In the year that followed, the royal house was again plunged into mourning by the passing of the Crown Prince. My brother Amenmose, who was an expert hunter and a superb soldier, broke his neck falling out of his fast-racing chariot during an ostrich hunt. He was killed instantly.
They brought him to the harem palace amid fearful weeping and wailing and laid him down on the bed in the room that had been his before he went to the Kap to be trained as a soldier. As soon as I heard the ululations of grief, I knew that something momentous had occurred. I ran to the room that seemed to be the centre of the storm. There he lay, with nothing more out of the ordinary to be seen than a graze running down the side of his cheek. Otherwise he looked just as if he slept: a young, handsome man, with a pronounced nose like that of our father the Pharaoh, and powerful arms and legs thanks to his military training. He might have been resting quietly on a long march.
The Royal Physician came and confirmed that the prince had indeed gone to the gods. My mother sat by his side holding his cold hand, but this time she did not weep, although I could see that shudders shook her frame. My father walked the floor and raged at everyone who had gone along on the expedition. He needed someone to blame. Nobody noticed me.
This time I did not run to talk to Hapi. Instead, I walked to one of the courtyards and sat down next to a fish pond. In the water golden carp circled.
A shadow fell across the water. I looked up. “Oh, it’s you,” I said, recognising Senenmut. Sad as I was, my heart lifted at the sight of him.
“I have heard about your brother, Princess,” he said. “It is grievous news.”
“Yes.” We were both silent for a bit. “Sit down and talk to me.”
He folded his legs into his scribe’s pose. More silence.
I closed my eyes, picturing the moment of sudden flight that had ended my brother’s life. “A terrible shock,” I said. “A sad loss.”
“Are you?” he asked. His dark eyes were questioning.
“Am I what?”
“Are you sad? Truly?”
“Why should I not be?” I asked indignantly. “I have lost my brother!”
“Then why do you not weep?”
I glared at him.
“It brings you closer to the throne,” he reminded me. “If you would still be Pharaoh.”
I had, truth to tell, been trying not to think this, yet thinking exactly this, and feeling at the same time enormously guilty to be thinking it. But I did not like this scribe looking so clearly into my shameful heart. “How dare you!” I said furiously. “You presume much!”
“You have the full blood royal,” he observed. “It would be natural, to be thinking about the succession. You need not feel shame.”
“I am not ashamed!” I scrambled to my feet.
He tilted his head back, looking at me with eyes like slits. “Then do not be so angry. It suggests guilt.”
He had thrust me into confusion and I liked it not. But I did not know how to depart with dignity.
“They say …” He stopped, tantalisingly.
I took the bait and sat down again. “Well, what do they say?”
“They say that the axle may have been … tampered with. It seems that the chariot had lately come from a complete overhaul. It should have been sturdy.”
A chill ran down my back like a small, cold snake. “Who would have done such a thing?”
“Someone in whose interest it would be for there not to be a strong Pharaoh when the current one passes, may he live for ever.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the priests, perhaps? It would greatly increase their power and influence.”
I nodded. This made sense. I trailed my hand in the cool water. The fish rose, snapping, as if expecting food. I glanced at the scribe. His eyes were calculating, as if he was not sure what to think of me. He could not – surely! – imagine that I had known, had in any way been involved …
“I did not wish my brother harm,” I said. “Truly, I did not. He was years older than me and I did not see much of him before he went to the Kap, but I did not … I would never … I did not wish him harm. You must believe it.”
He nodded and stood up. “I was called to the office of the palace housekeeper,” he said, “but that was before all of this. Yet I should go and see …”
“Of course,” I said, shortly. “Go.” He should wait, I thought crossly, to be dismissed. I was a princess, after all. But to him I was a child.
I looked after the tall figure with the broad shoulders as he walked away. I was affronted that he had looked at me suspiciously. I wanted him to look at me differently. Like … like the priests looked at me when I danced as the God’s Wife. Like that.
With my brother lying dead, I should not have been thinking of such matters. But I have sworn to write the truth, and the truth is that I did think of him so. I did.
Here endeth the fourth scroll.
I knew the late great Senenmut, may he live for ever. Indeed, I knew him well, for I often worked with him as one of many junior assistant scribes on the numerous building projects that he directed for Her Majesty as Overseer of the Royal Building Works. I was included in listing different types of building materials because I was a quarry scribe for a time and I know materials, especially marble. I was often present when Her Majesty came to inspect a site or to confer with Senenmut on a particular statue or decoration that she desired.
He was, I think, the only one of her officials who ever dared to oppose her in any matter of considerable importance, but he actually did that on more than one occasion when I was present. Mostly they were in complete accord as to what should be done, but sometimes she had an idea that he did not accept. He would not agree to build anything impracticable, nor would he allow her to make changes that would affect the integrity of the completed work. At times I feared that she would send him to the quarries for impertinence, but in the end he always had his way. And instead of falling from favour, he seemed only ever to rise – at least until shortly before he went to the gods. Something must have happened then, for he came less often to the palace and their behaviour was coldly formal and stiff. Her Majesty began to call on me more often at that time. And then he was gone.
I have my own opinion as to why he got away with so much. I noted how his face blazed with joy when he saw the royal barge approach a building site where he was working on the river bank. She would lean on the side, looking out for him. They would look at each other with such intensity that … well, he might as well have thrown out a grappling hook. I saw how her gaze followed him as he moved about giving orders and checking completed work. There was great admiration in her face, but a sadness also. A kind of yearning look. And then she would compose herself, and shake her head, and attend to the various complaints.
There have always been rumours, of course, that Senenmut was more to her than an official. Others had also noted what I have written of. Those who were jealous of his swift rise and the many titles Her Majesty conferred on him spread such gossip maliciously.
But I do not believe it. No, no, I do not. For one thing, they could never have been alone. There are always many officials and servants and slaves about. For another, he was a commoner. Not only did he not have royal blood, he did not even come from a noble family. How could he aspire to be the lover of one who was a Pharaoh and divine? He, who came from a family of