Out of the Black Land

by Kerry Greenwood Narrated by Paul Michael Garcia, Emily Bauer

Overview

Egypt during the eighteenth dynasty is peaceful and prosperous under the joint rule of the pharaohs Amenhotep III and IV-until the younger pharaoh begins to dream new and terrifying dreams.

Ptah-hotep, a young peasant boy studying to be a scribe, wants to live a simple life in a hut on the Nile River with his lover Kheperren and their dog Wolf-until Amenhotep IV appoints him as royal scribe. How long will Ptah-hotep survive there, surrounded by bitterly envious rivals and enemies?

The child princess Mutnodjme sees her beautiful sister Nefertiti married off to the impotent young Amenhotep. But Nefertiti must bear royal children, so the ladies of the court devise a shocking plan.

Kheperren, meanwhile, serves as scribe to the daring teenage general Horemheb. But while the pharaoh's shrinking army guards the land of the Nile from enemies on every border, a far greater menace impends, for the newly renamed Akhnaten, not content with his own devotion to one god alone, plans to suppress the worship of all other gods in the Black Land.

Members of his horrified court soon realize that the pharaoh is not merely deformed but irretrievably mad and that the biggest danger to the empire is within the royal palace itself.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Australian author Greenwood, having made a name for herself with the lighthearted Phryne Fisher series (Cocaine Blues, etc.), succeeds brilliantly with this gripping thriller set in ancient Egypt. In 1335 B.C.E., the ascension of a new pharaoh, Akhnaten, sends the country into turmoil. The ruler, who holds the heretical religious view that there’s only one god, acts to spread this idea by banning the worship of the traditional deities. Two charismatic figures—Ptah-hotep, plucked from obscurity to become the Great Royal Scribe (who acts “as auditor for the whole of the nation”), and Mutnodjme, Akhnaten’s sister-in-law—display a gift for surviving palace intrigue. The author is especially good at conveying the nitty-gritty details of life at the time. For example, Ptah-hotep is advised to keep an eye out for tax cheating concerning fish and turtles. If not quite in the same class as Nick Drake’s mysteries set in ancient Egypt (Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead, etc.), this is close enough to make historical fiction fans hope that Greenwood isn’t done with this period. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

"From the often wildly differing conclusions of professional Egyptologists, Greenwood, best known for her mysteries (Unnatural Habits, 2013, etc.), has fashioned a fascinating, plausible and erotic tale."—Kirkus starred review

"Australian author Greenwood, having made a name for herself with the lighthearted Phryne Fisher series (Cocaine Blues, etc.), succeeds brilliantly with this gripping thriller set in ancient Egypt. In 1335 B.C.E., the ascension of a new pharaoh, Akhnaten, sends the country into turmoil. The ruler, who holds the heretical religious view that there’s only one god, acts to spread this idea by banning the worship of the traditional deities. Two charismatic figures—Ptah-hotep, plucked from obscurity to become the Great Royal Scribe (who acts “as auditor for the whole of the nation”), and Mutnodjme, Akhnaten’s sister-in-law—display a gift for surviving palace intrigue. The author is especially good at conveying the nitty-gritty details of life at the time. For example, Ptah-hotep is advised to keep an eye out for tax cheating concerning fish and turtles. If not quite in the same class as Nick Drake’s mysteries set in ancient Egypt (Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead, etc.), this is close enough to make historical fiction fans hope that Greenwood isn’t done with this period."—Publishers Weekly starred review

"Greenwood has taken a big risk here. Ancient Egypt as a source of literary material has been pretty well mined. But the novel feels fresh, partly because Greenwood isn’t insisting on shoehorning a traditional mystery plot into the book." —Booklist 

"In a change of pace from her bubbly Phryne Fisher series (Unnatural Habits; Cocaine Blues), Greenwood takes readers deep into the heart of ancient Egypt, making them wonder—much like Ptah-hotep does—if they will come out the other side intact." —Library Journal

Library Journal

Egypt during the 18th Dynasty is peaceful and prospers under the rule of the dual Pharaohs, Amenhotep III and IV. Yet deep within the Royal Court—and within the younger pharoah himself—lies a darkness no one could have foretold. Young peasant Ptah-hotep is appointed grand royal scribe to Amenhotep IV, leaving his lover, Kheperren, behind. Amenhotep IV marries the beautiful Nefertiti, who is joined at court by her younger sister, Mutnodjme. Ptah-hotep slowly builds his position as others in the court scheme to unseat him. At the same time, Kheperren joins General Horemheb as he defends the Black Land, not realizing that the worst enemy sits upon the throne. For Amenhotep IV, now Akhnaten, is insane, and his plans to suppress all gods in Egypt but his own will lead to murder, madness, and danger for all who live in the Land of the Nile. VERDICT In a change of pace from her bubbly Phryne Fisher series (Unnatural Habits; Cocaine Blues), Greenwood takes readers deep into the heart of ancient Egypt, making them wonder—much like Ptah-hotep does—if they will come out the other side intact. While some may argue that this story leans more toward historical fiction than mystery, the intricacies of the court and those who serve it hold more than their share of intrigue and suspense.

