'Thebes is rich in his own right, no commoner's son.'
I allowed the silence to grow long after the initial discomfort.
Mentu shifted on his chair. Finally he said, 'No insult was meant, Lord. But if he is rich in his own right, he is less likely to peculate. Except for his expenses in love, you can trust the Theban Nomarch.'
I recalled my invitation to the temple at Karnak. 'The High Priest of Amen-Re?' I asked.
'Death in a white robe,' said Mentu promptly.
CHAPTER SIX
Mutnodjme
Merope and I had slept, though we were not aware of having slipped into a doze until we were woken abruptly by a flurry of movement in the outer chamber, and voices crying, 'The Queen is in labour, send for the great Royal Nurse Tey, the Queen's midwife!' I heard my mother grunt as she rose from her saddle- strung bed.
'Quick,' I whispered to my new sister. 'Put on your sandals and we can follow in the confusion.'
'Why should we?'
'Because it's childbirth, and I've not been allowed to see it.'
'Nor me,' she agreed, tying strings rapidly.
We slipped into the outer chamber, where my mother was stripping off her robe and stepping into a decorated tub. Slaves sluiced her down with cool water and scrubbed her with handfuls of oatmeal mixed with laundryman's lye and then rinsed her. She then tied a clean cloth about her waist, another around her head, and raised her voice.
'I am coming!' she cried. 'Be silent, women. The Great Queen Tiye has already borne children. She knows what is happening. But she will not be assisted by a clamour like a marketplace on the day before a feast! The birthroom has been prepared; has anyone thought to carry the Queen thither?'
She stilled the babble of replies with a gesture.
'Good. We will go there now, and she who makes an outcry which upsets the Great Royal Lady will be beaten until she bleeds.'
This threat calmed the crowd nicely and Tey walked composedly out of our apartments and into the corridor. Merope and I followed.
The mammisi was prepared. It had bare walls, a bare floor, and a pallet made of clean linen on the floor. The birth chair had been scrubbed and repainted. Not for the Lady of the Two Lands the peasant delivery, squatting on bricks. The chair was bottomless and at an easy height for the attendant to catch the baby as it was delivered.
So far, so good. The Queen was standing with two women massaging her back. Her hair was dark red with sweat and she looked old. She greeted my mother with a smile which was a sketch of the one I had seen before.
'Lady,' she said.
'Where does it catch you?' asked Tey.
'My back, it always hurts my back,' replied the Queen, and Tey directed the women to massage lower down, in the flat space just above the buttocks. The Queen seemed to feel some relief. She was offered an infusion and drank it.
'Now what?' whispered Merope.
'We wait,' I replied.
Nothing happened all afternoon. The sun sank towards night and still nothing happened. I was carrying a scroll, one of the few which I owned myself. Ani had copied it for me. It was the tale of Ptah and the Destruction of Mankind. Merope and I sat down against the wall, out of everyone's way, and peered through the legs of the attendant women. Nothing still seemed to be happening, and we were getting bored, so I opened the scroll and began to read, telling Merope of the sins of humans which made Ptah the creator disgusted with his creation:
Humans blasphemed against the god, saying, 'His bones are like silver, his limbs are like gold, his hair is like lapis, in truth he is old and weak'. Then Ptah called to him the gods who were with him in the primeval ocean and took counsel with them...
'Who were the gods from the primeval ocean?' asked my sister.
'Shu who is air, Tefnut who is water, Nut who is sky, they were the first ones, in this story,' I replied.
The Queen groaned, and we strove to see, but a rush of attendants blocked our view. I consulted my text again:
The gods came and bowed before the majesty of Ptah who made the firstborn gods out of words, out of his lips and teeth, Lord of Speaking Creatures, Maker of Humans. They said before him, 'Speak to us, for we are listening'.
A woman stubbed her toe on us as she hurried to the door for more cloths and another infusion of the birth herbs, and did not even stop to notice who was sitting in that corner.
I continued the tale:
Ptah said to his gods, 'Tell me of humanity, what shall I do to these blasphemous ones? I have given them the world, and they say that I am old'.
The gods took counsel, and they replied to Ptah Creator, 'Lord, you must slay them, so that they shall know fear of the gods'.
'Who shall I send to slaughter men and women?' asked Ptah.
The Spreader of Terror rose, lioness-headed Sekmet who is out of Hathor the Goddess, and said, 'It shall be I'.
And Ptah agreed that it should be so.
'Who is telling a tale?' asked the labouring Queen. 'Bring them here.'
We were discovered, hauled out of our corner, and shoved into the middle of the room where we stood, heads hanging, before Tey's wrath. The Queen was sitting on the birth chair and laid a sweating hand on my mother's shoulder.
'Let her read on,' she ordered. 'Sit down, little scribe, and continue. I need something to distract my mind.'
'Lady, this is not a good story for one in your situation,' warned Tey, but the Queen merely said 'Read on.'
'Do as you are bid,' snapped Tey.
Greatly wondering I sat down, Merope at my side, and continued with the story of the destruction of the world.
Sekmet Destroyer went forth, and great was the slaughter amongst men and women. She struck fear into their hearts, and Ra said to Ptah, 'Behold them fleeing into the mountains in terror, and there terror waits for them'.
I stopped as the Queen groaned again. My mother wiped the Lady's forehead with a wet cloth and instructed me 'I don't know what you are doing here against my express orders, Mutnodjme, but now you will learn the way of birth, so pay attention. The pains come at intervals, getting closer and closer until they are almost simultaneous and then the child is born if the gods are kind. While the pain is upon her, she will not hear. When it has passed, she will listen again. This story may not last long enough; do you know any more?'
'Yes, Lady.'
'Good. Go on.'
The Queen was attending again, and I resumed the tale:
Great was the slaughter, great the mourning. Corpses littered the mountains and the living could not bury the dead, because there were too many.
Fearing that they would all be destroyed, Re said to Sekmet, 'Return, return in peace, Sekmet, you have slain enough'.
She replied, 'You gave me life and this power to kill. I am not glutted; I will not return but slay and slay until no one lives on the earth'.
I risked a look at the Queen. Her thighs were tensed, tendons shaking under immense strain. Her female parts were wet with escaping fluid. I felt elated, frightened and compelled. I could not look away from this body in such agony.
Tey slapped me over the ear and recalled me to myself. I began