The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh Page 9

  Perhaps it is not appropriate that I should write about such things. But this is the true record of my reign and it must tell more than the official one. For I have been not only the divine Pharaoh who maintains Ma’at but also a woman and a mother, and I have known great love. I do not wish that my life should disappear like water seeping away into the sand. I have achieved much and suffered much and I regret only the things I did not do, the child who never lived, and those people I have loved who have gone before me. My heart does not despise any of my days. So. I write what I write.

  The very next day I moved into the women’s section of the harem palace and I made sure that I was immediately given precedence over all the women there.

  “I shall move into the largest suite of rooms,” I informed the Overseer of the Royal Harem, an able manager whose sharp eyes missed neither a speck of dust nor the disappearance of a pomegranate from the royal kitchens. “See to it.”

  My husband’s mother, Mutnofert, did not like that at all. She was a slim woman with a pretty enough face, but she had small breasts and big ears, and a childish voice that grated me. Since my mother, the Queen Ahmose, had passed into the Afterlife, may she live for ever, Mutnofert herself had occupied those rooms.

  “I do not see why I should move,” she protested petulantly. “You are not the Great Royal Wife.”

  “And you,” I pointed out, “are not the Mother of the King. Merely a minor wife.”

  “But I took over many functions when the Great Queen went to the gods,” she argued. “I watch over the household of the royal children, and I am in charge of the weaving, and the Inspector of the Harem Administration reports to me.”

  “You may continue with all those worthy tasks,” I said. “While I help my father the Pharaoh to reign over the Two Lands, to dispense justice, to ensure the proper order, and to maintain Ma’at. Together we guarantee the continuing existence of the world.”

  She moved.

  When my father passed into the Afterlife, Egypt was bereft, for Thutmose the First had been a much loved and highly respected Pharaoh who truly had maintained Ma’at and governed the Black Land well. There would now be a period of seventy days’ mourning while the Pharaoh’s body underwent a series of rituals and processes to ensure that he would attain eternal life. Previously I had not given such matters much thought, but now I found my mind dwelling on it. Senenmut had described it all to me when my brother Amenmose died; he had much knowledge of it since he had served for some time as a scribe in the House of Death, where embalming was done.

  “It stinks, that place,” Senenmut had said, wrinkling his nose. “Those who work in the House of Death can be smelled from a distance. The sweetish smell of death seeps into one’s clothes, it seems to cleave to the skin. I was glad when I could leave for a different post.”

  “I can understand that. I would have hated it,” I said.

  I knew how important it is to prepare the body properly for when the Ka returns – especially, of course, for a member of the Royal House, since the link between the Pharaoh and the next world cannot be broken for fear of chaos descending. Yet I shuddered at the image of the Chief Surgeon approaching my royal father’s noble head and pushing a long bronze hook up through a nostril. I knew he would rotate it till the brain turned to mush and could be drawn out. I knew that the brain is a useless organ and if left in place would surely putrefy. I knew all that – but I did not like to picture it.

  I found the thought of the ordeal that my father’s Ka would face even more horrifying than the imagined treatment of his body. I had been taught that Osiris, god of the dead, is the chief judge in the Hall of Judgment, where it is necessary for the Ka to make Protestations of Innocence. You must attest that you have not murdered, stolen, lied, cheated, acted unjustly to the weak, and so forth. Forty-two gods sit in a tribunal to hear these negative confessions. For a Pharaoh, the test is particularly stringent. Did he contravene Ma’at? Did he allow chaos to take over the Black Land? Did he favour the strong above the weak, did he insult the souls of the dead? Did he let the temples fall into ruin, did he counter the will of the gods? These questions would be put to my father.

  What if his spirit did not prevail?

  I asked this of Thutmose, my husband who would be crowned after the period of mourning was over.

  “It would be a catastrophe,” said Thutmose, frowning.

  “What then?”

  “Then will Osiris command that he suffer eternal damnation in the Netherworld,” he said.