APRIL 2013 - AudioFile

Kerry Greenwood won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Crime Writers Association for her delightful 1920s Phryne Fisher mysteries. Now she diverges dramatically from that series with new suspense in a new setting—1335 B.C. Egypt. With Pharaoh Akhnaten's ascension to the throne, political turmoil abounds, etched into stark relief by religious conflict. Worship of the people's traditional deities is banned. Paul Michael Garcia and Emily Bauer perform the youthful voices of Ptah-hotep, the peasant aspiring to become a royal scribe, and the child princess Mutnodjme, the half-sister of Nefertiti. Both narrators exude an air of artless naïveté and stilted awkwardness that hinders the story's flow. Fans of Greenwood's previous mysteries may be disappointed in this less-than-gripping thriller but will appreciate the author's vivid description and well-researched period detail. A.W. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Three young people living in the time of Egypt's 18th Dynasty become a force to be reckoned with. Amenhotep III has ruled Egypt wisely and well, but his deformed and impotent son Akhnaten is about to plunge the country into the depths of misery. Before his father's death, Akhnaten inexplicably chooses the bright young scholar Ptah-hotep to be his Great Royal Scribe. Despite his inexperience, Ptah-hotep quickly finds his feet and does well even though he's been forced to leave behind his lover Kheperren, who soon finds a place as scribe to the powerful Gen. Horemheb. Akhnaten has chosen the beautiful, self-indulgent Nefertiti as his bride. Her younger sister, Princess Mutnodjme, is a bright, curious child who fights to be educated and becomes a priestess of Isis. Despite her best efforts, Nefertiti is unable to conceive Akhnaten's child. So, in order to preserve the dynasty, she produces heirs by Amenhotep. Vague and easily influenced, Akhnaten is passionate about his devotion to a single god he calls Aten. Forbidding worship of the other gods, he spends a fortune building a new city devoted to Aten. Ptah-hotep and Mutnodjme, who have become friends and lovers, are appalled at conditions in Egypt, where the people are starving and Gen. Horemheb can barely secure the borders while his troops are used to obliterate all signs of the old gods. As powerful forces fight for control, the fate of the nation hangs in the balance. From the often wildly differing conclusions of professional Egyptologists, Greenwood, best known for her mysteries (Unnatural Habits, 2013, etc.), has fashioned a fascinating, plausible and erotic tale.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169899535
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	03/01/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Out of the Black Land

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By Kerry Greenwood

Poisoned Pen Press

Copyright © 2013 Kerry Greenwood
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-46420-038-0

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Chapter One

Mutnodjme

In the name of Ptah, in the name of his consort Mut after whom I was called and his son Khons who is the moon and time, in the hope that my heart will weigh heavily against the feather and I may live and die in Maat which is truth, I declare that my name is Mutnodjme and my sister is the most beautiful woman in the world.

I was born when she was seven. Her dying mother, the concubine, gave her into the arms of the formidable woman, my mother, Tey wife of Ay. I do not remember the concubine who bore Nefertiti. They say that she was beautiful, pale and silvery and sad, and she died young. Her child was kept apart from Tey's household, and I did not see her when I was a baby. Tey is a small woman, dark of skin and eye; and those things I have inherited from her.

I am small, measured against Nefertiti's length of limb; I am dark against her glowing Theban fairness. I am ugly against her almost divine beauty, and I am miserable against her happiness, for they have just told her that she is to marry Pharaoh Akhnamen, and become Great Royal Wife. She is his; no longer mine.

We have pleated the linen garments for her, and I am sitting on the marble floor of the palace of Divine Father Ay in the great city of Thebes—with the sellers of dates and dried fish calling his trade outside, women's voices, shrill and constant—making wreaths of moonflowers and lotus. I am uncomfortable and cramped, because I have no skill in my fingers for this delicate work, and the flowers will not lie peaceably along the wire frame for me as do those of the other maidens. They are refractory and shed their petals if I force them.

