showing distinct signs of domestication. I felt sanguine enough about them after another decan to go back to the House of The Great Royal Scribe to ask Bakhenmut whether I could resume my lessons in cuneiform.

The old men, Menna and Harmose, were still there, with a basket of clay tablets at their feet. Khety and Hanufer leapt up to greet me. Bakhenmut remained seated in his chair of state and inclined his head nervously to my bow, which was to a carefully calculated depth. I had brought a maiden with me, in case proprieties were to be observed. It was Ankherhau, who could once read and write. Ii of the roving eye would not be a safe person to introduce into an office full of men.

‘Wife of General Horemheb,’ said Bakhenmut. ‘Greeting.’

‘Great Royal Scribe, greeting,’ I replied, ‘Lord, I was once allowed to learn the mysteries of the square writing from one of your scribes. I have the general’s permission to ask of the Great Royal Scribe that he allows me to continue this acquisition.’

‘Lady, the general spoke to me about this before he left. I am honoured by your presence. Menna, I entrust this task to Harmose and you. The lady Mutnodjme is to learn as much as she wishes.’

Bakhenmut returned to the tax return he was reading and I sat down on the bench between the two old men.

‘Lady, we are rejoiced to see you,’ said Menna, and Harmose patted my knee with his dry hand. I was pleased to see them, as well, and pleased that Bakhenmut had retained Ptah-hotep’s staff. At least the office of Great Royal Scribe would continue, and that must cheer my love’s heart as he watched us from the Field of Reeds.

I knew that Ptah-hotep was watching us. I could feel his presence, sometimes so close that I could almost touch him. And I dreamed odd dreams. The most vivid had been of women shooting arrows. I had never seen such a thing in my waking life.

Menna resumed our lesson where we had left off. Thereafter I spent two hours every day in the office of the Great Royal Scribe and improved my knowledge of cuneiform. I had learned more signs within the next decan and was beginning to get an inkling about the way that the writer arranged his sentences, when Nebnakht came to the office door and summoned me from my lesson.

‘Mistress, please come,’ he said, and I went with him, wondering what domestic disaster had overtaken my household.

I walked into the outer apartment and saw a snivelling boy, naked and very wet, who had evidently just been punitively washed.

‘He came in through the drains,’ said Ipuy. ‘I told the women to wash him clean so that we shouldn’t choke on the stench. I never smelt such a smell. Made my nose want to lie down and cry. But that Ii is an impulsive woman. She’s scrubbed the child almost to extinction. Poor scrap’s never been that clean before, I’ll wager.’