by Marié Heese
“Tell me again, about how Hathor suckled me,” I would demand, during the sultry afternoons when everyone in the palace rested but I, being full of energy, did not want to sleep.
“You were a lusty babe,” said Inet. She always said this proudly. “Came into the world kicking and squalling, tight little fists pumping as if ready to fight the world. Such a voice! Such a voice for a newborn! Demanding attention. Demanding food. Frightened the palace doves, you did, sounded like Bastet in full cry.”
“I sounded like the cat goddess,” I said boastfully.
“You know it, little one. A wet nurse was quickly found, the wife of a scribe whose child had died for it was born too soon. She had milk aplenty and she was honoured to be called to the palace.”
“But the human milk was too thin,” I chimed in.
“The human milk was too thin,” agreed Inet, nodding. “You screamed with hunger, hour after hour. You could get no satisfaction from the woman’s breast. And yet she had so much that it dribbled down, wetting her tunic. But what you needed was the milk of the God.”
“Hathor,” I said.
“You know it, little one. The chief physician attending the Great Queen, may she live for ever, advised us to procure cow’s milk for you. It settles heavier in the stomach. It has more strength. I have seen it before,” said Inet. “I have seen it in big, strong baby boys who are very hungry. But you were the first girl child I ever saw who thrived on it.”
“I was suckled by Hathor,” I said with satisfaction.
Of course; it had to be true. When I ordered my temple to be built at Djeser-Djeseru, I had a record placed on the walls showing the cow goddess suckling me.
“It was an omen,” said Inet. “I do believe that you will be under her protection all your life. The Goddess is tender as a mother in caring for those she loves, fierce as a lioness in defending them from danger and evil. She will keep her hand over your head.”
Indeed, I have often felt the arms of the Goddess bearing me up. There have been times in my life when I felt that all my strength was spent; then I pray to Hathor, and she infuses me with new vigour. She watches over me.
I reached out for more ink to begin recording the second of Inet’s tales. At that moment a shadow at the far end of the portico seemed to suddenly solidify. There was no footfall to be heard yet I knew that it was Khani, come to report to me. He is known to the guards and they let him pass.
“Khani,” I said. “Come. I see you.”
He walked quietly across the cool tiles with his characteristic feline lope and stood before me, his three cubits of powerful muscle, dark as polished ebony, blocking out the sun before he bowed.
“Majesty,” he said, in his deep voice, the voice of a bard. “You have eyes in the back of your head.”
“I have need of them,” I said. “And of more eyes scanning the kingdom on my behalf … Eyes that I can trust, such as yours, my faithful guardian.”
“And you may require the support of Hathor also,” he told me. “Inet used to claim that support for you.”
“And Inet was right,” I said. “I have indeed lived in the shelter of Hathor’s vigilance. My sister and two brothers have gone to the gods. But I, beloved of Hathor, I thrived. To this day I am strong and I am never ill.”
“Indeed, Majesty,” agreed Khani. “You are strong.”
There seemed to be reservations in his obsidian eyes.
“What is it?” I asked. “You have bad news?”
He would tell me, I knew, but in his own way. He would marshal his facts with care and tell me first only what he knew to be true. If there was gossip or speculation, he would report that also, but with a warning that it could not be substantiated. I rely greatly on his acute observations and intelligence.
I sent the slaves and the guards away. Everyone in my household knows that Khani is to be trusted. He has been loyal to me ever since he was brought to the Kingdom of the Two Lands as a prisoner of war. Soon after his accession as Pharaoh, my late husband Thutmose the Second, may he live, received news of an uprising in Nubia. Naturally he could not leave the court and the capital when his grasp of the sceptre was so recent. He dispatched an army under the command of his most trusted general, who quelled the rebellion, killed many men and captured the ringleaders.
