Out of the Black Land

Chapter Eleven

Mutnodjme

My sister mated with the King every second night for a month, and she conceived.

We tested her urine by watering barley seedlings with it. For if a woman has new life growing within her, shall not every emanation of her body be imbued with life? Tey watched over those seedlings as though she was Isis herself, and I wondered that any of them ventured to grow, so fiercely did she glare at them, daring them to tell her that her daughter was not carrying a child. But by the beginning of the new year, it was clear that one group was growing much faster than the other, and by that time my sister was beginning to swell at the waist.

Her husband was delighted. He would sit with her by the hour, his fingers stroking the curve under which the child lay, naming her Phoenix, self-created, impregnated by the god, Mother of Miracles. He ordered artisans to paint her rooms with the story of the Benben bird, which flew through the sky in a burst of cosmic flame and laid a black stone egg which one day would hatch to produce another firebird. Nefertiti was so delighted that she glowed. She adopted the stance of the pregnant woman long before her burden became heavy, the hand to the small of the back, the slowed movements; she who had been so lithe and quick.

Meanwhile it was Opet, the festival of the New Year and the day when Amen-Re came to his wife Mut and stayed with her a decan. I knew that the Sacred Barge had been refurbished and repainted, that the priests of the god and the goddess were fasting in preparation for the Mystery Play, where the Chief Priest and the Chief Priestess would enact the roles of the gods and ensure that the Nile rose to flood the thirsty land.

The royal family would attend, of course. Nefertiti insisted that she was well, had never been so happy, and would not be denied; and her husband the Lord Akhnamen may he live did not protest, saying that the Phoenix knew what was fitting for her avatar.

I asked Teacher Khons about the Phoenix, and he had no more to tell me than the story I already knew, which seemed curiously pointless, though circular. He did add that the Bennu or Benben bird had been worshipped a long time ago by the ones who built the pyramids, those Houses of Eternity which dotted Desaret, huge, strange, and of mysterious purpose. The capstone of each pyramid, he said, was carved with the Phoenix.

This did not make my sister’s husband’s remarks any clearer. Nor did his endless insistence on the primacy of the Aten, an immortal, unknowable creator whose visible symbol was the disc of the sun.

In the Black Land we knew of the sun, of course, it shone every day, it was the god Amen-Re who appeared in many forms, but sunlight itself was dangerous. The rays of Re could wound and blister, and only field workers and the common people went out into it, and no one could look at Him. But I saw my lord Akhnamen staring into the sun at noon as though the heat and brightness would not blind his eyes, and wondered how long he could do that without sacrificing his sight to his Aten.

In any case it seemed to have nothing to do with the festival of the New Year, and I was going out with my sister Merope and Teacher Khons to enjoy it.

We began our walk before dawn. We could have travelled in a carriage, and Mother Tey had urged my sister to do so, but she said that the motion of the horses made her sick and left her bruised and she was perfectly capable of a gentle pace for a few shoeni along the well made temple road between the rows of ram-headed sphinxes.

I love processions. Ahead were the trumpeters, the drummers, the players upon both the short and the long pipe, and the women shaking sistra—which made a sound like a rattle. Everyone was wearing their best clothes to honour the god; everyone was hungry after the strict fast of the Epact Day of Set, on which no work is done and no food consumed. The early morning was cool, with some condensation still on the trees, and the river was already beginning to rise.

I could smell green things and growing waters, when the gusts of perfume from the nearest people cleared. We smelt lovely. From the lotus and galbanum of my sister and King Akhnamen may he live to the robust male scents of labdanum and cassia and the aromatic Nubian oils from the Chief Royal Scribe who walked next to the King. My lord Ptah-hotep smelt of clove and cinnamon and I walked closer to him and drew in several deep breaths.

They said that he had a fascination for black women, that he was conducting orgies with his Nubians and that he was a commoner, but I did not mind. It was none of my business; though I did wonder what it would be like to lie down with identical twins. He was attended by two gigantic slaves with red feathers in their hair and I could not tell the difference between them. They looked like a mirror images, but clearer than any polished bronze one could show. They were preserving their countenances very well amongst the noise and music, which must have been very strange to them, coming from a people without such spectacles.