  I shivered. I knew that it is a dread place, dismal and dark, peopled with monsters, lost spirits and defeated gods. “My father will surely satisfy the Great Tribunal,” I said. “He governed the Black Land well and he always considered the will of the gods.”

  “I believe it to be so,” agreed my husband.

  “He will surely also pass the crucial test,” I said hopefully. “I do not believe that there was evil in his heart, to make it weigh heavy against the feather of Ma’at on the scales of justice.” The alternative was too dreadful to think upon: If the heart is heavy with evil, it outweighs the feather, and then it is thrown to the hound of hell, Ammit the Devourer, to be gobbled up. “And surely the prayers and magical incantations of the priests will help?”

  “Everything possible will be done to ensure that the spirit of the Pharaoh will reach the Mountain of the Sunrise,” Thutmose reminded me gently.

  I knew that. Yet still I lived with fear. How could a human heart be so free of evil that it did not outweigh a feather? I could not be sure that my own heart did not conceal some evil thoughts and wishes, even if I did not have blood upon my hands. That it might not rise up and testify against me when my time came.

  For seventy days the fate of Khemet hung in the balance. The departed Pharaoh had to be found worthy and then he would be exalted and live for ever. He would become conjoined with the sun god, Ra, be newly reborn as the sun and sail across the heavens in triumph. Then would the Black Land be blessed and the new Pharaoh could reign. Failing that, the world would end.

  Here endeth the sixth scroll.

  Oh dear, oh dear. I should not be reading Her Majesty’s most intimate secrets, it is not right. She would be horrified if she knew. But now I have seen what I have seen and I cannot pretend that I have not. I wonder whether an act such as my reading what is none of my business could weigh against my heart in the Afterlife? I fear it could. But I will keep my counsel. Nobody will ever hear her secrets from me, unless I must pass on her journals to be used in testimony on her behalf. And even then, I think I shall select. I can be discreet. I shall never speak of this.

  I swear it by the Ka of Thoth.

  THE SEVENTH SCROLL

  The reign of Thutmose II year 1

  After the seventy days of mourning had passed, the burial of the Pharaoh took place. Since Ra still rose in splendour every day, I was assured that my royal father had undergone transition, resurrection and exaltation, and had become one with the sun god. Therefore I did not find the funeral to be a terrifying experience. Rather it was a comfort to me to know that I would be a part of the majestic ceremony, which would take place at night. The procession would escort the mummy to the stark valley amid steep cliffs where Ineni had created a deep and secret tomb for the Pharaoh.

  The mummy of the King with its beautiful mask of gold modelling the late king’s face was placed upon a sledge drawn by a team of multi-coloured bulls. They would draw the sledge to the valley where the tomb had been prepared. Slaves lit the way with flaming torches. At the head of the procession, accompanied by a group of chantresses and lesser priests, walked the lector priest, draped in a leopard skin. He chanted incantations, burned incense and poured libations of sacred wine upon the ground. The sweet incense and the sourish smell of the wine mingled in the chill evening air. Marching feet grated on the gravel and the runners of the sledge scraped over the sand. Now and then one could hear a snort or grunt from the bulls.

  My husband Thutmose and
I walked directly behind the sledge. He gripped my hand tightly and I think we both took comfort from this. Behind us a second sledge followed, bearing the richly decorated canopic chest that held the jars with the Pharaoh’s organs within a shrine. Behind the second sledge walked a large group of professional mourners, weeping and wailing and tearing their hair. Next, a large group of minor wives, concubines, children, and other members of the royal harem.

  Then came porters staggering under a huge quantity of funerary goods. Pharaoh should not lack for anything once he achieved immortality. The slaves bore clothing, food, bunches of herbs, furniture, weaponry, heirloom vases, jewellery with the colours of flowers, carvings in wood, ivory and stone, statues clothed in silver and gold, jars of oil and wine, flasks of perfume, pots of unguents, papyrus scrolls containing the Book of the Dead, models of horses and beautifully decorated sledges, a model barque and a full-size gilded chariot.

