Out of the Black Land

Chapter Twenty-seven

Mutnodjme

I had been a month the wife of the General Horemheb and I was not accustomed to being Mistress of the House.

It was intensely frustrating. The general had had no household to speak of, only a few servants to keep him clean and fed, after a fashion. Their idea of dinner appeared to be bread and a dish of beans, and their idea of a large festival dinner was bread, beans, and a piece of dried salted goat.

This had to change. After a few days of sulking and a few more days of outright defiance, the three original servants settled down with the seven new ones and began to form alliances and foster feuds. I did little to discourage this, while doing nothing to encourage it. While they were vying for my favour, I thought, they were probably not plotting mutiny. The general had given me a free hand, stating that the household was my concern and he would never question my governance of it, but that meant that I had to rule it as mistress or I would never be able to take some time away to pursue my studies in cuneiform. I did not mean to tolerate a group of servants who could not be relied on to manage the house from one moment to the next, and that is what I had.

So I listened to hours of complaint from my new cook, about the old cook who had been relieved of burning roasts and boiling beans to pursue his natural talents—which were complaining, and a remarkable skill at carving wood where he had shown no flair for carving meat. None of them had to do lowly work like carrying water; and all of them were well-fed and well-housed. After a week spent being served grudgingly by the household, who resented my advent and were taking advantage of their master’s absence, I gathered them together for a conference.

There were my four house-women, my own choice and therefore my own fault. Ankherhau and Ii had been priestesses of Isis, though one would never guess it from the way they had reverted to the Amarna ideal of women—brainless and promiscuous. Takhar the cook was a young woman who had just been cheated of marriage by a manservant and who had become despondent. Wab was a little girl who had been mistreated in the kitchen, whom I had personally rescued.

There were my six manservants, ranging from Ipuy, a surly old soldier whom I had inherited from Horemheb—he had been in his first campaign and I assumed that he had sentimental value —to Kasa, a pouting boy of about ten who had a vague connection to the cook.

They all came in and knelt before me. I sat in the chair of state, missing Horemheb and especially missing Ptah-hotep. He was always in my mind, my sweet scribe. What would Ptah-hotep have done with this collection of grumblers? He would have found a weak point in all of them, and used it.

I considered, allowing them to shift from knee to knee, awaiting my pleasure. Every man has a lever, and he who governs men must find it, the Divine Amenhotep-Osiris had said, and he was famed for his wisdom.

What did this crowd have in common? Naught but General Horemheb and me. Horemheb was fighting Tushratta’s war on the border; therefore they would have to contend with me.

I took a deep breath and made my announcement. ‘I have listened to you all for a decan, and I cannot judge between you in your quarrels. I am willing to dismiss anyone who wants to leave, though I will make no presents-of-parting.

‘None of you have served me well and you deserve nothing of me. However, anyone who does not wish to continue in my service can leave now, with no penalty. You,’ I pointed to the sulky maiden Wab, ‘can go back and be beaten in the kitchen.

‘You,’ I pointed to Ipuy the old soldier, who had caused most of the trouble, ‘may be pensioned off to go to your acres which Pharaoh awarded you so long ago, as you keep reminding us all.

‘You and you,’ I indicated the servants who were brothers, ‘may go back to your father and take your sister with you. The same applies, one for all. I see no reason why I should not dismiss all of you and begin afresh with some people who wish to serve a very powerful general and to live in his well-conducted household.

‘I do not have time to adjudicate small quarrels between people who should know better. And if, as you may think, the state of the kingdom means that you may skimp and laze and complain endlessly, I am here to tell you that you are wrong. I want a household that can rule itself, and I mean to have it. The next things I have to say will relate to the internal workings of the General’s household, so anyone who wishes to leave will please leave now.’

I waited. No one moved. I stared from face to face, and each one nodded, even the old man Ipuy. Kasa burst into tears.

‘Do you all wish to stay?’ I asked, and ran my gaze along the faces again. Each person said, ‘I wish to stay.’

‘Very well. Here are the orders, and they come from the general, as well as me. But the general is not my source of power, my household. The source of power in this house is me. I am the Mistress of the House and I will be obeyed, and any repetition of behaviour such as I have endured this last decan will earn you instant dismissal. Do you all understand? You no longer have the luxury of serving me a slopped-over bowl of cold soup in place of dinner. You will not tear my cloths or burn holes in them because you are distracted when carrying a full lamp by a flirtatious comment from another servant. And you will not behave like children if I give you an order.

