The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh Read Online Free PDF Page A

demands of governing the kingdom, so it was a fairly small group that set out that day and the atmosphere was informal. Her Majesty reclined on the deck beneath a striped awning, attended by two slave women waving basket-weave fans, for the day was searingly hot. Her ladies-in-waiting were seated around her on cushions, one of them playing a merry air on a long lute. Two bodyguards were on board, but their usual vigilance had relaxed in that seemingly safe situation. They were joking and throwing sticks. We sailed smoothly northwards with the flow of the great river. A light breeze carried the scent of damp earth. The water was the colour of lapis lazuli between the lush, palm-lined green banks. In the shallows small boys played with a bleating goat.
    Suddenly the low prow of the barge dipped. A swimmer had approached the boat unseen under the water and had clambered aboard. Moving with the agile grace of a predatory lion, the man leapt past the astonished rowers and onto the deck where the Pharaoh was enthroned. In his hand he clutched a dagger. Only I registered immediately what was happening. I had no time to think, I just acted. I lunged forwards from my seat just below the deck and caught the man’s wrist. He turned on me ferociously and I smelled garlic on his breath. When he struck at me I felt a burning sensation in my arm. We struggled mightily on the swaying boat. I had not the strength to overpower him, for he was powerful and wild with hatred, but I held him at bay. My intervention slowed him sufficiently for the Pharaoh’s bodyguards to come to their senses and assist me.
    He was tied up and taken ashore at the first opportunity. It turned out later that he was a farmer who had lost land which he believed to be his in a case before the Grand Vizier some days previously and he blamed the Pharaoh. For his attack on the King he forfeited his life.
    As for me, I was bleeding from a gash in my arm, but I accounted the pain as nothing since I had been of service to Her Majesty. She herself attended to me once the attacker had been subdued, stopping up the wound with her own kerchief. Her hands were deft and gentle. I remember that she smelled of myrrh, even after a morning in the sun, and I remember the golden colour of her eyes, looking so closely into mine that I could only blink, and stutter.
    “M-Majesty, it’s n-nothing, you should not bother …”
    “Of course I must,” she said, in her low, clear voice. “You have been extremely brave. You might have lost your life for mine. I am indebted to you. There, I have tied the kerchief tightly, it should stop the bleeding for now.”
    I have it yet. She ordered the barge to be turned around and had me carried to the palace at Thebes where Hapu, the Chief Royal Physician, sewed the lips of the wound together and gave me a potion for the pain. But I was not aware of suffering; I could only relive those moments when Her Majesty had leaned close to me and tended me carefully with her own lovely hands. Since that time, five years ago, I have often been called to the palace. I live to serve the Pharaoh.
    I wish that I had skill in portraiture, so that I might paint a picture of Her Majesty, one that would better show than the cold stone what Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s appearance is. But I have skill only in words, and that the official kind. I do not have the eloquence of a bard, for I am a civil servant and accustomed to the writing of lists and dry reports. Yet I have a sharp eye and I miss little.
    So I shall set down as accurately as I can what I have noted. The great King is fair of face and form. Her skin is light brown, with a bloom as of apricots; her hair is a wondrous red-gold, touched with henna and braided into many small braids so that it forms an imposing frame for her round and resolute face. I believe it is her own hair and not a wig as many ladies wear over a shaven skull.
    Her eyes are most exceptional. They hold one’s gaze and seem to read with a