Orphan of the Sun Read online

  For my mum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Maps and Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Prologue

  There is an ancient site in Egypt called Deir el Medina: the ‘Monastery of the Town’. It is nestled in an eerie desert valley, surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs. Few tourists venture here. There are much more attractive sites on offer, only a donkey ride away – the mysterious tomb of Tutankhamun, the magnificent temple of Hatshepsut, the paintings of the stunning Nefertari. Deir el Medina’s tombs are small, and the site is mostly a network of broken mud-brick walls, with a neglected temple at one end … so why bother visiting?

  But if you go to Deir el Medina in the evening, when the sun is slanting on the golden limestone rocks and there are only a few bored and lonely guards to stare at you suspiciously, you might discover something else. Listen for the wail of a Muslim muezzin in the distance, calling the faithful to prayer. As his voice echoes against the rocks, stay very still. Listen.

  Listen.

  There are other voices here. Voices of children. Voices of women calling across the narrow, crowded streets. Voices of water-bringers, and the shrill, squeaking bray of donkeys. And some of the time, there are voices of men, back from their work on the precious pharaohs’ tombs.

  Where do these voices come from?

  From the time when Deir el Medina was called ‘Set Maat’, the Place of Truth. When scores of families were crammed into its tiny houses. When pharaohs ruled this life and the afterlife, surrounded by a multitude of gods.

  When life was short, scorched by the merciless sun.

  Chapter One

  In the cool shade of the courtyard, Senmut the plasterer was reasoning with his niece. She sat cross-legged and listened, but her slender shoulders were hunched in defiance.

  ‘Ramose is a good man,’ he was saying. ‘He will care for you and provide well for your children. He is a respected stonecutter on the gang. You are lucky to have received an offer from someone like him.’

  ‘I know this, Uncle,’ said Meryt-Re quietly. ‘But I have no desire to be his wife. Doesn’t that count for anything?’

  Senmut frowned. ‘You are insolent, Meryt,’ he commented, his voice rising slightly with anger. ‘As you ask, the answer is yes – it does count for something. I can’t force you to marry him. But it doesn’t count for as much as you think.’ He stood up and smoothed his linen kilt with his fingers, then stared at Meryt, batting away a fly.

  Meryt-Re lowered her gaze and waited. There was more to come, she could tell. She steeled herself to hear it.

  Senmut paced around the courtyard, then came to stand in front of her. ‘You’re thirteen,’ he said. ‘You’ll soon be fourteen. I know you are still young, but my mother had given birth to me by your age. Until you marry, I’m responsible for you, and with another child on the way I have other things to worry about. Ramose will treat you well. You would be foolish to refuse. What makes you so ungrateful?’

  ‘Uncle! I am not ungrateful, believe me,’ protested Meryt-Re. ‘I understand how much you have done for me. But …’ she trailed off, unable to find the words to justify how she felt.

  Senmut crouched down again, nearer to Meryt-Re this time, and lowered his voice. ‘You know what they say about you, Meryt, don’t you?’

  Meryt shook her head, even though she knew what he was going to say. Her uncle continued. ‘They say you are under the power of Sekhmet. You see death before it happens. They say no good will ever come of you.’

  It was exactly what she expected to hear, but Meryt’s heart sank nevertheless. ‘Sekhmet is not only the goddess of pestilence and destruction. She also brings healing,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It would not be so terrible to be under her power – if it were true, that is.’

  ‘That is foolish talk, Meryt,’ said Senmut. ‘You know what such a rumour can achieve. If it spreads, the likes of Ramose will have no wish to marry you. You will be feared and shunned. Is that the life you wish for?’

  Meryt-Re shook her head again. ‘No, Uncle, that’s not what I want at all, believe me,’ she said. She looked up. ‘Please give me time. I will think about Ramose, I promise.’

  Senmut was silent. Meryt was suddenly filled with fear, and clutched the amulet that she wore about her neck.

  ‘You don’t believe what people say, do you?’ she asked him. ‘I have only foreseen a death once. People exaggerate. You know that I wish no one any harm.’

