by Marié Heese
Even Bastet did not do much to soothe my troubled spirit. I wished that I had someone to talk to other than a state official. I wished Khani could have stayed. I wished that Inet could have been there with me, assuring me by her repetition of the known and familiar that the world is a safe and predictable place; keeping the threatening forces that I feel closing in on me at bay.
Here endeth the first scroll.
IT IS INDEED an important and a dangerous document that King Hatshepsut has entrusted to me. I am overcome that it should be given to me, a mere assistant scribe, and not to the Chief Royal Scribe. Yet I think I understand why this is the case. First, if it is true that there are those who seek Her Majesty’s life (and I have reason to fear, alas, that this may be so), then they will keep a close watch on all those in her employ and especially those known to have her trust and thought to have ways of influencing her. The Chief Scribe may soon find that documents in his care are confiscated under some pretext or another. But nobody will expect me to have anything worth reading.
Second, I am Her Majesty’s faithful servant and great admirer and she knows that she may depend on me. Indeed, she may be sure of my entire loyalty since already once I almost gave my life for the King. It happened some five years ago. Her Majesty had expressed a wish to sail to her great temple at Djeser-Djeseru, which was built for her by the late great Senenmut; it has a shrine to accommodate the god Amen on his annual procession from Karnak, but it also has a double chapel for King Hatshepsut and her royal father Thutmose the First where she wished to make offerings to her late father’s Ka.
Pharaoh also wished to view some samples of white marble reported to have a beautiful tracery of green veins. It had been unloaded at Djeser-Djeseru, where the ramps for transporting materials were still in place. This unusual marble had apparently been located in the Eastern desert, and if the Pharaoh found it pleasing, orders would be given for extensive quarrying. I was instructed to accompany the group, for I have knowledge of such materials due to the fact that I spent a portion of my training as scribe in a number of quarries.
The journey was not to be a royal progress, just a trip on a simple barge, an opportunity to get away from the pressures of the court and the never-ending demands of governing the kingdom, so it was a fairly small group that set out that day and the atmosphere was informal. Her Majesty reclined on the deck beneath a striped awning, attended by two slave women waving basket-weave fans, for the day was searingly hot. Her ladies-in-waiting were seated around her on cushions, one of them playing a merry air on a long lute. Two bodyguards were on board, but their usual vigilance had relaxed in that seemingly safe situation. They were joking and throwing sticks. We sailed smoothly northwards with the flow of the great river. A light breeze carried the scent of damp earth. The water was the colour of lapis lazuli between the lush, palm-lined green banks. In the shallows small boys played with a bleating goat.
Suddenly the low prow of the barge dipped. A swimmer had approached the boat unseen under the water and had clambered aboard. Moving with the agile grace of a predatory lion, the man leapt past the astonished rowers and onto the deck where the Pharaoh was enthroned. In his hand he clutched a dagger. Only I registered immediately what was happening. I had no time to think, I just acted. I lunged forwards from my seat just below the deck and caught the man’s wrist. He turned on me ferociously and I smelled garlic on his breath. When he struck at me I felt a burning sensation in my arm. We struggled mightily on the swaying boat. I had not the strength to overpower him, for he was powerful and wild with hatred, but I held him at bay. My intervention slowed him sufficiently for the Pharaoh’s bodyguards to come to their senses and assist me.
He was tied up and taken ashore at the first opportunity. It turned out later that he was a farmer who had lost land which he believed to be his in a case before the Grand Vizier some days previously and he blamed the Pharaoh. For his attack on the King he forfeited his life.
As for me, I was bleeding from a gash in my arm, but I accounted the pain as nothing since I had been of service to Her Majesty. She herself attended to me once the attacker had been subdued, stopping up the wound with her own kerchief. Her hands were deft and gentle. I remember that she smelled of myrrh, even after a morning in the sun, and I remember the golden colour of her eyes, looking so closely into mine that I could only blink, and stutter.
