by Max Overton
There was always a danger of snakes among the rushes and reeds, and on one occasion, Ament scooped the boy up out of harm's way and pointed out the black sinuous body of Iaret, the risen one of the goddess Wadjet, the royal cobra.
"Leave it alone and it will leave you alone--most times. Never provoke it, for its bite is death."
After the first time, Ament would scour the pond edges for the deadly snakes before the boy came anywhere near it, and if he found one would coax it into a wicker basket and have it taken outside the city boundaries to be released. He never considered killing one as they were the sacred protectors of the royal family and he respected them too much. After clearing the vegetation of its ophidian dangers, it might be several days before a new one took up residence, but Ament was ever vigilant.
***
Ament received packages of food from his sister from time to time, and a favourite dish was a thin pastry shell stuffed with almonds, honey and spices. It was a dish that stemmed from the northern regions of the Great Sea beyond the lands controlled by Kemet, and the recipe had come to her through her Kaftor husband. The packages, when they arrived, were often battered and oozing sweet stickiness, but Ament eagerly opened them and often shared them with Seti-Merenptah, who loved all things sweet.
On this occasion, the young prince had had a troubled night and had fallen asleep after the noon meal. The package was delivered to Ament, who took it around to the Prince's quarters to share it, but found him asleep. Instead, he opened it in the privacy of his own room. He noted that the seal on the jar had been broken and the chipped neck was sticky, but looked inside the shallow pot and smiled. It was filled with almond sweetmeats, and he dipped a finger into the sticky mess and sucked it, murmuring with delight.
"Little Seti would love this," he murmured to himself. "If he had not been asleep, we would have eaten it all by now. I must remember to take him some when he wakes." Ament lifted one of the cakes from the pot and took a small bite, savouring the flavours of almond, of honey, of cumin, "and something else...something almost bitter..." He put the cake down and licked his fingers again.
His lips tingled and he rubbed them absently as he put the jar containing the cakes to one side. He stepped outside his room, intending to make his way down to the barracks, but had not gone more than twenty paces before he broke out in a sweat and had to steady himself against a wall as his legs jerked. A servant hurried over when he beckoned.
"Commander Ament, you are not well?"
"I...I don't know..." His stomach clenched and he tasted again the almonds and honey and cumin. "Poison," he gasped, clutching at the servant. "Fetch a physician." As the servant ran off, Ament fell to his knees, feeling his heart start to race and his vision blur. He stuck a finger down his throat, gagged, and thrust it further down, collapsing onto hands and knees as his stomach heaved and a burning taste filled his mouth.
The physician arrived very soon after to find Ament curled up on the floor in a puddle of vomit, moaning weakly and shaking. While assistants carried Ament to a nearby room and laid him on a makeshift bed, the physician bent over and sniffed the vomit, and then dipped a fingertip into the mess and touched the tip of his tongue with it. He grimaced and spat it out before hurrying after his patient.
"Find me charred wood and scrape the black off it," he ordered one of his assistants. To another he said, "bring me an emetic," and to a third, "darken the room with curtains." A fourth was sent to take the news to the Regent.
Tausret arrived shortly after the emetic had done its work and the vomit was being cleaned from the bed and the convulsing man on it.
"What is the poison?" Tausret asked the physician.
"It is sometimes called 'the choker', Majesty. Uncommon and expensive, as the poison comes from far to the east."
"But you can cure it? He will live, won't he?"
"It is almost invariably fatal, Majesty, but it seems Commander Ament made himself vomit as soon as he realised the effects were upon him. I also administered an emetic and now..." The physician beckoned as his assistant entered the room with a small dish full of black lumps and powder. He instructed him to feed Ament as much of the charcoal as he could, telling him to massage his throat to make him swallow.
"Charcoal?" Tausret queried.
"It has been known to work, but no one knows how."
"So he'll live?"
"That is in the hands of the gods."
"I shall have a hundred prayers offered up for him."
"Thank you, Majesty."
"In what was the poison administered?" Tausret asked.
"From the contents of his stomach it was either something he ate at the noon meal..."
"He ate from the common dish and everything was tasted besides."
"Then it was the almond sweetmeat. He is fortunate he consumed no more than a bite."
"I will have his rooms searched for the remainder. Look after him, physician, for this man is important to me."
Tausret left the physician to his work and went to her son's room where he was awoken from his sleep to be told that Ament was indisposed and could not play with him that afternoon. "Play inside, this once, my beloved son," she said. She drew the nurse aside and whispered to her. "Be vigilant. My enemy has struck at me and I fear for the life of my child."
"No one will get past me, Majesty," the nurse assured her.
"I will put armed men outside the door. No one is to pass in or out without my permission."
Seti-Merenptah played happily enough within his room for a while, moving little clay and wood figurines around, pretending they were his armies, but then grew bored. He could hear the sounds of other children outside and pleaded with his nurse to be allowed out. She refused and suggested that he perhaps sit by the window and watch the other children instead.
"Your mother the Queen commands you stay in your room today."
"But I haven't done anything wrong. It's not fair."
