The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh (2 page)

Besides, one can write on papyrus what one cannot write on stone. I am not an old woman – although I have seen forty risings of the Nile I am still vigorous – yet I feel the need to record my experiences, and to reflect on them. Sometimes it seems to me that time slides through one’s grasp like the waters of the great river, and what one has done and what one knows cannot be writ in water.

I have lived a life of some significance, I do believe. I followed a destiny unusual for a woman. I achieved greatness and I paid for it. Loss and loneliness have been my portion; but I have always served the Black Land and its people to the utmost of my ability and they have loved me in return. As I feel hostile forces gathering around me, as I begin to sense age taking its inexorable toll, I wish that my life may not be forgotten, neither its greater deeds nor the smaller things that have given me joy.

I have sailed the Nile at sunset, floating on a sheet of living gold. I have tasted the roasted liver of fat geese. I have heard the haunting songs of the blind bard. I have felt a child’s soft arms, a dying woman’s bony grip, a lover’s warm caress. I have inhaled the incense of the gods.

I feel that I must record these things. Here follow the secret writings of Ma’atkare Khnemet-Amen Hatshepsut, Female Horus of Fine Gold, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, and hereto I affix my seal.

I
am Mahu, scribe to Pharaoh Hatshepsut, may she live for ever. With these few words, added later and scribbled in haste, I wish to attest that these scrolls were given into my keeping by the Pharaoh and that they are written in her own script. But I have not given them into the hands of any of the men of power, for I do not know whom I should trust. The scrolls are stored in a safe and dry place where they must be kept secret until I have decided who should read them.

Of course Her Majesty sealed the scrolls she gave into my keeping with the imprint of her royal cartouche. But I did not have the strength of mind to keep them in my possession without reading what she had written. I needed to know what I was involved in, but also I am only human and I was most curious about unfolding events and about Her Majesty’s intimate thoughts and feelings. So I confess it here: I broke the seals and I read the contents. Then I resealed the scrolls with my own scribe’s seal. But never did I alter anything Her Majesty had set down. So if one day these scrolls are found, whoever reads them will be reading the very words of Her Majesty. This I solemnly swear by the Ka of Thoth.

I did however add some writings of my own to support and to amplify the writings of my Pharaoh so that the record may be complete and correct, for that is my task as a scribe. Those that follow after should know the truth about Her Majesty. Certainly there are many records of King Hatshepsut’s reign, sculpted in statues, carved into the walls of temples, engraved on obelisks. Yet even that which is written on the living stone may be altered, as we have seen when a new Pharaoh takes over the temple of a predecessor and strikes out his cartouches, replacing them with his own. After all, it is written:
“Be thou a scribe, for a book is more durable than a stele or pyramid; it will preserve thy name better than any monument.”

These writings could lead to my immediate execution should they fall into the wrong hands. It is a dangerous commission that Her Majesty has honoured me with, but by the Ka of Thoth, I shall carry it out faithfully. I have ever been a loyal follower and humble servant of King Hatshepsut, may she live for ever. May the gods help me not to fail the Pharaoh.

THE FIRST SCROLL

The reign of Hatshepsut year 20:
The first month of Peret [seEd season] day 2

It is a fact that I possess the blood royal, that I am the only one of four children borne by the Great Royal Wife Ahmose to the Pharaoh Thutmose the First, may they live for ever, who grew to adulthood. I am the last of the old royal line that runs through my mother, for my father the Pharaoh, may he live, came to the Double Throne as a great general and it was his marriage to her that made him royal since she was own sister to Pharaoh Amenhotep. Oh yes, I am the entirely legitimate occupant of the throne of the Two Lands. But to be legitimate is not enough for a woman to accede to the throne. She must also be the chosen one. The one the gods would have. And that am I.

For Hathor suckled me, Hapi cradled me, and Apophis spared me for my destiny. Since I was very young when these events occurred I do not myself recall them exactly, but they have been told to me so often that it seems as if I do remember. Perhaps I have some memory of the third and most significant event. The one who knew, who saw all three events as they happened, was the Great Royal Nurse Sitre, known as Inet – the ancient of days who had nursed my siblings and me and later took care of my daughters Neferure and Meryetre-Hatshepsut. She was my witness and unlike many who surround me, particularly now, had no reason whatsoever to lie.

Looking back, I realise that Inet’s tales did much to direct my dreams of greatness. My earliest memories are of her voice telling me stories, always using the same words as the illiterate do and as children indeed demand. She would lisp a little because of her sparse teeth – she had only a few rotted stumps left, the rest ground down by years of chewing gritty bread. Some of her stories were those that all Egyptians know, such as
The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor
, or legends of great battles, or comic stories about animals.

But others concerned me personally and those were the ones that I liked best just as she loved to tell them. She used to nod her head, the plain black wig framing her wizened brown face with its little black eyes like olives in desiccated bread. The nods punctuated her tales as if she were listening to herself and agreeing that yes, that is quite correct, that is exactly how it happened.

