Ancient Evenings (86 page)

Now, Usermare walked through the Court of the Great Ones, and the sun came high enough to shine on the courtyard, and all silver left the face of the marble and it was white, and Usermare approached the steps of the Hall of King Unas that He had built in this last year with stones from the mortuary of Seti and Thutmose the Great, and each of these new walls caused a terrible stirring of His bowels as if the Ka of the stones had been disturbed.

He stood on the steps before the Great Door of the Hall of King Unas and it opened and a priest came forward from the depth of an interior which was as dark as the night, and the priest spoke.

“His Majesty Horus enters, His Majesty Horus, Strong Bull, Beloved of Maat.” Now the priest kissed the left foot of Ramses the Second for Amon, and the right foot for Ra, then he bowed seven times for Geb and Nut and Isis and Osiris and Set and Nephthys and for Horus the brother, and the priest said: “He is Ra, Strong in Truth and Chosen of Ra. He is the Son of Ra. He is Ra-meses the Beloved of Amon. He is Horus. He is the throne of the Two-Countries. He sits in His Double-Throne among men while Ra, His Father, sits in the heavens.”

The sun was lifting up the steps even as Usermare listened to this greeting. From the depths, from the dark interior of the Hall of King Unas came a column of light as the sun rose high enough to shine through the square hole in the center of the roof. Through the open door, the light could be seen and Usermare was blinded by the radiance of Ra and bowed His head before the Great Mouth of Gold.

“He is,” said the priest, “the beautiful Silver Hawk of the Two-Lands, and with His wings gives shade to mankind. Horus and Set live in the balance of His wings. Amon said, ‘I made Him. I seeded the truth in its place.’ O Great Pharaoh, at the sound of Your name, gold comes out of the mountains. Your name is famous in all countries. All know of the victories Your arms have won. King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Great Pharaoh Who is strong in truth and has come from the loins of Ra, Lord of Crowns, You are our Horus Who is Ramses the Beloved of Amon.”

He passed through the door, and His strength quivered through the room, and He knew all who saw Him would tremble. The Monarch Who could support the Double-Crown of Egypt entered the Throne Room, and it was a great room, fifty long steps by thirty. Before He could even see, the odor of incense also greeted Him, and He breathed it deep.

THREE

In the Throne Room, light came through the opening in the roof, and lay upon a golden table. Now, as the sun lifted, so did the light also move and the priests shifted the golden table in order that the light continue to shine upon the Crown of Lower Egypt and the Crown of Upper Egypt set next to one another, side by side, and the Double-Crown offered such a force as He came near that He was again a youth approaching His Father, the Pharaoh Seti, and the long high White Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Crown of Lower Egypt were alive to Him and like two creatures. Now, as He placed the White Crown of Upper Egypt within the Red Crown, so did He feel how the Two-Lands had been apart through the night and full of chaos in the dark. Now they were brought together, and a calm came over Egypt as He lifted His White Crown and His Red Crown, thereby making Them His Double-Crown of the Two Ladies: of the Vulture who was Nekhbet, and the Cobra who was Wadjet; and He prepared to place Them upon His head. And He said:

“Let there be terror of Me like the terror of Thee,

“Let there be fear of Me like the fear of Thee,

“Let there be awe of Me like the awe of Thee,

“Let there be love of Me like the love of Thee,

“Let Me be powerful and a leader of spirits.”

*   *   *

The High Priest put the Double-Crown upon His head and the courtiers and priests who stood beside Him embraced the ground. The power He had known while bathing in the dawn came to Him again and was much increased. For, even as He had absorbed the light of Ra in its rising, so had the Double-Crown been steeped in the power of the Cobra and the Vulture through the night, and They stirred in Their power and were alive upon His head.

