Out of the Black Land

Chapter Sixteen

Mutnodjme

I had never seen such a beautiful palace.

Ankhesenpaaten, who for some reason had decided to like me—and there was nothing I could do about this—took my hand and led me through all of the rooms of her mother’s palace, and it was remarkable.

Because the artisans were forbidden the use of the old outlines of gods—no falcon-headed Horus or cat-headed Basht—they had had to invent entirely new ways of depicting the world. The child told me that thousands of men had worked for months on the walls, and it showed.

Everywhere was light and colour and beauty. One whole room, for instance, was decorated with grapevines so real that one looked to pluck a handful of fruit. I stopped abruptly on what seemed to be the brink of a fish-filled pool, and Ankhesenpaaten laughed; the first natural sound I had heard out of that unnatural child. The pool was not real; it was a tesserae mosaic of fish and weed, so realistic that I had thought at first glance that I was about to step into water.

There were depictions of the royal family too; endless scenes of my Lord Akhnaten playing with his children, being anointed by his wife, offering piles of food to his sun god, and one delightful frieze of naked children playing games. The colours were bright, reds and browns and gold and blue.

We were alone in the centre of a room decorated all over with cornflowers and lotus, when the strange child suddenly said, ‘I was afraid,’ and I knelt down so that I could see into her face. She was thin limbed and big-bellied, like most children of that age, and instead of her usual bold stare she was eluding my gaze and biting her nails.

I decided that this was probably not a ruse of some sort and asked softly, ‘When were you afraid?’

‘When the soldier speared the teacher. There was blood. I was afraid.’

‘Yes, I’m sure that you were,’ I agreed, wondering what I could say that would not be reported back to every spy in the palace, or quoted where it would do most harm by the child herself.

Her little monkeyish face screwed up into a grimace, she whispered, ‘Will they kill me, too?’

‘No,’ I said firmly, clutching her as she threw herself into my arms. ‘No, Ankhesenpaaten, they won’t kill you. Your Divine Father loves you, you know he loves you.’ And I was perfectly sure of this.

‘Then why…’ I could not tell her the real reason—that her father was completely mad—so I temporised.

‘People sometimes do things which we cannot understand,’ I said. ‘But you are safe, little royal daughter, of that I am certain.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ she concluded, wriggled to get down, and continued to show me through the palace.

I began to wonder about my sister Nefertiti’s care for her children. Mother Tey would not have liked answering a question about such a happening, but she would have answered. This child’s fears had gone unassuaged and she was obviously choosing her confidant, and her moment, carefully, with a tact not to be expected in one so young. I resolved to look into the state of the others. And what was Tey my mother doing about it?

As it happened, nothing. Tey my mother summoned me later that day to a room decorated with a harvest; the most beautiful, delicate, full-coloured painting I had ever seen. Tey, however, was just as ever, though older and thinner, a spare dark crone in the atmosphere of exotic richness which enfolded the palace of the City of the Sun.

‘Well, daughter,’ she offered her hand for me to kiss, and I sank to my knees to comply.

‘Well, Divine Nurse Tey?’ I asked in return. Her black eyes dissected me, flaying me skin from bones. I held her gaze for some time, until she looked away.

‘You are older, daughter, you are getting fat, which will not do; and you are just as inquisitive and selfish as ever,’ she commented.

‘True, mother, I have not changed, though I have learned a great deal,’ I replied, trying not to lose my temper.

‘False learning in service of a false god,’ she sneered.

‘But learning none the less,’ I returned.

‘Why have you come to Amarna?’ she demanded, and I told her that I had come with Widow-Queen Merope when my temple was closed. She leaned forward and grasped my upper arm in hard fingers.

‘Listen to me, daughter, you have come and I cannot send you away, because there is nowhere to send you now that the false worship you followed has been exposed. But if you have come to break apart your sister’s peace, to annoy her or interfere with her management, or come between her and her husband, I will send you to work as a prostitute in the worst tavern on the waterfront, do you hear?’

