Out of the Black Land (8 page)

He stood in the doorway as we registered his presence and threw ourselves to the floor. I crawled forward to kiss his sandal and he signalled to me to rise by brushing his fly-whisk across my shoulder.

‘You have only a small staff,’ he commented, flicking the whisk at Khety and Hanufer. Meryt stayed where she was until one of the soldiers, shoving her with his foot, said, ‘Fetch wine’ and she rose and slid away.

‘Lord of the Two Lands, more are expected, but not many more.’

‘And you have appointed Mentu as your second. Do you believe that he will be of assistance?’

‘Lord, I believe that he may be of great assistance.’

I did not specify as to how he might assist me, and it was always difficult to discern how much the Lord Akhnamen understood. I had dared to raise my eyes to his face. He was smooth and well tended, this younger son of the King. His eyes were strange, unfocussed, a dreamer’s eyes, a visionary’s. I never knew how to read them. Was he pleased with his selection from the School of Scribes? Was he about to order me back to obscurity? Hope rose in my breast. I could go then and find the Captain Horemheb and rejoin my own dear friend Kheperren.

‘What have you found out? You gave your scribe an order. What was it?’ he asked Hanufer directly.

Hanufer was not over-awed. He stood up straight, smoothed down his cloth, took his ostracon and repeated my order, word for word including the comment about the afterlife, as emotionlessly as though he was reading a laundry list. I held my breath. The King laughed and sat down in my chair.

‘I think I may have chosen well,’ he commented, accepting a cup of wine from Meryt’s hand, after the soldier had tasted it and nodded to her to continue. ‘You have everything you need? No one has offered you affront?’

I shook my head.

‘And you have a guardian,’ he commented, glancing at Anubis who was sitting as still as a stone hound by the door.

‘Yes, Lord, I have.’

‘That should preserve you from any annoyance,’ he murmured ambiguously. ‘I understand that you have been summoned to dine with the Chief Priest at Karnak tonight.’

‘I have, Lord. Is it your will that I should attend?’

‘Mmm…’ he was thinking. ‘Who is your god, boy?’

‘Amen-Re,’ I replied, surprised. Everyone’s god was Amen-Re, the Sun.

‘You come from the Nome of the Black Bull, do you not? Have you a special devotion to Apis or Osiris?’

‘No more than usual, Lord of the Two Thrones.’

‘Be careful,’ he advised me. ‘Yes, you must attend, of course; even I must attend on him if the High Priest summons me. But he will suspect you, Ptah-hotep, because you are young and because I selected you instead of an old man with whom that same High Priest had an understanding.

‘My father the Divine Amenhotep says that the priests of Amen-Re are becoming too bold, too powerful and too rich. I am minded to mend this situation, but not yet. I am thinking of a new city.’

‘A new city, Lord?’ I was following his train of thought as well as I could, but logic was not helping. I decided to just follow this fascinating breeze wherever it went.

‘I will speak of it again. I have been given permission by my father to move from Thebes to a new place, clean, unstained by other worship. On the left bank of the river, at Amarna,’ he said, waiting for my shocked reaction.

The left bank was reserved for Houses of Eternity, the cities of the dead, but I made no comment. If Pharaoh wanted to build a city in a tomb, who was I to argue? I nodded. The King rose.

‘Attend on me early in the morning tomorrow,’ he ordered. We all flung ourselves to the floor again, and he was gone.

Anubis, by the door, gave a faint growl and a long considering sniff. The King had, indeed, smelt powerfully of spikenard, and perhaps that offended my hound’s sensitive nose.

We had barely recovered from the royal visit when another Divine Personage deigned to enter and we were back on the floor again. Fortunately Meryt had ordered it swept and sprinkled or I might have betrayed my dignity with a sneeze.

‘Rise, rise,’ said a slightly impatient female voice, and I came up nose-to-hem with the Chantress of the Temple of Neith, the Princess Sitamen, only daughter of Amenhotep and also his wife.

‘You are Ptah-hotep,’ she observed, motioning to Meryt to bring her a chair. ‘Go on with your work, honoured scribes, I do not wish to interrupt you more than I must.’

Hanufer and Khety collected their wits, closed their mouths, which had gaped, and withdrew to the inner room. I was alone with one of the most powerful women in the Kingdom, and one of the most beautiful.

