“My lord Amun,” Ahmose breathed.
He raised a hand to her face. The ankh was there, between his fingers. The breath of life. It – he – was too perfect to look on. She closed her eyes, and inhaled.
Breath of myrrh. Wind from the river.
A spark came to life inside her.
***
The room was black striped with silver, not red. And there was a floor. There, walls, painted and solid. Plain – oh, how plain, after the beauty of the veils! Hinges muttered. She turned her eyes toward the noise. A black form, backlit by brazier light. The light was coming from her anteroom and this poor place was her bed chamber in Waset. Yes, of course. Waset. She lay on a bed that was not the Sekhmet bed of her dreams, but an earthly bed, the Great Royal Wife’s bed, so plain after the glory of Heket’s gift.
She could bear to look on the man who came through the door, and so it was not her consort, not Amun the god. She raised herself up on one tired elbow to look at him over the curving bluff of her hip.
Thutmose stared down at her. A shaft of light from her pillared wall fell over half his face, split it with precise symmetry so his right eye was lost in blackness, his left, bloodshot and surrounded by smudged kohl, lit with the moon’s divine brilliance. His look was kind, and forgiving, and asking of forgiveness.
Ahmose reached out a hand. He took it. Wordless, she pulled him down onto the bed.
THIRTY-FOUR
It wasn’t easy to resume life in the palace. Ahmose had grown so accustomed to Tut’s absence that having him here again was a melancholy sort of delight. Ahmose heard nothing of Ineni. Perhaps it was better that way. She wondered often what had become of him, where he was, what his clever mind was up to. She never mentioned his name, not even to Twosre, though she often dreamed up ways to send him a message or a reward. Surely he had earned something – gold, an estate. Ahmose owed him a treasure. His gentle ways had erased Ahmose’s fear of the bed. She had lain with Tut many times since the night Twosre brought her back from Ipet-Isut so exhausted she couldn’t stand. She’d lain with him and found joy in it, and pleasure, too. She’d lain with him and conceived a prince, though she’d needed only one time – the first time – for that. She was certain the child who stirred in her belly had sparked to life on that still, silver-black evening when she had dwelt in the presence of the gods. And she was certain it was not Thutmose’s child. Or, not only his.
With their husband returned, Ahmose and Mutnofret had built a shaky truce between them. For weeks after the beating, the second queen avoided Ahmose carefully, not even speaking of the Great Royal Wife as far as Ahmose could tell. Not a word, not a whisper. Mutnofret was behaving herself. Whether being caught out in treachery did the trick, or whether it was the physical punishment, Ahmose could not guess, and did not want to know. The memory of the harm she had caused her sister, the blood on Mutnofret’s face, her brittle laughter, was an arrow through Ahmose’s heart. For many days, she wondered whether Mutnofret’s ka had been broken, whether she had beaten it out with her sapling. Then Ahmose saw the second queen in their shared courtyard, and though Mutnofret would not look Ahmose in the eye, she still held her head high and proud, a queen to her center. So she was not broken. Only chastened. Ahmose slept easier at night, knowing Mutnofret’s ka was safe.
The babies in the two queens’ bellies grew in tandem. Ahmose heard no more whispers about infidelity, but still it comforted her to know that any who looked at the pair of them on their thrones saw two women with the Pharaoh’s children, growing larger together, growing riper together. It gave her a sense of security on her throne, and a oneness with her sister she had never felt before.
But there were changes Ahmose could not bring herself to accept entirely. Thutmose was dutiful and kind, but his failure to protect his wives from each other weighed on him, and he was not the same man who had left to fight the Hyksos. He was more pensive now, spending long hours alone in his chamber or riding through the hills without Ahmose, with only his guards for company. He visited the harem more often than either queen’s bed, where he must surely find a sense of peace he could never again feel in either of his wives’ arms. Ahmose did not grudge him this. She loved her friends in the harem, and was glad that they should have some of the Pharaoh’s attention. She knew they would be kind to her distant husband, would do their best to lift the shadow from his heart. Tut needed his comfort, too, in the wake of the trauma that had almost torn his family apart.
Ahmose’s former life – her childhood, the days of leisure with Thutmose, her time as God’s Wife – all these were gone. They could never come again. She would have wept daily for the loss, but she had the prince. She loved him with a love so fierce it frightened her. How was it possible to love a thing so? How was it possible to be a thing so? For Ahmose was her son, and the prince was Ahmose. They were body and ka. One could never have existed without the other. The Ahmose who had lived before the prince was conceived hadn’t really lived at all. There was no life before him. There was no love before him, not even the love she felt for her husband. It was like ashes on the wind, compared to the way her heart swelled whenever she felt the prince move inside her.
When he kicked or turned, she would lay her hand against him and wonder what he would be. Would he be fierce or thoughtful, playful or serious? Would be be as strong as a bull, like his father? How could she love him so, when she had never seen him? And when she did see him at last, how could she bare the doubling, the tripling of this tearing, singing adoration?
