Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,141

nothing to us as we left, but her shrill orders to the servants: ‘Mind that corner! By the Aten, what dreary decorations! Husband, we must have this all re-painted immediately!’ followed us down the corridor.

Kheperren took me to the quarters of General Horemheb, who allowed us to come in, showed us to his bedchamber, closed the door and left us alone with our anger and fear. We lay and wept together as the day grew hotter and noon passed, and still the fire in the courtyard smouldered, a stench of spices.

‘I knew he wouldn’t do it,’ choked Kheperren.

‘I, too,’ I wiped my face on my cloth.

‘I go with my general to deliver the Widow-Queen’s message to Tushratta,’ he said to me, holding me close. ‘You are the only woman I have ever lain with, the only woman I could ever love. Come with us. There is nothing for you here.’

‘I still belong to the palace,’ I responded automatically, then thought about it. Where was I to go, what was I to do? I had stayed in Amarna because of my sister Merope, but she was now gone. My sister Nefertiti was dead, sacrificed to the Phoenix; and my lover Ptah-hotep. He too was most horribly and gloriously dead, defying the Pharaoh, refusing to play Amarna games. He had died true to the old gods, but he had still died.

Why should Mutnodjme stay in the palace of the King Akhnaten? Not for the sake of her parents, to whom she was an embarrassment. There was only one person in the palace of the king who deserved my loyalty.

‘I’ll have to talk to the Widow-Queen,’ I told Kheperren.

Then, worn out with grieving, we slept until the general woke us. He did not mean to, but he needed clean clothes for his audience with the Pharaoh, and he tripped over a chair in the half-light and swore and we woke.

Waking when one is mourning is hard. One wakes and for the first few moments one cannot recall grief; then it lands like a stone from above. I woke next to a male body, slim and young, and thought him Ptah-hotep. Then Kheperren rolled over and yawned and I recognised him and Ptah-hotep’s death crashed down on me and I groaned.

‘Waking is hard,’ agreed the general, sitting down on his big chair and rubbing his stubbed toe. ‘It is easier for soldiers, because they have an enemy and they may still die. Therefore rise, wash, you must face the world. There is a terrible task before you, and none but you can do it, Lady Mutnodjme, as men are forbidden to walk in the court of the Phoenix.’

I staggered to the wash-place and poured water over my head, wrung out my hair and mopped my tear-swollen face.

‘What is the task, lord?’ I asked. Even my voice seemed reluctant and words were slow in forming.

‘The fire in the court of the Phoenix is, at last, out. You must sift the ashes for bones,’ he said. Generals must often give orders which they know may result in the recipient’s death and he gave this one calmly.

But this task was not as hard as he seemed to think. If I could find some bones—perhaps a skull, skulls do not readily burn—I could reassemble enough of Ptah-hotep for his voyage to the afterlife, and if ever man deserved to feast in the House of Osiris it was my dear love Ptah-hotep. It was the last service that I could do for him, and I was anxious to do it.

‘I will go directly,’ I said.

General Horemheb gave me that puzzled look again. Though I did not mean to, I kept surprising him. I tied my cloth close about me, grabbed another to put the bones in, and was starting for the door when Kheperren caught up with me.

‘I will come with you,’ he said.

‘No, you are still too shocked and you are not used to handling the dead are you?’ I demanded.

He was white as linen under the sun-darkened skin. He shook his head.

I was eager to keep my task, and did not want to have to support anyone else in doing it. I was just about sure that I could support myself, but I had no strength to spare.

‘Stay, Kheperren, he would not want you to be further harrowed by his death. Besides, the general is correct. You are a man and cannot go into that cursed courtyard, whereas I—may all the gods forgive me—am an initiate of