The She-King: The Complete Saga

by L. M. Ironside

  Ahmose’s face fell. Was she being dismissed? Perhaps Tut needed to rest or eat. The journey must have been very hard, in the heat of the day. “Yes, of course. Mutnofret, we should leave our husband to rest.”

  Mutnofret laughed, a low, hollow sound. She cut her eyes toward Ahmose, a look that said, Foolish child! Tut was at Mutnofret’s side now, cat-petting her bare arms again, without so much as a glance for Ahmose. Nofret stared steadily at her over Tut’s shoulder. There was a fire of victory in her eyes, a desperate greed, a reveling. Your body may be changing, those eyes said, but I am still the one he wants.

  Ahmose backed toward the chamber doors. She did not break Mutnofret’s gaze until Thutmose kissed her neck, and Nofret’s eyes closed.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AHMOSE HAD LONG SINCE CHANGED out of the flimsy blue gown – Useless, she thought, kicking it across the floor – and into something more suitable for riding. Still Thutmose remained with her sister. An hour passed, then two. She crept up to her roof, dejected, and leaned on the parapet, watching the slim crescent of the moon drift against an emerging field of stars. The sky had gone violet with the approach of night.

  A timid voice called from the stair head. “Great Lady?” Ineni approached her, mouse-like and halting. She waved to him in greeting. She tried to summon a smile, but could not conjure up even the ghost of one.

  Her steward rested his forearms on the parapet, gazing as she did into the night sky. The last breath of day still clung to the horizon, a smudge of blue, the careless finger of Waser dragged across the space between heaven and earth.

  “You are sad, Great Lady.”

  “Please call me Ahmose. I have had enough of Great Lady for now.”

  Ineni said nothing, as if his silence could coax out an admission of all that troubled her. The quiet lay heavily on the roof as the day died, the blue at the horizon’s edge fading to dense black. At last she spoke. “You were right, that day when we visited Nefertari. Whoever bears sons will have Thutmose’s heart. And even at my most beautiful, even when I look like a woman and not a girl – no, hear me,” for Ineni had stirred as if he would object, “even then I cannot hold his eye with Mutnofret beside me. How can he want to come to my bed, even if I invite him? He has her. And who is more beautiful than Mutnofret?”

  Ineni looked away. Insects whirred in the gardens below. She remembered Aiya, the sound of the women in the birthing pavilion, the humming of the flies, the smell of the place. The knife in the physician’s hand.

  “In any case, I shall not bear a son. It is not for me. That is not what the gods have chosen for Ahmose.” Even as she spoke these words in despair, her skin tingled with a thrill of truth. Somehow it seemed Ahmose herself had always known she would never bear sons. Now, here in the emptiness of the night, she gave voice to her secret thoughts and the gods heard her. She had spoken their will into being.

  “And the throne? Ahmose?” Ineni’s voice was soft.

  The throne. She remembered her mother on the Horus Throne, how it had shocked Ahmose to see a woman sitting there. A woman wielding power just like a man – just like a king. And she recalled Nefertari, standing dark and quiet beside the throne. She saw it again, as clearly as if she dreamed it. Nefertari’s hand on the queen’s shoulder. Nefertari silencing Meritamun on the funeral barge. Power – power that she wielded like a king.

  “If I do not have the throne, Thutmose will eventually have no use at all for me. Even if I cannot have his love, I can share in the ruling of Egypt. And ruling Egypt is, after all, what the gods have chosen for me. No, I must not give up the throne.” With her grandmother's power she could help Tut, guide him. She could take half the work, leave him more time to be free, to ride his chariot in the hills and sail his boat, to make love to Mutnofret and raise his children. She could take half the weight of Egypt onto her back – half the weight and more. She could give him this, if she could not give him sons. “That will be enough for me. But I must have something more than a son, if he is to keep me as his Great Royal Wife.” She turned to her steward, truly saw his quiet face and solemn eyes for the first time that evening. She saw the intelligence burning in those dark, wide eyes like embers of offered myrrh. “Ineni, the gods sent you to me. I have a plan. It will take time – a good amount of time – and it must remain secret always. Can I trust you? Will you help me?”

