Authors: Pauline Gedge
Disenk was not in my room and Hunro was still asleep, a motionless mound of rumpled sheets. I sent a runner for my body servant, and while I waited for her I paced the damp grass outside, alone in all that vast space, while the sky above the building turned from pale pink to a delicate blue and the air heated suddenly and became filled with the odour of unseen blossoms. At last I was to see Hui’s enemy, Egypt’s curse, Pharaoh’s bane, the High Priest of Amun, yet my heartbeat was strong and steady and my mind calm. Lifting my arms and my face to the new day I smiled into the limitless expanse of blue. All was unfolding as Hui had said.
Bathed, perfumed, painted and clothed in transparent white linen embroidered with red flowers, I was ready for the palace servant who came to escort me to Ramses. My mouth gleamed with red ochre. My heavy wig of a hundred braids framed my kohled face and rested stiffly against my draped shoulders. Gold bands enamelled in crimson embraced my wrists and imprisoned my neck. I was beautiful, and I knew it. Proudly I swayed after the man who led me out the front entrance of the harem, Disenk behind me.
Several litters were assembled there, surrounded by a glittering, restless crowd of women and servants, all chattering in high-pitched voices as the morning breeze, not yet staled, plucked at their expensive linens and lifted the tresses of their elaborate wigs. Palace and harem guards waited on the perimeter, dappled in the tossing shade of the trees. I was taken aback. I had conceived the notion that Ramses and I would go to the temple together in a pleasant intimacy, but it seemed that half the harem had shared the invitation I had thought was extended to me alone. I looked for the Lady of the Two Lands but could not see her. “Where is Ast?” I muttered to Disenk.
“She will have left already,” Disenk murmured back. “The Great Queen does not wait about with concubines.”
“And who is that?” I pointed surreptitiously to a woman who was sitting on a stool on the verge and watching the confusion with lofty indifference. Several guards clustered near her and four servants were laden down with what appeared to be her cloak, cosmetic box, sweetmeat container and other things. It was difficult to judge her age or her nationality from where I was standing, but her skin was very sallow and I could tell that the thick, winged eyebrows had not been kohled. Their blackness was natural.
“That is the Great Wife Ast-Amasareth,” Disenk answered softly. “I think you know of her. Pharaoh values her above all his other wives. She is very wise.” Is she indeed? I thought cynically, looking her over. She must have sensed my scrutiny for her raven’s eyes swivelled in my direction and fastened on me. Then one hand was regally lifted. One jewelled finger crooked at me. The gesture was imperious and unmistakeable. I threaded my way through the crowd, and coming up to her I bowed. She regarded me steadily for a moment, then she said, “You are the concubine Thu. You spent the night with Ramses. I am Great Wife Ast-Amasareth.” Her tones were deep for a woman, imbued with a slight but musical accent that sounded familiar. My father’s words had just such a twist but gentler, less obvious. I remembered that she had been a prisoner of war, brought back to Egypt from Libu.
Boldly I studied her. Only her eyes were beautiful, large and lustrous. Her skin was too olive, her nose too small, her mouth uneven. Yet the impression given by the whole was one of intelligence and magnetism. She met my gaze coolly until I felt suddenly impudent and lowered my eyes.
“News travels with amazing speed in this place, Great Wife,” I answered her. “I was indeed honoured with a whole night on Ramses’ couch.” There was a pause before she spoke again.
“A night of lovemaking is one thing,” she said smoothly. “A night of sleep with Pharaoh is quite another. Do you see the girl to your left, even now getting into her litter?” Surprised, I turned. A pretty young woman, far gone in pregnancy, was lowering herself with some difficulty onto the cushions and scolding the servant who was assisting her as she did so. “That is Eben, Pharaoh’s favourite concubine,” the husky voice went on. “Her star is fading and she knows it. The child will not save her, indeed, as a mother she will have lost all intrigue for the King. I reside above Queen Ast. Come and visit me.” She waved me away and I saw that a litter had arrived beside her. I retreated. With supreme dignity she rose and settled herself gracefully inside it while her entourage sprang to surround her. She twitched the curtains closed without another glance at me. I rejoined Disenk. A procession of litters was forming and the group was thinning. I moved towards an empty one.
“Eben,” I said to Disenk as we walked. “A foreign name.” Disenk sniffed.
“Her mother is Maxyes or Peleset, I forget which,” she commented disdainfully, “and her father is a palace guard. She is common and brainless.” I scrambled onto the litter.
