Free The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh by Marié Heese Page B

similar in some ways, mainly in being very competent, but utterly dissimilar in others, and they never got on well. That day Senenmut had tied a huge bush of some kind to his head to represent Hapuseneb’s imposing ceremonial wig, and was pretending to pray to the gods, while responding in asides to his wife Amenhotep. This lady, as everyone knows, rules the roost at home and the Grand Vizier and Chief Priest of Amen jumps at her commands.
    “Blessings and thanksgiving to thee, O my Father, my Lord!” intoned Senenmut in the high-pitched, slightly nasal tones of Hapuseneb. “Hear my prayer! The earth waits for thy precious seed!” Then he added, in an aside to imaginary words from his wife: “No, dear, I have not spoken to the builder. He is still completing the alterations at the palace. Amenhotep, my dove, I am busy. The earth waits for thy precious seed! Come thou and inseminate it! No, my dove, I do not want you to live in a hovel. Of course not. I assure you …”
    By this time everybody was laughing. The imitation was brilliant.
    Senenmut was getting well into the swing of things: “All people sing thy blessings and praise thy name,” he prayed, in the very voice of Hapuseneb. “We must be patient, my dove. The pyramids were not built in a day, you know.” He did not notice that a group of priests had emerged from the pylon behind him and were fast approaching our resting place. Nor did he realise that the jeers and cheers around him had suddenly fallen silent. “ O give ear to our pleas!” he wailed, clutching the bush to his head . “Be thou generous, be thou …”
    At last a loud cough from one of the minor priests attracted his attention . Senenmut turned around, to be confronted by Hapuseneb in person. “ … merciful!” he said, tailing off. The bald, immaculate priest stood glaring at him with his arms crossed. Sheepishly Senenmut removed the bush and shook some leaves from his thick dark hair. He was as tall as the other, but rangy rather than elegant, and he was covered in dust from the building works. “Sorry,” he said, carelessly. “We were just … fooling around.”
    Hapuseneb looked him up and down with a sneer. “And you are the appropriate person,” he said, his high-pitched voice even higher with anger, “to play the fool.”
    “At least I do not have a wife who makes a fool of me,” snapped Senenmut.
    Hapuseneb blinked twice. “But then you are the Pharaoh’s fool, not so? A flea-bitten base-born buffoon.”
    I thought the scribe would strike him for that. He did make a forward movement, but then he restrained himself, with a visible effort. “Better than being a two-faced onion-eyed footlicker.”
    At that they almost did come to blows, but two of the priests accompanying Hapuseneb laid restraining hands on his arms. “Vizier, come away,” one of them muttered. “This is unseemly.” With one last glare, the Vizier and Chief Priest turned on his heel and left the scene. Senenmut gave a yelp of laughter and the junior scribes giggled, but not too loudly, for it does not pay to anger such a powerful man.
    Her Majesty, I observed, used to pit them against each other. She would often call upon them both to offer suggestions for solving a problem, and they tried to outdo each other with their advice. But in the end it was usually the Pharaoh who cut through to the core of the issue, and it was always she who decided what was to be done. There was never any doubt as to whose hand was at the helm of state.
    I pray that her grip may never falter. That she may hold the Black Land safe.

THE FIFTH SCROLL
    The reign of Thutmose I year 16
    As I sat there at the fish pond trailing my fingers in the water and watching Senenmut walk away, a strange mix of feelings was roiling in my heart, like one of Hapu’s pots in which he boiled up medications. There was sorrow for my brother, so young and strong, so suddenly bereft of breath; there was sadness for my parents who had to weep again