‘If we all do our part we will be comfortable and eventually we may even be friends. But for the moment we will strive for comfort. This is the way this household will conduct itself, beginning tomorrow. The cook Takhar will rise and make breakfast for all of us when the sun rises; no later and no earlier. Her cooking stove is to be kept supplied by Kasa; always supplied, with no excuses and no loud quarrels as he is slapped and sent for more fuel. If Takhar needs more fuel, she will ask for it the night before, not make a riot at daybreak.

‘Then my own maids will help me rise and care for me as I require, which is not much. My butler Bukentef will draw the household allowance of wine and other things as required. He must keep a list of what is expended so he can draw more ahead of time, not rush around borrowing from our neighbours at the last moment. Think ahead.

‘We are still going to eat tomorrow, so draw enough for tomorrow as well. Today’s wine will not quench tomorrow’s thirst, to paraphrase Amenhotep-Osiris the wise.

‘There is not much to do. You are not being worked to the bone. I must be able to leave you and not come back, as I came today, to find Kasa snuffling in a corner, Bukentef drunk, Ipuy snarling insults and Takhar beside herself because she has nothing to cook and nothing to cook with. Four of my guards had gone to a dice game out of earshot. I find Ii mating with a soldier who should be on guard and the other two women quarrelling about who burned a hole in a fine linen cloth. Is that the behaviour expected of grown people?’

They hung their heads. Their knees must have been getting sore, as well. I kept them there a little longer.

‘The next quarrel which comes to my ears, I will dismiss both of the contestants. Instantly. Now, consider for yourselves if you want to defy me. I mean what I say and I am a woman of my word.’

My household inspected me for signs of weakness or bluff. They must not have found any. I was not bluffing. My mother had many evil ways and weak points, but she knew how to be obeyed and that, I suspect, I must have inherited from her. After this little intimate talk I had no further trouble with my household.

Bukentef began to write notes on an ostracon which was always kept by the kitchen door, and stopped running out just before dinner because he had forgotten to draw enough wine for dinner. Takhar, who was a good cook, began to exhibit her talents. Kasa gained confidence from not being slapped and began to adopt a lordly air with the other boys. My maidservants remembered what they had learned in the service of the Unnamed Lady and began to talk of other things than clothes, jewels, and who was lying with whom. The old man Ipuy softened after being threatened with banishment. He and his wood carving tools were ensconced in a cool corner of the outer apartment, where he could talk to the soldiers on guard.

More than anything, I now had leisure to miss everyone; Kheperren, the general, Ptah-hotep. But I could not scold my household for laziness and sit musing over my broken heart all day while they were working. I helped wherever I was needed, folding linen with the maids or cleaning armour with the soldiers. Nebnakht, the soldier whom I had surprised in mating with Ii, taught me how to sharpen a spear, and the old man Ipuy listened to the sliding gritting noise with pleasure.

‘That takes me back,’ he said in his gruff voice, poising his knife over the spine of a horse he was carving for Kasa. ‘I was beside the general when he fought his first battle. Ay, I was there with him, climbing along a ridge with a scared boy—what was his name?—beside me.’

‘I haven’t heard of this battle,’ I said. ‘Go on, Ipuy.’

‘They were aiming to take us in ambush, but he out-foxed them, my general. No one can outmanoeuvre Horemheb. That’s why they call him Cunning in Battle. He had authority, Mistress, like you have. He made his charioteers dismount and climb the mountains in case the enemy were lurking; and he was right and they were, and we came down on them like falling boulders and killed them all, and the boy fought like a lion, saved Horemheb’s life, and then was sick as a lizard. Kheperren, the general’s scribe, that’s the name. Brave and faithful, lady. A good boy.

‘But that’s where I got a spear through the leg, and it never healed right. It got so I couldn’t march any more, and the general said I could live here and mind his household, and that’s what I’m doing.’

‘And I am glad to have you,’ I said truthfully, for he was faithful and valiant and that, said Horemheb, is what one wants in soldiers and in dogs. I quoted the saying to Ipuy and he laughed aloud, a strange sound from his old throat, and said ‘He chose well in choosing you, Mistress. The general, he chose well.’

I was beginning to think that he had chosen well for me, as well as, perhaps, for himself. His household was showing distinct signs of domestication. I felt sanguine enough about them after another decan to go back to the House of The Great Royal Scribe to ask Bakhenmut whether I could resume my lessons in cuneiform.

