by Marié Heese
Well, well, I thought. This is a shrewd move on the part of the runt. On the one hand it might enrage the Mitanni sufficiently to cause them to attack, which would force my hand in declaring war. On the other hand it strengthens his claim to the Double Throne. And since he has five daughters from the first wife, while his other sons by minor wives and concubines are all younger than Amenhotep and do not have the full blood royal, Meryetre will doubtless in time become the Mother of the King. So, it is certainly politic to make her the Chief Wife. No fool he, one must admit. And a move I could hardly oppose. No fool, indeed.
“Mother, you frown,” said Meryetre in an injured tone. Her voice had taken on the whining note I knew so well, that grated me as it had done all her life. “You are not pleased for me,” she complained. “You should be glad that he has given greater honour to me, who am Egyptian-born. She is no longer the sun of his eyes. He loves me better now.” She sniffed and a tear rolled down her cheek. “She has grown fat, and slatternly,” she added, wiping it away.
Yes, perhaps she has, my poor child, I thought, but while she may have lost her looks you never had any. In fact, you have always looked a great deal like your husband Thutmose, which may be the reason why he finds you acceptable. Both stocky little figures, both brown of eye with strong, slightly hooked noses and both with the buck teeth so common in the royal family, although mercifully they passed me by. For that matter, both bald, although of course Meryetre wears extraordinary, intricately plaited wigs. How two sisters could look as different as she and Neferure, my darling first-born, may she live, I do not understand. For Neferure, as I have written, was beautiful and made men catch their breath as she walked by. Perhaps it is not surprising Meryetre is always discontented, I thought.
I put my hand on hers and patted it. “I am happy if your husband honours you, my child,” I said. “It is the thought of possible political effects of a slight to the Mitanni that makes me frown. Be happy.”
She sniffed again and was partly mollified. But I lay awake most of that night, as I now have for several more. I feel as if I cannot draw enough breath. Also I am afraid to sleep, for I do not want a recurrence of my dream of war. I am being encircled, I am being pressed on all sides. They will force me into armed conflict and I do not want it. Yet that is not all; I must write truthfully. There is another matter that steals the sleep from my eyes.
Only a day later an event occurred that I still find virtually impossible to believe. For two people to be so close over so many years, and for the one to … His heart was tied to mine, and mine to his. Indissolubly. He knew that. How could he, how could he then … No, let me write it as it happened.
I had finished my morning session in the Grand Audience Chamber and had moved on to a smaller room that Hapuseneb as Vizier of the South uses as an office. I had matters to discuss with him. Praise be to the gods that it was private; if this episode had happened in front of large numbers of people, I do not know how I could have maintained any dignity. He was not there, but I was glad to sit for a few moments collecting myself. These days a full session tires me. I had sent my lady-in-waiting to fetch some cool juice, but she had not yet returned.
Hapuseneb does himself proud, I thought, looking around me at the elegant furniture, woven floor covering and superb collection of vases, many of which were surely imported. They were carefully set out on tables and chests. I noticed fine pottery vessels and others fashioned from rock crystal, alabaster and glass. A man who does well with the support of the Pharaoh.
Suddenly an altercation met my ears; someone was trying to obtain entry and the guards at the door were not allowing it.
I heard the guards’ low rumble and then a high-pitched woman’s voice arguing urgently.
“The morning audiences are over,” I heard one guard say, through the half-open door. “You must come back tomorrow.”
“The Pharaoh will wish to see me,” the female voice insisted. “Just enquire, that’s all.”
“We are not going to disturb Her Majesty, woman, I tell you, come back tomorrow!”
“Tell the Pharaoh it concerns the late Senenmut,” said the voice, clearly intending that I should overhear these words. “Just tell her, you’ll see …”
I went to the door. “Let her come in,” I told the guards. “Keep all others out. Come, then.”
The woman walked in, smiling triumphantly at the guards. Then she made a deep obeisance. “Thank you for seeing me, Majesty,” she said.