  Naturally, many ushabti would also be interred with the King, for these small figures of soldiers, officials, scribes, servants and slaves would be transfigured into a host of subjects who would serve the King in the Afterlife and ensure that his every need was met.

  The funeral procession wound solemnly through the desolate valley to the Pharaoh’s final dwelling place. A full moon shed an unearthly light over the stark hills, naked as bones, and cast deep shadows across the canyons through which the long line snaked. The incantations seemed to echo in the vast amphitheatre:

  “The being for whom you do this will not perish for ever.

  He will live on as a glorious god.

  No evil will befall him.”

  Yet despite these words it seemed to me that Seth and his devils lurked in the dark ravines, that in the shadows Ammit the Devourer panted and slobbered, lusting for a meal, the choice morsel of a Pharaoh’s heart, while monsters and genii eagerly awaited the advent of a lost soul that they could drive into the depths of the Netherworld where howl the unregenerate damned.

  “The furious tempest drives him, it roars like Seth,” intoned the priest.

  As we marched through the valley in the shadow of death, I was comforted by the thought that the power of sacred spells shielded the spirit of my father the King; I could feel it just as I often sensed the arms of Hathor supporting me.

  The voices of the chantresses rose sweetly:

  “The reed-boats of the sky are prepared for me,

  That I may cross to Ra at the horizon …

  I will take my place there, for the moon is my brother …”

  The priest promised:

  “The guardians of heaven open the divine portals for him,

  He reaches the celestial kingdom of Ra,

  And is seated on the throne of Osiris.

  His lifetime is eternal, its limit is everlastingness.”

  The cortège had now reached the dark mouth of the tomb. The mummy of the Pharaoh was reverently taken from the sledge, put into the smallest of the nest of coffins, and made to stand upright upon the ground. Several priests assisted in ritual purification and anointments. The lector priest recited a eulogy of the departed Pharaoh, emphasising his dedication to Ma’at and his devotion to the gods. Then it was time for my husband, the new Pharaoh, to carry out the task of Opening the Mouth. If this was not done, the dead Pharaoh would not be able to eat or speak – in effect he would die a second time. Meanwhile the slaves would carry the grave goods into the depths of the tomb, so that it would be furnished as a fit dwelling for the Pharaoh when at last he was installed there.

  Thutmose, my husband, stepped forward. He wore a white linen tunic belted with a sash of bright colours under a pleated robe with wide sleeves. Bracelets of gold, a jewelled collar and a ceremonial crown glinted in the moonlight. He had the implements ready that are required for the ceremony, and proceeded to carry out his task with grace and gravity, touching the mouth, nose, eyes, ears and chest of the mummy, from which the mask had been removed for the ritual. I was proud of him.

  First he touched the Pharaoh’s mouth, intoning:

  “I have come to embrace thee. I am thy son Horus.

  I open for thee thy mouth.”

  Then his nose:

  “I open for thee thy nostrils that thou mayest breathe.

  I am thy son, I love thee.”

  Next, his eyes, now blue jewels:

  “I open for thee thy two eyes. Also thy two ears.

  The dead shall walk and shall speak,

  And thy body shall be with the great company of the gods.”

  Finally, he touched the chest where the heart had been preserved beneath the layers of bandages:

  “I quicken thy heart, so that thou mayest live.

  Neither heaven nor earth can be taken away from thee,

  For behold, thou wilt rise again without fail and for ever.”

  At last, it was time for the mummy to be borne into the tomb and laid to rest in the huge sarcophagus. As the priests carrying the inner coffin with the mummy disappeared into the dark entrance, the lamentations of the mourners increased in intensity. I, too, lamented as the custom was. I noticed that Thutmose had tears in his eyes. The tomb would be sealed, I knew, with spells and curses to deter tomb robbers. Then the entrance to the tomb would be hidden beneath stones and rubble.

  As the slaves set to work carting large boulders and loose gravel, other servants and slaves set out the funeral feast on small tables covered with cloths. We had stools to rest our weary legs. By this time the greater part of the night had passed and the sky was lightening in the east. The moon had paled. I was hungry and I did full justice to the baked meats and tasty cakes and fruit, but Thutmose, who was pale and near to exhaustion, did no more than pick.

