The Gardener and the Assassin

by Mark Gajewski

  It was clear as we sailed past this part of the valley that hundreds of thousands of people had once lived here. The population was still substantial, but in sections houses had been abandoned and fallen to ruin.

  “In this southern district of Mennefer are villas of the elite and houses for high–ranking officials,” Grandfather told me. “Over there’s Hathor’s temple.” We passed the mouth of a west–flowing canal. “That’s the city’s harbor at the canal’s far end. Peru–nefer. Just imagine, Neset! For millennia the wealth of the entire empire passed through this harbor. It was the crossroads of the world’s trade. A little north of Mennefer the many branches of the river constrict after flowing through Ta–mehi, funneling goods south from Retenu and Setjet and Naharina and the islands in the Great Green. Here goods arrive from south of the cataract. Here the caravan trails from the eastern and western deserts intersect the river, conveying the products of those lands.” He pointed north. “There, along the river, are pharaohs’ per’aas and royal estates. Each pharaoh builds his own, which is why there are so many. Per’aas are abandoned when pharaohs die, not leveled. Most workers, particularly wretches, live north of the canal within their own walled areas, with their own specialized markets.”

  “Why are there so many wretches in Mennefer?”

  “Some are descendants of soldiers captured in battle by past pharaohs. Some are descended from sailors who ran off from their crewmates and settled here for a better life. Some traveled here purposefully to share in the valley’s bounty. Anyway, the mud–brick houses in Mennefer are several stories tall, with flat roofs. The city’s streets are laid out in a grid. Usually they’re choked with refuse and the smell is almost unbearable.” Grandfather pointed again. “There’s a canal over there, west of the city, parallel to the river. On its west bank are a series of memorial temples raised by various pharaohs.”

  “I envy that you saw so much of the valley when you were young, Grandfather.”

  “If I hadn’t joined Pharaoh’s army when wretches invaded Ta–mehi I wouldn’t have. I’d have spent my entire life tending Ta Set Maat’s fields. I wouldn’t have come to Pharaoh’s attention and been appointed his gardener.” He smiled. “Who can say where the journey will end when one sets out on an unknown path?”

  Something I could well attest. As a child I’d dreamed of traveling the valley as my ancestors had. Now I actually was. Mesedptah’s death had freed me from the confines of Ta Set Maat and opened the world to me. I wasn’t about to let that freedom go ever again.

  I stared spellbound as we passed Giza less than an hour later. The swollen river lapped the very base of the vast tilted desert plateau, low in the east, high in the west. Three pyramids towered over their surroundings less than half a mile from the eastern edge of the plateau, two of them massive, the third much smaller. Small pyramids and dozens of mastaba tombs clustered beside them. A quarter mile in front of them, as if standing guard, was a mighty Sphinx hewn from rock, only its head and neck protruding from the sand, dwarfing nearby men and the remains of several temples.

  “Supposedly a son of the second Amenhotep, a grandson of the third Thutmose, fell asleep beside the Sphinx one day after hunting,” Grandfather said. “The Sphinx appeared to him in a dream and told him he’d succeed his father as pharaoh if he cleared away the sand and restored the great statue, even though he wasn’t first in line for the throne. He did, then erected a stela recording his dream. He in fact succeeded Amenhotep and ruled as the fourth Thutmose.”

  Sand had re–covered most of the Sphinx and Thutmose’s stela in subsequent centuries.

  “Do you think his dream was real or made up, Grandfather?”

  “Some say Thutmose made it up to justify pushing his older brother aside and seizing the throne. But who can say for sure?” Grandfather replied. “You know the stories from our family – the falcon god has sent dreams to some talisman bearers. They’ve always come true. If their dreams were real, why should we doubt Thutmose’s?”

  But I couldn’t help doubt. Had a dream predicted Thutmose’s future, or had Thutmose forged his own future and justified it by claim of a dream? Had the falcon god really sent my ancestors dreams, or had they made them up to justify an action they wanted to take, or justify one they’d already taken? My faith in the validity of family stories and purported dreams was considerably weaker than Grandfather’s.