“Rise,” I said. “Your name?”
“Nefthys, Majesty.” She stood. I saw a woman somewhat smaller and also younger than I am. She was quite elegantly dressed in fine, pleated linen with a coloured sash and wore a necklace of silver set with amethysts. Many small plaits framed her oval face. A person of some status and means, I thought.
“You mentioned … Senenmut? He who was the Overseer of the King’s Temple, the architect of Djeser-Djeseru? That Senenmut?”
“The same, Majesty.”
“Well, what of him? You were related?” I wondered whether there could be a matter of property that she had come to me about. Yet Senenmut has been in the Afterlife these six years; surely all such issues will have been sorted out, I thought.
She nodded. “It’s about my sons, Majesty,” she stated confidently. “A pair of twins. They are now of an age to be properly trained as scribes, both having seen seven summers, and I wished to beg admittance to the palace school for them.”
Well, she had considerable presumption. I wondered who could have sired them that she should believe them to have such a claim on royal patronage. She herself had no connection with the palace, I was sure of that. I would have known of her, for she could be neither a servant nor a slave.
“Why should I allow them in?” I asked.
“Because he would have wished it, Majesty.”
“Who would?”
Her almond-shaped, amber eyes widened. “Senenmut, Majesty.”
“Indeed. So, you must be his sister. Yet I did not know he had one of that name. I know of Ahhotep and Nofret-Hor, but …”
“No, not his sister, Majesty. His wife.”
I stared at her blankly. “He had no wife,” I said.
“Majesty, he did. He had me. He was the father of my sons.”
I was angry. This was clearly an imposter, a woman with a scheme to promote her children by this wretched lie. “Not true,” I snapped. “He had no sons.”
She was unrolling a scroll that she had taken from a basket on her arm. Silver bracelets jangled. “I have the contract, Majesty, between his family and mine. Signed and attested, and sealed as you see.”
I barely glanced at it. “A forgery, no doubt,” I said. “Senenmut never lived anywhere but in Thebes, where his home was. To be near … to be near the court. He had no time for a wife and family. His … his work took all his time.”
“He had a second home,” she told me, “in Iuny, where he was born and grew up.”
“He was never there for long,” I insisted, “and when he went there, he went to visit his parents, and old friends.”
“Many women have husbands who go away for long periods of time,” she argued. “Sailors. Soldiers. Tax collectors. I could bring witnesses from Iuny,” she added, “who will attest that when he was there he lived with me.”
“Bribed,” I sneered, “doubtless there are enough townsfolk who would swear their mother was a whore if promised a goodly supply of food for a year or so. No, no, my good woman, it will not do, it will not do at all.”
I was shaking, but still in command of myself.
“Majesty,” she whispered, “I know where the entrance to his second tomb is located. I know that at first he wished to be buried in what is now his funerary chapel, and his great quartzite sarcophagus was delivered there. But he feared tomb robbers, as do all rich persons, and he commissioned a secret second tomb, hidden beneath the precincts of Djeser-Djeseru. He had the permission of Your Majesty. I know that the ceiling of that secret
tomb is decorated with a calendar showing the lunar months and depicting heavenly bodies.”
“Someone betrayed him,” I retorted. “Some workman, some artisan told you these secret things. It was not Senenmut. Why,” I demanded furiously, “why have you come here to tell me these lies?”
“It was his wish,” she said inexorably. “It was his wish that his sons should be palace children. He made me promise to come to Your Majesty when they were of the right age. He said … he said, ‘If the Pharaoh does not believe you, say: Remember the celebration of Djeser-Djeseru.’ Her Majesty will know that message must come from me.”
Now I knew that she spoke the truth. My heart howled in my breast like a jackal, but I would not let her hear it. Twins! Twin sons born to this woman, and my son never breathed! Oh Senenmut, how you have punished me! I turned my back and pretended to be studying a vase. “When were your sons born?” I asked. I had to force my voice to speak.
