The Gardener and the Assassin

by Mark Gajewski

  “Yes,” she admitted. “Up to now.”

  “Your dream showed Ramesses being convicted. Your falcon god sent you that dream so you’d make sure he is.”

  “You expect me to let the guilty go free and the innocent die?” Neset asked, infuriated.

  “I assure you, Neset, we’re innocent,” Mother said calmly.

  “Kairy saw Heket slit Pharaoh’s throat!”

  “That had nothing to do with us,” Mother assured her. “We learned Ramesses was going to move against my husband that night. We decided to kill him first. You interrupted that.”

  I stared at her scar. So close to her heart. I shivered.

  “Heket was supposed to be in Pharaoh’s room to protect him, a last line of defense,” Mother continued. “She volunteered. But that night she betrayed us. She killed my husband because he threw her over for his barbarian concubines. She took advantage of the trust we placed in her to settle a personal score. She should have gotten over being set aside, like I had to.”

  “If that’s true, why was there a crocodile under Pharaoh’s bed, just like under Ramesses’?”

  “My husband’s had a protective spell. It wasn’t intended to confuse guards. So, tomorrow, explain to the judges that Ramesses was going to assassinate his father, that you warned us, and that we tried to stop him.”

  Neset put her fingertips to her temples and rubbed them. She suddenly looked uncertain. Was Mother convincing her? Was Mother right to hope we could escape death after all? Would Neset save us? Would I become Pharaoh? Would Neset set aside her doubts and marry me?

  “That’s not what happened,” Neset insisted after a long moment. “Everything you just said is a lie, Tiye. You took advantage of my dream for your own evil purposes. That’s the truth.”

  Mother ignored her. “Convince the judges the gods have already decided Ramesses’ fate. All they have to do is submit to the will of the gods and pronounce his sentence.”

  “And set us free,” I added.

  “I won’t listen to this a moment longer,” Neset said. She started to leave.

  Oneney stepped in front of the door and blocked her exit.

  “The guards saw you enter this room,” Mother said smugly. “At my order they’ll report you to the Great Kenbet. The judges will assume you came here to collude with us tonight. Maybe even to ask for a bribe in return for freeing us. You’ll be executed tomorrow. Unless you agree to help us this very minute. Then the guards will keep your presence secret.”

  The same threat Mother had used to sway the judges. A threat that had worked.

  “Let them kill me!” Neset stormed, furious. “I deserve to die! If I hadn’t told Pentawere about my dream he’d never have told you. You’re the one who convinced him you could get away with murdering Pharaoh and blaming it on Ramesses. Well, I’m the one to blame. If I’d kept my mouth shut Pharaoh would still be alive. His blood’s on my hands!” She tried to push past Oneney. He didn’t budge.

  Neset had more backbone than any of us.

  “Enough, Mother!” I cried.

  The room fell silent. Everyone was staring at us.

  “Let Neset leave, Oneney. Step aside,” I ordered.

  He did, reluctantly.

  “You can go, Neset,” I said. “But please, talk with me first. Just for a moment.”

  She shook her head no, started to push the door open, reconsidered. “Make it quick.”

  I took her to an unoccupied corner.

  “You gave your wife to the judges?” she asked, appalled.

  “That was Mother’s doing, not mine.”

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “It’s our lives, Neset,” I said earnestly. “You have no idea how desperate we are.”

  “Why did you kill Pharaoh?” she asked sorrowfully. “Your own father!”

  “He disrespected me, Neset. He kept us apart. It’s the only way I could make you my wife.”

  “You killed Pharaoh because you love me? That’s your excuse? Now I’m doubly condemned.”

  I tried to take hold of her hand.

  She yanked it away. “When you slew Pharaoh you guaranteed I’d never be your wife.”

  “Please do what Mother asked, Neset. You will be – my Great Wife. We’ll rule the valley together.”

  “That’s the last thing I want now, Pentawere. You were planning your father’s murder while assuring me you were trying to protect him. You deceived me. Your father was right. You’re no good.”

  Her words cut deep. I was overcome with despair. I’d lost Neset. And my life.

  “I’m going now,” she said. “Goodbye. Majesty.”

  At the end, cold and formal and unbending.

  How I’d ruined things.

