The Sekhmet Bed (The She-King)

by Lavender Ironside

  “No! I can’t go on!” She didn’t know where to go, what to do. The confusion was more agonizing than the terrible squeezing pain that pushed in all around her. She stumbled forward, then back, darting looks around the garden as if she were a hunted beast searching for cover.

  “The baby comes now,” one of the midwives said, her garlic-sharp breath in Ahmose’s face. “Come, come, to the pavilion.”

  “No!” Ahmose reeled away from the midwife, clutching her belly. She looked at the placid birthing hut, its canopy flapping in the benign afternoon breeze. It was a horrifying thing, this place of death and stink. “No, I can’t do it,” she wailed, and her feet carried her into the pavilion. There wasn’t even another woman guiding her. Her body went, obedient, subservient, though her mind cried out to run.

  They sat her on the stool with the hole in its center. Fingers pushed inside her. “To feel the baby’s head,” a voice buzzed. It could have been Twosre’s, or the midwife’s, or the baby’s, or Ahmose’s own. She knew nothing but urgency and fear. A pain ripped at her and she screamed, though her heart said from a cool distance, It doesn’t hurt. Not really. Curious, that it shouldn’t hurt. She screamed anyway, until her voice was raw.

  “He’s coming soon, Great Lady.” The buzz-buzz voices chided her off the stool and onto the bed, and they told her to lie still, to relax, to loosen up, to go limp. She tried to do as she was told. One voice told her to go so still she would sink down into the mattress like going under water. She held her breath and waited for the river to close over her head. It never did. She breathed again, and the pain was easier. Now and then she called out for Mutnofret. The only clear thought in her head was that Mutnofret wanted to know when the prince was born. She would honor her sister’s wish. She called for Nofret again and again.

  There was no counting how many times the buzzing women harried her up from the mattress and back onto the accursed stool, and each time they reached beneath her and prodded inside her. Somewhere in the odd, fuzzy space between mattress and stool, her belly had begun to push downward, a deep, confident, powerful thrust that made her bellow like a cow in a field. It wasn’t exactly pain that made her empty her lungs with this inhuman sound. It was the shock of having an animal inside her. There was a beast within her now, a force unknowable that strove down, down, wresting control from Ahmose as easily as a child snatches a blade of grass from the earth. It was terrifying, and it awed her. She was sitting on the stool when the word came into her head: push.

  She pushed. And the beast subsided. She was working with it now, guiding it, being guided by it. She pushed. She pushed.

  “I see his head!”

  “Keep pushing,” a midwife said, though Ahmose didn’t need to be told. She pushed once more, and the beast went to sleep. She panted, reached out her hands for water, drank deeply when the cool, sweating bowl was held to her lips.

  “You’re doing well,” said a new voice. Not a buzz. A musical, low voice. Mutnofret.

  Ahmose looked for her. She was standing beyond the knot of midwives that crowded around the birthing stool. Mutnofret tapped one midwife on the shoulder; the woman stood aside for the second queen.

  “Sister!” Tears distorted Ahmose’s voice.

  Mutnofret put her arms around Ahmose’s shoulders, pulled her tight against her chest, though Ahmose was soaked with sweat.

  “I’m afraid,” Ahmose said, sounding tiny; and her heart, awed and confused, whispered No I’m not.

  “I’m sorry.” There was real regret in Mutnofret’s eyes when she pulled away to look at Ahmose. “I’m sorry you’re afraid. I’m sorry. There is nothing to fear. Tawaret is beside you. Bes is here. You are doing well.”

  Ahmose wanted to respond, but the beast had awakened. Unwilling to anger it, she pushed submissively. Fire-hot pain consumed her, so intense and sudden she couldn’t tell what part of her body was crying out. “It hurts,” she screamed, and for once, her heart agreed.

  “Lean forward,” Mutnofret whispered, and Ahmose doubled up at the waist, her roiling belly pressing against her knees. There were women on either side of her, crouching around the stool, their hands busy beneath. Ahmose screamed again.

