Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

  “King Maatkare has sent her Great Wife on this long journey across desert and ocean to speak personally to you on her behalf. As for the King of Kemet, there is no road that is inaccessible to Her Majesty; we live by the breath she grants us. Neferure brings her mother’s greetings and friendship to you, Parahu, chief of Punt. You can have no stronger ally; you can have no greater enemy. King Maatkare wishes to reforge the bonds of trade that once existed between our lands. And so she sends small tokens of her favor to you, a taste of what the land of Kemet has to offer.”

  Nefer signaled. Several soldiers lifted beautifully decorated wooden boxes from our boat and carried them through the crowd to where we were standing. One by one, each box was placed before Parahu and opened, revealing faience and gold and obsidian beads, gold bracelets, shining bronze axes, daggers.

  Parahu and Ity and the nobles received the goods with delight. Parahu’s daughter Itahu lifted handfuls of faience beads of blue and red and green from their box and carried them to Ity, who squealed greedily. Itahu returned to the boxes and slipped five or six bracelets onto each of her thick wrists. I noted many women in the village watching her enviously.

  Then Parahu addressed us and Artatama translated. “You are well come, Excellencies, to the land of Punt. I have heard the old tales, passed down from father to son, of the days when Punt and Kemet traded together in friendship.” He indicated himself. “In those days, some traders remained among us, and took our women to wife, and so the blood of Kemet flows in my veins, as well as others of my people. I am most pleased to renew the ancient friendship between us once more. Dwell with us in peace, trade with us, enjoy the hospitality of Punt.”

  I understood nearly everything that Parahu said. I was pleased that my hours with Artatama aboard our vessel had not been wasted.

  Over the next few hours, some of our soldiers set up camp a little apart from the village, while others ferried trade goods from the boats to land. By nightfall all our men, except for a handful of sailors left aboard the ships as guards, were ashore. The boldest of the villagers wandered through our camp, staring curiously at our soldiers and their weapons, watching over Kaha’s shoulder as he sketched pictures of their village and our camp and the chief’s wife.

  That evening Chancellor Neshi entertained Parahu and his family in a massive tent, serving foodstuffs we’d carried with us from Kemet – bread, beer, wine, fruits, and vegetables. The chancellor and I talked with the chief; Artatama translated for me only when necessary. There was considerable laughter when I mispronounced a few Puntian words, giving unintended meaning to our conversation.

  “Tell me about the land of Kemet,” Parahu said to me.

  “Kemet is a mighty land,” I said, “stretching from the vast sea – the Great Green – in the north, to the rocks of the First Cataract more than six hundred miles to the south. A mighty river is its very heart, with a fringe of cultivated land on both banks. The land is refreshed annually by an inundation sent by the gods that renews our soil. Our farms are well–irrigated; each farmer grows multiple crops each year. Desert plateaus hem in the river valley and defend us from our enemies. In the north the river fans out into a large flat delta rich with grain, called Ta–mehi. At the foot of the delta lies Mennefer, the greatest city in the world, through which passes the entire world’s commerce. Between Mennefer and Swenet at the cataract are many cities. The largest of them is Waset, the kingdom’s southern capital. Great temples and monuments dot the land – pyramids as large as mountains, temples, tombs. Boats ply the length of the river, drifting north with the current, pushed south by the wind. Kemet’s people number in the millions. Our army is strong. Our land is rich beyond measure.”

  Parahu appeared to be impressed.

  After dinner, it took four villagers to lift Ity onto her donkey. How they got her up the ladder and into her house I will never know.

  Nefer and Aachel and I spent the next week exploring the village and its surroundings, accompanied by Itahu, trailed constantly by a flock of children. They were amazed that I could speak a little of their language, and they plied me with questions about Kemet and answered mine about their land. We climbed into their houses, feasted with them, wandered among the groves of incense trees, walked a distance into the jungle, swam with them in the ocean. Young girls climbed onto our laps to inspect our jewels; others shyly touched our dresses. Young men of marriageable age stood nearby and stared; they’d never seen a young woman as beautiful as Nefer, nor one with hair the color of mine. Hatshepsut had charged Nefer with bringing back several children to be raised in the harem; we spent considerable time with the older children of the leading men, identifying the brightest among them. At night we feasted with Parahu and the village elders, then slept deeply, lulled by the sound of the sea. Senimen was our constant companion those days, hovering over Nefer protectively like a mother hen, completely in the dark about my various conversations with the natives. Meanwhile, Chancellor Neshi and Artatama held long discussions with Parahu.

