The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh (37 page)

Be that as it may, that year I was to lose yet another beloved person to that unknown world. And it happened so suddenly, without a glimmer of warning. I do not know which is worse: to know that a loved one is ill, to snatch at hope, to search desperately for cures that do not work, only to watch that person suffer, dwindle, and at last depart; or alternatively to find that someone has been cruelly taken away with no chance even to say farewell. Both experiences are terrible. But in any case it matters little even if I could solve that conundrum – which I cannot – for one does not have a choice.

I had just completed a morning session in the Grand Audience Chamber, receiving tribute and holding discussions with visiting diplomats, when Hapuseneb urgently requested an audience. I was tired and tried to put him off, but he insisted on seeing me alone immediately.

“What is it, Hapuseneb?” I enquired crossly. “Can it not wait?”

“No, Majesty, I fear not,” he said. His face was impassive. “I have grave news.”

“Well, out with it,” I sighed. I was expecting some political crisis to have blown up.

“We have received news that the Chief Steward of Amen was discovered dead in his house this morning,” he told me.

“The Chief Steward …” I stared at him stupidly. “The Chief … you mean Senenmut? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“But that … that cannot be. There must be some mistake. Just yesterday he was with me. We … we spoke of additions to the gardens at Djeser-Djeseru. No, Hapuseneb, there has been a mistake.”

“No, Majesty, I fear not,” he said, inexorably. “Senenmut has departed to the Afterlife.”

“How do you know? For sure?”

“It was discovered early this morning,” he told me, “but we thought it would not be wise to disturb Your Majesty in the audience chamber. Naturally, I went to apprise myself of the accuracy of the information. The Chief Steward lay in the forecourt of his villa and he was not breathing. He was quite cold. I judged that he had not breathed for some time. To be sure, nevertheless, I called for the Royal Physician, and he concurred.”

“You knew it and you did not tell me!”

“Majesty, there was no purpose. I made the necessary arrangements. He has been taken to the House of the Dead and I gave instructions for a full …”

“You did what? You had no right! No right to have him taken away! No right at all!” I was screaming now.

“But, Majesty, he has … he had no kin living with him … I could not leave …”

“You had no right,” I sobbed. “I should have had the time … I would have wished … would have wished to say farewell. But you, you couldn’t wait to get rid of him, you vulture, you have always hated him, and now you are alive and he is dead and you just … you …” I was weeping now, huge, shaking sobs, the tears running down my face and dripping onto my robe.

“Majesty, do not upset yourself so,” he said, alarmed. “I shall call for Hapu. Please, Majesty, sit down.” He stretched out a hand towards me.

“Do not dare touch me!” I shouted. “I am the Pharaoh! Touch me and I’ll have you put to death! I should … I should …”

He made a deep obeisance, kissing the floor before my feet, and then retreated, muttering about Hapu. I sat down and buried my face in my hands.

I felt utterly bereft. And the worst of it was that he had gone to the gods with anger towards me in his heart. I knew I had given him cause. But with or without reason, he should not have parted from me so. Cold looks, and then nothing. Nothing. Gone. How could I bear it? The tears had dried up and instead I felt as if I had been dealt a huge, gaping wound. I wrapped my arms around myself. If I did not hold myself very tightly, I felt sure that my heart would fall out through the rent and lie bleeding upon the ground.

Soon Hapu arrived bearing some medications which he urged me to drink. “Majesty, you have had a shock. Please …”

“Oh, go away and leave me alone! You cannot do anything anyway! Nobody can do anything!”

“Just a sip,” he coaxed me. “Just a sip. Please …”

I swallowed some of the bitter draught he held out to me. It made me catch my breath. I breathed deeply. “Did you see … did you see him, Hapu?” I asked. “There has been no mistake?”

“No, Majesty. No mistake.”

“But how … what … how could it have happened? He was perfectly well last night. He had no complaints.”