‘I hear,’ I said equably. She could certainly send me there, but nothing could make me stay there.

‘Nefertiti is happy, she is content, she has position, she is a priestess of her own cult, and I will not have you meddling, daughter!’

‘Mother,’ I agreed, knowing that the title would annoy her. Having made her point, she decided to push matters further, to demonstrate her control over me. Tey never wanted partners or even co-conspirators. She would never think of trying to persuade me to be nice to my sister and to acquiesce in her husband’s insanity. Tey only ever wanted slaves.

‘And I forbid you to marry Great Royal Scribe Ptah-hotep may he live.’

‘Oh?’ I asked. The temple’s training in self control was beginning to slip. I would have to leave soon, or I would lose my temper. ‘Why is that, Mother?’

‘He is far above you, disgraced daughter of an outmoded religion.’

What to do? If I argued with her I would have to stay in the same room as this tyrannical woman, and I was anxious to leave and breathe free air again. But I would more willingly spend a hundred years in the belly of the serpent Apep than obey Tey’s whim. However, she had given me an escape route. I was not being forbidden to see Ptah-hotep, just to marry him. I threw myself on my face, so that she could not see my lack of tears, and began to sob, clutching at the hem of her garment.

‘Mother, please do not deny me this marriage—it is my last chance!’ I wailed, which was true. I felt her satisfaction, heard it in her voice.

‘I forbid it,’ she purred, and weeping, I concurred.

‘I will not marry the Great Royal Scribe,’ I whispered, and she laid her hand on my head and called me her good daughter.

Then she dismissed me. I went out with my stole over my dry face, and reflected that luxury and position had not improved the character of my mother.

It had also not done wonders for mine. I had just lied to my mother; or rather evaded the truth to deceive her. I would have to confess that at the end of my life. Assuming that Osiris and Isis still judged the dead and weighed their hearts against the feather of Maat.

I walked through the painted palace to the apartments of the Widow-Queens Tiye and Merope, and arrived in time for the noon meal.

‘The arrangements for the sed-festival are far advanced,’ commented Tiye. ‘I would have forbidden them if I had known. A sed festival—for a king who has reigned for such a short time? Ridiculous! But now it is too late.

‘Have some of this pheasant, child, it is delicious. My son has excellent cooks, it is plain. Do you know how much bread and beer the palace is providing for the residents of Amarna? Thousands of loaves, oceans of beer. My own lord Amenhotep-Osiris, may his soul be joyful forever in the Field of Reeds, gave lavish feasts and no one left without being fed properly, but this is beyond belief. He distributes this much food every decan, for the festival of the Aten on the tenth day. How can Egypt afford it?’

‘And the river is low,’ I agreed, taking some of the perfectly cooked flesh. It was very tasty and I took some more.

‘How was the lady your mother?’ asked Merope.

‘Much as ever, and she has forbidden me to marry the Great Royal Scribe.’

‘Why?’ asked Merope.

‘She is demonstrating her power over me.’

‘I see. Would you like me to speak to my son about this marriage?’ asked Tiye the Queen, eying me keenly.

‘No, Lady, I have agreed. I am too old to marry, anyway, I am almost nineteen. But she did not forbid me to see him,’ I added, and Merope chuckled.

‘We played that trick on her when we were children,’ she said. ‘She still hasn’t learned it!’

‘No, Tey has always been straightforward. Unpleasant, but straightforward,’ said Tiye. ‘She was a good midwife, but she no longer attends births. In fact, I believe that she does nothing but intrigue for more land and more power for the Divine Father Ay, who has, in my view, enough gold and power already. Tey was a better woman when she had tasks to perform. What is that noise?’

‘People are gathering in the square,’ said Merope, looking out of the window.

The windows of the palace of Amarna had deep embrasures. I could lean my elbows on the sill. I did so, next to Merope’s uncovered head.

