Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

  I thought Ahmose was trying to make me jealous. If he was, it wasn’t working. “Perhaps you should take advantage of such good fortune,” I said sweetly.

  Ahmose looked crestfallen.

  I thought it would be so much easier for us both if he’d fall in love with someone for real and let me alone. As much as I liked him as a friend, that was as far as I’d ever go.

  “What will they all do, I wonder, when the king and Nefer are married?” Aachel asked.

  “Won’t stop the women,” Ahmose predicted. “Kings can take as many wives as they want, after all.”

  I reflected that was probably true, though I had never really considered it before. Thut’s father had two wives, and his grandfather. I supposed he would too. I wondered how that would make Nefer feel. Though any other wives would be minor and subservient to her as his Great Wife.

  “Time to take our places,” Ahmose announced, and seizing my elbow guided me through the crowd to the front of the room. Aachel trailed us. We seated ourselves at the table next to Thut and Nefer’s, with Iset to our left. Hatshepsut and Senenmut were at the table to Nefer’s right.

  “I’ve missed you so much, Majesty,” I said, tilting my head to Thut as I settled into my chair. “I trust your journey was pleasant?”

  “The end exceptionally so,” he said, and smiled. “It’s good to see you, Mery.”

  Just then serving girls in white skirts began to circulate among the tables, bearing platters of meat and vegetables and fruit and bread. Others began pouring wine into cups. The hall was suddenly filled with a babble of voices. Including ours. As always, when Thut and Nefer and Ahmose and I got together, it was as if we’d never been apart, all of us talking at once, asking what the others had been doing, filling them in on our activities. We even included Aachel in our banter, despite her being older and a relative newcomer. Thut and Ahmose told us tales about the army; we three girls about what had happened in Waset and on our various trips throughout Kemet.

  Thut glanced at Hatshepsut and Senenmut. “Is Senenmut still your tutor?” he asked Nefer.

  “Mother relies on him to do more and more to help her as regent,” Nefer said. “But he still teaches Mery and me. He’s practically become a second father to us both.”

  “And Aachel,” I added.

  Senenmut loved Aachel and me, and we him, but his bond with Nefer was special, unbreakably forged in the first few months after her father’s death. She’d missed the elder Thutmose terribly, and Senenmut had filled the void. He spent time alone with Nefer every day, and she often accompanied him as he performed some task for Hatshepsut. Those were opportunities to prepare her to be king, I knew, but I suspected that even if that hadn’t been his duty he’d still spend as much time as he could with her. Nefer was for all intents and purposes his daughter, and he treated her as such.

  As soon as the meal was finished, the musicians began to play loudly and dancing girls swept into the open space before our tables. They were all young and nubile, long–haired, their eyes outlined with kohl. Some wore skirts, some only girdles of loose beads that clicked and rattled in time to their movements. They swirled around the courtyard, leaping, dipping, twirling, performing acrobatic movements. Everyone clapped along and cried out. Near the end of their performance I saw Ahmose slip out of the courtyard along with one of the serving girls. A moment later Thut caught my eye and rose. I followed him outside as well.

  We strolled along a narrow path deep into the garden. At one point I saw two figures entwined in the shadows – no doubt Ahmose and the serving girl. Thut continued some distance past them, then sat down on a block of limestone beneath a grove of dom palms. I perched beside him. The block had been our favorite nighttime meeting spot when we were young, the place from which we had launched much mischief. It was much quieter outside than in the courtyard, though the sound of music and revelry still carried to us on the night breeze. Insects hummed and buzzed all around, and the stars were brilliant above our heads. The flowers and trees rustled in the gentle breeze.

  “It seems like forever since I’ve been here,” Thut sighed.

  “To me too, Thut.”

  “Tell me about your life here at Waset, Mery. What occupies your time?”

