Out of the Black Land

Chapter Seven

Mutnodjme

The scribe came that evening, before Tey had finished her remarks on how appalling our presence in the mammissi had been. Indeed, I feared that she would never get to the end of them, and I was to be scolded down to my grave.

‘The only reasons that I am not at this moment beating you until you scream,’ she added ‘is that you came with your stories at the right moment, to distract the Queen. She had been labouring for hours before she called for me, and she was at the end of her strength. So, it has ended well. And what did you think of the great female mystery, daughter?’ she demanded, more mildly.

‘Strange and terrible,’ I said. ‘Were all of us thus born?’

‘All except Amenhotep our Lord may he live,’ said a voice from the door.

‘Even he, may he live forever, and divine conception aside, was born of a woman,’ snapped Tey. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Ptah-hotep, the Great Royal Scribe,’ said the young man mildly. ‘I was asked by the Princess Sitamen to bring a scribe for your daughters, Lady. Here he is. His name is Khons, and he asks more questions than anyone could answer.’

‘He should be heart-friend to these two, then,’ snarled Tey. ‘This is Great Royal Wife Merope, a barbarian princess, and this is my daughter the Lady Mutnodjme, sister to the Divine Spouse Nefertiti. Have you eaten, young man?’

This was a polite enquiry made of all visitors, but it was not delivered in a polite tone. Even Khons raised an eyebrow and looked at the Great Royal Scribe who, I could not help but note, seemed awfully young to be so eminent.

He was good looking. He had very long hair, braided into a plait by someone with a great deal of skill. She had threaded in blue beads and small mirrors that winked and flashed as he moved. He wore no jewellery but his scribal ring, big enough to stiffen a hand to the knuckle. His cloth was perfectly plain. He had the pale skin, high cheekbones and elongated eyes of the Theban bloodline, and those black eyes were wary, giving nothing away. His voice was low, clear and firm and his mode of address very formal.

‘Great Royal Nurse Tey, Gracious Lady, I am sure that you will wish to be exceedingly hospitable to the Teacher Khons, because I will be obliged to report to the Princess on his progress and I would be very loathe to have to say anything to your discredit. I am bidden to dine with the High Priest of Amen-Re so I cannot stay long, but I would enjoy a cup of beer and a little conversation with your daughter Lady Mutnodjme and Great Royal Wife Merope.’

Merope, who had been hanging back, came forward and offered him her hand to kiss. He sank to one knee and did so with due solemnity. My mother flicked a hand at the slaves, and chairs were brought. We all sat down.

Great Royal Nurse Tey was examining the scribe closely and suddenly decided to like him, which was how Tey was. If she loved you, she loved you no matter how she might later scream or slap. If she hated you, she hated fiercely and could not be diverted. It was a pity that she had never loved me and I did not know how to change her mind.

‘I greet the Great Royal Scribe,’ she said formally. ‘I beg that he should forgive my hasty words. I have just come from the childbirth of the Queen Tiye may she live and I am fatigued.’

‘May we hope that the Great Lady was safely delivered?’ Scribe Ptah-hotep matched her in courtesy.

‘Indeed, of a son. She has called him Smenkhare. As you are dining with the High Priest, please inform him of this event. Do me the honour of tasting this brew,’ she said, as the slaves brought a jar of the very light ale which we drank on very hot days.

Ptah-hotep handed his cup to a slave who stood by the door. A Nubian woman with beaded hair sipped and nodded and returned it to him.

‘Your precautions are wise, Lord, if you will forgive me saying so.’

‘I forgive you, certainly,’ said the young man. Honours were, I decided, about even. Tey was interested in the Scribe but could not, in politeness, ask any more questions.

Teacher Khons was older than the Scribe Ptah-hotep. He was thickset and looked strong, and I wondered at the mess that someone had made of his back. He had been beaten many times. I wondered who had beaten him and why. He had a shaved head and golden rings in his ears and a fine, wide, dazzling grin which showed teeth like seeds. He grinned at us and we smiled back, a little nervously. I wondered if his teeth could bite as well as smile.