Ptah-hotep noticed me and smiled. He was a sedate young man, I thought, unlike his boisterous second in command Mentu, who was already drunk and singing along with the Hymn to Amen-Re, out of tune and out of time. There was something wrong with seeing Mentu on foot. He belonged in a chariot. We had often watched him racing through the narrow streets to gain the desert, where he competed against the finest charioteers in the army. And won, or so they said. His father and my father were friends, and Mentu’s father had always despaired of his drunken careless son finding any office. When Mentu had been named Second Scribe his father had given a party at which everyone had been merry for three days.

Ptah-hotep glanced at Mentu, smiled, and said, ‘It’s the festival, Lady, everyone should rejoice.’

‘I do,’ I replied, a little in awe of this powerful person but enjoying his attention. The palace said that he was arrogant and proud and spoke to no one. But he seemed grave to me, even sad. The Nubian woman had arrayed him gloriously, in a red cloak embroidered with the icon of Thoth the Ape as befitted a scribe. Around him were his household; three slaves, three scribes, and Mentu, who was attended by a servant to carry his wine jug.

The household of the eldest scribe Bakhenmut included an over-decorated woman with the stretched neck and popping eyes of a camel, her two sons, and a gaggle of maidservants who might have been chosen for their ugliness. This usually meant that the Master of the House had a roving eye and his wife was worried that he might take a concubine, but the scribe who seemed to belong to her looked unassertive and crushed and was attending meekly to whatever it was the camel-lady was hissing into his ear.

Then we heard trumpets. Ptah-hotep grabbed my hand as the crowd surged forward and pulled me into the lee of his tall Nubians. The mob broke on their satiny backs and strong legs like water on a rock, and flowed around them. Pharaoh Akhnamen’s soldiers closed around him and fended off the people. The Sacred Barge was coming.

In a roar of voices, a flourish of trumpets, a mutter of drums, the god came. The Sacred Barge of Amen-Re was carried by forty priests. It was a real boat, capable of voyaging on water, and it must have been heavy but they bore it up on their shoulders; and the people seethed noisily around it, striving to touch it and be assured of good luck in the coming year. Even so—over the screams and the cries of Amen-Re! and the curses of those who were trampled underfoot, over the chanted litany The God comes, he comes, even the Lord Amen-Re who is master of all—I heard the Pharaoh Akhnamen say, ‘Superstition!’ Then the crowd swept me away and I thought I was lost until Ptah-hotep noticed, retrieved me, and pulled me closer to one of the twins.

‘Stay close to Hani, little daughter,’ he ordered; and I did, for a change, as I was bid, for I was afraid of the press of people. In their desire to get closer to the god, they were impeding the procession, and they were being shoved aside by the priests and falling. As each one fell, they tripped a few others who fell in their turn and there were cries of distress from under the heap of people. I saw a child fall under her mother, a man collapse over them. My vision was filled with snarling mouths and blurring fabrics and arms and legs and the sudden stink of fear.

The Chief Priest, a very old man who was being carried in a litter before his god, flicked his sceptre of office and the bearers picked up their pace.

I put my back to the Nubian Hani’s legs—my head was about level with his belt—and he smiled down at me, a huge watermelon grin which showed all his white teeth. He was oiled with the same scents as the Great Royal Scribe. He was fending off the crowd without any difficulty, standing steadfast like a colossus, and I suddenly felt safe. The procession was now moving on, the Sacred Barge was past, and the pile of people disentangled themselves with much personal abuse and settling of crumpled garments and straightening of holiday garlands.

I admired Hani’s strength. His legs were like columns and his body was thick and solid, like ebony. Muscles moved under his oiled skin as he breathed. I dared to look around him at the retreating procession and he said, ‘Come up, maiden,’ and lifted me without any apparent effort and set me on his shoulders.

I looked through the nodding red plumes on his braided head and saw the whole procession stretched out like a brightly coloured river. At the head, the Chief Priest and the Sacred Barge, then the Pharaoh’s family, then the press of the households of all the people employed at the palace. My fear had gone and I felt immensely proud to live in the Black Land where such spectacles could be seen. Not even in the Island of Kriti, where the Bull-King lived, could there have been such a magnificent sight.