  “Most days, after breakfast with Hatshepsut, Nefer and I go to the audience hall in the per’aa. We sit to one side at the foot of the dais, facing the officials and petitioners gathered before it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s part of Nefer’s education, so that when she’s your Great Wife she can help you rule. Thanks to those daily sessions, Nefer is well informed about everything that’s going on in Kemet. And, of course, Senenmut tutors us every afternoon. And we go with him and Hatshepsut when she travels up and down the river to participate in religious and other festivals. He never misses an opportunity to expose us to something new. So now I’m quite familiar with a great deal of the river valley. And I make sure to spend time on my own down by the river, questioning traders who dock at Waset or merchants arriving from the caravan routes across the wadis of the eastern desert, picking up bits and pieces of their languages and learning about the lands beyond Kemet’s borders.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “Because I’m as interested in the world outside the river valley as you, Thut,” I said earnestly. “Tales about other lands and people fascinate me. I’ve made myself competent enough in the languages of Retenu and Setjet and Wawat and Kush and the islands in the Great Green that Hatshepsut calls on me now to translate when foreign ambassadors attend her in the per’aa. Someday, perhaps, I can serve you as translator as well, once you and Nefer are married and you sit the throne by yourself.”

  “You wouldn’t mind spending your life at my side, in my court, Mery?”

  “It’s the greatest desire of my heart, Thut, to be with you always,” I said sincerely. “Remember when we were young? I was always trying to keep up with you. I wanted to be like you and do everything you did.”

  “Shooting and swimming and running and sailing and hunting.” He laughed. “I noticed.”

  “Remember how we used to sneak off into the hills and desert to explore, and how we stole fishermen’s boats and poled through the marshes to study wildlife up close?”

  Thut laughed again. “It wasn’t really stealing, since Father was king and owned everything in the land.”

  I took a deep breath. “Did you know, Thut? I worshiped the ground you walked on. That must have been annoying for you, looking out for a little girl. But you never ignored me. You were always so calm and patient with me, the brother I never had.”

  “I enjoyed being with you immensely, Mery. I still do. In fact, tomorrow morning I’m going to work out my horses on the plain on the west bank. You should come.”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  ***

  I watched in the early morning light as Thut’s chariot and team of horses were loaded onto a royal transport boat that was secured to the quay along the channel that led from Ipet–Isut to the river. Several soldiers were already on board, and a number of chariots and teams. Thut was standing at the foot of the gangplank, chatting easily with Ahmose, dressed to ride. I hurried towards the quay. Thut greeted me warmly at the foot of the gangplank. He reached out and touched the gold fish–shaped amulet that I’d twisted into my red hair and fastened by the loop at the end of its nose. It had gold fins and a green stone eye, and each scale was separately indicated.

  “You gave it to me for protection, the day you taught me to swim,” I told Thut. “I wear it whenever I’m on the water.”

  “I remember.” He laughed. “If we capsize today, I command you to save me, Mery. I am your king, after all.” He tilted his head towards Ahmose. “He’s on his own.”

  “You’ve got a hundred men to save you,” Ahmose protested. “But I have only Mery.”

  I laughed at him and followed Thut up the gangplank. The boat was soon in motion.

  “I like to work my horses every
day, to keep them in fighting trim,” Thut told me as we sat side by side beneath a canopy on deck. “The desert on the west side of the river has the best surface for riding.”

  We were across in no time, and the chariots and horses were quickly unloaded and hitched by Thut’s men.

  “Would you like to ride with me?” Thut asked.

  “Do you mean it?” I asked. I’d never been in a chariot before.

  He got in and took up the reins and helped me in. “Stand at my side, Mery,” he said. “Left hand on the chariot frame, right around my waist. Spread your legs to brace yourself.”

  I did as he ordered. Thut’s waist was hard, all muscle. I thrilled to the feel of it. My right leg pressed against his left.

  Thut gave a command and the man holding his horses let go and we were off. At first we moved slowly, up a long narrow lane through the cultivated strip, through the shade of palm trees, past waist–high fields of waving green emmer, ever closer to the western hills and the strip of desert at its base. I looked backwards. Ahmose drove close behind the king, watching me, leading ten or more chariots that were strung out in a long line. Farmers paused in their work as our chariots rumbled past, and a few frightened cattle took to their heels, and then, abruptly, we reached the desert.