The Princess Sitamen was slim and strong, with wide shoulders and long legs. It was said that she did not wish to wed at all, and had accepted a marriage with her father with relief, as she could not thereafter be pressured to accept another mate. She loved to run, ride, dance and swim, lived with her maidens in seclusion, and was seldom seen at palace functions or feasts. Her charities were legendary. She had endowed a school of priestesses for the temple of the Divine Huntress Neith, sister of Isis, out of her own fortune, telling her ladies, ‘Melt down a few thousand bracelets, I do not wish to wear anything more decorative than my skin.’ Or so it was said. She certainly wore nothing more than a scant cloth, no jewellery except her badges of rank, and plain sandals such as common people wear.

And her own skin was very decorative. She glowed with health, though she was bronzed with weather, unlike the pale ladies of the palace.

‘I am here on my mother’s errand,’ she began briskly. ‘Her labour began an hour ago, but she does not forget promises. I need a scribe for the Royal Daughter Mutnodjme and a little Great Royal Wife called Merope, a barbarian princess. My mother suggests a young man, because they are both inquisitive and mischievous maidens, and would disconcert anyone older. Unless you can think of an older man who has a flexible mind?’

‘I have never met one,’ I confessed. ‘I am honoured by the Great Royal Lady’s trust. I will find her a suitable scribe. I will appoint someone, or I will come myself.’

‘Good.’ She had discharged her errand but she did not seem to be thinking of leaving. Her maidens had arranged themselves around her on the floor and Meryt had already sent a slave to fetch more wine and cold water. In future we would have to keep a greater store of provisions in the office. There was room enough in the empty rooms at the back.

‘I saw that my brother was with you,’ she commented.

‘Yes, lady, he has just left.’

‘Many will wonder at your appointment, Ptah-hotep.’

‘Lady, they will. I am very young and I have no experience of this work, but I will learn. I will justify the trust which Pharaoh Akhnamen may he live has shown in me.’

‘My father,’ began the Princess, then abandoned the train of thought. ‘No, of course, you cannot approach my father. But should you be able—indirectly, of course—to talk to him, his words are to be cherished. The Divine Amenhotep’s reputation for wisdom is not exaggerated.’

‘Certainly not, Lady of the Two Lands. Every wise man quotes his words.’

‘Thank you,’ she accepted a cup of watered wine from Meryt. Hanufer and Khety, abandoning any pretence of work, had joined the maidens and were handing round wine-vessels. The Lady Sitamen did not seem to object to their presence, so I did not frown them back to their places.

‘The Lady Sitamen seeks a scribe to teach two young Royal Daughters,’ I said to them. ‘She needs an inquiring mind this on the orders of Queen Tiye, may she live. Have you any suggestions?’

‘From the School, Lord Ptah-hotep?’ asked Hanufer, who liked to have the rules explained before he started.

‘There, or anywhere,’ I replied.

I occupied my eyes with gazing at the Princess’ maidens. They were very like her. They were scantily clad in undecorated cloth, they looked coloured by the sun if not precisely weathered, and they looked muscular and competent. One was wearing an archer’s bracer and several carried knives. I would not have liked to approach the Princess Sitamen Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep may he live with mayhem in mind. The attendants of the lady looked capable of mincing any attacker long before he got within striking range. And they looked, to my mind, as if they might enjoy it.

However, Anubis, a war-dog, had sunk down onto his belly and seemed pleased by their company. Evidently they had no unpleasant fate in mind for me.

‘’Hotep, what about Khons?’ asked Khety, who still had not become used to our elevation in status. I stared haughtily at him, until he registered the glare and amended his mode of address. ‘I mean, my lord Ptah-hotep, Great Royal Scribe may you live, would you consider Khons for the honour?’

It was a good idea. Khons was young, he was bored, and his back bore the marks of the master’s displeasure at his endless questioning. He was supposed to go into the Priesthood of Amen-Re but they had rejected him, and he was presently considering the fact that the only temple that wished to have him was the home of the unfashionable Khnum the Potter at Hermopolis—a soggy and uncomfortable place where half the population died young of marsh-borne diseases. His only other option was to return to his village and be a market-scribe; an honourable occupation, but possibly even more tedious than the temple of Khnum. And he was a commoner’s son, as I was myself, and it pleased me to think of him instructing the Princesses.

‘Will he do?’ asked the Lady, arching an eyebrow.

‘He will, with your royal approval,’ I replied.

‘Then you may forgive your scribe for forgetting your honorifics, as he is very young and he is sorry,’ she said; and Khety grinned with relief. Had I wished, I could have had him beaten with rods for such insolence.