And she would see him, she knew. She would see his face. Death in childbed held no more fear. It had vanished in the red room. It had burned away on the Sekhmet bed. It was not that she was certain of surviving. She was still small; she would always be a small woman. No, life after birth was not a surety for Ahmose. But to see her son, at least once – to see him take his breath and scream his challenge to the waiting world…this she knew she would be granted. The prince was her gift from the gods. She would be allowed to look on their gift at least once. She would be allowed to feel that great cloudburst of love at least once. She knew it in her ka. She knew it with the kind of certainty only the god-chosen possess.
And if the gods had forgiven her for her sins, she would be allowed to see her boy grow into a man.
“What will you name him?” Tut asked one cool evening as they drifted on the lake barge, picking at their awkward, uncomfortable supper, trying to rekindle a flame between them.
Ahmose cast her mind back like a net, back into the time before she had lived. The net brought back all things good and sweet. Spinning, the feel of the fibers twisting in her fingers, the spindle dropping and rising, the distaff against her shoulder. Aiya, golden, freckled, smiling tremulously with one hand on her big belly. Yes. It was a good name.
“Hatshepsu,” she said, and cradled the prince in her hands as he turned like a falcon on the wind.
***
Ramose was born just as the harvest began, when the sun was hot and the sky was thin. Mutnofret labored from one sunrise to the next, and when her third son was laid at her breast, she sent for Ahmose.
The second queen looked weak, limp, wrung out like an overused towel. She lay on the slope of her bed with her knees bent; Wahibra the physician was crouched between her thighs, plying something there that Ahmose could not see. She drew closer. Mutnofret’s eyes were closed. Her breath was steady. Wahibra’s hand came up, trailing a coarse thread. Something in his fingers shone. A copper needle. Ahmose gasped.
At the sound, Mutnofret opened her eyes and smiled wanly. “Ahmose. My sister.”
“Are you all right?”
Mutnofret glanced down at Wahibra, who never looked up from his work. “I tore badly, but he says I’ll be all right. The bleeding has slowed.”
“It must be painful.”
“The sewing? I can’t feel it. I’ll feel it tomorrow, no doubt.” Her eyes were sleepy, and not just from the birth. The acrid smoke of the pain-dulling herb semsemet h
ung in the air.
“Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure I’d…”
“I would have been here no matter what, if you’d been in danger. Whatever our past wrongs against each other, I’d have been here.”
“Thank you.”
“Your third son. He is a lovely one. He has so much hair.”
Ramose nursed, one wrinkled fist near his mouth. Mutnofret smiled at him. “He’s bigger than the others, too, when they were newborn. No wonder I tore. He’ll have to be my last, I think.”
“Three sons make a good life’s work.”
“I’m eager to see your own son. What are you going to call him?”
“Hatshepsu.”
“The greatest of the great men. A good name for a prince. He’ll be the heir, then.” Through the fog of the semsemet smoke, Mutnofret’s voice was defeated.
There was no sense trying to spare her feelings. Ahmose would be square and level with her sister from now on. She’d be square and level with everyone. Mutnofret saw how it had all turned out, anyway. She was resigned. It was better this way. Ahmose said, “Yes.”
“I wish him well.” Mutnofret’s lips thinned in a little smile. “Send for me after his birth, won’t you?”
“I will, Mutnofret.”
The second queen settled her head against the padded head-rest and sighed. Wahibra straightened, dabbed at the place between Mutnofret’s legs with a clean towel, and pushed himself off the bed. A midwife came forward from where she crouched on a stool against the wall, struck up an earnest exchange of whispers with the physician. There was nothing more here for Ahmose to say or do. She gazed down at Mutnofret’s slack belly and blood-spotted thighs for a long moment.
Not so long ago, the thought of lying in Mutnforet’s place, torn and vulnerable, would have terrified her. Now, she was almost eager for it. Not for the pain, and not for the labor. But to hold her son to her breast, as Mutnofret held Ramose. That would be a sweet thing.
She walked back to her apartments singing.
THIRTY-FIVE
Ahmose was spinning in her garden when the pains began. It was morning, a clear day with a sky echoing with the cries of shorebirds. She’d had false pains for days. The first time a pain had taken her, sneaking up quietly, pulling at her belly, she’d been so startled she’d dropped her bowl of beer. Twosre called for the midwives, and they examined her for hours. But there was no labor. “False pains,” they’d called it, and warned her it might happen again. That was nearly a week ago. The false pains had come and gone every few hours, gentle pains, just enough to make her wonder whether her child was on his way. But always they subsided again, and Ahmose became increasingly frustrated.
It was several weeks after Ramose’s birth. She’d been marking the days since she’d seen the new prince laid on her sister’s chest. Soon, soon – sweet Hathor, let it be soon! – her son would arrive, Egypt’s blessing. The false pains taunted her, dangling a treasure before her and snatching it away again. They were beginning to make her very cross. Being hugely pregnant was uncomfortable enough without the gods toying with her. Ahmose’s feet had been achy for weeks. Her ankles were swollen all the time, no matter how Twosre wrapped them and rubbed them with soothing balms. The prince stuck out before her everywhere she went, preceding her every move, as bold and confident as a king’s son should be. The weight of her belly astonished her. Since the last new moon, even lying in bed made her feel like a brick thrown into water. She spent one sleepless night trying to make herself comfortable, then pushed her headrest away, woke Twosre, and made her bring cushions instead. With silk pillows cradling her head, she lay on her side like a rekhet woman and slept with her knees tucked up against her belly. It was improper, but comfortable. That was all that mattered.
