Out of the Black Land

Chapter Twenty-four

Mutnodjme

I left him only to see my sister Merope bestowed on her new husband. The courtyard was buzzing with women’s voices, shrill and alarmed. Few of the women had been able to make choices such as I had made for my dearest sister, and most were afraid and all of them were talking. They had lived in palaces all their lives, I thought, looking at them with as much pity as I could summon.

What would they do, conferred on some unwashed commoner as secondary wife, dealing with the hatred and envy of his first wife and banished to the kitchen? Most of them were destined to be water-carriers or servants and few of them had the strength or the skill to even do that. The luckiest might find a kind man or a sex-starved youth who would appreciate them. But kind men were at a premium in Egypt, and I did not like their chances. They had been raised, trained and nurtured as the Ornaments of the King, and their fate was bitter.

So was mine. But if Ptah-hotep was to die on the morrow and there was still nothing that I could do, I could lie with him tonight, and I was resolved on that. If he tried to shut me out on my return I would break down his door.

Merope was scanning the crowd, greeting friends and searching for the sight of her new man. I wished her heartily well and said, ‘Sister, may you bear many children and be happy,’ as was customary.

‘Sister, I am desolated to leave you,’ she replied, which was true enough; she was in tears. But this fate was better than others which could come upon the king’s women.

Great Royal Spouse Whom the King Loves Who Exudes Fragrance Ruler of the Ruler of the Double Crown Nefertiti was carried into the middle of the expostulating women and set on the dais above the pile of precious wood.

‘Women, you are divorced of the King’s person,’ she yelled, and they fell silent. ‘Now receive the Aten!’

I saw lights and smelt smoke. For a moment, I wondered if there was some trick, and we were all to be burned to death in one great sacrifice. But it was not the case. The fire I had seen had been a long line of men bearing torches. A hundred men in the robes of Aten-priest filed into the courtyard and began to line the walls. They were solemn and silent.

I caught sight of Dhutmose in the ranks. He had seen me, too, and edged his way along, elbowing a few of his fellows, until he was directly behind Merope. His eyes widened at the sight of her, most beautiful of sisters. I turned Merope to look at him. They were almost breast to breast. She said, ‘Master Dhutmose?’

‘Adelphemou,’ replied the priest. This means ‘my sister’ in Kritian. Then he said Philimou, which means, ‘my love’ and Merope gasped, wept, and fell into his arms.

He had reason to hold her tight. The men with torches were given an order which I could not hear, and they just reached out and grabbed the nearest female. Fortunately, Dhutmose had Merope in a firm grip, and the man who mistook me for a Great Royal Divorcee retreated with a yelp as I kneed him in the groin. I slid behind Dhutmose as he and Merope edged their way out of a dreadful scene.

The Royal Women were not just being given away to the priests of Aten, politely and with order and precedence. The priests of that thrice-damned god were carrying them away, dragging them roughly from their friends without even time to say goodbye. The courtyard resounded with shrieks and slaps.

I saw my sister Nefertiti carried away on her litter, high above the chaos with a little smile on her perfect lips, and thought that it was much, much better that she should be burned rather than Ptah-hotep.

We were out of the courtyard of the Phoenix and into the broad approach to the palace before we stopped. I could not shut out the dreadful screams of ravishment and despair, and Merope kissed me quickly and said, ‘Come with me, sister, we can live together, my lord Dhutmose will have us both, do not go back!’

‘No, I have a task,’ I told her. ‘I will come and visit if I can. Farewell, dear sister.’ I embraced her closely, smelling the scent of her hair for what might be the last time. I looked Master Dhutmose in the eye and said, ‘Take care of her.’

He nodded. He was shaken by the events in the court of the Phoenix, but at no point had his hold on my sister’s narrow waist loosened. He kissed my hand and hurried Merope away. They had not searched her. She was still loaded with the Widow-Queen’s gold, and when Dhutmose lay down with her that night he would find that he had acquired a richer present than ever he had expected.

I went back into the palace through a side door. I did not want to see whatever else was happening in the court of the Phoenix.

I went to my own room to report to Widow-Queen Tiye on the disposition of her sister-queen Merope and found her gone and her servants with her. I scribbled a note on an ostracon which reported Merope safely bestowed and myself with Ptah-hotep; and went back to the quarters of the Great Royal Scribe, taking with me my own property, which was not much greater than it had been when I came to Amarna.

