“Good morning, sister.”
“You cannot attend court looking like that. Go back to your rooms and change. And be quick! There is already a crowd gathered.”
“I will not change my dress. I am the God’s Wife of Amun. If these people wish to see me, let them see me as a priestess.”
“God’s Wife? You? Did Nefertari hand you the title?”
Ahmose said nothing.
“Well,” Mutnofret went on, “you look like a fool, and your eyes are all red. By Hathor, Ahmose! You should at least try to look like the Great Royal Wife.”
Ahmose turned her face, sharply, and stared into Mutnofret’s eyes. The second wife pursed her lips, but she fell silent.
Beer and bread arrived, and Mutnofret turned her attention to breaking her fast. Ahmose surveyed the hall. It was nearly ready now, the stewards just beginning to fall into position. The pillars of light had crept only a hand’s breadth across the floor.
Mutnofret finished her food, waved the platter away, and nodded to the chief steward.
Ahmose’s mouth quirked. Amusing, that the second wife should think it was for her to begin court. Ahmose rose smoothly from her seat and took the flail from its support beside Tut’s empty throne. She held it across her breasts. Mutnofret glared at her. “Steward,” Ahmose said, “you may open the court to my people.”
She remained standing as the crowd entered the hall, filing into their orderly lines where the stewards directed them. She looked commanding with the flail, she knew – commanding and powerful. “The throne of the Pharaoh welcomes you. Let the spirit of righteousness guide us in this day's doings. Maat.”
The chief steward raised his voice. “You will be directed to the stewards first. If your petition requires adjudication, you will then be directed to either the Great Royal Wife or the Lady Mutnofret.”
Now was the time. Ahmose took a step forward. “I regret to inform the court that the Lady Mutnofret will not be attending us today. Her condition troubles her.” Ahmose turned to Mutnofret and smiled sweetly. “I have excused her from her duties. Perhaps when her child is born she will feel well enough to join us again.”
Before the court as she was, Mutnofret could do nothing without looking like a contentious child. Any action she might take other than to retreat to her chamber would be unseemly. Mutnofret stood, holding Ahmose’s eye steadily for a long, tense moment. Then she waved a servant to her side and waddled down the steps. At the base of the dais she turned to look up at Ahmose.
“You are too kind to excuse me from the burden of duty, sister. Won’t you please come visit me this afternoon, so that I might thank you properly?”
Ahmose twitched the flail at her sister, a dismissal. She would not go to Mutnofret’s rooms, this afternoon or any other. The God’s Wife of Amun was stronger than the second wife. The God’s Wife had the power to sidestep Mutnofret’s traps. The God’s Wife would let Mutnofret remain in her apartments and claw the walls in her useless rage.
The God’s Wife had taken the throne.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“ANOTHER BOY.” TWOSRE STOOD, ARMS folded, eyes severe, in Ahmose’s modest chamber. “She calls him Amunmose.”
Ahmose bit her fist to smother a yawn. She had spent a long night dancing and chanting with the Mut priestesses. Her muscles were tight and sore. Their official mission had been to strike fear into the hearts of the Heqa-Khasewet warriors, but when an apprentice brought word that Mutnofret had gone into labor early that evening, Ahmose had slipped in a few private pleas to make the child a girl. “How is my sister recovering?”
“Quite well, Holy Lady.”
Sometimes even women who had borne before still died of complications. It would be convenient for Mutnofret to slip off to the afterlife and free the Horus Throne of her oppressive presence. No such luck, though; she would carry on as capably as the brood mare she was, it seemed. Ahmose cleared her throat. “Did she ask for me again at the birthing?”
Twosre made a funny little grimace, eyebrows up, mouth down. No need to answer; the woman’s face said it clearly enough. No, of course not. After her dismissal from court, the last thread between Ahmose and Mutnofret was cut forever. They were sisters no more.
“And the new baby – is he well?”
“Quite strong and healthy. He cries like a bull calf.”
“I am sure the Pharaoh will be glad to hear it.”