  One evening I noticed a group of soldiers bustling about, as if making preparations for a journey.

  “The winds won’t reverse direction to drive us home for several weeks,” Chancellor Neshi told Nefer when she asked him about it in his tent, “at least, according to Parahu. So I’ve decided to launch a trading expedition into the interior.”

  “When do we leave?” Nefer asked.

  “You’ll be staying behind, Majesty, along with the bulk of my soldiers,” he answered.

  “I’m coming,” she told him firmly.

  “Majesty, a trip through the forest is too dangerous for a woman,” he argued.

  “And arduous,” Senimen added. He’d been speaking with Neshi when we entered. “The paths will be too narrow for you to be carried. I agree with the chancellor. It’s best for you to remain here.”

  I laughed. “Best for you Senimen, you mean. Nefer and Aachel and I can outwalk both you and the chancellor. As for danger, I can outshoot you both too, if it comes to that.” I pointed to my scar. “I’ve fought by the king’s side, after all.”

  “But your mother the king…” Chancellor Neshi spluttered.

  “The responsibility is mine,” Nefer insisted. “I’m the King’s Great Wife. I outrank you. I did not travel all the way to Punt to not see it.”

  Neshi relented, much to Senimen’s chagrin. He clearly had no stomach for a long hike through the hinterlands.

  I was ecstatic. So was Nefer. Aachel didn’t mind too much.

  We set out at dawn the next day, proceeding in a long line single file through the forest, headed west into the interior of the country. We were swallowed up by trees at once, the sound of the sea lost to us. Armed soldiers led the way; villagers we’d hired to bear our boxes and sacks of trade goods followed at the rear. Nefer and Aachel and I walked near the head of the column, along with the chancellor and Kaha and Artatama and a few of the village’s leading men, who served as guides. That day, and all that followed, were wonderful, filled with new and marvelous sights and sounds and adventures. I shouldered my bow and quiver of arrows each morning, hiked all day, wolfed down meals beside blazing campfires, washed the grime from my body in clear babbling brooks. I loved the endless tangled greenery, the brilliant flowers, the skulking wildlife, the cool shade beneath towering trees, the steep hills and hidden valleys, the exotic smells, the mysterious sounds, even the heat and humidity that kept me drenched most of each day with sweat. I glimpsed panthers and leopards and rhinos and giraffes, shivered at roars in the night, fell asleep to the humming of insects. I marveled at brightly–colored birds flashing through clearings and trilling among tree branches, at monkeys swinging from vines far overhead and crying out as we disrupted their lives. Not for an instant did I miss the awful waste of the desert.

  Each night, after we ate, Kaha showed we women his rough sketches by the light of the campfire. His ability to capture in a few sure strokes what we had seen and done never ceased to amaze me. He made a few drawings
of me and Aachel, and far more of Nefer. Hers were gorgeous, expressive, full of feeling. By that I knew Kaha had fallen under Nefer’s spell, as had so many others.

  By day we traveled from village to village, stopping to trade, exchanging our goods for the exotic products of Punt. Even the most wary chieftain offered us his hospitality after I greeted and spoke to him in his own language. Chancellor Neshi grudgingly admitted halfway through our journey that bringing me along had been a good idea, and told me I was a born diplomat. At each village, as the men negotiated, I conversed with the locals, obtaining a considerable amount of information about Punt and what lay to its south and west. I realized early on that we should have brought with us trained scribes to record the flora and fauna and geography of Punt, a mistake I vowed would not be repeated on expeditions I was part of in the future – if I was part of any.

