Hatshepsut: Daughter of Amun Page 8

  Even Hatshepsut, who doted on her daughter, could see that the girl did not have her own strength and would soon be destroyed by the many court factions opposed to her. It need not be a marriage of the bed. Hatshepsut would still have him to tease and play with when she wanted, but he, as husband to the heir, would have a formal status that would make him less vulnerable to the hot and cold of whim and fancy.

  But Pawero's whining and Hatshepsut's stern replies cut across his thoughts.

  Hatshepsut had got her way—as she always did—and was calmly walking down a forbidden corridor, Pawero whimpering and protesting at her side.

  The low gallery they now entered was almost airless, the lamps barely alight. Among the crouched men at the face, Hatshepsut spotted Kenna.

  She commanded that the work should cease at once and everyone follow her to the surface. The men did not even look at Pawero to see if he accepted this or not. Thankfully they crept and slithered out—some wheezing and gasping as though about to expire.

  No words were spoken until at last they were standing in the sunlight, Hatshepsut as streaked with dirt as any of them.

  Then Kenna stepped forward and placed a rough ball of dusty stone in her hand. She took it and looked at it, puzzled. She noticed that it was cracked like an egg, and with a touch it split open and lay in two halves in her hands. There she saw the cave of her dream, a shining mass of purple crystals encrusting the curved inner walls.

  She looked up at him and smiled. Her god had given her a sign. This was the man to trust.

  * * * *

  Pawero was not deprived of his life, but he was deprived of his livelihood. He and Nu were told to leave, and they knew it was unlikely they would ever be employed in any position of responsibility in her service again.

  “As long as Hatshepsut is Pharaoh,” Pawero thought bitterly, his thoughts turning to the young prince whose place on the throne she had usurped. If Men-kheper-Ra took back the double crown, he would have loyal supporters in men like Pawero and Nu.

  * * * *

  Before she left, Pharaoh did one more thing for the miners. She found the place where new wells should be dug.

  A small group set off along the valley: Hatshepsut and Neferure and several of the miners. Senmut remained behind at the miners’ village to make arrangements for the smooth changeover of power. Hatshepsut had brought three men in her entourage who were capable of replacing the most corrupt of the officials. Senmut carefully selected those among the miners whom he thought would respond well to responsibility. Kenna, of course, was one of the first. Pawero, excluded from the consultations, sourly packed up his belongings.

  “Mercy?” he muttered. “We'll see who is shown mercy when Men-kheper-Ra takes the Two Lands into his hands!"

  From very ancient times, the pharaoh had been expected to find water in the desert when it was needed. It had been a long time since any had been called to do so, but the wells serving this mine had run dry over the past years and water had to be fetched from a long way away. Every drop had become more precious than silver and its distribution was under the control of the foreman, a source of bitter contention.

  Hatshepsut insisted that Neferure should accompany her so that she might learn what had to be done. The girl trailed disconsolately behind, sheathed in fine cotton wraps against the searing heat of the sun, her face showing her distaste at everything to do with the project.

  They started at dawn, hoping to have success before the heat became too unbearable; but in case it did, they brought light canopies and couches with them for shade and rest.

  Hatshepsut knew enough about the kind of places water was likely to be found not to waste her time on impossible sites. The first four places she picked, though having the potential, brought no reaction from the L-shaped copper rods held loosely and expertly in her hands.

  Wearily, as the day grew hotter and hotter, the entourage followed Pharaoh further along the rocky, desolate valley. At last she agreed to the canopies being set up and the precious water jars broached. Thankfully they settled down to rest, the miners stretching out on the sand, Neferure and Hatshepsut side by side on the travelling couch.

  “There's no water here, mother,” Neferure sulked. “Why do you pretend?"

  “I'm not pretending, daughter,” Hatshepsut said wearily. “There is water. It is just a matter of finding it."

