Out of the Black Land (47 page)

‘And from here he fell,’ I said quietly. I could see no marks on the stone. Khety-Tashery began to weep.

‘He wouldn’t let us come with him,’ he sobbed. ‘But he came up here with someone.’

‘So he wasn’t alone?’ I asked.

‘No, lord. He said he had something to say to the person that he didn’t want anyone else to hear; so they wouldn’t be shamed.’

‘And you don’t know who it was, Khety-Tashery?’

‘No, lord.’ He paused, as though he might have been going to say something more. I did not speak but raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to continue.

‘It’s nothing, lord. Nothing much, anyway. He talked about dismissing some officials, lord, because they had been stealing from the crown. He’d been about to summon two of them to come to him, then he countermanded the orders.’

‘Whom did he summon? It’s all right, child, no one is angry with you. I am as grieved as you are that the young king is now with Osiris. It’s all right to talk to me.’

‘Of course, lord,’ Khety-Tashery looked shocked. ‘You are the just judge, lord, and anyway my father says that you were never unjust even when you and he were boys together.’

‘Ask your father about the night that Hanufer, Ptah-hotep, Kheperren and Khety stole four sesame-seed cakes from the Master of Scribes’ kitchen.’ I smiled at the boy and the memory.

‘I’ll ask him. Oh, the names of the persons he summoned? It was Nakhtamin, lord; and Divine Father Ay. But then he called the messenger back.’

‘Thank you, Khety-Tashery.’

I took a small constitutional to the office of Nakhtamin, Fan Bearer on the King’s Right Hand, about whom I had always had doubts. He was responsible for the conduct of the king’s entertainments and feasts, and for a long time I had heard rumours, though nothing I could substantiate, that he was being given presents by troupes of dancers so that he would employ them. Performing at the palace was a way of ensuring success and many subsequent engagements.

The office was silent; as it should be. No business was supposed to be conducted in the seventy days in which the kingdom prepared for the burial of a king and the accession of a new Pharaoh. I knocked at the door, and heard a flurry of movement and then a smothered giggle.

‘Nakhtamin, it is Ptah-hotep,’ I said, and the door was flung open and I was ushered inside by three entirely naked women. They were shining with oil. They looked like tumblers with their long hair tied into tassels and the dancer’s muscular, long-limbed build. They were all avoiding my eyes, though their nakedness was part of their trade.

Nakhtamin was disclosed, also entirely naked—which was not proper for his trade—lying on a pallet bed with a young woman astride him. He saw me, lost firmness in the part in which the girl was most interested, detached her and waved his hands at the women to go away. They dived for the door but I ordered them to halt.

‘Sit down, most beautiful of women,’ I said. Do not tear our eyes from the contemplation of your beauty. Greetings, Nakhtamin, I am sorry to have disturbed your mourning. I was wondering if you had spoken to the Pharaoh Tutankhamen-Osiris just before he died? I seem to have no note of the conversation in the records.’

‘He wanted to see me,’ agreed Nakhtamin. ‘About some of these scandalous rumours about bribery which are, of course, not true.’

‘Indeed, I can see that,’ I said politely. The girls giggled again, covering their mouths with their hands. They really were very attractive, and may have thought that mating with Nakhtamin, who was presentable enough, was a reasonable fee for an engagement at the palace.

‘And what did the Divine King have to say to you? I asked.

Nakhtamin scowled. ‘I was to see him at one o’clock in the afternoon,’ he said. ‘See, I wrote it down.’

I had before me an ostracon with the day and ‘Lord of T.T. T.M.H.L 1’ scrawled on it.

‘Lord of the Two Thrones Tutankhamen may he live, at one o’clock,’ I translated.

‘Yes,’ Nakhtamin said. ‘But he was dead before then.’

‘You keep no permanent household here?’ I asked.

‘No, lord, but the maidens were with me just before, I asked them to audition at noon for the feast, and then just when we were getting friendly, the wailing started.’

‘Your acquaintance seems doomed,’ I agreed, ‘for today in walked a judge just when you were getting friendly again. Is this the case, young ladies? Tell me the truth. I am a Royal Judge, and you will have your engagement whether or not you please this man. Did you come here just before that time on that dreadful day?’