“One year after the great temple was completed,” she told me. “Before that, I used the juice of the silphion plant, for he did not want children at first.”
“When did you break the jar?”
“Twelve years ago, Majesty.”
When I was twenty-eight years old, I thought. The year that Thutmose, that one who would be King, tried to seduce me. When I laughed and told Senenmut of his impertinence. When I affirmed that I would never take a husband. That year. And the children begot upon her soon after the “celebration of Djeser-Djeseru”. By the foul breath of Seth, I believed her now. The hot tears began to roll down my cheeks. Oh, how I was betrayed! How he had cheated me! I thought I held his heart, that it was mine alone!
“He said, Majesty, that you would allow the boys into the palace school, once you knew that they were his.”
Yes, he was right. I could not refuse. I could not risk this woman going about and telling everybody that the Pharaoh would not accept the sons of the late great Senenmut into the palace school because of jealousy. I could not risk her telling what she might know of … the celebration of Djeser-Djeseru. I did not know what he had told her, and I could not, I would not ask. And he, who knew me so well, would have known that.
Oh, I was angry. I shook with it. It was a double, no, a triple betrayal. First, he had not been faithful to me, as I had been to him. I had been celibate, I had spent lonely nights aching with desire, I took no substitute lover! In my thoughts, we were in the same case, and I took heart from knowing – imagining – that he too was lonely, longing for what could not be. I believed that we were two of a kind, both sacrificing love because we served Khemet. Often when I could not sleep and longed for him, I believed that he too was awake and that the voice of his heart spoke my name to him.
Worse, he did not tell me. If he had, I would have been heartsore, but surely I would have understood. Very well then, if you must, I would have said – a man has needs, and this woman will not be important in your life. But he left me ignorant, he went away to Iuny, not to a concubine, but to his wife, to loving arms, to twin sons – by the tears of Isis – and I did not know! How she must have laughed at me! How they must have laughed together! Not only they, but all who knew. Many must indeed have known. And many must have mocked the poor deluded Pharaoh! It does not bear thinking of!
But worst of all: He had told her of the celebration of Djeser-Djeseru! That is the worst betrayal that he could ever have conceived. He knew how absolute was the trust I placed in him. It was our secret, ours alone. He promised to take it to the Afterlife. Instead, he spoke about it to this woman. How could he … how could he have … How much detail had he shared with her, I wondered, cringing. Did he truly need to boast about his mastery of the Pharaoh? Was this how he achieved revenge for my refusal to take him as a royal consort? By shaming me from beyond the tomb?
He should have hung head down from the walls of Thebes. He should have been thrown to the dogs. He should have been fed to the crocodiles. He should have been burned alive. Still standing with my back to the woman, I wiped my cheeks with the shawl I wore over my shoulders. Gathered my strength. Collected my dignity. “Very well,” I said. I turned around. “You may speak to the Chief Tutor. Tell him the Pharaoh wishes the boys to be enrolled.”
She made a deep obeisance.
“Smell the ground,” I ordered.
She kissed the floor in front of my feet.
“Rise, and go,” I said. “But I do not wish ever to set eyes on you again. Is that clear?”
She rose. Her eyes were cast down, but they flicked up once, looked me up and down and then away again, and in that moment I caught the hint of triumph in her glance. “Yes, Majesty. Thank you, Majesty,” she said.
I waited until she had left the room, and had had time to depart. Then I picked up the vases one by one and threw them at the wall. Pottery, glass, alabaster scattered in shards across the room. When Hapuseneb arrived, he stood aghast at the destruction, but he knew better than to remonstrate. I picked up the rock crystal vessel, which had bounced off the wall.
“There is one left,” I said, putting it down on a table. “I shall speak to you tomorrow.” I swept out.