Seti-Merenptah sat by the window, but with a scowl on his face. He could hear but not see the other children as they ran and called near the menagerie, but he could see his favourite pond. The sun sparkled on water ruffled by a cool breeze, and the reeds and rushes round the edge swayed back and forth. A feeling of longing came over him, and then he saw a man carrying a large wicker basket. The man approached the pond, looked around as if to see if anyone was watching, and then squatted down.
"Nurse Henet," Seti-Merenptah called. "What is that man doing?"
"What man is that, child?" came Henet's voice from the next room.
"The one by the pond. He's carrying a large wicker basket."
"How should I know? Now play quietly, child. I'm busy."
After a moment, the man took the cover off the basket, tipped it toward the water and sprang back a pace.
"Oh, do look, Henet. Something's happening."
Henet grumbled, but came into the room and looked out of the window. "It's just a man with a basket. Now, go and play, I'm busy." She turned and bustled off.
Moments later, the man by the pond reached for the now obviously empty basket, and hurried away with it, after giving the palace a searching look.
"What is he doing?" Seti-Merenptah asked himself. He thought of calling out to his nurse again but she had not seemed interested, so he remained silent, staring at the pond and the mystery in its reeds and rushes. At last he could stand it no longer, and after looking to see if he was observed (he wasn't) climbed over the window sill and dropped into low bushes. He waited a moment for his nurse's angry reprimand and when it did not come, ran across the gardens to the pond.
The breeze was cool on his skin, and the sun's rays warm, but he felt a tingle of excitement as he stared at the muddy ground and low but thick vegetation that bordered the pool. Seti-Merenptah stepped forward slowly, following the trail of crushed plants that the man had left. Mud squeezed between his toes and he looked around avidly for whatever it was the man had tipped out of the basket. The plants right at the water's edg
e seemed undisturbed and were thicker, taller, rising to his waist, so after a brief hesitation, Seti-Merenptah stepped through, pushing blindly into the reeds, his bare foot seeking purchase on the slippery ground.
Something moved beneath his foot as he put his weight on it and he felt a sudden blow to his calf, followed instantly by flooding pain. He screamed and stumbled back, his limbs already failing him as he fell onto the ground beside the pool. The pain enveloped him and he screamed again, dimly hearing answering shouts drawing nearer. His vision blurred and despite the horrible pain in his leg, he started to feel like he wanted to sleep. The first person reached him and called to his nurse who screamed and ran to him, cradling him in her arms. Seti-Merenptah lost consciousness as his nurse picked him up.
They carried him inside the palace and called the physician, recognising the puncture wounds on the boy's calf as having been made by a snake. Two men thrashed at the poolside vegetation with sticks but retreated when they heard an angry hiss and saw the spread hood of a cobra rise up out of the reeds.
"Iaret," they told the physician. "The risen one of Wadjet is responsible."
"Then there is no hope. Send for the Queen for her son is dying."
Tausret arrived, but Seti-Merenptah was already past all help and comfort, his little chest heaving as he struggled against the creeping paralysis of the cobra's venom. She wailed aloud, and sent runners to the priests of every god, but minutes later the little prince's body shuddered and he died in his mother's arms.
Chapter 30
Queen Tausret speaks:
Truly I am the most unfortunate of women. My darling boy has been snatched from me, leaving me alone. And the way in which he died...in pain and terror, looking to me for help and I could offer none. Ah, Seti-Merenptah, my beloved, the light and hope of Kemet, favoured one of the gods...what am I saying? If ever I needed proof that the gods have turned against the House of Ramesses it lies in the method they chose in my son's death. Wadjet, goddess protector of the Royal House has struck down the heir by her symbol of the risen one, leaving none to succeed his father Userkheperure Seti.
The line of Userkheperure Seti has come to an end, and now all rests on the scrawny shoulders of the present king Akhenre Siptah, son of the traitor Amenmesse. He is an unlikely king, but now he is the only one we have. Ah, Seti-Merenptah, my beloved...why have you been taken from me?
***
Days pass, and I grieve. I wail and throw dust upon my head, rending my clothes and scratching my face in my agony--and the palace grieves with me. The constant cries of women reverberate through the halls and rooms of the palace, and the sounds of the city of Men-nefer are muted. I am told that the whole country is stunned by the death of my little boy...it is too much. I cry again, deep, racking sobs that tear my heart from my chest...
What can I do? I do not know a single woman who has not lost children and there are many like me who have lost all their children--yet they have husbands to sow their fields once more, and I have none. Truly, I am alone in the world.
***
Every official has called upon me, offering up their condolences and public sorrow, chief among them the king and Chancellor Bay. When my grief was fresh upon my face and in my heart, I accepted their words without weighing them, but time has passed and I lie awake at night thinking of my little boy now lying in the Place of Beauty...
***
I consider Bay and think that his outward show of grief must be tempered by relief. The agreement we reached nearly five years ago was that I would rule as Regent and that Siptah would be king until Seti-Merenptah came of age. But now that the heir is dead, there is no one to replace the king on the throne. Siptah is secure, and Bay's position has been immeasurably strengthened. What will he do when the time of mourning has passed?