  “Be careful, Neset,” I warned. “Tomorrow Mother will try to pin this whole conspiracy on you. Prepare yourself for the worst.”

  “Worst? I have no idea which is worse, Majesty. Being punished. Or escaping punishment.” She left the room. She slammed the door shut behind her.

  My life was over.

  ***

  Shemu (Harvest)

  Neset

  ***

  Just hours after my encounter with Pentawere and Tiye in their quarters in the per’aa the Great Kenbet trying those involved in what everyone in the valley was calling the “harem conspiracy” convened for the last time. All of the accused had been examined except Pentawere and Tiye; once the judges finished dealing with them this morning they’d render their verdicts. Those verdicts were likely to be straightforward because every conspirator questioned so far had confessed.

  I reluctantly entered the audience hall along with the rest of the royal family and Vizier Neferronpet and the high officials of Ramesses’ court and the valley’s three most important high priests – First God’s Servant and Greatest of Craftsmen and Greatest of Seers. I seated myself among the lower ranking family members at the side of the dais where Ramesses sat atop his throne, flanked by Iset and Tyti and Duatentopet. The last was dressed as befit a pharaoh’s chief and only wife, wearing a beautiful white dress and gold earrings and bracelets and rings and an amulet on a gold chain around her neck of two vultures facing each other with detailed plumage and sharp clawed feet. She wore the vulture crown, its wings framing her face. Iset still wore the regalia of God’s Wife of Amen. Tyti was still clothed as a pharaoh’s wife.

  The vizier and high priests and other officials seated themselves in a row directly behind the royal family.

  Kairy stood directly behind Ramesses, his khepesh sword drawn, eyes darting restlessly over the spectators. His shoulder was still bandaged. He was recovering more slowly than me. More guards stood on either side of the dais, at its foot. After last night it was clear Pentawere still had adherents in the per’aa. Who knew if they might attempt a last–minute rescue?

  I’d dreaded this day since the beginning of the trial – the actual questioning of Pentawere and Tiye. I’d loved him desperately for years, with my whole heart. But he’d turned out to be a different man than I’d thought. He’d fooled me into loving him. He’d assassinated his father and tried to assassinate his brother. I didn’t want him to die for his crimes, but death was what he deserved. How I could have loved him I did not know anymore. Grimly, I reflected on my own fate, that I should have been entangled with both a husband and a lover who’d betrayed pharaohs and died because of it.

  The judges settled into their seats in a row directly in front of and below Ramesses’ throne. Two seats were empty. I’d been appalled at what I’d witnessed last evening in Pentawere’s rooms. I’d gone directly to Kairy – the only man in the per’aa I was certain I could trust – and told him about my encounter with Pentawere and Tiye. He’d taken soldiers to the prisoners’ rooms and caught the judges and women naked and arrested them. Immediately afterwards, he and I had gone together to Pharaoh and reported what had happened. That there’d been an additional conspiracy in an attempt to subvert justice had been unnerving for all of us; officia
ls and soldiers and family members had scurried back and forth in the per’aa all night. Few had slept, including me. Pentawere’s and Tiye’s influence had been great in the per’aa in the past and obviously still was. Who knew what might have happened during the trial today if Tiye hadn’t made the mistake of trying to intimidate me into lying for her? Or if I hadn’t been strong enough to resist? Pharaoh had been wise to give the Great Kenbet full authority to render justice in the case without interference from him. There was no telling how high the conspiracy might still reach, how tempted Pharaoh might be to pardon someone he loved if they were revealed as a participant in the plot, only to have them someday launch another.

  Guards prodded the prisoners into the room, their wrists bound before them with strips of leather. Bunakhtef was one of the guards, armed with knife and lance, the long white scar I’d given him marring his dark cheek. I recalled with disdain his relentless courtship in the days I’d planted the garden to honor the third Thutmose. He eyed me coldly.

  Ramesses sat in angry splendor, wearing Sekhmet, carrying crook and flail, staring grimly in turn at each of those in the group of prisoners who’d betrayed him and murdered his father, lips in a tight line, fury barely suppressed.

