As she drank, she spoke to me frankly and gave me her full confidence, which was but natural since I was a physician. Women tell their physicians much they would never think of confiding to others. In this respect Queen Taia was no different from other women.
Her tongue being loosened by the beer, she spoke thus, “Sinuhe, you to whom my son by some foolish whim gave the name of The Lonely-though you do not appear to me to be so-you are a tranquil man and no doubt in your heart a good man. Though how it profits a man to be good I do not know; only stupid people are good, being incapable of anything else, as I have myself observed. Be that as it may, your presence calms me strangely. This Aton, whom in my foolishness I allowed tc attain power, now makes me very uneasy. It was never my intention chat the matter should be carried so far. I invented Aton in order to depose Ammon, so that my power and that of my son should be increased. To be precise it was Eie who thought of him, my husband as you know-unless you are too simple to know even this. However, he is my husband although it has not been possible for us to break the jar together. This miserable Eie, then, who has no more virility in him than a cow’s teat, brought Aton from Heliopolis and stuffed the boy’s head with him.
“I have no notion what my son fancies he sees in Aton. Even as a child he was given to daydreams, and I can only suppose that he is mad and that his skull should be opened-and what can ail him that his wife, Eie’s beautiful daughter, bears him girl after girl, though all my dear sorcerers have done their best to help her?
“Why do people hate my sorcerers? They are treasures, black though they be, and though they wear pins of ivory through their noses and stretch their lips and lengthen their children’s skulls. Yet I know the people detest them so that I must keep them hidden in the recesses of the golden house. I cannot do without them, for no one can tickle the soles of my feet as they do or prepare me potions that enable me to enjoy life still and take pleasure. But if you think I have pleasure in Eie any longer you are greatly mistaken, nor do I rightly understand why I cling to him so when it would be better to let him fall. Better for myself, that is. My dear Negroes are now my only joy.”
The great queen mother giggled to herself as the old washerwomen in the harbor giggle together over their beer, and went on, “These Negroes of mine are doctors of great skill, Sinuhe, although through ignorance the people call them magicians. Even you might learn something from them. Since you are a physician and will not betray me, I will tell you that I take pleasure with them now and again, for they prescribe this for my health-moreover an old woman like me must have some distraction. I do not indulge in this in order to experience something new, as do the women of the court who in their depravity enjoy the Negroes in the manner of rakes who have tasted all things and are jaded, and affirm that rotten flesh is the most savory. It is not thus I love my Negroes, for my blood is young and red and needs no artificial stimulant. To me they are a secret that brings me nearer to the warm sources of life-nearer to the sun, the soil, and the beasts.”
Her manner was now more somber. She drank no more beer but resumed the braiding of the bright rushes. Not daring to meet her eyes, I kept mine on her dark, nimble fingers.
As I remained silent, she went on, “Nothing is won by goodness; the only thing in the world that signifies is power. Those whc are born with it do not perceive its worth, but only those who like myself were born with dung between the toes. Indeed, Sinuhe, I can estimate the value of power. I have done everything for its sake, to preserve it for my son and for my son’s son, that my blood might endure on the golden throne of the Pharaohs. I have shrunk at nothing to achieve this. In the sight of the gods my deeds may be evil, but truth to tell I do not concern myself unduly about them since the Pharaohs stand above them. When all is said and done, neither good nor evil deeds exist: good is that which succeeds, and evil that which fails and is discovered. Nevertheless, my heart quakes at times, and my bowels are as water when I reflect on my actions. I am but a woman, and all women are superstitious. But I hope that in this matter my Negroes will be able to help me. It tears at my heart to see Nefertiti bearing one daughter after another. I feel each time as if I had thrown a stone behind me, only to find it lying in the path ahead like some attendant curse.”
She muttered invocations between her thick lips and shifted her feet uneasily on the floor, but all the while her nimble fingers knotted the bright rushes into a mat. As I looked at them, my heart was chilled. For the knots she tied were those of a fowler, and were familiar to me. Yes, I knew them; they were peculiar to the Lower Kingdom. As a child I had seen them in a sooty reed boat that hung above my mother’s bed.
When this had flashed upon me, my tongue was frozen and my limbs numb. On the night of my birth a mild west wind had been blowing, carrying the boat down the flood waters and bringing it to rest on the shore near my father’s house. The thought that dawned on me as I watched the Queen Mother’s fingers was so outrageous and terrible that I strove to put it from me, telling myself that anyone might use fowler’s knots in making a reed boat. Yet fowlers plied their trade in the Lower Kingdom, and I had never seen such knots tied by anyone in Thebes. As a boy I had often examined the sooty boat with its broken strands and marveled at the knots that held it together, though at that time I was unaware of its link with my own destiny.
But the Queen Mother never noticed how I suddenly stiffened. She expected no answer but plunged into her own thoughts and memories. She said, “I may appear to you an infamous and repulsive woman, Sinuhe, now that I have spoken thus openly. Do not judge me too sternly because of my deeds, but seek to understand. It is not easy for a young fowler girl to enter Pharaoh’s women’s house, where everyone despises her for her dark skin and broad feet-where she is pricked by a thousand needles and has no refuge but a whim of Pharaoh and the beauty and youth of her body. Can you wonder if I did not look too closely into the ways and means to be used when I sought to bind Pharaoh’s heart to me-when night after night I accustomed him to the strange practices of the blacks until he could no longer live without my caresses, and until through him I ruled Egypt? In this way I defeated all intrigues in the golden house, avoided all snares and tore aside the nets that were spread about my path, nor did I shrink from revenge when I had cause for it. I stilled all tongues with fear and ruled the golden house according to my will-and my will was that no other wife should bear a son to Pharaoh until I had done so. Therefore, no other wife did bear him a son, and the daughters that were born I married off at birth to eminent men, so strong was my will. Yet I dared not bear children at first lest I become ugly in his sight, for in the beginning I kept my hold over him by my body alone and had not yet entangled his heart in a thousand other nets. Moreover he was aging, and the embraces by which I dominated him made him weak so that, when at last I judged the time ripe for breeding, I bore him, to my horror, a girl. This daughter is Baketaton, whom I have not yet married off; she is another arrow in my quiver. The wise keep many arrows in their quiver and never trust to one alone. Time passed, and I was in great agony of mind until at last I bore a son. I have taken less delight in him than I had hoped since he is mad, for which reason I fasten all my hopes on his son, though yet unborn. So great is my power that not one wife in Pharaoh’s household bore him a son during all those years but only daughters. As a physician, Sinuhe, must you not acknowledge that this magic art of mine is remarkable?”