“Not even the Pharaoh?”
“He will not have me. It is all one to me; he's a boaster and a lout, no matter how handsome he is. I have no time for him.” But she turned her face away, her eyes downcast.
“Why will he not have you?”
She gave a small shrug of her shoulders. The beads in her wig clattered as she lifted her chin. “Because I am not as beautiful as other women. What does it matter? I am the God's Wife of Amun; even the High Priest does my bidding. Beauty is useless beside power.”
After years apart, Senenmut was startled to realize how little she had changed. He read the lie in her voice, and saw that the lie was her shield.
“But you are beautiful, Hatshepsut.” Senenmut's heart thudded; he did not know where his audacity to speak such words came from, unless they came from his knowledge of her heart, his desire that she should be happy.
She turned narrowed eyes to him, a familiar look of suspicion.
“I speak the truth. Beauty is not only a finely made face, or a slender, graceful body. No one would call a falcon beautiful – not set beside an ibis. But watch a falcon hunt – see its confidence, the power of its dive, the ferocity of its eye – and tell me, is that not a beauty all its own?” He swallowed hard, and like a fool he went on, heedless of the consequences. “You were beautiful to me, as a falcon is beautiful, when you stood on the temple steps with the knife in your hand.”
She smiled, full and glowing, mouth open, nearly laughing with the pleasure of his words. And in a hot rush of madness, helpless before the loveliness of her smile, Senenmut cast himself on the mercy of her coarse beauty. Let the gods damn him if they would. The joy of her presence after so long apart was too much for a mortal man to resist. Senenmut gave voice to his heart, gladly, without regard for what was good and what was proper.
“And you are beautiful to me now. Your beauty is in your rarity; there is no woman like you in all the world. Flog me for saying it if you must, but I...”
She kissed him, long and deep. Senenmut did not push her away. The taste of her mouth, her tongue, eclipsed his senses, and he rocked helplessly in the embrace, until he lost his balance and broke from the kiss with a shout, catching himself on the lake's wall before he toppled sideways into the water.
She rose, laughing at his blunder. Her hands moved upon her own shoulder; before he could piece together the meaning of her movements the white gown fell away from her body and she stood naked in the starlight.
“Oh gods,” he whispered, and would have backed away again, but the force of her presence pulled him near. She reached out her hands. This time when he grasped her wrists he pulled her fingers to the knot of his kilt. She worked at the white sash first, loosened the great loop of linen until it sagged around his hips. Something dark and heavy dropped from his sash into the garden grass. She gasped and stepped away. “Wait,” he said, and bent to retrieve what had fallen. He offered the objects up to her in his palm: the bracelet of scarabs she had given him long ago, and the black braid of her side-lock.
“You kept these, all this time.” She fingered the braid tentatively. Her face, downcast as she studied his treasures, held a youthful innocence that wracked him with desire, so startling was that pure, unconscious wonder set against her compelling force of presence, her frank, unashamed nudity.
“They are charms to me, magic spells.”
She smiled up at him. “What kind of magic do architects use?” Her hands returned to his kilt, worked the second knot free. The linen unwound.
“We catch falcons,” he said, and pulled her down into the grass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HATSHEPSUT WOKE EXHAUSTED FROM SLEEP, as she had done for half a month now. She lay pinching the bridge of her nose, groaning; her head pounded in the onslaught of morning's light. Yesterday when her duties at court and temple were finished, she had felt much too tired for entertainment and had retired with the sunset. She had not even kissed Iset or Little Tut good-night. The realization made her feel absurdly guilty; she dashed sudden tears from her eyes with rough fingers. In truth, she had not seen Iset for some time. Hatshepsut had brought Senenmut to her rooms most nights for weeks on end, as the girl was frequently closeted with the baby. She was absorbed with caring for him; she showed no interest in returning to her duties as fan-bearer. For Hatshepsut's part, it gladdened her heart to see Iset so joyful. If not for Senenmut's attentions she may have felt neglected. As it was, she was content to allow Iset her time as Mawat. But she missed the sister of her heart; there was no denying that truth. She wished for the girl's gentle hands to soothe away the headache.