‘Hani, Tani, Teti, all my staff, we follow,’ ordered Ptah-hotep, but I had seen someone I knew and grabbed Hani’s hair to make him stop. Between two ram’s head sphinxes stood a man I had not seen for years. He was a tall man with a blue bead on each lock of long hair. ‘Horemheb!’ I screamed, and because my voice was high, it carried over the multitude of voices and he heard me and wove a path through the people to me.

‘Such a mount, little Princess,’ he grinned, reaching up to me to take my hand and kiss it. ‘Such a horse only a princess could ride.’

‘His name is Hani and he just rescued me,’ I told him. ‘This is the lord Ptah-hotep, Great Royal Scribe may he live. This is Captain Horemheb, my lord,’ I said formally, because even if I was sitting on a Nubian giant’s shoulders, I was still aware of protocol and I wanted to show Horemheb how much I had learned since he rescued me from the Nile. He seemed impressed.

‘My lord,’ he bowed to Ptah-hotep, ‘I have returned to deliver a report to Pharaoh Amenhotep may he live of events on his border. Might I ask you a favour? Offer my scribe some assistance in writing his report. Here he is,’ he reached into a group of soldiers and extracted a young man, somewhat dusty and crumpled by his passage through the mob of worshippers. ‘His name is Kheperren, and he has been valiant and faithful. I want to ensure that he does not censor his own part in a recent victory over the vile Kush.’

‘Captain, I will do as you request,’ said Ptah-hotep with surprising formality. He took the young man by the hand, as token of agreement with the captain. But from my vantage point on the Nubian’s shoulders, I saw his eyes widen as though he had been given a sudden shock.

The crowd shoved us and we shifted, throwing the scribe almost into Ptah-hotep’s arms and pushing even the massive Hani into close proximity with Horemheb. They were almost of a height. Horemheb grinned at Hani, and his equally huge twin Tani, and punched him lightly in the chest. ‘You are slave to the lord Ptah-hotep? Have you never thought of joining me as a soldier, little one?’

I thought that this was an insult, but Hani laughed.

‘We had enough fighting in Desaret against the Tribes,’ he replied. ‘Our sister is concubine to the lord Ptah-hotep, and we stay with her.’

‘Then you must be from the Village-between-two-trees, ‘ said Horemheb. ‘Yes, that would be enough fighting for any stomach. We will be in the palace for the festival. Come along to the field if you fancy a little exercise. Mentu of your office will be there, I have no doubt. He has a new chariot team; matched greys, faster than the sun, he says.’

I could not see Hani’s face, but Tani his twin was regarding Horemheb with approval. ‘We will come, lord, if our lord allows,’ he said.

‘What did he mean about where you came from?’ I asked.

‘In the Village-between-two-trees, men are loyal to their sisters,’ said Hani. ‘The brothers accompany the sister to her new husband, and stay with her. If Tani, Teti and I marry, our wives will stay with Meryt our sister, and we will be a new tribe, with Meryt’s name.’

‘A very good custom,’ I declared. Hani patted my knee. ‘Are you not loyal to your own sister, little Princess? I have seen the way you care for her.’

‘She is the most beautiful woman in the world,’ I said, and he grunted an agreement. ‘But,’ I added, ‘what about the Desaret tribes? I have never heard of them. Who are they?’

Tani replied, ‘They are the Sharu, the Wanderers, little Princess, and civil folk enough except when they are possessed by a call. Then they sweep across the sands, screaming that their god requires them to take land or prisoners—foolish, who can take land? Land stays in one place, or it would not be land. But every now and again, they come, and then they fight like lions; even as the lion of the peak, who is called Sekmet by the Egyptians. They even have beards and hair like a lion’s mane.’

‘They are carved on the footstool of the King who stands at the pylon of that temple,’ added Teti, who had been listening with interest.

‘Oh, yes, I have seen them,’ I said, remembering. ‘Beards and long hair caught at the nape of the neck.’

‘Indeed,’ said Teti. ‘They have visionaries, and these prophets lash them into wars. One day they will attack Egypt in force, and then they will be a real menace, for they do not know when they are beaten and fight until they are all dead, for the sake of their god. My father used to say that the worst thing that could happen to a people was a new god…’

Hani reached out a huge hand laden with gold rings and clamped it over his brother’s mouth.