  With a great cry, Thut slapped his reins on his horses’ backs and the chariot took off like a shot. I nearly stumbled but caught myself and tightened my grip on Thut and heard a wild cry issue from my mouth. We were moving blindingly fast, the horses’ hooves pounding the level desert, the wind tearing at my dress and whipping it about my legs. My hair flew out of control. I saw the light of pure joy in Thut’s eyes as he urged his team on, the muscles of arms and chest bulging, sweat beginning to glisten on his skin. Ahmose pulled alongside and shouted something I couldn’t hear and Thut slapped the reins again and we moved even faster, if that was possible. I glanced backwards and saw the rest of the chariots beginning to fall behind, plumes of dust rising from their wheels and obscuring the desert to their rear. And then Ahmose dropped back too and Thut and I were all alone, racing the wind.

  Everything passed in a blur – the desert hills to our right, the green fields and blue river to our left, the flat drab plain before us. Occasionally I picked out a mud–brick hut or a random farmer or the silver ribbon of an irrigation ditch or a falcon soaring far over our heads. I clung so tightly to Thut and the chariot that my hands and fingers began to ache. After a very long time Thut finally slowed our chariot and gradually brought the horses to a halt. They snorted and tossed their heads, their backs wet with lather.

  “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done!” I cried breathlessly, my chest heaving, body drenched in sweat.

  Then I saw that the other chariots had turned around and were following Ahmose towards the river.

  “They’ll wait for us,” Thut said, with assurance. He took up the reins again.

  “My turn!” I exclaimed, and without waiting for Thut to agree I stepped in front of him and seized the reins from his hands.

  “Same daring Mery,” he said, laughing, and put his arms around me from behind and grasped the front of the chariot. He peered over my left shoulder and I was aware of his body pressing against mine, his strong arms encircling me. He was awakening something I’d never felt before. I slapped the reins and we began to move, slowly, but surely, Thut telling me what to do and giving me constant encouragement. Before long I had the horses at a trot back in the direction from which we’d come, and then a gallop. I might not have had Thut’s training, but I was as bold as he. And I had no doubt that if I did anything foolish he’d straighten us out.

  We pounded across the desert once more. It was even more exciting for me this time, being in control. For the first time I understood why Thut wanted to be a charioteer. Driving had to be the next best thing to actually flying. Before long every muscle in my upper body felt the strain from the horses pulling hard against the reins – my arms were dead weight and felt like they wanted to fall off – and sweat began to fly from me, but I refused to ease up. I was having too much fun to care about the pain. The miles passed seemingly in seconds and at times I could barely see, my eyes tearing up from the wind. Thut finally shouted for me to slow down as we approached a great bay in the cliff opposite Ipet–Isut. At its feet lay the temple complex of the second Mentuhotep, the king who had reunified the Two Lands after a long period of instability.

  I stopped the chariot with a spray of sand at the entrance to a walled avenue that led to the complex. Thut jumped down and secured the horses, then helped me step to the ground. I stumbled from the sudden lack of motion and Thut caught me in his arms and set me on my feet. I stretched my back and rubbed my arms and wiped the sweat from my brow and made Thut swear he’d let me drive his chariot again. Laughingly, he promised.

  The long avenue was lined with twenty–two seated statues of Mentuhotep that he’d erected to commemorate one of his Heb–Sed festivals, adorned with the White Crown on the north side and the Red Crown on the south. It bisected a lush garden full of flowers, and sycamore and tamarisk and fig and palm trees, and silver pools of water. Once neglected, Hatshepsut’s gardeners had restored it over the last several years, in line with her vow to repair the damage done throughout Kemet during the era of the Chiefs of the Foreign Lands. At the avenue’s end was a short steep ramp that ascended to a large rectangular terrace looming high over the valley. Mentuhotep’s actual temple occupied most of the terrace, the building about thirty feet high, surrounded on three sides by a columned portico, topped with an even smaller temple.

  “Mentuhotep was a great warrior king,” Thut said as we walked. “I’ve studied his campaigns in the Annals. Did you know he took three different Horus names as he fought to reunify the Two Lands? The first was Sankhibtawy, ‘the One Who Makes the Two Lands to Live.’ Next was Nebhedjet, ‘Possessor of the White Crown.’ And finally, Sematawy, ‘the Uniter of the Two Lands.’”

