Authors: Pauline Gedge
“But I am your servant, Lady Thu,” he said. “A servant of love, a slave. Only you and Paibekamun will know that Pharaoh has debased himself thus, and Paibekamun will not tell!” He twinkled up at me. “Will you?” I opened my mouth to make a witty rejoinder but the cloth, followed by his fingers, was passing over my now undeniably distended abdomen. I stiffened. All at once he rose, and sitting on the edge of the couch, drew me towards him. I met his eyes. “Either my Lady is eating too much honey or there is a royal bud inside her, preparing to flower,” he said. “Yet it cannot be the honey, for she only bulges in one place. You are pregnant, aren’t you, Thu?” My impulse was to push him away and grab a sheet with which to cover myself. Instead, I forced an answering smile.
“Yes, it is true,” I admitted. “I did not want to give your Majesty the happy news until I was certain.”
“Hmm.” His glance became shrewd. “It seems that you have waited a very long time to assure yourself. Well, I am pleased. Your old lover’s seed is still potent and his little scorpion will become his little fruit tree. It is the way of things, is it not?” He planted a soft kiss on my cheek. “I have exhausted you tonight,” he said. “Go now, and if there is anything you need you must ask for it from Amunnakht.” I began to gather up my clothes.
“Does your Majesty still desire my presence tomorrow to go duck hunting in the north?” I asked diffidently as I pulled on my sheath. Ramses looked shocked.
“But of course, why not?” he declared. He patted my abdomen, kissed me again, and turned away, heaving himself onto his couch with a groan. “Sleep well, Thu,” he called as I moved to the door. “A mother must get plenty of rest. Guard the royal life within you.” I did not answer, making my final obeisance and letting myself out in silence.
As I walked back to my quarters, absently acknowledging the greeting of the guards at the palace wall and facing the welcome draught of air that always blew along the narrow path between palace and harem, I dissected every word, expression and gesture of the last few moments, searching for a withdrawal, a new coolness on Ramses’ part, but I could find nothing. Give him time to absorb the news, I told myself as I entered my own door and Disenk rose from her mat to prepare me for bed. Perhaps everything will be all right. Perhaps I will be the exception to Pharaoh’s well-known, cruel rule. Perhaps his love for me will triumph. Perhaps. Who knows?
I got onto my couch and composed myself for sleep and my gaze fell on the large cushion in the depths of which nestled the vital scroll. I tried to tell myself that ultimately the King’s reaction would not matter, that even if he did cast me adrift I would still become a queen in the fullness of time. But the vision of him crouched at my feet and grinning up at me, cloth in hand, came back vividly, and I knew that it did matter. It mattered a great deal. I wanted more than anything else in the world to be able to trust him.
The following day we went duck hunting in the lush northern marshes. Ramses was his attentive, cheerful self, and on the next evening I took my accustomed place on the dais at his feet, jewelled, wigged and painted, while he feted a delegation from Alashia. I accompanied him back to his chambers afterwards, and in the hour before dawn we made love and fell asleep together, but he had gone when I woke, and Paibekamun hustled me away with a speed that bordered on contempt.
Anxiously I waited for another summons, for I knew that the court was about to decamp to the desert, less in search of game than to briefly enjoy the pretence of a simpler life, but it did not come. I spent four sleepless nights and tense days before the aristocrats and ministers returned and Ramses sent for me. He greeted me as though he had not seen me for a year, and I was forcibly and unpleasantly reminded of the occasion when I had offended him and been temporarily banished, but when I asked him somewhat hesitantly why I had been excluded from the mass exodus he looked shocked. “The desert is no place for a pregnant woman, particularly one who is to bear a royal child,” he explained. “I would do nothing to endanger your health, my Thu. What did you think? That I was about to abandon you? Come. Smile for me, and let me feel the baby kick in your womb. Then we will walk in the garden and have a picnic by the pool, just you and I.” I had indeed been afraid that he was about to abandon me, but I was reassured by his manner, and further reassured by the summons to more feasts and entertainments when it seemed that nothing had changed.
I was able to cling to my illusion for another two months. By then it was Athyr, the weather cool and the river almost at its peak and running swift and strong. I was in my eighth month. I had given up my exercises, for they caused me discomfort, and I found myself enveloped in a pervasive somnolence that had me sleeping late and spending much time sitting outside my door on the grass, my thoughts drifting.