  Most of the prisoners were standing erect with difficulty, their bodies welted and bruised and broken by the guards who’d beaten confessions from them at the judges’ feet the past few days. Some leaned on others. I knew most of them. I’d met them at various parties given by Pentawere over the years. It was obvious now that he’d been planning his coup for a very long time, gradually drawing each of these doomed men and women into his web of deceit and murder. And hiding what he was doing from me. Gullible foolish me.

  A battery of scribes took up reed pens and papyri.

  Two treasury overseers, Mentemtowe and Pefroi, were presiding over the kenbet.

  “Bring them in,” Pefroi ordered.

  Two guards ushered the butler Pebes and scribe of the archives Mai into the hall. The missing judges. They’d been severely beaten after their apprehension last night by whoever Kairy had surrendered them to. Their wrists were tightly bound. Tiye caught sight of them and glared at me. She knew who’d turned them in. I met her glare without flinching.

  “You two are accused of carousing with harem women in the prisoners’ rooms last night,” Mentemtowe charged.

  “Excellency – Oneney, the Captain of Police, said there was an urgent matter,” Pebes replied. “We went with him. We had no idea he was taking us to see the justified pharaoh’s wife and son.”

  “That’s right,” Mai echoed.

  “You will not refer to her by that title!” Pefroi warned sternly. “You will refer to the prisoner as ‘Tiye.’”

  “And yet you didn’t leave when you found out where you’d been taken,” Mentemtowe scolded.

  “Tiye threatened she’d order the guards to tell you we’d gone to her seeking bribes,” Mai said.

  “She’s a prisoner! She doesn’t control Pharaoh’s guards!” Mentemtowe snapped.

  “Teynakhte does, Excellency,” Pebes said. “He procured the women.”

  “Yet another betrayal!” Penrenut cried from the row of judges, outraged. He was Pharaoh’s herald.

  Pharaoh turned slightly and beckoned Kairy. Kairy bent, his ear near Pharaoh’s lips, his eyes never leaving the crowd. Pharaoh whispered something angrily.

  Kairy nodded, stepped back, pointed at several guards. “You. Find Teynakhte. You. Find Oneney. Bring them here.”

  Four guards hurried from the hall.

  “What women did Teynakhte procure?” Pefroi asked Pebes.

  “Kerpes’ wife. And Khamopet’s.”

  Both of Pebes’ fellow butlers were in the group of prisoners. Neither had known about last night’s activities. Both blanched at the revelation.

  “Two more. I didn’t know them. And Naqi’a and Abi–rami,” said Pebes.

  “Pentawere’s wife and her handmaid?” Pefroi exclaimed.

  “And the justified pharaoh’s concubine, Heket,” Mai added.

  I thought Ramesses was going to snap his crook and flail in two.

  “What did Tiye want from you?” Mentemtowe asked.

  “Merely that when she testified today that we ask her about a dream, then support her afterwards,” Mai replied.

  “And after she asked you this, what happened then?”

  Pebes’ face turned deep red. “The women took us into the other room and… entertained us.”

  “Seven women and you two?” Pefroi queried.

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  Murmurs and whispers in the crowd. And many snickers. Loud snickers.

  Pefroi addressed the captain of the guards. “The women are in confinement?”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Bring them to the hall.”

  More guards departed.

  Mentemtowe gestured and the guards herded Mai and Pebes to where the other prisoners waited. He gestured again and Pentawere and Tiye moved directly in front of him.

  Both held their heads high. Unlike the other prisoners, guards hadn’t beaten a confession from them. Neither were they bound. Even a Great Kenbet dared not physically assault members of the royal family, disgraced though they might be. In fact, neither Tiye nor Pentawere had spoken a word in their own defense so far during the trial, standing silent and proud before the judges as others admitted colluding with them. It didn’t really matter what they said today; the other conspirators had confessed enough about what they’d done that the judges’ only possible verdict was guilty. I caught Tiye’s eyes. Undisguised hatred. As for Pentawere, he avoided my glance altogether. I’d loved him as I’d never loved another. I wondered again how I could have been so mistaken.

  “Were you involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the justified pharaoh, Ramesses, third of his name, and our current pharaoh, Ramesses, fourth of his name?” Pefroi asked Pentawere.

  “We planned to kill my stepson, but not his father,” Tiye responded in a voice that carried to every corner of the hall.

