Sting of the Scorpion (8 page)

When he finally fell asleep, he dreamt about the riverbank at the edge of the palace gardens. There was one place where blue lotuses grew at the water’s edge. In the dream, he was wading in the river, smelling the perfume of the lotus flowers. The sun was setting. He was thinking that this was strange, because the blue lotus flowers only opened in the morning. By evening they were usually closed tight. Then he looked again. The lotus petals turned into teeth and he realised he wasn’t surrounded by lotus flowers but by crocodiles that were snapping at his legs.

The next day, Ramose, Hapu and Karoya were aboard a boat on their way to Thebes with Keneben. The boat was crowded with all sorts of people who were needed in Thebes. The death of a pharaoh was one of the most important events that could happen in Egypt. Though everyone prayed Pharaoh would live, preparations had to be made in case he didn’t.

A strong breeze filled the sail. Ramose stood at the prow of the boat. He breathed in the cool Nile air. After travelling for so long on foot, it was wonderful to watch the fields and villages slip by so quickly. In a few days they would be in Thebes.

“You are still so young,” said Keneben. “I had hoped Pharaoh would live long, so that you would be a grown man before you took his place.”

“I am still young, as you say, and I may have only grown a little in height, but I have grown much in knowledge,” Ramose said. “I have endured more than I thought possible, Keneben.”

“You’ve had to look after yourself. Few princes know what it is like to be truly alone.”

“I haven’t been alone,” Ramose said, glancing at Hapu and Karoya who were sitting further back in the boat. “I couldn’t have done it without my friends.”

“Your sister told me that you had loyal friends. But a prince should not have to suffer such hardship.”

“It’s made me stronger, Keneben. I believe I am ready to become the pharaoh, even if I am still young. If my father is ready to be united with the sun, I am ready to take my place on the throne of Egypt.”

Ramose secretly hoped that the news that he was still alive would give his father a reason to hold on to life. He remembered the oracle’s words. She had said he would see his father before he died. He didn’t really believe that the old woman at the oasis could see people’s futures, but her words encouraged him.

Ramose spent the time on the boat telling Keneben more about his adventures. In his turn, Keneben recounted to Ramose all that had happened to him in Punt. Hapu and Karoya sat apart from them. In the evening, the boat was tied up and they sat on the banks of the river eating their evening meal. Ramose went over to his friends.

“I haven’t seen much of you two,” he said.

“You’ve been busy talking to your tutor,” said Hapu.

“That doesn’t mean that you can’t sit with us.”

“When you are the pharaoh,” said Karoya, “you will not have time to sit and talk to slaves and apprentice painters.”

“You’ll be busy meeting with advisers, generals and foreign ambassadors,” agreed Hapu.

Ramose had been concentrating so hard on how he would achieve his goal, he hadn’t given much thought to what he would actually do when he became the pharaoh.

“I’ll talk to whomever I please when I’m the pharaoh,” he said grandly. “I’ll free all slaves. I’ll increase the wage of apprentice painters. I’ll give every Egyptian free cakes on my birthday!”

“You’ll be a popular pharaoh,” laughed Karoya.

For the first time, Ramose allowed himself to believe that he really was going home. He chatted all evening, about going back to the palace, about sleeping in his own bed, about the jewellery he would have made for his sister.

“You’ll have to discuss with the vizier how you want to rule Egypt,” said Hapu.

Mention of the vizier spoiled Ramose’s good mood. He hadn’t considered how he would deal with his enemy when he became the pharaoh.

“I will appoint a new vizier,” he said. “Someone I can rely on. Someone I can trust.”

The three friends ate in silence. No matter what Ramose said, they all knew that things would be different between them once they arrived in Thebes.

Two days later there was a glint of white and gold in the distance and Thebes lay before them. Ramose’s heart started to race. He would soon be home. The green fields on either side of the river stopped at the foot of whitewashed walls. A hundred or more gold-tipped flagpoles rose into the air with coloured pennants flapping in the breeze.

Among the temple buildings on the east bank Ramose could see the twin black granite obelisks that his father had raised in the temple of Amun. They were covered with carved hieroglyphs praising Amun, each symbol filled with gold paint. On the west bank was the palace and behind it the cliffs that hid the Great Place.

Gardens grew down to the edge of the river. It looked so beautiful that Ramose felt tears filling his eyes. The gardens contained the same crops as the fields they had passed, but they were carefully planned so that the squares of lettuces and onions made an attractive pattern. There were also flower gardens. The red of poppies, the blue of cornflowers, and the yellow and white of daisies added colour to the beautiful scene. Ramose was relieved to see that the patch of lotus pads was still floating on the river in front of the palace garden. It was before noon and the flowers were reaching up to the sun with their blue petals spread wide. Children were wading in the shallows. There wasn’t a crocodile in sight.

There was a strange atmosphere in Thebes. The city was bustling with activity. It was an anxious time for Egyptians. Everyone hoped and prayed that their pharaoh would live, but if he didn’t, all had to be ready for the smooth transition to a new pharaoh. Egypt without a pharaoh was unthinkable.

Crowds of people were coming and going—all involved in preparations. Ramose wanted to walk around the streets of Thebes, but Keneben hurried them straight to the house of his mother. She worked in the small temple of Hapi, god of the Nile, on the west bank of the river.

