Beauty of Re

by Mark Gajewski

  “I’m so sorry, Mery. Can I do anything to help?”

  “Nefer believes I betrayed her by marrying Thut,” I said. “I admit it, Aachel – I did. I’ve tried to talk to her, to explain why, but she won’t listen. For her everything is black and white – choosing Thut, I rejected her. She can’t conceive of me loving them both equally.”

  “You still love her?”

  “Like a sister. I always will.”

  “Nefer can’t hate you forever,” Aachel said.

  I shook my head. “It’s been thirteen years since she married Thut, and she hasn’t forgiven him for how he treated her and Hatshepsut that day. To her, what I did was far worse.”

  “Maybe I can change her mind.”

  “No,” I said sharply. “You can’t ever speak to Nefer about me.” I took hold of Aachel’s hands. “Next to Nefer, you’ve always been my dearest friend. You’re like a sister to me, too. I’ve told you things I’ve never told anyone else.”

  “About Thut?”

  “Yes. I was going crazy keeping my love for him bottled up inside, until I told you. But Nefer can never know you knew. She’d hold it against you.”

  “It was our secret, Mery. It will remain so.”

  “I know. I trust you. And I love you. But I can’t be alone with you anymore after today, Aachel.”

  “Mery! You can’t mean that!” she cried in disbelief.

  “I was caught between Nefer and Thut most of my life. I always felt like I was dancing on a razor’s edge, knowing one day I’d have to choose between them, knowing one would be terribly hurt. I refuse to put you in the same position, caught between your love for Nefer and me. It’s not fair to you.”

  “Shouldn’t that be my decision?”

  “No. You don’t understand how awful it can be. But in a day, a week, a year it would start to weigh on you. So I’m taking the choice from your hands.” I embraced Aachel for what I knew would be the last time in my life. “I love you so much, Aachel. But Nefer’s lost everything – her mother, her titles, her status, the child she should have had, the respect of those who should have been subservient to her but now outrank her, love, friendship. She deserves one person in her life who’ll be hers alone, whose loyalty she’ll never have to doubt, who she can confide in and talk to about anything and love unconditionally. Perhaps that’s my penance, Aachel, for what I did – to give you up so Nefer can have peace of mind and a little happiness.”

  Tears were running down both our cheeks now.

  “I’ll do what you ask – for now,” Aachel said, holding me tight. “But Mery, you saved my life. If you hadn’t offered me a piece of bread on the quay at Mennefer all those years ago I’d be long dead. I’d never have married Hori, never had my daughters, never loved, never had my life. So I’ll never give up trying to reconcile the two of you. I will repay the debt I owe you.”

  “You repaid any debt long ago, Aachel, with the love and friendship you gave me. But thank you for what you said. It means a lot.” I kissed her brow, broke our embrace, wiped the tears from my cheeks and left the bower. I heard her start to sob but I didn’t look back.

  In the nursery I procured a scribe’s kit that I had stowed there days earlier, sat down cross–legged near the baskets that held sleeping infants, took out a sheet of papyrus, spread it on my lap, dipped a reed pen into ink and began to compose a message to Thut announcing the joyful news. One of the king’s fastest small boats had been tied up at the quay for a week, a courier on board and its crew waiting, ready to carry my message north with due speed to wherever the army was currently fighting. I’d deliver the papyrus to the boat personally as soon as I finished and in a week, maybe two, Thut would know he had a son.

  Iset came in from the bower and sat down in her accustomed place in the nursery, a chair near the wet nurses. Nefer entered a few moments after and headed towards the room where Meryetre–Hatshepsut was being bathed.

  “Come over here!” Iset ordered peremptorily and loudly.

  One or two infants cried out, startled by Iset’s harsh voice. I paused in my task and looked up, curious. A few of the wet nurses snickered. They enjoyed it when Iset publicly admonished one of the king’s wives.

  Nefer approached Iset. “Majesty?”

  “There is to be a birth festival for Amenhotep at Waset upon my son’s return from war. Several announcements will be made to his officials then that affect you.”

  “They are?”

