The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh Page 12

  Meryetre, three years younger than her sister, was playing with dolls, putting them to bed in a box with linen cloths, crooning to them a little tuneless song.

  “Before the world began,” said Senenmut, “the creator god Atum floated alone in the primeval ocean Nun.”

  What a pleasant voice he has, I found myself thinking. Deep and rich. A good voice for telling tales. Neferure was listening intently, sitting cross-legged like a little scribe, tugging at her plaited child’s lock of silky black hair. Graceful, slender and almond-eyed, she formed a sharp contrast to her pudgy-legged younger sister who, alas, had inherited the buck teeth of the Thutmose family.

  “At last, Atum found a place for his foot, and came to rest on a solid mound,” continued Senenmut. “He then … ah … aroused himself with his fist. Copulating with his hand, he spewed forth his seed in the shape of Shu and Tefnut, children of the divine loins. So the first divine couple came into being: Shu, god of life, air and light, and Tefnut, goddess of moisture.”

  Ah, I thought, even a god may arouse himself. Since my husband’s failing health had kept him from my bed, and more so after his death, what other recourse could I have had, given that I was yet young and filled at times with strong desires? I sighed, but I kept my eyes on my hands, pretending to study my scarab ring.

  “From this couple came forth Geb, the earth god, and Nut, the sky goddess,” the tale went on. “Now Shu raised Nut over the reclining Geb and from the physical union of Geb and Nut were born the gods Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nefthys; from them, the creation of the world could follow.”

  “But where did the first god come from, Senenmut?” Neferure wanted to know. Surely she has him there, I thought, glancing up.

  But he was equal to the challenge, being well versed in religious doctrine, since he had been a scribe for the priests in the House of Life. “He was begot by himself from all eternity,” he told her. “He was and is the principle of all life. Father of fathers and Mother of mothers.”

  “Both man and woman, like Hapi,” said Neferure. Understanding this, she could easily grasp the dual nature of my kingship when it came to pass.

  “Yes. And so the source of the life force in all that lives.”

  “But we have many gods in Egypt, Senenmut,” objected Neferure.

  “One god may have many representations,” explained Senenmut. “It is easier for the people to understand. And of course the people love their local deities. So we have many sacred beings, many different gods, household spirits, elements of nature, animals, scarabs … but all receive the breath of life from the one god.”

  Meryetre set up a frustrated howling because she was having trouble taking off a doll’s dress. Neferure reached over to help her and the howling subsided into sobs.

  “Yet some believe the sun god first came forth from an egg, on the mound of Heliopolis,” I put in.

  “Just another image of beginning,” said Senenmut. “And later the priests at Memphis began to speak of Ptah, a supergod in whom other gods could be contained.”

  “But what is the life-force in all the gods?” asked Neferure, wrinkling her brow.

  “It is the sun, my child. The most perfect image of the god is the sun. The sun’s soul is Amen-Ra, whose name means Hidden Sun. He is the source of life and the other deities are parts of his body. And the Pharaoh is always the child of the sun.”

  Well, my younger daughter was not, that much was clear. She had been trying repeatedly to get two dolls to sit up straight and both of them kept falling over. She squatted on her heels, small fists clenched on her fat little knees, and had one of her fits of weeping. She always seemed to have a depth of sorrow that she needed her whole small stocky body to express. She howled, her face scrunched up and suffused with a dark anger, and the fat tears burst from her eyes to drip upon the tiles.

  Neither Senenmut nor I was able to cope with Meryetre’s attacks of overwhelming grief, but Neferure knew what to do. She fetched a bowl of pink figs and sat down right in front of her sister and proceeded to peel them, delicately, one by one, making appreciative noises. Meryetre opened one streaming eye. Neferure held up the fig, admired it, and ate it. Meryetre screamed some more. Neferure peeled another fig. Her sister peeped at her. Neferure held the fig up, enticingly. Meryetre sobbed, hiccupped, and opened her mouth. Neferure popped in the fig. “Shut up,” she said, “and have some more.”