“You must not go out of the temple grounds, Highness,” Keneben said. “We cannot take any risks now that you are so close.”

“But I want to see my sister.”

“I have told Princess Hatshepsut that you are here.”

“You’ve seen her? How is she? Doesn’t she want to see me?”

“She is longing to see you, but she agrees that we should wait until the vizier is out of the palace.”

At first, Ramose was happy to rest and walk among the temple buildings. It was a pleasure to stroll through the gardens that stretched right to the river’s edge. He delighted in showing Karoya and Hapu the places by the river where he had played as a child. They could hardly believe that their friend was the spoilt, unpleasant boy who had enjoyed making servants’ lives miserable. Ramose couldn’t believe it either.

After three days, Ramose had walked every path in the temple grounds five times over.

“We have to work out a plan, Keneben,” he said. “I will have to sneak into the palace without being seen. You will have to get a disguise for me.”

“You must be patient, Highness,” the tutor replied. “You must promise me you will wait until I am sure it is safe.”

Ramose promised that he would be patient, but it was hard when he was so close to the palace. He was no longer used to doing nothing. He’d waited too long. With the whitewashed walls of his home visible from the temple gardens, the temptation was too great.

“I’m going for a walk in the gardens,” Ramose told his friends.

Hapu was busy teaching Karoya how to play senet.

Ramose walked through the temple vegetable garden and fig tree grove. He wandered past the stables where the oxen were kept. He strolled near the muddy area where the goose herder led the geese down to the riverbank. Without thinking about it, not consciously anyway, he had walked to the high wall that marked the end of the temple grounds. Beyond the wall was the palace. He walked in the shadow of the wall. He wasn’t walking aimlessly now. There was something he was looking for.

The wall stretched in a straight line for many cubits, then it turned suddenly at a right angle in front of him. In the corner, at the bottom of the wall, Ramose found what he was searching for. A hole had been cut at the bottom of the mud brick wall to allow water to drain from the courtyard within. It wasn’t a big hole. It had been Ramose’s secret way out of the palace when he was younger. Now it was going to be his way in. He looked around. There was no one in sight. He got down on his hands and knees and examined the hole. It wasn’t big enough for him to fit through; he’d grown too much.

He searched the garden beds until he found a sharp stone. He started to hack at the mud brick around the edges of the hole. It was still a little damp from the last time water had washed through the hole. In a few minutes the hole was big enough for him to wriggle through.

Ramose scrambled to his feet on the other side. He was in a small courtyard. It was a place where female servants sat when they were spinning or sewing. Some herbs were growing in pots around the walls but otherwise it was empty. It was just as well. No one had complained about him being there when he was a child. They might have felt differently now that he was older.

He entered the palace. There was a sense of quiet urgency in the corridors. Servants and officials moved swiftly but silently, each one with their own purpose. He felt self-conscious at first, imagining that people would notice him. But in his simple kilt and reed sandals he looked just like a servant. There were hundreds of servants in the palace. No one knew them all. He walked with the same silent purpose as everyone else. No one even glanced at him. Now that he was there, he didn’t try to pretend to himself that he hadn’t intended to get into the palace. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He’d known it all along really.

It was strange being back in the palace. The corridors were wide, the rooms huge. Everywhere was smooth and clean. The legs of stools were carved into elegant lion paws or gazelle feet. The backs of chairs were decorated with delicate patterns of inlaid jewels. Almost every wall, floor and ceiling was painted with bright pictures or patterns.

He entered a wide corridor. On either side there were rows of stone statues—enormous seated figures of the royal ancestors. His grandfather and his great grandfather were among them. They stared across at each other with blank unseeing eyes. Ramose barely came up to their knees.

Ramose was afraid that he would run into someone who knew him. He kept his head bowed and tried not to look anyone in the eye. Then he realised that there was no one he knew. Not a single servant or official looked familiar. It was like a dream. Everything was so familiar, yet it had changed somehow. He was a stranger in his own home.

He walked through the western hall. The floor was painted green, dotted with bright painted flowers. The huge papyrus-topped columns towered over him. They too were brightly painted, covered in paintings and hieroglyphs recounting the pharaoh’s deeds. Here was a painting of the pharaoh throwing a spear. There was the pharaoh with his foot on the head of an enemy.

Ramose had walked through this hall every day when he had lived in the palace. He had hardly been aware of the paintings. Now he was dazzled by the brilliance of the colours. When he was a child, he had never thought about the size of the columns. Now, even though he’d grown half a cubit since he was there last, he felt dwarfed by the enormous pillars of stone.

He turned a corner, then another, and opened a door. He was in his own room. Except that it looked nothing like his room. Papyrus scrolls lay on a table. A young apprentice was busily copying cursive writing from a large stone flake onto a papyrus. He looked up and then ignored Ramose.

The room had been turned into a scribe’s office. His soft bed had gone. So had the chests that held his clothes and playthings. The lion-footed chair wasn’t there either. If it hadn’t been for the paintings of the god Amun on one wall and his father hunting on the other, Ramose would have thought he was in the wrong room. He’d imagined he was coming home, but the palace didn’t feel like home at all.