The sun was bright even though it was only Khoiak, the season of the birth of Osiris, once the festival of the breaching of the sluices into the inland plain. The next month, Tybi, would bring the sed festival, and the time which had been the mystic marriage of Isis and Osiris. Khoiak was not usually terribly warm but midday in any season was hot in the full glare of the sun.

‘What are they all doing out in the open without any canopy?’ asked Merope. ‘Midday is the time to avoid the gaze of Amen-Re, I mean the Aten. They’ll be burned.’

‘So they will,’ I agreed. The crowd outside began to chant, all at once, the Hymn to the Aten, a poem which I had seen many years ago as a child. The scribe Ptah-hotep had shown it to me. Akhnaten may he live had written it. At intervals the crowd, courtiers and bricklayers alike, raised their arms to the disc of the sun. I could see them squinting and blinking as sweat ran into their eyes.

‘There are the Pharaoh and the Queen, at that window over there,’ Merope pointed. Safely out of the full glare of the sun, Akhnaten raised his hands in homage to the sun-disc, and Nefertiti my sister held out handfuls of arm rings and necklets which glittered so brightly that I could not look at them.

The service concluded. There was my father Ay, dressed as I had imagined in the leopard skin of a full priest, and as he held out his hands Nefertiti dropped a golden necklace into his grasp. His fingers snapped shut, as they always did on gold, and the crowd scrambled for the golden beads and bracelets which were sown broadcast through the mob by the King. ‘Hail, lord of brightness!’ they cried, tripping over one another and elbowing their way to the front. ‘Hail, most favoured child of the Aten!’

‘What a spectacle,’ said Tiye, who had joined us. Her voice was indulgent. ‘He always wanted to be worshipped,’ she added. ‘And this is probably the only way that it could be managed.’

‘We should have been told about this,’ I was worried. ‘Is someone trying to make us commit blasphemy?’

‘No, no women can worship the sun in its full splendour,’ said Merope. ‘Or so Huy the Chamberlain told me. He said that it would defile the Aten’s worship if we were to go out into the courtyard. We are allowed to watch from the windows, provided we are pure at heart and have not had intercourse with a man the preceding night.’

‘That must sort the sheep from the goats,’ said Tiye, chuckling. ‘But luckily we are all ritually pure,’ she said, and then she clutched her forehead as if her head hurt.

‘What is it, lady?’ Merope embraced her.

‘The only man I have ever wanted to sleep with is dead,’ snapped the Widow-Queen. ‘I have no other sorrow, but that is enough.’

We had no more to say, and ate the rest of our meal in silence. Then Sahte sent in a group of musicians, who began to play such sad melodies on pipe and drum that they comforted Tiye, or roused her, and she bade them play music to which one could dance.

And Merope and I danced, to and fro in the painted rooms, on the floor tiled with pictures of baboons, to a tune which had once been called, Hathor takes pleasure of Horus.

Ptah-hotep

I was allowed to join the worship of the Aten at noon, which argued that the King was pleased with me. It was very hot in the square, and I am fair though I am a child of the common people. I knew that I would be coloured if not blistered when the season advanced and the Pharaoh held his outdoor worship at noon, and wondered if his preference for pale ladies had led to the prohibition on women attending the service.

I had no need of gold bracelets, so I did not strive to get close to the King as he threw his usual largess to the crowd.

I was worried about a letter from Tushratta, King of the Mittani.

Khety, who spoke various languages easily, had become my foreign advisor. He was given the letters and messages as they arrived, and I was responsible for bringing such matters as the King needed to know to the royal attention. So far, acceptances for the sed festival had come from most of the surrounding kings, including the three most important: Niqm-adda the Third of Ugarit; Tushratta of Mittani; and Suppiluliumas, the new and rather touchy king of Khatti. The kings, naturally, would not travel themselves—it was never safe for kings of the barbarous nations to travel far from their capital lest they be overthrown in their absence—but each would send a son or other person, on which a kingship had been conferred for the purpose of the event. This was common practice and in view of the King’s poor manners—he had yawned at the recital of a messenger from vassal Rib-Adda, who was reporting that the city of Sumur was assailed—it was fortunate. I felt for Rib-Adda and I could not see any chance of relief for him, though I would try once again at the next audience for foreign visitors.