  When at last the barque of Ra appeared, the sun’s rays seemed to reflect from every facet of every rock and stone in that vast valley. The surrounding cliffs, that had been so stark and bleak, were magically transformed into a glittering palace of light. It seemed to me to be an excellent omen. Just so, I trusted, would the spirit of my father continue to triumph over the powers of darkness and come forth by day.

  The ritual of the funeral greatly comforted me, especially the part played by my husband in honouring his father and freeing his spirit. I saw these actions as a link with former generations stretching back over the centuries, an essential element in the framework that keeps the Black Land stable and satisfies the gods. A framework that the Pharaoh holds in place, as I have striven to do throughout my reign.

  Ah, yes, many years have passed since that night spent in the valley. One day a funeral procession will march along that self-same route bearing my body to join that of my late father, may he live for ever, in that self-same tomb, for I have given orders that an additional chamber with a great sarcophagus be prepared in it for me. One day a funeral oration will be spoken for me out there in the moonlight. What will be said of Hatshepsut? What will my greatest legacy be?

  The people will weep, for they always weep when a Pharaoh goes to the gods. But will there be a single person standing before my tomb who will truly weep for me? Only the gods can tell. Well, that night must come as it comes for all. But not just yet. I still have work to do and responsibilities to meet.

  After the funeral of my royal father a grand coronation ceremony took place and my half-brother and husband Thutmose became the second Pharaoh of that name. I stood proudly by his side during the joyous festival celebrating his ascent of the Double Throne. Now I was the Great Royal Wife, and I undeniably outranked the lady Mutnofert.

  From the beginning I played an important role during my husband’s reign. In many ways I had been prepared for this. The years I had spent as the God’s Wife of Amen stood me in good stead, as did the experience I had had assisting my royal father. I think that my dear husband would have much preferred to live the life of a noble with nothing more taxing than some wine farms to oversee. But there was no other choice. Even though his strength was not great, Thutmose had to follow his destiny and mount the Double Throne.


  So he needed me to stand by his side and he needed me to be strong as he grew constantly weaker, in body if not in spirit. Within a few months I stood in his place more and more often, conferring daily with the viziers and the treasurer, conducting morning audiences, dispensing justice, calling for conferences with the appropriate counsellors in the small audience chamber, and hosting visits from nomarchs and foreign deputations. Yes, almost from the time of my royal father’s funeral, I was the one who guided Khemet. As, indeed, had been his wish.

  It was at this time that my husband sent the punitive expedition to the Land of Kush and Khani was brought back a captive. As I have written, I spoke for him and he was spared. He attended the palace school with the children of nobles and lesser wives and concubines and he did well. I often sent for news of him, for I felt a bond, and reports were positive.

  Also at this time, I had quickened with child. In the beginning I was often nauseous, and it seemed to me that every scent in the world had intensified and turned strange just to torment me. Especially the smell of frying fish that so often wafts through the streets of Thebes was a sore trial to me, and I banned certain unguents that I had delighted in before. But soon the worst of the nausea passed and, as my abdomen swelled and my small breasts grew full, I gloried in my condition. I felt filled with vigour and blessed by the gods; it was a time of flowering and bearing fruit. I felt very alive and aware of being a part of the great river of time that bears the generations through the ages. I was convinced that I bore the next Living Horus beneath my heart.

  Oh, my child. My child. My child. She was born when I was fourteen. I was young and strong and I did not labour greatly.

  Just after my light midday meal, my waters broke in a rush of warm liquid that left me standing, shocked and embarrassed at this sudden dereliction of my usually well-behaved body, with my feet in a puddle on the tiles. Then the contractions began, soon coming thick and fast, and the midwives – no less than three – propelled me firmly to the corner of the room where they had prepared a structure upon which I was to squat while giving birth. One of them stood before me holding my hands, while one rubbed my back, which felt as if an ill-tempered mule had let fly at it with its hind hooves. The third kept doing inspections and cheering me on.