  “The head is free,” Twosre said. Her hands were clutched together under her chin.

  “A lot of black hair, like his mother,” came one midwife’s report.

  Ahmose panted.

  “This is the worst part, the shoulders,” Mutnofret said. She kissed Ahmose on the forehead, one quick peck. “It will hurt. Be brave. You’re almost done.”

  The pain was so pure, so white, that Ahmose saw it. Then there was a rush, a wet sound, the delighted cries of the women gathered around her.

  And a tiny, rasping sob. And a crackling, triumphant little scream.

  “Oh!” The women all said it, as if they shared one mouth between them.

  “Stand up,” somebody told her. Mutnofret and Twosre helped her to her feet. There was a slick blue cord coming out of her body. One of the midwives seized it and passed it through a slot in the birthing stool so Ahmose could walk. “You need to lie down now, to rest.”

  A woman carried the baby close beside Ahmose as she hobbled to the mattress. The cord bloomed out of his red belly, pulsed faintly where it lay over the midwife’s arm. Ever so carefully, they eased her down onto the mattress, always keeping the crying prince close to her body.

  “Let me hold him,” Ahmose insisted.

  “Not yet, Great Lady. We must wait for the cord to die.”

  She lay back and sighed, feeling the awful ache in her back, her abdomen, between her legs. But the ache did not trouble her. She could hear the bellowing of her child, to know that he was live and fit. They brought her food and drink while the midwives, clustered around the child so tightly she could not see him, wiped and clucked and cooed. Mutnofret bathed her brow, murmured praise in her ear. She had done well, she had done well. Her worst of her work was through now.

  At last they cut the cord. Mutnofret stood to watch, peering over the backs of the midwives. Ahmose watched her sister’s face nervously. The timid, sad smile the second queen wore wilted when she looked down at the baby. There was hesitation in her eyes, and, when she glanced up at Ahmose, a sudden flicker of calculation.

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with my baby? Mutnofret? What’s wrong?”

  Mutnofret opened her mouth, then shut it. She looked back down at the crying child.

  “Give me my baby,” Ahmose said sharply.

  The midwife edged forward on her knees, cradling the child tightly in her arms. She tucked the baby against Ahmose’s chest. Ahmose clutched him close, staring down into his miraculous face. It was wrinkled, creased, bright red. The toothless mouth opened and shut in time with the hoarse cries. Ahmose smiled, adoring the tight-shut eyes, the thatch of wet black hair, the funny curved ears. His fists pounded the air, the nails bright white and sharp. His chest rose and fell with each howl, red, soft, and perfect. He kicked one foot free of her arm and worked it in the air, then let it fall again. Perfect tiny toes. Perfect fat knees. She shifted him against her chest to bundle the perfect leg up again.

  And she saw.

  Between the baby’s legs, a perfect little cleft.

  “A princess,” Mutnofret breathed.

  Part Three: Mother of the God

  1500 B.C.E.

  THIRTY-SIX

  It was late in the evening before the Pharaoh could come to see his new baby. Ahmose rested in her bed, and stroked her baby’s soft warm skin, breathed in the smell of the child. Her body ached, but it was nothing beside the bright, honey-sweet ache in her heart. Egypt’s treasure, lying beside her, beautiful and perfect, perfect, perfect.

  When Tut’s obligations at court were through, Twosre showed him in. He came to her bed and stretched out beside Ahmose, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. Then he scooped the baby up and laid the perfect pink body atop his chest. His hands, so large and strong, the hands that had brought death to Egypt�
�s enemies and justice to the Black Land, covered the baby’s form almost entirely, gentle as a wind in reeds.

  “What is her name?”

  “Hatshepsu,” Ahmose said, drowsy.

  “Hatshepsut, do you mean?”

  “That’s a girl’s name!”

  Tut coughed, and the baby complained. Ahmose sat up and took the child to her breast. Tut sat up, too, and peered into Ahmose’s face, a look of worry tightening his eyes. “Ahmoset, our child is a girl.”

