The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh by Marié Heese Read Free Book Online Page A

destiny,” I said with satisfaction.
    This event finally confirmed Inet in her belief that I was the chosen of the gods. Suckled by Hathor, cradled by Hapi, and spared by Apophis: How could I not have a high destiny? It must, she devoutly believed, be so. Of course, when I was a little girl and my brothers the princes were still alive, it was not clear exactly what the gods had called me to do. Perhaps, suggested Inet, I might become the God’s Wife of Amen, a position of great influence and power. She did not whisper the supreme title of Pharaoh in my ear. Yet within a few years of the visitation by Apophis, the Crown Prince was dead. Well I remember the day.
    There was consternation in the palace. Just after midday, when as a rule the rooms were silent, with only the splash of water from the courtyards and the occasional soft footfall of a barefoot slave to be heard, there were suddenly voices exclaiming, people rushing about and weeping and wailing.
    “What is it, Inet?” I demanded to know. “What has happened? Has war broken out?” I rather wished it had, for it seemed to my youthful imagination that it would be very exciting.
    “No,” said Inet grimly. “I think not.” She vanished into the passage and reappeared soon after, shaking with shock.
    “Inet! Inet, what has happened?” The palace women were now rending their clothes and tearing their hair. I had not seen this before and it was frightening.
    “It is your brother Wadjmose,” she said, in a tone of disbelief. “He has gone to … to join the … the Fields of the Blessed.”
    “Wadjmose is dead?” I was too young to understand that one did not use such terminology in Egypt.
    “Hush. He will be with the gods,” she told me, but somehow she did not look delighted by the news.
    “But just yesterday he was playing with his pet lion cub,” I said, stupidly. “He can’t be … he can’t have … gone anywhere.”
    “It was a flux,” said Inet, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “They say … they say his bowels turned to water, black water, and he … and he … he could not live. My child, you must come. The Queen your mother wishes to tell you herself.”
    I was ushered into the chamber where my mother sat: the Great Royal Wife, clad only in a thin linen shift, her head that normally bore an intricate wig topped with a crown now shaven and bald, her face hard yet wet, as if hewn from basalt and naked to the rain. I looked at her and I turned and fled. This could not be. I could not bear it. I ran from the palace as if Seth and all his devils howled at my heels and I headed straight for the river bank. Such confusion reigned that nobody stopped me, at least not until I had almost reached my goal. Then a hand shot out to grab my arm.
    I blinked away my tears. It was Thutmose, my half-brother, borne to my father the Pharaoh by the Lady Mutnofert, a minor wife; he was walking up from the river with a fishing pole on his shoulder. I knew him from the palace school, where I had just begun to learn, painstakingly, to write a clean hieratic script, and he was among the seniors, since he was eight years older than me.
    “Little sister,” he said, “where do you rush to so heedlessly?”
    “T-to the river,” I stuttered, hiccupping. “Wadjmose has died of a flux, and everyone has gone mad and Mother … and Mother …” I could not find words to convey the horror of my regal, self-contained and always beautifully groomed mother stripped to the bone by grief.
    “Wadjmose has … gone to the gods?” He was astounded. “You are sure of this?”
    I gulped, and nodded. “It was a f-flux,” I whispered, wiping my running nose on my bare arm.
    He handed me a linen kerchief. “Indeed,” he said. “And you are going to the river to … ?”
    “To talk to Hapi,” I told him. “I often do.”
    He nodded as if this made sense to him, put his arm around my shoulders and began to walk with me. “They will not seek me for some time,”