Ramses, Volume V

by Christian Jacq

  Mathor knew that one of Pharaoh’s names, “He Who Is Like the Bee,” was fully justified, for Egypt was indeed a hive where idleness was out of place. Everyone had a function to fulfill, in accordance with a hierarchy of tasks. The temple itself buzzed with activity: countless workers maintained the temple complex and estates, while inside the shrine priests and priestesses observed religious rites. Even at night, astronomers were busy making observations.

  Ramses allowed the new Great Royal Wife no time at all to adapt. Lodged in the palace at the Ramesseum, she must immediately assume her responsibilities and learn her duties as queen. She realized that obedience was a key element in winning Ramses’ love.

  The royal chariot drew up to the village of Deir el-Medina, guarded by the police and the army. There followed a convoy carrying food to the craftsmen digging and decorating the tombs in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens. It was the usual fare: loaves of bread, sacks of dried peas and beans, fresh vegetables, excellent fish, slabs of dried, marinated meat. The government also furnished sandals, cloth to make garments, and salves.

  Ramses handed Mathor down from the chariot.

  “What are we coming here to do?”

  “For you, the most important thing.”

  To the cheers of the workers and their families, the royal pair made their way to the two-story whitewashed house of the local leader, a man in his fifties whose talent as a sculptor had earned him universal admiration.

  “How can we thank Your Majesty for his generosity?” the headman asked, bowing deeply.

  “I know the worth of your hand and that you and your gang have worked tirelessly. I am your protector and I shall enrich your community so that what you build may last forever.”

  “Only give us your orders, Majesty, and we will carry them out.”

  “Come with me, my good man. I will show you where two new work sites are to be dug at once.”

  When the royal chariot turned onto the track leading to the Valley of the Kings, Mathor cringed. The sight of the sunbaked, seemingly lifeless cliffs filled her with anxiety. Fresh from the comfort and luxury of the palace, the bare rock and forbidding desert came as a shock to her.

  At the edge of the Valley of the Kings (where guards stood watch night and day), a group of sixty-odd dignitaries of various ages awaited Ramses. They had shaved heads, chests covered with broad collars, long tucked kilts, and carried staffs with ostrich plumes topping the sycamore handles.

  “These are my royal sons,” explained Ramses.

  They raised their staffs in an honor guard, then followed in the monarch’s wake.

  Ramses came to a halt not far from the entry to his own tomb.

  “Here,” he told the headman from Deir el-Medina, “you will dig a huge tomb with columned halls and as many burial chambers as there are royal sons. With help from Osiris, I will protect my children forever.”

  Next Ramses handed the builder a set of plans he had personally drawn up on papyrus.

  “This will be the eternal dwelling of the Great Royal Wife Mathor; you will dig this tomb in the Valley of the Queens, a good distance from Iset the Fair’s and far away from Nefertari’s.”

  The young queen turned pale. “My tomb?” she stammered.

  “It’s our tradition,” Ramses told her. “Any person assuming important responsibilities must begin to think of the afterlife. Death is our greatest counselor, for it puts our life in perspective and allows us to focus on what is most important.”

  “I don’t want to think about such depressing things!”

  “You’re no longer an ordinary woman, Mathor. You can’t be a pleasure-loving Hittite princess anymore; you’re the Queen of Egypt. Duty is all that counts now, and to understand it you must come to terms with your own death.”

  “I refuse!”

  Ramses’ disapproving look made Mathor wish she could eat her words. She fell to her knees.

  “Forgive me, Majesty.”

  “Rise, Mathor. It isn’t me you must serve, but Ma’at, the law of the universe that created Egypt and will outlive it. Now let us proceed to meet your fate.”

  Proud despite her fear, managing to contain her anxiety, Mathor toured the Valley of the Queens, which, though desertlike, seemed less harsh than the Valley of the Kings. It was not closed in by steep cliffs, but open onto the world of the living, which seemed close at hand. The young queen kept her eye on the clear blue sky and recalled the beautiful scenery in Egypt’s true valley, the Nile, where she planned to spend countless hours of pleasure.

