Out of the Black Land

Chapter Fourteen

Mutnodjme

We wept ourselves out. The Queen was led wailing from the door of the tomb and the priests sealed it with the great clay seals of the City of the Houses of Eternity, and we left Osiris-Amenhotep to the silence and his interviews with the various doorkeepers in the Tuat.

‘He was a good man and a good king and he will dwell with Osiris forever,’ said the Princess Sitamen to her mother, ‘Will you come, Mother, and live with me? Thebes is being deserted by the royal court and there are beggars in the streets. Now that the temple has been closed there will be no one to care for the poor. The priests of Amen-Re are dispersed.’

‘You are my daughter and I love you, but I will go where I might still be of some use,’ said Tiye the Queen, so softly that the tall princess had to bend to hear her.

‘So far the temples of Isis have not been attacked, daughter,’ the Queen said to me. ‘But I do not know how long their immunity may last. Sitamen will go back to her estates, which are hers in her own right and cannot be removed. She may visit us, perhaps, if you will come with me and my widow-daughter Merope? We leave in twenty days.’

‘Where are you going?’ I asked, though I knew the answer.

‘To the City of the Sun,’ said the Queen with great determination. ‘To save what can be saved.’

So it was settled. I officiated at the secret funeral of the old man Snefru, cried for him and saw his tomb sealed. The new edict was making the city nervous. It was rumoured that all worship was to be forbidden except that of the Aten; and people were burying even their little household gods, the pottery statues of the fanged dwarf Bes who assists in childbirth, and the little images of Amen-Re as a ram or Osiris as a bull.

At the end of twenty days I gathered my texts and my robes, packed up in oilcloth and buried what I could not carry with me, and left the temple where I had been happy for many years. The Singer of Isis, Lady of her own kingdom, escorted me to the great door.

‘Be of good cheer about us, daughter, we have places to go and things to do, and we are not without resource,’ she said.

Duammerset had died a year before, and this Lady of Isis was young. Her name was Peri, and she had a sweetness of character. A childhood accident had burned one side of her face, and her parents had abandoned her on the temple steps, hoping Isis might heal her. Isis had not removed the scar, but she had accepted Peri as her most intelligent and devoted priestess, a natural successor to the old woman. Some even whispered that she was Duammerset come again; that her spirit had passed from one body to the other. Certainly she had a lot of the old woman’s mannerisms, including a low, soft voice full of authority.

‘But what will you do if your worship is forbidden?’ I asked.

She smiled—it was certainly Duammerset’s smile, a cool, calculating turn of the mouth. ‘Better that you should not know. Now, do not forget what you have learned of us, daughter Mutnodjme. Even if humans forget Isis, she will not forget us. Farewell,’ she said, and kissed me, and I went with my bundle down the steps of the temple and into the street.

I had abandoned my robes, and felt naked. I was wearing just what every woman in Thebes was wearing, a white cloth and a delicate square of fabric covering my breasts, and I bore my bundle on my shoulder as women do. But voices fell as I walked into a market, and I heard hisses behind me, saying, ‘The woman of Isis, there is no Isis, there is no god!’ and I had to exercise considerable self control not to run. I reminded myself that I was still a priestess of a very strong-minded deity who did not care whether people believed in her or not, and picked up my pace unobtrusively.

There were soldiers at the palace gates. There had never been soldiers there before. They were well armed with spear, sword and shield, and they wore the Pharaoh’s red plumes, his personal guard. They crossed spears before me and opposed my entry.

‘I am Mutnodjme, sister to the Great Royal Spouse Nefertiti, let me through,’ I said into their unmoving faces. They looked like statues, not men, and they did not react. I was wondering what to do—kick one in the shin, perhaps, to test whether he was stone or flesh?—when I was relieved of the burden of decision.

‘Let the lady in,’ said a quiet voice, and the statues snapped to attention, unbarring the way.

It was the slim and decorative Great Royal Scribe Ptah-hotep. His hair was still dressed in the Nubian fashion, threaded with gold and mirrors. He was older. There were crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and a permanent double line between his brows; evidence of bad temper, perhaps, or overstrained sight. He did not seem to be bad tempered. Instead he seemed gentle and rather sad, as he had always seemed. But he was taken aback at the sight of me.

‘Lady Mutnodjme,’ he began, bending lower than a Great Royal Scribe need bow. ‘It has been ten years since I last saw you, and time has been very kind to you.’

‘You saw me at the funeral of Osiris-Amenhotep, though you did not look at me,’ I replied. ‘I was Isis.’