I and my bundle were halted at the door of the office by two soldiers wearing the bright feathers of the king’s personal guard.

‘You cannot pass!’ one announced, the sort of bone-headed statement I might expect from one of the king’s bodyguard.

‘Yes, I can,’ I explained. ‘I just open the door and go in.’

‘You cannot pass,’ he repeated.

‘Listen, you are stationed here to prevent the lord Ptah-hotep from leaving, aren’t you?’ I asked patiently, though I did not feel patient. The guards must have been sent after my departure for the Aten ceremony. They had not been there when I left.

‘On the direct orders of the lord Akhnaten may he live!’ agreed the soldier.

‘Yes, but there are no orders about who should go in,’ I told him, gambling on the fact that this would not have been covered. Who would be mad enough to join a doomed man on his last night? Mutnodjme, that’s who. And if they did not let me in soon I might easily seize a spear and start a massacre.

‘No,’ agreed the soldier, slowly.

‘And I am going in, not out,’ I said, and opened the door. The soldier watched me with the bewildered expression of a man who has given his arm-ring to a conjurer at a fair. I slipped past him while he was still thinking about it and closed and barred the door from the inside. I might not be able to leave, but until someone lowered this plank, they would not be able to get in, either.

‘I’m here, and I’m not leaving, because I can’t leave,’ I announced to Kheperren and Ptah-hotep, who were sitting at the same desk and puzzling over an inscription. ‘I can’t leave because there are two soldiers at your door to prevent it.’

Ptah-hotep looked resigned. Kheperren looked worried.

‘We heard screaming,’ he said. ‘What happened in the courtyard of the Phoenix? We were about to go out and look for you.’

‘Mass rape,’ I said shortly, putting down my bundle. ‘I went to tell the Widow-Queen about it but she was not there. I hope that nothing has happened to her!’

‘She is more likely to have happened to someone else,’ Kheperren soothed me. He was right. I doubted that there was anyone in the palace, even the dim soldiery, who would dare to threaten the lady Tiye.

‘Well, Merope my sister has gone to her new husband, a nice man, Kheperren, he had even learned some Kritian to speak to her and she just fell into his arms. The others, well, the others are at least away from the palace.

‘I saw my sister Nefertiti there, floating above the terror, serene as cream, the daughter of a dog! How is it with you?’ I asked, looking at Ptah-hotep.

‘We are consulting some old proverbs,’ said Ptah-hotep. ‘There is one which I am looking for, but the manuscripts have been so damaged by the King’s insistence on removing the name of Amen-Re that they are hard to read.’

‘Which one are you searching for? I might know where it is,’ I said.

‘Something about teaching a goat to talk,’ Ptah-hotep said, and I laughed. I knew that one.

‘Come and I will tell you about it,’ I said, and they came to sit down with me in the empty inner apartments, far from any hearers, though we could speak any treason we wished, for doom had already come upon one we loved and Kheperren and I did not greatly care what happened to us if Ptah-hotep was to die.

I knew he would die rather than set that pyre alight.

To push the thought away, I made a story of the proverb. Kheperren and Ptah-hotep sat down at my feet and listened.

Once there was an Eloquent Peasant, and his son who was a thief. His thieveries were many, and he was finally caught as part of a gang which robbed the treasuries of the Pharaoh, even the Lord of the Two Lands.

This is how he was caught; the Master of the Treasury knew that gold was vanishing, but not how. In fact there was a secret entrance, made by a king who was a miser and did not want his court to know how often he visited his treasury to croon over his gold. The thieves had discovered this entrance and the Master of the Treasury did not know where it lay. But he set a trap, such as we use for mice but very large, and when one of the thieves reached for a particularly fine golden vessel, the trap snapped shut and he was caught by the arm. The others fled but in the morning there was the peasant’s son, caught fast.

The treasurer brought the thief before the king, who sent for the boy’s father. He was allowed to speak to his son and advised him of what to say.

So just when Pharaoh was about to pronounce sentence of mutilation and exile, or even death, the boy said, ‘Royal Lord, Master of the Two Thrones, give me a year, and I will teach a goat to talk!’

‘Impossible,’ said the King, but the boy repeated his statement, and the Pharaoh was interested. After all, he could still order the boy’s execution after the year if he had not carried out his boast.

