Winged Pharaoh

by Joan Grant

  The moon throws the shadow of the oleanders

  Into a room that is as empty as my heart.

  I must draw the gentle curtains of sleep,

  Although no waterfall sings outside my window,

  And so beyond my bitter Earth find peace,

  Deeper than the drowsy contentment of doves.

  When the time came for my child no longer to be housed in my body, Neyah was still three days’ journey from the Royal City.

  I longed to be as other women, who bear their children alone upon the bed-place with the love of their husbands to give them courage. But my child must be born upon the royal birth-chair, while I talked to the priests in attendance to show that my will was master of my body and that pain could not make me cry out against its onslaughts.

  With me was Ptah-kefer, who watched to see that all was well with my body. When the child was born he would look upon those who came to speed it upon its journey; and, seeing its companions, he would know if it were one long in years or young in spirit who returned to Earth. With me also was a healer priest, ready to strengthen the child if it were exhausted by the ordeal of birth. Behind me waited Maata to take the child and bathe it in warm oil and wrap it in charged linen, even as she had once been the first to take me into her arms. With her was Pakee, who would tend my body when I could relax my hold upon it and leave it to her care.

  The robe of birth, clasped at the neck by a golden winged moon, hung round me to the floor. Under its wide sleeves I drove my nails into my palms; and it was quieting to the mind like a sword-thrust that makes the heart forgetful of sorrow. I felt the sweat running down my face like the feet of moths. I never knew that Earth held so much pain; in scarlet waves it flung itself against the cliff of my will, but before I was engulfed it drew back to gather itself a greater fury. No priest who is in a man’s body can know how fierce the pull of Earth can be upon a woman; yet must I talk of priestly things, my words unhurried and my breath uncaught.

  I talked of the new highway between Men-atet-iss and Abidwa. I tried to think of each cubit of the road, holding my mind to the quiet peace of its shady length. I felt that my self-control was like a single flame, which I shielded between my hands while it was beset by a tempest that sought to quench it and leave me to drown in a dark sea of pain. I tried to think of all the multitudes on Earth, and to remember that what I was undergoing had been shared by the mothers of every one of them: but pain and fear are prisons in which we are alone.

  I heard my voice still talking of shade-trees when, in the last onslaught of pain’s white-hot swords, my child was born. I heard it crying…and the eyes of the healer priest drove me from my body, and I knew peace.

  Away from Earth I was refreshed, and when I returned to my body it was gentle to me. I opened my eyes and saw Pakee watching beside my bed. She told me that Ptah-kefer had said that my child would be a worthy holder of the Flail, and he should bear the name of Den, which he had once borne as a warrior, although now he had returned to Earth as a girl-child.

  My daughter’s hair was the colour of pale copper, as if the copper of her father’s hair had been alloyed with gold; and for this I gave her as her little name ‘Tchekeea’.

  As I looked at her I thought of Dio.…To him a fair white wall of stone, eager and waiting for him to carve upon it until it lived beneath his hand, was greater than any gift that I could give him; and gold was but another metal to be moulded into beauty. To him a temple depended, not upon its teaching, but upon the purity of its line. Although there was nothing I could give him, to his daughter I will give a throne, and I will never bear another child who could dispute it with her. He never knew how much I longed to leave my heavy heritage and put my happiness before the guidance of a great people. Now perhaps he will laugh to think that his child has been fathered upon the Gods. Women who come to me, telling me of their hearts, wonder at my understanding, thinking it is the fruit of great wisdom; they do not know it is only that I share the foolishness of women with them.

  Neyah returned when my daughter was three days old. As soon as he reached the palace he came to my room. His eyes were on the child’s red hair as he stood beside the bed-place. In a voice cold and smooth as stone, he said, “Horus has grown scarlet feathers since I left.”

  Then he turned to leave me. I called to him, and he unwillingly came back and stood waiting for me to speak.