“M-Majesty, it’s n-nothing, you should not bother …”
“Of course I must,” she said, in her low, clear voice. “You have been extremely brave. You might have lost your life for mine. I am indebted to you. There, I have tied the kerchief tightly, it should stop the bleeding for now.”
I have it yet. She ordered the barge to be turned around and had me carried to the palace at Thebes where Hapu, the Chief Royal Physician, sewed the lips of the wound together and gave me a potion for the pain. But I was not aware of suffering; I could only relive those moments when Her Majesty had leaned close to me and tended me carefully with her own lovely hands. Since that time, five years ago, I have often been called to the palace. I live to serve the Pharaoh.
I wish that I had skill in portraiture, so that I might paint a picture of Her Majesty, one that would better show than the cold stone what Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s appearance is. But I have skill only in words, and that the official kind. I do not have the eloquence of a bard, for I am a civil servant and accustomed to the writing of lists and dry reports. Yet I have a sharp eye and I miss little.
So I shall set down as accurately as I can what I have noted. The great King is fair of face and form. Her skin is light brown, with a bloom as of apricots; her hair is a wondrous red-gold, touched with henna and braided into many small braids so that it forms an imposing frame for her round and resolute face. I believe it is her own hair and not a wig as many ladies wear over a shaven skull.
Her eyes are most exceptional. They hold one’s gaze and seem to read with a piercing regard what one would rather keep private. They are almond-shaped and the exact colour of a lion’s golden gaze. I have on occasion accompanied my uncle on a hunt and I have seen a lion.
Her hands are small, with tapered fingers, well kept and decorated with henna. Also she has slender and elegant feet. She is quite tall for a woman and she walks with dignity and grace. Further I have noted that although Her Majesty is a god and a king she has the scent of a woman and the ability in passing by to stir a man’s loins.
Her voice is arresting, low and clear. She seldom raises it, but when she does all those within hearing know that it is the voice of power, the voice of authority. She is able to quell a hall full of argumentative men with ease, and I have heard her stir up a multitude of the common people to adulation. Yes, the people of the Two Lands have loved the Pharaoh Hatshepsut and they have worked for her and bowed their heads to her these twenty years. It is not the people who would be rid of her.
Enough, enough. I must store these writings where they will not be discovered by prying eyes.
THE SECOND SCROLL
The reign of Hatshepsut year 20:
The first month of Peret day 7
The faithful Mahu has taken the first scroll away and hidden it. Of course he now holds my life in his hands, and also the life of Khani. Yet I trust my little scribe who follows me around with the brown eyes of a loving dog. He would give all to protect me and he has a scar to prove it. A pity he has not the insight and the political intelligence – and the craftiness – that I once could call upon in one who began as a scribe and rose to greater things. If I still had Senenmut at my side, I would feel less threatened by the dangers that I sense around me now. But I am the Lord of the Two Lands and I, alone, have held sway for a score of years. I am divine; the gods range at my back. I will prevail.
Today I shall record Inet’s second story that goes to prove my undoubted divinity.
“Hathor is not the only one of the gods who have favoured Your Majesty,” she would begin. This is true. There has also always been Hapi, God of the lif
e-giving Nile, Hapi the bountiful, the fruitful, the generous, who each year without fail causes the great river to flood its banks, drawing back to leave the rich black earth behind, bringing fertility to the Black Land; Hapi who has both beard and breasts, and is therefore both male and female as all my life I too have had to be. I have always thought it appropriate that I should have been in Hapi’s especial care.
This is how Inet told the tale.
“You were just like a boy child,” she said. “A rough little girl, always tumbling about with your brothers, running, jumping, climbing, throwing things, shouting …”
“I fought them, too,” I said, lifting my chin. “And I beat them.”
“You bit them,” said Inet severely. “You did not behave like a princess of the royal house, not at all.”
“Go on about Hapi,” I said.
