She fortified her tongue with wine, and it was not tied at all, and she continued garrulously, “It is well known that Tiye’s seed of barley was native to Iunu, but it is as well not to speak more of that. She endured great anguish during the period of Tadukhipa’s pregnancy and did what she could to procure a miscarriage as she did with many others in the women’s house with the help of her black sorcerers. Within the last few years, she had sent two newborn boys down the river in reed boats, but these were of less account, being the sons of meaningless concubines who feared Tiye greatly, and she compensated them with many presents so that they reconciled themselves to their fates when they found girl babies beside them instead of boys. But the princess of Mitanni was a more dangerous adversary, for she was of royal blood and had friends who protected her and hoped she would become the great royal consort in place of Tiye if only she might bear a son. Yet so great was Tiye’s influence and so fierce became her disposition as the seed of barley ripened within her that no one dared oppose her; and moreover Ay, whom she had brought with her from Iunu, stood by her side. When the princess’s time was come, her friends were sent away, and the black sorcerers surrounded her to ease her pains, they said. When she begged to see her son, they showed a dead girl baby, but she did not believe what Tiye told her. Also I, Mehunefer, know that the child she bore was a son, and the son lived, and that during the same night he was set to drift down the river in a reed boat.”
I laughed loudly and asked, “How should you, of all people, know that, fair Mehunefer?”
She flared up, and wine trickled down her chin from her cup. “By all the gods, I gathered the reeds with my own hands since Tiye was loath to wade into the water while with child.”
Aghast at her words, I sprang up, emptied my goblet on the floor and rubbed the spilled wine into the mat with my foot to show my horror. Mehunefer grasped my hands, and forcing me to sit beside her, she said, “I never meant to tell you that, and I have done myself harm thereby, but there is I know not what about you, Sinuhe, that so irresistibly works on me that my heart has not a single secret from you. So I confess: I cut the reeds, and Tiye fashioned a boat of them, for she
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would not entrust the secret to servants, and she had bound me to her by witchcraft and by my own deeds for in the folly of my youth I had done things that would have had me flogged and expelled from the golden house if I was exposed — but who in the golden house hadn’t done such things, and I don’t fancy telling about those to you now. In any case, she had me bound to her, and I waded out and cut the reeds, which she knotted together in the darkness, laughing to herself and uttering profanities in her delight at thus vanquishing the princess of Mitanni. But I soothed my heart by pretending that someone would surely find the child, although I knew this could never be, for the babies who drift down the river either perish in the heat of the sun or are snapped up by crocodiles and birds of prey. But the princess of Mitanni would not be content with the dead girl since its skin colour differed from that of her own and the shape of its head was different from hers, and she would not believe that she had borne it. The women of Mitanni have skin as smooth as the skin of a fruit, with the colour of smoke or pale ash, and their heads are small and slender. She began to weep and mourn and tear her hair and accused Tiye and the sorcerers until Tiye bade the physicians administer a narcotic to her and claimed that Tadukhipa had lost her reason because her child was stillborn. And after the manner of men, Pharaoh believed Tiye rather than Tadukhipa. Thenceforth Tadukhipa began to wither away, and at last she died. Before she died, she attempted several times to fly from the golden house and seek her son, wherefore it was generally supposed that her reason had been darkened.”
I looked at my hands, and my hands were pale compared with Mehunefer’s paws of a monkey, and their skin was the colour of smoke. So intense was my agitation and fear, that I put my question in a strangled voice, “Fair Mehunefer, can you tell me when it was that all this came about?”
She stroked my neck with her dark fingers and said in flirtatious tones, “Oh, sweet boy, why do you waste precious moments on these bygone things when you might make better use of your time? But since I can refuse you nothing, I will tell you that it happened when the great Pharaoh had reigned for twenty-two years, in the autumn when the flood stood at its highest. Should you wonder at my accuracy, know that
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