This is the third time that I have had to start again.

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When did I first know her, my half-sister Nefertiti Neferneferuamen, whose name means 'The Beautiful One Who Is Come'?

It must have been the river.

I knew that I was being very naughty.

My wet-nurse had been called away on some deep matter involving herbs and childbirth—both female mysteries from which I was excluded—and the servant-girl who was supposed to watch me was flirting with the guard. I was sitting in the garden in Ay's palace, watching the little boats being dragged ashore as the flood filled the Nile and the banks crumbled.

'Egypt,' said Asen my nurse, 'is called the Black Land, because of the rich soil deposited by the river. Our land is the gift of the Nile,' she said, stroking my curly dark hair, 'as you are, daughter, as we all are. And Pharaoh is our Lord and the Gods are above and beneath us, the land our father Geb and the sky our mother Nut, so go to sleep, little daughter. We are cradled in the Nile, nursed by the river,' she said, and went away to tend a woman who was groaning in the next room.

I tried to follow, but an old woman grabbed me by the arm and hauled me from the door.

'Not yet, daughter of Ay,' she grinned toothlessly at me.

I was nettled at being excluded and wandered back to the window, where fascinating debris was being swept down the swollen river. The placid water foamed like honey from Asun. I waited until the girl was entirely engrossed in her guard and slipped quietly out of the window and onto the paved place outside the palace.

The air was full of people crying out and giving orders that no one was listening to. The flood had come down suddenly this year, my sixth in Maat, and early. Little houses which had been made by herdsmen to be dismantled later were being dismantled early by the water, running faster than a running horse. No one noticed me as I wandered through the crowd. Of all the children of Ay I most resembled the common people and apart from the fineness of my amulet and the gold rings in my ears there was nothing to set me apart. A woman leading a mother-goat and carrying a kid almost stood on me and cursed me out of her path in the name of Set, a serious curse. I threaded my way through the people to the edge.

Fascinating. People like ants scurried away from the water, carrying hay and sacks and terracotta pots. A solemn priest of Basht bore away a sacred cat from a grain storehouse which had been inundated. It was soaking wet, spitting and furious, and it scored his smooth pale shoulders with long angry lines, which he did not even seem to notice.

I was so interested in the movement and the voices, crying on a variety of Gods to allow them to get to safety before the water enveloped them, that I did not notice that the water had eaten away the spit of sand which I was standing on and was about to eat me.

I must have screamed as I fell. It was cold water, terribly strong, and I saw the flash of a reptilian tail as a crocodile was swept helplessly past, turning belly-up as it struggled to regain its balance. Ivory teeth flashed in the gaping mouth. I was seized by the Nile, pummelled and thumped. There was no air. A red mist rose in front of my eyes. I struggled to surface, striving against the current, gained the air and gulped, then the fists of the water thrust me under again, and the scales of another crocodile scraped my legs.

I struggled again, twisting all my slight weight, grabbed at something, and was hauled bodily out by strong hands. I came up red-faced, gasping, soaking wet, into strong arms which squeezed the Nile out of my lungs and shook me bodily.

It was the young man Horemheb, double my age and destined to be a soldier. He was tall and good looking, with long hair as black as ink and the most considering dark eyes. His hair was plaited in locks, each one tipped with a blue faience bead, which bobbed across his bare shoulders as he moved. He tucked me under one arm as though I was baggage and climbed the bank. I did not struggle against this humiliation, because I was still breathless and suddenly conscious of being in very deep trouble.

'You ran away from your nurse, Mutnodjme,' he said solemnly, setting me down on wobbly feet. I grasped at him as I felt myself falling and he picked me up again. His body was warm and his arms secure and I relaxed a little.

'I did,' I agreed.

'You will be beaten,' he added.

I will,' I said, observing that his fine cloth was stained with river-mud.

'Now, how are we to get you out of this?' he asked himself, mounting the next bank and striding towards the palace of Ay. 'Where is Asen?'

'Tending to a woman in childbirth,' I said. 'Put me down, I can walk.'

He did so, and took my long side-lock in his hands, wringing it to spill out the water. He surveyed me. I was a mess. My skin was stained with black mud, my feet and hands filthy, and blood was flowing from the crocodile scrapes along my legs. He wiped at the grazes with a hard hand.

'Doesn't this hurt?' he asked.

'Of course.' I winced as he blotted at the blood with his palm.

'But you haven't cried, 'Nodjme,' he commented.

'There is no point in crying, Lord.'

