Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,103
Black Bull and they would hold a welcoming feast, very rustic and delightful, and all the men of the village would congratulate my father on his son. I decided that, when I could, I would take the lady Mutnodjme home to meet my parents and drink the wine of their vineyard, lying under the sycamores by the fish-pool, one of my favourite places in the world. I could imagine her there without any sense of strain, the strong woman with the peasant walk, swapping recipes with my mother and discussing the ancient texts with my father until they proclaimed, ‘She is a jewel who holds our son’s heart!’
My mind was made up. I did love the lady Mutnodjme, I did love Kheperren, and I could do both at once.
Having reached this decision, I got up, washed and dressed in an entirely new cloth and a good selection of jewellery, the lady Mutnodjme’s unobtrusive ring on my finger, and went to the sed festival to see the king rededicate his kingdom to the Aten.
The king did not cut a very good figure at the festival, though we all cheered dutifully as, at the fourth attempt, he finally managed to slay his bull. I suspected that Divine Father Ay actually delivered the killing blow but I was not watching carefully. The bull, in the end, died, and the flesh was butchered by the King’s Aten priests and roasted in the fire which was kindled by a burning glass, a sacred fire lit by the sun itself.
The courtyard began to be redolent less of expensive oils and more of cooking and the commoners of Amarna beyond the walls smelt this and cried out blessings on the King Akhnaten.
‘Joy to the blissful child of the Aten!’ they screamed. ‘Hail the most favoured child of the Great God!’
Fill-belly-love, nurses call it. As soon as I decently could, I left the ceremony, while the foreign dignitaries were still falling at the feet of the re-crowned king and delivering themselves of laudatory messages. I was pleased that Keliya, the son and heir of King Tushratta of Mittani was there, looking well-fed and shining with oil. I waited to make sure that he gave voice to no complaint about his outrageous treatment—he didn’t; and left the ceremony to return to my office, where the new diplomatic correspondence had come in. The tablets were piled in a basket, and no one could read them but Khety and the two old scribes I had brought from Karnak. Khety and his family would be at the festival, but I might be able to find either Harmose or Menna. They were old and had limited taste for new gods or festivals.
I found them both in close conference with my lady Mutnodjme. Now I had supplied these old men with lodgings and food and greeted them with honour and they had repaid me with respect and the exercise of their learning, translating difficult words in all possible ways and doing their utmost to make the writer’s meaning clear. They had been diligent and polite, but I had received no sign of friendship from them and had decided that their learning had dried out their hearts and that they did not particularly care for humans.
And here they were, lounging—Harmose, lounging!—and drinking beer and instructing the Lady Mutnodjme in basic cuneiform as though she was a favoured child and they were both her doting uncles.
I stood at the door for a while and watched them. Menna, who had never broken into even a brief smile while I had known him, was actually laughing at something my lady had said, and Harmose was a little taken aback and surprised as she commented that the name of the king must mean ‘lion’ because the same word was used in three Nubian dialects.
‘My lady,’ I said, and she looked up. Our eyes met and our gaze meshed, like sunlight and lamplight, though I could not have said which was the sun and which the lamp. She did not even have to touch me to know me intimately, but she did.
She took my hand and laid it to her cheek and told the two old men, ‘Here is my lord.’ She poured me a cup of beer and moved a chair so that I could sit, disarranging my office, and then resumed what was evidently a learned conversation.
Menna and Harmose were so enchanted by my remarkable Mutnodjme that they did not resume their previous gravity.