‘Let us see if we will suit,’ he said to me. ‘Greetings, Lady Mutnodjme, Lady Merope. What would you ask of your teacher?’

‘Tell us about the divine birth,’ I said. Birth was on my mind and I had privately resolved to see it again.

Teacher Khons spoke promptly:

The Divine Amenhotep’s mother lay down in her bed one night, and behold! her husband came to her, and lay down with her, and did such things as were pleasing to her .

And she said, ‘You have pleased me and lain inside me, and I felt your seed spring in me. I am scented with your essence; my soul took flight; I love you’.

But he did not speak in reply but left her and was gone.

That night she conceived the Lord Amenhotep; and yet her husband had slept the night alone.

‘How?’ I demanded. ‘How can she have conceived if her husband slept alone? You just said he lay with her.’

‘It was Re the Sun, even Amen-Re himself, who lay with the great Royal Wife,’ explained Teacher Khons.

We thought about it.

‘Amen-Re in the shape of her husband?’ I puzzled it out. ‘He came to her in her husband’s form?’

‘She was a virtuous woman who took no lovers,’ explained Khons. ‘Therefore he had to come in her husband’s shape, or she would have rejected him, even the god, even the Sun himself.’

‘But…’ I began. The Scribe Ptah-hotep lifted a hand.

‘I must leave you, I regret. Teach them well, Khons, I leave it in your hands. You will lodge here, and the Great Royal Wife Tiye is responsible for your expenses. Farewell, ladies.’ He stood up. The Nubian woman opened the door for him.

‘Come again,’ urged Tey, making one of her infrequent bows. The young man returned the bow and his mirrors glittered.

‘Lady,’ he acknowledged, and left.

‘Tell us another,’ urged Merope.

Tey flapped a hand at me. ‘In a moment. Teacher Khons, you may lodge here, and the young ladies will show you where you can lay your mat. It is very kind of the Queen to send you, and I appreciate it. If you can answer some of the ladies’ questions, you will be performing a valuable service.

‘Tell me,’ she said, escorting him to the small chamber next to ours and instructing a woman to lay out his mat and refold his bundle of creased garments, ‘What do you know of the scribe Ptah-hotep? He has impressed me very favourably.’

‘Lady, he took me out of the school of scribes and rescued me from a marshy fate. He was the best scribe at the school, which is why the Master offered him to Pharaoh Akhnamen may he live! Otherwise, I did not know him well,’ said Khons, watching a slave lay out his frayed and damaged wardrobe with evident embarrassment.

‘We will ask the Queen for some new cloths,’ said Tey, slightly amused. ‘Where do you come from, Teacher?’

‘From the North, Lady, the Nome of Set. My father trades in pots in the market,’ he added, fiercely rather than humbly.

‘Mine trained racehorses,’ returned Tey. ‘It is difficult, is it not? To live in a palace that knows no lack, with people who have never walked on hard earth or lived on fish and beans? But we manage, Teacher.

‘Now, even though it is still so hot—will the Southern Snake never stop blowing?—I must be away to visit my Lady the Queen, and you can tell stories to these voracious maidens. Ask the slaves for whatever you want,’ said Tey, and went.

I heard the outer door slap closed. Then I drew a deep breath, echoed by my new sister, and we both sat down on Teacher Khons’ sleeping mat.

‘Tell us another,’ we said, almost in unison.

‘First you will tell me,’ he said in a guarded fashion, ‘Is the lady your mother always like that?’

‘How?’ I asked.

‘So short, so brisk, so… decided.’

‘Yes,’ we both agreed.

‘Ah. Then we had better make some progress in learning or I’ll be off to Khnum at Hermopolis faster than a vulture flies. Tell me what you already know, Lady Mutnodjme.’

‘I can read and write cursive and understand most of the hieroglyphs. I can tell stories. Do you know a lot of stories?’

‘Hundreds.’ He turned to Merope. ‘And you, Lady?’

‘I never learned to write,’ said Merope. ‘But I can tell stories, too.’

