Ancient Evenings (62 page)

“After the Battle of Kadesh, however, He was like an oasis that finds new water beneath its palms and divides to a hundred trees where before there were three. Our good Pharaoh came back from Kadesh with more hunger for the sweet meat of women than any man I knew in all of my four lives. He must have gained the seed of the Hittites He killed, for His loins were like the rising of the Nile, and He could not look at a pretty woman without having her. But then, He could like ugly women as well. Once, after He spent a night with a little queen from the House of the Secluded who was so ugly I could not bear to gaze on her (she looked like a frog) He told me, ‘By the balance of Maat, I hoped to find beauty within for the bad view without, and it was true. This woman’s mouth has captured the secrets of honey.’

“After Kadesh, if you had a wife, your wife was His wife. To belong to the Court of Usermare-Setpenere was to have His child in your home, yes, often a baby as handsome as the Pharaoh. Of course, on many a hunting trip, He would still hop on a passing girl. Along every road of Egypt, it was known that Usermare could come forth twice in the interval other men took to show themselves once. He wished to know as many women in a day as there were intervals between His duties—it was as if the great plow of Egypt was here to till the field. These were the years when He began our horde of Ramessides, that tribe now so large that by my third life, the Necropolis was closed to all but the blood of Usermare-Setpenere. His seed is in the seed of all of us. No man ever created so many after him, but that is why the beauty of our Egyptian nobles is known by every land. He was beautiful, I tell you. At night when the Royal Barge slipped down the Nile, the wave it left behind made a sound so fine against the shore that women would turn over on their bed at the washing of its passage, and that was true. I was sleeping once when His Majesty went by, and my woman shifted her belly and gave me her back.”

“How splendid!” said Ptah-nem-hotep.

“May I say, Divine Two-House, He was beloved, but not wholly beloved.”

“Who but Queen Nefertiri, yourself, and a scattering of jealous women would not love Him?” asked my mother.

“One’s harem is never to be ignored,” said Ptah-nem-hotep.

Menenhetet bowed his head seven times, but so gently as to stir no glow from a firefly. “Yours is the divine wisdom,” he said.

“Not at all,” replied our Pharaoh. “As you know, there was a plot to assassinate My Father by a few ladies in the House of the Secluded.”

“That I remember clearly,” said Menenhetet. “The trial of these women was held in secret, but it became the talk of Memphi and Thebes. It was said of Your Father that He did not know His Notables, nor how to hold the roots of their loyalty. But I can tell you that Usermare did. In His Reign, the Gardens were filled with women from noble families. I do not think my Pharaoh ever thought of any man or woman for long, but He understood the pride of such families. He knew how much disruption He caused whenever He chose one of their daughters for the Secluded. So, He also knew that one must hold such a family close. Loyalty is never more dependable than when it rests in shame and must call such shame, honor.

“Your Father did not know that so well. Too often, He ignored the families. Many of the Secluded would appeal to their fathers or brothers after an injury to their pride. I think that is how the plots to kill Your Father began, the plot that failed, and the one that may have succeeded. For His death was curious.”

“Yes,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “I have thought as much Myself.”

“That was twenty-five years ago,” Menenhetet said, “but already we have had Ramses the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth—merely think of it, great Ptah-nem-hotep, in the seven years You have reigned, You have held the throne longer than any of Your brothers and cousins.”

“Yes I have also had that thought—” He smiled. “I remember that My half brother, Ramses the Fourth, was most fearful. He wanted no girls from good families among His Secluded—He would take on no enemies. He closed the harem in His first year, and when He opened the Gardens again, behold, the girls were stout and strong and common, and their fathers had no noble titles. Just merchants and traders.

“It was not attractive. Nor did any of My relatives improve matters. So soon as I was on My throne I paid a visit, and I was startled. So many fat women wearing so much jewelry! All with garlic on their breath! Now, the House is sweet again, although not so sweet, I know, as that time one hundred and how many years ago that you were transferred from General-of-all-the-Armies to Governor of the Secluded?”

My great-grandfather did not reply at once, and I pretended to be asleep. A sadness passed over me. I was looking at the fireflies. Through the night, they flew in a cage from which they would never escape. I thought of the swamps near the Palace. Some hundreds of slaves with quick hands must have stood in that low water this evening catching them one by one. My sadness spread out from me until I felt as large as a man.

