their captors, urged forwards by prods from spears, their steps hobbled by the chains that bound them. Yet they walked as straight as they were able to, tall men, their dark naked torsos powdered with Theban dust; men who still held their bodies with the swagger of power, men with rings of gold in their ears and hatred in their hooded eyes.
So, I thought, these must be the rebel leaders from the wretched Kush. They should know better than to challenge the dominion of Khemet. Prompted by the soldiers with spears, they fell to their knees in front of the dais and kissed the ground. On the far right, I noticed a young boy, considerably shorter than the rest. He must be about my age, I thought with a shock. Walking into Thebes to meet his death, while I stood on a dais above him, a new life growing beneath my heart.
Indeed, it was at that very moment, when I caught the young prince’s eyes – for prince he surely was, else why had he been brought before the King and not simply executed – it was then that I felt, for the first time, the delicate butterfly tickle of a new babe stirring in my slightly swollen abdomen. I put my hand on it. Perhaps, I thought, it is my son. Coming to life while that one comes to death.
My husband conducted the hearing with great dignity. The captives were prodded to their feet, to face the Pharaoh and hear their fate. They stood impassively. “Hear ye,” he said, “thus Egypt punishes those that question our sovereignty. For we have been given dominion over our vassal states, of which Nubia is one. Therefore you are bound to honour the Pharaoh and obey his laws and pay his tribute. To rebel is treason, and punishment for treason is death.” Screams and ululations went up from the crowd. “You, as leaders of the rebellion, are hereby sentenced to be killed and hung head downwards from the walls of Thebes.” Another roar echoed along the dusty avenue as the sentence was pronounced.
I felt a sudden wave of nausea as I looked at the young prince. He must have expected that he too would be executed, but he showed no fear, standing straight as a young tree. Even then he already had a striking presence. When the sentence was pronounced, he did not flinch. He held his head high and his eyes met mine and did not slide away. One day, I thought, I shall have a son whose courage will match his.
Without planning to, I suddenly found myself speaking. “Husband,” I said, “Pharaoh. I beg a word.”
He turned to me courteously but with some surprise. The ranks of senior advisers and priests ranged below our thrones shifted and shuffled. It was not customary for the Great Royal Wife to speak at such occasions. Yet now that I had begun, I had to continue. “It is of course right that rebels should be punished, and in a manner to deter all who might dream of such actions,” I said. “Pharaoh has dealt with them according to their deserts. But Ma’at demands not merely punishment for those who disturb its order. Ma’at is also justice.” I was glad that my voice did not tremble and that it was bold but not shrill. I raised it so that I might be clearly heard. “And justice,” I said, “includes mercy. There is one young man among the captives who surely had no hand in the planning of this rebellion, who fought, if he did fight, on the orders of his father, as would any young Egyptian in his place. I beg the great Pharaoh to show mercy towards him. Let him not be executed. Please, great Lord. Let him be spared.”
For a long moment, my husband frowned as he deliberated. One or two of the priests were nodding. They seemed to agree with my comment about Ma’at. “Very well,” said Thutmose. “We shall be merciful. The prince is spared.” Now the fickle crowd cheered this pronouncement also.
So Pharaoh gave him life and decreed that he was to be educated and sent back eventually to a position of trust in his own country – with, of course, an outlook favourable to our kingdom. Khani was tutored with the children of the upper classes in Thebes, joined the military and progressed to the rank of Officer Commanding the Division of Sobek, currently quartered in Thebes. Commander Thutmose (my nephew-stepson Thutmose, he who would be King) would have sent Khani back to Nubia long ago, but I insisted that he remain here in Egypt. I tell Thutmose that we have need of him because he is an outstanding trainer of soldiers and he is always able to convert the children of conquered enemies into faithful warriors in the Pharaoh’s army. But in truth I need him because his loyalty is to me. I have need of men whom I can trust absolutely.
When I look at Khani, I remember with great clarity the day when he stood before my husband the King together with the other captives from Nubia. Thinking of that day, it seems to me that we were both no more than children then, but at the time I felt mature. Especially I recall that when the youth inclined his head, it was to me that he bowed, not to the King. So he has always been my loyal supporter and, I think, my friend – perhaps, since Senenmut passed into the Afterlife, may he live, the only true friend that the Pharaoh has.
And now he stood before me, an adult and a soldier, one who spied for me.
“Bad news,” Khani informed me. “It seems that the Mitanni are stirring up trouble on our borders with Canaan, aided by the Hittites.”
“Surely not true,” I said, angrily. “The Mitanni are supposed to act as a buffer between the Black Land and the Hittites. They should be dependable, considering the amount of gold we send them. How accurate is your information?”
Khani just looked at me with his inscrutable obsidian eyes. I sighed. I knew that his sources were always impeccable. If he told me something as a fact, he had checked it carefully.
Of course I have a counsellor who advises me on foreign affairs, one Seni, an elderly bureaucrat who served my late father, may he live, and now faithfully serves me. He is spare of figure and sparing of words, but his advice is always well thought through and precisely expressed, and I pay attention to it. Yet my royal father, Pharaoh Thutmose the First, taught me never to depend upon a single source of information or advice and always to discover what the common people are saying. So I have sources of information that are not known to all. Khani is one of them.
“The Great Commander Thutmose is planning and preparing for a campaign,” he went on. “The intensity of training has increased. He has ordered many horses.”
“I have given no such instructions,” I said furiously.
As Pharaoh I am the absolute head of the armed forces and they may undertake no campaign that I have not decreed should take place. The upstart is angering me seriously. He is assuming powers that he does not have. Of course, it is true that he was crowned. I cannot deny that fact, but it should never have happened.
The young Thutmose, child of my husband Thutmose the Second and Isis, a mere concubine, had been given to the priests to learn the rites, to become himself a priest of Amen and to serve the God. He was no more than a little-regarded juvenile. But when my husband passed into the Afterlife, may he live for ever, the priests suddenly realised that they had an opportunity to control all Egypt. With a little boy they could use as a puppet on the throne, they would have power over the Two Lands such as the priesthood had never had before.
There have always been factions in Egypt, but a single faction had never yet gained overall control. One faction that traditionally opposes the priesthood is the military. Since the Pharaoh is also the Ultimate Commander of the army and usually sides with them, they are extremely powerful. At this moment, the priests of Amen saw their chance to tilt the balance of power in their own favour, and they took it.
So, when one fine day in the temple of Amen-Ra it appeared for all the world as if the choice of the God fell on the child as he stood among the priests who had the care of him, there was a simple explanation for that event and it was not a supernatural one. That much should be obvious to anyone with half an understanding. It was not the child’s doing, of course. He had seen only ten risings of the Nile when my husband died and he did not have the wit to plan and execute such a drama at that age. But the priests did.
During a ceremonial procession in the temple of Amen-Ra that day the gilded barque bearing the God, its carrying poles shouldered by eight strapping priests, paused in its stately circling of the enormous hall. It hesitated, reversed and bowed down in front of the surprised small figure of the child Thutmose, seeming to indicate that the God wanted him to ascend the Double Throne. But there was no truth in that pivotal moment. No mystery. No magic. It was a spectacle thought up and carefully executed by the priesthood.