They consulted each other and then one was elbowed into a ‘kiss earth’ from which I raised her. Her hands were very strong.

‘Lord, it is as he says. We came to show him our tumbling, and we were just showing him our other skills—we were trained by a priestess of Hathor, Lord Judge—when we heard the screaming that the poor Pharaoh had died.’

‘Thank you. Where was he going to meet you, Nakhtamin?’ I asked as I was leaving, wondering if the Fan Bearer would recover his potency and at least have enough sense to lock the door. From the way his parts were twitching, I assumed that he would.

‘On the wall, lord. He liked to stand on that part of the wall and watch the ships.’

I walked a little further to the quarters of Divine Father Ay. A maiden in correct mourning opened the door, scurried away to find her mistress, and returned with Great Royal Nurse Tey.

She had not aged well. The ashes and dishevelment of mourning does not improve the appearance, of course, but she was thin and acidulated and her voice was meagre, as though she would not even release a word from its cage until it had been drained of juice.

‘Ptah-hotep,’ she acknowledged awarding me no titles at all. ‘What do you want? The Divine Father is in mourning, as are we all.’

‘I just wondered if he could clear up a little point which is worrying me,’ I said.

She raked my face with a hard stare. Well?’

‘I have no note of his conversation with Tutankhamen-Osiris on the morning of his death. I believe that Divine Father Ay had an appointment with him?’

‘No,’ she snapped.

‘No? But I am quite sure that he had an appointment with the king. To discuss the dismissal of corrupt officials?’

‘No,’ she snarled, and closed the door in my face.

I walked away quite convinced, though I still had no proof, that the Pharaoh Tutankhamen-Osiris had been murdered by Divine Father Ay.

Chapter Thirty-one

Mutnodjme

I agreed with my lord Ptah-hotep that no action should be taken about Ay until Horemheb came home, so I went to visit Ankhesenamen to try and calm her. The Great Royal Wife had been screaming for two days and two nights with pauses of a couple of minutes, presumably to take a breath. No one was getting any sleep and I wondered that her throat had held out as long as it had. I was forbidden the door by her little maidens, but I smiled at them and refused to move until the Mistress of the Queen’s Household came out to see what the trouble was.

‘Let me in,’ I said. ‘I need to speak to the Royal Lady Ankhesenamen.’

‘You are the daughter of Ay,’ she said suspiciously.

‘I am also the wife of General Horemheb and the friend of Ptah-hotep the Just Judge,’ I rejoined.

She seemed to feel that I had jumped her pieces and signalled to the small girls to let me in.

When the door was safely shut and barred, she conducted me into the inner chamber, where three young women were sitting in a group with the Queen. A fourth maiden was wailing at the top of her voice. When she saw me, she broke off and another immediately took up the cry.

‘What are you doing, Ankhesenamen?’ I asked, for in neither case was the voice that of the Great Royal Spouse.

‘Providing music for your father’s ears,’ she snapped.

‘He is your grandfather,’ I pointed out, joining the maidens on the floor.

‘I know, and I am not going to marry him.’

‘Well, there are ways and ways,’ I said. Her intelligent face lit up and she descended from her chair to join me.

‘You have a plan? I can’t think of anything but to try and find a husband out of Egypt. I am not going to marry Ay,’ she said with unshakeable determination.

‘You can’t marry out of Egypt; in you resides the right to the throne,’ I objected.

She looked instantly guilty, but I could not see how she could have contacted anyone who might be able to bring her a foreign prince so I forgot about it and returned to the matter at hand.

‘Do you remember deciding not to throw your spindle at the wall in the apartments of the Widow-Queen Tiye-Osiris, lady?’ I asked.

She smiled. ‘Yes, and just after I got the knack of spinning. I recall it, Aunt. What’s your point? I mean, here I am, I’ve been a plaything for the royal house since I was born. I had to marry Smenkhare who was utterly corrupt, then I had to marry Tutankhamen-Osiris. I really did like him but now he’s dead, and I’m sick of it. I won’t marry again, I won’t be Great Royal Wife again, and I will die rather than marry my grandfather. He’s a cold cruel miser. He hurt me when I was a child and he’d hurt me again, too.’ She shuddered with loathing. ‘He doesn’t even want me. Not me, myself. He just wants the throne.’