‘Write an order for the Master of Scribes,’ I directed. ‘Send him Ptah-hotep’s compliments and beg him to donate another student to the palace. Tell Khons to report to me and I will conduct him to the Royal Ladies Mutnodjme and Merope.’

‘Very good,’ the Princess still did not move and I wondered what else she wanted. She came to some sort of decision and gestured her attendants away.

‘Young men, show my young women the decorative features of your office,’ she ordered, and Khety and Hanufer rose obediently to exhibit my painted walls and my precious statue of Thoth made of the hardest grey granite.

The Princess waited until they had gone out of easy earshot and said quietly, ‘My brother took you from one you loved, Ptah-hotep, to make you Great Royal Scribe.’

Was this a trap? Did she want to find a lever, and therefore needed to confirm my love for Kheperren? He was safely away with the army. The princess did not try to hurry me. She listened to Hanufer explaining at length the symbolism of Thoth being both the Ibis and the Ape, and waited.

‘Yes, there was one I loved.’

‘You sent him away?’

‘Lady,’ I agreed.

‘That was wise, for you are surrounded by enemies. My brother’s action has plunged you into a pit of snakes. But I know how it is to be threatened by the nature of one’s love, Ptah-hotep, more than my brother or my father ever knew. That is why my father married me, to preserve my life and the way I live it. But you will
have
to marry.’

‘Lady, in time.’ I was not sure of this Divine Princess, or her purposes.

She sighed in exasperation. ‘You have no reason to trust me, Ptah-hotep, but you may. So I will say this, if you are assailed, if your only love is in danger, send or come to me. I have a palace of my own where no enemy enters—or if they do, they do not remain. By gift of my wise father, may he live forever, I have position and power and I will protect you. In one respect, Great Royal Scribe, we are as sister and brother.’

I knew what she meant. She was right. She was also putting herself in peril to so speak to me, and was being astoundingly generous.

I slipped from my kneeling stance into a full ‘kiss-earth’ and laid my forehead on her workaday sandal. ‘I am the Divine Lady’s slave,’ I said with a heart full of gratitude ‘And lie at the Divine Lady’s feet.’

Chapter Seven

Mutnodjme

The scribe came that evening, before Tey had finished her remarks on how appalling our presence in the mammissi had been. Indeed, I feared that she would never get to the end of them, and I was to be scolded down to my grave.

‘The only reasons that I am not at this moment beating you until you scream,’ she added ‘is that you came with your stories at the right moment, to distract the Queen. She had been labouring for hours before she called for me, and she was at the end of her strength. So, it has ended well. And what did you think of the great female mystery, daughter?’ she demanded, more mildly.

‘Strange and terrible,’ I said. ‘Were all of us thus born?’

‘All except Amenhotep our Lord may he live,’ said a voice from the door.

‘Even he, may he live forever, and divine conception aside, was born of a woman,’ snapped Tey. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Ptah-hotep, the Great Royal Scribe,’ said the young man mildly. ‘I was asked by the Princess Sitamen to bring a scribe for your daughters, Lady. Here he is. His name is Khons, and he asks more questions than anyone could answer.’

‘He should be heart-friend to these two, then,’ snarled Tey. ‘This is Great Royal Wife Merope, a barbarian princess, and this is my daughter the Lady Mutnodjme, sister to the Divine Spouse Nefertiti. Have you eaten, young man?’

This was a polite enquiry made of all visitors, but it was not delivered in a polite tone. Even Khons raised an eyebrow and looked at the Great Royal Scribe who, I could not help but note, seemed awfully young to be so eminent.

He was good looking. He had very long hair, braided into a plait by someone with a great deal of skill. She had threaded in blue beads and small mirrors that winked and flashed as he moved. He wore no jewellery but his scribal ring, big enough to stiffen a hand to the knuckle. His cloth was perfectly plain. He had the pale skin, high cheekbones and elongated eyes of the Theban bloodline, and those black eyes were wary, giving nothing away. His voice was low, clear and firm and his mode of address very formal.

‘Great Royal Nurse Tey, Gracious Lady, I am sure that you will wish to be exceedingly hospitable to the Teacher Khons, because I will be obliged to report to the Princess on his progress and I would be very loathe to have to say anything to your discredit. I am bidden to dine with the High Priest of Amen-Re so I cannot stay long, but I would enjoy a cup of beer and a little conversation with your daughter Lady Mutnodjme and Great Royal Wife Merope.’

