She tugged at her dress, putting it back into order, and turned her face toward the temple servants. But when she spoke, her words were for Thutmose alone. “You know I tamed the bull. You know that mine is the blood of Amun. You know my powers. The throne was meant for me, for my child.”
At the mention of the Bull of Min, the familiar lance of religious dread struck deep into Thutmose’s heart. But he looked to Meryet, saw her cradling Amunhotep in her arms, her face stern, her eyes vengeful. He recalled the sound of the dropped knife ringing in the darkness of the shrine.
And at last, Thutmose’s anger was far greater than his fear.
“I call upon Amun,” Neferure shouted. “I call upon Hathor, my great mistress, the Lady of the West. Strike down the false rulers, O gods of Egypt; restore the Horus Throne to your righteous inheritors! Let all those who fear the gods hear my words, and restore the throne to the blood of Amun!”
Thutmose snapped his fingers at Nehesi. The man took Neferure by the shoulders and pushed her, still ranting, to her knees. The sword came flashing from Nehesi’s belt, but before he could raise it, Thutmose stepped forward impulsively and took the hilt in his own hand.
Neferure continued to call upon the gods, but Thutmose, ignoring her words and the heat in her eyes, took hold of her hair, pulled her head back to expose her pale throat. She cried out to the gods – not to save her, but to strike down the false Pharaoh who kept her from her divine birthright, to wipe him from the earth, to destroy his family and all that he loved.
Never.
The blade bit deep, cutting off Neferure’s passionate invocation, spilling a red flood down the steps of the Temple.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A GREAT CLOUD OF DUST hung over Ipet-Isut for two days. The vast, pale column was visible from the rooftops of Waset; the people of the city gathered beneath their cloth sunshades and peered north, wondering at the strange sign. Thutmose, too, wiled away what time he could spare on the rooftop of his own quarters. From there, the highest point in Waset, he gazed down the distant road. It stretched along the land on its dark causeway, leading to the toy-like temples shadowed by the pillar of dust.
Thutmose knew it was not a sign – or at least, not a message from divinity. The cloud was all too earthly in its origins, stirred up by the constant tramping of scores of feet, hundreds of feet in the complex of Ipet-Isut, where priests stirred the bare yards as they paced in heated discussion, where priestesses danced endlessly to appease the gods.
He leaned his elbows on the rooftop parapet and scowled as the dust cloud shifted, giving small way to the nudge of a river wind. He had spent his entire life in fear of omens and portents, of hidden powers lurking beneath human skin. In the end, it all came down to a rush of blood down the temple steps and the hot metal of a blade in his hand.
A lifetime spent cowering in fear of the gods’ signs, and now the only sign I need fear is there, hanging over Ipet-Isut. And it is made by men. It was the kind of ironic riddle that would have made Hatshepsut laugh. Thutmose wrestled back tears.
Two days had passed since the lifeless body of Lady Satiah had been carried to the embalming house to rest beneath the salts. Two days since Thutmose had found Djedkare waiting on the Pharaoh’s return with one of the estate guards, battered and bruised, in his custody. The man had fallen in love with the beautiful and vulnerable Satiah, Djedkare explained, and had assisted her in secret, carrying messages to Waset and Ipet-Isut, finally facilitating her escape dressed in the rekhet rags of an orchard worker. The man had provided her with a boat to make her way to the city. The man had lost his life along with his senses and his heart.
It was a man who helped her escape, Thutmose thought morosely. He really had believed that a god had lifted her out of the estate, like a breeze lifting a bit of seed fluff. He should have known better. He was a king, not a credulous fool.
“May we approach, Mighty Horus?” It was Meryet calling for him, beautiful and strong, the lioness of his house. She stood at the top of an outer stairway that led down into his garden. He gazed at her a moment, content for the space of a few heartbeats to forget everything – Neferure, the knife, the cloud of dust hanging over the temples – everything but that he loved her.
He nodded, waved his permission.
