“I asked Sheri the same question. She says not.”
“Then we must give Nefertiti the weapon she needs to force Ramose to meet her demands, lest she reveal everything to Horemheb or the old Pharaoh.”
“But that would give her even more reason to be rid of Aset,” Mena objected.
“Not if we shape the weapon to our purpose,” I told him. “We know the priests had no part in the death of Tutankhamen’s son, or the Queen. Since Ankhesenamen was Nefertiti’s daughter, the Sacred Council probably sees Horemheb’s hand behind both deeds. So we must make sure Ramose learns the truth—that it was his wife who stole the breath from her own child and grandchild—and in that way come to realize that his daughter could be next.”
“The question is, will Ramose believe it?” Mena asked, still in doubt.
“If he is told by someone he trusts,” Pagosh assured him.
“Me,” I said. “Ramose is sure to hear that I was called to the palace tonight. He will expect to hear what I learned there from my own lips. I will suggest that he send Aset away for a time, perhaps down the river to the priestesses of Hathor. When he asks why—and he will—I will tell him.”
“And Nefertiti?” Mena asked. “Who will she believe?”
“Her servingwomen,” Pagosh volunteered. “They consider my wife to be simple and so do not guard their tongues in her presence. Nor would it occur to them that she uses them to her own purpose.”
DAY 3, FIRST MONTH OF HARVEST
Mena brought Senmut during the hours I receive the sick among Ramose’s workers, to tell me something that could not wait, he said.
“On the plain near Kadesh,” Senmut began, “I came upon a fight that ended with one man stopping the breath of another.” He glanced at Mena. “Has the General always distributed kat leaves to his men before a siege?”
Mena nodded. “A practice he learned from your people, who believe it gives them the strength of a god.”
“What it does is make them forget they cannot fly with the falcons, so they go into battle without the fear that makes men cautious. I suppose it could have been the kat, but his heart still spoke in the big vessel below his ear. I thought he might start breathing again, but after a few moments his heart slowed and then stopped.” Mena and I exchanged a look. “Are you going to tell me—” Senmut started, when a scream rent the quiet morning, followed by the furious yelping of a small dog.
Senmut rushed for the door with me right behind him. We followed our ears to the brewery, then through the narrow passageway between it and the breadmaker’s rising shed, where we came upon an old lean-to. A Nubian shaman stood before the rags draped across one end, jabbing at Tuli with a long stick. Barking and snarling all the while, the dog darted in and out, trying to sink his teeth into the black man’s leg.
Senmut sent the old man sprawling, scattering cowrie shells and animal teeth in every direction, and pushed his way through the rags. I signaled Tuli to stand guard over the shaman and followed Senmut inside, where a sputtering oil lamp cast flickering shadows across the face of an old Nubian hag. In her gnarled fist she held a sharpened piece of flint, which she waved at us in an eerie kind of greeting.
“Old Nanefer knows how to put her right, you’ll see,” she rasped, heedless of the blood dripping from her knife. “It is the worm disease that keeps her from becoming a woman.” Two younger Nubians kneeled on Aset’s shoulders to capture her hands, while two other women held her legs spread wide.
“Please make her stop,” Aset pleaded in a pitiful voice. I knocked aside the two women who pinned her arms while Senmut pushed the Nubian hag out of the way and took her place between Aset legs. Rising as best she could, Aset clung to my neck as sobs shook her body. Torn between wanting to see what the old crone had done and the need to comfort her, I put my lips to her hair.
“Hush, meri, hush. She will not touch you ever again, I promise. And Senmut will make it right, whatever she has done.” I had no way to know if I spoke the truth except when I called her beloved.
Senmut lashed the old crone in her native tongue, his voice harsh with anger, while Mena drove the other women from the hut, cursing them and the man outside. When I slipped my arm under her knees Aset stiffened with pain, causing my entire body to shake with such rage that I almost dropped her.