Be sensible. Get out of this bed. Duty awaits.
She levered herself from her bed; a wave of nausea took her and she gripped the headboard, choking and retching. Batiret pushed the bedchamber door open with one skinny hip. She balanced Hatshepsut's breakfast tray; Hatshepsut turned quickly from the sight, her stomach clenching.
“Go,” she managed weakly. “Take it away.”
Batiret sighed; she set the tray on a table and came to her mistress's aid. “Great Lady, you must eat to keep up your strength.” The girl tugged at Hatshepsut's elbow, trying to lead her toward the food.
“I am fine. It was only the wine last night.”
“Great Lady, you had no wine last night. You went to bed directly after your supper. You have slept many hours; you must eat, Great Lady.”
“I do not want to eat. Draw my bath.”
“I will do as my lady commands, after she has eaten. Look, I brought weak beer. There is beef stew if you crave savory, and honey cakes if you crave sweet.”
The stew seemed strangely motivating. Hatshepsut took one faltering step toward the food, though her insides roiled. She stopped, swaying, swallowing the urge to retch.
Batiret placed her fists on her hips, for all the world like a tiny nurse. “Eat or the baby will be a weakling.”
Hatshepsut stared at the girl. “I – I am not with child, Batiret.”
She turned away, fetched the plate of cakes herself and offered the dish to her mistress.
“The stew,” Hatshepsut said at once, squeezing her eyes closed to shut out the sight of the cloying, sticky cakes.
“My mother has many children,” the girl said. “And I have many aunts, and they all have children. And two of my sisters are already mothers. I have seen eight babes born in my family already.”
Hatshepsut accepted the bowl of stew from the girl's hands. She carried it back to her bed, huddled on the mattress while she sipped the thick broth. “But I cannot be with child.”
Batiret had served as fan-bearer for an entire season now; Hatshepsut had come to know the girl's subtle expressions and moods well. Now she sat fussing with the breakfast tray with the raised brows and thinned, pale lips that said she had thought better of speaking her mind.
“Say what you will,” Hatshepsut said warily.
“Why can you not be with child, when you spend so many evenings with the architect?”
“I hope you have never repeated that to anyone outside my chambers.”
“Never, Great Lady.” Batiret's answer was fiercely loyal; Hatshepsut trusted the girl. She was too intelligent to gossip.
“I am barren, Batiret. I cannot carry a child.”
“I have washed your cloths myself, Great Lady. I know you have your blood.” The child was too young herself for a moon's blood, and yet there she sat, scowling like a physician, speaking so matter-of-fact about washing cloths and architects.
“I have never had my blood regularly; it comes and goes without any regard for the moon. I have heard women say that such an affliction indicates barrenness.”
Batiret rose, took the bowl from Hatshepsut's hands. She lifted one of her mistress's breasts; Hatshepsut winced, though the girl's touch was light.
“There; do you see? Your breasts are swollen and painful. And look how dark the nipple is.”
Hatshepsut slapped her hand away. She crossed her a
rms over her bare chest. “You speak of the God's Wife as if she is a milk cow in the marketplace!”
Batiret shrugged. “It is the Great Lady's choice to believe her servant, or not. Either way, her belly will grow big.”
It was the unshakable confidence in the girl's voice that convinced her. Hatshepsut crept from her bed again and stood before her great mirror. Batiret was right. Her breasts were noticeably fuller, and her nipples had gone astonishingly dark, the color of well-polished wood. “Amun's eyes,” she swore.
Panic flooded her, erupted into her stomach to blot out all trace of nausea with an alarming tightness. “Oh – blessed Mut, what shall I do? The Pharaoh has never lain with me, Batiret. And he is in Kush, besides – far beyond my reach, even if I could seduce him. And I cannot – I cannot!”
“Peace, Great Lady. Peace.”
“No – never! Thutmose despises me; he has always wanted me gone. And I have other enemies, too – the High Priest, and Ankhhor.... Now that Iset has had the child....”
