She hung the symbols of my rank back about my neck and set the doctor’s wig on my head, stroking my cheeks as she did so, so I had no wish to leave Merit and go to the golden house though I had become greatly frightened when I had remembered my visit to the Queen Mother. But I urged my slaves to run, and I urged them with my stick and with silver, and I urged the oarsmen of my boat with my stick and with silver so that water rushed at the bows of my ship when we rowed toward the walls of the golden house. My boat touched at the landing stage just as the sun was setting behind the western mountains and the first stars appeared so that I did not put myself in shame.
Before I speak of my conversation with the Queen Mother, I must mention that only twice during these years had she visited her son in the city of Akhetaten and each time upbraided him for his madness, thereby troubling him sorely, for he loved his mother and was blind to her character —as sons often are blind until they marry and their eyes are opened by their wives. But Nefertiti had not opened Pharaoh Akhenaten’s eyes, for the sake of her father. I have to admit openly that by then, priest Ay and Queen Mother Tiye lived freely together and no longer attempted to conceal their joy but made their appearances together and followed each other’s steps like guarding each other, and I do not know whether the royal house had ever before witnessed such open shame, but it well may have for these things are not written down but they die and get forgotten along with the people witnessing them. Yet I cast no slur on Pharaoh Akhenaten’s origins, for I believe them to have been divine since if he had not had his royal father’s blood in his veins, he would have had no royal blood in his veins at all for he inherited no royal blood from his mother, and then he would truly have been a false Pharaoh as the priests claimed, and everything that happened would have been yet more meaningless and mad. Therefore I do not want to believe the priests, but I prefer to believe my heart and my reason.
The Queen Mother received me in a private room where many little birds hopped and twittered in their cages with clipped wings. She had never forgotten the trade of her youth but still loved to catch birds in the palace garden, by liming the branches of trees and casting nets. When I entered before her, she was braiding a mat of coloured rushes and addressed me sharply and rebuked me for my delay and asked, “Is my son at all recovered from his madness, or is it time to open his skull for he makes far too much ado about his Aten and stirs up the people, which is no longer needful, since the false god is overthrown and there is no one to compete with him for power.”
463
I told her of Pharaoh’s condition and of the little princesses and their games and gazelles and dogs and of how they went rowing on the sacred lake of Akhetaten until Queen Mother was mollified and, bidding me sit at her feet, offered me beer. She did not offer me beer from miserliness but because she preferred beer to wine like common people do, and her beer was strong and sweet, and she could drink several jars a day so that her body swelled from beer, and her face swelled too and became repulsive — and then her face indeed reminded one of black people though it was not entirely black. Seeing her now, no one could have known how this old and swollen woman once had won the love of the great Pharaoh with her beauty. Yet the people say she had won it with black magic for it indeed is rare that Pharaoh elevates a fowler’s girl from the river as the great royal consort.
As she drank, she spoke to me frankly and gave me her full confidence, which was but natural since I was a physician and women tell their physicians much they would never think of confiding to other people, and in this respect Queen Tiye was no different from other women. But often a person who knows death approaching him starts talking to strangers more openly and confidently than to those close to him, without even knowing he’s doing so. She was so terrifyingly open when she spoke to me that I felt a cold sting in my heart and asked about her ailments, but she laughed at me and said she had no ailments except those caused by beer and gas in her stomach — but it was futile for me as a doctor to tell her to give up beer since she wouldn’t give it up anyway and thought it was not harmful and did not yet see hippopotamuses in her dreams.
Her tongue loosened by the beer, she spoke to me and said, “Sinuhe, you to whom my son by some foolish whim gave the name of The Lonely One, though you truly do not appear to me to be lonely at all, and I bet that in Akhetaten you rejoice with a different woman every night for I know the women of Akhetaten. Well, you Sinuhe are a tranquil man and perhaps the most tranquil of all the men I know, and your tranquillity downright irritates me so that I’d fancy sticking a
464
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384