  The weeping fit was over. I leaned down and scooped the little one onto my lap. She was a damp and rather smelly bundle. I leaned my cheek on her hair. “There, there,” I said. “I’ll sing you a lullaby. Senenmut, please take Neferure to Inet for her bath.”

  He departed, holding my eldest by the hand. She was skipping along beside him. Meryetre stuck a thumb in her sticky mouth and snuggled into my arms. Oh, dear, I thought. I love you, my little one. Your mother loves you. You came forth from me and I must love you. But it is so much easier to love a child that is blithesome and full of grace. How strange it is that sometimes Khnum fashions a being so beautifully, while at other times one might almost swear he was not paying proper attention to his work. It is not just.

  Looking back now, that period when my darling Neferure was receiving her first religious instruction and Meryetre still played with dolls seems a time of such peace and innocence that I could weep for it.

  As I have written, I had to be regent, but I never intended that to last, for am I not the chosen of the gods? I will now set out the most important, the absolutely irrefutable proof of my right to be the Pharaoh, to bear a Horus name, to wear the Double Crown, to reign over Egypt and its vassal states, to smite evil, and to maintain the rule of Ma’at. It is quite simple. It is this: I am divine. I am sun-begotten. I am both the daughter and the son of Amen-Ra. And how do I know this? Not from Inet. No, her tales merely confirm what I know through a vision granted to me by the sun god himself.

  It came to me two years after my husband Thutmose, the second Pharaoh of that name, had died and the child Thutmose was crowned – a misjudged coronation that should never have been allowed to take place.

  The vision came to me – significantly, I have always believed – on the Day of the Dead, that joyous festival when all Thebes marches to the necropolis, bearing gifts of food, flowers and scrolls with messages for those who have gone before and now live happily in the Afterlife. The main part of the festival would begin at sunset, and important celebrations would take place in the hall of the Temple of Amen at Karnak in the northern section of Thebes. I had had very little sleep the night before, since I had spent many hours in meditation; also I had fasted all of the previous day. I had my part to play in the celebratory rites and I wanted to be in a fit state for the early-morning rituals that would be carried out with especial care on this feast day in the sanctuary of the God.

  It was before sunrise, therefore, that I was carried to the temple in a sedan chair. Karnak is a whole religious complex and there are many temples dedicated to a host of lesser deities. But it is the temple of Amen-Ra to which I here refer. The air was crisp and a fresh breeze scented with the wood-smoke of the peasants’ fires blew chill upon the skin. The footfalls of the slaves thudded on the pathway. All around me the city dreamed. Soon the beer shops would open and market stalls throw up their shutters, while slaves, servants, porters with bundles and housewives bearing baskets would people the streets. Now, though, a sleepy silence reigned as Thebes awaited the golden benediction of Ra.

  Then we reached the entrance and the carriers set me down. Flanked by my guards, two tall Nubians with military training, and bearing a basket filled with meat, bread, fruit and beer, I walked resolutely through the first pylon of the primary temple. Even at this early hour there was already a scattering of the common folk in the outer courtyard; soon there would be a tremendous press of people and it would become difficult to move. The second courtyard, to which only those of noble descent would be admitted, was emptier. I passed through the third pylon and paused at the fourth to gaze up at the o
belisks that had been erected at the behest of my royal father, Thutmose the First, may he live for ever. Now my guards had to remain behind, for they would not be allowed inside the sacred precincts further on.

  As I neared the fifth pylon I could hear the chantresses singing, their hymn of praise accompanied by the crash and rattle of sistrum and tambourine. The scent of incense greeted me as I walked forwards. At this early hour the inner chamber was filled with dark shadows.

  I stood quietly, breathing deeply, closing my eyes as I whispered a prayer to Amen asking for guidance, for courage and for insight. I confessed that I feared the child king did not have the capability to govern the Two Lands with a firm hand, while the priests who stood behind him lacked a proper grasp of the political issues that were likely to rend the country apart without a wise ruler to maintain balance and give direction. It was at that moment that the vision came to me.