They also captured Khani, a Nubian prince, son of the Kushite rebel chieftain, and brought him with the other captives to be paraded in the presence of the enthroned Pharaoh. The young prisoner was but one year older than I and I had at that time seen thirteen risings of the Nile. I can never forget that day when I stood beside my husband on a massive dais outside the administrative palace, facing the broad avenue lined with masses of people eager to see the victorious general, the great Ahmose pen-Nekhbet of el-Kab, ride into Thebes with the spoils of war. And the captives.
As the general’s war chariot swept up to the dais, then those of the division commanders, followed by a mule train laden with Nubian gold gleaming in the sun, elephant tusks, ebony, and many bulging sacks filled with more booty, a huge roar went up from the watching crowd. The noise intensified when the soldiers climbed down to make deep obeisances while the charioteers held the horses in check. Some way behind came the infantry, led by the standard bearers, row after row of the flower of Egypt’s men marching to the rhythm of drums and trumpets. I had a sudden thought that we needed more broad avenues in Thebes for great processions. Not only for military parades, but also for the festivals when the god Amen-Ra is brought from his shrine for the people to see. Then I forgot about the God as the captives came into view, greeted by yet louder roars and jeers.
Some of them had been badly injured and were loaded on mule-drawn carts, but several were able to walk and they shuffled along between their captors, urged forwards by prods from spears, their steps hobbled by the chains that bound them. Yet they walked as straight as they were able to, tall men, their dark naked torsos powdered with Theban dust; men who still held their bodies with the swagger of power, men with rings of gold in their ears and hatred in their hooded eyes.
So, I thought, these must be the rebel leaders from the wretched Kush. They should know better than to challenge the dominion of Khemet. Prompted by the soldiers with spears, they fell to their knees in front of the dais and kissed the ground. On the far right, I noticed a young boy, considerably shorter than the rest. He must be about my age, I thought with a shock. Walking into Thebes to meet his death, while I stood on a dais above him, a new life growing beneath my heart.
Indeed, it was at that very moment, when I caught the young prince’s eyes – for prince he surely was, else why had he been brought before the King and not simply executed – it was then that I felt, for the first time, the delicate butterfly tickle of a new babe stirring in my slightly swollen abdomen. I put my hand on it. Perhaps, I thought, it is my son. Coming to life while that one comes to death.
My husband conducted the hearing with great dignity. The captives were prodded to their feet, to face the Pharaoh and hear their fate. They stood impassively. “Hear ye,” he said, “thus Egypt punishes those that question our sovereignty. For we have been given dominion over our vassal states, of which Nubia is one. Therefore you are bound to honour the Pharaoh and obey his laws and pay his tribute. To rebel is treason, and punishment for treason is death.” Screams and ululations went up from the crowd. “You, as leaders of the rebellion, are hereby sentenced to be killed and hung head downwards from the walls of Thebes.” Another roar echoed along the dusty avenue as the sentence was pronounced.
I felt a sudden wave of nausea as I looked at the young prince. He must have expected that he too would be executed, but he showed no fear, standing straight as a young tree. Even then he already had a striking presence. When the sentence was pronounced, he did not flinch. He held his head high and his eyes met mine and did not slide away. One day, I thought, I shall have a son whose courage will match his.
Without planning to, I suddenly found myself speaking. “Husband
,” I said, “Pharaoh. I beg a word.”
He turned to me courteously but with some surprise. The ranks of senior advisers and priests ranged below our thrones shifted and shuffled. It was not customary for the Great Royal Wife to speak at such occasions. Yet now that I had begun, I had to continue. “It is of course right that rebels should be punished, and in a manner to deter all who might dream of such actions,” I said. “Pharaoh has dealt with them according to their deserts. But Ma’at demands not merely punishment for those who disturb its order. Ma’at is also justice.” I was glad that my voice did not tremble and that it was bold but not shrill. I raised it so that I might be clearly heard. “And justice,” I said, “includes mercy. There is one young man among the captives who surely had no hand in the planning of this rebellion, who fought, if he did fight, on the orders of his father, as would any young Egyptian in his place. I beg the great Pharaoh to show mercy towards him. Let him not be executed. Please, great Lord. Let him be spared.”