  “Thutmose bid me tell you, if the child was a boy, that he will soon construct a new tomb in the Great Place for his grandfather.”

  “My grandfather as well,” Nefer reminded Iset sharply. Nefer might be subservient to Iset, and Iset might have kept Nefer from her rightful place, but she could never erase her background. “Why would my brother–husband do this?”

  “His grandfather will no longer share a tomb with your mother, the Usurper,” Iset snapped. “Her presence there has rendered the tomb unholy.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “In addition,” Iset continued, “your mother’s name will be erased wherever it appears in the land of Kemet – temples, buildings, records in archives. It will be chiseled from monuments, or recut and replaced with your father’s and grandfather’s names. Her statues will be smashed and buried. Her temples will be leveled. History will be made as it should have been.”

  I was as stunned as Nefer.

  The wet nurses, beholden to Iset and thus by default Nefer’s enemies, smiled.

  “All traces of her lover Senenmut will also be removed.” Iset fairly cackled. She leaned towards Nefer, smiled wickedly. “Your name will be erased too, Neferure. Your image will be replaced by images of Sitiah. My son will eliminate every trace of your existence. That way Amenhotep will have no blood rival before men or the gods. His succession to the throne will be smooth.”

  “Really?” Nefer asked, her frustration evident. And who could blame her, after a lifetime of the woman’s relentless attacks. “When will you give up your delusion that I want His Majesty’s throne? I refused to take it when I had the chance. I’ve faithfully served him for years. I’m his wife. This eradication is all your doing. He wouldn’t have even thought of it if not for you.” She paused. Her eyes narrowed. “If he even knows about it.”

  I was as suspicious as Nefer. It would be just like Iset to set this eradication rolling while Thut was gone from Kemet without his knowledge or approval. By the time he returned it would be too late to stop it.

  Iset pointed a shaky finger at Nefer. She was just a few years short of sixty now and not aging gracefully. “You are more of a danger to Thutmose now than ever!”

  “How so?”

  “Until a few moments ago you stood to inherit his throne. Now you have a rival, a mere infant, vulnerable.”

  “Vulnerable to what?”

  “A knife in the dark, perhaps?” Iset suggested. “Or a magic spell.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Someone has to protect Amenhotep from you.”

  By now everyone in the nursery was watching – wet nurses, officials, the servants who had been cleaning up the bower, wives and concubines who had entered the nursery, drawn by the increasingly louder argument. A few infants had begun to cry and their wet nurses were trying to calm them.

  “You think I’d murder an infant!” Nefer was outraged.

  “If not, there are other ways for you to become king,” Iset said knowingly.

  “I have no army,” Nefer spat. “The priests are loyal to you. The bureaucrats appointed by my mother no longer hold office.”

  “You’ve overseen generations of foreign hostages,” Iset said accusingly. “They are surely more loyal to you than they are to my son. Only the gods know what you and this other one” – she pointed her finger at me – “have taught them.”

  “Only the gods – and Thut’s children – and countless overseers and officials and the king himself,” I snapped.

  “Stay out of this, Meryetneith!”
Iset shouted. She faced Nefer again. “Many hostages have grown up and been sent home and now lead their towns and villages and countries. For all I know, Neferure, you’ve already formed an alliance with them against my son to slay my grandson and take his throne. You’ve been biding your time. When better to strike than now, when Thutmose is absent from Kemet? You may already have armies poinsed on Kemet’s borders, prepared to invade, for all I know.”

  “Majesty, your charge is meritless,” Nefer said wearily. She was clearly tired of refuting Iset. “I have no designs on the throne. Believe me, or not. I don’t care. It doesn’t change the truth.”

  Iset pointed at me again. “What of Meryetneith? She’s popular with the army and the hostages. It’s clear she used a magic spell on Thutmose – why else would he marry someone like her? For all I know, she used magic to kill Meryetre–Hatshepsut’s newborn sons on your behalf.”

  I was speechless.

  “Admit it, Neferure! You conspired with Meryetneith! You couldn’t control my son so you threw this one in his way, helped her seduce him so you could gain control over him.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” Nefer told Iset. She looked at me, her stare cold. “Meryetneith is nothing to me. Certainly not my ally.”