  Neferure sighed. She expected a lecture on how one must never assume when one could not see something that it was not there—but, for once, it did not come. Why were they doing this? Surely all this could be done by others. Surely a pharaoh should be resting in a cool room with a goblet of cold wine at the elbow and servants wielding ostrich-feather fans. She looked around them. As far as the eye could see there was rock and sand shimmering in the heat—yellowish, reddish, monotonous, lifeless. They had long since lost sight of the mining village. What if they could not find their way back there, let alone to their distant home? She was exhausted and frightened and bored. Tears began to gather in her eyes. She turned away from her mother, afraid that she would see them and chide her for showing weakness in front of men. “Pharaoh is strong. Pharaoh is god. All look up to him. He cannot waver. He cannot be afraid."

  But she had seen her mother weep. She had come running in from play one day when she was small, her eyes dazzled from the sun. She stood still at the entrance to her mother's chamber unnoticed, waiting for her temporary sun-blindness to pass. She heard the most terrible sobs she had ever heard—and then she saw her mother lying diagonally across the bed as though she had flung herself there in her despair, her shoulders shaking.

  The child was so shocked she crept out again without making her presence known. Mothers did not cry like that—let alone pharaohs! It was on that day, for the first time in her protected and privileged life, that Neferure knew fear and loneliness. Even Senmut did not comfort her when she ran to him for reassurance. His expression was hard and abstracted and he turned away from her impatiently before she could begin to tell him what she had seen.

  Her mother was asleep now, her tense body relaxed for once. Neferure allowed the tears to flow, and with them a prayer to all the gods she could think of to take her home as quickly and as safely as possible.

  Suddenly Hatshepsut sat up, clear-eyed and eager to be on the move again. Neferure groaned. She had just managed to calm down enough to drift off to sleep with her left thumb in her mouth—another thing her mother told her pharaohs did not do.

  Hatshepsut had been shown a valley in her dreams, on the other side of the ridge of hills, and it was here her rods moved decisively, swinging out from the centre as though moved by ghostly hands—and it was here she told them to dig.

  “You will move your village to this side of the ridge, and tunnel through to the mine from here. That way you will have water on your doorstep—as much as you want."

  Neferure stared at the dry, crackling sand beneath which Hatshepsut had said they would find water. The men were bowing to her and singing praises to the god she was, without any proof that there was actually water there. Neferure's own rods had done nothing. She could never feel the “earth energies” that Hatshepsut and Senmut talked about, never understand what they meant when they called a place to build a temple or raise an obelisk or statue, or even plant a tree, “the will of Maat". The “will of Maat” seemed to refer to the rightness of its being precisely there and nowhere else. She had seen them worrying for days over where to put a statue or a stele and then, when they had decided to settle for one place that seemed no different from any other, they rejoiced as though they had found a lost gold pin in a sand dune. It was true the placing, once it was done, always felt right. She had known her mother to order the pulling down of a building because it interrupted the flow of what she called “Maat's will". On these occasions even Neferure had to agree the building had somehow seemed wrong in its particular location—and had always had a gloomy or uncomfortable atmosphere about it.

  But she would never understa
nd the things her mother understood! How would she ever take her place?

  Water was found where Hatshepsut had said it would be, though the well shaft had to go deeper than any they had dug before.

  * * * *

  It was Hatshepsut's idea that Neferure's visit should be particularly noted on the stele that was to be erected to commemorate their visit, but the wording was Senmut's:

  Neferure, beloved of Senmut. May she live as Lady of the Two Lands, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt. Beautiful in the sight of Ra.[5]

  [5—“Neferure, beloved of Senmut...” During her lifetime Hatshepsut bestowed titles on Neferure more suited to a ruler than a princess. There is an inscription in a small temple in Sinai very similar to this. See Donald B. Redford, History and Chronology of the 18th Dynasty, University of Toronto Press, 1967, p.850.]

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  The Egyptian ships built sturdily of cedar wood turned into the bay, wind filling their sails and the oarsmen using their great oars merely to steer. It seemed that a thousand small canoes were bobbing towards them on the water, and every cliff and rock on shore as far as the eye could see was crowded with black figures watching their approach. The crews were tired and nervous, but the captains were dressed in clean, crisp linen, hair well oiled and dressed, standing in the prow of each ship, ready for whatever the encounter with these foreigners might bring.

