The Gardener and the Assassin

by Mark Gajewski

  “That’s because Ramesses ruled for almost seven decades and spent the whole time placing statues of himself in every nook and cranny in the land. But see the writing on this pylon, girls?”

  “The names are funny,” Beketaten said, twisting around and gazing upward.

  “You know how to read?”

  “Father’s teaching me,” she said proudly. “He decorates coffins in his spare time. I check the spells along with him to make sure they’re correct.”

  “Mother says writing isn’t for girls,” Wabkhet informed me rather haughtily.

  “Your mother’s wrong,” I told her gently. I thought about Tjuyu and her pride in her illiteracy. A foolish woman. And Bunakhtef. An idiotic man. “If I didn’t know how to read and write I wouldn’t be Pharaoh’s overseer. If you girls want to have some say in your futures you should talk Beketaten’s father into teaching you too, if your own won’t. Or perhaps I will.” I turned to the pylon. “Anyway, this pylon lists one hundred–twenty towns Pharaoh Thutmose conquered. From every one he brought booty and hostages and slaves back to the valley. Every town paid him tribute every single year after he conquered it, making this valley wealthy. The Hall of Records in the court east of this pylon lists that tribute. Thutmose built a shrine in that court too. On its walls he recorded his military campaigns. He ruled for more than five decades and invaded Setjet and Retenu and Naharina constantly. On the other side of Amen’s temple, at the east end of Ipet–Isut, he erected a great temple, Akh–Menou, Brilliant of Monuments. One room, the Botanical Garden, documents his discoveries of flora and fauna. Thutmose ruled the largest empire the world has ever seen.”

  “And so was the mightiest pharaoh,” Beketaten concluded.

  “The section of Ipet–Isut east of this pylon we’re leaning against is very important, girls,” I said. “Eight hundred years ago the first King Senwosret built the original shrine for Amen there. Succeeding pharaohs either erected shrines of their own near it or modified those built by their predecessors. Some pharaohs even dismantled existing shrines and reused the stone to build new shrines of their own.”

  “What about the writing on the walls?” Nauny asked. “Didn’t it refer to whoever built the shrine in the first place?”

  “Stonemasons chipped out the old hieroglyphs and created new inscriptions. In fact, if you inspect inscriptions made by Ramesses the Great, he ordered his craftsmen to carve them extra deep, so they couldn’t be easily erased by his successors.”

  The sky was beginning to lighten. Muted sounds of chanting carried to us.

  “Amen’s awake, girls,” I informed them. “The First God’s Servant is performing a ritual that will enable Amen’s ka to descend from the sky and take up residence in his statue. Usermarenakht and his assistant priests and God’s Wife of Amen will soon bathe his statue and dress him. They’ll lay food offerings on his altar and light them. As the smoke ascends it’ll nourish Amen.”

  “Pharaoh’s Great Wife Iset is God’s Wife of Amen,” Beketaten said knowingly.

  “That’s correct. Only she and Pharaoh and priests are allowed to go into the sanctuary and see the god. But today, like on all major festival days, his statue will be paraded before the people, though he’ll remain out of sight inside his barque shrine.”

  “Decorated with our flowers,” Nauny averred.

  “Do any of you know anything about how temples are arranged and why?” I asked.

  “Do we need to?” queried Wabkhet.

  “Yes. Especially if you’re going to help me place flowers in them from now on.”

  “Every day? Not just during festivals?” Beketaten asked.

  “I’ve been looking for three capable assistants,” I told her.

  Nauny clapped her hands gleefully. “No more chores for Mother!”

  I laughed. “Amen’s temple in the court behind us, like every other temple in the valley, is the cosmos in microcosm,” I explained. “It’s where heaven and earth and the netherworld touch. Every temple has an outer wall. It’s the boundary between order and disorder. Its wave–patterned mud–brick walls represent the primordial waters of Nun from which the world arose. In other temples, inside the walls, is a public area containing priests’ quarters, small shrines, gardens, workplaces, storage magazines, slaughter yards, areas to process offerings, and a pond where priests bathe to purify themselves. Of course, with so many temples inside Ipet–Isut, living quarters and the rest are located along the outer wall.”

  “Where we picked up our flowers this morning?” Nauny asked.