  Her words hurt more than she could imagine. We should be fighting Iset together, I thought. We can’t beat her separately. And Iset knows it. She’s driving the wedge between Nefer and me even deeper, inoculating herself against us.

  Iset sneered. “If Thutmose dies before you are put in your place Amenhotep will surely lose the throne to you and your so–called ‘pure’ blood. I still believe my son should kill you – and Meryetneith too. Leave you both alive and you’ll do to Amenhotep what your mother did to Thutmose. But my son is too soft–hearted to do it.”

  “I’ll convince His Majesty that you’re wrong. He won’t do these things,” Nefer said with all the dignity she could muster. But her voice said she knew he would not oppose his mother’s wishes.

  “I’ve already sent the order to Menkheperreseneb to wall up your mother’s Wadjet Hall obelisks at Ipet–Isut. In a few days my workmen will begin throwing down and smashing her statues and sphinxes at Djeser Djeseru and tossing them into rubbish pits. In time the sands of the desert will drift over that temple, and her garden will die and disappear forever. Her names and face will be chiseled from all statues throughout the land, as will yours, so that for eternity neither of you will be able to see or hear or breathe. When you die, you will face the eternal death, along with her.” Iset smiled with both disdain and triumph. “It’s taken half my life, but today I have my revenge on both you and your mother. And there’s nothing you can do about it!”

  Nefer stared at Iset for a moment, appalled, then wordlessly exited the room. Immediately it was filled with the whisperings of the women who remained.

  I’d never been so angry in my life. If no one else would defend Nefer, I would. I picked up my papyrus and stepped in front of Iset. “You vindictive, lying old hag,” I spat.

  “Take care, Meryetneith!” Iset warned, pointing her finger at me. “Do not cross me!”

  Everyone was watching me now.

  I indicated the scar on my arm. “I took a Nubian arrow fighting at your son’s side. I walked alone into Yapu, surrounded by thousands of wretches, slew a man with my own hands and captured a city. I spied on the King of the Mitanni in his own tent, in his own country, in the midst of his highest–ranking soldiers, and returned alive. I do not fear you, old woman. You can’t do anything to me.”

  Iset shrank back a little. I heard a few half–suppressed chuckles.

  I pointed my finger at her. “You blamed Hatshepsut because the king never made you his Great Wife? You were never half the woman she was!” The frustration of decades gushed from me in a torrent. If not for Iset, Thut and Nefer would have been married years earlier and had a son and loved each other, and I would have been Thut’s wife, and Nefer and I would still be sisters, and our lives would be happy. Iset had been the architect of so much pain. “You try to hide your own inadequacy by ruining the lives of everyone around you. You think any of these women or courtiers or officials who bow to you love you?” I swept my arm around the room. “They fear you. And when you die they’ll be glad, and in a day they’ll forget you ever existed.” I stepped closer to her. “Your feud was with Hatshepsut. You couldn’t defeat her. So you took it out on Nefer.” I leaned close, so that my face was nearly touching hers. I saw the hatred and panic in her eyes. “You’d better pray I die before you do. Or I swear I’ll make sure that what you’re about to do to Hatshepsut and Neferure will be done to you. And, by the gods, you can be sure that no one will try to stop me.”

  I knew I’d pay for my outburst later, but I didn’t care. I spun on my heel and walked slowly from the room, my head held high. Once outside I suppressed the urge to rush after Nefer, to try to comfort her. The way Nefer felt about me I’d only make things worse. I balled my hands into fists, impotent. Because of Iset, my husband had condemned Nefer and Hatshepsut to eternal death – assuming Iset had not acted alone. The reality of it was too awful to contemplate. Nefer erased – was I doomed to spend eternity without her? It was bad enough being separated from her now. I couldn’t endure it for all time. I vowed I’d do something to change Thut’s mind, to right this wrong. Though I had no idea what.

  1438 BC

  Regnal Year 42 – Thutmose III

  Twenty years after the campaign against Megiddo, nine years after the invasion of Naharina, I found myself with Thut and his army in the lands of the Nine Bows once again.