“One day the boys decided to go fishing,” she continued. “They had small harpoons that one of the slaves had made for them. And a coracle woven of reeds, light enough for the two of them to handle.”
“They weren’t very old, were they?” I asked.
“Prince Wadjmose had seen eleven summers and Prince Amenmose nine,” Inet confirmed.
“And I three,” I said.
“Who is telling this tale?” Inet demanded. “If you know it all, why do you make me repeat it until I have to find some cooled wine to soothe my throat?”
“I like to hear it,” I said. “Go on, tell me. I’ll be quiet.”
“You insisted on going along,” she resumed. “Even with only three summers you knew what you wanted and you insisted on getting your way. Wilful, wilful.” She shook her head with its stiff black wig. “Truth to tell, you threw yourself upon the ground and drummed your heels and screamed, and even I could not calm you down. So for the sake of peace they took you along.”
“It was a beautiful day,” I said dreamily. “The sun was shining and the river was blue as the sky, except around the edges where the reeds and papyrus plants made it look green.”
“How would you know that?” asked Inet. “Surely you were too small to remember?”
“I think I do remember,” I said. Actually, Inet had always described it thus, and I had heard the tale so many times that I no longer knew what I could really recall. Besides, the sun always shines in the Black Land.
“Yes, well, the day was fine. The boys were instructed to keep an eye on you and on no account to let you handle a harpoon. And naturally you were accompanied by a small retinue. It’s not as though you went alone,” said Inet, still suffering twinges of guilt as she reflected on what could have happened. “I should have gone too, but I had the headache that makes me blind on the one side.”
“Itruri went,” I said. “And two slaves.”
“Itruri wasn’t a great deal of use,” sniffed Inet. She always was jealous of the elderly man who was the tutor of the royal children. “Sat on the bank under a sycamore tree and watched as disaster came close to wiping out the entire royal line, that’s what he did. The river was just beginning to rise.”
“As the goddess Isis wept for her dead love, Osiris,” I said.
“You know it, little one. Osiris was dead and the summer solstice was approaching. But his death was only temporary.”
“As is all death,” I said.
“You know it, little one. But on this day Isis wept as she searched the world for the pieces of her beloved husband’s body that had been cast to the four winds.”
“By his wicked brother Seth,” I added. I have always had a sneaking admiration for Seth. He was so clever and so ruthless in seeking his brother’s throne.
Inet ignored me. “The waters were swelling,” she continued. “The shoals on the banks where the boys fished were perhaps deeper than usual. There should have been two slaves in the coracle, but because they had you along, there was only room for one. The other one cast off and the boys paddled out briskly.”
“And Amenmose speared a fish,” I said.
“He did.”
“And he was so excited that he fell over the side.”
“He did. And Prince Wadjmose leaped in after him. Wadjmose could swim,” said Inet, “but Amenmose was not yet a good swimmer, and finding the water deeper than he was used to, he panicked and held on to his brother in his fright and the two nearly went down together.”
“So the slave jumped in too,” I said, “leaving me in the coracle.”
“He did. And the coracle bobbed out into the stream.”
“And I could not swim. But Hapi cradled me,” I said. “Hapi protected me. I did not fall in. I did not drown.”
“Praise be to the gods,” said Inet devoutly. “Reaching the middle of the river, where the current at that time ran strong, the little coracle sailed briskly downstream with you alone on board.”
“I was not afraid,” I said.
“No, you were not. Itruri said you waved at him and you were laughing, enjoying the ride.”
“The wind was in my hair,” I said. “It smelled of spice.”
This time Inet did not question my memory. “Itruri was distraught,” she said. “It had all happened so fast that he was at a loss. The slave had managed to get the two princes safely ashore, but there you went, all alone in a fragile boat of reeds, three summers only …” Inet shook her head as she contemplated the scene.
“But some peasants in a felucca saw my boat,” I said. “And they saw that I was too small to be sailing alone. They didn’t know I was a princess, though, did they, Inet?”