  ‘I know what you wish, Meryt,’ said Senmut, his voice strained. ‘But the gods may be stronger than a young woman’s wishes.’

  He rose and left the courtyard. Meryt-Re watched him go and fingered her amulet, one of the few items left to her by her father. It was in the shape of a scarab beetle, the creature that was born from a sphere of dung just as the great sun god Re rose as a sphere every morning. Meryt-Re believed it offered her the protection of the gods. In particular, she felt it imparted the warm touch of the sun god, for her name itself meant ‘Beloved of Re’.

  Even so, her position in Set Maat was precarious. She was dependent on her uncle’s goodwill. With no parents of her own, the government made no provision for her. The village existed to house the craftsmen who built the royal tombs; they alone received a wage, which took the form of grain and other foodstuffs. With this they cared for unfortunate relatives as well as their immediate families; so, along with Senmut’s children, wife and mother, Meryt lived off his income. It was adequate – many families in the village were larger and lived on the same. But she knew her uncle well. He was fair, but not greatly generous, and the truth was that he had taken Meryt under his wing only because Tia, his wife, had insisted on it. He would be only too happy to pass her on to a husband. So, as far as he was concerned, Ramose’s proposal was an opportunity to be grasped with both hands.

  And as for the stories … Did her uncle really believe them? Or was he simply prepared to use them as a lever against her? The thought made her shiver. She felt very alone.

  She glanced up and saw Baki, peering down on to the courtyard from the roof. When Meryt caught his gaze, he gave a gleeful grin, and disappeared back over the edge. Meryt was furious. He had been listening! She knew Baki all too well.

  ‘Baki!’ she shouted, jumping to her feet. She leapt up the stairs from the courtyard and chased after her cousin, who was on the verge of leaping on to the roof of their neighbours’ house. She caught him by his side-lock of hair just in time.

  ‘Ramose! Ramose! You’re going to marry Ramose!’ he sang, then gave an enraged yell as Meryt-Re yanked on his hair.

  ‘Don’t you dare say that,’ cried Meryt. She pulled his side-lock harder, so that Baki had to peer up at her sideways. ‘Not here, not anywhere. If you say one word to anyone …’

  ‘You’ll cast a spell on me?’ taunted Baki. He cackled and wriggled around, out of Meryt’s grasp. She pounced on him again and they wrestled, falling to the surface of the roof and rolling around in the dust.

  Meryt grabbed Baki by the side-lock again, but Baki grasped both her wrists with all his strength and twisted his hands around, burning her skin. Breathless and determined, they clung on to each other. They had always been rivals, from the day that Meryt had entered the household at the age of two. Baki had been only one year old, but even then, his resentment of the new child had been
clear.

  Things were no better now. In fact, for Meryt they were worse. Although he was a year younger, Baki was getting stronger, and she was finding it difficult to hold her own in their fights. More importantly, as the oldest son, Baki would soon become his father’s apprentice in the Great Place, where the kings’ magnificent tombs were hewn deep in the limestone cliffs. It was going to his head. As the day of his manhood approached, he became more and more full of himself. And Meryt had nothing to balance against it, because she wasn’t even Senmut’s own daughter. She was a nobody, and she hated it.

  ‘Yes!’ she hissed in Baki’s ear. ‘I’ll find a special curse just for you, if you breathe one word.’

  Baki gave her wrists a vicious twist. Meryt yelped in pain, and tugged at his hair. They rolled around on the floor again, then Baki broke free and headed for the stairway.

  ‘Wait till I tell Father!’ he whooped, as he disappeared down the steps. ‘You’ll be in for it, Meryt!’

  Meryt sat down on the roof, breathing hard. Sometimes she hated Baki with a passion that frightened her. She was often tempted to summon the wrath of the gods against him, but she held them in too much respect. Baki was his father’s son, and that was no fault of his. She would do better to beg for an answer to her own predicament.