  “Oh, on the outside, yes.”

  “On the inside, too, I assume.”

  “No. I saw his ka. This child is a boy. A prince. Your heir.”

  “The midwives gave you too much semsemet. I’ll have to speak to them about it.”

  “They didn’t give me any. I didn’t need it.”

  “You’re talking foolishness, my love.”

  It had been so long since he’d called her that. My love. “But this is the one. The child from your dream.”

  “Ahmose.” He ran his hand along her shoulder, carefully. “She’s a fine, healthy, beautiful girl. I’m very pleased with her. One day, you’ll have another baby. A son. He will be my heir.”

  Ahmose jerked away from his hands. “All those years you had the dream of me holding your heir…”

  “You’ll have more children. A son will come along.”

  “No, this child is your heir, Tut! She’s more than that. She’s Amun’s own daughter. No matter how perfect and strong any son might be, there could never be one better suited to the Horus Throne than Hatshepsu. Hatshepsut, if you insist.”

  Tut shook his head, the corners of his eyes crinkling with anxiety. “Ahmoset, you’re talking like a madwoman. Think about what you’re saying.”

  The baby released the breast, and waved a fist at her father.

  Ahmose said in a low voice, “I know what I’m saying. I know it’s…unusual. But as I am god-chosen, I know that what I’m telling you is the truth, Tut. Hatshepsut is Amun’s daughter.”

  “She is my daughter.”

  “On the night we conceived her, Amun came to me in your body.”

  “What?” Tut stood, took a step back from the bed. There was real concern on his face now.

  He thinks I’ve gone mad, she realized. How to make him see? She took in a deep breath, let it out slowly. Ahmose put an easy smile on her face. “I’m not mad,” she said lightly. “You always trusted your vision. Even before you were Pharaoh, you believed in the dream the gods sent you. You knew in your heart that it was the truth. You knew I would bear your heir. Am I right?”

  “Of course.”

  “No less do I trust the vision I was given. Do you remember the time I spent all day and night in the Holy House, praying? After…after Mutnofret and I fought?”

  “I’m not likely to forget that night.”

  “Just before you came to me, Tut, I had a dream. It was more than a dream. It was a holy vision.” She reached out for his hand. She wanted to touch him, to will the power of her vision through his skin and into his ka. He hesitated, but took her hand in his own at last. “Haven’t you ever wondered what changed me that night? What made me want to lie with you?”

  He shrugged. “I assumed you’d just grown into a woman’s desires.”

  “No. I lost all my fear of birthing because the gods granted me a glimpse of my son. I knew he’d be strong. Healthy. Proud. I saw him formed on Khnum’s wheel. A beautiful, fierce boy. I spoke with Heket. She promised me a son, a gift for Egypt. And Amun came to me. Amun, Tut!” Her voice shook with the memory of that tall blue shadow forming out of the red mist. “He put the spark of life inside me that night. It was your body I lay with, but it was Amun who made the prince.”

  “Hatshepsut is a princess.” Tut’s brow was creased now. Was he growing angry? “You may have seen a boy’s ka in your dream, but she is still a girl. And why have you never told me of this vision before?” He sounded doubtful, as if he questioned whether she’d had it at all.

  “I’m not making it up,” she said, a hard edge to her voice. “She may have a girl’s form, but I swear to you by all the gods, Thutmose, her ka is male.”

  Starlight came in through her pillared wall, lit Tut’s face as it had done on the night they made Hatshepsut. He waited a long time before answering, but when he did, he dropped her hand. “I can’t speak to her ka. All I know is what I see with my eyes. And that is what the people will see, too.”

  “No, Tut. Listen to me.” There was a rising desperation in Ahmose’s chest. The will of the gods was explicit. What Hatshepsut looked like on the outside mattered not a bit; not to the gods. It was her ka that mattered, and her ka was the ka of a king. “There will be no male children from me, my love. I think I’ve known this for many years. The gods intend Hatshepsut to rule Egypt when you’re gone. Not as a queen; as the Pharaoh. For Mut’s sake, Thutmose, she is half divine! The child of Amun! The gods will have their way, no matter what you may wish.”