  Ramses thought of Nefertari resting there in the Golden Chamber of a magnificent eternal dwelling. She rose from it constantly, in the form of a phoenix, a ray of light, or a puff of wind traveling to the ends of the earth. Nefertari sailed forever on a splendid bark, upon the heavenly river, in the heart of light.

  Mathor remained silent, not daring to interrupt the king’s meditation. Despite the gravity of the moment, her husband’s presence, his power, stirred her to the depths of her being. No matter what she must do to prove herself, she intended to reach her goal. She would make Ramses fall in love with her.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Serramanna was running out of patience. The indirect approach, the gentle touch, had gotten him nowhere, so the Sardinian bodyguard had decided to fall back on a more direct method. After fortifying himself with steak and chickpeas, he left on horseback for Techonk’s workshop.

  This time the Libyan would talk. This time he’d give the name of Ahsha’s murderer.

  When he dismounted, Serramanna was surprised to find a crowd gathered in front of the tanner’s workshop. There were women, children, old people, workers, each talking louder than the next.

  “Make way,” ordered the Sard. “I’m coming through.”

  The hulking bodyguard had no need to repeat the order. A hush fell.

  Inside the shop, the smell was always overpowering. Serramanna, who had adopted Egyptian standards of cleanliness, almost balked at entering. But the sight of the whole gang of tanners, clustered near a pile of antelope skins, told him that he needed to investigate. He pushed past strands of acacia pods (rich in tannic acid), strode past a yellow-brown tub, and laid a huge hand on the shoulders of two apprentices.

  “What’s going on here?”

  The apprentices stepped aside. Serramanna saw Techonk’s dead body, his head submerged in a trough full of dung and urine.

  “An accident, a terrible accident,” explained the foreman, a stocky Libyan.

  “How did it happen?”

  “Nobody knows . . . The boss was supposed to be coming in early, and we found him like that when we got here.”

  “No witnesses?”

  “None.”

  “It doesn’t look right. Techonk was an experienced tanner, not the kind to make such a stupid mistake. No, this is murder, and one of you knows something.”

  “You’re wrong,” the foreman said weakly.

  “I’m going to see for myself,” promised Serramanna, glowering. “It’s time for an interrogation.”

  The youngest apprentice darted out of the workshop like an eel and exited at full speed. The good life had not slowed Serramanna’s reflexes; he was after the man in a flash.

  The young apprentice knew his way around the neighborhood’s back alleys, but the Sard’s sheer power helped him catch up. The apprentice was trying to scale a wall when Serramanna’s iron fist closed around his kilt.

  The fugitive lost his grip, screamed, and fell hard on the ground.

  “My back . . . I think it’s broken!”

  “We’ll take care of that once you tell me what you know. Talk fast, boy, or I’ll break your wrists, too.”

  The terrified apprentice spoke in gasps. “A Libyan killed the boss . . . a man with black eyes, a square face, and wavy hair . . . called Techonk a traitor . . . the boss argued with him, swore that he’d told you nothing . . . but the man refused to believe him . . . strangled Techonk and dunked his head in the dung trough . . . th
en he turned to us and threatened us. ‘Sure as my name is Malfi and I’m the new master of Libya, if any of you go to the police, I’ll get you, too.’ And now that I’ve told you everything, I’m a dead man!”

  “Stop talking nonsense, boy. You won’t set foot back inside the tannery; I’ll find you a job with the palace steward.”

  “You’re not sending me to prison?”

  “I like a lad with courage. Up with you now!”

  The apprentice hobbled along behind a glowering Serramanna. The Sard had hoped he’d be able to charge Uri-Teshoop, but someone else was Techonk’s murderer.

  And what if Uri-Teshoop, the fallen Hittite prince, was in league with this Malfi, a cold-blooded killer from Libya, Egypt’s hereditary enemy? Yes, the two of them must be plotting together. But how would he ever make Ramses see it?