Batiret clutched her hands at her own slender throat; Hatshepsut could see that her panic had terrified the girl. Perhaps she thought she was now responsible for the Great Lady's distress, having convinced her mistress of the truth of her condition. The girl's fear gave Hatshepsut a needed focus. With a great effort she smoothed her face, reached out to stroke Batiret's shoulder with a gentle, untrembling hand. “It's all right – I am all right now, good Batiret. Bring me that stew; I need to eat, as you say.”
She forced the stew down her throat and into her unsteady gut. As she ate, she made Batiret recite for her the changes she could expect in her own body as the child grew. But she listened with only half her heart. The time had come for the Pharaoh to take the Great Royal Wife into his bed. More lives than her own depended upon it. Whether he would or no, Thutmose must lay with Hatshepsut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
HATSHEPSUT ARRIVED AT THE NEW fortress twelve days later, and never had she been so pleased to step from the deck of a ship. This had not been the stately procession she embarked upon two years ago, with ostentatious worship at every temple along the river's banks. The gods had granted her a strong, steady wind; her ship raced upstream as fast as a falcon's dive, nosing into every trough between waves along the way, jouncing upward and down a hundred times for every span it traveled forward. She slept aboard her ship when it moored at night, not at cities' quays, but in any sheltered cove or convenient eddy that presented itself. Her back was cramped and achy from the hardness of the deck's planks, and she had grown so used to the continual pitch and sway of river travel that now, on solid ground, she bobbed and stumbled on level footing, her body seeming to crave for that ever-present rocking.
Worst, though, had been the cataracts. She had watched from the prow one morning as the first came into view. The tension of the sail sent a deep, sonorous thrumming through the bones of the ship. Its vibration crept up her legs and shook her tender middle. On the horizon, the straight banks of the river seemed to fracture on many planes, ominous shards of stone surrounded by white foam. As the ship drew closer, the way ahead took on the look of two clawed hands unclasping, hard dark fingers unlacing, the river a wild chaos pouring from malevolent black palms. There was no way to sail past this obstacle; she was no sailor, yet even she could see it. Her crew furled the sail and rowed, an operation which took all day, for each stroke of the oars seemed to pull the ship ahead by only a hand's breadth, and often she had the sensation that they were slipping backward, that in a heartbeat they would be washed all the way back to Waset, in spite of the men rowing tirelessly against the current.
When at last they had cleared the cataract the sun was sinking in the western sky. The captain anchored early and doled out stronger beer than usual to the crew. Hatshepsut did not begrudge them their rest and their reward. The way the boat had shuddered and heeled as they passed between those terrible rocks, she found herself yearning for some strong beer herself.
They made their way past three more such treacherous passages. At the final two, the banks were level enough that most of the crew disembarked and towed the boat past the rapids on several thick lines. Hatshepsut, despite their insistence that the Great Lady remain aboard, had taken to the land to walk the length of the cataracts. That fearful frothing and hissing of the water, the smack of the chopping waves pummeling the boat's hull, the fountains of angry foam spraying onto the deck – it was all more than she cared to face a third and fourth time. Her stomach was still uncertain in the mornings, and she did not wish to give the sailors a show by vomiting over the rail while they towed her southward.
The fortress rose bright and strong on the western bank, situated on a rocky promontory with a commanding view of river, valley, and desert. New-quarried stone gleamed in the sun. It was magnificently built, three watch-towers, a high wall, and a low barracks and stable within, roomy enough to hold a hundred men and twice as many horses. Not quite half those numbers occupied it now, but as Thutmose came into his power and continued the work their father had begun, it would fill to capacity and make the southern border ever more secure, and ready the lands of Kush for Egypt's inevitable advance. And it was due to her own wisdom in dealing with Retjenu that this fortress had come to be. She nodded gravely toward its walls as if the fortress had saluted her, raised its stony palms to her presence in thanks. Mine, she thought, watching tiny dark men move along its walls, gesture from its towers. I made this come to pass. It is mine.