It was then I realized that my own sympathy had been much increased by the sorrow behind my great-grandfather’s smile, a considerable sorrow, composed of many matters, the first of which must have been his recognition that he would continue to offer the Pharaoh more. My Pharaoh, by His own fine art, was cruel, no matter how He smiled, and my great-grandfather, for all his calm, still wished to be Vizier and so would please the Pharaoh’s questions.

“Yes, it is one hundred and thirty years ago,” he replied, “that I became Governor in the House of the Secluded.”

“And were you pleased at this great change in your career?”

“I was appalled. I remember I had just celebrated my fiftieth birthday. I do not know for what I had saved myself but my body was powerful to behold and more beautiful to me than a home. I was General-of-all-the-Armies, yet felt as if my life had hardly begun. I still lived in barracks, but now thought I was ready to make a splendid marriage—I need only choose the lady. All was before me.

“Yet, like the cloud that crossed the sun, so did the shadow of Usermare’s life come between me and any easeful wealth. For my Pharaoh had a fear in His heart that was like the gloom that came to me from the myrrh trees of the Temple of Hat-shep-sut. Except, it was not the Hittites of whom I thought today, but His own wife, Nefertiri, and there was reason for such gloom. He had taken a Hittite Princess for His new Queen. Now, while it was true that even before Kadesh, He had married another Queen, she was not to be compared to Nefertiri. Although a daughter of the last High Priest of Amon before Bak-ne-khon-su, and of a sublime family, so that the marriage wed the Temple of Amon to the Son of Ra, still this second Queen, Esonefret, was ugly, and Usermare soon ceased to give Her any place beside Nefertiri. He chose instead to build a palace for Her down the river at a small town named Sba-Khut Esonefret, the Concealed Doors of Esonefret, and it was a good name. He bothered to visit just long enough to make a child from time to time. Nefertiri sat as the only Queen in Thebes. It was said for many years that Usermare would dare the displeasure of the Temple of Amon in preference to the rage of His First Consort.

“Yet, when Usermare dared at last to marry a third Queen, the choice was as bold as the manner in which He drove His Chariot. For the new wife was the daughter of Khetasar, and young and beautiful. Her mother, the Queen Pudekhipa, was an Aryan from Mede, and it was said by all who saw her daughter that the pale blonde hair of the Hittite Princess was more luminous than the moon.”

“Here, I must interrupt,” said Ptah-nem-hotep. “How long had you been General-of-all-the-Armies when this third marriage took place?”

“For five years. The Princess Mernafrure arrived in the Thirty-Third Year of the Reign of Usermare, twenty-eight years after Kadesh and thirteen after the treaty. I know these dates well, for I became General-of-all-the-Armies eight years after the signing of the treaty.”

“One matter,” said Ptah-nem-hotep, “still confuses Me. You speak of the furies of Nefertiri. Yet, at the time of the treaty, thirteen years before, it was already arranged that this Hittite Princess would become His wife.”

“Your knowledge of such matters is close indeed,” said my great-grandfather.

“Not close enough. I do not understand why Nefertiri agreed to this third marriage,” said our Pharaoh.

“The Hittite Princess was only seven years old then, and not all matters in a treaty are equally honored. In those years, moreover, Nefertiri could not count as yet on the power of Her oldest son. But by the time that Usermare married the Hittite, the Prince Amen-khepshu-ef had become a great General, and could prove a hazard to the throne. Besides, there was nothing now to be gained from marrying this Princess, indeed there was not even wealth enough at Kadesh to pay back loans Khetasar had taken on signing the treaty. Khetasar sent Mernafrure as tribute, no more. Usermare did not even receive Her. She arrived after a difficult journey, and as a gesture of contempt, was put into His harem at Fayum. There He met Her. No one in Thebes ceased speaking of it. For so soon as Usermare encountered this lady, He was overcome by Her beauty—so I heard—and removed Her from His harem, married Her, brought Her to Thebes. Worse. Her name being Mernafrure, all called Her Nefrure, which, being too close to Nefertiri, our Pharaoh changed Her name to Rama-Nefru so that it be near His own. Those who knew Nefertiri said no insult could be worse.”

Menenhetet brought his hands together, and lay his face into the cup they formed as if to drink from the past.