Now, as she idly dropped her spindle in the pleasant shade, her belly tensed. She frowned and kept spinning. Another false pain, she was sure. The spindle was a blur at the end of its pale thread. She caught it deftly. She was about to drop it once more, but the pain intensified. It was sharper and more insistent. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. The spindle waited patiently in her hand. She breathed in and out. The pain was still not gone. It was longer than the others had been, she was sure.
At last it receded. She sighed with relief. Just another false pain, she told herself, unwilling to allow a thrill of excitement. She resumed her spinning.
Minutes later, though, the pain was back. This time she set her spindle aside and closed her eyes, taking measured, steady breaths. When the pain receded, she did not retrieve her spinning. She remained still and gathered, waiting, willing herself to stay calm, to keep her hopes at bay.
And again it came. This time it was more forceful than ever before. She opened her eyes and looked down at her belly. It tensed perceptibly, tightening and pulling. She sucked in a deep breath, and was startled when it came back out as a groan. She shut her eyes again and bent the groan to an unsteady hum. She sang a few lines of one of Hathor’s hymns until the pain left her.
Then she pushed herself up from her bench, leaving spindle, distaff, and tangled thread where they lay. She shouted for Twosre.
***
Ahmose had carefully avoided venturing into the corner of her garden where the birthing pavilion stood. It had been set up more than a week ago in preparation for the prince’s arrival, and she did not want to annoy the gods by mooning around its perimeter. Now, with Twosre beside her and the midwives behind, she shuffled around a bend in the path and there, beneath a brilliant sycamore, was her pavilion. Its poles were painted red, and a white canopy covered the cleared ground where Ahmose would bear her child. There was a mattress covered with cushions, and a holed birthing stool, and braziers for sacred, purifying smoke – and for light, should her labor last until dark. The painted fabric walls were rolled up and tied so the air could flow freely. A statue of the goddess Tawaret stood beside the bed, her tongue hanging like her breasts. Ahmose smiled to see the hippopotamus-mother. She would have a friend here. But still, as she passed beneath the canopy, she tingled with fear. The last time she had been inside a birth pavilion, she had watched Aiya die.
No, her ka said firmly. It will not happen to me.
Won’t it? whispered her heart. Aiya was young, too.
I am eighteen years old. I have been a woman for many years. Tawaret is near, and I bear a gift for Egypt. Even if I die, my son will live. How can he be a gift for Egypt, if he is to die?
She smiled at her women. She smiled at the midwives. The smile only slipped a little when the pains came on her, pulling, pulling, making her grunt with the effort.
They made her lie down and fanned her. They wafted incense over her. They chanted prayers to Bes, the fearsome dwarf god, protector of newborns, beseeching him to drive away the evil spirits that waited to torment the prince as he came from the womb. Ahmose felt the tension in her body rise and recede, rise and recede, like years, like eons of the river’s floods. It was hard work, this lying still and breathing. It became harder when they made her walk. Dimly, she remembered supporting Mutnofret as she paced about her garden. Had her sister ever been so exhausted? Ahmose had never done anything in the world but walk, and groan through the inundations of pain that squeezed her back and her sides.
She talked to Twosre to pass the time, only pausing in her words at the peak of her contractions. They spoke of the child, and of Tut, and of the goings-on at the temple and in the House of Women. Idle talk, optimistic talk; talk to distract her. But when the waters broke and rushed down her legs, she could talk no more. Her whole being was given over to walking, walking, walking, and stopping to lean on any convenient shoulder when her body shook with the pains.
They made her drink often, and helped her squat over a jar to relieve herself. They pushed honeyed beer on her – to keep her strength up, the midwives said – until she never wanted a drop of honey on her tongue again.
She was sipping obediently at a bowl of the cloying drink when a powerful contractio
n came on her. At once she knew that it was different from the rest. It squeezed her with a ferocity that made her stop and stare about. The faces of the women were unfamiliar blurs, stretches of pink and brown under shapeless black wigs. The garden’s bright light and shade blazed into a mosaic of overwhelming green. Her legs shook violently. She had to sit down. She had to walk….she had to run! All in a heartbeat, she was certain death had come for her at last. Her body would fail. She could go on no longer. She was finished, finished. She dropped the bowl of beer into the grass.
“Twosre!” she cried. “Aiya! I can’t go on!”
Twosre was at her side now, the familiar features of her face coalescing out of the confusion of the garden. She patted Ahmose’s cheek with a hand that was at once gentle and insistent. “Patience, patience, Lady.”
The Sekhmet Bed (The She-King) Page 24