“Holy Lady…” Twosre hesitated. Ahmose nodded for her to go on, trying to erase the anger from her face. It was not Twosre who enraged her. “It is not my place to ask, Holy Lady, but all the palace servants want to know. Have you had any success with the Pharaoh? With the heirship for Wadjmose?”
Ahmose’s frown deepened. “No. I get few letters from the Pharaoh these days, and they are all full of battle stories. They made Tyre a base for many weeks, and cleared the surrounding land of Heqa-Khasewet. Most of the vermin have fled north. The Pharaoh pursued them. They have had several battles along the way, he said, with heavy losses at a few. The Heqa-Khasewet ambushed them from the highlands near Kadesh. They nearly lost that one, but Tut…Thutmose turned it around on them.
“His last letter spoke of pushing even further north. He thinks to rout them from Ugarit, and to set up an outpost there. He believes he can bring the local people to him, and expand the borders of the empire. I have seen maps. Ugarit is so far to the north. I do not see how he can hold it, but he has a way with soldiers, I know. If anyone can do it, the Pharaoh can.
“That is all he tells me, though. I don’t know whether the heirship is even on his mind. I do not wish to press the issue too hard, you see.”
“Of course, Lady.”
Ahmose was about to say more, but hands clapped lightly outside the chamber door.
“Come,” Ahmose said.
An old priest bowed in the doorway. “Holy Lady, your chariot is ready. I am to drive you to the palace.”
“Court calls,” Ahmose said, taking Twosre by the hand. “Come; ride back with me. We have little time for gossip anymore. You can tell me all the latest stories on the way to the palace.”
Twosre came along happily enough, chattering about the harem women and the servants. Ahmose listened with half her heart. The other half recalled the look on Mutnofret’s face when Ahmose had sent from the throne room, and she still did not know whether she was pleased or ashamed.
Ahmose had borrowed a plain frock from an apprentice girl: unbleached linen, coarse and scratchy, loose-fitting, and a plain wig, too. She lined her eyes thinly with kohl but left the rest of her face untouched. The simplest of leather sandals were tied onto her feet. Looking for all the world like a rekhet woman paying a visit to the Holy House, she walked out from her chamber, through Amun’s courtyard, out along the pillared avenue as the sun set. No one glanced at her twice as she left the complex, pacing out onto the wide road, eyes down, her sandals slapping in the dust. Waset shimmered on the horizon, seeming to float above the earth where the heat rippled the sky into the land. The growing season was nearly at its end. The desperate, thin harvest would begin soon. The air was Shemu-hot, even as evening drew on.
She walked for a long time, her eyes on Waset. To the left and right of the roadway fields of flax stretched away, bright and alive, waiting for the reaping. She stopped over a culvert to watch men at work on a canal, setting new bricks into place, shoveling debris from the bed. Was the tension in their faces from their work, or from worry? Their fields were marked with cairns, but the crop did not stretch all the way to the rock piles. Growth ended a good three spans short; the intervening space between crop and boundaries was lifeless and sere. She shuddered and walked on.
Chariots passed her, coming and going. None was the one she wanted, though. She reached the crossroads and sat upon the cairn that marked it, waiting, watching the people going about their lives. It was strange to be out among them, unrecognized. At court they were formal. In the temple they were reverent. Here, where no royalty and no gods could see, they joked and
quarreled, they held hands, they picked their noses and spat on the ground. Children being herded by tired mothers screamed and caught beetles in the roadside weeds. Men driving fine ladies in chariots shouted at the rekhet to clear the way. Goatherds drove their flocks by, whistling. A string of cattle plodded past, led by a tall boy, his little brother perched on the withers of the lead beast.
She waited a long time. The sun dipped low, darkening its face as it neared the far red bluffs to the west. She was about to turn back for the temple when she saw Ineni’s chariot, pulled by a pair of spotted horses. Her heart leapt to see him, lean and upright, coming toward her at a dust-kicking trot, his dear face serious and drawn. She waved to him.
“Well,” he said, drawing rein. He gave her his hand, pulled her into the chariot. The touch of his skin against hers skipped her heart. “I never would have recognized you.”
“Oh, Ineni! Has it really been so long?” She hugged him, kissed his cheek. “I have missed you! You got my letter; I am so glad.”