‘Lady, that name is not to be said aloud,’ he took my hand and led me to the palace, where more soldiers waited at the inner door.

‘Why do we need a guard?’ I asked, and then fell silent, responding to the hushing gesture which he made, very quickly, with one hand.

I did not speak again until he had taken me through the palace to the apartments of the Widow-Queen Tiye. She was not there but a number of harried looking slaves were rolling tapestries, packing wine vessels into baskets and folding cloths.

‘You may pay your respects later,’ said Ptah-hotep. ‘Will you come to my humble quarters and drink a cup of wine with me?’

‘Certainly,’ I replied. His eyes were begging me to agree, though I could not see him being overcome with either love or lust. ‘That would be very welcome.’

We were clearly conversing for the benefit of listeners and I found a safe topic.

‘Tell me of the health of my sister and her children,’ I asked.

Ptah-hotep replied, ‘There are now six daughters of the Lord Akhnaten may he live! They are called Mekhetaten, she is the eldest daughter, then Meritaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferaten-tashery—little Nefertiti. Then there is Neferneferure, and the baby is Septenre. She is sickly and your sister is very worried about her. My lord intends to take the little princess Mekhetaten to be Great Royal Wife as soon as she is old enough—she is only ten, but a beautiful little maiden.’

I wondered privately who was going to take over the task of providing children for the eunuch King, but if Isis was not an acceptable subject of conversation then the king’s impotence certainly would not be.

Ptah-hotep continued to tell me stories of the beauties and charming ways of the children of my sister until we reached a fine door. This had no soldiers, but when Ptah-hotep pushed it open disclosed two very large Nubians and a huge dog standing solidly in the way.

Anubis walked over to me, inhaled my scent and lost interest. I was not an enemy. Tani and Hani grinned and said, ‘Here is the little princess who rides Nubians,’ and I was touched and sat down as my eyes filled with tears. Meryt the Nubian with the rounded contours of the well-fed and well-treated brought me a cup of wine. Three scribes looked up and then looked down again. Ptah-hotep led me into the inner apartment and closed the door and we heard the creak as one of the twins leaned his back against it in a casual fashion.

‘We meet again,’ said Ptah-hotep, sitting down in a throne-like chair and bidding me take the other.

‘So we do, and we are all bound for the same place.’

‘You accompany the Queen to Amarna? I hoped it might be so, lady.’

‘Why did you hope so?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘Why, so that I might profit by your conversation, though not too often or too secretly. The palace is full of eyes and none of them are the Eyes of Horus.’

‘Or the ears of Khnum?’ I matched his reference with another.

‘No,’ he agreed.

‘The School of Scribes is closed, the master is banished and you, my lord, are deep in whatever plots the King is concocting,’ I said angrily, for I had lost a friend in the scribe Snefru and the cult of the Aten looked likely to eat all Egypt.

‘Not deep enough, it seems, for I knew of no order to close the School of Scribes. If I had not gone there purely by chance, the master would have gone and I would not even have said farewell to him or given him any gold for his sustenance.’

‘Snefru is dead,’ I told him.

‘I know,’ he said sadly.

‘Well, what are you going to do about all this?’ I demanded.

‘What can I do? Temper the King Akhnaten as much as I can, put reins on the power and pride of his officials, that is all I can do.’

‘There must be more than that,’ I said. He stretched out both hands to me and said, ‘Tell me what more, and I will do it.’

‘I do not know,’ I said, and he sighed. ‘I do not know, yet,’ I added. ‘Let me look at the situation and listen and learn. When we reach Amarna, can you get me quarters separate from my mother and my sister?’

‘Only if you marry someone,’ he said. But I had thought of another solution.

‘The Great Royal Wife Merope will have her own establishment; I will stay with her,’ I said.

‘And you will speak with me again?’ he asked, not wanting to pressure me but greatly desiring my company. It had been a long time since I had been wooed, and it felt very pleasant.

‘Indeed I will,’ I said, and drank some more wine. His eyes were beautiful, brown and deep, like the eyes of my sister Merope whom I loved.

‘How is your household, Lord?’ I asked, belatedly.

‘My wife died two years ago,’ he said. ‘We had no children. Since then I have taken no other woman; my Lord Akhnaten approves of my piety in the Aten, which is immortal and unknowable.’

‘I never met your wife,’ I said.

‘She was a daughter of a connection of Divine Father Ay. A pleasant girl, not very interested in great matters, and Meryt liked her.’

