Scrivener sniffed at the indelicacy.
“Sorry,” Smith said.
“Listen, old boy: if you’d only give over to Wingfield once in a while, be more cooperative, less…less haughty…”
“Less haughty, he says! It’s Wingfield you want for haughtiness, not I. And I’ll be hanged if I let that red popinjay strut about the colony as if he owns it.”
“He fair does. He is a shareholder.”
“Still…”
“And it might come to hanging one day, Smith. Not this time, and maybe not the next. But soon or late…” Scrivener trailed off. The landing boat entered the surf, grounded on the strand. “I’d be sorry to see you hanged,” Scrivener said meditatively. “Christ knows there aren’t enough good men on this voyage. We can’t spare a one. Not even the commoners.”
Smith turned to him with a rebuke, but he saw the humor sparkling in Scrivener’s eyes. The man laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Though Scrivener was slight and only a gentlemen unused to real work, his grip was hard and sure.
They watched in tense silence as the landing party made their way up the strand. The men on the shore arrayed themselves in a rough half-circle, moved tentatively toward the thick stands of salt grass and wiry brush. After a time they ventured further, poking about with the muzzles of their matchlocks, turning this way and that to stare at the landscape which was suddenly surrounding them, holding them, lulling them.
“So far, so well,” Scrivener muttered.
And in that very moment, Smith noted a quick blur, a black shape sliding between the trunks of two thin oaks.
“Merciful Christ,” Smith said.
“Your pardon?”
“They don’t see….” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted with all his might. “Ahoy!”
But the landing party could not hear him over the pounding of the surf. Nor could they see what Smith saw from the vantage of the Susan Constant’s deck: the glide of tense, muscular bodies approaching, the sinister crouch, the flick of a deadly hand-sign among the seaside brush.
One of them rose up from the saltgrass, a full head taller than any Englishman, the glaring face divided red and black like a devil from a child’s nightmare. In one rapid, unthinking movement the natural raised the black arch of a bow, drew, released. Before Smith’s eyes could track the first arrow, another was on the string, and then it too was flying. The strand exploded in a confusion of bodies, the red-and-black of the naturals rising from concealment, the panicked flash of sun on armor as the men turned and cried out and blundered into one another. Somebody got off a shot; a blue ball of powder smoke expanded in slow motion; an instant later the report of the fired matchlock cracked across Smith’s ears. Somebody – Archer, Smith thought – held aloft both hands in a pleading gesture, and immediately fell back on the sand, writhing.
“Cannon,” a hoarse voice bellowed in warning. Smith clapped his hands to his ears in the same instant the cannon fired. The Susan Constant shuddered, a deep, bone-jarring, sickening tremor. The sulfurous stink of gunpowder burned Smith’s nostrils and eyes.
The devils on the shore fled.
The landing party scrambled back to their boat and rowed frantically for the Susan Constant. By the time they were hauled aboard, Wingfield was shaking and pale. The man kept whatever great oratory he’d composed to himself.
The men hauled Archer out of the boat, laid him carefully on the deck. The man made a repetitive rasping grunt which now and then turned to a high-pitched squeal of panic before he controlled himself and fell back to his gentlemanly grunting. Smith pushed through the crowd and gazed down at Archer. Each hand streamed with blood, pierced clean through the palms with a pair of sturdy arrows. Another man, one of the sailors, clutched at his upper thigh where a matched set of arrows bristled.
“Right,” Scrivener shouted. “Bring rum to dull their wits. Russell, boil a pot of wine. We’ll need to clean these wounds. Where’s the ship’s boy? Thomas Savage, fetch your sewing kit.”
Wingfield turned to stare out at the shore. He made no move to direct the men. Smith sidled up to him.
“Unfortunate,” Smith said quietly.
The glare Wingfield turned on him was sharp and dangerous, thick with loathing.
“I do think,” Smith murmured, trying for Scrivener’s sake to put some deference into his words, “that now would be an ideal time to open the box.”
“The box,” Wingfield burst out. He took a threatening step toward Smith, and Smith thought for one welcome moment that Wingfield might strike him, might give him the chance to retaliate. Then the man reined himself in, and seized the point of his beard in a shaking fist. “An excellent idea, John Smith.”