  Setau was washing the copper bowls, the gourds and filters of various sizes, while Lotus cleaned the laboratory shelves. Then the snake venom expert took off his antelope-skin tunic, soaked it in water, and wrung it to extract the medicinal solutions. It would be up to Lotus to turn the tunic back into a portable pharmacy with potions from the black cobra, puff adder, horned viper, and their ilk. The lovely Nubian bent over the brown, viscous liquid. Diluted, it would make an effective medicine for circulatory problems and heart disease.

  When Ramses walked into the laboratory, Lotus bowed, but Setau went on with his work.

  “You’re in a foul temper,” observed the king.

  “You’re right, as usual.”

  “You disapprove of my marriage with this Hittite princess.”

  “Right again.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She’ll do you no good.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Lotus and I know snakes. To find life within their venom, you have to be an expert. And this Hittite viper is liable to strike in a way that even the reptile expert couldn’t predict.”

  “But you’ve made me immune to snakebite.”

  Setau grumbled. In fact, starting in their teens, he had been dosing Ramses with a potion containing tiny amounts of venom, building up to a point where the king could survive any type of bite.

  “You put too much faith in your power, Majesty. Lotus thinks you’re practically immortal, but I’m convinced the Hittite woman is up to no good.”

  “They say she’s madly in love,” Lotus murmured.

  “Exactly!” exclaimed her husband. “And when love turns to hate, it’s a terrifying weapon. This woman will obviously seek revenge for her country. She’s found the perfect battlefield—the royal palace! But of course, Ramses won’t listen to me.”

  The Pharaoh turned to Lotus.

  “What’s your opinion?”

  “Mathor is beautiful, shrewd, ambitious, and . . . Hittite.”

  “I won’t forget it,” promised Ramses.

  The king was carefully reading the report Ahmeni had submitted. Balder and more pallid than ever, the king’s private secretary had summed up Serramanna’s incendiary claims in a steady and elegant hand.

  “Uri-Teshoop as Ahsha’s murderer, and the Libyan Malfi as his accomplice . . . It all fits together, but we have no proof.”

  “No court would hear the case,” Ahmeni agreed.

  “Have you ever heard of this Malfi?”

  “I looked through the records at the State Department, studied Ahsha’s notes, and questioned our Libyan specialists. Malfi, it seems, is a warlord with a grudge against Egypt.”

  “Is this just a bunch of misfits or a real threat to Egypt?”

  Ahmeni thought before replying. “I wish I could say he’s harmless, but rumor has it that Malfi has formed a federation of several formerly warring clans.”

  “Is that rumor or fact?”

  “The desert patrol hasn’t been able to locate their camp.”

  “And yet this Malfi has entered Egypt, killed a fellow Libyan in his tannery here in Pi-Ramses, and gotten clean away!”

  Ahmeni dreaded Ramses’ anger; he rarely let it show, but when it broke loose, it was violent.

  “We have no idea what kind of harm he can do.”

  “If we don’t know our enemies, how can we govern the country?”

  Ramses rose and walked to his tall office window, where he could stare straight at the sun without damaging his eyes. The sun was his astral protector; each day it gave him the energy to fulfill his office, no matter how difficult the tasks he faced.

  “We mustn’t overlook Malfi,” declared the king.

  “The Libyans are in no position to attack us!”

  “A handful of demons can sow trouble, Ahmeni. This Libyan lives in the desert, gathering destructive forces that he dreams of using against us. It wouldn’t be a war like the one we led against the Hittites, but another kind of confrontation, more indirect, yet no less violent. I sense Malfi’s hatred. It’s growing, and it’s heading my way.”

  Not so long ago, Nefertari had been at his side, using her psychic gifts to guide his course. Since she had taken her place in the heavens, Ramses had sensed that her spirit lived on in him and continued to inform his decisions.

  “Serramanna can conduct an in-depth investigation,” Ahmeni proposed.

  “Anything else we need to go over, old friend?”

  “A scant hundred problems, the same as any other day, all highly urgent.”