They all looked at me, and I had a sudden flash of power, and a stronger flash of shame. Was I to inform on these kindly men who had spoken freely in answer to a question?

‘What did you say?’ I asked Teti. ‘I didn’t hear, the trumpets are so loud.’

Ptah-hotep

I had him again, I touched his hand, I embraced his body. And by the grace of Captain Horemheb, I had a reason to take him home with me.

I don’t think that anyone in that mob of drunken, dancing, reeling worshippers could possibly have been as happy as the Chief Royal Scribe, Ptah-hotep.

We saw the god into his resting place, the temple of his wife the Divine Consort Mut. We saw the Chief Priest Userkhepesh walk into the welcoming arms of the priestess of Mut, who embraced him, kissed his mouth and led him inside. The door of the temple was shut on the bride and bridegroom and the people spread out into groups with their temple-provided beer, bread and roasted goat to sit down and feast.

I distracted myself for a while by wondering how that austere and aged man liked being kissed in plain sight of a multitude, who cried out advice as to what he should do with the Goddess Mut, how many times her should do it and in which positions. I found the idea amusing, and when I met Kheperren’s gaze he laughed, for he had been thinking just the same.

Hani was bearing the princess Mutnodjme with no apparent exertion, Tani and Teti were standing close to him, and Horemheb and his soldiers had gone off to the barracks for the returned soldier’s wash, massage and feast, all provided by the Pharaoh may he live. There was nothing for us to do but to return the little Princess and go back to the palace. The scribes, of course, could stay for the feast if they wished, in the huge tent and awning set up for the palace outside the temple.

Both Amenhotep and his royal son were in the temple, watching the mating of the gods, which had to be perfect or the Nile would not rise. This was the most important festival in the calendar, and any deviation from normal practice would have caused disaster. In view of his age and general fragility, I hoped that the Chief Priest of Amen-Re had been well nourished and rested in the days before this feast, and that the priestess was skilled and both were fitting vessels for the gods, or the omens might be truly ominous.

Kheperren was thinking the same. I could tell from his sidelong look. His eyes still crinkled when he smiled. He did not touch me but I was stingingly aware of his presence, his breath, the rise and fall of his chest, his scent so achingly familiar and sweet.

Of all the people around us, the only one who showed any sign of being aware of what was between Kheperren and me was the little princess, sitting easily on Hani’s shoulders as though she had been riding Nubians all her life. She was looking at us, a wrinkle forming along her brow. The Lady Mutnodjme was destined to be a priestess of Isis, and such women are very observant. I moved a little distance from my dearest friend and then bit my lip, for that had given me away more surely than any stillness might have. But the Princess was watching the pylon and had seen the great gate open.

‘Amen-Re the Mighty!’ roared the crowd with their mouths full, for the presence of both Pharaohs meant that the mating had been accomplished and more free beer was about to be distributed. The Chief Priest had acquitted his task once again, and we could go back to the office.

‘Would it cause comment, Lord Ptah-hotep may you live,’ asked Kheperren, using the most formal of modes of address, ‘if I accompanied the Great Royal Scribe to his apartments and delivered my report for his most honourable attention now? I have newly returned from the borders and I am fatigued and wish to rest.’

‘It would please the Captain Horemheb to have his report earlier rather than later,’ I replied gravely. ‘Therefore we will return there now. A scribe who has been wounded in the service of the Lord of the Two Thrones deserves all consideration.

‘Hani, Tani, find the lady Mutnodjme’s teacher Khons and give her into his care, then join the feast. Meryt and Teti will come with me and join you later. Khety, Hanufer, you will wish to attend the merrymaking. Bakhenmut, I am sure that the Lady of your House will appreciate the seat of honour which has been prepared for her in the Pharaoh Akhnamen’s tent. I am awarding you my two most trusted slaves to be her escort.’

Bakhenmut gave me a grateful smile and even the unbeautiful wife unbent sufficiently to smile on me. Hani and Tani exchanged rueful glances, anticipating an afternoon of being ordered around by Bakhenmut’s wife but consoled by the amount of food they would manage to consume in the process. Everyone else seemed content. The lady Mutnodjme leaned down from Hani’s shoulder and gave me her hand and I kissed it. She squeezed my fingers a little and let go, and the household made their way through the picnicking families towards the awning under the pylon where both Kings were feasting.