Ramses was sending for me less often and his lovemaking had become cursory in spite of my redoubled efforts to be inventive between his sheets. His conversation was still affectionate but often vague, as though his thoughts were elsewhere, and though I did my best to please him my all too obvious desperation made him wary. Still I held rashly to the belief that even though his desire for me was waning it had not been kindled by another woman, and once my baby was born and I had regained my slim figure, I could easily recapture the Mighty Bull.
But one day I saw a girl striding past the fountain. She paused to dabble her fingers in its crystal flow before straightening and moving on, a supple, slender form with all the sinuous grace of the desert lion. Her black hair swung against the small of her back as she went, and she held her head high. I called to Disenk. “That girl,” I said, pointing. “Find out who she is, Disenk, and how long she has been in the harem. I do not recall having seen her before.” A premonition of disaster had gripped me at the sight of her, and the baby had set up a flurry of painful kicks against my belly.
Soon my servant returned, and I could tell from her demeanour as she approached me that the information I sought was not good. The sense of an impending storm intensified and my head suddenly began to ache. Disenk bowed. “Her name is Hentmira,” she said. “Her father is Overseer of the Faience Factories in the city. The family is very rich. Pharaoh saw her in the crowd at the New Year’s Day celebrations and sent Amunnakht to invite her into the harem.” The New Year’s Day celebrations! And I had been on Ramses’ arm, smugly oblivious, while his eye was already roving! A revulsion for the King and rage at my own blindness shook me.
“Is that all?” I asked tightly, seeing her hesitation. She shook her head.
“Hentmira has taken possession of your old cell,” she went on. “She and Hunro have known each other for years. Their parents live on adjoining estates. I am sorry, Thu.” The condescending pity in her voice enraged me further, and with a savage gesture I ordered her away.
So I am an outsider once more, I thought furiously, miserably. The old order closes ranks, and in spite of my title, my land, I am still nothing but a nonentity from Aswat. Jealousy poured, hot and acrid, through my veins. Hunro and that arrogant little upstart sharing the room where Hunro and I had talked together. Doubtless Hunro was far more comfortable exchanging frivolous memories and private family jokes with a fellow noblewoman than she had ever been trying to find a common ground with me. Hunro, flexing and swaying as she spoke, would tell Hentmira about me. “The woman who shared this cell before you, my dear, became Pharaoh’s favourite in spite of the fact that she is a mud-wader from some tiny backwater down south. But she hasn’t lasted, you know. She’s pregnant. These peasants can be indecently fertile …” And Hentmira would curl her aristocratic lips in a superior smile and agree. I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists in agony. No, I told myself fiercely. No, it is not that. Hunro was my friend, and I have no idea what virtues this Hentmira possesses. My hurt belongs to Ramses, Ramses, King and lover, who grows ever colder. Oh gods, what is to become of me? I am deathly afraid.
Three weeks passed, and it was the month of Khoiak. The Nile overflowed its banks, spilling its water and the vital silt onto the earth, and a scroll arrived from my Overseer to report that the flood had reached a height of fourteen cubits, and all my land was covered. The news was a flicker of joy in an otherwise dismal month but my mood soon darkened again. I tried to avoid any sight of Hentmira, for the King was silent and his messengers no longer knocked on my door, but sometimes I saw her treading the grass on her way to the bath house, her magnificent hair tousled and her eyes swollen with sleep, or sitting under the white gauze of her canopy in the company of the other women with whom she had quickly developed an easy familiarity. Her unaffected grace accentuated my bloated size and clumsiness. Her unspoiled youth made me feel old, jaded and used.
Khoiak also brought the great annual feasts of Osiris, when his death, burial and resurrection were celebrated with many rituals all over Egypt but primarily at Abydos. The harem emptied at this season as the women took part in the festivities, many of them journeying to the holy city, but because of my condition, and because Pharaoh had not invited me to participate in the rejoicing with him, I worshipped in Osiris’s shrine at Pi-Ramses.