I hoped that if I ever married, my husband would have a more impressive epitaph for me. I remembered something and delved into the band I wore around my waist to find it. I had to grope for the package, because it had worked its way around behind my hip, and the Great Royal Scribe showed no embarrassment and no curiosity as to why I was disrobing in his presence.

‘You are very beautiful,’ he commented dispassionately.

‘Thank you, but I am not trying to display my erotic charms, but to find ah, there is the letter.’

I found the elusive packet and began to replace my garments, when suddenly he seized me and pressed me close. His mouth was on mine. It was so unexpected that I did not resist. His fingers pinched my nipple. Unexpectedly, I found that my body, which had been so unenthusiastic with other lovers, was reacting with zeal and I kissed him back in earnest. His back was muscular under my caressing hands. We shed the remnants of clothing and slid together to the floor… where my swimming eyes beheld a pair of jewelled sandals, and I looked up along the length of thin shanks, fat thighs, swollen belly to the amused face of the Pharaoh Akhnaten may he live and I felt myself blush purple.

Ptah-hotep released me and we prostrated ourselves in a ‘kiss earth’ which allowed me to hide my burning face.

‘Lady Mutnodjme, Ptah-hotep,’ said the King in an indulgent tone. ‘I was told that you were secret together and came to find out what you were talking about—and I see that my informants were mistaken about the subject of conversation.’

I was quite naked but Priestesses of Isis have never been disconcerted by nakedness. Was not our lady Isis naked? At his signal I stood up and looked the King in the face. My garments were in a crumpled mess on the floor and under them was the packet which I had been carrying.

‘Lord Akhnaten, Favourite of Aten, Only One of the Great God, Master of the Two Thrones, Mutnodjme, the humble and unworthy sister of the Great Royal Wife gives respectful greetings to the Most High Pharaoh, and hopes for his favourable attention,’ I said in the most formal mode of address.

‘Lady Mutnodjme, sister of Nefertiti Neferuaten Great Royal Wife and Priestess of the Phoenix is high in the regard of the Lord of the Two Lands and he welcomes her to his palace,’ replied the Pharaoh, his strange eyes warm with some emotion.

‘And he rejoices that she is loved by the Great Royal Scribe Ptah-hotep; the Pharaoh has been concerned for his scribe’s grief since his wife died, and delights in the delight of his faithful servant.’

At the term ‘faithful servant,’ the Pharaoh cast a sharp look at the thin man standing behind him. He wore an overdecorated bag-wig and far too much perfume. He seemed consumed with chagrin, biting his pale lips and twisting his ringed hands together.

‘So, Pannefer, you were wrong,’ said the Pharaoh. ‘This is innocent and charming. Neither party is married and I expect that they will reach some arrangement. Nefertiti will rejoice that her sister has come to her, and that love has brought the adherent of a false cult to reason. Ptah-hotep, do you love the lady Mutnodjme?’

‘Lord, thou knowst the secrets of all hearts,’ replied the Great Royal Scribe. He also was naked, and he was very well-made. Living mostly with women I had not tired of the sight of male flesh, and he was finely and sparely handsome.

‘Lady, do you love the lord Ptah-hotep?’

‘As you see, Lord,’ I said, matching my lord Ptah-hotep for obscurity.

‘Then I give you each other,’ said Akhnaten, joined our hands, and left, taking Master of the House Pannefer and the soldiers with him.

As soon as the entourage had gone, Ptah-hotep hugged me to his breast and said, ‘Oh, most quick-witted of women!’ and I began to laugh and couldn’t stop until the slave Meryt, ruler of the household, bought me a cup of undiluted wine.

‘Master, he just walked straight in, and I didn’t even have time to warn you,’ she said in an undertone to Ptah-hotep.

‘It’s all right, Meryt, not your fault. Pannefer is clearly watching me even closer than I thought. Now, some more wine for the lady and you can leave us.’

Then they all went away again, and I said to Ptah-hotep, ‘Perhaps we should lie down, in case we are still being watched, and then you can explain.’

He led me by the hand to his bed in the inner apartment. A woman had arranged the room, it was clear. There were lamps in the form of lotus flowers and a statue of an ibis. The walls were painted with scenes of fishing and fowling and were old fashioned but charming.

We lay down together on the big bed and I pillowed my head on his bare smooth chest. I have never felt comfortable lying with a man—except this one. I fitted into his embrace; there was none of the preliminary shoving as one worked out what to do with arm and elbow and knee. He seemed to feel the same sense of rightness, for he stroked my cheek gently with his free hand.

‘Lady, I have importuned you, put you into a false position, and by nightfall it will be all over the palace. Everyone will know that you are my lover. I apologise as profoundly as I can,’ he began hesitantly.

