Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

  “The first King Ahmose was Kamose’s younger brother. He too was a minor when he came to the throne. Ahhotep, the widow of Seqenenre Tao and the mother of Ahmose and Kamose, served as his regent.”

  “The first of the great women who preceded us,” Hatshepsut said to Nefer.

  Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet nodded. “Your house has been blessed with outstanding women, Majesty. Anyway, King Ahmose took up arms not long after reaching his majority. He resumed the war against the enemy’s so–called king, Khamudi. At first King Ahmose suffered setbacks, but then recaptured Mennefer and took Avaris after a siege. He drove the enemy out of Kemet, all the way to Sharuhen, in southern Retenu. He was thereafter called ‘The Liberator’ and donned the Double Crown, the first king to do so in a century. The land finally united, thereafter he periodically went on campaign in Setjet and Retenu and Nubia to secure his borders. He replaced local rulers here at home who had been slow to recognize him. He reorganized the government. He rewarded outstanding service with land grants, some of which I obtained. He built temples at Abdju and Ipet–Isut.” Ahmose glanced at Nefer and Hatshepsut. “The king surrounded himself with strong women in his quarter–century on the throne – Tetisheri, his grandmother; Ahhotep, who was his mother and his father’s sister and Tetisheri’s daughter; his principal sister–wives Ahmes–Inhapi and Ahmes–Nefertari. They helped him make his reign glorious. I served him in every one of his campaigns. In my first battle, in Zahi, a region in northern Setjet, I captured for the king a living prisoner, and presented him with a hand I had cut off an enemy as proof I had slain him.”

  “That’s how soldiers count the enemy dead,” Thut interjected, for my benefit. “Either by cutting off a hand or the penis of a slain soldier.”

  I thought that was disgusting.

  “I’ve seen baskets full of both after battles,” Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet said. “After King Ahmose died, his son Amenhotep came to the throne. He was as young as you at the time, Majesty, and so his mother Ahmes–Nefertari served as his regent. He campaigned in Nubia in his seventh and eighth regnal years; I myself witnessed him ritually club Nubian chieftains to death after his victories. He put Nubia under the control of a tribute–collecting viceroy he stationed at Nekhen, a post still filled to this day. I was with him when he marched to the River Euphrates on the very border of Naharina, a great land to our northeast. The tribute he demanded of conquered enemies funded many of his building projects, especially at Waset. He built several chapels at Ipet–Isut, one of limestone, one of calcite, restored the temple of the second Mentuhotep on the west bank, then erected a chapel near it for himself and his mother. He gathered together the craftsmen who had built and decorated the temples in Waset and excavated the first tomb in the Great Place and created for them the Place of Truth, the walled village on the west bank where their descendants live to this day. He and his mother are worshiped as patrons of that village, and seven times a year his cult statue is paraded through it and its adjacent cemetery and carried all the way to the Great Place. While campaigning with the king in Kush, I captured a living prisoner. In the western desert, at Imukehek, I took three hands. For my deeds the king awarded me two gold bracelets, two gold necklaces, a gold armlet, a dagger, a headdress, a fan, and a mekhtebet.”

  “Is that one of the necklaces around your neck?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Yes. Unfortunately, King Amenhotep died without an heir, and so, as he had ordained, the first Thutmose was named king after him.”

  “He was my father, and your father’s father, Nefer and Thutmose,” Hatshepsut interjected. “My mother was Ahmes, Ahmose’s daughter and Amenhotep’s sister, though your father, Nephew, was delivered of a minor wife, Mutnofret.”

  I noted Iset glaring at Hatshepsut. Clearly, Hatshepsut was flaunting her “pure” blood and drawing parallels between Nefer’s same purity and the less legitimate blood of Thut, also born of a non–royal wife. It was, I knew, the main point of contention between them, one that Iset would never be able to overcome.

  Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet continued. “King Thutmose’s first campaign was in Nubia, in his second regnal year. I was at his side as he went beyond the Fourth Cataract, the first and so far only king to do so. He placed a boundary stela at Kurgus, mid–way to the Fifth Cataract, claiming that territory for his own. Then he turned his attention north and raided into Setjet, to the very banks of the Euphrates to, as he said, ‘make the boundaries of Kemet as far as the sun disk encircles.’ Those raids resulted in much booty and ongoing annual tribute from the North and East, which we still receive to this day.” He addressed Thut. “The king your grandfather hunted elephants on the way home from the Euphrates.”

  “I will too, some day,” Thut promised.

  Hunting was one of his favorite pastimes.

  “The king built widely,” Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet said, “especially at Ipet–Isut. He erected a festival hall and the Wadjet Hall and a courtyard and two pylons, one embellished with colossal Osiride statues, and a pair of obelisks, and a wall defining the sacred precinct, with rooms attached. Anyway, while fighting at his side, I captured in Kush five living prisoners. In the Euphrates campaign I presented him with twenty–one hands, one horse, and one chariot. He gave me two gold bracelets, four gold necklaces, one gold armlet, six gold flies of valor, three lions, and two golden axes.” Ahmose addressed Thut directly. “I also fought beside your father. In the Sinai he drove off the Bedouin, and I took so many living prisoners I didn’t pause to count them. He gave me three gold bracelets, six gold necklaces, three gold armlets, a mekhtebet, and a silver axe.”

  “And I was so pleased with you,” Hatshepsut added, “that I gave you Neferure to tutor while she was still a child upon the breast.”

  “Weren’t you afraid in battle?” I asked him.

  “I wouldn’t be,” young Ahmose boasted, catching my eye.

  “Then you’re a fool,” the old soldier snapped. “Fear is all that keeps men alive in battle.” He sighed. “And good wine keeps life worth living.” He addressed Ahmose. “See to it that one of those serving girls brings me a cup of wine. Perhaps that pretty one you’ve been eyeing all evening.”

  Ahmose blushed and rose to do his bidding, to everyone’s laughter. Perhaps Ahmose wasn’t as enamored of me as I’d thought.

  ***

  Well after midday we neared Mennefer. Thut and I were under the baldachin near the prow of the boat, alone, though in plain sight of everyone. I placed my hand on his arm. “Do you really want to be in the army, Thut?” Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet’s campfire tales had kept me awake all night. For the first time I realized the seriousness of the course Thut was embarking on.

  Thut nodded. “Ever since my ancestors drove the Chiefs of the Foreign Lands from Kemet, its been necessary that the king be a warrior. We have many enemies on our borders seeking to limit our trade routes and move into our territory, Mery. The ability to fight and personal bravery are expected of a king. Even if Father wasn’t dead I’d be joining the army now. Leading it is the traditional role of the king’s eldest son.”

  “But you’re already king.”

  “I’m restless at court, Mery,” Thut said confidentially, lowering his voice and looking towards the canopy, where Hatshepsut and Nefer sat amidst a host of officials. “As regent, Hatshepsut runs Kemet. I just sit at her side in the audience hall and carefully observe what’s going on. I don’t really do anything.”

  “Do you mind that she’s regent?”

  Thut shook his head. “Not really. Many king’s wives have acted as regent for their sons until they were of age, though I’m still not sure why my own mother was passed over.”

  I did know, and I felt horrible keeping the reason from him. The highest officials in the land didn’t trust Iset to look out for anyone’s interests but her own. But it really wasn’t my place to tell Thut, and even if I did, what difference would it make?

  “Having a regent frees me to learn about all aspects of kingship, without the pressure that comes w
ith actually ruling,” Thut said. “So far, I’ve discovered that I loath being a bureaucrat. In the army I’ll be active, live out in the open, ride and shoot.”

  “Doing what you love most,” I said.

  Thut nodded. “Anyway, kings must lead their subjects in battle. It’s important for me to prepare myself to do it well.”

  “Like the kings Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet told us about?”

  “And the second Mentuhotep, who reunited the land, and Horus–Narmer, who first joined it together.” Thut’s eyes suddenly flashed. “Besides, I want to see the world, Mery, not only all of Kemet, but what’s beyond our borders. I’ve heard tales of the eastern and western deserts, of Retenu and Setjet and Naharina and Wawat and Kush. I want to see them for myself, see their wonders, learn about their cities and mountains and rivers and plants and animals. I can do that in the army. I can’t sitting in the audience hall of a per’aa.”