“This then was our situation: a Queen on either side of Usermare. Many changes were upon us. I did not expect, however, that the first would fall on me. Usermare had come to the decision to send Amen-khep-shu-ef far from the Palace. His First Queen and oldest son must be separated. Yet He did not dare to send Him off to new wars in Libya without promoting Him. Since my rank was higher than the Prince’s, Usermare decided to give it to Him.”

“Without a word to you?”

“I should have taken the measure of His distress. He was making great plans for His Third Festival of Festivals which was nearly a year away, but would be the greatest of such festivals in His Reign. So He lived in terror that He would die in this year for He knew great uneasiness at His own deeds. He was building a grand chamber for the festival—The Hall of King Unas—but to His wrath, He discovered it would take two years to quarry the stone upriver and bring it in. So He made the decision to pull down our Temple of Thutmose in Thebes, and worse, the Temple of Seti at Abydos. He would use His Father’s stones! These, and the stones of Thutmose, were the only marble suitable. I cannot tell You how many priests had to be present at these works of demolition each day the stones were removed, and their curses—by way of the priests’ prayers—dispelled. Sometimes, the old inscriptions were chipped away. More prayers! Sometimes, the writings on these stones were turned to the wall, and so were hidden from sight. How many great names were thereby buried in the Festival Hall of King Unas.

“To the fear He knew of Nefertiri, therefore, was added the terror of shifting these great blocks. I remember that on the day He brought me with Him out to the stone works, He took me later into the room where He slept in the Little Palace, a great honor, for no one but His First Queen and His Second were usually invited there. Yet before He came to the purpose of our conversation, He talked for a long time of plots and intrigues.

“Now, my Pharaoh had a heart that was not like others. If our hearts were made of rope, none would have knots so great as His. His anger, and His fear, His breath, and His pleasure, were all wrapped around one another so closely He never knew the reason for what He did, yet He did all things with great force. The strength of all that passed through His heart had force enough to bruise the air itself. I do not think He even felt a whisper of His true fear of Nefertiri or Amen-khep-shu-ef, yet He felt, nonetheless, a terrible fear. It was so great, He even spoke to me. ‘There will come a day,’ He said, ‘of fearful bad luck in all three parts of the day. In those hours, someone will try to kill Me.’ It was His belief that some of the women in His House of the Secluded might know the assassin.

“I felt His terror. It did not attack His chest like the sharp point of a sword, but more like a poison in His thoughts. Over and over on this day, He talked of plots, and while I did not understand it then, I can speak now of His fear. It is because so many come before a Pharaoh that His memory can never be good. To remember, one must be able to look backward. Yet the Pharaoh is pushed forward by those who think of Him at every moment. Their thoughts are always shining into the darkness ahead for they wish to give Him the power to see truly into what is still to come. Only a Pharaoh can be our guide. Yet Usermare lived in so much fear that He was like a man who looks at a field glistening in the sun and thinks it is a river. Indeed, it is a river, but of light, not water. So did Usermare have an ear for treacherous voices and a nose to sniff out any plot against His glory, but He obtained His whiff of burning meat before the fire was lit. So did Usermare see so far ahead that He even glimpsed the plot that was going to arise more than a hundred years later against Your Father. To a God, one hundred years is like the interval between two breaths. So He saw the blow falling on Himself.

“Therefore, He distrusted the House of the Secluded. After many a pause, He told me that He had decided to place me there. I was the only man in the Two-Lands who was wise enough to discover whether there was a true plot or none. ‘Yes,’ He said, ‘at Kadesh, who else but you could know the mind of Metella?’ He took my arm. ‘No task,’ He said, ‘is more important than caring for Me. That is noble work for any General,’ and He began to tell of great Generals of the past who had become Pharaohs. Powerful was His breath!

“Yet, He was sending me into a place where there would be none but women. When I did not dare to refuse, I knew that the warrior in Him—even if it was His own order—must despise me.

“So, I had to wonder if my new title—Governor of the Gardens of the Secluded—was also His way of telling me that thirty years might have passed, but He had not forgotten how I bled like a woman on the day He separated my buttocks. I might be a General to others, but from His exalted view, I was a little queen. Grand Nanny of the harem. Could this be His humor? I nearly choked on the rage in my throat.