The sealed box was sent for, and once the men’s wounds were well in hand, Wingfied unsheathed his dagger, broke the wax coating the lock with a flourish, and pried open the lid. The parchment inside was tidily rolled. It hissed as it came open in Wingfield’s hands.
“By decree of the Virginia Company,” Wingfield said, voice booming, “a ruling council of seven is appointed. The council shall consist of: Edward-Maria Wingfield, gentleman and shareholder…” he took a long and savory moment to stare into Smith’s eyes. “Bartholomew Gosnold, gentleman and investor; John Ratcliffe, gentleman and investor; Christopher Newport, captain of the Susan Constant; George Kendall, gentleman and investor; John Martin, gentleman…”
Wingfield stopped short. The men on the deck shuffled, jostling one another, murmuring.
“And?” Scrivener prompted.
“And John Smith, soldier and adventurer,” Wingfield concluded. His mouth twisted, a sour, hate-filled leer.
Smith stepped to Wingfield’s side. He held out his wrists to his fellow councilman, presenting the fetters lock side up.
He had come to a new world, and John Smith would never wear chains again.
*.*.*
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NOTES ON THE LANGUAGE USED
This novel is set in historical Egypt, about 1500 years before the Common Era and roughly 1200 years before Alexander the Great conquered the Nile. With the dawning of the Greek period, a shift in the old Egyptian language began. Proper nouns (and, we can assume, other parts of the language) took on a decidedly Greek bent, which today most historians use when referring to ancient Egyptians and their world.
This presents a bit of a tangle for a historical novelist like myself. Culturally, we are familiar with Greek-influenced names like Thebes, Rameses, and Isis. In fact, even the name Egypt is not Egyptian; it has a long chain of derivations through Greek, Latin, and French. However, the historic people in my novel would have scratched their heads over such foreign words for their various places, people, and gods. And linguistically, the modern English-speaking reader will probably have a difficult time wrapping her head and tongue around such tricky names as Djhtms – an authentic and very common man's name for the time and place where Sovereign of Stars is set (rather the equivalent of a Mike or Tom or Jim).
On the balance, cultural authenticity is important to me, and so I've reverted to ancient Egyptian versions of various proper nouns and other words in the majority of cases. A glossary of ancient Egyptian words used in this book, and their more familiar Greco-English translations, follows.
In some cases, to avoid headaches and to preserve (I hope) the flow of the narrative, I have kept modernized versions of certain words in spite of their inauthentic nature. Notably, I use Egypt rather than the authentic Kmet. It is a word that instantly evokes the reader's own romantic perceptions of the land and time, whatever those may be, and its presence in the story can only aid my own attempts at world-building. I have opted for the fairly Greeky, English-friendly name Thutmose in place of Djhtms, which
is simply a tongue-twister; and the word Pharaoh, which is French in origin (the French have always been enthusiastic Egyptologists) rather than the Egyptian pra'a, simply because Pharaoh is such a familiar word in the mind of a contemporary reader. Wherever possible, I have used “Pharaoh” sparingly, only to avoid repetitiveness, and have instead opted for the simple translation of “king.” I've also decided, after much flip-flopping, to use the familiar Greek name Horus for the falcon-headed god, rather than the authentic name Horu. The two are close, but in every case reading Horu in my sentences interrupted the flow and tripped me up. Horus flies more smoothly on his falcon wings; ditto for Hathor, who should properly be called Hawet-Hor, but seems to prefer her modernized name.
As always, I hope the reader appreciates these concessions to historical accuracy and to comfort.
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GLOSSARY
ankh – the breath of life; the animating spirit that makes humans live
Ankh-Tawy – Memphis
Anupu – Anubis
deby – hippopotamus
Djeser-Djeseru – “Holiest of Holies,” the name of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, known today as Dier-el Bahri.
Hapi-Ankh – Apis, the bull god worshiped in Ankh-Tawy (Memphis).
Heqa-Khasewet – Hyksos
Ipet-Isut – “Holy House”; the temple complex at Karnak
Iset – Isis
Iteru – Nile
Iunet – Dendera
ka – not quite in line with the Western concept of a “soul” or “spirit,” a ka was an individual's vital essence, that which made him or her live.