Meryt and Teti escorted Kheperren and me to my office, picking up various tidbits from trays and tables on the way, which Meryt loaded into her ever-present basket. When she had come to me, she had carried a brightly coloured basket in Nubian weave, and it never left her. She said that women of her tribe were responsible for feeding the people, and picked up anything edible which they saw, and the habit had not left her.

She set out some food on a cloth on the desk, patted my cheek, and drew Teti with her to the outer office. She and Teti and Anubis sat there, cracking bones and breaking bread, while I took Kheperren into the inner rooms, shut the door and secured it.

‘Oh, my brother,’ whispered Kheperren.

I wanted to look at him, to touch him, to make love to him, all at once. Our mouths met and I was lost. My bones melted; I burned. We fled into my bed-chamber and threw ourselves down on my bed, and embraced so closely that there was no room between us, the wet skin of his belly against my belly, our hands sliding across flesh which was oiled and sweating.

We locked thighs and thrust, once, twice, and then we dissolved into an orgasm so strong that the day became night before my eyes and I thought that I had died.

I had not died, for when I awoke I saw not the face of the First Doorkeeper demanding to be named Understander of Hearts or he would not let me pass into the afterlife, but the curly hair and the dark eyes, burned now even darker by the fierce Eye of Re.

‘You look older,’ he commented, kissing my neck. ‘Severe. Quite the Great Royal Scribe, my dearest brother.’

‘So do you, quite the soldier; and oh, my heart, my love, you have been wounded!’ I stroked a gentle finger down a transverse cut, barely healed, which seamed one arm almost to the elbow.

‘It’s nothing, it doesn’t even hurt any more. A Kush warrior hacked at me and nearly missed, only not nearly enough. It was in Horemheb’s Battle of the Mountain. He saved my life. He saved all our lives. How have you been faring, brother? Did you receive my letter? I sent it to the Master of Scribes and he said he was able to get it to you without endangering our secret.’

‘He did, and I rejoiced to hear that you were alive and missing me, because I was alive and missing you. Oh, Kheperren, I missed you so much!’

‘Show me how much you missed me,’ he said, guiding my hand to his phallus. I kissed down his body, slowly, relishing the taste of his skin, engrossed in his perfumes. He gasped, his hands on my head. ‘I love you,’ he crooned while he could still speak, ‘Oh my love, my heart, my desire, my brother.’

Like Ptah Creator-god who swallowed his own semen to bring forth the world, I brought him slowly to a climax which shook us both to the bones.

We woke and it was dark. In sleeping, he had curved around me and hugged me to his breast, and I have never woken feeling so sated, so loved, so pleased. I tasted the divine herb unefer in my mouth, and kissed him to share it.

‘I suppose we should get up,’ I said, stretching lazily.

‘I’m hungry,’ he commented. ‘In fact, I’m starving. Will the Great Royal Scribe allow a portion of bread to a humble army scribe before he delivers his report?’

‘Only if the humble army scribe accepts a wash in the purest water, a sumptuous meal and swears that he will love me forever,’ I bargained.

‘I will love you forever,’ he said seriously, holding my right hand as one does when swearing an oath to another. ‘By all the gods both seen and unseen, I swear.’

‘So swear I, Ptah-hotep, Great Royal Scribe,’ I said. ‘Come and wash, for we smell like a couple of rutting goats.’

He sniffed and agreed.

Later, we sat down in the inner office and began on Meryt’s collection of comestibles which she had gathered for us. There was a leg of roasted duck each, some dried grapes and dried melon, several loaves of different breads and we washed it down with good wine.

‘I observe that you have not taken to soldier’s fare,’ I said. ‘Or would coarse barley bread and beer suit you better?’

‘No, coarse barley bread and beer would not suit me better. Hand over some more grapes. Oh, the sweetness. I used to lie awake at night and cry; firstly for you and secondly for dried grapes. Let me tell you, brother, there is nothing sweet about being a soldier and no one would ever do it if it were not for Egypt’s need and the calibre of such captains as Horemheb.