“His heart just stopped,” said Hapu. “The signs were clear. He was no longer a young man, Your Majesty.”

“Nor was he old,” I said resentfully. “Only forty. That is not old.”

“A fair age,” said Hapu. “Not many live that long. And he worked hard all his life.”

This was true. He had never been a sedentary scribe and nothing else. When they were working on the two great obelisks for my coronation, he had thought nothing of taking up a hammer himself; he told me this, proud to have made a contribution to the actual work. I saw his hands, scarred and callused in my service. Always he had had such energy, such strength. I could not believe that it had simply stopped, that that powerful life force had simply ceased to be.

“I would have wished,” I said, my voice shaking, “I would have wished to say farewell. Before they … before …”

“I am sorry, Majesty,” he said, looking woebegone, “we did not think. We acted for the best. The Vizier has given orders for a full mummification treatment to commence at once.”

I nodded. The draught had taken effect and I was beginning to feel numb and distant, as if I were not truly present. “Yes,” I said. “That should be done. Hapu …”

“Majesty?”

“Are you sure there were no signs of … of anything … no knife wound, for example? No … bruises … no injury to the head? Did you examine …”

“Majesty,” said Hapu, whose judgement I had come to trust, “I looked with care. There were no signs of violence, none at all.”

“Could he have been poisoned?”

“There were no signs of that either,” he said. “Some kinds would leave a smell, or might have caused vomiting, or some foam around the lips, or a change in the colour of the skin … There was none of that.”

“
Would
there necessarily have been one of those signs?” I wanted someone to blame for this terrible thing. I wanted someone to be guilty, someone to punish as harshly as possible.

“No,” said Hapu. “There are some that do not leave a trace. Majesty, please, do not torture yourself with such thoughts. I looked and I found nothing. His heart gave in, it was tired. These things happen. You must resign yourself. It is a sad loss, indeed it is Khemet’s loss, for he was a great man. But it was the time for him to journey to the Fields of the Blessed. The time to rest.”

But first he would have to face Ammit, I thought. He would have to traverse the dreadful Netherworld and be judged by the gods. His heart would have to be weighed against the feather of Ma’at. Oh, Osiris, I thought, treat him with mercy. Surely his heart is light. I would do all that might be done to help him on his way. Every ritual, every prayer, every magic spell, every incantation, amulet, scarab or charm that could assist his safe passage would be ordered on his behalf. His body would receive the very best treatment that could be had from the House of the Dead. And I would have him buried with due ceremony in his grand new tomb with the stars on the ceiling, in the great sarcophagus that I had given him.

I made all these plans. But they did not comfort me. All gone, I thought, sadly, they have all gone, all those who had once loved and supported me. To survive is to be lonely. Nobody warns one of that.

Although my mother, the Queen Ahmose, had passed into the Afterlife many years before Inet, it was only after Inet went to the Fields of the Blessed that I felt like an orphan. And it was when Senenmut went into the Afterlife that I truly felt like a widow. It is strange that I felt like that, although we did not break the jar together, while when my husband Thutmose passed away – even though I had loved him, a gentle love, almost as if I had been his mother rather than his wife – I did not feel bereft. But now I did. My most able official, my most trusted adviser, my confidant, my lover of one magical night, my implementer of dreams, my best – indeed, my only – friend: all these were lost to me in one black night. I mourned him as if I had been his wife. I mourn him still.

But I had no peace that year, no time to recover from that dreadful shock, no time to gather my strength, no time to find my balance again. The second event that shook me concerned a rebellion in Canaan, centred in the town of Gaza, which posed a serious threat to our dominion in Asia. It was clear that the Canaanites required a sharp lesson and I gave the order to Thutmose to march there and re-establish our authority. He leapt at the chance to demonstrate the fighting ability of the soldiers that he had been training so assiduously. Taking two crack divisions, he departed with dispatch.

