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

piercing regard what one would rather keep private. They are almond-shaped and the exact colour of a lion’s golden gaze. I have on occasion accompanied my uncle on a hunt and I have seen a lion.
    Her hands are small, with tapered fingers, well kept and decorated with henna. Also she has slender and elegant feet. She is quite tall for a woman and she walks with dignity and grace. Further I have noted that although Her Majesty is a god and a king she has the scent of a woman and the ability in passing by to stir a man’s loins.
    Her voice is arresting, low and clear. She seldom raises it, but when she does all those within hearing know that it is the voice of power, the voice of authority. She is able to quell a hall full of argumentative men with ease, and I have heard her stir up a multitude of the common people to adulation. Yes, the people of the Two Lands have loved the Pharaoh Hatshepsut and they have worked for her and bowed their heads to her these twenty years. It is not the people who would be rid of her.
    Enough, enough. I must store these writings where they will not be discovered by prying eyes.

THE SECOND SCROLL
    The reign of Hatshepsut year 20:
The first month of Peret day 7
    The faithful Mahu has taken the first scroll away and hidden it. Of course he now holds my life in his hands, and also the life of Khani. Yet I trust my little scribe who follows me around with the brown eyes of a loving dog. He would give all to protect me and he has a scar to prove it. A pity he has not the insight and the political intelligence – and the craftiness – that I once could call upon in one who began as a scribe and rose to greater things. If I still had Senenmut at my side, I would feel less threatened by the dangers that I sense around me now. But I am the Lord of the Two Lands and I, alone, have held sway for a score of years. I am divine; the gods range at my back. I will prevail.
    Today I shall record Inet’s second story that goes to prove my undoubted divinity.
    “Hathor is not the only one of the gods who have favoured Your Majesty,” she would begin. This is true. There has also always been Hapi, God of the life-giving Nile, Hapi the bountiful, the fruitful, the generous, who each year without fail causes the great river to flood its banks, drawing back to leave the rich black earth behind, bringing fertility to the Black Land; Hapi who has both beard and breasts, and is therefore both male and female as all my life I too have had to be. I have always thought it appropriate that I should have been in Hapi’s especial care.
    This is how Inet told the tale.
    “You were just like a boy child,” she said. “A rough little girl, always tumbling about with your brothers, running, jumping, climbing, throwing things, shouting …”
    “I fought them, too,” I said, lifting my chin. “And I beat them.”
    “You bit them,” said Inet severely. “You did not behave like a princess of the royal house, not at all.”
    “Go on about Hapi,” I said.
    “One day the boys decided to go fishing,” she continued. “They had small harpoons that one of the slaves had made for them. And a coracle woven of reeds, light enough for the two of them to handle.”
    “They weren’t very old, were they?” I asked.
    “Prince Wadjmose had seen eleven summers and Prince Amenmose nine,” Inet confirmed.
    “And I three,” I said.
    “Who is telling this tale?” Inet demanded. “If you know it all, why do you make me repeat it until I have to find some cooled wine to soothe my throat?”
    “I like to hear it,” I said. “Go on, tell me. I’ll be quiet.”
    “You insisted on going along,” she resumed. “Even with only three summers you knew what you wanted and you insisted on getting your way. Wilful, wilful.” She shook her head with its stiff black wig. “Truth to tell, you threw yourself upon the ground and drummed your heels and screamed, and even I could not calm you down. So for the sake of peace they took