Meryet led the High Priest of Amun onto the rooftop. Hapuseneb was nearing old age, with deep lines around his eyes and a permanent cleft between his brows. He had become rather jowly and stout, and the amulets he wore on cords about his neck seemed to have multiplied in recent days.
“High Priest,” Thutmose said in greeting.
Hapuseneb made the requisite bows, and the three of them stood together in silence, watching the dust cloud ripple in the sunlight. At last Thutmose asked for news from the temple, and Hapuseneb sighed.
“Much as it was yesterday, Great Lord. Word is spreading to nearby cities that Lady Satiah is dead, and factions arrive from other temples to speak in her favor. They are all small factions, it is true, but together they make a voice that grows louder by the hour.”
“Do they know who she truly was?”
“They do. It seems a chosen few in the Temple of Amun knew her secret. She told them, or perhaps they recognized her from years before. The truth is out among the servants of the gods, and it has only increased their affection for her.”
“She planned that,” Meryet said quietly. “I swear it, she did. That woman was too clever by half.”
“She may have planned it, indeed,” Hapuseneb muttered. “In any case, word spreads that she was the heir of Hatshepsut.”
“What of it?” said Meryet. “Hatshepsut did not die without a clear successor. Thutmose was the Pharaoh for as long she – longer. There is no reason to evict him from the throne.”
“Ah, that is so, Great Lady, but they loved their Lady Satiah well, after all the time she spent at the various temples, all the devotion she showed. I believe her devotion to the gods was true, for all her faults and deceptions. They do not love her without reason.”
Thutmose turned his scowl from the dust cloud to Hapuseneb. “You are the High Priest; command them to give this up. I will not abdicate to Neferure’s son, nor will I make him my heir.”
Hapuseneb bowed quickly. “Of course, Great Lord – of course! I have already begun making it known that it will be as you say – there is no place for Neferure’s child in the succession. I am the High Priest, as you say, but I am the High Priest of Amun. I do not control the other priesthoods.”
“The Amun priesthood is the most powerful in the land.”
Hapuseneb nodded. “Just so, Great Lord. And yet, as I said, many small factions join their voices together, and the ear hears one mighty shout. There is only so much even the High Priest of Amun can do against all the other priesthoods of all the other gods. Look at that cloud, Lord. All those pacing feet, all those dancing women. The cloud will settle with time, but it will be a long while before her name or her child’s claim to the throne are forgotten by Egypt’s priests.”
The cloud did settle, but the temples of Upper Egypt remained in turmoil.
Two weeks later, Thutmose lay face down on the stone bench in his bath, submitting to the massage Meryet and the royal physicians had prescribed to soothe his tension. His bath had been especially hot, the scraping afterward bracing. A mist of steam and herbal oils hung thickly in the room. The scent lulled him pleasantly; his eyes slid shut as the woman worked at the knots in his shoulders and back with miraculously clever hands.
Gradually a muffled confusion of voices pierced his calm. The bath woman hesitated in her work, distracted by the sound. Thutmose sighed, dismissed her, and toweled the oil from his body with his own hands. When he was dressed, he made his way through his apartments with reluctant feet dragging at the tiles. The voices came from beyond the door to his private chambers – from his anteroom. There was an urgency to the sound that made Thutmose regret having left his stone bench.
It was Meryet and her fan-bearer
, the woman who always accompanied her through the palace halls. Hesyre fussed about them, pouring wine and engaging in polite if deferent conversation with the Great Royal Wife.
Ah, Mighty Horus,” Hesyre said, catching sight of Thutmose. “With your permission, Great Lady, I shall leave you to the Pharaoh.”
When he had gone, Meryet sprang to her feet. Her mask of courtly calm fell away, and a strange anguish twisted her features.
“Amunhotep…” Thutmose began, his heart straining at his chest.
Meryet shook her head. “He is safe and well.”
“What is it, then?”
“Oh, Thutmose.” She pressed her palms against her cheeks as if she might soothe away a fever that burned inside her. “It’s the temples. All up and down the Iteru, to north and south. Riots. Fighting. The priesthoods of all the gods are breaking apart.”