  “Yes. Anyone can enter a temple’s public area. A pylon always looms directly across a courtyard from the temple’s entrance. Beyond that pylon is another open–air court where commoners like us can be admitted by invitation. From the pylon gateway an axial path leads towards the god’s sanctuary. That path symbolizes the daily course of the sun – that’s why it’s always oriented east to west. During festivals like today’s the god’s statue is carried from the sanctuary into that court. The sanctuary itself is a dark roofed area to which only Pharaoh and select priests are admitted. Normally it contains a hypostyle hall. Its inscribed columns represent the marsh plants of the swamp that stood between the chaotic waters of Nun and the mound of original creation, a transition point between order and disorder. Then comes a chamber with small tables on which priests present offerings. Attached to it is a room holding the divine barque where the god’s statue resides.”

  “Why is Amen so important?” Nauny asked.

  “That’s a very good question,” I replied. “Amen was originally one of eight principal gods of Khnum, a town north of Waset. But when King Ahmose, who came from Waset, reunified the valley after driving out the Chiefs of Foreign Lands more than three hundred–fifty years ago he credited Amen with his victory. He declared Amen to be the chief god of the valley. He and nearly all his successors granted much of the booty they brought back from their military campaigns and the annual tribute sent them by the towns and cities and kingdoms of the conquered Nine Bows to Amen’s priests.”

  “Except for the heretic,” Wabhket interjected.

  “Yes. The fourth Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten and declared the Aten was the only god. He erased Amen’s name from the walls and obelisks of Ipet–Isut.”

  “Did the heretic ever visit this temple?” Wabkhet asked.

  “He did, before he got his strange ideas and tried to do away with Amen,” I replied. “When you’re in Ipet–Isut, girls, you’re walking in the footsteps of every man and woman who’s ruled this valley the past thousand years.”

  “My ancestors had to move from Ta Set Maat to the heretic’s capital to construct tombs and temples,” Beketaten said. “The ancestor I’m named after was born there. That’s why my name ends in ‘aten.’”

  “My ancestor Ika moved there too,” I said. “He apprenticed as a sculptor in the workshop of a master craftsman named Thutmose. After Akhenaten died his immediate successors, Tutankhamen and Ay and Horemheb, reestablished Waset as the Southern capital. They repaired most of the damage the heretic had done to Ipet–Isut and built new temples here of their own.”

  Re was over the horizon now, bathing walls and columns and statues and obelisks and carvings and paintings with golden light, glittering in the gold leaf that gilded the tips of obelisks and flagstaffs and the lintels of doorways and the copper that clad those doors, brightening the whites and blues and greens and yellows of painted surfaces. Ipet–Isut was unbelievably vast, some temples aligned on an east–west axis and more stretching south towards Waset on another axis that intersected the first perpendicularly. It was an incredibly stunning and beautiful place.

  “For the past three hundred–fifty years these temples inside Ipet–Isut have been the most powerful institutions in the valley,” I continued. “It takes thousands of people like us to keep Ipet–Isut functioning daily – priests, chantresses, musicians, officials, scribes, sculptors, craftsmen, metalworkers, butchers, bakers, brewers, weave
rs, herders, fowlers, sailors, beekeepers, policemen, doorkeepers, night watchmen, astronomer priests and porters among them. Farmers and fishermen and hunters and others supply offerings harvested from estates controlled by this temple – doves, lettuce, cucumbers, squash, melons, raisins, fresh water, wood, flowers, clothing, jewelry, cult implements. The essence of those offerings feeds the gods; the offerings themselves feed priests and staff and their families.”

  Singing and the sounds of ivory hand clappers and sistrums, the musical rattles associated with Hathor, grew louder in the courtyard behind us.

  “Almost time to join the procession.”