“They did not know. But they saw a small girl child alone on the wide water and they came to your rescue.”
“And they carried me home to the harem palace, and my mother was terribly upset,” I said, remembering how she had wept, and held me so tightly that I was almost unable to breathe. Only the previous year my little sister Neferubity had died, of something in her throat that stopped her breath, and my mother had wept, it seemed to me, for months. “Not this one too,” she had cried, clutching me. “Please, please, do not take this one too!”
“I told her I was quite safe with Hapi, but she was not impressed,” I said to Inet. “And my father the Pharaoh, may he live for ever, rewarded the men.”
“He did. But he was angry with you, and you should never forget what he said to you then.”
“He told me, ‘Always remember that your life belongs to Khemet. Do not be careless with it.’ But he did not understand that Hapi cradled me,” I said. “Hapi did not let me drown.”
“That is so,” said Inet.
Truthfully, I have felt a bond with Hapi all my life. I am never happier than when I am sailing upon her bosom. (Although she is both male and female, I believe her female side predominates, for does she not nurture the Black Land like a loving mother?) In times of sorrow, I have fled to her banks and my tears have mingled with the sacred water. As a child, I often escaped from supervision to run down to the river and sit staring at the grand sweep of it, or to cool my hot feet in the soothing shallows. It was not difficult to slip away from the harem palace, where I lived with the rest of the palace children, in the silent, sultry afternoons when all the adults were asleep and the tutor who was supposed to keep an eye on his charges while they rested had also succumbed to the heat.
Here I was interrupted in my writing as my little dwarf Bek, one of my favourite slaves, came running out onto the portico, throwing himself into a series of rolling somersaults as he came. I could not help laughing and refrained from reproving him. He knows he should not rush unbidden into my presence, but he also knows he pleases me and he presumes on my lenience. In truth he is a grown man of some twenty-six summers, but he is no larger than a child of five, although he has broad shoulders and a large head atop his small body.
“A riddle! A riddle!” he cried, coming to a stop with his feet folded neatly onto his thighs. His fine brown eyes sparkled with mirth.
“What is it?” I asked.
“What is small, but potent? Single, yet mult
iplies? Finite, yet filled with potential?” He looked at me expectantly.
“A seed,” I guessed.
He tilted his head. “A good guess, Majesty. It could be so. But I meant …”
He always wanted his audience to beg.
“Go on, tell me.”
“Me! Me! Me!” he crowed, doing a backward somersault and sitting upright again.
“You multiply?”
“Me and Yunit,” he announced, beaming with delight. “She is with child.”
“Why, Bek, that is wonderful,” I said, sincerely. Bek has been married to Yunit these seven years. She is also a dwarf, although slightly taller than he is. I had not thought they would have children.
“Two moons gone already,” he told me proudly. “And sick to her stomach with it. She is only able to fancy pomegranates.”
“Oh, so? And I suppose I must order my head gardener to supply my slave with pomegranates?”
“Majesty is kind. Majesty is as kind as she is beautiful. I mean he,” and Bek shook his head. It confuses him that I am king although I am female.
“Think of me like Hapi,” I said. “Hapi is both male and female. Strong and bountiful. Destructive and nurturing.”
He nodded, his face clearing. The idea of the river god having a dual nature was familiar to him. “Majesty,” he said, dropping his voice, getting up and sidling closer to me. He glanced at the guards who are never far from me, even during the time of afternoon rest.
“Speak softly,” I said. Bek, small and odd though he is, has eyes and ears that I trust and they are always at my service.
“There is talk in the taverns,” he murmured into my ear. Bek likes to frequent a number of taverns, where he is a great favourite because of his jokes. He earns occasional debens of copper or silver from the patrons, which he stashes away with a view to eventually gaining his freedom, when he hopes to acquire a smallholding where he and Yunit will plant vegetables for the market. He does not know I am aware of this, but Pharaoh must know whereof his servants dream. Dreams can be dangerous.