Thutmose had no need to ask why. Another question prodded at his heart. “Why was I not told directly?”
Meryet hung her head, and her eyes dimmed with an unspoken apology. “You have been overtaxed of late. I instructed the messengers to come to me first so that I could keep the worst of the news from you, to give you some respite.”
“Meryet! If I had known sooner, perhaps I could have stopped this.”
“The riots are new,” she said hastily. “I brought you the news the moment I heard of them, I swear it. Before it was only…rumors. Messages about how many priests were throwing their support behind Amenemhat. As Hapuseneb said, they will eventually forget Neferure, and let this go. But rioting…”
“How bad is it?”
“A priest was killed today at the Temple of Min in Abedju. And in Iunet, somebody has set the grain stores at the Temple of Hathor afire.”
“Fire? Death? Amun’s eyes!”
Meryet bit her lip, then said, “There is more.”
“Excellent.”
“Hapuseneb just sent me this note.” She pulled a bit of papyrus from the blue silk sash at her slender waist. “He says a large faction has split at the Temple of Amun – nearly half the priesthood – and he fears he can no longer retain control. Thutmose…” Meryet’s voice trailed away. Her face was pale; her lips trembled.
“We must…we must do something with Amenemhat,” Thutmose stammered.
The fan-bearer, waiting obediently a few paces behind her mistress, clenched her fists but remained silent.
“Gods preserve a fool, but I cannot countenance taking the boy’s life,” Meryet cried. “He’s only a boy, still just a baby!”
“I know,” said Thutmose. “It seems too grave a thing, too dire a misstep. And I’m afraid we have put our feet afoul of the path already.”
“Do you mean…Satiah?”
He nodded. “I acted in rage when I killed her, did it without thinking. And now we have riots in the temples – burning!”
“You did no wrong,” Meryet insisted. “She would have killed our son. She very nearly did. She deserved to die.”
“She was a creature of evil,” he agreed. “Perhaps it was not her fault – life in the court, a life of duty to the throne – it twisted her, corrupted her heart and her ka. But she was still a creature of evil, however she arrived at that fate. Maat is better served without her. No, I don’t mean she should have lived. I only mean the way I did it…where I did it…. It was a misstep.”
“We must do something, before these factions spread, before their influence reaches into the noble houses.”
Thutmose thought sadly of Amenehmat. The boy was quiet and sweet, easy for his nurses to care for, a good playmate for the prince. Even at his young age, a curious intelligence shone in the boy’s eyes. The thought of snuffing out the fire in the lad’s little heart, and only because his mother had been more scorpion than woman, sickened Thutmose to the seat of his ka.
“We must do something, I agree. And yet I cannot – will not harm Amenemhat.”
“I know.” Meryet’s voice broke with some raw emotion Thutmose could not identify. It wavered somewhere between defeat and horror. Her hand fell to her side; the slip of papyrus drifted to the floor. “Thutmose,” she said reluctantly, “I can think of one way to stop the riots.”
“How?”
But she would not speak. Meryet stumbled to one of the silk-covered couches and sank onto it, pressing her hands against her stomach as if she might be ill. Batiret hovered nearby, biting her lip, frowning.
“How?” Thutmose said again. “Speak, Meryet.”
“If Amenemhat is not of the blood of royalty,” she said haltingly, “if he is not of the blood of Amun…then the priests will have no more cause to back him.”
Thutmose shook his head, uncomprehending. His heart was shrouded in a thick fog of confusion and despair. He could glean no sense from Meryet’s words. “But he is of Amun’s blood. Through Hatshepsut…”
Batiret let out a cry of pain. Her hands flew to her mouth.
And in the same moment the fan-bearer grasped Meryet’s terrible, impossible meaning, Thutmose grasped it, too, and wanted to throw it away from his conscience the way a farmer flings a cobra from his field, wanted to spit it from his mouth like the bitterest bile.
“Through Hatshepsut,” he repeated hoarsely.