He smiled then. Horemheb rarely smiled. It lit up his broad face like Re Exalted who is the sun at noon and I smiled back.

'We can't just steal back into the palace as though nothing has happened,' said my rescuer. 'I know. Nefertiti will help. Come along, little sister. Climb on my back, we have to hurry.'

Thus I saw her for the first time, the beautiful one.

Horemheb skirted the palace walls, walked carefully through the first hall, then dived through a curtained door into the Princess' courtyard. I never thought to wonder how he knew the way. A woman was bathing in a pond full of fragrant water. I smelt lotus and jasmine. The air was heavy with scent like spring.

'Lady, I bring you a little sister in distress,' he said, putting me down. 'She was eaten by the river, and faces a beating for being drawn to the Great Mystery of the River, enchanted perhaps by Hapi, God of the Nile.'

There was an odd tone in his voice, which worried me. Hesitancy, from so sure a person as Horemheb? But I forgot all about him as soon as the lady turned and held out her arms to me.

Oh, beautiful, lovely beyond belief, my half-sister Nefertiti. Her skin was as smooth as marble, her features all perfect; long nose, high cheekbones, eyes like almonds, liquid and soft. But it was her gentleness which glowed, which shone. I walked straight into her embrace as she gathered me, mud and weed and all, into her milky pool and I lay on her smooth, rounded breasts as though I had been fostered there.

'You have done well,' she told Horemheb, and he bowed and went away.

I had fallen in love with my sister. She washed all the mud off me with her own hands, heedless of the blood in the water, then called her women. She called her own nurse to treat the grazes on my legs, and then dried me and dressed me, for concealment, in a woman's cloth.

When Asen came to find me, my wounds were carefully hidden under a too-big gown and I was sitting like a good little girl, while my most beautiful sister plaited flowers into my hair.

'Is she not my sister, daughter of my father?' she asked Asen, who bustled in full of outrage and threatening a beating. 'Should she not come to me? Let her come again,' said Nefertiti in a voice like flowing gold, and Asen melted right away in front of my eyes.

So I first saw her, the beautiful one who is come, the Great Royal Wife. And so I first saw Horemheb the young soldier, who rescued me from the Nile.

Ptah-hotep

I cannot remember not being able to read and write.

When I was five years old in Maat who is truth, my father Imhotep sent me to the palace of the Temple of Amen-Re at Karnak to become as he is. I had taken his stylus and made squiggly attempts at letters all over the whitewashed inner wall of the house, using cooking-pot soot for ink, because I had seen him writing and wanted to imitate it. My mother raised a hand to slap me, because she valued her clean walls, but my father had put her aside, saying 'Here is a scribe and son of a scribe, should he not practice his father's profession?'

And the woman my mother had agreed, while I was still naked, while I wore nothing but the amulet and sidelock of childhood.

And here I am now many years later, my legs crossed under me, immaculate fine linen cloth uncreased, the plaster-board laid across my lap, my own palette beside me on the floor. My brushes and styli are carefully selected and meticulously kept and my ink is of the finest, solid black and bright scarlet. I compound and grind my own ink, which I dilute with water if I am writing on papyrus and with painter's size derived from boiled hoofs if I am inscribing a wall. Beside me are a pile of limestone shards and broken pottery, the ostraca for notes and random thoughts, and my master is reading out the Building Inscription of Amenhotep II, which the whole class is copying, miserably or obediently.

I am bored almost to extinction. Cruel father, to condemn me to this endless toil! Better I had been such as the young men who work in the fields, who care for oxen and fish in the river. Better even to be a slave carrying water or grinding corn, better to be a weaver in his little house or a laundryman beating filthy clothes in the shallows, a messenger on a fast horse, a soldier in danger of death on the border of Egypt, where the vile Kush lurk in ambush.

Better anything than this: the heat of noon, heavy on the eyelids. The glare outside of sun on marble. The silence except for the droning of a fly, the heavy sigh of some overburdened scholar, the scratching of styli on plaster, the scrubbing of someone rubbing out a mistake with a ball of cloth, the endless, endless droning voice and the never-ending Building Inscription of Amenhotep II, the grandfather of the present Pharaoh who lives, Amenhotep III. And my master goes on, and on:

Live the Horus: Mighty Bull, great in Strength: Favourite of the Two Goddesses: Mighty in Opulence: Made to Shine in Thebes: Golden Horus: Seizing by his Might in all Lands, Good God, Likeness of Re, Splendid Ray of Atum, begotten Son whom he made to shine in Karnak. He appointed him to be king of all living, to do that which his ka did: his avenger, seeking excellent things, great in marvels, creative in knowledge, wise in execution, skilful-hearted like Ptah; king of Kings, ruler of rulers, valiant, without his equal, lord of terror amongst the southern lands, great in fear at the end of the north. Every land comes to him bowing down ...'