Kush – Nubia
maat – A concept difficult for modern Westerners to accurately define: something like righteousness, something like divine order, something like justice. It is to a sense of “God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world” as the native Hawai'ian word aloha is to an overall feeling of affection, pleasure, well-being, and joyful anticipation. It is also the name of the goddess of the concept – the goddess of “what is right.”
mawat – mother; also used to refer to mother-figures such as nurses
Medjay – An Egyptian citizen of Nubian descent
rekhet – people of the common class; peasants
sepat – nome, or district
seshep – sphinx
sesheshet – sistrum; ceremonial rattle
tjati – vizier; governor of a sepat or district
Waser – Osiris, god of the afterlife, the underworld, and the dead. Also used as a prefix when referring to a deceased king.
Waset – Thebes
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HISTORICAL NOTE: THE SEKHMET BED
I did my best in writing The Sekhmet Bed to balance clarity and the comfort of the reader against accuracy of historical setting. As a result, many of the names used in this book may be unfamiliar to the casual student of Egyptian history. It was extremely important to me to use the correct names for cities and gods – correct for my Ahmose, Tut, Nofret, and Hatet, who lived a good thousand years before Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, and Greek names and styles began to eclipse old Egyptian culture. Thus most proper nouns and even some “everyday words” have been rendered in ancient Egyptian (or the Anglicized equivalent; the Egyptians did not record most vowel sounds in their written language, so exact pronunciations are anybody's guess.) I have included a glossary to assist the reader, and to explain which words were left in their more familiar Greek or French forms, and why.
Speaking of Tut, this novel deals with the beginning of the Thutmoside dynasty, one of the most powerful, influential, and unusual families in ancient Egyptian history. This is also a family that is not well-known to most readers of historical fiction. Thutmose I was the founder of the line, and he was indeed non-royal by birth and a soldier of some renown. His marriage to Ahmose, daughter or possibly sister of the previous Pharaoh, legitimized his right to the throne. I call him Tut in this book because I liked the way a secret nickname built an age-appropriate closeness between young Ahmose and her new husband; but in The Sekhmet Bed, this king Tut should not be confused with the King Tut, whose full name was Thutankhamun, and who ruled Egypt very briefly about 115 years after this book takes place.
Real fans of Egyptian history will be muddled by the names of our Ahmose’s mother and grandmother. Historically, the women in Ahmose’s family all had the prefix “Ahmose” attached to their names, so her mother was truly called Ahmose-Meritamun and her grandmother Ahmose-Nefertari; and there were more Ahmoses in her family as well, including a king named Ahmose who was a revolutionary and a very important fellow in Egyptian history. For the sake of avoiding headaches, I thought it best to drop as many Ahmoses from the scene as possible, and shortened the old queens’ names to Meritamun and Nefertari. I hope the reader appreciates this choice.
As for Mutnofret, she was a real woman, was indeed a lesser wife of Thutmose I (rather than simply a concubine), and was probably related in some way to Ahmose – perhaps a cousin. She was probably not Ahmose’s sister, and almost definitely not an elder sister, but I liked the tension such a twist brought to my fictional portrayal of the Thutmosides.
There is considerable debate among Egyptologists as to where Thutmose’s sons Wadjmose, Amunmose, and Ramose came from. Some believe they were sons existing from a possible previous marriage to a non-royal wife, in the days before Thutmose was the Pharaoh. They may have been the sons of Mutnofret, and based on how the Thutmosides are depicted on tomb and temple walls, and the fact that a statuette of Mutnofret was found in Wadjmose's funerary chapel, I found this the likeliest scenario.
What is clear is that Thutmose I loved his sons deeply, and that all three of them preceded him in death. He had a mortuary chapel built to Wadjmose’s memory, and depicted his son’s name in the ring of a cartouche – an extremely rare honor that was typically only granted to kings and queens. The care Thutmose I took to memorialize his lost child speaks volumes as to what kind of a man he was, and what kind of a family he must have led – sensitive, complicated, and tragic.
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HISTORICAL NOTE: THE CROOK AND FLAIL
And here is the part of the novel where I make amends for all the liberties I took with history – or try to, at least.