“No,” Batiret sobbed, falling to her knees before Meryet, clinging to the hem of her gown. “I beg you, Great Lady. Do not do this. For the sake of what you and I shared between us, please…”
“Rise, Batiret,” Meryet said quietly.
But Batiret pitched herself onto her face and lay keening on the Pharaoh’s floor.
“Batiret, please.” Meryet stooped, pulled the woman onto the couch beside her with some difficulty. All the strength seemed to have gone out of the fan-bearer’s bones like water from a dropped pail. She hung limp as an old doll in Meryet’s grasp. Meryet bundled her into her arms and rocked her, murmuring comfort or excuses into the woman’s ear.
“I believe you are right,” Thutmose said. “There may be no other way.”
“She told you once,” Batiret howled, “she told you once not to put the throne before what is good, what is maat! I know she told you. I know you swore.”
“Don’t speak to the Pharaoh that way,” Meryet said, but in spite of her admonishment there was a note of sympathy in her words.
But Thutmose did not heed the weeping woman’s impertinence. Had his own heart not been stilled by the horror of what he contemplated, he would have fallen to the floor and wailed his grief, too. The sound of Hatshepsut’s words came forcefully to his memory, that blue night in her garden when she had fallen into the grass, a king defeated by her own hand, and cursed all the gods.
Tell me you will not choose the throne over the things that truly matter – over family, over love. Over eternity.
And he had promised. The gods curse me, he thought angrily, then realized with a shiver of bitter humor that the gods had cursed him indeed. And would go on cursing him, and cursing him, striking him, confounding him. How could they do less? What else would a sin so enormous earn him, but the spite of the gods? Hatshepsut had said that she lived only in stone. It was truer now than it had been when she had still walked among the living. Her images on her monuments, her name encircled by the royal cartouche – these were the places where her kas now dwelt. If Thutmose erased her image and name from the land, her kas would lose their eternal homes and flee into darkness. She would be lost forever. Forgotten. She would be dead eternally.
But the throne would be safe. The riots would cease. Egypt would remain whole. And was that not the very thing Hatshepsut had worked for all her life, to keep Egypt whole?
Thutmose let his heart wander painfully, stumbling back to the blue night in the garden. He recalled with a pang of guilt the words he had told himself as he crouched in the wet grass beside the weeping king: the Horus Throne is the legacy of our family. It is an unbreakable link to those who came before, to those who will come after, for generations unending. It is our blood, our bones, our kas.
&nb
sp; Thutmose sat carefully on the couch beside Meryet. Batiret had stilled her weeping, but she kept her face turned away from Pharaoh and Great Royal Wife alike.
“It is a terrible thing I do, Meryet. And yet, can I do any differently?”
Pain made Meryet’s face gaunt and sickly. “I can see no other way.”
He hung his head in defeat. “Hatshepsut, forgive me. She must forgive me. She must understand.”
Meryet laid a hand on his shoulder. Thutmose felt how it trembled, felt the weight of regret sink from her flesh into his own. Guilt and duty. They were braided together as tightly as the fibers of a rope. Thutmose knew the work that awaited him, knew the obligation he must tend to, though it stabbed deep into his heart with a pain that no eternity could ever abate. He thought of his son, growing into the inheritance Thutmose had worked so hard to secure. He thought of Hatshepsut keening her regrets, cursing even the divinity that was inside herself. He thought of Egypt, kept whole and safe by the terrible sacrifices Hatshepsut had made.
When he rose up to see to his task, he did so abruptly, strong, decided, a cobra rearing from the sand.
EPILOGUE
IN THE BLUE CHILL BEFORE dawn, a heavy mist hung above the slick dark mirror of the Iteru. It would dissipate quickly as Re rode his golden barque into the morning sky, but by then Thutmose would be gone, sailing north at the head of his mighty war fleet. He stared down the water steps, parting the veils of fog with his eyes, searching for the solid shape of his fastest ship. The mist was too thick to permit a view of the boat, but he knew it was moored there, waiting for him as it had so many times before, on so many mornings like this one, dense with river haze and expectation.
The Bull of Min (The She-King) Page 14