‘And you can speak Kritian,’ he added. ‘An accomplishment that many of us would envy. Very well. While you are learning cursive, my Lady will learn hieroglyphics. And we will tell lots of stories. Will that please my ladies?’

‘Yes. Who beat you?’

‘My Master at the school of scribes.’

‘Why?’ I traced the scars where thin canes or whips had cut his smooth flesh.

‘For asking too many questions. For arguing.’ He smelt pleasantly of frankincense, now that I was close to him. Merope also edged nearer, and Teacher Khons began to look nervous.

‘Sit further away,’ he ordered. ‘It is too hot to be close in this wind.’

‘Where does the wind come from?’ I asked, as I moved to another mat.

‘It is the breath of Apep, the great Southern Snake, foe of Re the Sun since the beginning of time. At Ephipi, and into Mesoré, the power of Re is diverted to the other side of the world, and Apep roars, desiring to take the Black Land again into his maw and slake his thirst by drinking the Nile dry.’

‘Could he do that?’

‘Once he did just that,’ said Khons. He slid down until he was leaning on one elbow, chin in hand, examining us with his black eyes.

‘When?’

‘Shall I tell you the tale?’

‘Tell us about Apep and Re,’ we chorused. Merope and I lay down also on reed mats, and Basht came padding in and settled down with her chin on Merope’s chest. It seemed that the striped cat liked stories, too.

‘Apep is a gigantic serpent,’ he began.

‘How gigantic is he?’ I asked.

‘He is two hour’s walk from end to end, and in the middle as wide as the Nile at flood,’ replied Khons. We gasped and he continued the tale:

You know that the Lord Amen-Re sails his sun-boat under the world into the Tuat every night? Every hour of darkness he must fight off some attacker or fiend, for the otherword is not as here, my students, it is dark and the water is troubled. Fiends stalk the darkness, and the evening carries more dangers than just robbers and thieves.

As the sun boat navigates the Tuat river in black darkness, Apep comes swimming. Each undulation of his body is as high as the sky, and five armies could march under him abreast. Slithering he comes, for he is cold. Faintly he shines, for he is slimy.

In the night frightened wayfarers see the gleam of his teeth under the cold stars, and dig holes in the sand to hide from the cold stare of his eyes. For he is the great devil, the everlasting Foe of all that is warm, and breathes, and lives.

‘What about fish?’ I asked. ‘They do not breathe and are cold. Do they belong to Apep?’

This would have been the point where any other storyteller would have snapped at me for interrupting, but Teacher Khons took it in his stride.

‘Fish breathe, Lady, they just breathe water, not air. And they are warmer than the water in which they swim, and they can be eaten by humans, so they are not of Apep. But the green viper and the horned viper are his own children, and live to slay anyone who touches them.

Now this Apep attacks the boat on which the Sun who is Re rides through the Tuat, and the kind gods fight him; even She who is Beauty and Music, even the gentle Hathor.

Apep roars, and the stink of his breath burns the sail of the Sun Boat; he dives, and the river banks are flooded and washed by his bow-wave. And the gods kill and dismember him, he who is Destruction, and cast him into the river.

But every day, while the Sun Re is in the sky, Apep reforms and draws his bones and his flesh together, and every night he attacks again.

Some men say that one night, if belief fails, then he will win: and that will be the end of light, and warmth, and the world.

We shivered pleasurably. ‘You have the spell which they recite every day in every temple of Amen-Re in the Black Land,’ said Teacher Khons. ‘The priests say it as they destroy a wax image, melting it and spitting on it and crushing it underfoot. We will listen while you read it, Lady Mutnodjme.’

I took the scroll, scanned the cursive script and began to read:

Apep is fallen into the flame; a knife is stabbed into his head: his name lives no more. I drive darts into him, I sever his neck, cutting into his flesh with this knife. He is given over to the fire which has mastery over him.