  “Our ancestress Maetkra received a dream from the falcon god at this very spot,” Grandfather reminded me. “She and her father Pakhar lived and worked on this plateau almost fifteen hundred years ago during construction of King Khufu’s pyramid. Maetkra saw herself making a beadnet dress for a wretch who’d been taken prisoner by one of the king’s sons. She did, and that wretch ended up married to Khufu.”

  “I remember what happened to them. Pakhar was crushed to death by a massive block of stone being unloaded from a boat in Giza’s harbor. Maetkra rose from seamstress in the pyramid workers’ village to mistress of a delta estate to royal dressmaker.”

  Grandfather swept the plateau with his eyes. “Picture what Giza was like in those days, Neset! A large harbor nestled against the base of the plateau to enable the unloading of fine stone transported from quarries as close as Tura and as far south as the cataract. A smaller harbor to deliver foodstuffs and materials for the pyramid workers. Dozens of quays. Warehouses all along the shore. Hundreds of sweating porters, countless scribes tracking deliveries, overseers barking orders. Villages for the permanent workers and dormitories for the temporary. An administrative town, filled with workshops and kitchens and bakeries and breweries and potteries. A stockyard and a slaughterhouse. A riverside market where boat captains replenished supplies for their voyage home. Hundreds of donkeys hauling wood and water. Fishing boats unloading their daily catch. Thousands of men dragging sledges loaded with stone from the harbor and the Giza quarry up the sides of the pyramid. Skilled masons setting the blocks in place, the cladding blocks so perfectly aligned a sheet of papyrus wouldn’t fit between them. The sides of the completed pyramids shining white, their gold capstones glittering. Columns of smoke rising from workshops and bakeries. Clouds of incense from the offering tables overseen by the priests of the pharaohs’ cults.”

  So much was gone from Giza, but the echoes remained. And the mighty pyramids. I was impressed.

  Within an hour of passing Giza we reached the foot of Ta–mehi, the vast delta, a great silver lake stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see, the waving tips of reeds and papyrus marking the location of submerged riverbanks. For the first time in my life I could see all the way to the horizon, with no hill or mountain or plateau blocking my view. Scattered turtlebacks stood a few feet above the water, isolated islands.

  “This is where the river splits into multiple branches,” Grandfather informed me. “We’re taking the easternmost. See the cluster of buildings on that long turtleback? That estate supplies Mennefer with food.”

  “Was it our ancestor’s?”

  “No. Nykara’s was a little farther north, on a different branch of the river. But his estate was seized by the Chiefs of Foreign Lands five hundred years ago. We never got it back.”

  “How about Maetkra’s?”

  “The estate she inherited from her husband? It was on the westernmost branch.”

  “Where Narmer defeated delta rebels and unified the valley?”

  “So the stories passed down in her husband’s family claimed.”

  I noted that the farther north we sailed the more intensively land was being farmed, based on the number of buildings hugging the crests of turtlebacks. Estates were large and close together. Vineyards and groves of trees topped many ridges.

  “After the inundation recedes great herds of cattle and sheep and goats will darken these plains,” Grandfather said. “They’re grazing now on higher ground on the fringes of the eastern and western deserts, out of reach of the water.”

  Eventually we came even with eight or nine turtlebacks on
the east side of the channel, all covered with ruins of large buildings interspersed with mud–brick huts. The turtlebacks were separated from each other by narrow shallow channels that would clearly be dry land once the inundation receded. The largest turtleback was thickly covered with foundations and remnants of buildings.

  “The site of Avaris, capital of the Chiefs of Foreign Lands,” Grandfather announced grandly. “Avaris’ harbor was on the far side of this turtleback. It was much larger centuries ago, but the river has filled most of it with silt. It’s partly usable during the inundation, though. As you can see, people still live among the ruins.”

  We traversed the length of the island and rounded an elevated point where the river veered sharply east. Remains of two extensive mud–brick structures occupied the point.

  “What were those?”