The expedition proved that the military had indeed reached a high pitch of professionalism under his guidance. In former years, this had not been the case. There had not always been a well-trained army on standby. Those predatory vagabonds the Hyksos were able to conquer Egypt because our arms and our soldiers were inferior, much though it pains me to acknowledge that. But we learned from them and we threw them out of Khemet, and ever since then we have maintained a powerful military. The expedition moved with the swiftness and deadliness of a striking cobra. Within only a number of weeks the rebellion had been crushed and the army returned victorious.

Thutmose rode into Thebes in his gilded chariot, standing with his thick legs braced as his driver guided the spirited horses, waving to the cheering crowds who threw flowers in front of his wheels. The army that marched in his wake brought prisoners to be pressed into slavery, and heaps of treasure piled onto groaning carts. This he had great pleasure in dumping in front of my throne in the Grand Audience Chamber while the assembled counsellors and nobles clapped and stamped their approval. He had a young prince in chains dragged in and set his sandalled foot upon the youth’s bent neck.

“So,” he stated in a ringing voice, “does Pharaoh punish those who rebel against the dominion of Egypt!”

More enthusiastic applause.

He makes it sound as if he were the Pharaoh, I thought. I waited for the noise to die down. “I thank the Great Commander, who has so ably executed Pharaoh’s will,” I said. “We shall reward him suitably. We shall bestow the Gold of Honour upon him at the next Window of Appearances.”

That, I thought, was rather clever of me. It was a sought-after and rich award, that chunky gold necklace, and he could hardly refuse to accept it. But the ceremony would serve to emphasise my position as supreme: I would be enthroned in my great Window at the main palace in Thebes, surrounded by reliefs depicting myself as a crouching sphinx plus many emblems of kingship, while he would be below, clearly the humble recipient of the Pharaoh’s gift.

Yet he had scored a signal victory, and not only in the field of war. The people were ecstatic. To them he was a hero, there was no denying that. All the way down from the North the crowds by the roadside had shouted their adulation. Naturally the military were united in their pride. Even some of my elderly counsellors, who had been inclined to see him as a juvenile, now treated him with respect. Tales of his remarkable achievements and bravery on the battlefield, that were of course soon embellished, did the rounds. It was said that he had personally killed thousands of the enemy, never missing a shot with his great bow from the back of his racing chariot. I doubted he had had that many arrows, but I knew better than to say so. He was the hero of the day; and for the first time in my reign I truly feared for my crown.

The night after Thutmose returned from his expedition I dreamed again of war. Once more I strode alone on that battlefield, on foot, armed with my dagger. Once more the scorching sun burned down upon me. I heard the barbarians howl. With frightful clarity, I saw the men rending each other and heard their piteous shrieks and groans. I smelled again the blood that had become mixed with the hot sand. And once more the sounds faded as the voice, that strangely familiar voice that I can never quite place, hissed to me:
Kill him for Khemet! Kill him for Khemet!

As always, in my dream I knew that the Nubian soldier would come running towards me. And I knew that I would have to obey the voice. I would have to kill him again.

And so he came running, his eye bleeding as before. I knew that he would kill me if I did not stop his murderous rush. I raised the dagger and plunged it deep. He fell dead at my feet, his gore bathing my dusty sandals. I dreamed that I put my foot upon his neck. “So,” I cried in a ringing voice, “does Pharaoh punish those who rebel against the dominion of Pharaoh!”

Once more I knelt upon the burning sand and experienced that overwhelming thirst for blood; once more I lapped his eyes. Oh, horrible, horrible! I struggled awake in such disgust that I found myself retching, and my attendant ran to fetch Hapu. I lay in a pool of perspiration, almost unable to breathe. Hapu gave me a calming draught, but I did not feel better until I had bade my ladies wash me, pouring cool water over my head, and perfumed myself with myrrh.

I hate that dream. I hate myself when I have that dream. I wish I could expunge it from my memory. But I cannot.

Here endeth the twentieth scroll.