King Tushratta, however, was powerful. The Mittani occupied a lot of the border and were a proud people with profoundly foreign ways. I had talked to Menna and Harmose, the old scribes whom I had brought with me to Amarna, and they had told me that Tushratta had actually asked Amenhotep-Osiris for an Egyptian princess as a concubine.

No Egyptian princess could ever be given to a foreign king, for in them resided the kingship. No Egyptian princess had ever been given to a foreign king. But apparently it had taken two stiff letters and a severe visit from a messenger to explain this to the barbarian. He was still writing, but now he was demanding gold; which was easier because Amarna had a lot of gold.

‘Tushratta,’ murmured Khety beside me as we walked away into the grateful coolness of the palace.

‘I know,’ I groaned. ‘But what can I do? If Pharaoh won’t listen, he won’t listen and I can’t make him!’ I was beginning to feel dizzy, as though the sun had struck me.

‘Perhaps we could just read the letter to Akhnaten may he live,’ said Khety.

‘He wants unworked gold,’ I said. ‘That would be possible, though he wants lots and lots of it—the exact term is ‘gold in very great quantities’—and we can manage that too, but what shall we tell Tushratta about Keliya?’

‘He is still in fetters,’ said Khety.

‘I know,’ I replied. ‘He greeted the King in the old manner, and when reproved he argued. I managed to save him from instant death, by getting in between him and the soldiers; but the fact remains that Keliya—Tushratta’s principal envoy and royal son of his body, and heir of the King of Mittani—is in durance in Egypt. What will happen when his father finds out I do not know, and I cannot think of a solution,’ I replied.

Khety put an arm around my waist as I felt myself sag.

‘You are faint,’ he said, heaving my weight up into his arms. I do not remember him carrying me to my apartments, but I do recall requesting very urgently that he send not for the palace physician but for the lady Mutnodjme.

Time passed. I swam up into consciousness to the sound of a sweet voice—Meryt, singing to the small drum; and a sweet smell—not the thick rich fragrances of the palace but a bracing scent from the river.

‘Galbanum, prince of herbs,’ commented a cool female voice a second before I identified it. ‘Lie still, my lord, you are fatigued. Your slaves keep the door.’

‘Who veiled the window?’ I asked, for this was forbidden, as was anything which cut off the sun god from his people.

‘I did, and if asked I will say that the strength of the Disc in his glory is too great for mortal men; and that you, his loyal servant, are prostrated in prayer before the majesty of the Aten,’ she replied.

I lay down again under her firm hand; for that was, indeed, an acceptable answer and I wondered why I had not thought of it before. I saw Meryt pat the lady Mutnodjme in a familiar fashion, as though they were sisters, and Teti’s son brought me a draught of cool herb-flavoured water from a pottery vessel.

‘What happened? I was suddenly without strength, as though all the marrow was gone from my bones,’ I said.

‘The heat of the sun, lord Ptah-hotep. Also you are worried, overworked and underslept. I have permission from the Widow-Queen Tiye Mistress of Egypt to stay with you tonight. She believes that this will preserve your repose. Presently we will have a little supper, and then you will sleep again. Meanwhile little Hani will bathe your forehead and Meryt will sing to you; and I will report on your condition to the Lord Chamberlain Huy, hoping that he has not left an indelibly-greasy stain in your office by his contaminating presence.’

I relaxed into Meryt’s voice and the attention of Hani’s little son, who was very gentle, and wondered why I had not appreciated the lady Mutnodjme when she was a child. Her very presence in my apartments was making me feel stronger. The temple of the unnameable lady had sharpened her tongue and her wits; and the customs of the City of the Sun, seen through her dispassionate eyes, seemed even more ridiculous than I had imagined them.