Beyond the fortress, in an open grassland a short distance to the south, the Pharaoh's camp stretched in the sun, lazy as a garden cat. The keening of pipes skirled above the din of quay and fortress. She followed the sound to the great tent at the heart of the encampment, a tall pavilion of blue and white cloth peaked by a massive cedar pole, its walls undulating lightly in the river wind. Around its edges clustered the tents of his guards, his advisors, his horse-keepers and huntsmen, the dancers and musicians and servants who entertained him. The grasses all about his camp lay flattened, crushed into mud, rutted by the wheels of chariots and hand-carts. Here in this rough country there were no litters to carry her, but she paid no mind to the mud that flecked her feet and dulled the brightness of her sandals.
The guards on Thutmose's pavilion bowed hastily when they saw her emerge from the mill of the camp crowd. She gestured them aside. When they hesitated, Nehesi shoved between them, held the flap of the tent wide for her to enter. From its cool, dark depths came the scent of roasted meat and onions. Her mouth watered. She had eaten sparingly that morning, fearing to vomit; now, as her eyes adjusted to the dimness she found the joint of beef on its bed of ruddy, wine-soaked onions as keenly as the hawk finds the hare. Beyond the food, Thutmose crouched on a gilded throne, gaping at her. She could practically hear the tiny child within her crying for the meat. Her hunger was suddenly terrible, driving. She pushed into the tent and made directly for Thutmose's table. Without a word of greeting to the king, she tore a piece of meat from the bone. It was tender, dripping with red juice, invitingly warm in her hand. She bit into it and eyed her husband, eyebrows raised in an ironic reflection of his own surprise.
“Good meat,” she said, mouth full. “You surely took the best cooks out of Waset.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I missed my husband. I craved for his company.” She sucked her fingers, licked the savory juice from her palm, then helped herself to another piece. “Is that so difficult to believe?”
Thutmose said nothing, only watched in disgust as she ate through several handfuls of beef as quickly as she could. A serving woman appeared with a carved chair – not as beautiful as Thutmose's throne, to be sure, but suitable. Hatshepsut lowered herself into the seat and turned her attention to the onions. At last the ferocity of her hunger was somewhat tamed. “In truth, I wanted to see the new fortress. It was I who commissioned it, I who found the goods to pay for it. Why shouldn't I see it with my own eyes?”
“Then why didn't you sail
south with me when I left Waset?”
“The moods and whims of women,” she replied, shrugging. “What news in the south?”
Thutmose sighed. He plucked the linen towel from his own lap and flung it at her; she snatched it from the air, dabbed primly at her mouth. “Scouts have reported Kushite raiding parties in the hills to the west and south, but they seem intimidated by the activity here at the garrison. They have not attempted an advance. It's impossible for anyone to get a clear idea of their numbers, but these Kushite forces are always disorganized. Their numbers hardly matter. They could scarce stand against Egypt before the fortress. Now they may as well be a fly attacking a bull. How long are you planning to stay?”
“Why, my dear brother, I could almost believe that you are not happy to see me. No, don't fret. There is work that needs doing in Waset. The Hathor Festival needs planning, and the harvest will be in soon. I would hear the tallies from the overseers myself. If I do not see to these things, who will? Surely not you.”
He scowled at her. “How is my son?”
Hatshepsut smiled. “Well. Strong. He grows faster than you would believe. He was crawling when I left Waset. His nurses say he will learn to stand before long, and if the gods smile on him he'll soon have a few words in his mouth, too.”
She loved the boy. She could not hide the fact. To think the small shimmer of life inside her would soon be a baby as lively, as real as Little Tut. She resisted placing her hands upon her stomach. Instead she reached for more meat to feed the child. It demands meat...he demands meat. Surely a babe that craved for flesh so intensely must be male. She drew in an apprehensive breath. Never before had she considered what might become of Little Tut and Iset if she, Hatshepsut, bore a son. I cannot think on that now. Not now. I must do the work set before me here, in this place, on this day. Protect the child first – protect Senenmut, protect myself. Once that is done, time enough to worry over the rest. Heirs were not always chosen from the obvious stock of children. Had not her own father, a common-born soldier, been raised up as Pharaoh in the face of great need?
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