  Ineni’s hand jerked as though it were under some strange power of its own; it crept toward her arm. One thin, cool finger brushed so lightly against her wrist. A moth’s touch; she barely felt it at all. “I am yours to command,” he whispered.

  Thutmose came to see her long after Ineni had departed. He came alone, without stewards or guards. She knew it was her husband before he reached the rooftop; his steps were too hesitant on the stairs to be those of a servant, too heavy to be those of a woman. She said nothing as he approached. She did not smile in welcome, though she knew she ought.

  “I am sorry it’s so late. I should have come sooner.”

  “No doubt you had better things to do than go riding in the hills with a child.”

  “You are no child.” His mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “You have changed.”

  “I have.”

  “I have missed our rides, Ahmose, and sailing, and sharing dinner together. I always feel closer to the gods when I am with you. You put me at ease.”

  These words slapped at her, stung her. They were all her heart longed to hear, yet he belonged to Mutnofret. His body craved Mutnofret. His eyes were for Mutnofret. He would sooner have Mutnofret as his first wife, as his Great Royal Wife, now that he knew the elder sister was the true woman – now that he knew Mutnofret would give him a son. His love for the second wife would grow, and soon enough, as soon as the people were satisfied that Thutmose was as strong on the throne as he was on the field of battle, the Pharaoh would set Ahmose aside.

  Set aside – no matter what he had promised so long before. Never to ride with him again, never to laugh with him again; back to the harem, disgraced, to live forever in Mutnofret’s long shadow. The thought tore at her stomach. She pressed one hand there, tightly to push away the pain. He seemed to take the gesture for girlish excitement. Confident, he stepped forward and cupped her chin, raised her face to look up at him. Something in her look made him stop with his mouth half-open. Whatever words he had been about to say wilted on his tongue.

  “Do you remember the first time we rode together at night?” she said.

  He was still holding her face, still held by the intensity of her eyes. He nodded.

  “I knew then that I loved you. But as surely as I know I love you, so I also know that I will not give you any sons, Tut.”

  The conviction of her words made his hand drop from her chin. His brows came together in confusion. “But you will.”

  She shook her head. “I tell you this now so you can set me aside now, if that is what you wish.”

  He laughed, but it was a small laugh, a puff of air. “Set you aside? What kind of foolishness is this?”

  “Mutnofret would make a better Great Royal Wife.”

  “No she would not, Ahmose. Mutnofret may be beautiful, but she has nothing of a Great Royal Wife in her ka. She cares about gossip and appearances and not much else. You – you ruled Egypt while I was gone.”

  “With the help of the stewards, yes. And with Mutnofret’s help. She took it seriously, Tut; I asked for her guidance several times and she always made wise choices.”

  “But she did not pass final judgment, Ahmose. I have been a general long enough to know how these things go. Ruling an army is not much different from ruling a country. The final word is the general’s to speak, even though he receives wise counsel from those around him. The final word in every dispute was yours. You made all the choices. Mutnofret might have ruled differently – probably would have, knowing her – and would Egypt have fared so well under her rule?”

  Though she bore little love for her sister anymore, Ahmose did not think
Tut’s judgment was quite fair. Mutnofret was a gossip and as ill-tempered as a snake, but she was not unmindful of justice. Nofret had believed her whole life she would end up on the throne. She had been trained for the role, educated in justice and in rule. No matter what Tut supposed, the advice the second wife had given at court had been useful. She was a woman capable of judging wisely and fairly. Ahmose may be the only person in the world who could look past Mutnofret’s flaws to see her potential, but to Ahmose, the truth was plain.

  Still she could not bring herself to oppose Tut – not in this. There was something about Mutnofret that all who knew her surely could see. Meritamun had named it on the day Ahmose had gone to her to plead on Mutnofret’s behalf. The second wife was full of heat, a fire that might burn out of control at any moment. The same flame did not burn within Ahmose. She was deliberate, calm. Perhaps this did make her more suited to rule, but there was yet the problem of a Great Royal Wife's chief duty.