***
With an effort I have thrust my grief behind me. I am still the Regent and Kemet has need of me, though I think my usefulness has ended. The balance of power has changed and soon I will face a man and a boy determined to wrest the last vestige of power from me. I am tired, worn out, and lack the will to continue, so perhaps I should let Akhenre Siptah become king in fact as well as name, and allow Bay to seize the power for which he hungers. I can retire to estates in Per-Ramesses and let the last scion of the House of Ramesses do as he wills for good or ill. Why should I care any longer?
Ament came to see me, having risen shakily from his sickbed. He looked old and worn and the death of Seti-Merenptah obviously weighed heavily upon him, for his first words to me were not of support but of self-blame.
"Kill me, Lady Tausret, for I do not deserve to live. I have failed you and I have failed your son whom I regarded as if my own. I let my guard down and he died, so the blame is mine."
His words brought the tears fresh to my eyes, but I sought to ease his pain. "Do not blame yourself, dear Ament, for the gods themselves struck down my son. Wadjet herself sent the sacred cobra."
"And yet I scoured the edges of that pool for snakes just the day before, as I do constantly. There were none. Or none that I could find. Perhaps I did not look hard enough."
"Nobody blames you, Ament, least of all I. I know full well the love you bear for me and for my son, and if you had been with him that day, this would never have happened." I stretched out my hand and touched his arm gently. "What caused your sickness? Was it poisoning, as I have heard?"
Ament made an effort to thrust away his pain and answer me. "The physician told me it was a rare poison from the east, administered in a jar of almond and honey cakes sent by my sister. The seal was broken but I thought nothing of it. It was a virulent poison and if I had taken more than a bite of cake and licked the sweetness from my fingers more, I would now be dead."
"The man who broke the seal introduced the poison, no doubt. It was addressed to you. Who would wish you dead?"
Ament smiled wryly. "I can think of a few names, and you can be sure I will be making enquiries. I'm just thankful the physician was near at hand and recognised the poison."
"I will reward him with gold for saving your life...what is wrong?"
"I've just realised that if Seti-Merenptah had been awake, I would have shared the cakes with him and we would both be dead. I always shared the cakes my sister sent...people knew that. This may have been an attempt on his life, my Lady."
"Or just on yours, Ament," I said. "Chance prevented my son from eating the poisoned cakes, but the gods themselves led him down the path to his death by their holy instrument. You are not to blame, Ament."
"I found no snake there the day before. I looked, but not well enough."
"Do you not imagine the gods could place a snake there at any time? After you had searched? We cannot fight the gods, Ament, but must accept their will, no matter how hard it is to bear. And I have need of you, my friend. I am all alone in the world now--without a husband and without a son--and beset by men and women who seek only their own advantage. I need a friend, a true friend. I need you, Ament, as I have before."
Ament sighed and shook his head. "I am here for you as ever, my Lady. What would you have me do?"
"Advise me. While my son lived, I had a purpose in life, namely, making sure that he ascended the throne of his father. But now the last of Userkheperure's line is dead, so where lies my purpose? Siptah is my nephew and I would be content to let him rule alone were it not for the presence and influence of Bay. Should I just step aside, retire to my family estates and let Bay rule in my place, or should I do something else? But if something else, then what? The lamp that lit my path has gone out and I stand here in darkness."
Ament nodded and thought for a while before saying, "Do nothing precipitate, my Lady. An action once taken is harder to undo than one merely considered. You are still Regent, and were going to remain so for another year or two anyway, until Siptah came of age. Nothing has changed there.
"As for Bay, well, your presence deters him from actions that might harm the Ma'at of Kemet. He is an ambitious man and re
lated to the king. That might be enough to lead him into wrongdoing, though I hesitate to blame him for trying to poison me or cause a snake to bit your son. I have not even looked to see if his hand is in this matter.
"So my advice for now, Lady, is be Regent, govern Kemet, encourage Siptah to be the best king he can be. After all, he is the grandson of Baenre Merenptah, if not the son of Userkheperure Seti."
"You have spoken wisely, dear Ament," I said. "I shall heed your advice and do nothing to change what is. You shall determine who sent you the poison and if it was meant for my son as well. If it was, then I shall visit my vengeance upon them, both for your sake and for that of my son."
Chapter 31
Year 5 of Akhenre Siptah
The shock of the heir's death gripped the palace and its grip was slow to loosen. People fell silent as Tausret appeared, and business was conducted in hushed tones, even as they watched avidly for signs of what the future might hold. Seti-Merenptah had been well liked, but he had been an infant and a lot of the favour shown him had been because of who he was. It was open knowledge that he would ascend the throne when he came of age, but now that he had been removed, there was really only one person to back in the long term--King Akhenre Siptah. The only area of doubt remaining was whether Queen Tausret would now step down as Regent and hand over the support and care of the king to his uncle Ramesse Kha'amen-teru Bay.
Factions that had divided the palace became less pronounced for a time--after all, what was the point of supporting a dead child? Then those who had supported Seti-Merenptah and Queen Tausret saw that the other faction was gaining support and felt betrayed. They started to voice suspicions that the child's death had not been an accident and hinted at a conspiracy to grasp power. Supporters of Bay resented this interpretation and the palace people became polarised once more.
***
