The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh (15 page)

“What happened to you?” I enquired, calling for more beer and bread.

His sorry tale was soon told. Like myself he had done some of his training as a scribe in a stone quarry. There a fight had broken out among the workers, a tough and violent lot as I well knew. He had attempted to calm the men and they had attacked him with their sharp implements. He had been close to death and could not work for months. Now he presented a fearsome face to the world.

“The problem is, the upper classes who have need of the services of a full-time scribe are disgusted by my looks,” he explained.

“Ah,” I said, “I see, I see.”

“I get single commissions,” he told me. “Mostly from the poor. But as you know, they very seldom use the services of a scribe and they pay little. I need permanent employment, Mahu. Is there not a job somewhere in a royal warehouse where it matters not how a man looks, but only that his work is accurate? You know that I am competent.”

I nodded. “Yes, I know you are.” I called for more beer while I thought. There was indeed a position for which Hapuseneb, Grand Vizier of the South, who also held numerous other posts in the service of the Pharaoh, including Chief Prophet of Amen and Overseer of the Royal Granaries, had asked me to help find an incumbent. It was a job as clerk in the Royal Granaries, but not one that would require the person to go out to the farms, rather an office job keeping track of stores and dispersals. Not highly paid nor of much consequence. But no doubt Ahmose would jump at it, and I knew he would acquit himself well.

It could prove useful, I thought, to have someone I knew, loyal to me and under an obligation to boot, working closely with the Vizier. Priest and Chief Prophet of the God though he is, I do not trust Hapuseneb, and a pair of eyes and ears keeping track of what he does and says may be just what we need. I could spare a few debens of silver to augment my old friend’s income if he would report to me.

“I do believe I have something for you,” I said. “We’ll have to get you cleaned up and looking more presentable. What say you …”

By the time we staggered out, somewhat the worse for wear, we had a deal.

It is as well that I have been given a fright by Ahmose; I realise anew that I must needs be very careful, very careful indeed, with the secret documents given into my care. As soon as I have enough to fill a sealed jar, I shall travel to my cousin’s farm near the mountains, where he keeps goats and grows olives. I can take two jars on a donkey, one with wine and the other filled with scrolls. There is a cave there with a fissure at the back; I shall place the jar inside and cover it with sand and loose stones. Yes, I think that will do. My cousin will be glad to receive wine from me from time to time. Yes, yes, much the best plan.

THE EIGHTH SCROLL

The reign of Hatshepsut Year 20:
The fourth month of Peret day 14

I have been heartsore ever since the attack upon Bek; it was a dreadful shock to me. I know he is an adult man and not a child, but he is so small, and yet has always been so sweet-natured and fun-loving, that I feel about him as I have only felt about one other and that was Neferure, may she live. I live with guilt because I sent him into danger; I should have known that one day he would be set upon for my sake. I am convinced that those who did this to him knew him for one of mine – perhaps he was in fact caught spying, which neither he nor Mahu will admit to me. But I know wherefore a man’s ears are chopped off. It is not the random cruelty of drunken sailors that does this.

Of course the Pharaoh sends men into battle and they are killed or they are wounded. I know there is a cost to pay and I do not flinch from it, although I always try to avert war if I can. Yet if war must be waged, it must and men will die. Men will be mutilated. But not my little Bek. Not him.

It has been some weeks since I had time to write and he has recovered fairly well. The young physician, Minhotep, has been to see him often and has pulled him through. He has even had a pair of false ears made for Bek by the workers in the House of the Dead; they fashioned them from linen and resin and painted them to look like skin. They are attached to a wig, so when he puts it on he looks very normal and he hears well enough. But the spark of fun has gone from him and he sits in a low chair with his short legs in their splints sticking out in front of him and he never jokes or laughs.

Yunit, the gods be praised, has not lost the babe. She has been indefatigable in caring for Bek and I have seen that her ankles have become thick, but she will not allow anyone else to look after him. Truth to tell, she presents a very odd little figure at present. With her swollen belly and short legs she puts me in mind of the goddess of fertility, Taueret, the pregnant hippopotamus. May that be a good portent for her. I hope that there may be no problems with the birth. She reminds me of myself.

The third year of my husband’s reign began well for both of us. The recurrent illnesses that so sapped his strength seemed to be in abeyance; we hoped that he had overcome them completely. He was better able to shoulder his duties as Pharaoh and began the comprehensive restoration of temples that the Hyksos invaders had allowed to crumble into ruin. At this time also he called me often to the marriage bed, and soon I was pregnant again – this time, I was certain, with the son that he so much desired, a son with the full blood royal and an indisputable claim to the Double Throne.

And I was right. In truth I had a son. I carried him for seven moons and he stirred often under my heart. The day of his birth lives in my memory.

It was extremely hot, I remember that well. So hot that it was hard to breathe. It was the time when the waters of the Nile run red. Red as the blood that flowed from my loins after my little son was expelled from my body in a rush. I had been beset by sudden pains for only a short while when the birth took place – despite the bitter potions prescribed by the royal physicians and despite the incantations and prayers and burning of incense by the priests who beseeched the gods not to allow the babe to come forth, for it was too soon; two months too soon, and that was dangerous. The physicians were useless, the priests were powerless and the gods were deaf.

The babe was born and he was perfect. A perfect little man child, whole in every way. All of the miraculous miniature fingers and toes were there, all of the limbs, the tiny sac and the small member that should have matured to plant the seeds of Pharaohs yet to come, all there. The Chief Physician held him by the heels and everyone rejoiced.