It was as I was struggling to lower myself onto my litter outside the harem gates, surrounded by a loud confusion of women, servants, guards and litter-bearers all shouting and jostling for position, that I noticed Hentmira. Clad in a transparent yellow sheath that stirred against her shapely ankles and set off her tiny waist, a plain gold circlet imprisoning her gleaming hair, she was deep in conversation with the Chief Wife. Both were standing in the shade of the trees, well apart from the uproar, but their eyes were on me. Ast-Amasareth caught my gaze and smiled thinly, then deliberately turned back to the younger woman, but Hentmira continued to look my way inquisitively. What are you staring at? I wanted to shout at her rudely, stung both by her open interest and by Ast-Amasareth’s snub. Can you not see your own destruction in my misshapen body? Sebek will capture you too, proud concubine!
But suddenly it was I standing before the Chief Wife, watching with a prurient interest as poor Eben cursed fretfully at her bearers. I looked away, sick at heart. With a last heave I managed to settle myself on my cushions. “Close the curtains, Disenk,” I ordered, my voice thick, and once she had done so I turned on my side and lay in the softly filtered light with my hands covering my face. I could not shut out those faultless, aristocratic features, or the Chief Wife’s twisted, cold smile.
Yet on the evening following the conclusion of the cycle of Osiris Feasts I was summoned to Pharaoh’s chambers. Unprepared, I was lying naked on my couch while Disenk read to me, but all lassitude fled as the Herald bowed himself out. I came to my feet with renewed vigour, pouring out a stream of commands to my servant. My best sheath, the one with the golden flowers embroidered all over it, my wig of a hundred braids, my gold and carnelian necklet, the faience earrings … Disenk rushed to obey and within the hour, resplendent in my finery and carefully painted, I was rapping on Pharaoh’s door.
Paibekamun admitted me, sketching a bow. I pushed past him eagerly. Ramses was lying on his couch, his knees drawn up, his features twisted. My confidence began to drain away as I approached him. I could not perform a full obeisance but I did my best as he watched me, then he waved me closer. “Thu, I have missed you terribly,” he said. “Did you bring your herb box?” So that was the reason for the summons. Pharaoh was ill. Swallowing my bitter disappointment I nodded.
“I carry it always, Majesty,” I told him. “And if you have missed me so much, why have you not sent for me? I have been no further away than a short walk.” He looked abashed.
“I have been much occupied with state matters,” he muttered. “Besides, you have been in no condition for lovemaking.” I bit back the retort that had risen to my tongue, and placing my box on the table I opened it.
“What is wrong?” I asked.
“I have pains in my belly,” he complained, “and an excess of wind. The cramps come and go.” In spite of my discouragement I could not repress a smile as I removed the sheet covering him and gently felt his abdomen.
“The festivals of Osiris are only just concluded,” I said. “Your Majesty knows perfectly well what the matter is. Your Majesty has eaten and drunk too often and too freely, as usual.” I flipped the sheet back over him briskly. “I prescribe a large dose of castor oil, and when that has achieved the desired result, two days of nothing but honey mixed with saffron. Your Majesty must of course fast during the treatment.”
“Nasty little scorpion,” he said under his breath. I busied myself with extracting the castor oil from my box, and measuring out my supply of saffron.
“There!” I said crisply. “Have your servant bring you honey and add to it one ro of saffron twice a day. Is there anything else, Majesty? May I be dismissed?” He looked miserable. His eyes met mine, slid away, came back to me as I stood waiting. Then he waved at me irritably.
“Oh sit down, Thu! Talk to me! Tell me of your own health. Tell me what you have been doing. In spite of what you may think, I have indeed missed you.”
“Just what have you missed, my King?” I said softly as I took the chair. “Have you missed the delights of my body perhaps? It is the same body you loved to handle, indeed, it is surely even more desirable seeing that it shelters your child, conceived of the love you say you bear me.” His round face flushed and he fought free of his bedclothes and sat up, wincing.
“You should be my minister of foreign affairs,” he said wryly. “Such a talent for polite manipulation and subtle insult should not be wasted. I have given you a title, importunate one. I have given you land. Why can you not be content with that? What else can you possibly want?”
His words were an admission that my nights in his bed were over. A weight settled slowly about my heart. I felt it, heavy and cold, in my breast, and with it came a despairing recklessness. I no longer had anything to lose. Others would caress him, make him laugh, whisper to him in the darkness. Others would bask in the munificence of his royal smile, walk beside him, sit at his feet, be warmed with the reflected glory of his Godhead. My tiny nemesis stirred in my womb and I placed a hand over it.