  I stretched out on my back one night next to Aachel in a clearing in the forest and stared up at the sky, brightly banded with stars. Nefer was conferring with the chancellor and the local ruler along with Artatama, so we were alone. I whispered my favorite prayer: “O Mother Nut, stretch yourself over me, that you may place me among the imperishable stars which are in you, that I may not die.” I turned my head towards Aachel. Her eyes were fixed on the sky too.

  “I’ll bet Hori is looking at these same stars right now,” I said, and giggled.

  “We promised each other we would, and that we’d think about each other every night.” Aachel rolled onto her right side, bent her arm, rested her head on her elbow. “And perhaps Thutmose is looking at them too.”

  “Perhaps,” I said non–committally.

  “You love him, don’t you Mery.” Aachel was not asking a question.

  “No.”

  “Of course you do. I knew from the first time I saw you two together.”

  She’d guessed my secret. Was I that transparent? “Yes,” I admitted.

  Aachel put a hand on my arm. “He loves you too?”

  “Yes.”

  “How far has it gone?”

  I looked into Aachel’s eyes, so sympathetic, so caring. All at once I couldn’t bear the burden of the secret I had carried alone for so long. I had to share it. I trusted Aachel. She’d never betray my confidence. I took a deep breath and began to talk. Everything, so long suppressed, poured out of me. Doubts and misgivings and despair and triumph and love and dreams and plans had been bottled up so long that once released I couldn’t stem the flood of words. Aachel listened patiently as I told her about Mentuhotep’s temple and my encounter with Thut at the First Cataract and how even though we’d barely seen each other these past years I couldn’t stop thinking about him constantly and loving him and wanting him.

  When I finished Aachel wrapped her arms around me. “And despite all this – loving Thutmose yourself – you’ve talked Nefer into running off to Mennefer when we return and marrying him.”

  “Yes. My happiness depends on it.”

  “How so?” Aachel asked.

  “Thut’s asked me to marry him. I’ve said yes.”

  She gasped. “You and Nefer both?”

  “We’ve agreed she has to come first. Thut and I won’t marry until Nefer’s his Great Wife and gives him a son to follow him on the throne. I won’t have my children in competition with hers.”

  “And if she doesn’t give him a son?”

  “I’ll wait until she does. The gods wouldn’t be that cruel.”

  Aachel mulled over what I’d told her. “But won’t you be competing against Nefer for Thut’s love?”

  “Thut will take many wives, Aachel. That’s a given. Nefer will have to compete with all of them. But both Nefer and Thut believe their marriage is their duty. They love each other like brother and sister, nothing more. I love Thut as a woman loves a man. I’m not sure I’d really be competing with her.”

  “I hope you’re right, Mery,” Aachel said. “If Nefer objects…”

  “All I know for sure,” I said, “is that Nefer has to go to Mennefer when we return to Kemet and marry Thut. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll never be Thut’s wife. Once she marries him I’ll figure out the rest.” I sighed. “Thank the gods you aren’t in my place, Aachel, for it is a truly horrible place to be.”

  By the time we returned to Parahu’s village, several weeks after setting out into the interior, our porters were heavily burdened with baskets and containers and bundles of myrrh, frankincense, ebony, ivory, gold, silver, lapis lazuli, malachite, elephant tusks, and panther skins. We’d even acquired a few pygmies and a small troop of monkeys and an ape. I knew Hatshepsut would be pleased.

  We spent a final week in the village, waiting for favorable winds. We stowed the goods we’d acquired on the boats, prepared food for the voyage, selected children to accompany us to Kemet. Kaha spent his time turning the rough sketches he’d made in Punt into polished images. They were very different from the formal scenes I was used to seeing on temple walls, their reality almost startling by contrast. I spent my days talking with the villagers, and my evenings recording what I remembered about our journey through Punt on papyri of my own.

  One morning the wind began to blow strongly from the south, and mere hours later our small fleet raised anchor and set sail for home. The final items loaded onto our boats were live incense trees planted in wooden tubs, a last–minute acquisition that Nefer had insisted on. Throughout the sea voyage we three women saw to it that their roots were kept damp, for they were destined for the garden at Djeser Djeseru. Assuming they survived the journey and thrived, Hatshepsut would have her own source of incense right there in Waset from now on. I sensed those trees were a peace offering from Nefer to her mother for what she was going to do.