Horus mighty of strength has decreed that he should come to the front of the boat of Re: his fetter of steel ties him and binds him so that he cannot move. He is chained, bound, fettered, and his strength ebbs so that I may separate the flesh from the bones, cut off his feet and his arms and hands; cut out his tongue and break his teeth, one by one, from his mouth: block up his ears and put out his eyes. I tear out his heart from its throne: I make him not to exist. May his name be forgotten and his heirs and his relatives and his offspring, may his seed never be established: may his soul, body, spirit, shade and words of power and his bones and his skin be as nothing.

I looked at Teacher Khons. ‘Why, then, is the serpent still alive?’ I asked.

‘Because spells cannot mend everything,’ said Teacher Khons, turning a gold ring in his ear. ‘Because gods are a way of looking at the world. Because there must be a balance, and while there is good there must be Amen-Re, and while there is evil there must be Apep.’

That sounded reasonable. I began to think that having a teacher was going to be very interesting.

Ptah-hotep

The temple of Amen-Re at Karnak is colossal.

Because I was uncertain if I would return—some people never do return from the temple—I made sure that Khons was settled with the alarming Great Royal Nurse Tey and her two charges. I gave a very unwilling Meryt enough gold to get back to Nubia and a scroll which freed her from slavery. I left Khety and Hanufer with the task of understanding a particularly convoluted tax appeal from the Nome of Set and I farewelled Anubis, who was the only one who didn’t contend with me. I would take no one with me into danger, though I had to have a furious argument with all of them before they agreed to let me go alone.

Meryt plaited my hair with beads, but otherwise I was undecorated, except for the Great Scribe’s ring-seal, which weighed down my hand. I had a right to wear that. Otherwise I was a mere appointee of a Younger Royal Son and did not consider it proper to make a display of my wealth, so recently gained and so easily lost. I was more afraid than I have ever been as I walked unescorted out of the palace of the King and into the avenue of ram’s-head sphinxes which led to the complex and castle of the most important temple of the Black Land’s most important god.

To walk from the palace of the King to the Temple of Amen-Re takes but an hour; and to walk the extent of the Temple of Amen-Re just along the river bank takes four hours. Every Pharaoh since the earliest has added his image and a few temples to the Theban temple, and some have added whole palace sized buildings. The central mystery, of course, is not open to anyone but the King and the High Priest, but the common people can see inside the great pylons or gates when the festival comes, and Amen-Re is carried along the avenue of sphinxes to his wife Mut, to stay for a decan in her arms.

The Heb-Sed festival too centres on this temple. It is celebrated when a Pharaoh has reigned for thirty years, and the Lord Amenhotep may he live looked strong enough to survive another two years and celebrate it. I prayed for the King’s health and my own as I walked along the sanded path, carefully cleared of stones every morning by slaves of the temple. No leaf or bird was suffered to land on that path. Men spent their whole lives warding them off, which struck me as a sad way to spend a life.

The temple is built of sandstone which catches and reflects the rays of its lord. Golden at noon, the stones were red as ochre as I approached them. The serpent wind had died away, the endless maddening scratching sound of blown sand had ceased, and I was wet with sweat and fear. No one spoke to me as I passed several cheerful parties of young men, redolent of wine and pleasure. One woman called to me from the houses of wine by the waterside, but I ignored her. I was praying to Osiris that I might find favour in his eyes because I might be joining him soon, to Neith the Hunter and Isis the Mistress of Magic who protect such creatures as the Princess Sitamen and I, and to such of my ancestors who could spare their attention from feasting in the Field of Offerings.

‘Help me, all gods and venerable ancestors, help me to survive this interview and this night,’ I prayed, but received no answer.

Amen-Re the Sun was descending into the underworld as I came to the pylons, turned aside and said to the soldier guarding the priest’s door, ‘I am Ptah-hotep. The High Priest and Servant of Amen-Re the Sun, Bringer of Blessings, has summoned me. I am here.’