“All right, all right. I have missed you, too, Great Lady, but we may be recognized, even out here. Let’s go.” He turned the horses past the cairn. They left the hard-packed surface of the main road, and here the horses’ hooves made a soft, scraping sound on the loose soil of a farm path. The road lifted toward the low crest that marched past Ipet-Isut to Waset, the same place she had often gone to ride with Tut. There were no guards now, though, as when she rode with her husband. No one was on this road but Ahmose and her steward.
“What’s this all about, then?” Ineni said when they were sure no one was nearby to hear.
“I just had to see you. I needed a friend. The harvest looks so poor, and Mutnofret has just had another son – you have heard, I am sure.”
“Yes, I have.”
“I just needed to be with you again, Ineni. I always felt so happy and free with you. I am so troubled now, all the time. It is too great a strain to work at court all day, and to lead the prayers each night. I knew it would be difficult being God’s Wife, but I did not understand how hard it would truly be.”
Ineni said nothing. The horses’ hooves crunched up the path. Ahmose wavered, steadying herself with a hard grip on the chariot’s rail, waiting. At last he said, “I have missed you, too.” There was a curious tension in his voice.
The sun was nearly below the horizon now. It sent out a last flame, a bright defiance of the oncoming night. Ahmose tucked herself beneath Ineni’s arm, pressed her body against his, rested her head on his chest. She heard him swallow hard. She was frightening him, perhaps. He had always been so shy. But she did not care. She had been too long without company, and she needed to feel his closeness.
Ineni reined in on a hilltop. They climbed down from the chariot. He hobbled the horses, adjusted their harnesses, looked anywhere but at Ahmose.
“Come here,” she said, filled suddenly with a shaking, hot confidence. There was a large flat stone sunk into the ground, a natural bench. She sat there, and like a fish drawn to bait, Ineni came to her. He sank down beside her, tense, ready to dart away like a wary carp. She wrapped her arms around his neck to hold him in place, and kissed his cheek. He turned his face to hers before she could pull away, and his lips hesitated a breath away from her own.
The moment hung heavy between them, the heart-shaking, prickling moment. Then Ahmose leaned forward, so slightly. Their lips touched. Their mouths opened together. His tongue grazed the roof of her mouth, pulled her toward him, circled inside. She gasped through her nose and Ineni’s smell overwhelmed her: sweet herbs, papyrus scrolls, dust from the road, the faintest taste of myrrh. It was a wicked thing. Her heart should be Tut’s. But Tut was not here, and he had never looked at her the way Ineni did. And no one could see them but the spotted horses.
Decided now, determined, he loosened the knot of her dress. It fell to her waist. Her shoulders and breasts were bare. He dipped his head to kiss each breast; she was wordless and breathless; she wanted him. She did not know how, or why. She could not have named exactly what it was she wanted so badly then, but she wanted it with a ferocity that dizzied her thoughts. His hand was on her knee, on her thigh, moving upward to where the fire burned. His fingers brushed her gently there, and she moved her legs apart, eyes squeezed shut with the sweetness of anticipation.
Something rough and warm pressed against her back. He had laid her down on the rock, his mouth busy at her neck, his hand clever and soft beneath her rumpled dress. There was a sound, and she was surprised to realize that it came from her own throat – a sigh, a moan, a surrender. She was floating away on a warm river; she had cast off all her lines, and she was floating, rushing with this strange, sweet current. He was steering her along like a captain steers a new-made barque, and now the current was faster, driving harder, spinning. She urged him on with little gasps, wordless cries. She clutched at his shoulders, and at last she sank under the waves, where there was no air, no light, just the crash of water all around her, and then drifting, drifting, drifting.
The rock had cooled. The sky was dark. The spotted horses stamped and switched their tails. She sat up, shivering.
Ineni’s eyes were wide and startled. “I…I didn’t plan to…”
“It’s all right.” She tugged at the rough dress, and he helped her re-tie it at her shoulder. It was all right. More than all right. Ineni…her sweet Ineni! Was this what she had wanted from him all along, all their times walking in the garden, rowing on the lake…was this what it all led to?