The old men, Menna and Harmose, were still there, with a basket of clay tablets at their feet. Khety and Hanufer leapt up to greet me. Bakhenmut remained seated in his chair of state and inclined his head nervously to my bow, which was to a carefully calculated depth. I had brought a maiden with me, in case proprieties were to be observed. It was Ankherhau, who could once read and write. Ii of the roving eye would not be a safe person to introduce into an office full of men.

‘Wife of General Horemheb,’ said Bakhenmut. ‘Greeting.’

‘Great Royal Scribe, greeting,’ I replied, ‘Lord, I was once allowed to learn the mysteries of the square writing from one of your scribes. I have the general’s permission to ask of the Great Royal Scribe that he allows me to continue this acquisition.’

‘Lady, the general spoke to me about this before he left. I am honoured by your presence. Menna, I entrust this task to Harmose and you. The lady Mutnodjme is to learn as much as she wishes.’

Bakhenmut returned to the tax return he was reading and I sat down on the bench between the two old men.

‘Lady, we are rejoiced to see you,’ said Menna, and Harmose patted my knee with his dry hand. I was pleased to see them, as well, and pleased that Bakhenmut had retained Ptah-hotep’s staff. At least the office of Great Royal Scribe would continue, and that must cheer my love’s heart as he watched us from the Field of Reeds.

I knew that Ptah-hotep was watching us. I could feel his presence, sometimes so close that I could almost touch him. And I dreamed odd dreams. The most vivid had been of women shooting arrows. I had never seen such a thing in my waking life.

Menna resumed our lesson where we had left off. Thereafter I spent two hours every day in the office of the Great Royal Scribe and improved my knowledge of cuneiform. I had learned more signs within the next decan and was beginning to get an inkling about the way that the writer arranged his sentences, when Nebnakht came to the office door and summoned me from my lesson.

‘Mistress, please come,’ he said, and I went with him, wondering what domestic disaster had overtaken my household.

I walked into the outer apartment and saw a snivelling boy, naked and very wet, who had evidently just been punitively washed.

‘He came in through the drains,’ said Ipuy. ‘I told the women to wash him clean so that we shouldn’t choke on the stench. I never smelt such a smell. Made my nose want to lie down and cry. But that Ii is an impulsive woman. She’s scrubbed the child almost to extinction. Poor scrap’s never been that clean before, I’ll wager.’

I would have said the same. Ii brought in a linen towel, with which she rubbed and polished the boy, trussed him into a clean loincloth and sat him down in the general’s chair. I judged that Ii had been in charge of at least three little brothers. She had such sisterly jurisdiction that the boy had surrendered immediately.

‘Now, what are you?’ I asked the child. ‘A burglar?’

He shook his head emphatically. ‘Are you Mutnodjme daughter of Ay?’ he asked, as if repeating a lesson.

‘I am Mutnodjme, daughter of Ay,’ I told him.

He grabbed the remains of his cloth, which had been wrapped around a small parcel, which had escaped the worst of the excrement with which this now-immaculate child must have been coated. Ii carried the cloth away to be washed, for weaving is valuable and cannot be wasted unless it is completely worn out or irreparably stained.

I examined the parcel. It was covered with oil cloth, sewn together, the stitches coated with beeswax. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to render it waterproof. Ipuy gave me his knife and I cut the stitches, wondering what could be so valuable and so secret to require sending a child in through the sewer.

When opened, it merely contained a carved potsherd and a vial of common glass, such as is used to contain perfumes. I examined the wrapping, which was sealed with a clay seal marked with the shield and crossed arrows of the city of Sais.

It all meant nothing to me, thought it was clearly supposed to convey a message. Well-wishers with gifts of perfume did not usually send them anonymously through the drains.

‘Where did you come from, child?’ I asked the boy.

‘Docks,’ he said, shining with pride. ‘Man said he’d give me a pair of gold earrings if I could get this parcel to the lady Mutnodjme daughter of Ay without being seen.’

‘What did the man look like?’ I persisted. The child shrugged.

‘Just a man,’ he said. ‘An old man,’ he added. “Same age as him.’

He pointed out Nebnakht, a youthful nineteen.

‘Feed him, Ii, will you?’ I instructed my maid. ‘Then get him out of the palace by a side door. He’s deserved his gold earrings. Just in case you miss your man,’ I told the boy, ‘Here is a piece of copper.’

‘Return,’ said the boy, struggling with an unfamiliar word or concept. ‘You got to send a return message.’

‘How very mysterious,’ I said, turning the strange presents over in my hands. I opened the vial.

‘Even so, it is but a minor mystery. Doubtless someone is playing some sort of joke on me—those soldiers have a crude sense of humour,’ I said, returning the knife to Ipuy.