‘Well, you could give it to him,’ I suggested.

There was a silence which could be felt. The young woman who had been wailing had stopped and the next one had been so astounded that she had missed her cue.

‘Aunt, Aunt, you’re dreaming!’ Ankhesenamen shook her head at me. ‘He has to have me to have the throne.’

‘He doesn’t have to have your body, your person, he just has to have your consent to marriage,’ I pointed out.

I had asked Ptah-hotep about the law of marriage, and he had agreed that perfectly valid marriages could be made without one party being there. They could be repudiated later, of course, but that would not matter. It all depended on whether Ankhesenamen really meant to give up power.

‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘Wonderful. I’ll do it. I don’t actually have to be here to marry him, do I? Just to agree, or at least never to disagree. Yes, yes, I’ll do it, find me a scribe, where’s my seal?’

‘But you must leave the palace, leave all your wealth, for he will not let you take anything with you. You must leave everything,’ I said.

‘I don’t care,’ said the Great Royal Wife flatly. ‘I want to learn. I want to be able to read and write. I can’t bear a living child and I don’t like men; I never want to be fumbled by sweating hands again. They can keep their love. It’s all false. It’s not important. I have seen you, Aunt, reading cursive and even Hittite. I’ve got a good mind. I can learn. Let me out of this palace or I’ll go mad. If I leave, there must be somewhere I can go! I’m tired of pregnancy and pain.’

‘There is the temple of Isis,’ I suggested.

‘Would they take me? With nothing?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, for I knew that the Singer of Isis the lady Peri was back in charge. I also thought that Ankhesenamen would make a good scholar, and Isis appreciates dedication.

‘Here’s a papyrus roll, write my consent to the marriage with my revolting grandfather. Then all I need to do is stay for the funeral—poor Tutankhamen, he was a nice boy—and then I’m free.’ She clapped both hands together with joy.

‘But once gone, you cannot pine for your pretty fabrics and your jewels and return,’ I warned. ‘Ay is not scrupulous; you know that. I would not make any optimistic predictions about the length of your life if you come back and challenge his right to reign.’

‘My dearest Takha is coming with me,’ she said firmly. ‘She has already taught me the beginnings of my letters. See?’

She exhibited a child’s writing board with exercises in black ink, corrected in red. The maiden who had been wailing smiled shyly at me. This was the studious and learned young woman Takha. She could not have been more than eighteen. I looked at her hands. Yes, there was the flattened middle finger with the permanent ink-mark. This was a scholar.

‘Ptah-hotep the Just Judge shall write it, you will seal it, and I will deliver it to Divine Father Ay after you have safely gone. You must go to the funeral, as you say, poor Tutankhamen deserves that of you and he is to be buried in the full Osirian ritual, which requires your presence. Then, niece, we shall slip you out of the palace, and your grandfather need never come near you again. I will go now to the temple of Isis and arrange your admittance. If you are sure, Ankhesenamen? This is your last chance to change your future and be queen again.’

‘I am sure,’ she assured me, and she had always known her own mind, even as a child.

‘Give me a pectoral and a few pairs of earrings. You should not go to the temple unprovided-for and Ay has not done an inventory of your jewels yet.’

She handed over the gems. On my way out, I turned and said, ‘Don’t resume the wailing. It has served its purpose,’ and walked straight out of the room and into Divine Father Ay.

He was pot-bellied and double-chinned and hung about with gold. There was a greasy mark down his chest where he had spilled something sticky.

‘Daughter,’ he said. ‘You have been with the Great Royal Wife?’

‘I have,’ I said, instinctively stepping back a pace. His black eyes scanned me and focused on the bag I held in my hands. It was uncanny. I believe that he could smell the gold through the fabric.

‘What is in there?’

‘Father, I have just, I believe, talked the Great Royal Wife into marrying you,’ I exclaimed in disgust. ‘I have even made her stop screaming. She has given me a few presents in token of her affection and soon you will have everything she owns.’

‘She will agree?’ he asked, eagerly.

‘I think so, if you leave her alone. Don’t try to see her and especially don’t remind her of the good old days at Amarna. That will not work on this royal child of Akhnaten.’