  This was the first time an official Egyptian expedition had visited the land of Punt since very ancient times. The trade in precious gold, incense and myrrh was usually carried laboriously overland to Nubia, and thence over mountain and desert to Egypt. An occasional adventurous merchant had risked the terrors of the great ocean, but never had the local inhabitants seen a fleet of such huge vessels as were now silently moving in to shore.

  The first canoes reached them, looking like so many floating seedpods. Tall black figures stood precariously in their rocking craft, waving their arms and shouting—whether in greeting or in anger it was difficult to tell. Impassively the Egyptian captains continued to stand with their arms folded on their chests, staring straight ahead and delivering short, sharp commands to drive the great ships on. There were well-armed men standing ready—but Pharaoh had demanded that there should be no unnecessary bloodshed.

  Senmut was in the first ship of the fleet and, gazing down into the clear aquamarine, noticed that the floor of the bay was shelving deeply towards the beach. The timber keel juddered on the crystal sand and the ship came to a sudden standstill. By the shouting and the waving of arms from the canoes it was clear now that they had been sent out to warn the strangers of this very hazard.

  The captain of Senmut's ship was no longer so impassive and was shouting orders and imprecations in equal proportion. The men in the canoes were grinning and laughing, their teeth showing startlingly white in their black faces. They moved round and round the beached ship, their singing and chanting sounding like the whine and buzz of flies around a carcass to the irate captain. Senmut, having grasped that they were in no danger, listened with interest to the rhythmic sounds and felt a thrill of excitement to think that they would soon be ashore in this legendary land.

  Was this the place Hatshepsut had seen in her vision? It was as she had described: distant mountains fading blue into blue; forests, green on green; men as black as Nubians, but different in stature and feature; houses built on stilts.

  Larger boats were now setting off from the beach, decorated with flowers and leaves. Officials in robes were standing under fluttering canopies.

  “This is better,” muttered the captain, now content that their reception would be a peaceful and amiable one. Stone anchors were dropped one by one.

  * * * *

  The people of Punt had known of their approach for days. Lookouts had been following their progress down the coast, sending fire signals at frequent intervals. Spies had swum out to the ships at night and brought back reports of the fabulous trade goods piled up on the decks. The fleet was deemed to be friendly, but just in case, Perehu, the King of Punt, called up a huge host of warriors, ordering them to remain out of sight. He now waited on the beach to greet the strangers, clad peacefully in cloak and crown of coloured feathers, his grotesquely fat Queen, mother of twelve of his children, standing a few paces behind him. His children, arranged according to size in two rows, were further up the beach. Courtiers in their best finery flanked him, and between him and the place where the strangers would first put foot on this land, crouched the royal shaman, watching with lynx eyes everything that happened. He had already marked the sand secretly with a line of coloured dust. If any one of these foreigners harboured a hostile thought towards his King, he would be destroyed as he stepped across the line. If that failed, his hand was fingering the power charms in his pouch.

  Senmut was the first to step over it. The shaman's eyes narrowed as the alien foot scuffed up some of the coloured dust. But nothing happened to him. He stepped forward and greeted the King of Punt as Hatshepsut had instructed him—with a slight inclination of the head while his hand inscribed the sign for eternal life in the air before him.

  One by one the captains crossed the shaman's line unharmed. Only one, the fifth, coughed and put his hand to his throat, then fell to the ground, choking. Senmut turned to see what the commotion was. Uneasily his crew stood around him. The physician priest with the fleet stepped forward at once, hastily bringing out some strong-smelling herbs for the man to sniff—but it seemed as though he was too late. The man was almost dead.