For a long moment, my husband frowned as he deliberated. One or two of the priests were nodding. They seemed to agree with my comment about Ma’at. “Very well,” said Thutmose. “We shall be merciful. The prince is spared.” Now the fickle crowd cheered this pronouncement also.
So Pharaoh gave him life and decreed that he was to be educated and sent back eventually to a position of trust in his own country – with, of course, an outlook favourable to our kingdom. Khani was tutored with the children of the upper classes in Thebes, joined the military and progressed to the rank of Officer Commanding the Division of Sobek, currently quartered in Thebes. Commander Thutmose (my nephew-stepson Thutmose, he who would be King) would have sent Khani back to Nubia long ago, but I insisted that he remain here in Egypt. I tell Thutmose that we have need of him because he is an outstanding trainer of soldiers and he is always able to convert the children of conquered enemies into faithful warriors in the Pharaoh’s army. But in truth I need him because his loyalty is to me. I have need of men whom I can trust absolutely.
When I look at Khani, I remember with great clarity the day when he stood before my husband the King together with the other captives from Nubia. Thinking of that day, it seems to me that we were both no more than children then, but at the time I felt mature. Especially I recall that when the youth inclined his head, it was to me that he bowed, not to the King. So he has always been my loyal supporter and, I think, my friend – perhaps, since Senenmut passed into the Afterlife, may he live, the only true friend that the Pharaoh has.
And now he stood before me, an adult and a soldier, one who spied for me.
“Bad news,” Khani informed me. “It seems that the Mitanni are stirring up trouble on our borders with Canaan, aided by the Hittites.”
“Surely not true,” I said, angrily. “The Mitanni are supposed to act as a buffer between the Black Land and the Hittites. They should be dependable, considering the amount of gold we send them. How accurate is your information?”
Khani just looked at me with his inscrutable obsidian eyes. I sighed. I knew that his sources were always impeccable. If he told me something as a fact, he had checked it carefully.
Of course I have a counsellor who advises me on foreign affairs, one Seni, an elderly bureaucrat who served my late father, may he live, and now faithfully serves me. He is spare of figure and sparing of words, but his advice is always well thought through and precisely expressed, and I pay attention to it. Yet my royal father, Pharaoh Thutmose the First, taught me never to depend upon a single source of information or advice and always to discover what the common people are saying. So I have sources of information that are not known to all. Khani is one of them.
“The Great Commander Thutmose is planning and preparing for a campaign,” he went on. “The intensity of training has increased. He has ordered many horses.”
“I have given no such instructions,” I said furiously.
As Pharaoh I am the absolute head of the armed forces and they may undertake no campaign that I have not decreed should take place. The upstart is angering me seriously. He is assuming powers that he does not have. Of course, it is true that he was crowned. I cannot deny that fact, but it should never have happened.
The young Thutmose, child of my husband Thutmose the Second and Isis, a mere concubine, had been given to the priests to learn the rites, to become himself a priest of Amen and to serve the God. He was no more than a little-regarded juvenile. But when my husband passed into the Afterlife, may he live for ever, the priests suddenly realised that they had an opportunity to control all Egypt. With a little boy they could use as a puppet on the throne, they would have power over the Two Lands such as the priesthood had never had before.
There have always been factions in Egypt, but a single faction had never yet gained overall control. One faction that traditionally opposes the priesthood is the military. Since the Pharaoh is also the Ultimate Commander of the army and usually sides with them, they are extremely powerful. At this moment, the priests of Amen saw their chance to tilt the balance of power in their own favour, and they took it.
So, when one fine day in the temple of Amen-Ra it appeared for all the world as if the choice of the God fell on the child as he stood among the priests who had the care of him, there was a simple explanation for that event and it was not a supernatural one. That much should be obvious to anyone with half an understanding. It was not the child’s doing, of course. He had seen only ten risings of the Nile when my husband died and he did not have the wit to plan and execute such a drama at that age. But the priests did.
