Chapter Five
rom the moment Pompey died, Egypt began to bleed.
A few days after his execution, I journeyed through the city in my litter. Charmion dozed next to me, lulled by the footfalls of the servants carrying us.
A slice of sunlight parted the heavy curtains that separated me from my citizens.
I danced my fingers through the beam and watched as my gold nail overlays glittered.
My hands, which had been so often prone to tremors in the days after I took the throne, had started to quiver once again.
Pompey’s death had rattled me, and I knew it would not be long before Caesar arrived to claim his enemy’s remains.
My father had spent many years allying himself with the Romans, but I sensed Caesar was a hungry man and I did not wish Egypt to fall into the maw of his ambition.
“Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!” my citizens cried as we passed.
I didn’t like travelling by litter, preferring to feel Egypt’s soil beneath my feet. But to cross the breadth of the city it proved a necessity.
Every seventh day I made this same journey.
I wanted my people to know me as their queen.
My father had created distance between himself and his people in the belief that this fortified his divinity.
But what greater blessing could there be than the presence of a living god?
So I hallowed the city streets, often throwing coins and food to the crowds that followed my procession.
I looked through the gap in the curtains and watched as we drew closer to the city’s walls, thick slabs of limestone stacked high above the litter, cleaving the blue sky.
Ornate carvings of wheat and lotus flowers twined along an arch that parted the walls.
The entrance, known as the Moon Gate, led to the villages that surrounded the Nile Delta.
I sighed as I tugged on a memory from my childhood. When I splayed my toes on the rough carpet of the litter, instead of wool I felt the grit of hot stones. The patter of my calloused young feet reverberated in my ears and the hair at my neck prickled as if tangled by the wind of my memories.
“Be careful!” Charmion cried, too fearful to join me in my adventure on the city’s walls.
But I paid her no heed and dashed along the top of the Moon Gate with a freedom I would never feel again. I had been merely a pharaoh’s daughter back then—the second daughter at that—and had little regard for the people that lived on either side of the city wall.
Now I was surrounded by guards, all armed with spears and daggers. Some of the blades bore signs of blood. It wasn’t uncommon for citizens to lose all sense of reason in my presence.
I looked out at the crowds, which were thinning as we drew closer to the end of Canopic Street, the main thoroughfare of the city. In fact, something was drawing the hordes away.
I leaned further out of the litter and saw the source of the commotion.
“Ahmose,” I called, quietly so as not to wake Charmion.
The litter stopped and Ahmose appeared at the window’s edge. Sweat seeped from behind his skull cap and gathered in the seams of his guard linens. “Yes, Pharaoh?”
“I wish to walk among the people.”
Shortly after Ahmose dipped away, the litter was lowered to the ground. The motion woke Charmion. “Are we at the harbour?”
“No, we’re at the city walls.”
“Why have we stopped?” She stifled a yawn. Since Pompey’s beheading she had suffered from night terrors. Charmion, sensitive to any changes in the waters of the world, felt the ripples caused by Pompey’s death. I should have heeded her fears.
But I didn’t, and so I offered her my hand. “Come with me and you will see.”
She gripped me tightly and I led her out onto the street.
The crowds parted as I neared, dropping to the ground. My guards closed ranks around me and Charmion leaned close. I could not wait for the surprise to be revealed to her.
“The Queen, the Queen is here.” Whispers swirled and faded like smoke on the breeze. A hush fell upon the people until only one voice remained.
“And so Re retires to the sky each night, sailing his boat through the stars above—Oh!” The hakawati saw me, and his words guttered out. His knees struck the dirt and he lowered his grey-topped head to the ground.
“Great Holiness, forgive me, I did not see you approach.” He had abandoned the ethereal tone of his storytelling, and I found his natural voice unpleasantly nasal.
“Rise, elder. I wished only to listen.”
He stood slowly, his dark eyes troubled. “You would like me to tell a story, Pharaoh?”
“You are a hakawati, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Then speak.”
His lip wobbled at my command. But he did as I bade, projecting his voice with verve. “The Pharaoh asks for a gift, the most precious of all gifts. A story. But what tale will satisfy a queen?”
I looked to Charmion. She stood with her lips slightly parted, her eyes twinkling with pleasure. This was the gift the hakawati was truly giving me.