Ruka came running as we crossed the courtyard, his face contorted with worry and fear. “Is she hurt bad? Please Amen, don’t let it be bad. Is it, Tenre?”
I ignored his question. “Have you seen Pagosh?”
“He takes the Consort to the God’s Father across the river.”
I saw it all then. When Nefertiti learned of the High Priest’s plan to set her aside, she knew the priests had beaten her at her own game—to use Ramose to regain the throne. They had used her instead, to beget a granddaughter of the Magnificent Amenhotep, intending all along to discard Nefertiti when the time was right. And knowing from experience what her husband desired most from a woman—that the fire in her body burn as hot as the one she lit in his—she had arranged his punishment to fit his crime.
“Stay by the watchman’s gate,” I told Ruka, as we passed through the gate to my garden, “and send Pagosh to me the moment he returns.”
I laid Aset on my examining table and turned to Senmut. “Say what you need.”
“Water and the oldest wine you’ve got. Also some olive oil. Soft cloths that have been dried in the hot sun.”
“Anything else?” He would know what I meant.
“She is bleeding too much to tell for certain, but it appears the old crone sliced away only a piece of the inner labia.” I nodded and hurried to gather what he needed while Mena stood with one hand on her shoulder, stroking her tousled curls. Afterward I stood holding her hand, but try as I might, I could not blind myself to the visions that formed behind my eyes. With them came a desire for revenge so overwhelming that I could actually taste it—the sweet ambrosia that drives a man to maim or kill.
“All will be well,” Senmut murmured, so low I was not sure she heard him. “The wound will quickly heal. A few days of tenderness and some burning when she urinates, both easily treated. As for the other—” He glanced at me and shrugged.
“What does he mean?” Aset whispered, begging me with her eyes.
“If you want more than her body to heal,” I told him, “you must tell her everything, what you do and why.” He cocked an eyebrow, questioning the wisdom of that, but he does not know her as I do. To let what the old woman did to her stay hidden in darkness would allow it to fester like a putrid sore.
“I pour sour wine on the wound to clean it,” Senmut told her.
“I want to know what she did to me.”
“A woman is made like a flower, and little harm is done by taking only a petal away. It is the bud in the center that is the seat of pleasure for a woman.”
Aset turned her head toward me. “I read nothing of that in your scrolls.”
“Perhaps the physicians in the House of Life did not find it a seemly topic.”
Next Senmut described how she must treat her raw flesh. “The oil will keep it supple and also prevent the cut edges from growing together. A scar does not stretch, so you must clean yourself with warm water several times a day and apply more oil.” He paused. “Do you know why we want it to be able to stretch?”
“To allow a babe to pass through?” she guessed.
“Also, when the time comes, for your husband’s penis to penetrate your body without hurting you. There is little pleasure to be found in pain, for you or him, unless—”
“I know about men who take pleasure in causing pain, or in suffering it.” She showed no embarrassment in talking of what most women do not discuss even with their husbands. “But Tenre never told me—”
“Told you what?” I asked. She shrugged, avoiding my eyes.
I watched him sprinkle finely sieved wheat flour over her wound to stop the bleeding. Then he came to face Aset and squatted in order to bring his eyes level wi
th hers. “In the land of Punt and also some places in my own country, it is the practice to cut the young girls before their monthly flow begins. Why?” He shrugged. “The reasons differ, but are passed from mother to daughter, generation after generation. In Kush, where that old woman is from, they say a girl who is small for her age cannot grow because of a worm, so they cut away her female parts to release the worm and make her able to conceive a child. But you are no ignorant tribeswoman to believe such rubbish.”
Aset searched his face. “Don’t the women in your country learn to read or write?” He shook his head. “Would you want a woman like that for your wife?”
He smiled for the first time. “Before a week was out I would be forced to banish such a woman from my house, bringing the wrath of her father down on my head.”
