The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh (50 page)

Yet I could not prevent his arm from rising, could not stop his downward lunge, could not hold back the fatal blade from skewering Khani from behind. Could not drag Khani back from the shore of the Netherworld to which he had been banished with one cruel blow. Could not restore his breath, could not cage his Ka.

He sank to his knees before me, a splendid warrior fallen like a broken obelisk. I clutched at him despairingly.

“Majesty,” he whispered. “Majesty. King … Ma’atkare Hatshepsut. I salute thee.” He bent his head forwards, apparently intending to kiss my hand. Blood welled from his lips and dribbled warmly across my skin. The morning smelled of it. He expelled a last breath and fell at my feet.

The captain had an expression of triumph as he wiped his blade on his tunic. “It is done, Majesty,” he said. Clearly he expected praise.

“You have carried out your duty,” I managed to say tonelessly. He had killed my faithful friend, my protector, whom I had loved since we were both merely children, who had spied for me and given me sage advice, who had steadfastly watched my back and had saved me from the blade of the traitorous attacker, and he expected praise! In truth I wanted to slap his smirking face. I wanted to weep and wail and tear my hair. I wanted to fall to my knees and beseech the gods to look upon my dear lost friend with mercy when he stood before them at their dread tribunal. To make him welcome in the Fields of the Blessed.

But I did none of these things. I walked, deliberately, to the edge of the roof and looked down. In the street below the fighting was ending as the soldiers chased after those peasants who were able to take to their heels; many lay wounded or sat groaning by the wayside holding bloodied heads. I could not see the woman or the child and I hoped they had escaped.

“We should be able to leave soon,” I said. I showed no weakness, for I am still Egypt.

When we had arrived safely at the palace and I was at last alone, I noticed that my footprints on the painted tiles were smudged with blood. Then I shivered and shook as if I had an ague.

All day the acrid smell of smoke has hung in the air. There was rioting across the city, and the peaceful citizens of Thebes became a howling mob. It was as if Seth and his cohort of devils ran amok in the streets and set fire to anything that would burn, destroying all in their path, while the soldiers sent by the Great Commander to restore order did so as viciously as possible. By nightfall many bodies hung head downwards from the walls and the crows picked at their eyes.

Alas! What has become of my beautiful city, hundred-gated Thebes? What is to become of Khemet, deserted by the gods, bereft of its rich black earth?

When I went to my bedchamber, heartsore and exhausted, I fell upon my knees and prayed to Hapi, who had cradled me when I was a child, upon whose bounty all depends.

“Oh Hapi, why do you not come forth and assuage the thirst of the earth? You, who have always been limitless! Since you are no longer generous, everything, everyone exists in anguish. The creatures suffer, the faces of men grow hollow. Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt suffer together: Work cannot progress, men have no food, the children no longer play. Since you have grown cruel to us, silence is everywhere. Denuded of all that is good, the country is close to collapse.

“Oh Hapi, our generous mother, why have you turned against us? Why do you refuse your children life? The priests pray tirelessly with magic spells and incantations. Offerings and sacrifices are made to you, birds and antelopes bleed on your altar. The harpist seduces you with pleading songs. The people of Khemet utter desperate supplications! Why have you not responded with the inundation?”

But Hapi would not speak to me.

Last night I had the dream again. This time it was again different in some ways. As always, I was once more on that battlefield, on foot and alone. Armed with my dagger. As ever, I felt the burning sun beat down upon my head. But this time I was surrounded by absolute silence. There were no sounds of strife, no cries, no groans, no pleas for help. No horses whinnied, no chariots rolled by. Around me on the sand lay the corpses of our slain enemies. I could smell the sweetish stench of rotting flesh. The furtive dark shapes of jackals slunk among the dead. Looking up, I could see vultures circling overhead in the clear blue sky. I waited for the soldier to come towards me as he always did. But this time he did not come.

I have already killed him, I thought. Approaching a prone form, I rolled it over with my foot. My own face looked back at me. I myself lay among the dead.

All day I have been weak and shaky, as one who is ill. I need time to collect myself, time to grieve. But Pharaoh is Pharaoh and matters of state must be attended to. This afternoon my troubled rest was interrupted by the arrival of a courier from the North, bearing news of an attack upon the forts that protect the Horus road. At once I called my advisers to an emergency session. The counsellors, who had hastily gathered, looked grave. Nehsi, I noted, suddenly seemed to have lost his usual energy and appeared for the first time to be an old man, stooped with shaking hands. He was very fond of Khani, I know, ever since he took the young Nubian prince under his wing and introduced him to the Kap. He is clearly distraught at the sudden death of his protégé. I would that we could comfort each other for this loss that hurts our hearts, but there is no time for that.

“Majesty,” he said when he saw me, “should you be here? Should you not rest … the shock …”

“I am Pharaoh,” I said, “my place is here.”

The courier entered the audience chamber looking travel-stained and utterly weary. He knelt and kissed the floor.

“Well?” I demanded. “What have you to report?”

“Majesty, it was a concerted action,” said the courier. “Well planned and executed. They must have waited until our divisions returned to Khemet and then they swooped down and fell upon the forts in huge numbers. Our guards were decimated and the forts are burning.”

Thutmose gave an exclamation of disgust. “We should have sent an entire army straight away, not merely a few divisions,” he exclaimed angrily. “I said so at the time!”