  We climbed the ramp to the terrace and paused and looked back the way we’d come. First was desert, then the emerald cultivated strip, then the fringe of palms along the river, then the river, with Ipet–Isut and Ipet–resyt and Waset spread for miles along its eastern bank, then another cultivated strip and more desert leading to hills already obscured by a haze of dust and wind–blown sand. We could see our boat bobbing at anchor beside the stone quay, the other chariots already loaded on it.

  Then we moved across the terrace, skirting the portico, to the temple’s rear. To its west was a small walled court open to the sky, with columns on north and south. We entered the courtyard. In its center was the entrance to Mentuhotep’s actual tomb, a long passageway lined with red granite cut into the floor of the terrace and angling deep into the mountain. Thut and Nefer and I had explored this complex often when we were younger. Six funerary chapels in a row comprised the court’s eastern wall, the tombs of Mentuhotep’s wives. Beyond the chapels was a hall with eighty–two octagonal columns in eight rows, and past them, cut into the cliff itself, the sanctuary.

  “All of these chapels are decorated in the old style of the first kings,” Thut told me as we stood before them. “No doubt Mentuhotep brought craftsmen here from Mennefer to build them. But he used local craftsmen to decorate the rest of the complex, so its style is different. It was a measure of the unsettled times he lived in.”

  I pointed to a spot on the terrace. “I’ve read in the archives that sixty of the king’s soldiers are buried there. They were slain in battle, and the king honored them by returning their bodies to Waset and burying them in his own temple.”

  We moved about the temple in silence, studying the many statues of Mentuhotep and carvings of him in the company of deities, particularly the war god Montu, and depicted as Osiris, god of the dead. This was the first temple in Kemet where the connection between Osiris and the king had been portrayed so prominently; from this time Osiris had grown in importance throughout the land. In one chamber we found a seated statue of Mentuhotep
in his Heb–Sed garments. In another he was depicted with black skin, representing the fertility of the land, sucking at the teat of the celestial cow goddess Hathor. We stumbled on a scene of the siege of a walled city in Retenu, with enemy soldiers falling from its ramparts, pierced by arrows.

  We moved to a base of one of the statues shaded by the colonnade. “This was placed by the third Senwosret, one of Mentuhotep’s successors, to honor him as the reunifier of Kemet.”

  “We visited his pyramid at Dahshur.”

  “It seems so long ago.”

  The statue depicted Senwosret in old age. His hooded eyes protruded outward from sunken sockets, emphasized by pronounced pouches beneath. Parallel sets of diagonal grooves extended from the inner corners of his eyes to his cheeks, from his nostrils to the corners of his tight–lipped frowning mouth, and from the corners of his mouth to his chin.

  “My sculptors will depict me as a young man, not like this,” Thut said, a bit disgusted. “But, then again, Senwosret ruled when the memory was fresh of Kemet being ripped asunder. Those who rule after me will remember only our might, and that the Nine Bows absolutely feared us.”

  We seated ourselves at the very edge of the terrace, in the shade of the colonnade, our legs and feet dangling in space.

  “That’s a lofty aim, Thut,” I observed.

  “That’s not all. I’m going to build the world’s first empire, Mery,” he said passionately, eyes flashing.

  “What’s an empire, Thut?”

  “All the lands we know of beyond the river valley, beholden to me,” he answered. “I’ve given it much thought while I’ve been away in the North. Kemet is already the most important kingdom in the world. I’ve studied the Annals. I know about the great kings who came before me, what they accomplished. But I’m going to be greater than any of them, Mery. I’m going to expand Kemet’s borders far to the north and east and west and south. My grandfather campaigned all the way to Naharina, and demanded tribute from the lands between there and here, and then came home. I’ll go farther than he did, conquer Naharina, hold Retenu and Setjet and Wawat and Kush and the eastern and western deserts permanently.” He seized my hand. “I haven’t told this to anyone else, Mery. They’d just laugh at me – even Ahmose – tell me I’m only a boy with a head full of ridiculous dreams, tell me to be content with ruling the river valley. But I could always tell you everything that’s in my heart. You’ve always believed in me, in my ambitions. You’re the one person in the world I’ve always been able to confide in and trust.”