She returned his smile. “I begin to understand why Nebet holds you in such high regard. She even insists you will be the equal of Tenre, one day, as a physician, I mean.” She brought my hand over her lips, perhaps to hide from him that she was teasing. “But you can never ever hope to rival the wisdom of her father.” I knew then that she was whole again, and glanced at Mena to find him grinning like a fool.
By then Senmut was, too. So his education continues, as does hers.
DAY 14, SECOND MONTH OF HARVEST
Re was sailing toward the western cliffs when I started back from the village of Ramose’s fellahin. It wasn’t until I encountered a line of pickers coming in from the orchard where the vines grow between the trees that I realized the wine making had begun. Soon I could hear the racket of clapping sticks mingled with singing and laughter, sounds of merriment that reminded me of the times I went to my grandfather’s vineyard as a child. There my cousins and I would jump into the big stone vats to tromp on the grapes while our mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, clapped out the rhythm with wooden hands. I hurried my step, eager to relive those happy days even as a spectator, and was barely through the gate in the wall when I spotted Aset in one of the vats—holding to Ruka’s arm to keep from slipping down while she stomped to the beat.
The sight brought a smile to my heart, for she wore only a loincloth, like the boys, with the point pulled between her legs and tucked under at the waist. How much she has changed since her tenth feast day! Her hips and thighs grow rounder and softer while her face thins, bringing out her cheekbones and strong jaw. In that way she resembles her mother more every day. Only her eyes remain the same—so transparent a blue that the light of her akh shines forth from within.
I moved closer and joined in the clapping, to blend in with the others who crowded around, and saw her look up at Ruka and laugh. I felt my heart swell with regret that this might be her last chance for such childish abandon. Then I happened to glance around at the crowd, and saw a figure on the roof of Ramose’s villa. My breath quickened with dread, for he has always denied her the company of his workers’ children. Yet now, when he saw her consorting with them in the lowest way, baring her budding breasts for all eyes to see, I stood like a dumb ox—until Pagosh nudged me.
“Ramose awaits you in his pleasure garden,” he mumbled for my ears only. “Bastet has him by the balls and begins to squeeze.” We dropped back from the others, pretending a nonchalance neither of us felt. “He sends Aset away but not to the priestesses of Hathor. She goes to the harem of a rich noble instead.” My heart leaped into my throat, making me gasp for breath, but when I turned to question him he shook his head, warning me off. Then he disappeared into the crowd, probably to keep watch on Aset.
I found Ramose staring into his lotus pond. He has changed little over the years, though it would not show had his hair gone pure white. The same can be said of his true motives, which is why I trust him no more now than I did before.
“Do you have a friend you would trust with all you possess, Senakhtenre, even your life?” he asked when I drew near.
I learned long ago to be wary of priests who sidle up to a subject, wrapping their true meaning in a veil of innuendo or mystery, so I told him what he already knew. “I have been fortunate, indeed, my lord, for my father was such a friend to me. And Mena.”
“To think I once believed I knew all there was to know about you!” He shook his head, but his eyes crinkled at the corners, as if he made light of his own naïveté. “I do not try to trick you into tripping over your own tongue, Tenre. It is only that I must find the answer to a question. The right answer. For what I decide here and now will weigh heavily in the decision of Osiris and his judges, when my time comes to face them.” He turned to me. “The question is, can I trust you with a treasure that is dearer to me than all the gold in Nubia, no matter what direction the wind may blow in the months ahead?”
“Probably not,” I replied, for I would use whatever riches he entrusted to me to protect his daughter, even from him. “I am like any other man, my lord, in some ways stronger than others but in other ways weaker than most.”
“Sometimes, sunu, I see too much of you in my daughter,” he mumbled under his breath. “She, too, knows how to disarm with honesty.”
“I beg your forgiveness if I gave offense.” My deviousness lacks the refinement that comes with practice, while repentance is a well-worn habit.