He walked to the Robing Room at the rear of the Hall of King Unas, and it was a great and crowded chamber with many smaller rooms and cubicles. Courtiers came forward and surrounded Him, and He greeted them by the special and ancient titles He had bestowed for these five days: the Superintendent of the Clothes of the King was one, and another was the Special Custodian of the Sandals—here to recite hymns to Geb for all that touched Usermare’s foot. There was the Washer of the Pharaoh (who had accompanied Him to the Eye of Maat) and all the Overseers of the Wigs, and the Underdress, the Short Skirt, the Overdress, were also in the Robing Room, and the Custodians of the Headdresses—all the sons of Nomarchs. And the son of the Vizier was there to be Keeper of the Diadem of the Gods, and he laid on and took off the great Headdress of the Horns of Khnum with its two cobras, and two great feathers and disc, and other Lords: the Chief Bleacher who must oversee the cleanliness of all that was worn and remove every stain from the linen, the Chief Artist of the Royal Jewels and others, a crowd of men in the Robing Room, and next to each noble with his special title was a skilled servant to perform the task. On each day of these five days that were yet to come, Usermare would pass into the Robing Room and out again for each of the separate ceremonies in which He would participate at different shrines of the Court of the Great Ones outside the Hall of King Unas. On the shelves and tables, therefore, and within the cubicles were war helmets and ointment boxes, wine cups and incense burners, crooks, whips, crowns, ceremonial helmets and flails, lions of gold in many sizes, amulets, necklaces, breastplates, bracelets, sandals, dresses, overdresses, short skirts, underdresses, loincloths, wigs, jars, vases, standards and great and little feathers, and all the Overseers and their servants for the bowls of alabaster, diorite and serpentine, the bowls of porphyry, black and white and purple porphyry, even an Overseer of all the bowls of rock crystal.

In clamor did these changes of costume take place, and with piety and blasphemy. Usermare was as often praying with a priest as swearing at His nobles for the poor appearance of a wig, the mangled pleat of a skirt, or the lack of high polish on the golden fingernails placed over His fingers. This uproar would increase so soon as He strode out of the room, for many of the nobles surrounding Him must in their turn change costume for the oncoming visit to the shrine of another God, and many were these Gods, and much confusion, since by the first day of the Festival, not all the Gods had yet come in from up or down the river, some being transported great distances from Their local shrine to the landing place by the Royal Quay of Thebes.

Now, dressed for His first ceremony, walking in skirts of pleated linen so fine and so stiffly pressed that the cry they made against His thighs was like the clatter of sheets of papyrus, Usermare, holding His flail, came out of the Robing Room and prepared to depart. Yet, He was unready. The turmoil of changing His costume was still upon Him, and so He stopped by the Double-Throne in the center of the Hall of King Unas and mounted the dais, stood upon the thick carpet. Two thrones sat beneath two canopies side by side, and Usermare sat first in the Throne of the King of Lower Egypt. The Crook was placed in His hand, and its power passed into His arms. He smelled the odors of the swamp as they came to Him from the North of Egypt, and He closed His eyes and saw the dark marsh where Horus fought Set, and Usermare lived again in the hour when Horus was wounded. His closed eyes throbbed with pain and He knew a pang within the sockets of His head as Horus plucked forth His own sight to punish Himself for the crime of beheading His mother.

Usermare-Setpenere entered into the God Horus. Beyond His shoulders, He could feel the wings of the God Horus, and they were large. The walls of the Hall of King Unas were not great enough to contain them. He thought of the clouds He had seen on the horizon in the dawn, and the vast feathered breast of the hawk who was the God Horus was in those clouds, and He saw the spread of the God’s wings from horizon to horizon.

Usermare opened His eyes and descended from the dais. He took four measured steps to the South and mounted to the Second Throne of the Two-Lands. In His nose, many scents changed. He knew no longer the smell of the swamp but now inhaled the dusty odor of a peach tree by a road at the foot of a dusty hill. And He thought of His own coronation thirty-five years ago in Memphi at the Temple of Ptah where the First Hill had risen from the water, there within sight of the Pyramid of Khufu.

In that day of His coronation, the High Priest had set Him a meditation to contemplate through every festival for the years of His Reign until the Festival of Festivals, and He had done so. He had done as He was doing now, and He set His thoughts upon the center of His meditation.