  “Still, Tut, if I will not give you any sons then I am not a fit Great Royal Wife.”

  Thutmose sighed. He ducked under the pavilion’s loose-weave screens and sat upon a cushion.

  Ahmose stared at him.

  “Well?” he said. “Isn’t this where you read your dreams?”

  “You want me to read a dream?”

  He nodded, bringing her inside with a curt wave. She sat, uncertain, on a cushion across from him. In the wan light of the slivered moon, every thread of the pavilion’s screens stood out in sharp relief, so that Thutmose seemed surrounded by the filaments of a glowing spider’s web, a creature from the dream-world.

  “Here is the dream I have dreamed many times since I became general, Ahmose – since I first met your father.

  “I am climbing a steep hill above the valley. I am near death; there is some enemy behind me who I cannot see. He is reaching for me, though, and I know that my time in the living world is almost at an end. I reach the top of the hill to find a woman is standing there. Her back is always to me, and she is holding something in her arms.

  “When she turns, a holy light surrounds her. She holds a baby – a boy. The boy wears the double crown; he looks at me and smiles; he reaches out for me. He knows me. I am his father.

  “A voice says from the sky, ‘The soul of Re is righteousness. Be at peace, Thutmose. Even as you die, your son, the Pharaoh, restores righteousness to the land.’

  “I always see the face of the woman who holds my son. I know she is his mother. It is your face, Ahmose. It has always been your face.”

  The soul of Re is righteousness. The words rang in Ahmose’s heart, a bell’s peal at the breaking of day. Maat-ka-re.

  “When I first saw you,” Tut went on, “a child at court, I could at last put a name to the face of the woman in my dream. You were still young, but your face has always been the same. This beloved face…” he reached out to brush her cheek “…the same one I saw in my dream. At first I thought it blasphemy even to dream that dream, though what control does a man have over the things he sees in his sleep? I was only a general, born into a rekhet family, dreaming of fathering a child with the Pharaoh’s daughter. But the vision would not go away. It came again and again, many nights in a row. I could never escape it.

  “But that night – our ride – I knew it was a true dream. You told me your name that night as we rode through the fields, and the sound of your name was like a spear in my guts. I could see the boy in your arms, there in my chariot, and on the hill while I watched you sleep. I know you were shocked like everybody else when your mother named me the heir. But I was not. I know you were surprised when she named you Great Royal Wife in Mutnofret’s place. I was not. How else could you give me a son, a boy who will be Pharaoh, unless I became the king, and you my Great Royal Wife?

  “The gods have a purpose for us, Ahmoset. They brought us together, against all the conventions of mankind. They want me to get a son from you. They require it. It is my purpose in this life; it is your purpose. The child we will make together: that is what we both live for.”

  Ahmose leaned back on her hands, as if she might physically pull away from Thutmose’s dream. The images buffeted her; she was a barque in a wind storm, tossed and endangered. Yet Ahmose felt the glowing inside, the deep river currents of the gods’ voices as Tut spoke.

  She looked steadily at her husband, as if she could read the future in the lines of his bluff face. “I…I don’t know what the dream means. I need time to pray about it.”

  “I know what it means.”

  “I need time,” she said forcefully. Inside, her heart and ka snarled at one another like dogs fighting in the market. Mutnofret is the better wife, her heart said. Stand aside now while you still have some dignity left to you. But her ka insisted, I will do anything for Tut’s love.

  Thutmose nodded. “Know this, Ahmose. I will not set you aside. I told you this before, and I say it again now. Whatever you think of Mutnofret, I know who I want for my Great Royal Wife and the mother of my heir.”

  She struggled to make sense of his words through the haze of her confusion. “Then…you will not make Mutnofret’s child your heir?”

  “None of us knows what the gods intend. Not even you, I think – not all the time. I hope the child will be healthy, but babies die. Or it could be a daughter. I can marry Mutnofret’s daughter to your son one day. To our son.”