He shook his head. “It is just that, in a world filled with self-seeking men, you become a master of obfuscation simply by speaking the truth. Perhaps one day before the water of our time in this world runs out, you and I will have the luxury of engaging in a real battle of wits. For now I must be content with the evidence before my eyes—my daughter, who I trust above all others … even my god.” I could not have uttered a word had my life depended on it. “I, too, have a friend like your father,” he continued. “He is old now, yet he loves me still, and I him. So Aset will become his Second Wife—”
“But she has not yet begun her monthly flow,” I protested, raising my voice over the sudden pounding in my ears, for I cared little if my skull should split open if only the gods would allow me to live long enough to find another way.
“That is of no importance to him, and I do what I must to keep her safe. After the episode with the old Nubian—” He raised his hand to forestall any more objections. “It is done. The contract has been signed.” I wanted to rip the tongue from his mouth. “You have served her well, my friend.” He looked me in the eyes. “You are that, Tenre, are you not?”
I knew then that we had arrived at the crux of the matter. “I have tried to be, though I admit there were times when I went against your instructions. But not what I believed to be your true intent—that I keep her ka whole as well as her body.”
His mouth relaxed in a wry smile. “Thank Amen I was right about one thing at least.” Again he held my eyes. “What I ask of you now could cost you dearly, Tenre. More perhaps than you are willing to give. If so, I will not question your decision, but will do all I can to help you rise to the top rung of the ladder, if that is your wish.”
“Then cease torturing me and get to it.”
“The friend I send her to is both generous and wise, but he is old. Aset must disappear for a while, yet I cannot bear to coop her up with his unmarried daughter and two sisters, who are simple at best. Could she go to your house in town once her presence in Uzahor’s harem has been established?” The words began to flow from him like water from an upended shaduf. “Surely Merit could change her appearance so no one would be the wiser, perhaps by cutting her hair like that of an apprentice?”
“Or the man who manages my dispensary,” I suggested, falling in with his plan. “What about Pagosh? And Merit.”
“They will take up residence in her husband’s villa. Aset must appear there from time to time, so her husband can show her to his friends, but her dowry will be available to you through his factor. Use it to add a room to your house, hire servants, or whatever you require. Ipwet and her son would take up service in your household, I am sure.” So he already knew that Aset befriended his workers.
“Pagosh has agreed?”
“Won’t her new husband object to such an arrangement?”
Ramose shook his head. “He does this for me, no other reason.” I was skeptical, but I had no other choice, so I followed him to his big house, where he motioned me through the door ahead of him. “Pagosh was to bring her to my library.”
Aset jumped up as we entered the room, as if she had been caught doing something she was not supposed to. Which she had. “Tenre! I thought you went—?”
“We have been discussing your schooling,” Ramose told her. “But let Pagosh bring us a cool drink first. Then we will talk.”
“I will help him,” she volunteered, and ran after him. She had slipped on a short tunic, which did not hide her juicestained ankles.
When they returned Ramose told her what she needed to know and no more. “But why do I have to be Uzahor’s wife?” she protested.
“Because your lady mother says it is time. And to put you under his protection by law, in case something should happen to me.”
“But if Tuli can come with me to Tenre’s, why not Paga and Merit?”
“So everyone thinks you remain with Uzahor.” Pagosh never said a word, though I suspect his heart was in tatters. “You leave tomorrow, and will stay there until the tongues of the gossips find a new tale to wag about.”
When she glanced at me, it was all I could do to nod. “Then I better help Merit pack our things, if we are to be ready when Re-Horakhte appears.”
“As you wish,” Ramose agreed, “but first I must have your word that you will do as Tenre says in all things, not just your studies.”
“Only if he will answer my questions as before.” I recognized that for what it was, a brave face to hide her fear.
Ramose nodded. “Also you will speak to no one of this.”
“I have to tell Tuli so he will understand why he must stay within Tenre’s walls.”
The Eye of Horus Page 20