  She stood up and brushed herself down, inspecting her bare brown skin for injuries under the dust. These days, her tussles with Baki were sure to leave her with some. Her right thigh and shoulder were smarting – there were new grazes where they had scraped across the rough surface of the roof. She ran lightly down the steps back into the courtyard and poured some water from one of the water jars on to her hands. She splashed it over her grazes, giving a little gasp as she felt them sting.

  ‘What have you been doing to yourself, Meryt?’ chided a voice. It was Naunakht, Senmut’s mother. She came into the courtyard and sat down at the linen loom, which stood in one corner. ‘Not fighting with Baki again, I hope.’

  ‘No, Nauna,’ lied Meryt. ‘I tripped on the roof. It’s nothing.’

  Meryt reached for a rough piece of linen and hurriedly dried herself off. She had no desire to be quizzed by Naunakht. She felt uneasy around the older woman, sensing that Nauna resented her presence in the household; after all, she even resented Tia, and was forever complaining about her daughter-in-law. So it was more than likely that she fuelled her son’s desire to get Meryt out of the house. Nauna probably knew all about Ramose and his proposal; she might even have put him up to it. Before the older woman could say any more, Meryt fled through the house, out on to the street.

  Senmut’s house was situated on the main street, which led from north to south for almost the entire length of the village. Meryt walked south, past the rows of whitewashed houses, then followed the street as it zigzagged south-west. She came to a house that was slightly larger than most of the others, and knocked. The red door was open to allow the air to circulate in the heat, and Meryt peered in while she waited. The front room was empty, but she could hear the murmur of voices further into the shady mud-brick building.

  ‘Dedi!’ she called. ‘Are you there?’

  A beautiful girl appeared and beckoned Meryt inside. Meryt slipped through the door and followed Dedi through the remaining rooms of the house. She nodded a greeting to the three women who sat surrounded by a gaggle of children in the middle room. They were deep in discussion and barely noticed her, so she carried on after Dedi until they reached the courtyard and sunlight once more.

  ‘We’ll go up on to the roof,’ said Dedi. ‘I’m keeping out of the way at the moment.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Meryt curiously, as they climbed the steps to the roof. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Our neighbour’s newborn is dying,’ explained Dedi. ‘They are discussing how to save him. My mother thinks it’s a curse. All three of Tanefru’s children have died before their first birthday. She thinks that the goddess Sekhmet is plaguing the household.’

  At the mention of Sekhmet, Meryt-Re shivered slightly. Her uncle Senmut’s words were still very fresh. They say you are under the power of Sekhmet … Then she pushed the thought to one side. It was all too easy to blame Sekhmet whenever events turned sour. The fearsome goddess was not of their village but of Men Nefer, far to the north, and Meryt’s instincts told her that the reasons for things often lay closer to home.

  ‘Tanefru should make an offering to Tawaret,’ she said. ‘She is there to help the newborn and their mothers. Surely it’s more useful to call upon the gods who love us and wish us well than to talk of Sekhmet’s curses.’

  Dedi looked at her friend strangely. ‘You sound like Teti,’ she commented. ‘That’s the sort of thing she’d say.’

  Meryt felt confused at this, and said nothing. The day’s events were becoming difficult to fathom. There was the proposal from Ramose. There was Senmut’s reminder that her reputation was becoming a danger. And now, her best friend was saying that she sounded like Teti, the village rekhet, the Knowing One.

  The two girls sat down on a piece of reed matting in the shade, and Meryt decided to change the subject. ‘Is your lyre up here?’ she asked. ‘May I play it for a while?’

  Dedi shook her head. ‘It’s down in the storeroom,’ she said. ‘But I’ll fetch it for you. I’ll get the sistrum too.’

  She scrambled to her feet and disappeared down the steps, leaving Meryt to stare out over the rooftops until she returned. She surveyed the scene. The afternoon heat was just past its peak; the sunlight was mellowing slightly, losing its harsh glare. On the neighbouring roofs, goats and sheep still lay in the shade, their sides fluttering in and out. Smoke from bread-baking ovens rose up in thin plumes in between the houses, then drifted away to the east. Two roofs away, there was a woman breastfeeding a young baby, and a toddler staggering around under her watchful eye, his naked skin golden brown in the sun. Meryt sighed, and stretched herself out on her stomach, waiting for Dedi to return.