‘Lord, I have no particular objection to being known as your lover, I need an excuse to see you and be private with you, and you need not apologise,’ I replied.

He smelt lovely, of cinnamon oil, his own skin and the scribes’ scents of papyrus, sand and ink. ‘In fact the apology is due to you, because I have clearly endangered you by bringing a letter from Ammemmes into this exceptionally spy-ridden palace. I thought the Temple of Isis was gossipy,’ I said heatedly. ‘How long has the palace been like this?’

‘Ah, lady, a long time,’ he sighed. He sounded so weary that I moved, taking his head onto my breast, and he snuggled down into my embrace as though he had been lying with me for years.

‘It was kept in check while Osiris-Amenhotep was alive, that wise old man. He spoke to his son, saying that he was surrounding himself with sycophants and that he needed at least one counsellor who would tell him the truth, but my lord just looked at his father with those vague eyes. You see, he is convinced that there is no god but Aten, and when that was his own religion and no pain to any other, it was no trouble. But now he is so petted and encouraged by Pannefer and Huy and the others that he is intending to impose this Aten on all of Egypt. There is no god but the One, he says. There shall be no god but the One.’

‘So he has closed the temples of Amen-Re,’ I said. ‘And the others, as well? Are all the gods to be abandoned? What, then, will happen to the people?’

‘I do not know,’ he sighed. I stroked his shoulder and cheek and he nestled closer to me, twining his legs with mine.

We did not speak for a while, and I wondered if he had fallen asleep. His skin was in contact with my skin the length of my body, and his free hand cupped my breast. I was so aroused that I would have opened to him if he had made any advance at all, but he did not and I reflected that it was not fitting that I should turn a political ruse to my own pleasure.

‘It was the fate of Khons which settled my mind,’ he said unexpectedly, so that I jumped. I had not seen Teacher Khons since I had gone to the temple of Isis and he had been appointed tutor to the royal children. The last I had heard of him he was attached to my sister’s household as teacher to her daughters.

‘What happened to Teacher Khons?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘You remember Khons, the questioner? The Lord Akhnaten came in one morning when he was instructing the little princesses in the names of the states of Egypt—each Nome had its god, and he was saying something like, ‘Nome of Hermopolis, symbol the frog, god Khnum the potter,’—you probably learned the lists the same way, lady.’

‘Yes, I did.’ I could hear Khons’ deep voice saying them and Merope and I repeating the list. I had a sudden flash of lying on the cool floor on a reed mat with my sister beside me, Basht the striped-one sitting with her front paws on Merope’s pre-pubescent breast, and the prospect of honey-cake if we recited the Nomes without fault.

‘The King said, “There is no god but the Aten” and Khons argued with him. No, he didn’t even argue, poor Khons; he just said “In the old days, Lord, each Nome had its god and it is still easier to remember them thus.” And the King flew into a rage, screamed that Khons was perverting the minds of the divine princesses. Instead of pacifying him, Khons continued. He told the King that Egypt’s history was made under the old gods, and they were worthy to be studied regardless of the advent of the Aten. So the King gave an order and the guard—you notice that he always has a guard?—speared Khons as he sat on the floor with the children; and he died.

‘I was summoned by the King to see what fate came to a scribe who questioned the primacy of the Aten. Khons was dead by then, lying on the tiles with a spear through his neck and blood spilled around him; and in the middle one terrified little girl and a scatter of building blocks and toys. You know how the mind fixes on one small thing which exemplifies the scene forever after. To me, the picture of Khons’ death is a pull-along painted clay horse in a pool of bright red blood.’

‘By all the gods, ’Hotep, is he mad?’ I asked, horrified by the picture I too could see now of Khons lying dead on the tiled floor, blood pooling around the little princess and her toys.

‘Oh yes,’ he whispered into my shoulder. ‘He is quite mad.’

Ptah-hotep

Lady Mutnodjme was a surprise. I had not seen her for years. When she had left for the temple of Isis, she had been a small dark child with bright eyes, her breasts not yet budded, weeping a little at the loss of her sister Merope—though the Great Royal Wife visited the temple at least every week, or so Pannefer told the King. But as well as her sorrow at leaving her home I sensed in her measureless appetite for learning, matching even my old friend Snefru.