  “Mark my words, Kemet will grow rich exporting the products of Punt to lands in the North,” Chancellor Neshi told Nefer as Parahu’s village disappeared in the distance. He surveyed the decks of his boats. “This will surely not be the last voyage to this land.”

  At Quseir the sailors unloaded our boats once more, though they did not dismantle them. The chancellor was already planning more voyages down the coast, and so anchored them in the harbor. We bid Artatama goodbye, for he was going to set out on a trading expedition of his own. Our goods were loaded onto the herd of donkeys we’d left behind, and we slowly retraced our steps overland across the desert wastes to the river. Prior to leaving Quseir, porters removed the incense trees from their tubs and replanted them in reed baskets. Those baskets were slung between carrying poles and borne on men’s shoulders as we traveled west. We women rode donkeys as before, eager to get home after our long adventure, Aachel and Nefer in particular, knowing what awaited them at journey’s end. The final stage of the trip seemed endless. After the cool sea and the marvelously–colored land of Punt, the dry brown harsh burning hot desert weighed upon our spirits.

  At Koptos we loaded our goods into boats sent for us at Hatshepsut’s order, then sailed south to Waset. Every mile closer to home seemed to increase Nefer’s excitement, and she sat between Aachel and I on deck and talked almost non–stop, darting from subject to subject, unable to concentrate on anything for long as what was about to happen became more imminent and real. After years of uncertainty, she’d finally chosen Thut over her mother, chosen her dream and her father’s desire over what others wanted for her. She was impatient for the current stage of her life to be over. In a week, maybe a little more, she and Aachel and I would be sailing the river in the opposite direction, towards Mennefer and Thut, towards Nefer’s new life. Even I, torn as I was, couldn’t wait.

  A few days later, upon our arrival at Waset, Hatshepsut greeted us in the shade of a pavilion on the quay next to the per’aa, seated on an ebony throne. Chancellor Neshi had sent word of our approach ahead, and the highest officials and priests in the land were gathered with her to see the wonders we had obtained on our nine–month long expedition. Hatshepsut was flanked under the pavilion by Senenmut, in his role as Overseer of the Granaries of Amun, and Hapusene
b, and Vizier Aametshu, and Hori. The rest of the officials packed the quay itself, pushing and shoving each other to improve their view of our boats, as anxious as Hatshepsut to see our treasures.

  The chancellor and Nefer moved through the crowd directly to the pavilion once we disembarked. I waved to Hori, but he had eyes only for Aachel. I could only imagine his joy, a few hours from now, when Aachel told him they could finally marry, with Nefer’s blessing. I envied them, wishing it was Thut and I.

  “Never was brought the likes of this for any king who has been since the beginning,” Chancellor Neshi announced as he bowed before Hatshepsut.

  She rose from her throne and greeted the chancellor and embraced Nefer. Then, while the boxes and containers were being carefully unloaded and stacked on the quay, Chancellor Neshi told Hatshepsut and her officials about our journey. Kaha showed drawing after drawing to illustrate the chancellor’s report. When the boats were completely emptied, porters brought the boxes and containers one by one to Hatshepsut and opened them at the foot of her throne. Nefer sat by her side and told her mother about each item, her narrative occasionally enhanced by Chancellor Neshi. When all the boxes had been revealed, Chancellor Neshi gave a signal and the pygmies hurried down the gangplank and onto the quay and performed a dance in the open space before Hatshepsut that they had practiced the entire voyage. Then came the monkeys, all on leashes, futilely attempting to escape into the crowd, winding their individual lengths of leather around their keeper’s legs until he could hardly move, drawing peals of laughter from the spectators. Then came the Puntian children. I introduced each of them to Hatshepsut, and they bowed and, with a little prompting, recited lines of homage I had taught them, for I had begun instructing them in our tongue on the return voyage. Last, but not least, Nefer proudly pointed out the incense trees as they were unloaded. “Now we will have our own incense, from the gardens of Djeser Djeseru,” she said.

  Hatshepsut was ecstatic.