During a ceremonial procession in the temple of Amen-Ra that day the gilded barque bearing the God, its carrying poles shouldered by eight strapping priests, paused in its stately circling of the enormous hall. It hesitated, reversed and bowed down in front of the surprised small figure of the child Thutmose, seeming to indicate that the God wanted him to ascend the Double Throne. But there was no truth in that pivotal moment. No mystery. No magic. It was a spectacle thought up and carefully executed by the priesthood. But the country believed the lie. So they crowned him.
Yet I have never acknowledged his supremacy. He is not the chosen of the gods. He does not have the blood royal. He was never inducted into the Mysteries of Osiris as I was, by my late father the Pharaoh, may he live, who intended me to rule. The coronation of the child was a hastily organised, superficial affair: He did not grasp the cobra, nor run around the white walls at Memphis, nor did he shoot off the symbolic arrows.
But they did crown him and it made me sick. I, who had been the Queen of the Two Lands, occupying the throne by my husband’s side, I who had in all but name actually reigned more effectively than that sweet but ineffectual man, I who had the pure blood royal – I was relegated to an inferior position. I would be regent, they said. But everyone knew that the priests would call the tune.
I gritted my teeth and I bided my time. Two years after the misjudged coronation of the little upstart a vision came to me: a vision that proved my incontestable right to the Double Throne. I was shown how my heavenly father, the great god Amen, impregnated my mother, and told her that the child would be a daughter, Hatshepsut – and she would reign. I then took steps to have myself properly crowned; I have worn the Double Crown ever since. I sent the child back to the priests. I insisted that he should remain merely a very junior co-regent, with no independent powers. Later he went to the military and now, in his thirty-second year, he is the Great Commander of the Army and he is angering me.
Although I am a woman, I have been the Son of Horus, the Pharaoh Ma’atkare, Ruler of the Two Lands, for more than twenty years. In that time I have balanced the opposing forces in Egypt in a delicate game of power. I have controlled the priesthood, the nobles, the bureaucrats and the military. I have prevailed because I am able to read men, to charm them when need be, to inspire loyalty, to manipulate and in the final analysis to outwit them. They do not expect a woman to be cleverer than they, and therefore they are at a disadvan
tage. A woman, yet a king with might and majesty. It has been a potent combination and it has served me well in maintaining the balance of power. I have always enjoyed this game and I have played it adeptly. Yet I am tiring. There have been too many deaths and the wolf pup at Memphis keeps snapping at my heels.
I sighed again.
“Majesty,” said Khani, who had stood silently while I considered his news. He was always able to be still, to be patient. Most men cannot. “You must keep your eyes open. Especially those at the back of your head. You must be vigilant.”
“I always am,” I said shortly. “Why this particular warning? What do you know?”
But clearly he had no specific information to give. “Just be vigilant,” he repeated. “I am due back,” he added. “I was given a document to deliver to the Grand Vizier. But I should not tarry. None saw me come here.”
“A document? From Commander Thutmose?”
He nodded. This too was disturbing. Usually there was no love lost and little communication between those two. Something was decidedly going on.
“Thank you, Khani,” I said. The shadows under the lush trees closed around his disappearing form as he strode away.
I was deeply concerned, too much so to return to my writings. Instead I sat down, knowing that at least one of my pet cats would jump onto my lap. Bastet came at once and settled down, purring. I stroked her creamy fur thoughtfully. She blinked her blue eyes at me. The other one, Sekhmet, has tawny fur and golden eyes like her namesake the lion goddess. She was probably off somewhere looking for mice. Like myself they are both daughters of the sun, but only Bastet has her nurturing qualities; the destructive powers of the sun are to be seen in Sekhmet. She is less companionable but she keeps the vermin down.