  We got to our feet and picked up our baskets. A moment later chantresses in opaque white skirts passed through the pylon gateway, dancing and shaking their sistrums, leading the god’s procession. Behind them came priests swinging golden bowls suspended from golden chains, the smoke from burning incense rising into the sky, and others sprinkling the ground with water. They were followed by offering bearers carrying inlaid wooden boxes crammed with gold and jewels and fine linen. Then came Usermarenakht, First God’s Servant, walking abreast of Iset, God’s Wife. Behind them, borne by priests, came Amen’s barque shrine, a small wooden boat – Userhat–Amen, “Mighty of Prow is Amen” – gilt with gold, bedecked with my flowers and garlands, shining brightly in Re’s light. The god himself was concealed inside the cabin. The shrine rested on a wooden sledge; eight priests – half wearing jackal and half falcon masks – carried the sledge, the long poles that passed through the golden rings attached to its sides pressing heavily upon their shoulders. They were already sweating in the early morning heat and they had a very long way to carry their burden before this day was over.

  My girls and I fell in line at the rear of the procession, along with priests and dignitaries who materialized from every direction.

  “This next pylon was erected by the second Thutmose,” I whispered.

  We crossed a narrow court with many tall carved stone columns, then walked through another pylon into another narrow court with a pylon on its far side. Its wooden roof was supported by papyriform wooden columns. Nearly forty painted sandstone statues of Thutmose in the guise of Osiris stood in the hall, some wearing the white crown and some the double. Four obelisks thrust skyward in that court, two flanking each pylon’s gate, representing Re’s rays.

  “Two of these obelisks were erected by the first Thutmose, and the two that are half–hidden behind the wall by his daughter, Hatshepsut.”

  “Why are they hidden?” Nauny asked.

  “Her stepson, the third Thutmose, came to the throne young. Hatshepsut ruled alongside him for seven years as regent, then took the throne as co–pharaoh. When she died years later he tried to erase all evidence she’d ever existed. But he couldn’t build a wall high enough to hide the top half of her obelisks. If you look carefully you can see images of her coronation on it. See the tallest one, shining so brightly? It’s covered with electrum. It’s visible fifty miles from Waset in every direction.”

  We entered what I considered the most spectacular space in the entire valley, the magnificent hypostyle hall built by the first Seti and expanded by his son, Ramesses the Great. One hundred twenty–two columns, each wider around than several men joining their hands together could reach, soared more than fifty feet high on both sides of a central aisle, like stalks of papyri emerging from the primordial marsh at the creation of the world, supporting a magnificent roof. Every column was etched with inscriptions from top to bottom, and every inscription was brightly painted, as were the walls of the hall. The hall was cool, eerily and dimly lit by the early morning sunlight slanting through clerestory windows above the tops of the walls.

  “The outside wall of this hall is etched with soaring magnificent scenes of Seti and Ramesses in chariots, battling Hittites,” I told the girls. “The scenes inside this hall illustrate rituals – Amen giving life to Seti, Thoth engraving his name, Hathor playing a sistrum and leading Seti to three gods who recognize he’s worthy of his duties, Seti running a race that establishes him as master of the valley, Seti receiving crown and scepter for a reign that will last millions of years. There are scenes of the founding of this very temple too – Seti digging the first trench and setting the first stone, offering water, wine, milk, bread, raisins, lettuce, flowers, papyrus, salves, makeup, incense, necklaces, vases, and fabric to the gods.” I pointed. “On that wall is depicted the very procession we’re participating in right now.”

  We left the hypostyle hall through its western pylon and emerged into an open courtyard. I blinked against the brightness of the sun after the darkness of the hall. Several colossal statues of Ramesses the Great towered over me.

  “The large shrine to the left was erected by our current pharaoh to honor his own divinity,” I said. “The one on the right was built by the second Seti.”

  All of the walls were deeply carved with hieroglyphs and images and brightly painted. We reached the western edge of the courtyard.

  “This is the Way of Offering,” I said.

  A canal stretched from the entrance of Ipet–Isut to the river, a wide path on each of its banks, the area beside the paths lush with gardens and groves of trees and ponds choked with papyrus and reeds and lotus flowers. One hundred twenty–four stone criosphinxes – ram’s heads on lion’s bodies – edged the paths.

  “The ram is Amen’s symbol,” I told the girls. “The small statues between the lions’ paws represent Ramesses the Great. He placed the sphinxes here.”