And when I saw her again at the palace gates, contemplating the guard—and I am sure that I got to her just in time to prevent an incident, for she never lacked courage—she was still small, no taller than Kheperren, but a woman in truth, tending to plumpness (which is very unfashionable but very attractive) and clever-handed, deft, and still with that quickness of thought which had made her remarkable as a child. She had brought me Kheperren’s last message, sent through Ammemmes, and she had melted into my embrace when I kissed her, sighting the Pharaoh’s soldier’s boots under the door and knowing that we had to conceal the reason for our meeting.

She had handled the interview with the lord Akhnaten with promptitude and confidence, and I was very impressed with her.

My wife Hathor, called Hunero, had been a pleasant maiden, only interested in the doings of the other women in the office, Khety’s wife and Hanufer’s concubine. She had occupied her days in a companionable feud with Bakhenmut’s wife Henutmire. They each required more and more jewels of their respective husbands, and I reached an agreement with Bakhenmut that I should provide new trinkets for both, so that he was not driven to peculation or theft to supply Henutmire’s greed. Hunero had been fourteen when I married her out of her father’s house, and she had seemed happy with me. All my love was still given to my dearest Kheperren, who managed a visit to the capital at least once a year. But Hunero seemed content with what I could give her and the skills which Meryt had taught me had pleased her body. She had conceived twice, both children being miscarried before they were well-formed, and then the fever which had ravaged the City of the Sun had taken her away.

Now the rooms where she had lived seemed empty and cold, and I had closed off that part of my apartments.

But the woman who lay down with me and listened without exclamation to the death of Khons, she was a different matter from the meek little mouse who had been sold to me by a connection of Divine Father Ay’s whether she would or no. Once Priestess of the dissolved cult of the so-called goddess Isis, the Lady Mutnodjme was strong willed and strong minded and meat for no man’s bargain. Her arms were strong and her breast very soft and I rested my aching head in her embrace without fear. It was only when I woke from a light doze, which I had not meant to take, and found that she was still there, holding me gently without any sign of impatience, that I realised how badly I had missed a friend and how beautiful she was.

I had been afraid—not terrified, but afraid, watching every expression on every face, tasting every drop and nibbling every crumb and especially examining every word for heresy before I allowed it to leave my lips, for so long now that I only realised the extent of the strain when it relaxed.

The Lady left me with an ostentatious kiss in front of the whole staff, promising to come again, and I gave orders that she should always be admitted whenever she wanted.

Khety, very happy in his wife and four sons, smiled at me. Hanufer, as stolidly pleased with his three children as he had been with his faithful and unimaginative wife, nodded. Bakhenmut, cursed with Henutmire’s greed and shrill nagging, raised an eyebrow as if asking me was I sure that I wanted to do this again, having escaped unscathed last time? Meryt and the Nubians grinned. Meryt had liked Mutnodjme since childhood, and Hani still talked about being ridden, for this had given the three men an acquaintance with General Horemheb, now famous for his courage and strategic skill. They always went out to meet the General when he returned to report to the palace, and joined in the athletic contests—and the feasts—which the soldiers conducted. Mentu, who was visiting us because he had broken an arm in a chariot accident, clapped me on the back.

‘Well-chosen,’ Mentu said. ‘A close relative of the Divine Royal Spouse and therefore unassailable; another guard for your back, my dear Ptah-hotep.’

‘Also, she is very beautiful,’ I reminded him. He grinned.

‘There is that, also. Though you should come and see my new dancers. Blonde, I swear, not bleached, and they dance with bells on their feet.’

‘Perhaps later. Khety, we are supposed to get copies of all the orders issued from the Master of the Household’s office. Do we have the order which closed the school of scribes?’

‘No, Lord,’ Khety searched through a huge pile of documents. ‘The tax returns have come in from all of the Nomes, there is a difficulty with some walls and bridges which need to be repaired, a woman gave birth to a goat in one village…no, nothing from the Master of the Household’s office at all.’

‘Mentu, take my compliments to my lord Pannefer and inform him that you are there with Hani and Tani. They are to carry back all the copies of the orders which he has issued and forgotten to send to me—doubtless through pressure of business. Can you do it without getting anyone executed?’

‘Certainly,’ Mentu assured me. Sending Mentu was, of course, an insult to the commoner which Pannefer had been. Mentu, however dissolute, had been schooled from babyhood in the subtle nuances of rank, which Pannefer did not understand at all. I was just as common as he—my father had been a village scribe and so had his—but I had applied myself to learn how my new society worked. By his false accusation of me, Pannefer had massively lost face with the Lord Akhnaten may he live and would have to comply with my request. Mentu would make sure, without words, that Pannefer knew that I knew this.

Thus I played the game of tit for tat, while the teachers from the temple were driven away and the Father of the Two Lands thought only of his god.