  As clearly as anything I have ever seen with my bodily eyes, I saw my mother, the Great Queen Ahmose, may she live for ever, reclining upon a couch in her boudoir. In my vision she was younger than she then was in fact by some twenty years. She wore but a transparent robe of the finest linen with a scarab pin on the left shoulder. I could see the door through which all who entered there must pass. As I watched, the door swung open and a golden glow suffused the air. It seemed as if the air itself was moving towards her couch, coalescing into a more solid shape the closer it drew. Still it gleamed with an unearthly light. On its head shimmered the disc of Amen-Ra. A shiver ran over my watching body as I realised that I was seeing the very God himself, approaching the waiting Queen, my mother.

  She looked at this apparition with amazement and awe, but without fear. Surely, I thought, she was a woman of great courage to confront a being from the spirit world with such aplomb. But then I saw that the being had changed once more. It had taken on the form, the very substance, of my late father the Pharaoh, may he live for ever. He was an avatar of Amen, but yet it was his true familiar self, and it was in his own body that he approached his wife the Queen. She smiled at His Majesty. His penis was erect before her. She was filled with joy at the sight of his beauty.

  I watched as he reached out to her, put aside the delicate robe, covered her with his strong body and placed his seed in her. He gave his heart to her. His love passed into her limbs. The palace was flooded with the God’s fragrance. It did not seem lewd to me to be observing this. It was … it was like a sacrament, a ritual, a consecration, to which I was an awe-struck witness.

  I knew that he had impregnated her then because he told her so, just before he rose from the couch and took his leave, once more losing his solid human form and dissolving before my watching eyes into a shimmer of golden light. “You are now with child,” said his voice, seeming to resound in the space where I stood transfixed. “You will bear a princess, whom you will name Hatshepsut. And she will reign.” The words reverberated. I was convinced that they were clearly audible to the priests who now walked towards me. “Do you hear?” I demanded, breathless with the wonder of my vision. “And she will reign! And she will reign! Hatshepsut will reign! The God has told me so himself!”

  Having been vouchsafed this vision, I knew that I had to make my destiny manifest to all. I would have to make my move and make it decisively. At once it was clear to me what I should do. I would make offerings directly to the gods. This is traditionally the task and prerogative of the Pharaoh, which he delegates to his priests but which no other mortal may carry out. It is the Pharaoh’s sacred duty to satisfy the gods with divine offerings and to bring funerary offerings to the transfigured dead. I was well acquainted with the prescribed steps of the morning ritual, since I had been the God’s Wife of Amen for several years, attending on first my father and then my husband when they as the divine sons of the sun god acted as the link with the spirit world. Now I would carry out these steps in person.

  I knew I had to win that confrontation on the Day of the Dead. The officiating priest on that fateful day was Hapuseneb, Chief Priest of Amen and a power in the land. As he came towards me, his white linen tunic emerging from the gloom, I knew that he intended to bar my way. He was attended by four assistant priests, one the lector who would chant the prescribed magic words. The Chief Priest was taller than I by a head, with broad shoulders; the right shoulder bare, the left one draped in a leopard-skin mantle. His skin was a deep shade of copper and, as he had not yet donned his huge ceremonial wig, his bald pate gleamed in the torchlight. Indeed, his entire body was completely hairless, as priests must be to ensure complete cleanliness. His lashless eyes, green and protuberant, put me in mind of a chameleon, that small dragon that moves with such deliberation and changes colour to survive.

  “I will break the seal,” I announced, lifting my chin. The seal on the door of the inner shrine that holds the God may only be broken by the Pharaoh or his deputed priest. It is a most secret place, less accessible than that which is in heaven, more secret than the affairs of the Netherworld, more hidden than the inhabitants of the primeval ocean. I dropped my voice. “I am the son of Amen-Ra,” I told him. “I have had a vision. The God himself begat me.”

  His smooth face expressed doubt. Had he had eyebrows, he would have raised them.