He admitted me instantly into a courtyard. My feet crunched over carefully arranged patterns in unseen mosaic as I was conducted by the soldier who did not speak through a colonnade and into a wide hall. The pillars were shaped like stems, the capitals like lotus flowers. It was of inhuman size, vast and shadowed, with only a few torches for light. An elderly priest, head shaved, eyes down, beckoned me to follow him into another hall, and handed me over to a younger man, who took a torch from a slave and led me up a flight of stairs.

None of them had spoken. This treatment was evidently designed to rattle me, and I was determined that it should not do so. I had not asked or schemed or even desired to be Great Royal Scribe, but I was, and I had a feeling that if I had been the old man Nebamenet I would not have been walking through the halls attended by priests who seemed to have been struck dumb by my eminence. When the young man picked up his pace, wishing perhaps to have me arrive at my destination out of breath, I kept to my usual walking speed until he noticed and came back for me. Then I saw some expression on his expressionless face; it was not a smile but a softening of his rigidly schooled features. I did not speak to him, because I would have been at a disadvantage if I spoke and he did not reply. I had played this game at the school of scribes, and I had always won.

We came to a painted door, and the priest called ‘Ptah-hotep,’ and a slave opened.

I stepped inside. The room was bright with torchlight which revealed painted walls, a marble floor inlaid with golden sun discs, a ceiling made of golden rosettes placed so thickly that they looked like spiderweb over a lapis lazuli sky, and a throne.

It was made of wood overlaid with gold. The high back was of electrum, an alloy of silver and gold, the cushions were covered with golden tapestry and the footrest was of solid silver. It would have bought a small town.

Since I was not required to bow to an empty throne, I stood where I was and considered the situation. The slave who had admitted me had gone. I knew what I was expected to do: get angry, or fidget, or wander around and finger the ornaments, or fret, or tremble.

I did none of these. I sank down into the scribe’s cross legged position, folded my hands in my lap, and sank into thought.

The high priest was assuming a lot about the nature of my appointment if he dared treat me so discourteously. He was also making certain assumptions about me which I could not like. He was expecting to evoke an emotional reaction, well, I was certainly an emotional being, but all my love was given to one human, and he was with the army.

I knew how powerful the high priest was; did he know how powerful I was, with my patron the king behind me? Was it wise, in short, to slight me without doing some research to find out how I was likely to react? The Pharaoh Akhnamen could have ordered—though such a thing was unthinkable—that the worship of Amen-Re be abandoned and no taxes be paid to the priests, and where would that leave the high priest? A discredited old man forced to beg his way along the roads.

That thought pleased me and I may have smiled a little.

I sat still for about half an hour by the sand-clock on the table when I heard a scraping sound and an unexpected door opened in the painted wall. I had had time to memorise the decorations, and this wall was unusual; it was painted all over with doors of all sizes and shapes, half-open like the false door in a tomb which allows the ka to enter. One of these doors was now opening, and an old man came through, attended by two entirely naked, very beautiful women, who assisted him to climb the step and sit down on the throne.

I had enquired as to the correct greeting of Great Royal Scribe to High Priest. I rose and waited for him to acknowledge me. He raised his eyes and gave a slight nod.

‘Ptah-hotep,’ he said, a mild discourtesy.

‘Servant of Amen-Re,’ I bowed to the correct depth and no lower.

‘My name is Userkhepesh,’ he said. He was required to tell me his name by protocol agreed between the palace and the temple. I was tired, hot and weary of these manoeuvrings.

‘My title is Great Royal Scribe,’ I pointed out, as the thing which he clearly did not know about me.

There was a moment when we stared straight into each other’s eyes. He was very old. His shaven head was as white as chalk, his limbs trembled with age, and his robes hung on his rack of a body like nets on a fisherman’s wire traps. But his eyes were deep and full of will and strength. Neither of us looked away for an uncounted time. I do not know what he saw in my eyes. But he finally broke the contact with a grunt, waved at the women to begin laying out a feast, and did not speak until I had a cup of wine and they had helped him descend to sit on a low chair at a well-filled table.

Even in the driest month the temple of Amen-Re, it appeared, had melons, golden fruit from the jungles of Upper Egypt. A naked woman leaned over me and put a piece of fruit into my mouth. I smiled at her, but she did not respond.