So the son of the Eloquent Peasant was released. As soon as they were out of earshot he turned on his father, angrily asking, ‘Why did you tell me to say such a ridiculous thing? I cannot teach a goat to talk. No man can teach a goat to talk!’

‘You’re still alive. You’ve got a year,’ said the Eloquent Peasant. ‘A lot may happen in a year. You might die. The goat might die. The king might die. The goat might talk!’

‘That is a heartening proverb, Ptah-hotep,’ I added.

‘It is,’ he agreed.

It was getting dark. The sun was sinking. The ornaments of the king’s house were all gone, and it must be truly cold and empty in the palace of women. I was glad I was not there.

Kheperren and I assembled a feast for the evening meal. Meryt as her last gift had left a lot of food prepared and waiting: a stack of flat bread, oiled meats, fine vegetables and fruits and a whole cheese in its web. I found myself hungry, which was surprising, and we dined well on Nubian food and Tashery wine, always the best in the Black Land. We had to find something to talk about, and Ptah-hotep was drawn like a fine wire.

‘Do you remember, my heart, lying in the reeds with me, swimming in the sacred lake when we were boys, before the flail descended on your shoulders?’ asked Kheperren.

Ptah-hotep looked at him over his wine cup and said, ‘I remember. We were going to have a hut in the reeds and a dog called Wolf on guard. That will not happen now,’ he said, and gulped more wine. Reminiscence was not going to assist us to while away the night.

‘Do you remember lying with me on the night of Isis and Osiris?’ I asked.

Ptah-hotep nodded and said, ‘We were possessed by the gods, and that proves that they still exist. Isis was in you, lady, and Osiris in me. And tomorrow I will be burned to death, and there will be no meeting for us, never again.’

This sounded like settled despair and Kheperren knelt beside Ptah-hotep and took him by the shoulders.

‘Who is to say that your belief is correct?’ he said desperately in earnest. ‘Who is to say that we do not all blow out like candle flame or all go into union with the Aten? It’s just stories, ’Hotep, just tales that men make to ward off the dark.’

‘No one has come back,’ I added, joining Kheperren on the floor, ‘to prove or disprove. No ghost has come to tell us that unless the body is preserved the soul is lost. How could Amen-Re allow such a good soul to be destroyed in such an act? You will live, you will live, you will live.’

‘I am so afraid,’ he confessed at last, and we carried him down into our arms, on the floor, on the Nubian blanket let fall by an overburdened child.

I had not known if they would exclude me, these two who had been lovers for years before I came into their life, but they did not. Both pairs of arms reached for me, both mouths touched mine. Kheperren stripped Ptah-hotep of his clothes and his jewels, and I stood up to remove all that I wore, then tugged at the soldier’s loincloth. I undid the knots and it came free, revealing a phallus coming into erection slowly, still soft to my hand, hardening under my touch.

We stripped away even the wig which all men of any standing wore, freeing Ptah-hotep’s own hair from its plait, scattering ribbons and feathers and mirrors. I found perfumed oil and sprinkled us all, so that we smelt of the divine fragrance, of frankincense which had once been the perfumed breath of Osiris and Isis and their son Horus, the Revenger.

If Ptah-hotep was Osiris, I was Isis, and Kheperren was Horus. I spoke and named us and consecrated us to the gods of the dead while I still had language, for this love-making quickly passed beyond speech. We sighed together, all on one note. I felt my body relaxing, anticipating pleasure, my emotions with my Ptah-hotep but also with Kheperren. I wanted it to last forever, in a charmed sphere such as magicians make to protect themselves from demons they have raised.

A mouth was on my breast, tonguing a nipple until it was hard. A hand was cupping my sisters, the two lips which guard the sheath of Hathor, cupping and then stroking between. I held and sucked, so slowly, a phallus such as that of Min who is fertility; while over my head I heard the slap of belly against buttocks as Horus lay inside Osiris and took pleasure of his flesh. The fragrance of the gods was all about us.

I felt fire building inside me.

I took Osiris in my arms and as he penetrated me, I screamed.

Ptah-hotep

They were like gods and I was a god with them. My body was malleable, permeable, soaked in divine essences. I lost my thought and all my fear, poured out my loss in kisses on two mouths which meshed with mine, soft and silky and demanding. Time looked away from us. Khons god of moon and measurement overlooked us. Isis took me into her body and Horus slid inside me and I did not know who lay with whom, my name or where I was. I heard Isis cry out, felt her convulse, felt the throb of seed, mine or another’s? I lay flat on my back, and someone rode me, I caressed skin warm with life and life poured into me, a vessel, a purified offering to the gods of death.