My fingers know their way. My ears hear the words and write them down. I do not need to pay attention and I find myself wondering, what would it be like, to stand guard outside the palace or to work at one's own trade and lie down in one's own bed at night with nothing more to worry about but tomorrow's labour? All my life I have written other men's words, made permanent their thoughts.

I began by copying the Maxims of Ptah-hotep, my namesake, and continued through the Story of Sinuhe, who was a man, and the Contendings of Horus and Set, who are Gods.

I have written down accounts of journeys and ventures, of wars and conquests. I have written endless lists of grave goods and marriage contracts and all manner of documents by which men regulate their lives and record their words, and I have done nothing at all for myself.

I have married no wife, begotten no children, though I am fourteen years old and a man, with a man's seed to give. I have built nothing, made nothing, repaired nothing, created nothing. If I was to write the inscription for my own tomb now, I could say nothing but 'Ptah-hotep knew all words and three scripts and wrote a clear hand'.

The blow from the master's staff stings across my shoulders. He is standing over me, and he is angry. He must have spoken my name and gone unanswered.

'Show me,' he growls. I hand him my board and rub the weal which is forming across my back. He likes hurting, this Priest of Amen-Re. He has come here to give us instruction in the high script, which only priests use. I can see, turning in my place, the wet lip of the man who relishes pain and I blink hard, determined that he shall not see me weep and drink my tears for his pleasure.

I have written, I observe, most of the chapter of the inscription which he has been dictating. My characters are well formed and flowing and I assume that they are correct, for he drops the board back into my lap and says nothing else, only resumes the droning chant:

He assigned to me all that is with him, which the eye of his uraeus illuminates, all lands, all countries, every road, the circle of water Oceanos, they come to me in submission to my majesty: Son of Re, Amenhotep, Divine Ruler of Thebes, living forever, only vigilant one, begotten of the gods.'

The staff comes down hard on the shoulders of my friend Kheperren, and he gratifies the master's taste for wailing, so he repeats the blow. I wince for him as I would not for myself.

Who will free me of this misery?

Freedom comes in unlikely guises, says the sage Ptah-hotep, and so it came to me. We were bathing in the sacred lake, washing ourselves free of impurity for the evening prayer. I sluiced cool water over my wounded back, still angry and resentful at my fate. The priests were at their meal, the masters were in their rooms with their wives, and for a little while there was no one watching us. My friend Kheperren embraced me in the water.

'I hurt,' he complained, and I stroked the raised weals on his smooth back.

'I, too,' I agreed.

'I made three errors,' he admitted. 'But he hit me too hard.'

'I made none and he still hit me,' I replied. 'Doubtless the monster Apophis will eat his heart in the end but this does not comfort me, brother.'

'Hotep, can we run away?'

I swung him around so that we were facing one another, floating easily in the water, legs entwined. Re who is the sun was westering, but there was abundant light, spilling over the temple, making the stones glow like gold. Kheperren's brow was wrinkled with thought. He had black hair and the smooth olive skin of the countryman, whereas I was pale, almost ivory, and my hair was tinted with the Theban copper. It was unfair that I, whose father was only a scribe because he had been a common soldier in the army, was as fair as one of the Royal House, and my heart's brother was as dark as a peasant, though he was descended from the high priests of Amen-Re. I liked our contrast as we lay together, his thighs twined with mine.

'We can't run,' I told him. 'Remember when Yuya tried that. They caught him, beat him, and made him sit for a week with his legs tied together.'

'I can't bear it,' Kheperren wailed, burying his face in my neck. 'If it wasn't for thy love, brother, I would die.'

His mouth was hot against my skin; our breath mingled. Floating, we drifted into a bank of papyrus, and the reeds closed about us. We had often lain here, where no man could see us, clutching each other for comfort.

'We are in a herdsman's hut on the banks of the river,' he breathed. It was our favourite of all the stories we told each other.

'We have stabled our cattle for the night,' I returned, sliding both hands down his body. I found the phallus, hard in my palm as I had always found it, in the dark of the dormitory or the cool of the morning.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Out of the Black Land by Kerry Greenwood Copyright © 2013 by Kerry Greenwood. Excerpted by permission of Poisoned Pen Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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