  “I have the backing of the Party of Legitimacy,” I told him. “The nobles do not approve that the child of a concubine should be King when one of the pure blood royal is at hand.” This was entirely true. Also the nobles knew that they might expect grants of land and other favours from my hand if I were the supreme Pharaoh, but nothing would be forthcoming from a young child manipulated by the priests.

  Hapuseneb was shrewd and he knew that the nobles, motivated both by greed and a resistance to the immense power of the priesthood, were formidable allies ranged at my back. He shifted slightly, but he did not stand aside.

  “The military are also with me,” I went on.

  This surprised him. He had underestimated me. “The military?”

  At that time, I had not yet the services of Khani, who was in training at Memphis, but I had others who were my eyes and ears, particularly in the South whence came so much gold. I learned the value of timely information early and I have always made sure that it is brought to me.

  “There are signs of rebellion in the Land of Kush,” I told him. “They scent a weakness in us. They do not believe that a small child and a queen who is merely a regent can hold the vassal states. That rebellion must be crushed decisively. General Pen-Nekhbet of el-Kab agrees. The Living Horus must smite our enemies.”

  Hapuseneb looked thoughtful. He said nothing, but much as he respected the aging general, I could guess that he found it difficult to view me as the Living Horus. I would have to do more to convince him.

  “I have been inducted into the mysteries of Osiris,” I reminded him.

  He certainly had to know that my late father, may he live, had indeed done this when he was already weak with his final illness, at the time when I served as the God’s Wife of Amen. These are secret matters of great significance and none but the Pharaoh and the Chief Priest may know of them.

  “Yes, I do remember that,” he murmured.

  “My father the Pharaoh, may he live, expected me to reign,” I insisted. “Otherwise he would not have inducted me.”

  Hapuseneb seemed to be wavering. He did not contradict me.

  “I have the complete support of the nomarchs, of both the North and the South.”

  “Ah, yes. The nomarchs.”

  I could see that it was beginning to dawn on Hapuseneb that I had done my preparations with great care and thoroughness. He well knew that each of the nomarchs who ruled the forty-two nomes into which the land was demarcated had been called to my presence over the period since my husband the Pharaoh passed into the Afterlife. Having been offered sufficient inducements, they would support me with enthusiasm.

  Hapuseneb shifted from foot to foot. Clearly he was feeling beleaguered.

  “Also the Vizier of the North
is on my side,” I stated. This was a telling point; there was no love lost between the two viziers. I knew that Hapuseneb heartily disliked the Vizier Dhutmose, an essentially lazy sybarite who yet had enough ambition and greed to ensure that he ruled effectively. I stared intently into Hapuseneb’s narrowed, doubtful eyes. “It could be that the Two Lands would benefit by returning to the former system,” I suggested silkily. “One Vizier for the Two Lands. Possibly the duties of Vizier of the South as well as the Chief Priest of Amen will prove too much for you.”

  He flinched, having understood me perfectly. Of course he realised that the matter at hand was crucial. I had him pinned; by forcing this issue in front of the assistant priests at the entrance to the holy of holies, I was giving him no opportunity to prevaricate, to think of alternatives or to work out other moves.

  I knew exactly what his considerations were: I had such powerful backing that I would probably gain the throne. If he continued to oppose me now I would henceforth be his implacable enemy, and he would lose power. If he threw in his lot with me, he would be allied closely to the Pharaoh. Better, perhaps, than being the shadowy manipulator of a young boy who had no powerful factions other than the priesthood backing him. Maybe he was also thinking that he would be able to manipulate me. I smiled.

  “A vision?” he said. “The son of Amen-Ra?”

  “The very seed of his loins,” I affirmed. “The Living Horus.”

  He nodded reflectively. Then he stood aside. “Majesty will break the seal,” he told the priests, who had been observing the encounter between us with their mouths hanging open. The lector priest began to chant the ritual words which must be faultlessly recited to be magical. The singing of the chantresses swelled around us. I handed over my basket, strode forwards and broke the clay seal to the innermost shrine which had been put in place by the Chief Priest the previous day.