I turned on my side, supporting a head on my arm, while Horus knelt in homage between willing thighs and joined with Isis who received him eagerly, her mouth seeking mine, her hand caressing my phallus. Her legs were locked around his waist, her hips thrust upward to engulf the offered gift. She cried out and he thrust harder; she went limp and he came to me, our hands crossing the body of the goddess, and finally we climaxed together, spreading her belly with semen like a field is spread with seed.

We lay stunned until we grew chilled and stiff. Then we ran to my bed and lay down together, a warm body on each side of doomed Ptah-hotep, and I did not mean to sleep but I slept and they locked their hands over me. I slept so and I woke so, between my guardians, like a dead man between Nepthys and Neith.

I looked at them as the dawn light revealed their faces. Mutnodjme was half hidden by her hair, a tangled mass of ebony ringlets, her eyelids a fringed black line on her olive-coloured cheek, her mouth half-open against my arm. Kheperren lay heavily on my other arm. Even in sleep he seemed to be thinking, a line between his brows, his lips shut on some unwise declaration.

I was overcome with a wave of love and liking and I was suddenly and completely happy. I was about to leave them, but no man was loved as I was loved.

I woke them by trying to get up. I had to get to the wash-place. Kheperren watched me narrowly to make sure that I was not going anywhere else. He sat up, scratching his belly, and the lady woke and kissed the nearest flesh, which was Kheperren’s thigh.

‘All hail to Amen-Re,’ I declared, coming back to see my two dearest people embracing each other, and they both repeated, ‘Hail to the great god at his rising,’ and I was carried back in time.

The years of Amarna and the new god fell away from me. I was Ptah-hotep, named after the Maker Ptah, worshipper of the only gods of Egypt. I was not Great Royal Scribe any more—or would not be after I surrendered my jewels-of-office to Bakhenmut. I need not watch my every word. I might be about to die, but at least I was free.

The others felt my happiness. We rose. I did not wash, as that would remove from me the perfumes of love. I donned a cloth which was no different from any scribe’s, and packed up my palette and my styli, my ink pot and my papyrus. These things I had brought with me, and I would take them into the flames.

Perhaps I would have them, indeed, in an afterlife, if they went with my body into the fire.

Bakhenmut came as ordered and I invested him with the pectoral and arm ring of the Great Royal Scribe. He hesitated, shifting from foot to foot on my threshold, before he gave me an apologetic nod and walked quickly away. Then the soldiers came and they escorted all three of us into the court of the Phoenix.

We came into bright light and blinked. The courtyard had no worshippers. Only the King Akhnaten sat on his high throne, flanked with his advisors. I met the dreamy eyes of the king and the concentrated venom and triumph of his counsellors with no emotion at all. I walked in a dream and I stood in a dream. There was always a chance—it itched at the corner of my mind—that this was just a test, that indeed, at the end, the king would not order me to undergo this dreadful ordeal. I watched the flail of authority lying on his swollen belly.

It gave a twitch. At that signal, soldiers moved in around the pyre so that no one could escape from it. I took a step forward, then another step. The blind musicians of Attis began to sing and play sistra and, on the noise of high voices and jingling wires, a litter was carried into the court of the Phoenix on the shoulders of ten men.

I kissed Kheperren, then Mutnodjme. I caught sight of the Widow-Queen Tiye watching from the Window of Appearances.

Mutnodjme saw her too, and stared at the royal lady, who waved my followers back. Very reluctantly, they let me go, holding one another by the hand. They backed until they were standing in the archway of the king’s palace. Neither of them looked away from me. Their faces were blank with pain.

I walked on, one step after another, as the men carried the litter around the pyre and the chant of the Phoenix stung my ears.

There was still a chance that the goat might talk.

Widow-Queen Tiye was gone from the window. No friendly faces looked upon me except those of my lovers who were behind me. I hoped that they would comfort one another. All of the windows were filled with watchers. I waited in hope that the order would not be given in a rising cloud of spices strong enough to stifle me.

The drums beat, faster and faster, as the chorus of eerie voices cried on the Phoenix to return.

Come to thy perch, to thy resting

Come we have prepared a nest for you

Sweet mother of thyself

Self created, sweet bird of fire!