  A small quay with two obelisks was at the eastern terminus of the canal, not far ahead. Three boats bobbed there at anchor. Behind the gardens on the right side of the canal were houses for priests and buildings devoted to temple support, such as food production. Today thousands of local villagers and officials were assembled in the courtyard at Ipet–Isut’s entrance and along the canal’s banks. I cringed; they’d trampled much of the greenery. I was going to have a lot of replanting to do after the Beautiful Feast ended. Past the end of the Way of Offering the river shone silver. On the river’s distant west bank emerald–green emmer fields rippled in the breeze, the stalks tall, ready to be harvested. The banks of the canal that passed directly in front of the temples of millions of years were crawling with people, reminding me of an anthill. The stark hills protecting the Great Place farther west were indistinct through a haze of dust blown off the desert.

  The procession moved slowly towards the quay down the Way of Offering, the musicians and dancers performing age–old songs and ritual dances. The chantresses and priests and First God’s Servant and God’s Wife reached the ramp that led from the path onto the Quay of Amen, a sandstone platform with thirteen–foot high obelisks at both the northeast and southeast corners. They ascended it. Pharaoh was waiting for them, seated on an elaborate throne, Tyti and Tiye and his sons and daughters and high court officials to his left and right. Each wife carried a sistrum and a bouquet I’d made especially for them. I spotted Pentawere the same time he spotted me and he beamed.

  As did I. Pentawere had arrived late yesterday afternoon from Pi–Ramesses. He’d been caught up in court ritual last evening and hadn’t been able to break away to see me. Though he’d wanted to, desperately, according to the note he’d sent me by a trusted messenger. Ten agonizing months we’d been apart and his smile told me he still desired me. No doubt Tiye had continued to throw women at him, as she had during our last separation. I didn’t know if he’d continued to resist their advances this time or not. I seemed to be caught in a never–ending cycle – intense weeks spent with Pentawere, long periods apart, always uncertain, wondering how it would be when we reunited. But he was going to be at Djeme for the duration of the holiday and I could hardly wait to feel his arms around me again. My new–found love for him hadn’t diminished with time and distance. I glanced past him and saw Tiye eyeing me disdainfully and I deliberately looked away from the royal family to give Pharaoh’s wife no reason to suspect the joy flooding my he
art at the sight of her son. Pentawere might not fear Tiye but I did. Even knowing what my dream about Ramesses portended for Pentawere’s and my future.

  The priests carried Amen’s shrine to the center of the platform and gently set it down on a granite pedestal.

  “See the inscriptions on the pedestal?” I whispered to the girls. “They record the height of the inundation. Many times in centuries past the water’s reached far into Ipet–Isut and turned the entire complex into a temple–studded lake. And there, north of the quay – those are the remains of an ancient per’aa, from when kings resided on this bank of the river. Its mud–brick foundations are overgrown with date palms and pomegranates and vegetables and flowers.”

  The priests who’d carried the shrine on the sledge moved into a small limestone way station to rest. Many were flexing and rolling their shoulders. All had removed their masks and most were wiping sweat from their faces with linen cloths. Servants were distributing bread and beer to them. There’d be many more such rest stops for these priests at designated way stations before the day’s festivities ended.

  “Here comes Khonsu,” I announced.

  Eight priests were approaching from the south bearing a gilded shrine on their shoulders.

  “His temple occupies the southwest corner of Ipet–Isut, just inside the wall that circles it. You’ll be placing flowers in it daily after the festival’s over. Pharaoh rebuilt it using foundation stones he took from one of the third Amenhotep’s temples.”

  “My father worked on it,” Wabkhet told me proudly.

  Khonsu’s barque shrine was accompanied by his high priest and lesser priests and offering bearers and dancers and musicians and the fourth Ramesses and his wife, Duatentopet, the god’s Chantress. Everyone expected her to replace Iset as God’s Wife of Amen when her husband took the throne – but that wasn’t going to happen, according to the dream sent me by the falcon god. Ramesses was going to burn. The only question was whether Pentawere and I would be able to save the father from the murderous son or not. I caught sight of Kairy walking a few steps behind Ramesses, scanning the nearby crowd as the co–ruler passed. He was apparently bodyguard as well as chariot driver. An even more compelling reason for me to believe he was part of Ramesses’ plot and had probably been spying on me the night of my encounter with Bunakhtef. The priests carried Khonsu’s shrine onto the quay and set it down near Amen’s. Khonsu’s shrine hadn’t been decorated with flowers yet. I stepped forward and presented myself to Duatentopet.