  Senmut caught an almost imperceptible nod between the King and the shaman. The shaman strode forward and put his hand on the head of the choking man. Several Egyptians moved forward angrily to push him aside, but paused when the choking ceased. The man was not dead, but he seemed very weak and was wheezing badly. As it happened, it was not until he was on board his ship again and turned for home that he recovered his health completely.

  But at this time no one suspected witchcraft. If anything, Senmut was grateful to the shaman, barbaric, weird and frightening as he appeared, for his quick attention and the effectiveness of his healing. “I must learn from him,” Senmut decided, and he felt elated to think of all that there was to learn from this strange and remote country. He had been doubtful when Hatshepsut told him that Amun-Ra had commanded her to mount this expedition to bring back incense trees for her temple. He had argued against it: “Too far, too dangerous, too expensive.” He had told her he did not want to be away from her and the Two Lands for so long. He had suggested that he might not return. But she had been adamant. “Now,” he thought, “I'm glad I came—and I know I shall bring back more than incense trees to Khemet."

  * * * *

  That night in a smoke-filled clearing in the forest, with the strange reed houses high on stilts behind them, the King of Punt entertained them to a magnificent feast and a display of dancing which, for its sheer power and energy and stirring rhythm, outdid any they had ever witnessed before.

  Senmut noted that his men clustered close together. Huge drums were beaten until they were not sure whether the sound was coming from their own hearts or from the earth itself. Dancers, naked apart from feathers in their hair and paint on their bodies and faces, stamped and thundered until the dust flew, mingling with the smoke from the fires and torches to make an eerie fog, out of which figures loomed and into which they disappeared.

  Senmut heard the change in the rhythm of the drum beat. It was broken slightly and then accelerated. He found his heart was hammering and he knew that he was afraid. His men were terrified. He could see that. But the King and his wife were sitting peacefully on their great carved chairs, smiling amicably, watching as though what they were witnessing was something commonplace.

  Suddenly the air was filled by a high, ululating sound, coming from the throats of hundreds of women who formed a huge circle around the dancers. They seemed to be clutching at each other's hands, trying to keep the circle unbroken, while some unseen force was tryi
ng to break it up. Senmut saw that the shaman was in the very centre. He had not noticed him before and could not imagine how he could have missed him. He was such a distinctive figure—skeletally thin, his face a grotesque painted mask, his hair so dressed with scarlet feathers it seemed to stand out around his head like a shining fireball in the muted red glow of the fog. Around his waist he wore a fringe of apron made of human bones.

  Senmut's eyes followed the shaman's eyes as he stared at one particular part of the straining, shrieking circle of women. He saw the circle break and the women scatter—and then, into the clearing, came dancing some of the most macabre figures he had ever seen. Whether it was the effect of the fog or whether it was the heady liquor and strange food he had been plied with all evening, Senmut thought that some of the figures were transparent. A chill rippled up his spine and the skin on his arms goose-pimpled. Some of these dancers were not made of flesh and blood ... some of them were disembodied spirits...

  The shaman greeted them with wild and savage glee and led them in a sinuous serpent line round and round the clearing. Senmut could see the King and Queen shrink back in their chairs as though even they were afraid of these new visitors. The other dancers, the women, the Egyptians, had all drawn back into the shadows. The drums continued to beat. The other-world beings wove in and out of the firelight, their feet stamping the earth but making no sound, throwing up no dust.

  Senmut swallowed hard but did not move. He had the feeling that if he moved he would die, that if anyone of flesh and blood, apart from the shaman and the drummers, moved—they would be dead. No one did. As though turned to stone, the people of Punt and the people of Khemet together watched the ghostly dance in stillness and in silence.

  At last, when Senmut felt the tension was at breaking point, the shaman led his extraordinary band out of the clearing and into the huge shadows of the forest beyond the houses.

  The drums began to sound a gentler beat, the other dancers began to come back. The women began to sing. But this time the mood was of rejoicing and of gratitude. The ancestors had graced their celebration with their presence. All was well. Gradually the music and the mood calmed down until Senmut's men, as though released from a spell, shifted about and began to talk excitedly and nervously to each other.