  “I suppose it’s no use asking you to get some rest.”

  “The day there are no more problems to solve is the day I rest.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  With ashes and natron (a mixture of sodium carbonate and bicarbonate), the deftest of the palace masseuses rubbed Mathor’s skin to cleanse it of impurities. Then she lathered the young queen with soap made from the bark and cortex of the desert date, a tree rich in saponine, and asked her to lie down on the heated tiles for a rubdown. The specially scented pomade eased muscle tension and perfumed the body.

  Mathor was in heaven. Her father may have been Emperor of Hatti, but at home no one had ever tended her with such care and skill. Makeup artists and manicurists plied their trade to perfection, and the new Great Royal Wife felt more beautiful by the day. And she needed to be beautiful if she were to win Ramses’ heart. Radiant with love and happiness, the young queen felt irresistible.

  “Now for the wrinkle cream,” announced the masseuse.

  “At my age? You must be mad,” Mathor bridled.

  “The fight against aging should begin before it’s too late.”

  “But . . .”

  “Trust me, Your Majesty. To me, a Queen of Egypt’s beauty is an affair of state.”

  Won over, Mathor let the masseuse apply costly pomade to her face, prepared from honey, red natron, powdered alabaster, fenugreek seed, and ass’s milk.

  The initial sensation of coolness gave way to a pleasant warmth, banishing old age and ugliness.

  Mathor attended banquets and receptions, was entertained in the homes of the rich and noble, and visited the harems where women were taught weaving, music, and poetry. Each day her initiation into the Egyptian art of living brought exciting new discoveries.

  Everything was even more beautiful than she’d dreamed. She barely thought of Hattusa, the sad gray capital of her youth, a living emblem of Hatti’s military might. Here in Pi-Ramses there were no high walls, but rather palm trees, ponds, and houses inlaid with colorful tiles that made Ramses’ capital the Turquoise City, a garden of earthly delights.

  The Hittite princess had dreamed of Egypt, and now Egypt belonged to her! She was its queen, respected by all.

  Still, she wondered what power was really hers. She knew that Nefertari had shared the daily work of governing with Ramses and had taken a real part in conducting affairs of state. She had been the force behind the peace agreement with Hatti, even helping to draft the treaty.

  Yet while Mathor basked in queenly privilege, she saw so little of Ramses! He did make passionate and tender love to her, but remained distant. She held no domi
nion over the king. And she had learned nothing about state secrets.

  Mathor considered this a temporary stalemate. Eventually she would win Ramses’ love; she would dominate him. Intelligence, beauty, and deceit would be her three weapons. The battle would be long and difficult, for Ramses was a worthy opponent; yet the young Hittite did not doubt the outcome for a moment. She had always gotten anything she really wanted. And what she wanted now was to become a queen so renowned that she would replace even the memory of Nefertari.

  “Your Majesty,” murmured the chambermaid, “I think that Pharaoh is out in the garden.”

  “Go see, and if he is, come right back and tell me.”

  Why hadn’t Ramses stopped to see her? The king was not in the habit of taking a late-morning break. What unusual event could have made him depart from his schedule?

  The chambermaid returned in a tizzy. “It’s Pharaoh, all right, Your Majesty.”

  “And he’s alone?”

  “He is.”

  “Give me my lightest and simplest dress.”

  “Why not the sheer linen with red embroidery and—”

  “No, something plain. Just hurry.”

  “What jewelry shall I bring?”

  “None.”

  “And your wig?”

  “No wig, either. Now get going!”

  Ramses was sitting cross-legged at the foot of a sycamore tree with a broad crown and shimmering foliage, laden with green and red fruit. The king was dressed in the traditional kilt that Old Kingdom pharaohs had worn when the pyramids were being built. On his wrists were two golden bracelets.

  As Mathor watched him, she could see he was talking to someone.

  Barefoot, she crept closer. A light wind sent a silken rustle through the sycamore leaves. The young queen was stunned to discover that Ramses was indeed deep in conversation—with his lounging dog, Watcher.