  “The smaller was the per’aa of the Chiefs of Foreign Lands, besieged by kings Kamose and Ahmose – and our ancestors – when they retook the valley. The larger was a per’aa erected by the third Thutmose. Supposedly it was decorated by painters from Keftiuh, an island in the Wadjet Wer. The walls had images of men leaping over bulls and leopards and such – very strange and barbaric.”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  “What’s left. I poked around in the ruins once. I’ve never seen images like them anywhere in the valley. Some claim one of Thutmose’s wives was from Keftiuh and that he built the per’aa for her. But who can tell with certainty after so long?”

  The barque rounded the point and swept east. So much land in Ta–Mehi devoted to agriculture should have prepared me for the immensity of Pi–Ramesses. But it didn’t. The city entirely covered a large island in the middle of the river, just north of two smaller ones. It was thick with buildings, a mix of mud–brick and stone structures interspersed with massive statues and obelisks. Two turtlebacks were directly opposite the island, to its south, covered with ruins.

  “You’ll never see so many people in one place ever again,” Grandfather told me. “Three hundred thousand.” He pointed to a sprawling structure overlooking the southern edge of the island. “That’s Pharaoh’s per’aa, where we’ll be staying.”

  Our boat slipped into a narrow channel between the large island and a small one to its west, drifted directly north, then merged into the east–flowing main channel.

  “That’s the center of town to our right, south of the per’aa,” Grandfather said. “The eastern side of the island is a disorderly collection of houses and gardens and workshops of various sizes. Here on the west is the royal section. It’s dominated by the temple of Amen–Re–Harakhty–Atum. Many courtiers’ houses lie between temple and river.”

  We soon reached a narrow channel that sliced directly into the island, its entrance overlooked by a vast temple complex. That channel led us directly south to Pi–Ramesses’ harbor. I was used to seeing boats moored at Waset’s quays but I’d never dreamed of such variety – some long and slender, others wide, a few with multiple steering oars, some with two–story cabins, some unpainted, most richly decorated. Many looked strange, no doubt belonging to sailors from foreign lands.

  “These vessels belong to officials,” Grandfather said. “Sea–going cargo boats and military vessels dock at a larger harbor farther north on the island. Its banks swarm with porters and sailors – many of them wretches – piled with baskets and containers being loaded and unloaded. The shore is crammed with mud–brick warehouses. A small army of scribes stands beside boats and quays and warehouses, tracking everything.”

  The barque nosed to a spot beside the royal quay and waiting men tied it to mooring posts. Grandfather and I disembarked with the rest of Pharaoh’s officials and followed them to the per’aa. Servants showed us to our room – the walls beautifully decorated with images of trees and flowers, the furniture magnificent – an actual bed, not just a pallet on the floor, and real chairs, and a small table. It was the most marvelous room I’d ever been in. I could hardly believe my good fortune. Two years ago I’d been tending a garden on a rooftop in Ta Set Maat with no chance of ever escaping the village of my birth. Today I was hundreds of miles away having traveled most of the length of the valley, employed by Pharaoh as an overseer, conversing with him almost daily, about to spend a night in his per’aa. Things I’d never even dared to dream were happening to me.

  ***

  The evening of our arrival at Pi–Ramesses, Pharaoh’s herald summoned Grandfather and me to the garden of his per’aa. The sun was descending in the west; shadows were creeping across the garden. Ramesses was seated on a magnificently–decorated ebony chair some distance from a lotus–choked pool at the edge of a small grove of towering date palms, the sun at his back. He was dressed in a knee–length linen bag tunic with a decorated collar and hem, a corselet of precious stones, a broad collar below bands of feathers made of faience and agate, and a sash woven in red, blue, yellow and natural flax with bands, zigzags, dots, rows of ankhs, and cartouches with his name. He was attended by Vizier To and a handful of officials and wives and family members and serving girls. With a start I recognized Pharaoh’s son Pentawere sitting next to his mother, Tiye. She was wearing a pleated dress with sleeves, and a broad collar, and a belt of gold and carnelian with turquoise on its ends. She was crowned with a vulture headdress, the two wings of solid gold hanging down each side of her head, with a rearing cobra at her brow. Her crown was topped with two tall white plumes. The setting sun gave them a reddish tint.