“You did not tell me about her.” Disenk looked down on me with an expression of distaste.
“She is beneath your consideration.”
I wondered, as I was lifted and we set off, whether Disenk regarded me secretly with the same contempt since my background was similar to the unfortunate Eben’s. I hoped not, but then decided that I did not care. Much as I liked her, the opinion of a servant was becoming less and less important to me.
We were carried through the city, a cavalcade of colourful privilege, while the Herald called a warning and the guards cleared a way for us, and we alighted at the far end of the vast paved concourse that lay before Amun’s mighty first pylon. The sphinx-lined square was black with people craning to catch a glimpse of Pharaoh. As I stood and looked about I saw him and drew in a quick breath.
Surrounded by his ministers and acolytes he was about to enter the temple. Ast was beside him, a tiny, glittering vision of blood and precedent, but my glance did not rest on her. It became fixed on Ramses. In the relative privacy of the royal bedchamber I was slowly becoming used to the mountain of distasteful flesh that encased him. Its weight and feel, though no longer repulsive, could not yet be disregarded as I hoped it would with the passage of time. But here, in the shimmering, merciless glare of light reflecting off the white surface of the concourse, it was transformed into the physical manifestation of kingly power. Regal and imposing, the huge body radiated the authority of a god. He was clad in a pleated knee-length kilt, its triangular starched apron encrusted with carnelian scarabs that glinted dully as he moved. From his belt hung the bull’s tail, curving over his ample buttocks and brushing the ground, a reminder of his uniqueness as the Mighty Bull of Ma’at. His massive chest was almost invisible under a great pectoral of blue and green faience ankhs held towards his face by kneeling goddesses of gold. Gold gripped his arms, the wide bracelets mounding the skin, and jasper ankhs on spears of gold hung from his ears. On his head was the khepresh crown, the rich, dark blue of its lapis curves emphasized by the dozens of golden studs that covered it. Above his high forehead the royal serpent Uraeus reared, Wazt, Lady of Spells, prepared to spit venom at any who approached with treason in their hearts. I saw his chubby hand, now transformed into a symbol of perfect pharaonic command, on fire with jewels as it rose and gestured imperiously. A horn blared. The divine pair moved in under the pylon and out of my sight.
I felt very small and insignificant as I joined the select crowd who followed after, passing my sandals to Disenk before the holy precinct enveloped me. The floor of the outer court was warm and gritty under the soles of my feet. My lover is a god, I thought distinctly, with surprise, as if the knowledge was coming to me for the first time. My lover is divine omnipotence. Who then am I, with my insulting, secret contempt for him, my sacrilegious, private belittling of his shortcomings? My presumptuous judgements were worth less than nothing, the tiny bleat of an anonymous mouse in the granaries of my lord. Humbled, I went through the customary obeisances and prayers while the doors to the roofed inner court were opened and Ramses and Ast approached the sanctuary. But my fervent reflections ceased as a group of men came out from behind one of the vast pillars and joined the King.
The High Priest and First Prophet of Amun, Usermaarenakht, was easy to recognize, but not because he resembled the cunning embodiment of evil I had built up in my mind. In fact he was disappointingly ordinary to look at, just a middle-aged man of pleasant face and dignified bearing, a shaft of sunlight from one of the clerestory windows striking his shaven skull and making his spotless priestly linen glow. He wore the distinctive mark of Amun’s Chief Prophet, the leopard skin, which clung to his back, its paws clutching his shoulders, its head lolling lifelessly on his right breast. To me it seemed as though the creature had him in its control. Its embrace was greedy, predatory. His companions were obviously the Second and Third Prophets, with their similarly closely shaved heads, their sashes of sacerdotal office and their white staffs. The High Priest bowed, somewhat perfunctorily I thought, to Ramses, and opened the sanctuary doors. A gush of fragrant incense poured out and I caught a brief glimpse of the God seated on his granite throne, his body encased in gold, his double plumes rising high above his noble brow, before Pharaoh and Usermaarenakht went in and the doors were quickly closed behind them. A chair was brought for Queen Ast. Chanting began, and dancers with systra tinkling in their hands filed into the inner court.
I looked about for Ast-Amasareth but saw Eben instead. The girl was leaning against a servant, her hands under her large belly, her expression strained. Sweat had beaded in her cleavage. I looked away with uncharacteristic pity, suddenly and fervently glad that our positions were not reversed. Ast-Amasareth’s words came back to me and I vowed that I would do my best not to become pregnant with Ramses’ child. Under no circumstances would I give the King an excuse to supplant me.