  Durusha, King of Kadesh, had reappeared a few months ago, in early spring, nearly a decade after his last encounter with Thut. He’d spent those years secretly forging another alliance against us. He’d gathered together under his leadership many of the northern coastal cities in Setjet that had become Thut’s vassals; he was backed by the Mitanni and the powerful city of Tunip. Durusha had united them in a last–ditch effort to rid their lands of Thut’s control.

  After forty–two years on the throne, Thut had created the empire he’d dreamed of since youth. It stretched from Kemet far to the north, through Retenu and Setjet, from the Great Green in the west to Naharina in the east. He held the desert and oases west of the river. In the South he controlled the river all the way to the Fourth Cataract. A never–ending stream of tribute poured into his coffers from the cities and towns and territories he’d conquered, and even from distant empires who sought his friendship – lapis lazuli, gold, silver, copper, slaves. The South was overseen by a viceroy, the North by General Djehuty – now the Overseer of the Gate to the Northern Countries, essentially all the lands outside the river valley. They collected taxes, constructed Thut’s monuments, and administered towns and fortresses. Thut’s garrisons guarded coastal harbors, and fortresses along major roads kept watch over the locals and protected Thut’s trade caravans and served as supply centers for his annual military expeditions. Thut had not occupied the lands he’d conquered in battle – he still relied on the loyalty – and fear – of local rulers and their long–established administrations to control the lands he considered his own. Those rulers he’d found lacking, and those who had grown old or died in office, he’d replaced with his own men and the hostages Nefer and I had educated. In fact, all of the hostages we’d brought back to Kemet after Megiddo and the other early campaigns now ruled their home cities, having succeeded their fathers. They were more loyal to Thut and Kemet than to their own people. Both Nefer and I were proud of that; it was our lasting contribution to Thut’s empire, our legacy.

  Thut had used the tribute that filled his treasury to good effect at home. Few major towns and cities had not seen new construction – shrines, temples, per’aas. Gods and their priests were becoming exceedingly wealthy; Thut enlarged the Temple of Ptah in Mennefer, expanded Re’s temple at Iunu with a pylon and temenos wall and two obelisks, practically rebuilt Ipet–Isut. To each temple and its priesthood he g
ranted grain and cattle and estates and slaves, creating permanent endowments to support the temples in perpetuity. He erected structures at Akhmin, Atfih, Asyut, Medamud, Tod, El–kab, Edfu, Abu, Esna, Dendera. Even Nubia was dotted with new temples – at Amanda, Ellesiya, Faras, Dakke, Argos, Doschai, Kubban, Semna, and Gebel Barkal. The gods and priests did not prosper alone; Thut’s most valorous soldiers and officers had become rich, granted vast estates up and down the river, with captured enemy slaves to till their land and staff their homes.

  When Thut was home I traveled with him and Iset and Meryetre–Hatshepsut – after the birth of Amenhotep she’d been named his Great Wife, replacing Sitiah. We spent most of our time in the per’aas at Waset and Mennefer. I lived in the Faiyum only when Thut was at war, and spent those days teaching in the classroom. Though Thut did not neglect his other wives and concubines, especially at night, it was me he sought for companionship. I attended him in his audience hall, and on his tours of inspection up and down the river, and dined with him, and sat with him each evening, talking, playing Senet, listening to the musicians who entertained us in our quarters. Nine years after our marriage our love, so long denied, continued to flower.

  The bedroom he gave me in the per’aa at Mennefer was magnificent, its tall windows facing east, overlooking the palm–fringed river, admitting cooling breezes when the sun went down. The furniture was spectacular, my perfumes and ointments and clothing of the finest quality, but what I treasured most was the poem inscribed on one wall, for Thut himself had written it about me:

  “She looks like the rising morning star

  At the start of a happy year.

  Shining bright, fair of skin,

  Lovely the looks of her eyes,

  Sweet the speech of her lips,

  She has not a word too much.

  Upright neck, shining breast,

  Hair true carnelian;

  Arms surpassing gold,

  Fingers like lotus buds.