But alas! The gods did not cause his heart to breathe. Khnum, who creates the animals by the breath of his mouth, who breathes forth the flowers of the field, who breathes air into the noses of men, did not infuse my son’s perfect small body with the spirit of life. And I, divine though I am, I could not endow my son with the life force. I could not kindle the divine spark. I failed him.

The women took him away and cleaned him and wrapped him in linen swaddling clothes. They washed me too, and then they brought my small son and placed him in my arms. I held him but for a little while. The milk had started into my breasts, which tingled with it; thin as yet but plentiful. I took some on my palm and anointed the silent little face, the forehead, the tiny perfect nose, the exquisitely formed lips that could not suckle. The unbelievably smooth cheeks. The delicate rosy lids over the closed eyes. He did not seem to sleep; oh, no. The living cannot sleep so still.

They took him away and I was utterly bereft. I could not rise from my bed; I could not eat, I could not sleep. I just lay and let the tears roll down my cheeks. My husband was distraught at the loss of our son, but when he saw me despairing, he became even more concerned about me. “Hatshepsut, my love, you must eat,” he urged me. “You are so thin. Please, eat! We cannot lose you too!”

But I could not. Finally he sent Inet to me. She had not been well since her leg and hand became lame, but she struggled into my room with her walking stick and sat down on a small stool next to my bed, saying nothing, simply taking my hand in her two hard little paws and stroking it gently.

“Oh, Inet,” I sobbed. “It is so hard. So hard.”

“I know,” she said.

“He should have had a name,” I said, voicing my deepest concern. Because he never breathed, he was not named. “How can he be taken to the gods if he had no name? How would they know to call him?”

“It is written, ‘
The god knows every name’
,” said Inet. “Even those that we do not.”

“Even the name of a baby who did not breathe?”

“Oh, yes. And because he never breathed, his heart would have been light and Ammit would not have gobbled it up,” said Inet.

She always knew how to comfort me. My son would evade the clutches of the hound of hell, I thought. He would not have been sent to perdition in the ghastly Netherworld with those whose hearts are heavy with evil when weighed against the feather of Ma’at. He would have reached the celestial realm; the doors of the sky would have been thrown open to him; he would have joined the never-dying circumpolar stars.

My greatest comfort at that time was Neferure. Small though she was, already she was a person of considerable charm. She was an intelligent and biddable and indeed a most delightful child. Her nature was sunny and she never cried, except perhaps when she fell and bumped her head or when the teeth were coming into her mouth. She had the loveliest chuckle, a happy sound that everybody wanted to hear.

I was young and strong and I recovered as well as one ever does from such a loss. My husband was travelling often at this time, inspecting the sites of temples that he wanted to be restored, conferring with Ineni, who had been my father’s architect and who was, despite advancing age, still the best man in the kingdom to consult and to oversee these projects. So I stood in the Pharaoh’s place in Thebes and handled many matters, large and small. It helped me to be busy. One morning when I was carrying out my duties at the administrative palace, Khani arrived.

He was carrying a cage woven from reeds and covered with a piece of cloth, which he set down as he prostrated himself.

“Majesty!” he said. “I come to say farewell. Soon now I must leave for Memphis.”

“Arise,” I said. “I am glad to see you.” He had grown very tall, and I was sure that he would make a good soldier. “Please be seated, I shall call for some juice, it is hot.”

A chattering sound came from the cage.

“What on earth do you have there?” I asked.

“It is a gift for Your Majesty,” he told me. “I heard that there was a little prince who did not live. I am sorry for it.”

“Thank you,” I said huskily.

He whisked the cloth off, leaned forwards and opened the door of the cage, taking out a tiny monkey. It chattered again, ran up his arm and nibbled at his ear.

“Oh!” I was enchanted. “Where did you find it?”

“A sailor had it, in a tavern,” he told me. “He brought it from another country. I thought it might amuse Your Majesty. It is quite tame, it will not bite.”

The little creature stared at me with its huge dark eyes. I reached out a hand. In a flash, it had jumped onto my arm and then onto my shoulder, where it sat with a hand gripping my hair. It felt like a tiny child.

At that moment, Hapuseneb was announced and he swept in, wearing his Vizier’s uniform of a wrapped tunic of spotless white linen with braces over the shoulders, plus a gold chain with a medallion hanging from it. He made an obeisance to me, then stared haughtily at the young Nubian seated in my presence. His eyes grew wide as he noted the monkey.

“By the tears of Isis, what an extraordinary creature,” he remarked, in his high-pitched, nasal voice.

The monkey screeched, took a flying leap onto Hapuseneb’s shoulder, grabbed the chain and tried to tug off the medallion.

Hapuseneb let out an undignified yelp and attempted to wrest his chain from the little creature’s grip, without success. “No! No! Naughty!” he remonstrated. “Let go, get off me, you little pest!” He gave it a swipe, connecting with its head. It gave a piercing shriek, jumped onto his bald head and produced a stream of yellow ordure across his face and down the front of his pristine garment. His howl of rage could be heard as far as Memphis, I do swear.

I was laughing as I had not laughed since I was a child.

Khani’s teeth were white as he grinned. He got up to remove the monkey and managed to retrieve the medallion from its grasp. “There, there,” he said, stroking and petting it.