  “This has never been done before,” he said. His voice rose in anger. Ahmose cringed on her bed, holding Hatshepsut protectively to her chest. “It would be folly for me to make such a move. I’ve never forgotten who I really am, and neither have the nobles, nor the priests. I’m a rekhet-born soldier, Ahmose. Oh, I’m valuable enough to Egypt so long as I keep the Kushites and the Hyksos in line. But the most royal of all Pharaohs could only expect to push tradition so far. How far would a mere soldier like me be allowed to push before he was thrown out of Egypt altogether?”

  “And have your forgotten why I’m your Great Royal Wife, instead of your second queen? To legitimize your choices, Tut, no matter how strange they may be. My spiritual gifts were given to me so that I could help you on the throne. Why have I suffered so under Mutnofret’s anger, if not to aid and support you?”

  Tut nodded, sympathy easing the anger on his face. “I know, Ahmoset. I know things between you and Mutnofret have not been…ideal. And I know how hard you work to please the gods, and me. You…you haven’t always made the best choices in your work, but I know that your intent has always been beyond reproach. But if there are things even a Pharaoh cannot do, then surely there are things even the god-chosen cannot do. We can’t push the people too far, you and I. Everything we have they can take away, if we go too far.”

  “The gods would never let that happen,” she said.

  “The gods often let happen that which the priests most desire,” Tut said with a wry twist to his mouth. “I have to be careful, Ahmose. We have to be careful. Our children’s futures will be secure so long as we are careful.”

  “Hatshepsut’s future is on the Horus Throne. She is half god, Thutmose. She is the son of Amun. And if I were you, I’d fear what Amun thinks more than what his priests think.”

  “Daughter,” he said, in a voice that was half a snarl. How quickly he could change from the gentle husband to the general. “She’s a daughter, not a son. She’s my daughter.” Abruptly he turned away, shaking his head, sighing. “I need to take my leave of you. I’m getting too angry. I don’t want to be angry with you. Not now. Not tonight.”

  Outside, the river of stars spilled across the sky in a thick silver band, and striped Ahmose’s bed with its light. Hatshepsut, in her arms, was illuminated.

  “Take one last look at Hatshepsut before you go, my husband,” Ahmose said, as gently as she could. “Don’t leave us in anger. Look at our child, and be happy.”

  He did as she asked. He turned to look at the baby, who was the gods’ gift to him, as well as to Ahmose. The frustration smoothed away from his eyes. The tension in his cheeks relaxed. His big front teeth showed themselves when he smiled, in spite of himself.

  Ahmose turned her eyes from her husband to her child. Hatshepsut’s eyes were open for the first time. She was looking at her father with bold black eyes, with the impudence of a prince.

  “Amun’s will shall be done, no matter what either of us may wish,” she said, quietly, so only the stars would hear.
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br />   THIRTY-SEVEN

  Hatshepsut stood on her sturdy legs at the edge of the dais, hands balled up in fists as she surveyed the crowded hall. Egypt’s First Princess held herself apart from her parents and her nurse, gazing out over her subjects without a trace of fear. Ahmose looked down at the top her of daughter’s head and smiled. Such a little lioness. Such a little lion.

  Hatshepsut was two now, and her weaning celebration had begun. Sitre-In, the sweet young nurse whom Ahmose had chosen to raise the princess, had needed the queen and two other women to help restrain her charge for this morning’s head-shaving. As was the custom, the girl’s hair had been left to grow in a thick black cloud, forever tangling, until the day of her weaning. For their weaning ceremony, most girls would have their hair combed carefully over to one side and plaited into the traditional sidelock braid, the hairstyle they would wear until they matured, the end of the lock curled and hung with ribbons. But Hatshepsut was not like other girls. Ahmose had called for a razor.