  “I want to see the world too,” I said fervently.

  “I promise you will. You’ll travel with me when Nefer’s my Great Wife and you’re her Great Companion.” He glanced across the deck at Ahmose, who was chatting with one of the serving girls. “Unless, of course, you yourself are married…”

  I blushed, understanding his meaning. “Not to him, Thut.”

  “Ahmose will be disappointed.”

  “He looks pretty happy to me every time there’s a girl in the vicinity,” I said.

  “True,” Thut laughed. “Do you care for someone else, then, Mery?”

  My eyes did not meet his. I couldn’t let Thut guess what I felt for him. “There’s time enough for that,” I said noncommittally. “I’m not even a woman yet, after all.” I looked towards the canopy. “When do you suppose you’ll take Nefer to wife?”

  “Mother says I can in two years, when she’s twelve. But Mother also says Hatshepsut will make us wait. Hatshepsut told her so.” His eyes took on a determined look. “I assure you, Mery, the moment I’m old enough to rule on my own, eighteen or so, my first act will be to marry Nefer. Though sooner would be better. I must have a son and heir as soon as possible. It’s never a good idea to put that off too long.”

  “It’s what Nefer wants too,” I averred. “She tells me constantly that she can hardly wait to give you a son and be the mother of a king.”

  “Maybe that would stop our mothers from bickering,” Thut said.

  “We can only hope.” I broke Thut’s gaze, looked up the river. “I see it!” I cried, pointing at the gleaming white walls of distant Mennefer.

  “I can’t believe you won again,” Thut said disgustedly. Being the first to spot each city along the river was a game we’d enjoyed all our lives as we’d traveled with the royal family from per’aa to per’aa for festivals. “But I fear we’ve played for the last time.”

  Because he would be staying behind in Mennefer to train with the army, and I would be traveling back to Waset with Nefer. I pondered that as I turned my attention to Mennefer, looming ever larger to my left on the west bank of the river. The city was my favorite place in the whole land – bustling, exotic, exciting, colorful, mysterious – already more than a thousand and a half years old, yet still expanding and constantly being renewed. I’d been told by Senenmut it was the largest city in the entire world, and I believed him. Mennefer stretched for miles along the river, its limestone outer walls pierced by eight mighty gates. It had originally been called Ineb–hedj – “White Walls” – at its founding, and then, in the time of the kings who had reunified the land, been renamed Ankh–Tawy – “That Which Binds the Two Lands.” Now it was Mennefer, “Enduring and Beautiful.” West of the city I glimpsed sections of a north–south canal that ran parallel to the river, connected at each end to the river by east–west flowing canals. Senenmut had once taken Nefer and I to visit the memorial temples built by earlier kings that lay in a line on the desert west of the long canal.

  I pointed to the plateau looming over Mennefer. Atop it lay Saqqara, the necropolis where kings and even nobles from as early as Horus–Narmer’s time were buried. I saw the remains of ancient tombs at the plateau’s very edge, what was left of their eroded brown mud–brick walls sharp against the blue sky. “Remember when we visited the stepped pyramid of King Netjeryket Djoser?” I asked.

  “The first monumental stone building in the world. No wonder the king’s architect Imhotep was deified,” Thut said.

  “Pyramids make my ka stir at the vision and power and magnificence of our ancestors,” I said.

  “Someday I’ll build many monuments and temples to honor the gods,” Thut vowed. “All who follow after me will know my name.”