  I was lonely for him, and yet very angry. I thought, What of his smooth women? They are like four chattering parrots, gay-coloured and stupid. They live but to put kohl upon their eyelids and to paint their nails. Their bodies are smooth, but they are empty statues. They are sensuous as cats, and much less wise. When I go to their apartements they glide into the shadows when they see me. As long as I am Pharaoh they can be nothing. Why should I mind them? To him they are like a fine bow-case, or a keen-scented dog, or a chariot that turns more swiftly than the rest; and of course he is kind to them and brings them ivory and necklases and precious oils. They fear me. I am Pharaoh of the Two Lands; its boundaries are sea and desert and mountains. My spirit can fly from my body to the threshold of the Gods. Yet I am jealous of ordinary women, women whose dominion is the four walls of their room, whose throne is but the mats upon their bed-place, whose vision of attainment is no further than the body of a man. For me to envy them is as though I longed for the contentment of oxen munching in their stalls. How he must hate this child! He has three children and I know their mothers. But he shall never know the father of my child. Three of his nobles, a captain, and his chief scribe, all have this strange, this copper-coloured hair. He shall never know which he should greet as brother.

  Long had I kept these thoughts well leashed. But now, when the pull of Earth was heavy, they slipped from the well-fenced pastures of the mind. For moons and moons my body had been a prison, and the sword of my will had been deep-shrouded in heavy cloth, so that unbidden thoughts broke down their barriers and trampled savagely within the secret places of my heart.

  He waited for my answer.

  I was so lonely for him, yet I said, “I think you have no red-haired woman. That is stupid of you: you would find that they give you strange pleasures you have missed.”

  Then he left me, and I was all alone.

  When Tchekeea was twelve months old, she fell ill of a plague that swept through the land; and it seemed that she must die of it. Her face and body were patched with livid blue, and first she would burn with a strange inward fire and then grow icy in my arms. She took no food, except milk and wine dropped through a reed between her lips.

  Neyah stayed with her night and day, and in his arms she found peace, which she could not find in mine. And on the tenth day her dry forehead became cool and damp, and Ptah-kefer said that the danger had passed and she would live.

  And when she became strong again, it was to Neyah that she ran for comfort for a hurt, or to share with him her pleasure in a toy. And the child that had once been a spear between us became the strongest link in the golden chain that bound us together.

  I sorrowed to think that I had turned my face from his children, and I went often to the women’s quarters and talked with the secondary wives, and I learned to understand their way of thought. I took them presents and gave them treasures; and at first, when I saw their pleasure in a bracelet or a pleated robe or a jar of some new unguent, I gave it with secret scorn. But then I grew to know them and to understand that these things were to them as a spear is to the warrior, or a tablet to the scribe. And to their children I gave love and protection, even as Neyah had given it to Tchekeea.

  And so I learned that jealousy is a great evil. For, to a jealous one, love is like a collar of silver that he clutches in his hands, fearful that a thief may take it; and if he loses it he thinks that all is lost. But each one of us is like a sun; and his rays, which be love and friendship, fall upon many; and all on whom they fall shall feel no greater warmth if their brother is standing in the shade.

  And this will I teach to all
men and to all women who share the sorrow that once was so bitter upon my lips.

  PART SIX

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sea Journey

  When Tchekeea was three years old, Kiodas, King of Minoas, came to Kam upon a state visit. The bonds of friendship between his country and ours were strong, and we promised that within the year we would journey to his island kingdom.

  Next year, being the fifth year in my reign, on the second day of the fourth month we said farewell to my little Tchekeea and to my mother. I wished they had been coming with us to Minoas, but in our absence our mother would shepherd our people, and I knew that Tchekeea would be happier staying with her in the freedom of the palace than she would have been, shut in by the narrow decks of a ship voyage of many days.

  For a long time I had wanted to see Minoas, but there can be little joy in setting forth upon a journey when one you love is further away from you with each cubit that you travel. Kam was tranquil, for since Neyah had subdued the people of Punt, none challenged the strength of Atet; but when the rowers swept the Royal Barge downstream and I saw Tchekeea growing smaller in the distance as she stood holding my mother’s hand on the quay, I almost wished that some danger threatened Kam so that I could tell the ship-master to put back.