The priest had said that even as the name of Osiris could be heard in the ear as Ausar which is equal to the Seat-Maker, and the name of Isis is Ast, which is the Seat, so was it natural for the Seat-Maker to know His Seat. “Now, for all the days of Your life that You are Horus,” said the priest, “so will You, too, sit upon the Seat of Isis, Your mother.”

The golden Seat of Isis was hard and cold in the early morning (even as it would be warm by midday) but there, in Her lap, He was the Pharaoh. “I have come forth from Thee,” He murmured, “and You have come forth from Me.” That was what the High Priest had told Him to say.

In the hour of His coronation, all those thirty and more years ago, the Double-Crown had been placed on His head, and He had become the Pharaoh. The God Horus had come to live in Him. And He lived in Horus. They would be together until the day of His death. Then, He would leave to join Osiris. In that hour, His Double-Crown would be placed on the brow of the Pharaoh Who followed. That Pharaoh would become Horus. “I have come forth from Thee,” He said to the Double-Crown, “and You will come forth from Me.”

Around Him, the courtiers were silent. He sat upon the Throne of Upper Egypt and lived in His meditation.

Then He stood up. He was ready. They brought Him the Sceptre of the Lotus, and on its staff were many lotus blossoms. Now, His thoughts would be open to all the desires in the land of Egypt for the lotus was the ear of the earth. So He stepped out from the Hall of Kind Unas, His Sceptre of the Lotus in His hand, and waiting for Him were many little queens and their children and lines of nobles in linen whiter than the bones of the Gods, hundreds long, to accompany Him on His trip to the river this morning to greet the Gods arriving on Their boats.

Yet even as I witnessed this, and kept running in and out of the crowd of courtiers to catch a better sight of the approach of the Pharaoh Usermare-Setpenere, now did I also see Him before me here on my own patio, and He was with His Queen, and one of her breasts was bare. The rose of her cosmetic had been rubbed away from her nipple, and Her face did not show Nefertiri’s features nor Rama-Nefru’s, but the powerful beauty of my own mother! The head of King Usermare no longer belonged to the Second, but to the Ninth—my Father’s face, His long thin nose, His beautiful mouth—yet I recognized neither Father nor mother on the first instant. They were so alive and so much like the others who walked as Queen and Pharaoh in the years of Usermare-Setpenere that I did not know in which time I lived, nor in which city, Memphi or Thebes, until the sight of my mother’s saffron gown brought me at last out of the webs and caves of my sleep, if sleep was what it was, and I smiled at them. They smiled at me.

At this moment, Nef-khep-aukhem awoke. He stretched, he yawned, he took in the sight, and then he jumped to his feet. He was about to bow to Ptah-nem-hotep, but did not. Instead, without a word, nor any sign of respect, he stood up and walked away so fast that if I had closed my eyes for the length of a thought, I would have lost the sight of his back.

His departure, however, had a most unhappy effect. My misery, in the first instant, weighed no more than the fall of a feather, except it was not truth I felt, but uneasiness. I did not wish that to weigh on the joy I knew in looking at my Father and at Hathfertiti. They were as sweet to my heart as the violet light of this patio. For Ptah-nem-hotep looked at me with eyes of love. All the love that had come into my heart as I heard His thoughts had been true. That was why the voice of Usermare had sounded just so clearly in my ears as a ring tapped on a table. It was then I was twice certain Ptah-nem-hotep must be my Father since I could live in His thoughts so comfortably, it could almost be said, as in my mother’s, and even see—and this was more of a gift—what they saw when the Gods of Egypt, like golden birds, were wheeling above their heads.

So I knew that the difference between being loved by one’s mother alone, or by one’s mother and one’s father, might prove as different as the White Crown alone upon a ruler’s head compared to the greatness of all Egypt that a Pharaoh could know when Red and White were both on His brow, and all of these feelings would have been as lovely to me as the most splendid garden if not for the departure of Nef-khep-aukhem. My first father had lived in our house like he-who-is-without-a-dwelling, and like a ghost he had left. There had been the sound of no door to close behind him. Only a curse. I had just learned that it is the smallest men who leave the largest curses.