Merope, who had been hanging back, came forward and offered him her hand to kiss. He sank to one knee and did so with due solemnity. My mother flicked a hand at the slaves, and chairs were brought. We all sat down.

Great Royal Nurse Tey was examining the scribe closely and suddenly decided to like him, which was how Tey was. If she loved you, she loved you no matter how she might later scream or slap. If she hated you, she hated fiercely and could not be diverted. It was a pity that she had never loved me and I did not know how to change her mind.

‘I greet the Great Royal Scribe,’ she said formally. ‘I beg that he should forgive my hasty words. I have just come from the childbirth of the Queen Tiye may she live and I am fatigued.’

‘May we hope that the Great Lady was safely delivered?’ Scribe Ptah-hotep matched her in courtesy.

‘Indeed, of a son. She has called him Smenkhare. As you are dining with the High Priest, please inform him of this event. Do me the honour of tasting this brew,’ she said, as the slaves brought a jar of the very light ale which we drank on very hot days.

Ptah-hotep handed his cup to a slave who stood by the door. A Nubian woman with beaded hair sipped and nodded and returned it to him.

‘Your precautions are wise, Lord, if you will forgive me saying so.’

‘I forgive you, certainly,’ said the young man. Honours were, I decided, about even. Tey was interested in the Scribe but could not, in politeness, ask any more questions.

Teacher Khons was older than the Scribe Ptah-hotep. He was thickset and looked strong, and I wondered at the mess that someone had made of his back. He had been beaten many times. I wondered who had beaten him and why. He had a shaved head and golden rings in his ears and a fine, wide, dazzling grin which showed teeth like seeds. He grinned at us and we smiled back, a little nervously. I wondered if his teeth could bite as well as smile.

‘Let us see if we will suit,’ he said to me. ‘Greetings, Lady Mutnodjme, Lady Merope. What would you ask of your teacher?’

‘Tell us about the divine birth,’ I said. Birth was on my mind and I had privately resolved to see it again.

Teacher Khons spoke promptly:

The Divine Amenhotep’s mother lay down in her bed one night, and behold! her husband came to her, and lay down with her, and did such things as were pleasing to her .

And she said, ‘You have pleased me and lain inside me, and I felt your seed spring in me. I am scented with your essence; my soul took flight; I love you’.

But he did not speak in reply but left her and was gone.

That night she conceived the Lord Amenhotep; and yet her husband had slept the night alone.

‘How?’ I demanded. ‘How can she have conceived if her husband slept alone? You just said he lay with her.’

‘It was Re the Sun, even Amen-Re himself, who lay with the great Royal Wife,’ explained Teacher Khons.

We thought about it.

‘Amen-Re in the shape of her husband?’ I puzzled it out. ‘He came to her in her husband’s form?’

‘She was a virtuous woman who took no lovers,’ explained Khons. ‘Therefore he had to come in her husband’s shape, or she would have rejected him, even the god, even the Sun himself.’

‘But…’ I began. The Scribe Ptah-hotep lifted a hand.

‘I must leave you, I regret. Teach them well, Khons, I leave it in your hands. You will lodge here, and the Great Royal Wife Tiye is responsible for your expenses. Farewell, ladies.’ He stood up. The Nubian woman opened the door for him.

‘Come again,’ urged Tey, making one of her infrequent bows. The young man returned the bow and his mirrors glittered.

‘Lady,’ he acknowledged, and left.

‘Tell us another,’ urged Merope.

Tey flapped a hand at me. ‘In a moment. Teacher Khons, you may lodge here, and the young ladies will show you where you can lay your mat. It is very kind of the Queen to send you, and I appreciate it. If you can answer some of the ladies’ questions, you will be performing a valuable service.

‘Tell me,’ she said, escorting him to the small chamber next to ours and instructing a woman to lay out his mat and refold his bundle of creased garments, ‘What do you know of the scribe Ptah-hotep? He has impressed me very favourably.’

‘Lady, he took me out of the school of scribes and rescued me from a marshy fate. He was the best scribe at the school, which is why the Master offered him to Pharaoh Akhnamen may he live! Otherwise, I did not know him well,’ said Khons, watching a slave lay out his frayed and damaged wardrobe with evident embarrassment.

‘We will ask the Queen for some new cloths,’ said Tey, slightly amused. ‘Where do you come from, Teacher?’