‘You have been of some use after all, daughter,’ he admitted. Then he extracted a pair of earrings from my bag—commission, perhaps, or because he could not help himself—and let me go on my way.

I commended the Great Royal Wife’s decision in my heart as I went unmolested out of the palace and into the street, to talk to the Singer of Isis about two new pupils.

The next visitor who graced my house was General Khaemdua. I found him sitting in the chair of state, condescending to sip a little of the very best wine and eat a few crumbs of Wab’s special date bread. He was immaculate, as ever; very bored, as ever; and elaborately simple in his clothes, as ever.

I bowed to him and he waved a distracted hand.

‘Mistress of the House, I am trespassing on your hospitality. I need a translation of a clay tablet, and there are no scribes free in the house of archives.’

‘General, I and my household are at your service as always,’ I responded correctly, and found my basket of scribe’s tools. He gave me a tablet and I sat down to construe it.

‘This is in Assyrian,’ I noted. ‘My knowledge of that language is not perfect, but this is what I believe it says. It is from Suppiluliumas for an Egyptian woman called Ankhati, and he says:

Why should I send you my son? Never has it been heard of that an Egyptian princess married out of her own land.”

Isis protect us!’ I added, staring at the square writing. I read it again. That is certainly what it said.

‘Have you any idea who the traitor Ankhati might be?’ he asked with his affected laziness, allowing Wab to pour him some more wine.

‘Oh, I know who it is, and I have just solved this problem! I thought she looked guilty when I mentioned that she could not marry out of Egypt.’ I explained what was to become of the Great Royal Wife of Tutankhamen-Osiris, and General Khaemdua almost smiled.

‘Well, then, as long as someone intercepts Suppiluliumas’ son—the king has one hundred and seventeen sons, so he will probably send one—then no harm is done. That’s the trouble with young women, they are impulsive.

‘And since I now do not have to rush off and invade Assyria, I will have some more of that very pleasant date cake,’ he said, and Wab cut him another slice.

Ptah-hotep

The late king was on his funeral trip, and the new King Ay had been crowned, though without the actual presence of the Queen Ankhesenamen. She and one of her maidens had slipped undetected out of the palace on the night of the funeral, dressed in servant’s clothes. No one could find the Great Royal Wife but her written consent to the marriage was on record and I was forced to suffer the sight of Divine Father Ay crowned Lord of the Two Lands. His Great Royal Spouse was the crone Tey. They both looked indescribable in the pomp of state, but such sights need not be remembered.

The trouble began when Pharaoh Ay found out how much he was spending on the army.

‘It costs a fortune to keep all these soldiers in the field,’ he protested, and would not be dissuaded from sending most of the standing army home.

Without gifts-of-valour or severance allowances to which they were entitled, he disbanded regiment after regiment. They laid their standards in the hall of warriors and went home to the land which the government had given them.

Reports soon came in from all of the borders, crying for help. The combined Great Royal Scribe Khety and Hanufer came to me almost in tears, relating letters received from garrisons who were going under, besieged villages which would shortly be destroyed—and there was nothing that I could advise. Though I was interested in a letter from the King of Assyria, demanding to know the fate of his son. It had been sent to a lady called Ankhati, but there was no one in the palace of that name and I replied to that effect.

I was still, to my astonishment, Great Royal Judge Ptah-hotep, possibly because I was too well guarded to poison and too well-regarded to dismiss.

Apart from his meanness, which was legendary—it was said that Ay would skin a louse for its hide—the new Pharaoh spent most of his time ordering an exceptionally grand tomb, in which we all hoped that he would soon lie.

And General Horemheb still did not come home. He and his thousand men were the only effective force left on the borders of Canaan and he could not leave. Mutnodjme and I worried about him and Kheperren, and kept the household going and advised the king when he would take advice, and we waited.

No one expected the manner of the general’s return.

Late one night, I was out keeping watch on the high walls. I quite often had trouble sleeping, and I liked to walk where the little king had walked and remember that the present Pharaoh was his murderer. The night was still—it was Ephipi, still and hot, before the Southern Snake’s breath scorches Egypt, crisping every leaf.