  The closer we drew to the harbor the more crowded grew the river. I did not recall seeing such a variety of boats before on any of my numerous visits. Some were being steered with one long oar, others two. The masts of south–bound boats were disengaged and rested on support beams; those of north–bound held unfurled sails, some white, some decorated with brightly–colored images or geometric patterns. On one boat, the wooden cabin frame was hung with woven mats, its mat curtains rolled up over the side windows to let in the breeze. A sailor stood on a flat space on the bow, and a harpist and singer were entertaining the boat’s owner, who sat on a chair just inside the cabin door. On another, the cabin was long and wide and arched and covered with leather, and both ends were open. I could see a woman in a white skirt standing in a wooden tub inside the cabin, no doubt mixing mash for beer with her feet. Several boats had leather canopies supported by four posts carved in the shape of lotus blossoms. Most boats were decorated on both bow and stern with the Eye of Horus, for protection. Some had snubbed prows, some slender; some rose gracefully, some were relatively low. Many were made of papyrus stalks bound together, more of wood. We passed a boat where sailors were lowering cowhide bumpers over each side and fixing them in place, no doubt to cushion the boat against the dock upon their arrival in the harbor. Countless sailors with sounding poles stood on bows, measuring the water’s depth. Thut pointed out a military transport boat; long quivers attached to the cabin held spears. Shields hung on the cabin’s sides, and soldiers were lounging on the deck. A very large boat, richly decorated, no doubt that of a governor or other high government official, passed in the opposite direction, moving upstream, its large white sail billowing in the breeze. It was towing a small kitchen barge, its round–topped cabin crammed with storage jars, with a cook fire burning on a bed of sand near the prow. Scattered about the deck were food storage crates and several large beer jars with mud stoppers. A serving girl was on her knees, grinding grain for bread on a slab of stone, her long hair swaying in time with her movements.

  The people on the boats and on the riverbanks all stared and pointed and called out and fell to their knees as our boat drifted by.

  The royal boat slipped past the south suburb and south district of Mennefer, their centerpiece a temple to Hathor. The area’s twelve wards contained seventy villas for the elite, and state–owned houses for high officials, and Thut and I pointed out to each other those whose occupants we knew. The district’s northern border was the southernmost east–west canal. On the canal’s south side was Mennefer’s harbor and Kemet’s most important trade district, Peru–nefer. I gazed west up the canal as we passed the harbor; boats large and small seemed to occupy every inch of the docks that lined its banks, in the process of being either loaded or unloaded. Many were clearly from foreign lands, heavy, ponderous, girdled with rope trusses to lend them stability on the Great Green, their curly–headed crewmen heavily bearded and mustachioed. Men in kilts swarmed the decks and docks like ants, hoisting jars and baskets and boxes onto their shoulders, carrying them up and down gangplanks, piling them on or taking them from similar stacks on the docks, their bodies drenched with sweat. Shouts and curses and the cries of overseers filled the air. Adjoining the docks were huge mud–brick warehouses in a long row. I knew they held trade goods brought here from every corner of the world, for Mennefer was located at the
exact spot where the river fanned out into its great delta and the trade routes from the eastern and western deserts came together.

  The boat continued past Peru–nefer. I caught sight of the Temple of Ptah rising high above the surrounding buildings in the center of the city, just east of the old White Walls section that marked the boundaries of the original capital. Next to Amun’s at Ipet–Isut and Re’s at Iunu, Ptah’s temple was the most important in the land. A temple to the goddess Neith lay just north of Ptah’s, and beyond that were a northern district and northern suburb packed with the mud–brick houses of laborers and craftsmen and foreigners and minor officials. More houses lay west of the Temple of Ptah, hemmed in by the canal. Soon the per’aas and royal estates of Kemet’s kings began to appear along the riverbank, each with its own small harbor and stone quay. There were many of them, for each king abandoned that of his predecessor and erected one of his own.

  “We’ll tie up before the per’aa that Father built at the start of his reign,” Thut told me.

  “Someday you’ll have one of your own,” I said.

  He nodded. “The finest of them all.”

  The crewmen all stood up and began to use their oars as poles as the boat slowed and turned towards shore. Several sailors lowered bumper cushions over the side, others tossed the ends of thick ropes to men waiting onshore. The boat lurched to a stop alongside the quay. Men secured the vessel to stout poles with the ropes.

  Thut pointed at a tall soldier waiting on the quay in the midst of others. He was bald, in his mid–twenties, skin darkened by the sun, a dagger in a well–worn leather sheath at his waist, gold flies of valor shining around his neck, his white kilt immaculate. “That’s Captain Djehuty. He’s going to personally oversee my training. He’s a charioteer. That’s what I hope to command some day.”