I brought our clasped hands to my lips and kissed her fingers, and she smiled but did not look away from the storyteller.
“Not just a queen, but a Ptolemy?” the hakawati continued. “There is only one tale worthy of such divine ears. The story of our saviour, Sōter, the first Ptolemy to bless our land, and deliver us into peacetime.”
I knew the tale well; the legend of my ancestor’s deeds was performed at every festival. I tried to hide my disappointment, determined to enjoy the moment despite the chosen material.
“In a land not far from here, in a time not long from now, there was a great king, known to us as Alexander. He hailed from Macedonia to liberate Egypt from the Achaemenid Empire. But the gods called to him, and so he passed into the beyond, to rule beside Osiris.”
The hakawati let out a piercing wail that stole a beat of my heart. “Oh, what there was! Oh, what there wasn’t! Egypt mourned his passing. For who would herald our land, and shepherd our people?
“Alexander in his greatness bestowed the land on a worthy advisor: General Ptolemy, who sailed to us in our need.
“But Ptolemy knew little of how to rule Egypt. Without a pharaoh steering the oars of the ship, Egypt would soon be torn asunder. And so, he turned his face from Mount Olympus and looked to the Egyptian sky. For nine days and nine nights he prayed to the gods of Egypt, begging for acceptance and guidance.”
The hakawati sank to the floor, prostrate. His hands reached towards my feet as he acted out my ancestor’s prayers—as though I were the gods he prayed to.
My guards tightened the circle around me, but I waved them away.
The old man was just a storyteller. What harm could stories do?
When the hakawati looked up from his play-acting, his eyes locked with mine. He rose from the ground, stepping closer to me, and said, “But the gods were silent.” I saw a glimmer of something malicious in his gaze. Whether it was for me or for the fictional god, I did not know.
“Oh, what they had! Oh, what they hadn’t!”
Those of us closest to the hakawati started at his sudden loud cry. A tittering of laughs followed.
“But our benevolent king did not concede. ‘I must know Egypt to rule it,’ Ptolemy said. And so, he began to read. A year he spent collecting scrolls and reading books. From the seeds of his collection, the Library of Alexandria would come to grow. Once he learned all he could, he prayed again, hoping he was now worthy of the gods’ blessing. But again, they were silent.
“Oh, what they did! Oh, what they didn’t! Ptolemy was not ready to surrender to the whims of mortals. Perhaps I must know the people of Egypt to rule them, he thought.
“And so he walked the Nile, meeting everyone he could. Once he came to love his citizens, he prayed again, hoping he was now worthy of the gods’ blessing. But again, they were silent.
“Oh, what there were! Oh, what there weren’t! I have come to know the living, and perhaps I now must know the dead, he concluded. And so he walked the valleys and tombs of those who had come before.
“Once he came to respect Egypt’s ancestors, he prayed again, hoping now he was worthy of the gods’ blessing.”
The crowd was silent, enraptured by the hakawati’s words. I, too, was taken with the tale, despite its familiarity.
“This time, a god spoke back.” Though the hakawati whispered, his voice carried.
“ ‘Ptolemy!’ the god cried. ‘We have heard, and seen, and felt your plight. You are Egypt’s rightful keeper. Not only shall you be blessed, but your descendants too, hereafter. Each will be bestowed with a kernel of a god’s power.
I, Serapis, will be the first to bless you. ’
“And with divine brightness, Ptolemy’s hands began to shine.
‘We name you Ptolemy Sōter; go now, and reap your reward.’ Ptolemy ruled Egypt with hands touched by the gods.
The buildings he raised took half the time to construct, aided by Serapis’s power.
The serapeum, gymnasium, lighthouse and library are just some of his divine feats. ”
The hakawati stepped close enough that I could smell the fish on his breath.
“And we stand now in the presence of one so blessed. A descendant of the legend who built Egypt from the rubble of war.” His hand went to his waist as he bowed towards me.
“Will the very same gods save you now, Pharaoh?”
With remarkable speed, the hakawati withdrew an ivory blade from his robes and lunged towards me.
In that instant the spell of his story, which had slowly bound me with its threads, broke.
I blinked, seeing a premonition of my death beneath my eyelids; my blood misting across the crowd like sea spray, my heart stopping, my eyelids fluttering.