It's a funny thing, being a historical novelist. My job is to find some kind of credible balance between truth – or what we may reasonably call “truth” as it applies to events 3500 years gone – and creative, entertaining lies. There are some things known about Hatshepsut and her family and courtiers and many things not known, but reasonably suspected based on the things known of other Pharaohs, other times, other politicians. I am a great lover of history, but also a great lover of story, and it is the responsibility and privilege of the historical novelist to bring long-dead people back to life in order to excite and inspire the reader. This is often a difficult task. Many decisions must be made, many options considered. Often fact must be delicately discarded in favor of entertainment – because, after all, who wants to read a novel without dramatic conflict? Palace intrigue, political peril, battlefield drama, and sexual tension – these are the reasons why a modern reader picks up a historical novel.
Faithful students of Egyptology no doubt rolled their eyes at the very mention of Senenmut's name. Oh, brother, I could hear them saying as I wrote the Senenmut scenes. Another Hatshepsut novel where she has an affair with her steward. Well, yes. Another one. A forbidden romance between the ruler of the mightiest empire in the world and her humble, common-born servant is quite exciting and romantic, even if in actual history Senenmut was almost certainly not Hatshepsut's lover – although I imagine, based on his astounding list of titles, responsibilities, and honors, that he was quite a fascinating and intelligent man, and all sorts of women probably found themselves in great admiration of his talents, even the She-King. That old “Senenmut and Hatshepsut sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G” trope d
oesn't appear in Egyptian historical fiction without good reason. Various inscriptions, including in Senenmut's own tomb, describe him as one who variously “gladdened daily the king's [Hatshepsut's] heart,” and even “served in the palace of her heart,” and “saw to all the pleasures of the king.” In a modern western context, this sounds rather romantic – even somewhat racy. However, I doubt very much that the ancient Egyptians used such phrases in the same context as we.
Somewhat more indicative (but not by much) of the possible historicity of a Senenmut-Hatshepsut love connection was the especially close relationship Senenmut had with Neferure, and the intriguing lack of any mention of wife or children in Senenmut's tomb. He was careful to include a tribute to his favorite horse in his tomb, but no word on women or children other than his mother, Hatshesput, and Neferure. Virtually every other known Egyptian man's tomb made much of all the people who loved the departed, including spouse and offspring. Senenmut apparently never married. (Either that, or he was a great misogynist to whom women simply did not matter. That seems an unlikely stance for any ancient Egyptian, but especially for one who served the female Pharaoh so devotedly.) These facts have led to casual speculation that perhaps he was the real father of Neferure – and while I find this highly unlikely as real history (Hatshepsut and Senenmut both strike me as too professional and political-minded to engage in such dangerous tomfoolery; adultery was not smiled upon by the Egyptians) it does lend just enough plausibility to make it work quite well as an exciting fictional device. I am the faithful servant of story, as Senenmut was the faithful servant of the king's pleasure.
Fans of Egyptology will also note my use of Atenism as a plot device. The Aten – the physical, impersonal aspect of the sun, as opposed to the various personal aspects which included Amun, Amun-Re, Re-Horakhty, and more – is best known as the central god and the catalyst for the dramatic if brief political and social revolution known as the Amarna period, which followed the events in The Crook and Flail by some four or five generations. Because the Aten's popularity seems to have surged out of nowhere and then vanished again during the rule of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, it's easy to assume that the Aten was the original creation of Akhenaten. But in fact it was an old but minor god, definitely documented early in the 18th Dynasty and possibly referenced as far back as the 12th. The Aten had been around for quite some time, garnering its few followers here and there. I turned to its minor cult when I realized that Ankhhor needed some plausible motivation that would make him heedless of how he offended Amun and the other principal gods of Hatshepsut's time. If he didn't believe in the power of those other gods, he would not balk at attempting any atrocity against the divine royal family. Making Ankhhor an Atenist was the closest I could plausibly come to making him an atheist. (And I feel compelled to point out here that I do not think atheists are any more likely to attempt a royal assassination than anybody else.) And perhaps I have other motivations for establishing the presence of the Aten early in my body of work.
The She-King: The Complete Saga Page 98
