The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh Read Online Free
Author: Marié Heese
father, as would any young Egyptian in his place. I beg the great Pharaoh to show mercy towards him. Let him not be executed. Please, great Lord. Let him be spared.”
For a long moment, my husband frowned as he deliberated. One or two of the priests were nodding. They seemed to agree with my comment about Ma’at. “Very well,” said Thutmose. “We shall be merciful. The prince is spared.” Now the fickle crowd cheered this pronouncement also.
So Pharaoh gave him life and decreed that he was to be educated and sent back eventually to a position of trust in his own country – with, of course, an outlook favourable to our kingdom. Khani was tutored with the children of the upper classes in Thebes, joined the military and progressed to the rank of Officer Commanding the Division of Sobek, currently quartered in Thebes. Commander Thutmose (my nephew-stepson Thutmose, he who would be King) would have sent Khani back to Nubia long ago, but I insisted that he remain here in Egypt. I tell Thutmose that we have need of him because he is an outstanding trainer of soldiers and he is always able to convert the children of conquered enemies into faithful warriors in the Pharaoh’s army. But in truth I need him because his loyalty is to me. I have need of men whom I can trust absolutely.
When I look at Khani, I remember with great clarity the day when he stood before my husband the King together with the other captives from Nubia. Thinking of that day, it seems to me that we were both no more than children then, but at the time I felt mature. Especially I recall that when the youth inclined his head, it was to me that he bowed, not to the King. So he has always been my loyal supporter and, I think, my friend – perhaps, since Senenmut passed into the Afterlife, may he live, the only true friend that the Pharaoh has.
And now he stood before me, an adult and a soldier, one who spied for me.
“Bad news,” Khani informed me. “It seems that the Mitanni are stirring up trouble on our borders with Canaan, aided by the Hittites.”
“Surely not true,” I said, angrily. “The Mitanni are supposed to act as a buffer between the Black Land and the Hittites. They should be dependable, considering the amount of gold we send them. How accurate is your information?”
Khani just looked at me with his inscrutable obsidian eyes. I sighed. I knew that his sources were always impeccable. If he told me something as a fact, he had checked it carefully.
Of course I have a counsellor who advises me on foreign affairs, one Seni, an elderly bureaucrat who served my late father, may he live, and now faithfully serves me. He is spare of figure and sparing of words, but his advice is always well thought through and precisely expressed, and I pay attention to it. Yet my royal father, Pharaoh Thutmose the First, taught me never to depend upon a single source of information or advice and always to discover what the common people are saying. So I have sources of information that are not known to all. Khani is one of them.
“The Great Commander Thutmose is planning and preparing for a campaign,” he went on. “The intensity of training has increased. He has ordered many horses.”
“I have given no such instructions,” I said furiously.
As Pharaoh I am the absolute head of the armed forces and they may undertake no campaign that I have not decreed should take place. The upstart is angering me seriously. He is assuming powers that he does not have. Of course, it is true that he was crowned. I cannot deny that fact, but it should never have happened.
The young Thutmose, child of my husband Thutmose the Second and Isis, a mere concubine, had been given to the priests to learn the rites, to become himself a priest of Amen and to serve the God. He was no more than a little-regarded juvenile. But when my husband passed into the Afterlife, may he live for ever, the priests suddenly realised that they had an opportunity to control all Egypt. With a
For a long moment, my husband frowned as he deliberated. One or two of the priests were nodding. They seemed to agree with my comment about Ma’at. “Very well,” said Thutmose. “We shall be merciful. The prince is spared.” Now the fickle crowd cheered this pronouncement also.
So Pharaoh gave him life and decreed that he was to be educated and sent back eventually to a position of trust in his own country – with, of course, an outlook favourable to our kingdom. Khani was tutored with the children of the upper classes in Thebes, joined the military and progressed to the rank of Officer Commanding the Division of Sobek, currently quartered in Thebes. Commander Thutmose (my nephew-stepson Thutmose, he who would be King) would have sent Khani back to Nubia long ago, but I insisted that he remain here in Egypt. I tell Thutmose that we have need of him because he is an outstanding trainer of soldiers and he is always able to convert the children of conquered enemies into faithful warriors in the Pharaoh’s army. But in truth I need him because his loyalty is to me. I have need of men whom I can trust absolutely.
When I look at Khani, I remember with great clarity the day when he stood before my husband the King together with the other captives from Nubia. Thinking of that day, it seems to me that we were both no more than children then, but at the time I felt mature. Especially I recall that when the youth inclined his head, it was to me that he bowed, not to the King. So he has always been my loyal supporter and, I think, my friend – perhaps, since Senenmut passed into the Afterlife, may he live, the only true friend that the Pharaoh has.
And now he stood before me, an adult and a soldier, one who spied for me.
“Bad news,” Khani informed me. “It seems that the Mitanni are stirring up trouble on our borders with Canaan, aided by the Hittites.”
“Surely not true,” I said, angrily. “The Mitanni are supposed to act as a buffer between the Black Land and the Hittites. They should be dependable, considering the amount of gold we send them. How accurate is your information?”
Khani just looked at me with his inscrutable obsidian eyes. I sighed. I knew that his sources were always impeccable. If he told me something as a fact, he had checked it carefully.
Of course I have a counsellor who advises me on foreign affairs, one Seni, an elderly bureaucrat who served my late father, may he live, and now faithfully serves me. He is spare of figure and sparing of words, but his advice is always well thought through and precisely expressed, and I pay attention to it. Yet my royal father, Pharaoh Thutmose the First, taught me never to depend upon a single source of information or advice and always to discover what the common people are saying. So I have sources of information that are not known to all. Khani is one of them.
“The Great Commander Thutmose is planning and preparing for a campaign,” he went on. “The intensity of training has increased. He has ordered many horses.”
“I have given no such instructions,” I said furiously.
As Pharaoh I am the absolute head of the armed forces and they may undertake no campaign that I have not decreed should take place. The upstart is angering me seriously. He is assuming powers that he does not have. Of course, it is true that he was crowned. I cannot deny that fact, but it should never have happened.
The young Thutmose, child of my husband Thutmose the Second and Isis, a mere concubine, had been given to the priests to learn the rites, to become himself a priest of Amen and to serve the God. He was no more than a little-regarded juvenile. But when my husband passed into the Afterlife, may he live for ever, the priests suddenly realised that they had an opportunity to control all Egypt. With a
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