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

you along.”
    “It was a beautiful day,” I said dreamily. “The sun was shining and the river was blue as the sky, except around the edges where the reeds and papyrus plants made it look green.”
    “How would you know that?” asked Inet. “Surely you were too small to remember?”
    “I think I do remember,” I said. Actually, Inet had always described it thus, and I had heard the tale so many times that I no longer knew what I could really recall. Besides, the sun always shines in the Black Land.
    “Yes, well, the day was fine. The boys were instructed to keep an eye on you and on no account to let you handle a harpoon. And naturally you were accompanied by a small retinue. It’s not as though you went alone,” said Inet, still suffering twinges of guilt as she reflected on what could have happened. “I should have gone too, but I had the headache that makes me blind on the one side.”
    “Itruri went,” I said. “And two slaves.”
    “Itruri wasn’t a great deal of use,” sniffed Inet. She always was jealous of the elderly man who was the tutor of the royal children. “Sat on the bank under a sycamore tree and watched as disaster came close to wiping out the entire royal line, that’s what he did. The river was just beginning to rise.”
    “As the goddess Isis wept for her dead love, Osiris,” I said.
    “You know it, little one. Osiris was dead and the summer solstice was approaching. But his death was only temporary.”
    “As is all death,” I said.
    “You know it, little one. But on this day Isis wept as she searched the world for the pieces of her beloved husband’s body that had been cast to the four winds.”
    “By his wicked brother Seth,” I added. I have always had a sneaking admiration for Seth. He was so clever and so ruthless in seeking his brother’s throne.
    Inet ignored me. “The waters were swelling,” she continued. “The shoals on the banks where the boys fished were perhaps deeper than usual. There should have been two slaves in the coracle, but because they had you along, there was only room for one. The other one cast off and the boys paddled out briskly.”
    “And Amenmose speared a fish,” I said.
    “He did.”
    “And he was so excited that he fell over the side.”
    “He did. And Prince Wadjmose leaped in after him. Wadjmose could swim,” said Inet, “but Amenmose was not yet a good swimmer, and finding the water deeper than he was used to, he panicked and held on to his brother in his fright and the two nearly went down together.”
    “So the slave jumped in too,” I said, “leaving me in the coracle.”
    “He did. And the coracle bobbed out into the stream.”
    “And I could not swim. But Hapi cradled me,” I said. “Hapi protected me. I did not fall in. I did not drown.”
    “Praise be to the gods,” said Inet devoutly. “Reaching the middle of the river, where the current at that time ran strong, the little coracle sailed briskly downstream with you alone on board.”
    “I was not afraid,” I said.
    “No, you were not. Itruri said you waved at him and you were laughing, enjoying the ride.”
    “The wind was in my hair,” I said. “It smelled of spice.”
    This time Inet did not question my memory. “Itruri was distraught,” she said. “It had all happened so fast that he was at a loss. The slave had managed to get the two princes safely ashore, but there you went, all alone in a fragile boat of reeds, three summers only …” Inet shook her head as she contemplated the scene.
    “But some peasants in a felucca saw my boat,” I said. “And they saw that I was too small to be sailing alone. They didn’t know I was a princess, though, did they, Inet?”
    “They did not know. But they saw a small girl child alone on the wide water and they came to your rescue.”
    “And they carried me home to the harem palace, and my mother was terribly upset,” I said, remembering how she had wept, and held me so tightly that I was almost unable to