Alas, my dear Inet is dead now and her voice is still. Ah, there have been so many deaths. I have seen to it that she is properly buried and well supplied with all the grave goods necessary for a good life in the Fields of the Blessed. Yet although sometimes it seems that her Ka breathes so close by that I feel it upon my cheek, she can no longer bear witness for me. But I can never forget the love she bore me, and her unwavering faith in my destiny.

So I shall set these tales down, just as she told them, for they have significance as regards the legitimacy of my rule over the Black Land. They prove that I am the chosen of the gods. During the time of rest after the midday meal I have some privacy. Usually I rest on a day-bed on the cool, spacious portico overlooking the flower gardens with their splashing fountains at the side of the harem palace in the royal city of Thebes. I shall use that time to write down these accounts. The slaves who bring fruit juices and keep me cool with ostrich feather fans are illiterate. They will not know what writings these are. My bodyguards keep a tactful distance while I rest, although they remain alert.

Tale number one was about Hathor, mother of Horus, foremost of the gods who have held me in their protective embrace all my life. I loved to hear it, for it made me feel that I had been singled out, that I was somehow special to the Goddess. It concerns the first year of my life, in the reign of my late father, may he live, Thutmose the First, year 4.

“Tell me again, about how Hathor suckled me,” I would demand, during the sultry afternoons when everyone in the palace rested but I, being full of energy, did not want to sleep.

“You were a lusty babe,” said Inet. She always said this proudly. “Came into the world kicking and squalling, tight little fists pumping as if ready to fight the world. Such a voice! Such a voice for a newborn! Demanding attention. Demanding food. Frightened the palace doves, you did, sounded like Bastet in full cry.”

“I sounded like the cat goddess,” I said boastfully.

“You know it, little one. A wet nurse was quickly found, the wife of a scribe whose child had died for it was born too soon. She had milk aplenty and she was honoured to be called to the palace.”

“But the human milk was too thin,” I chimed in.

“The human milk was too thin,” agreed Inet, nodding. “You screamed with hunger, hour after hour. You could get no satisfaction from the woman’s breast. And yet she had so much that it dribbled down, wetting her tunic. But what you needed was the milk of the God.”

“Hathor,” I said.

“You know it, little one. The chief physician attending the Great Queen, may she live for ever, advised us to procure cow’s milk for you. It settles heavier in the stomach. It has more strength. I have seen it before,” said Inet. “I have seen it in big, strong baby boys who are very hungry. But you were the first girl child I ever saw who thrived on it.”

“I was suckled by Hathor,” I said with satisfaction.

Of course; it had to be true. When I ordered my temple to be built at Djeser-Djeseru, I had a record placed on the walls showing the cow goddess suckling me.

“It was an omen,” said Inet. “I do believe that you will be under her protection all your life. The Goddess is tender as a mother in caring for those she loves, fierce as a lioness in defending them from danger and evil. She will keep her hand over your head.”

Indeed, I have often felt the arms of the Goddess bearing me up. There have been times in my life when I felt that all my strength was spent; then I pray to Hathor, and she infuses me with new vigour. She watches over me.

I reached out for more ink to begin recording the second of Inet’s tales. At that moment a shadow at the far end of the portico seemed to suddenly solidify. There was no footfall to be heard yet I knew that it was Khani, come to report to me. He is known to the guards and they let him pass.

“Khani,” I said. “Come. I see you.”

He walked quietly across the cool tiles with his characteristic feline lope and stood before me, his three cubits of powerful muscle, dark as polished ebony, blocking out the sun before he bowed.

“Majesty,” he said, in his deep voice, the voice of a bard. “You have eyes in the back of your head.”

“I have need of them,” I said. “And of more eyes scanning the kingdom on my behalf … Eyes that I can trust, such as yours, my faithful guardian.”

“And you may require the support of Hathor also,” he told me. “Inet used to claim that support for you.”

“And Inet was right,” I said. “I have indeed lived in the shelter of Hathor’s vigilance. My sister and two brothers have gone to the gods. But I, beloved of Hathor, I thrived. To this day I am strong and I am never ill.”

“Indeed, Majesty,” agreed Khani. “You are strong.”

There seemed to be reservations in his obsidian eyes.

“What is it?” I asked. “You have bad news?”

He would tell me, I knew, but in his own way. He would marshal his facts with care and tell me first only what he knew to be true. If there was gossip or speculation, he would report that also, but with a warning that it could not be substantiated. I rely greatly on his acute observations and intelligence.

I sent the slaves and the guards away. Everyone in my household knows that Khani is to be trusted. He has been loyal to me ever since he was brought to the Kingdom of the Two Lands as a prisoner of war. Soon after his accession as Pharaoh, my late husband Thutmose the Second, may he live, received news of an uprising in Nubia. Naturally he could not leave the court and the capital when his grasp of the sceptre was so recent. He dispatched an army under the command of his most trusted general, who quelled the rebellion, killed many men and captured the ringleaders.