“I shouldn’t have. I got carried away. Great Lady, forgive me.”
“Don’t call me that.” She stood. Her legs were so weak; it was a wonder they held her, shaking as they did. There were lights in Waset below, torches being carried through the streets, braziers burning near windows. For the quickest heartbeat she wanted to admonish him, but she could not. This was bad, this was wrong, she knew. She was Tut’s, and she did love Tut, truly. But he was so far away, and Ineni had kissed her, and put his hand under her dress, and Tut had never looked on her with Ineni’s eyes. “When can I see you again?”
He would not speak for a long time. Then, at last, “Whenever you want to, I suppose. But I will not…I will not step out of place again.”
But she wanted him to. She understood it now, why women and men did what they did together. She and Ineni could not lie together, of course. He might get a child on her, and that was as out of the question for him as it was for her husband. But this – this they could do. They could be lovers, if it was in secret.
At least until Tut returned. Just until then.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE FESTIVAL OF KHONSU WOULD be thinly celebrated this year. With the stores near empty and the harvest disappointing, not even the palace could afford a grand feast. Still, Ahmose planned a stylish celebration with dancers and poets enough to make up for the bland food.
After spending all her nights at the temple for three months and more, she found it somewhat disorienting to be back at the palace again by night. The courtyards in the moonlight, the fountains in the purple dusk, the richly dressed servants hurrying through the yards with reed torches: all these struck her – half awed, half appalled – as any traveler to a foreign land is stricken. The palace was a softened, mysterious place by night, dark shapes against a dark sky. There was a dizzying half-familiarity in the pillars and halls. She passed through her courtyard and paused at the stairs to the roof of her hall. They shone pale and clean in the evening glow, swept free of spider webs, waiting for her feet. With all the time she had spent on the throne and in the temple, Ahmose had not been up to her rooftop sanctuary since before she had worn her wings. Did her pavilion still stand, or had the servants dismantled it? There was no time to find out; she must prepare for the feast.
Twosre waited in Ahmose's apartments. All the braziers were lit, the magnificent painted walls dancing with copper light.
“Come, Lady,” Twosre said, all bustle and efficiency. “We don’t have much tim
e.”
Twosre had laid out the finest of Ahmose’s things, her best gowns and largest jewels. Ahmose held out her arms to be dressed, then lowered them again.
Twosre frowned at her, shaking out the folds of a shining blue gown. “Is something amiss, Lady?”
“I think I ought to dress simply tonight. Let the people see me as a priestess.”
Twosre found a clean shift in one of Ahmose’s trunks and held it up, shaking her head. “Not nearly as beautiful as your blue gown, Lady.”
“I will wear it all the same. Help me put it on.” The shift was pure white, softly pleated. Ahmose chose a plain belt of gold links, and considered one wig after another in her mirror. Finally she waved them all away, and set the small God’s Wife circlet upon her bare head. Silk ribbons of many colors fell from the crown to frame her face.
“You can’t go wigless!”
“Why not? I am the God’s Wife. Who’s to stop me?”
“Everyone will think you look peculiar.”
“I am the bride of the god,” Ahmose said, patting her servant’s cheek. “Let them think what they will. The priests do as I say, and the second wife is under my control. Should I care what a lot of drunk nobles think?”
“As you will, Holy Lady.” Twosre sounded doubtful, but she pulled the stopper from a jar of perfume and trickled some of the heavy oil onto Ahmose’s scalp, massaged it into her skin with deft fingers. Ahmose smiled at herself in the mirror, tossed her ribbons from one shoulder to the other, watched with approval the way the white shift shaped itself to her body. The perfume filled the chamber with the rich, warm scent of galbanum. She swept from her hall brimming with confidence, a flower opening to the moon.
Even in the outer reaches of the palace the noise of the feast reached her. Cymbals crashed, flutes keened, the higher notes coming more clearly, more sharply across the intervening night. Pillars reared up above her, hot night air giving way as she strode through this land, a conquering warrior, the righteous bringer of maat.
The She-King: The Complete Saga Page 17