I was smiling, though—and could not help it—for I had just realised what the carving on the potsherd meant; and I had inhaled the perfume.

‘I’m going to find something to write on. Everyone can go back to work,’ I hinted, walking into my bedchamber and rummaging for a stylus and some papyrus under the general’s bed. I found them and then sat on the floor, knees drawn up, clutching the potsherd to my breast.

Who else would have sent me a drawing of a goat with the cuneiform for ‘I talk’ scratched over its head? Who else would have sent me a phial of the perfume which only Nefertiti knew how to mix? And where else would Ptah-hotep be but in the palace of Sitamen, the daughter of Widow Queen Tiye, who had sworn friendship to him when he was a young man? The daughter who was a devotee of the goddess Neith, whose symbol was crossed arrows on a shield, identical with the city of Sais?

Nefertiti was alive, which was more than she deserved; but most importantly, Ptah-hotep was alive, and I felt as though someone had removed a sack of rocks from the back of my neck.

But I was married to the general; and I could never marry Ptah-hotep now.

No wonder I had sensed him close. We were still twinned, he was still feeling as I felt. No wonder that I had not found any bones in the ashes. There had been no bones to find. He was alive, alive! I almost laughed aloud.

And what did it matter if I never lay with him again? It was pure selfishness to question the ways of fate. I had married the general, well, that had been a kind gesture of the general’s and it had preserved me from being given away or banished or possibly even sacrificed to something.

All things can be cured but death, as Amenhotep-Osiris the Wise had said. What mattered was that I was alive and in the world and so was Ptah-hotep. I thought that I felt an answering rush of gladness from him, as though he had leaned down and kissed my mouth.

Now what could I reply which would not give me away in my turn? The precious potsherd looked like any old ostracon on which an artist had scrawled a satirical cartoon, like the cat’s funeral on the wall of Merope’s husband Dhutmose’s living room. I could do the same. I found a piece of broken pottery under the bed and blew dust off it, reminding myself that I must speak to Ii about her sweeping.

I scribbled a double-crowned goat, that would tell him that I recognised that both he and Nefertiti were alive. I gave the goat breasts and a bow and arrow—altering the symbol to that of a woman warrior that would mean that I had worked out that he was not in Sais, but with Sitamen. At the bottom I carved a heart, which would tell him that I still loved him.

Then I gave it to the boy, who was now stuffed full of honey-bread and figs, and watched Ii lead him out of the room by the hand, the picture of an obedient palace child. I knew that she would get through the gates without trouble. Ii knew most of the soldiers in the king’s guard intimately.

Ptah-hotep was alive. I returned to the office of the Great Royal Scribe, outwardly placid, inwardly vibrating with joy.

Ptah-hotep

I knew the moment when she opened the parcel and understood; or I thought I did, for out of nowhere came a great wave of joy and relief. I was reading the Instructions of Amenemope To His Son, which was not likely to have produced such a response, though it was a worthy text. I was convinced that at that day and hour my dearest Mutnodjme discovered that I was alive, having thought me dead. I wondered how she would contrive to get word to Kheperren, though I knew she would.

Life in the palace of Sitamen was peaceful, though the season had been bad, the Nile had not risen, and if it did not rise the next year the farmers would be looking famine in the face.

This should not have been so. Amenhotep-Osiris in his wisdom had retained enough grain to provide seed for seven years of failure; but his son had poured out grain like water before the feet of merchants who fetched him precious woods from Nubia and jewels and gazelles and strange foods. I doubted that there was another year’s grain in the stores. And of course the king would not abate the taxes because there was less grain this year. I cursed him daily for his sole and only god.

Not that the Aten was to blame. It was a venerable concept which had its roots in the oldest known ennead, the group of nine gods at Karnak. But the king’s monomania had blinded him to every other consideration. He had broken the power of the priests of Amen-Re, which his wise father had not done.

Amenhotep-Osiris had known that the temple of Amen-Re was too powerful and had striven to reduce its influence by taking some of its functions away and giving them to other temples. But he had known that without the priests of Amen-Re there were no tax inspectors, no keepers of weights and measures, no record keepers, no river watchers.

The temple of Amen-Re was essential for the smooth government of Egypt. It balanced its power against the throne and the army, and as long as all three were in the hands of reasonably competent men then the country would work. In fact it worked even if the throne was occupied by a child or a drooling idiot as it had been before.

It had taken a poet, a dreamer, a devoutly religious man, to attack the temple and destroy it, along with most of the historians, scholars and learned men in Egypt. And we still did not know what had happened to the Widow-Queen Tiye.