‘It’s hot and unprotected and dangerous and unbelievably uncomfortable. The common soldiers grumble all the time about the food and the officers grizzle for their wives. No one is happy. But Horemheb can command men and they know that they are his care and that he loves them.’

‘How much did you love Horemheb?’ I demanded, instantly and to my astonishment, jealous.

‘How much do you love your Nubian?’ he responded sharply. ‘We take our loves where we find them, Ptah-hotep.’

‘I am ashamed,’ I told him. ‘But I am also answered.’

‘So am I,’ he said.

There was silence for a moment, and then we leaned forward and kissed, a deep kiss flavoured with raisins. We concluded an agreement in silence; that we would lie with whoever we liked, for ease or pleasure, but I would be his only love, and he would be mine.

‘We came down into a defile and we were attacked,’ he went on, as though the exchange had not happened. But his free hand was in mine as though he never meant to let go. ‘Kush attacked. There were more of them than us, and they had the advantage of surprise. We were guarding the only road through Desaret into Egypt for a hundred shoeni either way, and we could not let them pass.’

‘What happened?’ I caught my breath.

‘Kush did not know that Horemheb always expects surprises. He had half of his force dismounted from their chariots—their complaints must have reached the gods, you would think that charioteers have no feet—and clambering along the ridge of the mountains on either side. The ridges were thickly wooded, so Kush didn’t see them until they were on them and shoving them down the cliffs into the waiting grasp of the mounted men.’

‘And who was leading the scouts on either ridge?’ I asked.

‘No one of consequence,’ he squirmed.

‘You, and which other? I demanded sternly.

‘Yes, it was I,’ Kheperren nodded. ‘And his name was Tuy; he was killed. My people come from the mountains they call the Edge of the World, and I was the only person present who knew anything about climbing. That’s why I volunteered; though the charioteers didn’t like it. They told Horemheb that they would not take orders from a scribe.

‘He told them that my orders were his orders, and if they got someone killed because they were being snobbish about rank, then he would personally flay them alive and leave their skins drying over a memorial stone that said, Here lies a moron rightfully executed by his captain. His name is forgotten.’

‘Did he mean it?’

‘With Horemheb it is always safer to believe that he does mean it. Can I have some more wine?’

I filled his cup and my own. I was getting used to the sound of his voice again. He had a sweet voice, my Kheperren, very pleasant to the ear.

‘So we poured down the cliffs after the Kush, and they were caught between a hammer and an anvil, and they were all killed. You know how we used to read accounts of battles, ’Hotep, where each move is described and the storyteller knows what is happening all over the field? It’s not like that. You can see maybe an arm’s length around you and it’s all dust and yelling and weapons appearing out of nowhere.

‘The only thing to do is try to stay alive and the only way to do that is to kill the man who is trying to kill you and I am no good at it, no good at all. The man who gave me this, he was young, strong, I looked into his fierce eyes and knew that he was a man like me. When he raised his weapon he saw the same and missed my heart, perhaps on purpose. Then he struck at Horemheb and I deflected the blow on my shield. I didn’t see what happened to him but he must have been killed, they were all killed, all of them. We despoiled the bodies and buried them all in a great pit in the sand, killing the wounded with a blow to the back of the neck. I made a note of them and their numbers. There were eighty-three corpses; only nine of us were killed.’ His eyes were filling with tears. They ran down his face and dripped into the wine, and I took away the cup and gathered him into my arms.

‘I’m not brave as the captain says,’ he said desolately. ‘I didn’t run away because there was nowhere to run. I fought because I was attacked.’

‘There, my brother,’ I held him close. ‘You need not go back, I can keep you here. No scandal can touch us while Meryt lies with me.’

‘No,’ he said, lifting his wet face to mine. ‘If I stay I will have to marry. I cannot marry. I tried to lie with a woman in a border wine-shop and I could not. I only desire men. I must go back with Horemheb, my brother. But it is you I love, and one day…’

‘One day, I replied as steadily as I could, for what he said was both true and painful. ‘We will draw the latch on our hut in the reeds, leave the dog Wolf on guard, and sleep together all night in peace.’

I could not see that it would ever be so, but it comforted him, and presently we went to bed and slept and made love and slept again.