  Meryt loved and envied her friend Dedi in equal measure. They had known each other for years; they had met as small children, for Dedi’s mother often bought the fine, soft linen woven by Tia. Then, they had just been two village girls, playing in the sun; it was only as they had grown older that their differences had become more apparent. Dedi was stunningly beautiful, and delighted everyone who looked at her – especially the young men, who whispered among themselves about her up on the rocks above the village. She was also the only daughter of Nebnufer, one of the two foremen in the Great Place. The foremen were chosen by the king’s vizier himself and, as such, they were the most powerful men in the village.

  Because of all this, Dedi’s future was bright. She would soon be marrying Neben-Maat, the son of Sennedjem, the second foreman, and her status would then allow her to become a musician in the village temple-chapels. Her mother Wab already held this position, as befitted a foreman’s wife, and had given her daughter instruments to practise on as she grew up. It was these that Dedi brought up the steps now. Meryt sat up as she approached.

  ‘You took your time,’ she said, with a smile.

  ‘I was listening to the women. They are still at it,’ said Dedi. She sat down and handed Meryt the lyre, laying the rattle-like sistrum across her own knees. ‘They are talking about calling Teti, but also Harmose, the doctor. Tanefru’s sister thinks they should call either one or the other but not both, for fear they should disagree. The others are trying to change her mind.’

  ‘They might as well forget Harmose. He is useless with young children,’ commented Meryt. ‘He cares only about the men who work in the Great Place.’

  Dedi smiled. ‘Well, that’s what he’s paid for.’

  ‘What is the child’s problem?’ asked Meryt. ‘Is it fever?’

  ‘He seems to have no will to live,’ replied Dedi, with a shrug. ‘He has barely taken his mother’s milk. He cannot live long like that.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Meryt. She looked thoughtful. ‘I think that sometimes the gods wish it that way. Th
ey summon a child to the Next World before he can become too attached to this one.’

  A look of apprehension passed over Dedi’s face, and Meryt instantly regretted her words. A similar statement was at the root of her reputation. Earlier that year, a neighbour’s child had been still-born a month or so too early. But her belly had stopped growing a month before that. Meryt had feared the worst, and had said as much in passing. When she was proved to be right, the rumours had begun to spread. Meryt-Re saw death before it happened – so could she not summon it too?

  She smiled at her friend to reassure her, and picked up the lyre. ‘Well, I hope they make their minds up soon, for the child’s sake,’ she said lightly, and began to pluck the strings. Dedi smiled too, and watched her, the sistrum idle in her lap. Neither friend ever talked of it, but the fact was that Meryt was a natural, and drew more beautiful melodies from the lyre than Dedi had ever been able to, despite her mother’s training.

  Meryt played through all the tunes she had learnt, and then stopped. She placed the lyre by her side and looked out over the rooftops. A donkey brayed close by. She thought of Ramose, and sighed.

  ‘I have received a proposal of marriage,’ she announced.

  Dedi’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Meryt!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who from? Wait – let me guess – Kenna!’

  It was Meryt’s turn to look surprised. ‘Kenna! Dedi, he’s our friend!’

  ‘So? He is more your friend. He always has been. Such friends can become lovers,’ said Dedi confidently.

  Meryt flushed. Dedi was much more versed in the ways of love and adulthood. She and Neben-Maat had courted each other for five years – since Dedi was only nine. They were only waiting for Neben to finish building a new house before they became man and wife.

  ‘Well, it’s not Kenna,’ stated Meryt firmly.

  Dedi warmed to her game and reeled off a list of names. Meryt shook her head at each one.

  ‘Who, then?’ cried Dedi at last, in frustration.

  ‘Ramose,’ said Meryt. ‘Son of Paneb and Heria.’