I heard her voice, reporting my overwhelming devotion to the Chamberlain, heard his feet retreat and the outer door close. Then she returned and asked, ‘Which particular problem were you considering when you collapsed, my lord? We had better solve it, then you will sleep better.’

‘Ask Khety,’ I instructed. ‘Bring him in here and he will tell you about the King of Mittani’s son.’

She did as I bade her, and Khety recited the whole problem and read her the passage in which King Tushratta asked:

Why have you delayed my messenger?

Where is my son and the light of my eyes, Keliya?

Why has he not written to me, and is he well?

I do not understand why you do not tell me what I want to know.

‘And we can’t really tell him what he wants to know, can we?’ I asked.

‘He’s imprisoned, you say, not dead?’

‘Not dead,’ agreed Khety. ‘I go down to the cells and bring him food and assure him that he is not forgotten.’

‘All things can be cured except death; that is what my Mistress Duammerset used to say,’ Mutnodjme was thinking aloud. ‘There is no sentence, no execution order?’

‘No, he’s been put there and there he stays until the Lord Akhnaten may he live releases him.’

‘It is no use asking my sister Nefertiti may she live for she is completely immersed in her husband’s religion and would never go against his wishes. I will be back in an hour,’ she said, putting back her long black ringlets and straightening her cloth.

‘What are you intending to do?’

‘I’ll tell you if it works. Meanwhile, my dear Ptah-hotep, drink the infusion I left you and sleep. I will be back, if it works or not,’ she assured me, and was gone in a scent of galbanum. She walked like a countrywoman, a solid, firm, decisive stride, with a swing of the buttocks.

Khety and I looked at each other. He shrugged. I drank the infusion.

Barely an hour later—daylight hours are longer, of course, in Peret—she was back. I was sitting up by then, remarkably lazy and sleepy, and I could tell from her triumphant smile that she had achieved her aim. Behind her came a slim young man with the white bands on his ankles which indicate that copper fetters have just been struck off. He was naked and newly cleansed and Meryt sat him down and supplied him with a cup of beer, pieces of bread and meat and a clean loincloth.

‘Here is Keliya, Prince of Mittani,’ Mutnodjme introduced him. ‘He wished to write to his father to complain about his treatment, but I have explained matters to him so that now he wishes to take up his residence, awarded to him by the King Akhnaten may he live. The Great Royal Scribe is requested to report to his father that he is well and happy and will attend the sed festival in Tushratta’s place.’

The bewildered young prince stretched out a hand to Khety, called him brother, and wept a few tears before addressing himself to the beer and the food. Keliya seemed otherwise well, had not been beaten and, apart from being hungry, was undamaged.

Hanufer wrote the letter for him, and he sealed it with his seal ring. Then the lady Mutnodjme opened the outer door to reveal a litter decorated with feathers, ten servants who cried out with joy on seeing him, and four strong bearers. The litter was loaded with gold, jewellery, and a pile of folded cloths to replace the Prince’s lost wardrobe.

Prince Keliya left, kissing Khety in the Mittani way and bending right down to kiss the bare foot of the lady Mutnodjme. If she had engineered his release, she deserved it. It was more than Khety or I had managed.

‘There, my lord, that is one worry the less,’ she said briskly as the entourage left. I waited until they were definitely gone and we were alone in the bed-chamber before I demanded,

‘How did you do it?’

She eased me back into her lap—she had offered her thighs as a pillow for my head—and replied softly, ‘It was the Widow-Queen Tiye. She told her son that his action had been justified but now he must restore the prince to his position in time for the sed festival; and he obeyed her instantly, like a calf obeys a cow. I thought that it might be so,’ she said.

‘Now, my lord, you must sleep,’ she ordered, and who was I to disobey this masterful woman?

I closed my eyes and slept.