  There were six barges in our train. With us went Ptah-kefer, Zertar, and two looking-girls; my four personal attendants and ten serving women; six young nobles and twenty attendants of Neyah’s; Zeb and three other captains with three hundred of the Royal Bodyguard; eight musisans—three harps, two flutes, and three reed-pipes—all of whom were singers. As gifts to the king we took a tame lion cub, four months old; two cedarwood chests of gold; necklaces of lapis lazuli, cornelian, amethyst, and wine-stone; fifty rolls of fine linen; four chests decorated in gold and faience; and twelve tusks of ivory.

  It took us six days to reach the coast, for we stopped each day to give audience to the assembled people, as my father had done when as children we had travelled with him to Na-kish.

  The people of the North are smaller in stature, though more heavily built, than those of the South; their voices have a rougher sound and their words are not so musical. Here at certain times of the year rain falls, and there is never a scarcity of water. It is the country of great granaries, and before the fields are harvested a sea of corn stretches as far as the eye can reach. The chief city of the North is on the eastern mouth of the river, near the sea. It is called Iss-an, as is the Northern Garrison, which is on the outskirts of the city, to the east; and it is from here that the Delta is administered. In the days when the Lotus and the Papyrus grew not in the same pool and the Bees dwelt not among the Reeds, Iss-an was the royal city of the King of the North.

  Horem-ka, the Vizier, lived in the old palace. He was a mighty warrior as well as a man of great wisdom, and he had fought beside my father in the last battle against the Zumas. He had a son, eight years old, who was also called Horem-ka. I told the boy that he must grow up in his father’s image so that one day he too should be a vizier of Kam. I gave him a model boat of sycamore wood with ivory oars, like the ones that Neyah used to carve; to his little sisters I gave toys, and to his mother a necklace of gold and lapis lazuli.

  We stayed there for three days and held audience for our people, who had gathered from far across the grain-lands to see Pharaoh. On the fourth day we embarked on our big seagoing ships. The sail of the royal ship was scarlet, and the black hull was picked out in blue and gold. Five other ships of Kam went with us, and Kiodas had sent eight of his fleet to be our escort. His ships are higher in the water than ours and have two banks of oars, but the sails are smaller. The prow of each is carved like a fish, for the sea is their element.

  We sailed north-east for three days until we sighted the coast; then with a fair wind we sailed north for eight days, with hills on the horizon to our right. We passed three ships of Kam south-bound with cedarwood.

  I could not share with Neyah his love for ships when they challenged a rough sea. I love the sea-bird skimming of a little sailing-boat and the royal progress of a barge that travels the river majestic as a swan. But I hated the storms that now assailed us, when our ship laboured up the green mountains of the waves or troughed with despair in watery valleys. The fiercer the storm, the more the heart of Neyah rejoiced. For hours he stood at the steering-oar, and he seemed to delight in feeling his skin flailed with spray. The waves washed over the rowers, who strained at their oars to keep the bows of our ship proud to the wind. When the doors and shutters of the deck-house were closed, it was as though we had been swallowed into the belly of a fish; and when they were open the water poured in to share with our other torments. My women lay upon their mattresses and prayed to Ptah of his compassion to let them die. I was not sick, but I longed to be a god to hold out my hands and bid the waves be still.

  After the long night the storm abated and the sea grew quiet. My women combed the tangles from their hair and wiped off the eye-paint, which had run upon their cheeks. They crept out on deck and sat forlornly in the sun. Now that the sea was gentle, they praised it as carefully as a man walks past the cage of a wild leopard when he thinks the bars are frail.

  On the twelfth day we landed at a large island, a province of Minoas, while our ships were freshly provisioned with lettuces, radishes and pot-herbs, pomegranates, grapes and oranges; goats’ cheese and butter; a little fish, preserved in oil. Here are the vineyards that yield the famous wine, of which a hundred jars are sent each year to Kam as gifts; and the fields of violets from which oil for unguents is distilled. We slept that night at the house of the governor; and when we left we gave him two gold armlets and a necklace for his wife.