‘From the North, Lady, the Nome of Set. My father trades in pots in the market,’ he added, fiercely rather than humbly.

‘Mine trained racehorses,’ returned Tey. ‘It is difficult, is it not? To live in a palace that knows no lack, with people who have never walked on hard earth or lived on fish and beans? But we manage, Teacher.

‘Now, even though it is still so hot—will the Southern Snake never stop blowing?—I must be away to visit my Lady the Queen, and you can tell stories to these voracious maidens. Ask the slaves for whatever you want,’ said Tey, and went.

I heard the outer door slap closed. Then I drew a deep breath, echoed by my new sister, and we both sat down on Teacher Khons’ sleeping mat.

‘Tell us another,’ we said, almost in unison.

‘First you will tell me,’ he said in a guarded fashion, ‘Is the lady your mother always like that?’

‘How?’ I asked.

‘So short, so brisk, so… decided.’

‘Yes,’ we both agreed.

‘Ah. Then we had better make some progress in learning or I’ll be off to Khnum at Hermopolis faster than a vulture flies. Tell me what you already know, Lady Mutnodjme.’

‘I can read and write cursive and understand most of the hieroglyphs. I can tell stories. Do you know a lot of stories?’

‘Hundreds.’ He turned to Merope. ‘And you, Lady?’

‘I never learned to write,’ said Merope. ‘But I can tell stories, too.’

‘And you can speak Kritian,’ he added. ‘An accomplishment that many of us would envy. Very well. While you are learning cursive, my Lady will learn hieroglyphics. And we will tell lots of stories. Will that please my ladies?’

‘Yes. Who beat you?’

‘My Master at the school of scribes.’

‘Why?’ I traced the scars where thin canes or whips had cut his smooth flesh.

‘For asking too many questions. For arguing.’ He smelt pleasantly of frankincense, now that I was close to him. Merope also edged nearer, and Teacher Khons began to look nervous.

‘Sit further away,’ he ordered. ‘It is too hot to be close in this wind.’

‘Where does the wind come from?’ I asked, as I moved to another mat.

‘It is the breath of Apep, the great Southern Snake, foe of Re the Sun since the beginning of time. At Ephipi, and into Mesoré, the power of Re is diverted to the other side of the world, and Apep roars, desiring to take the Black Land again into his maw and slake his thirst by drinking the Nile dry.’

‘Could he do that?’

‘Once he did just that,’ said Khons. He slid down until he was leaning on one elbow, chin in hand, examining us with his black eyes.

‘When?’

‘Shall I tell you the tale?’

‘Tell us about Apep and Re,’ we chorused. Merope and I lay down also on reed mats, and Basht came padding in and settled down with her chin on Merope’s chest. It seemed that the striped cat liked stories, too.

‘Apep is a gigantic serpent,’ he began.

‘How gigantic is he?’ I asked.

‘He is two hour’s walk from end to end, and in the middle as wide as the Nile at flood,’ replied Khons. We gasped and he continued the tale:

You know that the Lord Amen-Re sails his sun-boat under the world into the Tuat every night? Every hour of darkness he must fight off some attacker or fiend, for the otherword is not as here, my students, it is dark and the water is troubled. Fiends stalk the darkness, and the evening carries more dangers than just robbers and thieves.

As the sun boat navigates the Tuat river in black darkness, Apep comes swimming. Each undulation of his body is as high as the sky, and five armies could march under him abreast. Slithering he comes, for he is cold. Faintly he shines, for he is slimy.

In the night frightened wayfarers see the gleam of his teeth under the cold stars, and dig holes in the sand to hide from the cold stare of his eyes. For he is the great devil, the everlasting Foe of all that is warm, and breathes, and lives.

‘What about fish?’ I asked. ‘They do not breathe and are cold. Do they belong to Apep?’

This would have been the point where any other storyteller would have snapped at me for interrupting, but Teacher Khons took it in his stride.

‘Fish breathe, Lady, they just breathe water, not air. And they are warmer than the water in which they swim, and they can be eaten by humans, so they are not of Apep. But the green viper and the horned viper are his own children, and live to slay anyone who touches them.

Now this Apep attacks the boat on which the Sun who is Re rides through the Tuat, and the kind gods fight him; even She who is Beauty and Music, even the gentle Hathor.

Apep roars, and the stink of his breath burns the sail of the Sun Boat; he dives, and the river banks are flooded and washed by his bow-wave. And the gods kill and dismember him, he who is Destruction, and cast him into the river.