‘So you are the Pharaoh’s lover,’ the old man broke the silence.

I said, ‘Lord, I am the Pharaoh’s choice,’ and ate some more melon.

‘How old are you?’ he asked, and I told him my age. He thought for awhile, seeming not to notice the curved belly or breast before his face, or the melon juice mopped from his chin by his attentive slave. ‘Your father?’ he asked.

I was sure that he knew all about me, so I answered ‘He is a scribe in the city of Apis in the Nome of the Black Bull, Lord.’

‘I know.’ He tasted a roasted pheasant, then indicated to the slave that she should serve me some of the scented flesh.

We ate in silence for awhile. I sensed his puzzlement. I was not reacting as a boy-lover should react, or an over-awed child, or a scheming creature who has kissed Pharaoh’s feet for his favour. I like silence, and I let it continue. I had not been well fed lately and this meal was a feast of all that was tasty and light, perfect for a hot evening.

‘The pheasant is delicious,’ I commented, a social statement required of a guest. ‘You are a generous host, Userkhepesh, Servant of Re.’

‘I am delighted that my poor fare should please you,’ he said absently, again the correct reply.

I ate some good black grapes, spitting the seeds politely into my hand, and he watched me as if I was a newly-created beast and he was Khnum the Potter, wondering what to name me.

‘Are these from the Tashery vineyard, Lord?’ another social comment. ‘My second in command says that they are the best grapes in the Black Land.’

‘Mentu? He would know about wine, though nothing else. You know that. You appointed him.’ The High Priest leaned forward. ‘So far you have not put a foot wrong, Lord Ptah-hotep. You were not awed or improperly curious. You know the value of silence. You do not fear me.’

‘Lord, I fear you, and your office, your god, and your power,’ I responded honestly. ‘But since this meeting is a test, set by my wise elder to find out my worth, I would dishonour my office if I did not at least pass it.’

He laughed, a dry laugh which had little merriment in it.

‘What did happen at the lake?’ he asked. ‘How did Pharaoh choose you?’

‘I was bathing, and I was called out of the water. Pharaoh laid his flail on me; possibly my master recommended me. That was the first time I ever saw the Lord of the Double Crown.’ I took some more of a curious, luscious mixture of beans in oil.

‘Whimsical. That is the Lord of the Two Lands, Akhnamen. I could wish that his brother Thutmose had not died. However, Amen disposes of men as he wishes.’

There was another silence, then I remembered that I had a message for him.

‘Lord, I am bidden with a message from the Great Royal Nurse Tey. The Queen Tiye was delivered this afternoon of a son called Smenkhare.’

‘Good.’ I had no doubt that he knew this already. ‘No, don’t take any of the fish, Lord. It would not agree with you.’ His old fingers were laid on my wrist. Despite the heat, his skin was cold. A slave woman took the dish away.

‘As a priest, you, of course, my Lord, do not eat fish,’ I said slowly, thinking it out. ‘Fish ate the phallus of Osiris, and may not be eaten by priests. But I, as Great Royal Scribe, have no such taboo. And the fish would not have agreed with me, High Priest?’

‘No,’ he said, showing no sign of any other emotion. ‘It is over-rich for a young man such as yourself, a young man of sense and courage, who is likely to prove adequate for his high office.’

‘If he lives that long,’ I replied.

He patted my hand. ‘If Amen-Re is kind,’ he agreed. ‘Do you play Passing-Through-The-Underworld, the game also called senet?’

‘Yes, Lord.’

‘I thought that you might. Another time, Ptah-hotep, Great Royal Scribe, will you come and dine with me, and perhaps play the game of the dancers?’

‘It would be an honour, Userkhepesh, Servant of Re, High Priest of Amen-Re at Karnak.’

He smiled, this time, and I returned the smile.

I had left for the temple of Amen-Re in trembling and in silence. I returned, by order of the High Priest, in a litter, escorted by priests, announced by a trumpeter.

I was so relieved that I slept most of the way back.