  We sailed north again until we sighted the mountainous coast, which we kept on our right hand for five days. Then we bore southwards, passing by the Island of Bakiss, in whose fine harbour many ships of the Minoan fleet are built. On the high ground of this island there lives a breed of goat with long silken hair, from which the finest woollen stuffs are made. The wind was fair and we did not stop, but kept south of the sunset until we saw the great island of Minoas.

  As we came within sight of its shores, a fleet of fifty ships put out from the harbour to greet us. The largest of them had a sail of cornelian-red and white, which are the royal colours of Minoas.

  While the two royal ships floated beside each other quietly as two oxen in a stall, a wooden bridge was put between them and we crossed over it to greet Kiodas. He wore a draped tunic of white, bordered with purple and gold; and his bronze hair, which curled to his shoulders, was bound with a plain golden fillet. His sandals were studded with amethysts, and he wore a large amethyst on the first finger of his right hand. As soon as we had stepped on deck, girls, wearing thin tunics the colour of almond blossom, played on lyres and cymbals and sang us welcome:

  The sun has risen after a long night,

  The barren trees are covered with buds,

  The silent birds are clamorous with song,

  The sea is gentle as a garden pool,

  The dry streams are silvery with fish,

  As we sing our joy that the Pharaohs of Kam

  Honour us with their presence.”

  Kiodas told me that his queen, Artemiodes, waited to welcome us at the palace. The harbour was alive with little boats, who cheered us as the royal vessel was rowed to the quay. The shore was crowded with people from the neighbouring villages, who craned over one another’s shoulders to see us, chattering together in their excitement. They were gaily dressed in brilliant colours, which were not hard and clear like the dress of the people of Kam, for to each colour there were many tones. Everyone that I looked at smiled a welcome with the quick open-hearted friendliness of children; and I felt that each one of them rejoiced that we visited their country.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Palace of Kiodas

  It was two hours’ journey by litter to the palace. Every turn of the steep road showed another vista of beauty for our eyes: white beaches of
little bays, gold beside the foam of breaking waves; the sea, patterned with its changing hues, shading from green and turquoise to purple blue; an olive tree entwined with honeysuckle; and wild roses cascading down a rock. The little villages were painted white or yellow or dusty pink; it seemed that to cling to the steep slopes the houses must be as sure-footed as a mountain goat. The breeze was gentle, and sweet with the flowery scent of mountain valleys. The twisted branches of the olive trees were heavy with years: clothed in the silver green of their young leaves, they were like some old man of learning who had renewed his youth. Children ran out of houses that we passed and threw flowers into our litters; for here the hillsides were gardens of the Gods.

  In the distance, the palace of Kiodas looked like a splendid city on the mountainside, or like some staircase made for giants fifty cubits high. As we approached the great entrance, Artemiodes came down the long steps to greet us. Her voice was warm and sweet as she welcomed me. She was like a lovely figurine of copper and ivory: her skin smooth as pale honey, her hair challenging the colour of marigolds.

  When she showed me the beauties of her house and the flowering joys of terraces and woods, she was eager as a happy child who shares its toys with some fond playmate. The gardens, sentinelled by cypress trees, flowed steeply down to join the olive woods; and so well had man and nature shared their work that each rose, each spreading drift of violets, each army of hyacinths marching in the sun, seemed to have grown there for their own delight.

  The rooms of the palace opened on to wide terraces that roofed the ones below. My bedroom had a frieze of dancing-girls in black and red; and spaced above it on the walls were the heads of bulls, carven in white stone, their horns linked with ropes of dew-fresh flowers. The bed, its head shaped like a scallop-shell, was mattressed and cushioned soft in yellow silk. Woven rugs of black and white covered the stone floor—in Minoas even their palaces are built in stone. Pink oleanders in red pottery jars stood before the pillars of three archways, which opened on to the private terrace, and filled one end of the room, making it like a pavilion open to the sun. The archways could be closed against rain by slatted shutters; and inside there were blue curtains if I wanted darkness for a noonday sleep.