The men laid down the litter. The curtains opened to reveal the figure of a woman, perfectly still. I could see the profile of the Great Queen Nefertiti. She was the most beautiful woman in all of Amarna. There was no mistaking her, though she seemed to be unconscious or asleep.

The bearers, attended by the Widow-Queen Tiye, carried her into the heart of the pyre. Wood was piled all around her. I could only see her wig and the garland of cornflowers around her neck.

Come and renew thyself, Phoenix

Burn in the fire of your renewal

Give birth to thyself in a sacrifice

Thyself to thyself, a pure offering.

I looked desperately up into the exalted face of the King. The flail was raised. He was about to order me to light this abominable fire. In the nest of spices lay no immortal bird but mortal flesh, quivering and frail. I could not do it. I hoped that Kheperren and Mutnodjme would not watch my death, for it would be horrible. A soldier handed me a burning torch. The flames rose pale in the strengthening sunlight.

‘Lord Akhnaten,’ I cried. ‘I am your slave.’

‘You are,’ said the King equably. ‘We are all slaves of the Aten, Sole and Only God.’

‘Lord, do not give this order,’ I begged. ‘This is an abomination, lord, a thing which cannot be done.’

‘Yet you will do it,’ he said.

‘Do not order me to set this fire, lord,’ I asked for the last time. The soldiers were closing around me.

Beside me, the Widow-Queen Tiye raked me with her eyes and hissed, ‘In the name of the gods, Ptah-hotep, light the pyre!’

‘Never,’ I cried, ‘I will burn instead!’ but my words were vain, because holding my hand in a fierce grip, the Widow-Queen snatched the brand I was holding and forced it into the heart of the fire.

Spices burn with a thick smoke, and the Queen Nefertiti burned with them. I heard screams in the smoke and struggled to loose myself from the talons of the Widow-Queen, who had just forced me to commit murder.

‘Stay still,’ she hissed in the same tone. ‘We cannot be seen but we can be felt. Hold my hand, Ptah-hotep. I will tell you all but you must not be seen here again, do you understand? Come with me. The King is about to find out that it is not possible to sit comfortably in a courtyard in which a king’s ransom of spices are wastefully burning.’

‘But the lady, the queen!’ I protested.

‘There is no woman in that pyre, boy, will you shut your mouth?’ she snarled at me, reminding me that Sekmet the Destroyer was her patron.

I held my tongue. In any case the huge clouds of billowing burning spices made sight difficult and breathing almost impossible. A brief eddy in the smoke showed me that the throne was now empty and I heard soldiers coughing. A door in the palace slammed shut. Even the musicians of Attis had choked and fled.

I yielded to the tug of the Widow-Queen’s hand and followed her, still carrying, I noticed, the bundle which contained the tools of my trade. If that hadn’t been a real body, then what had it been? I knew Nefertiti’s face, the most famous countenance in the Black Land, and it was her face. I began to be angry. I had been cheated of my death. I had given away all my goods, consecrated my lovers, given up my office, and now I was not to die after all. How could I go back? The king must have heard my defiance. If he saw me again, I was certainly dead.

I ran knee-first into what, on closer inspection, turned out to be a litter-carriage with heavy leather curtains, such as is used by ladies on journeys. Into this Widow-Queen Tiye shoved me, shouting through the smoke, ‘The horsemen know where to go. Stay with her. Don’t return until you have word from me, write no letter, send no word. I will tell them.’

Then, of all strange happenings in that most strange day, she took off her pectoral and put it around my neck and kissed me on the mouth, hard. She tasted of smoke and spices. ‘You are a good man. Amenhotep would have been proud of you,’ she told me. Then she stepped away and I was thrown back against a soft bundle as the horses were whipped into a gallop.

I was still alive, I was not burned. I rubbed my eyes. When I had cleared the smoke out of them, I found that the carriage was already through the gates of the City of the Sun and we were racing across the open plain toward the river. I pinched myself, hard, and watched a red weal come up on my skin. Yes, I was also awake.

The carriage bounced as the charioteer yelled to his horses to go faster. I clutched the bundle I was leaning against and found that I had my hand upon a breast.

I removed it hastily. I had been leaning on the most beautiful parcel in the world. In the carriage with me, stunned or asleep, was Nefertiti, Great Royal Spouse, Lady of the Two Lands, whom I had just sacrificed to the Phoenix.