***

Mutnodjme’s reply arrived in at the same time as my beloved Kheperren, who threw himself at me, held me away so that he could look at me, then hugged me so tight that he left fingermarks in my shoulders.

‘Oh, praise to all the gods, I wondered if I had misinterpreted Mutnodjme’s message so I came straight here as soon as I got it. How did you survive, dearest?’ he asked.

‘I was kidnapped. What message did Mutnodjme send you?’

‘Here,’ he shoved a piece of papyrus at me. It bore a crowned goat sitting on crossed arrows. Its mouth was gaping and in the space between upper and lower teeth was the character in cuneiform for ‘talk.’

‘And her cuneiform lessons are obviously coming along,’ I said, impressed as always by this learned lady. ‘Have you seen her? She is well?’

‘No I have not; I came straight here to find you—alive, you scoundrel! We wept for you and buried your ashes in a rock tomb above Amarna in the strictest secrecy, ’Hotep. How can you possibly be alive? The lady went and sifted through that pile of ashes for your bones.’

‘That must have been a terrible task,’ I stopped laughing with joy at my reunion with my dear Kheperren.

‘She has a lot of courage—more than me. I was afraid of what I might find, but she wasn’t. Come and lie down under this vine and talk to me, kiss me; gods, I don’t know what to say to you. I feel like you’ve been to the Field of Reeds, and I ought to ask you what it was like.’

A man and a woman lying down in love might have attracted comment in the palace of the lady Sitamen, but not a man and another man. I laid Kheperren down and put my head on his chest, listening to his heart, which beat wildly under my cheek.

The sun shone hot above the vine, making dazzling patterns through the leaves, outlines in gold against the plain marble tiles. We lay so quietly that I heard fish splash in the pool and dragonflies zooming amongst the lotus flowers.

Then he began to kiss me and to laugh, and to kiss me again, and although I had never thought him dead I had thought him lost, and I had missed him. So we made love under the vine to the apparent approbation of a few of Sitamen’s women who wandered past, not averting their eyes.

‘So, will you stay here?’ he asked me, as the cool air dried the sweat on our skin.

I kissed his neck. The skin was wet against my lips. ‘I don’t know. I cannot go back to the City of the Sun. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want any office. By the way, have you any news of the Widow-Queen Tiye?’

‘The king has not released her from seclusion. He had her locked up for forty days, supposedly mourning the death of Mekhetaten, and since has just forgotten to let her out. She is reported to be well, though her temper will not have improved if she has heard the rumours about what the King is requiring Divine Father Ay to do to Smenkhare.

‘Mutnodjme’s mother Great Royal Nurse Tey is ill, perhaps fatally ill. I would have thought that she would be forever preserved by the vinegar that runs in her veins. And… General Horemheb has married.’

‘Oh? That is a surprise. I thought him forever devoted only to you,’ I said idly. ‘Who has he married? Not some shrinking maiden, surely?’

‘No ’Hotep, he has married the lady Mutnodjme. It was the only way he could protect her.’ Kheperren held me down with one hand on my chest.

‘You could have brought her to me,’ I said slowly.

Now I could not marry the woman I loved. I should have married her when I had the chance, but she would not agree.

Now she had married the general instead of me. He was, perhaps, a better choice—certainly stronger and bigger and probably more of a man.

But I had thought that she loved me. Surely I had not deluded myself when I felt her relief and joy at knowing that I was, after all, alive?

‘She would not leave the Widow-Queen, even though Tiye the redheaded woman is locked up, unable to communicate with us,’ Kheperren said. ‘We thought that you were dead; and her father was suggesting that she be married to any of the priests of Aten as long as he would take her away.

‘And did I say we thought you were dead? The general will not keep her from you, ’Hotep,’ he said gently.

‘Has the marriage been consummated?’ I asked, forcing the words out through reluctant lips.

‘Yes, but she lay with me, ’Hotep, because she knows that I love you, too. I felt her as she imagined that I was you, I felt her body open, melt with longing; and I felt her shock when she realised again that you were dead.

‘It was on the general’s order that she lay with me to seal the contract, not with him. He is a kind and just man. He likes her. He would never keep her from her lover. Be comforted,’ he told me, kissing my mouth again.

I could not go to Amarna and see the lady Mutnodjme again, and now she could not come to me, since she was the wife of the general.

But I was comforted. Kheperren lay in my embrace. And I had a potsherd carved with a heart which told me that Mutnodjme still loved me, and it was as precious to me as any jewel.