Whatever rites the King was performing took a very long time and I was both bored and very thirsty by the time the horns barked again and he reappeared. As he paused for the Lady of the Two Lands to compose herself at his elbow, his kohled eyes travelled the company and came to rest on me. His hennaed lips curved in an unselfconscious smile. Ast had followed his gaze. I saw no recognition on her face but the dainty features settled into a mask of dislike. She whispered something to Ramses that wiped the smile from his face and together they processed out into the glare of the day and the roaring horde of expectant city-dwellers.
I had presumed to spend the rest of the day in my own quarters but a Herald accosted me as I left my litter and was walking under the leafy shade of the clustering trees to the entrance of the harem.
“Concubine Thu,” he said without preamble. “Pharaoh has commanded your presence at his feast this evening to honour the departing High Priest of Amun. Prepare yourself accordingly. You will be summoned at sundown.” He turned on his heel with the arrogance of all Heralds, who spend their lives conveying the orders of others, and I swung excitedly to Disenk.
“I must have something new to wear, something startling,” I said as we passed the harem guards and paced the narrow, walled-in path to our courtyard. “I do not want to be elegant, Disenk, I want to be noticed!” Her tight little nostrils pinched.
“Elegance is to be preferred,” she said firmly. “You do not want to cause the attention given to a common dancer or a superior whore. We may do something different with the cosmetics, Thu, but I strongly advise a decorous mode of dress.” She was right of course. My plans did not include finding myself immobilized in the futureless mode of such women. Therefore at sunset I was waiting in my cell, garbed in a white, gold-bordered sheath with a high neckline and broad shoulder straps. One necklace lay against my collarbone and in its centre was one finely wrought likeness of the goddess Hathor with her benignly smiling face and gentle cow’s horns curving towards my throat. One bracelet encircled my wrist. One scarab ring sat on my right hand. The wig that touched my shoulders was straight and very simple. The circlet cutting across my forehead held no adornment at all. But above the thick black kohl around my eyes Disenk had painted my eyelids with gold and sprinkled them with gold dust. The lobes of my ears were also gold, and though my palms and the soles of my feet were hennaed, my mouth felt heavy with more gold. Gold dust clung to my arms, my feet, the hollow of my throat, where the saffron-scented oil gripped it, so that when I came at last to look myself up and down in the copper mirror the effect was remarkable. My clothing was as modest as could be, yet my face and body glittered tauntingly with the promise of something exotic, mysterious, subtly sexual.
I thanked my magician profusely, tasting the metallic strangeness of the gold on my lips, and she smiled coolly and nodded. She was to accompany me to taste my food and drink and serve me, and for that I was relieved. I was feeling once again the momentousness of an occasion I saw as yet another test and I wondered whether the whole of my life would be like this, one new experience to be conquered after another. Inwardly I blessed Hui for providing me with the accoutrements I needed and I wished for a fleeting moment that I was going to enter Pharaoh’s banqueting hall on his firm, slightly daunting arm.
As it was, I went in alone but for Disenk, and was initially unnoticed. When the summons came, we had followed the servant back through the entrance to the harem in a sweet, warm dusk, cutting across the soft grass to join the main paved way to the palace entrance. It was swarming with guards and guests and we were challenged then allowed to pass. The mighty entrance hall had doors in its right-hand wall and we drifted through them with the throng. The roar of excited voices rose to a din. I found myself in a room so vast that the ceiling was a mere suggestion, so wide that I could barely make out the row of pillars at the far end through which the night breeze was sending puffs of welcome freshness. Hundreds of people milled about, their gossamer linens brushing the garlands of dewy flowers lying on the low dining tables set ready for them. Young servants clad in loincloths slipped among them like sinuous eels, offering necklaces of woven flowers, cones of perfumed grease to be tied on top of their wigs, and cups of wine. One approached me and bowed. I allowed him to attach a cone above my head, and as I was reaching for wine a palace Herald interposed himself between us and nodded briefly. “Concubine Thu?” I returned his nod. “I will show you to your table. Follow please.” To my surprise and delight I had been accorded a place right at the foot of the raised dais where the royal family would dine. “This is very good,” Disenk said complacently as I tried to keep my balance in the crush of hot, anticipant bodies. “Very good indeed. You will be in Pharaoh’s line of vision all night.”