They would gasp, as loudly as they had for the hakawati’s tale. For that’s all I would be.
A story.
A legend.
My death, the ultimate plot point.
A premonition indeed.
But as you and I know, I did not die that day.
Charmion proved quicker than the guards on either side of me. She pulled me behind her in time for the blade to strike.
Something warm struck my face. I brought my fingers to it and drew them back.
Charmion’s blood.
I stood agape over my handmaiden’s body. The hakawati had been restrained, and I heard his cries as though they came from the end of a tunnel.
“The gods have forsaken you. You are powerless and not fit to rule. Only your blood shall purge Egypt of your evil—” His shouting ended in a gurgle, so Ahmose must have swiftly sliced his throat—I didn’t see it, though. The tunnel had darkened around me so only Charmion was visible.
I collapsed beside her. “My heart?”
Charmion looked at me and tried to smile. It came out as a wince.
“You are wounded?” I was yet to fully comprehend what had happened.
“I am.” Her voice sounded wet.
I turned her on her side. Blood seeped from an open gash in her cheek. I could see the gleam of her teeth.
My schooling came back to me in that moment. “Fetch me a needle and thread!”
Charmion whimpered. “You will be well again soon, Charmion,” I assured her.
I ignored the blood that spilled from her mouth as I cradled her face. Soon my hands were slick with it.
“Pharaoh.” Ahmose thrust forward the needle. He and Charmion were close, I knew, but from the worry in his eyes, they were closer than even I had realised.
“Take her hand,” I commanded him. “She will need to grip it.”
Charmion’s eyes rolled in her head like those of a horse ready to bolt. I placed a hand on her hair.
“I will be quick.”
But I wasn’t. I had learned the text on how to stitch together skin but had never implemented it until now. My hands shook so vigorously that the scar that went on to form was forever crooked.
All three of us were sweating by the end.
“Bring the litter,” I said hoarsely to Ahmose.
Tears and blood streaked Charmion’s face, and I gathered her into my arms.
She mumbled something against my chest, but the stitches prevented her mouth from much movement.
I leaned down to hear.
“Will I be ugly?” she whispered.
I pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. “Never. The scar will be a symbol of your fealty to me. And there is nothing more beautiful than loyalty. We are forever bound in skin and thread.”
The stillness of the crowd was unnerving as they silently moved to let the litter through. The air was no longer charged with the silence of anticipation. The story had come to an unhappy conclusion and it left them wanting.
The guards lifted Charmion to the litter.
“Wait,” she murmured.
“What is it?”
She pointed to something behind me.
I looked back, my face growing warm with fury as I saw the body of the hakawati. His blood wasn’t enough to sate my anger.
“His soul will not reach the field of reeds,” I reassured her, my voice fierce.
But Charmion was still pointing.
Then I saw it, gleaming against the dirt that had grown dark with the hakawati’s blood—the ivory dagger.
“Ahmose. Bring it to me.”
He handed it to me hilt first. And as he did, he spoke quietly in my ear. “I do not think this was an opportune attack, Pharaoh. I believe this was planned. He knew you journeyed this way.”
The hakawati’s final words came back to me with clarity: “You are powerless and not fit to rule.”
First the scholar and now this. Isis, grant me your favour so I may prove the non-believers wrong.
But no divine light struck me or glowed from my hands. So I had to make do with what I had. “Bring my lions to the gymnasium. Draw in a crowd. Then feed his body to my beasts.”
Though vengeance surged in my veins, I was sickened by the thought of the hakawati’s ravaged body. I still could not stomach violence. I am not sure when I grew numb to the fear of gore and pain. Perhaps you will recognise the moment in the pages to come.
I took the dagger from Ahmose’s hand and wiped the bloodied edge against the hem of my dress. I made to pass it to Charmion. “This is your treasure now, Charmion.”
She flinched as she replied, her words stretching the stitches, “It is yours. I am your shield. Let this be your blade.”
I had held tears back until this moment, but now hot droplets fell onto my cheek. I dashed them away and tucked the dagger into the folds of my dress as I climbed into the litter.
Charmion leaned heavily against me. This time the movement of the litter did not lull her to sleep.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Each footfall felt like the beat of a heart.
A heart that beats still.