“Who leads the rebels?” I enquired.

“The Prince of Kadesh, Majesty,” replied the courier.

“He must be taught a lesson he will never forget,” growled Thutmose, “one that his children will inscribe upon the tablets of their hearts. We must go to war.”

“How will we feed an army?” I demanded. “Here our people can subsist on vegetables grown near the river, but that cannot sustain thousands of marching men.”

“Precisely why we should take to the Horus road without delay,” he insisted. “I have information that there are plentiful stores of wheat in Megiddo. We can mete out punishment and save our people, if we act quickly and decisively.”

The counsellors present were nodding in agreement. “The Great Commander speaks the truth, Majesty,” said Nehsi.

“I concur,” added Seni. “The arrogant Prince of Kadesh must be taught a lesson. And we need wheat.”

“And if the army fails to secure the wheat held by our enemies, those that are not killed or taken prisoner will starve,” I argued.

“We will not fail,” stated Thutmose. “We have the finest corps of fighting men the world has ever seen. We will prevail. By the breath of Horus, Majesty, I swear we will prevail! We must go to war!” Such was his anger that it seemed as if his protuberant eyes were starting from his head.

“The decision is still mine to take,” I told him coldly. I would not let it seem that he had given the command. “I will consider it.”

He looked as if he would like to spit. But he bowed, as did they all.

War is inevitable now. I know it. How we shall feed an army I do not know. Yet march we must. Egypt cannot allow its vassals to make a mockery of us. We must assert our absolute supremacy. And at the same time, we must wrest from them the wherewithal to save our hungry people here at home. Oh, yes, I know it – Thutmose is right. I can delay no longer, I shall order the soldiers to march forth. But my heart aches for Khemet. Already Thebes has a pall of smoke and blood. It seems that the time has come when, as it is written:
“Merriment has ceased and is made no more, and groaning is throughout the land … the land is left to its weakness like a cutting of flax
.
”
Alack the evil day!

Here endeth the twenty-eighth scroll.                      

THE TWENTY-NINTH SCROLL

The reign of Hatshepsut year 21:
The fourth month of Peret day 3

I am exceedingly weary. I cannot sleep, and I have pondered many things. I have looked back over my life and suddenly it does not appear so very significant. It seems to me now that many of the things that one believed important at the time were trivial. Men grow like the grain, and like the grain they are mowed down. One must provide a harvest as best one can, before going into the ground whence Khnum took the clay to mould one’s body and one’s Ka.

I tried to sleep, but I could not. So I arose again, and I have taken up my pen and begun a new scroll. Since I have nobody to share my thoughts with, I will talk to my journal.

I ask myself: Who have I been? What have I been? What can I say to the dread tribunal I must face in the Afterlife?

I think back to the time when I was a child and had great dreams. I recall the songs of the blind bard that made me dream of greatness. It seems to me that I can smell the perfume of the wax cone scented with myrrh that Inet tied on top of my head that night, the night of my first banquet, so that it kept me cool as it melted gradually. I remember that the hall was hot and noisy and that there was too much food and that the Syrians grew drunk and boisterous. But mainly I recall the songs of the blind bard, whose eyes gleamed milky white like pearls, with his bald head shining in the lamplight like polished cedarwood. I see still his gnarled hands sweeping across the strings of his small harp, and I hear the music that sang like water running over stones and the plaintive notes of the double pipes and the young girls clicking the menat.

First he sang of love, telling us all to cherish our beloved:
“Weave chains of blooms to give to your beloved, Rejoice in the days of youth …”
because the time would come all too soon
“When to the land of silence, You and your love will both be gone”
. Yes, the truth that a life is but a single breath, but one brief exhalation of Khnum, is one that only the old ever know, and for them it is too late. As for myself, I renounced my beloved; I put love from me. And yet it was there, always present. Even if it ran hidden like an underground stream, it sustained my life. Others – now, alas, gone to the gods – gave me their love. Also I had the love of my people; I did have that.

It is strange, now that I think about it, that the bard sang of the land of silence. Did he truly mean that the Afterlife is a place of silence? I have always imagined the Netherworld to be a dread place filled with the howls of monsters and the unregenerate damned, while in contrast there should be singing, the calls of the birds and gentle breezes sighing through the trees in the Fields of the Blessed; and surely the progress of the God’s solar barque across the heavens must be accompanied by celestial music of the most marvellous harmony. Silence? But perhaps he merely meant that none speak to us from there, that we cannot communicate with those who have gone to the gods.

I remember that the Syrians, who were drunk, misliked the song about mortality and demanded instead a song of great deeds. That was when the bard sang
The Song of the Godlike Ruler
, a song that all my life thereafter has echoed in my dreams. Especially I would hear the words:

“He was a shining one clothed in power.

And all the people praised him.”

A shining one clothed in power, whom the people loved: That was my dream, and it became my life. As Pharaoh, how do I compare with the godlike ruler whose praises the blind bard sang?

He told first of the Pharaoh who came forth as the Avenger and Destroyer, who smote the enemies of Egypt and bathed in their gore. Only once, at the beginning of my reign, did I take the field of battle. We did triumph, but what I experienced then made me believe that war is the enemy of Ma’at, and ever since I have avoided it if at all possible. Nevertheless, when military expeditions were essential, I sent the army to do its duty. I did not shrink from it.