  Gasps from the spectators. Shocked looks on the faces of the judges. None had expected a confession. Iset put her hand on Pharaoh’s arm to restrain him. He looked like he wanted to leap across the judge’s chairs and personally smite Tiye.

  Pefroi and Mentemtowe glanced at each other. They hadn’t expected a confession either.

  “Why did you want to kill Pharaoh?” Pefroi finally asked.

  “To save my husband from being murdered at his hands,” Tiye answered.

  More gasps and murmurs in the hall, and whispered conversations.

  “Pharaoh didn’t attack your husband,” Mentemtowe corrected. “You did.”

  “That’s what Ramesses would like you to believe,” Tiye said calmly.

  Now Duatentopet was helping Iset restrain Ramesses.

  “Explain yourself!” Pefroi insisted.

  “Pentawere and I were manipulated into trying to commit murder by the overseer of my husband’s gardens, Neset.”

  An immediate loud buzzing from the spectators. I felt the eyes of everyone in the hall on me. That was Tiye’s plan? To blame the coup on me? Exactly what Pentawere had warned last night.

  Tiye waited for the crowd to quiet. “Neset wanted revenge on Pentawere, Excellencies,” she said smugly. “She knew the fourth Ramesses feared Pentawere’s popularity. So the two of them conspired to kill Pharaoh and blame Pentawere, to eliminate Pentawere as Ramesses’ rival.”

  Now everyone was looking back and forth between Pharaoh and me and whispering to their neighbor. He was furious. I was amazed by Tiye’s blustering. Surely no one believed her.

  “Do you have proof?” Pefroi asked.

  “The two of them spent a full day together in Ta Set Neferu during the Beautiful Feast a year ago. That’s when they launched their plot.”

  Mayernu had been Tiye’s spy even then. How else would she have known about our excursion?

  “Why would Pharaoh want to kill hi
s father?” Mentemtowe asked.

  “He was tired of waiting to rule alone, Excellency. He found a willing accomplice in Neset. She could deliver two scapegoats – Pentawere and me. Yes, Excellencies, it’s indisputable – Neset and Ramesses not only conspired to kill my husband, Osiris–pharaoh Usermaatre–Meryamen. They succeeded.”

  The hall erupted. Pharaoh rose from his throne in anger. His brothers and mother and son and various royal wives and children were in an uproar. The judges looked at each other, stunned, unsure how to proceed. That Pharaoh should be accused of patricide, of destroying maat throughout the land… Tiye smiled slightly. If I’d once doubted her ability to turn the tables on me I did no longer. Tiye was using Pharaoh’s birth name, not his throne name. It was a subtle attack on his position as Pharaoh. She was trying to shift the blame for the third Ramesses’ death onto his son and successor to gain acquittal for herself and her son. From the reactions in the hall it seemed her plan had at least a small chance of working.

  “Neset seduced Pentawere, using magic,” Tiye said loudly, to make herself heard over the low roar of dozens of conversations. “She made him believe she’d had a dream about Ramesses being convicted by this Great Kenbet. She corrupted me with the same tale, using magic.”

  “This is the dream you wanted Mai and Pebes to ask you about?” queried Pefroi.

  “The very one. Neset concocted a dream about Ramesses killing my husband so we’d try to protect him by killing Ramesses first. That’s why we drew all these prisoners standing before you into our conspiracy – simply to protect my husband. They’ve all confessed to trying to kill Ramesses. What they didn’t know was Pentawere and I ordered the attack because Neset told Pentawere that Ramesses’ assassination attempt was imminent.”

  “I did not!” I insisted hotly.

  The judges were looking at each other and me and the prisoners and Tiye, unsure who to believe. Prisoners were nodding.

  “After prodding Pentawere to set the attack in motion, Neset went to Ramesses’ room to tell him he was in danger in front of carefully assembled witnesses. The guard Mayernu was supposed to slightly wound Neset to make it look like she’d been protecting Ramesses from an attack. Ramesses and his men then intended to go to my husband’s room and kill him and the guards my son had put in place to protect him, and afterwards return to Ramesses’ room where Mayernu would slightly wound Ramesses. Then Ramesses’ men were supposed to go to my husband’s room and discover him dead – only too late. Then they’d shift the blame to Pentawere and me and those who were helping us.”