Anger coursed through me like Seth bent on destruction, and like Seth I wanted to destroy. I called for a gang of strong workmen and I told them to go to the funerary chapel of the late Senenmut and to break the sarcophagus remaining there with its images and inscriptions into as many pieces as there were stars in the night sky. I told them to remove the names and images of Senenmut and of the Pharaoh from the walls wherever they appeared. I told them to remove all the statues of him, large or small, shatter them and cast them into a quarry.
As for his secret tomb, where he actually lies – of course that is a more difficult matter to dispose of. Ordinary people are loath to disturb an eternal house, especially of someone known to all, although tomb robbers are desperate enough to risk the possible effects of curses or the retribution of the gods that the dead one invoked with prayers, spells and amulets. Yet I found a greedy priest from the House of the Dead and offered him all of the grave goods if he would open the tomb, get a gang of slaves from the quarries to haul out that sarcophagus, destroy it completely, take out the coffins, remove the mummy and feed it to the crocodiles. A pity, I thought in my impotent rage, that it was not the living body of the faithless one. But I will be revenged. I will wipe out his name and banish him to the Netherworld, there to be devoured by monsters. He shall not live.
Here endeth the twenty-third scroll.
THE TWENTY-FOURTH SCROLL
The reign of Hatshepsut year 21:
The first month of Akhet day 17
I have now, I believe, written about the most important events of my life and of my reign. Yet I shall continue with my secret writings, recording what happens from day to day. It helps me to think matters through.
It is a strange thing, but when one begins to write, it is as if the reed pen has its own intentions that one’s heart did not necessarily plan. More than once I have surprised myself by what I write; I have been more candid in some of these scrolls than I should have been. My pen knows what it wants. It wants to tell my story. But I can be obstinate, if I truly want to be, and I now note, here, very firmly, that I do not wish to write any more about the faithless one, whose tomb I have denuded and whose mummy I have had destroyed. No more of that. I will write no more of that.
I am still Pharaoh, and I still occupy the Double Throne. I must concentrate on serious things, matters of state. Thutmose has returned from the South, to a hero’s welcome. They cheered him all along the river as he marched with his men; this even though they had fought no battles, other than a few skirmishes with desert tribes. Had quashed no insurrection, for there had been none. Still, the common folk revere him, and in the streets of Thebes they threw flowers beneath his feet.
I must reassert my status and authority. I have been considering my choices, and I have had an excellent idea. Six years ago, my Sed festival served me well. It impressed the populace and
reaffirmed my kingship. What I had done once before, I thought, I could do again. I sent for Hapuseneb.
“Soon it will be time for the Festival of Opet,” I said.
“Yes. But, Majesty, the water remains low. I believe it would be wise to keep the festival within modest limits this year. It must be held, of course, but …”
I said, “Precisely because the festival is linked to the rising of the Nile, it is necessary to praise the gods whole-heartedly.”
Hapuseneb looked very uneasy. “If the inundation fails, we shall have to feed our people for many months. We must husband our resources. To be spendthrift now …”
“The inundation will not fail,” I said, with more assurance than I felt. “Perhaps it may be somewhat less generous than usual, but that has happened before. We shall survive, particularly with the aid of the shaduf and the way in which it improves irrigation. It is early Akhet yet.”
“The signs are ominous,” he said, stubbornly.
“Well, all the more reason to propitiate the gods. We need a grand Opet festival with prayers and ample offerings to ensure a good inundation.” I did not see how he could argue against this, since the Opet festival prescribes – among other ceremonies – communing between the Pharaoh and Amen-Min, who inseminates the earth and brings forth fruitful harvests.
He sighed. “What had Your Majesty in mind?”
“A truly magnificent event,” I said, “continuing for a full eight days with, of course, music and pageantry and sporting events – races, archery competitions, wrestling matches, that sort of thing. And plenty of bread and beer to be distributed.”
“As long as that? Majesty, I must protest! Most strenuously! In the circumstances … even two days …”
“Well, then … perhaps four. We must honour both Hapi and Amen-Min appropriately. We must demonstrate our total faith in the gods’ blessings.”