  This news, that Tut intended only a child of Ahmose’s body to be his heir, should have filled her with happiness. Instead, her heart broke for Mutnofret. For all her deceptions, for all her mean spirit, Nofret was her sister. And she, Ahmose, had already taken Nofret’s throne. Now, through none of her own choosing, she would take away her sister’s right to birth Egypt’s heir, too. “I cannot do this to Mutnofret, Tut. Don’t ask me to do this.”

  He reached across the space between them. Moving in spite of her doubts, responding like an animal to its master, she reached, too, and his hands grasped hers. “It is the will of the gods, Ahmoset. We do as they direct us, don’t we?”

  She nodded. She wanted to shake her head, but she nodded.

  “I promise you, I will only do as the gods bid. If they change their minds – if I have interpreted my dream wrong, and Mutnofret is to be the mother of my heir after all – I will do as they direct me.”

  “Name her child heir, Thutmose. You must.”

  “This is why I need you, Ahmose. I need you to tell me what the gods want. You are closer to their hearts than I. You can help me see their will.”

  “Name her child heir.”

  “Is that what the gods tell you?”

  She licked her lips. She could say nothing.

  “That is what I thought. We will wait for a sign from the gods, shall we? There is no rush for me to choose an heir. I am still young and strong enough that we need not fear. We will wait, you and I, until we know for sure. Until then, it does no harm for Mutnofret to believe what she will.”

  If Tut was right, and the gods would demand a son of Ahmose’s body, then allowing Mutnofret to believe a lie would only cause her more pain in the end. But it was easier, here and now, to let the sleeping lioness rest.

  “But the rest of them, Tut – the nobles, the priests, the rekhet. They do not need me by your side. Once they know you can protect Egypt on your own…”

  “Then they will know I am their Pharaoh in truth. My word will be law. My Great Royal Wife will be who I say she is.”

  He still did not understand, for all his protestations. A country was not an army. There was no absolute ruler. The currents of politics were more subtle, more strong and swift than those he was used to navigating. For that reason alone, he did still need her, for now, at any rate. She could see where the king was blind.

  She nodded, squeezed his hands.

  He smiled a dog’s smile. “So, about making that son.”

  She laughed, despite the tangle of emotions, the pressure in her stomach. “I really do need to pray about your dream, Tut.”

 
; “You should pray, then,” he said, and helped her to her feet. He tilted her chin up and up until her throat tightened. His breath fell on her cheek; his lips met hers. She let his tongue into her mouth, pressed her mouth hard against his. I can feel his teeth, she thought, giddy, afire; then the pavilion curtain swung and she was alone again, with the hum of insect voices and the distant susurrus of the river making music with her pounding heart.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MOTHER OF THE PHARAOH.

  The voice was rich, black. Ahmose saw nothing but a river of stars.

  Mother of the Pharaoh, why do you weep?

  She reached out her arms the way a child reaches for its nurse. Comfort was what she wanted – reassurance, a soft embrace, a sweet cake to soothe her. Her face prickled with the salt of her tears.

  Mother of the Pharaoh, rise up. Come to me.

  She lay on her back, she now realized, looking at the sky; the thick band of celestial light arced above her. Her hands stretched toward it, a child’s plea for help. Shaking, crying, she stood.

  This was no place she knew. There was no hint of a city, no trace of men or women. Yet this was Egypt. The soil beneath her bare toes was as black as char, and it vibrated with life. Each step she took stirred up the scent of crushed herbs, wet stone, barley fields after the harvest. Somewhere before her in the black night, the river breathed, a living ka. Beyond it, giving up their heat to the darkness, the red hills of the desert crouched in torpor.

  The voice drew her on.

  Mother of the Pharaoh, lady of sorrow, bringer of the high waters.

  Her feet sank into mud. She kept walking, pulling the hem of her dress high, then dropping it again as the mud became too deep and heavy to walk through easily. Her arms waved, her body tipped; each foot came free from the hot, black earth with a sucking sound and she plunged her feet back in again. Ankles, calves, knees, caked and wet. Dress stained. She did not care. The voice.