  Seeing Pentawere, the humiliation I’d suffered during my husband’s trial swept over me again. I didn’t hold Mesedptah’s execution against Pharaoh’s son. My husband had brought his death on himself. Still, I couldn’t help panic. What if Pentawere recognized me? What if he mentioned my thieving husband to Pharaoh? I’d never told Pharaoh what Mesedptah had done. How would Pharaoh react to my omission? Would he take away my position? Would he take away Grandfather’s? How would either of us live then? I slipped behind Grandfather, hoping his body would shield me from Pentawere’s view. Though I kept my eyes on the king’s son, making sure he wasn’t reporting me to his father. Pentawere was more handsome than I remembered, well–built, self–assured. He looked more regal than Pharaoh himself.

  Pharaoh spied me and my stack of reed baskets. “You’ve come for my flowers, Neset?”

  There was no hiding now. I stepped from behind Grandfather, studiously ignoring everyone but Pharaoh. “I have, Majesty.”

  “Splendid! They’re in that plot over there – my gardener has marked each one I want transplanted to Djeme with a stake.” He pointed to an area at the base of a low stone wall that edged a two–foot wide canal that diverted water from the river into the garden.

  “I’ll dig them up right away, Majesty,” I said, relieved I could escape the royal presence and potential discovery. I hurriedly carried my baskets through knee–high grasses and flowers to that section, knelt in the dirt with my back to the royals, unstacked the baskets, dug the first plant out taking care not to harm the roots. I placed it in a basket, packed it with dirt. I quickly glanced at the royals over my shoulder. Grandfather was seated between Vizier To and Pharaoh. Pharaoh was pointing to a far corner of the garden and he and Grandfather were discussing it. Vizier To looked bored. I returned to my task.

  I’d extracted a dozen plants when I heard grass rustling behind me. I half–turned, looked up. Pentawere loomed. I felt a surge of fear. Had he recognized me? I hastily spun around on my knees and bent low, palms pressed into the dirt. “Majesty.”

  “Look up,” he commanded.

  I raised onto my knees and craned my neck. My eyes met his.

  “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I.” It wasn’t a question.

  There was no sense lying, though the truth would likely cost me my position. I assumed Pharaoh would be furious when Pentawere told him about my connection to Mesedptah. My husband had robbed the tomb of the predecessor–pharaoh Ramesses loved most. “Yes, Majesty, at the Great Kenbet at Djeme, two and a half years
ago.” I took a deep breath, my stomach churning. “You sentenced my husband to death for robbing the tomb of Osiris–pharaoh Usermaatre–Setepenre, the great god, justified.”

  Pentawere casually seated himself on the wall.

  I turned towards him, sat back on my haunches, my heart pounding, preparing for the worst.

  “Your name is Neset.”

  I was surprised. “You remember my name after all this time, Majesty?”

  “You’re really quite unforgettable, Neset. Such glorious red hair…”

  I felt my face begin to burn. It was probably the same shade as my hair. I was glad it was getting dark in the garden.

  “Do you hold it against me, the sentence I imposed that day?”

  Why would a royal care what I thought? “No, Majesty, I don’t,” I said truthfully. “My husband deserved his fate.”

  “You beat him with your fists, as I recall.” Pentawere smiled.

  “Yes, Majesty.” I tilted my chin, defiant. “I didn’t know he’d been unfaithful until that day. He shamed me when he bragged about his conquests. I’d have divorced him years earlier if I’d known.”

  Pentawere shook his head ruefully. “I remember thinking at the time that a man with a wife as compelling as you who slept with seemingly every woman in Ta Set Maat was an utter fool.” His eyes passed over me slowly, taking every bit of me in.

  I blushed at his compliment, and at his glance, and at the knowledge he remembered me. It was flattering, actually. “You’re too kind, Majesty.”

  “Not by a half,” he replied. “And I’m no fool.” He let that sink in. “You’ve come from Waset for my brother’s triumphant return?” He said “triumphant” distastefully.