Ahmose was sitting beside his couch, a servant standing behind him in the act of tying the square of linen that covered his shaved scalp. He looked tired. Dark circles shadowed his eyes and Aahmes-nefertari could tell by the way he squinted briefly at her through the lamp’s radiance that his head was aching. Nevertheless he smiled at her apologetically as she came forward. “I know I told Tetisheri that I owed you this night, Aahmes-nefertari,” he said promptly, “but I am very fatigued. I just want to rest. The feast was excellent. Thank you.” She halted, stiffened by anger.
“I have not come to collect a debt,” she said bitterly. “Nor is there any need to condescend to me, Ahmose. You could have sent me word.” The servant was staring at her and her indignation found a target. “Who are you?” she demanded. The man blinked and came to himself.
“I am Hekayib, body servant to His Majesty,” he said amid an explosion of bows.
“Then, Hekayib, you can leave us,” Aahmes-nefertari ordered. He glanced at Ahmose who nodded imperceptibly. Still bowing, he found the door and it closed politely behind him.
“I do not recognize him,” Aahmes-nefertari said. “I like to know everyone beneath this roof.” Ahmose shrugged.
“I sent my previous body servant to tend Ankhmahor’s son Harkhuf when he was wounded,” he explained. “Then I let him keep him. Why are you so angry, Aahmes-nefertari?” Because you went to the temple first, she wanted to shout. Because you have ignored my grief. Because you obviously do not want to make love to me. There was a time when no amount of exhaustion or indisposition could have prevented you from pulling me onto that couch after you had been away from me.
“I am not angry,” she lied. “I have come to tell you that I have asked Amunmose to send priests to stand outside your door every morning at dawn and sing the Hymn of Praise. It is fitting that the ancient custom of greeting the King with the sun should be revived. You also need to know that I meet with my ministers and overseers as soon as the first meal of the day is over. You should be there, Ahmose.” She had not moved. She remained where she was, standing in the middle of the room with her fists clenched behind her back.
He regarded her for a long time in silence, eyes narrowed, legs crossed under his sleeping kilt, slowly flexing one naked ankle. Then he said, “You have worked like a slave in the gold mines to establish the foundation of a new mandate for the ruling of Egypt, Aahmes-nefertari. I am in awe of the skill and discernment you have shown. Without you I would have returned to yet another set of monumental tasks and I am grateful. But, my dearest sister, are not these men my ministers and officials, not yours? Am I not Amun’s Incarnation and thus the ruler and judge of every Egyptian’s fate under the greater laws of Ma’at?” He sighed. “I see that I have injured your pride, but indeed I simply presumed that in leaving everything to you while I was gone we would be continuing to labour for Egypt as one, you here in Weset and I in the north, and that you would require no more thanks for wielding your authority here on my behalf than I would require from you because I fought a significant battle against the Setiu outside Het-Uart. Are we not one mind, one body, Aahmes-nefertari? Have we not always moved in this blessed harmony?”
“Yes,” she said tonelessly. “What you say is reasonable, it is true, but, Ahmose, we know each other well. There is insincerity beneath your oh-so-rational words.”
“And anger beneath yours,” he came back at her swiftly. “I am not forbidding you to be present any more at these meetings. I am telling you that you may know these men but I do not, and if I am to sit at the pinnacle of authority, if I am to rule as well as reign, it is vital that I understand not only who they are but every particular of what they do.”
“You do not trust my judgement in engaging them!” she burst out. “They are my choices, not yours, and that irks you, does it not?”
“I come home to more change than has been seen in Weset for hentis!” he shouted. “Walls up, walls down, strange men with strange titles, a wife too preoccupied with building and consulting and dictating to greet her husband with anything other than politeness!”
“I have done nothing but follow your wishes!” she shouted back. “You loaded a sack full of stony responsibilities onto my shoulders before you sailed happily away to cover yourself with a soldier’s glory! How dare you accuse me of being too busy to behave like some lazy indolent cat of a woman who must lay aside her sewing and arch her back and purr when her master happens to appear! I have accomplished a miracle here and I have done it at your behest in six months while my daughter died and my husband chased his noble dream!”
“And what have you been chasing?” he shot out. “A handsome scribe and an admiring architect?”
“Ahmose!” She stared at him shaken, feeling the blood drain out of her face. “This is jealousy? You are jealous of Khunes and Sebek-nakht?” His features twisted. He jerked forward then backward on his chair, lacing his fingers tightly together until his knuckles showed white.
“Yes,” he said at last, grudgingly. “Of them and all the others. You are not only beautiful, Aahmes-nefertari, but you carry around you a nimbus of power that has not been evident before.” His glance at her was almost bashful. “I have been tormented with visions of you and these men who were gathering around you, filling the space I had left while you tested and perfected the authority I delegated to you. Power is a mighty aphrodisiac.” He smiled painfully.
“I do not know whether to be complimented or insulted,” she said incredulously, her wrath beginning to fade. “You have admitted both that I am not to be trusted and that power has been going to my head.” She flung out her arms in bafflement. “They were not visions, Ahmose, they were fantasies. Yes, I am in close accord with my scribe. Of course I am! And yes, I have an understanding with the Prince. How could I work with him if it were not so? But how you were able to translate the necessity for harmony between me and my servants and ministers into a state of mutual sexual attraction I do not know!”
“You’ve done it again,” he retorted. “With the exception of Khunes they are not your servants and ministers. They are mine.”
“They are ours,” she contradicted him with a heavy deliberation. “I found them, assessed them, formulated the bounds of their responsibilities in my capacity of Queen. Are you frightened of me now, Ahmose? Do you secretly long for a more soothing, biddable female presence? Do you dream of me as I used to be, shy and retiring? Or perhaps you have already found another woman, one more to your old tastes? You have not even kissed me since you returned, let alone shown any desire for my body.” He straightened but did not unlock his fingers, squeezing them as though he would fuse bone to bone.
“I am sorry, Aahmes-nefertari,” he said softly. “Your letters seemed so capable and cold, so distant, and my days were full of desperation, first in the eastern Delta and then outside Het-Uart. You mentioned men whose names I did not recognize, speaking of them in an off-hand way that indicated an intimacy I could not share. I became afraid, I admit it. Jealous and afraid.” He pulled his hands apart and looked down on them resignedly. “There is no other woman. Only you. I confess that I fell in love with you all over again.”
What is this? she thought despairingly. Distance and jealousy and the knowledge that you could not be here to take control yourself while I remade your domain, this was translated into passion? Where are you, Ahmose? Where have you gone, that you do not see these things for what they are? Has blood and fire finally blinded you to reality? “Hent-ta-Hent,” she said, her voice uneven. “Did her death mean nothing to you? Were you so mired in the phantoms of jealousy and fear that no genuine tragedy could touch you?” He glanced up.
“No,” he said simply. “When I read Ahmose-onkh’s letter and then your own regarding our loss, I was full of a piercing sorrow, but later that pain was engulfed in a larger, less selfish grief on behalf of the many men who died for me, for Egypt, in the battle. Hent-ta-Hent’s passing became simply one of many.”
She walked towards him o
n unsteady feet, and reaching the table she picked up his half-empty wine cup and drained it. Then she pulled a stool towards her and sat down beside him. “You are a fool, Great Horus,” she said, “but so am I. I too have been afraid and resentful, not wanting you to come home and undo all my work, not wanting to place the reins of government into your hands when I had delighted in the feel of them.” She touched his knee hesitantly. “I still do not want to relinquish the tasks I have begun. Do not shut me out, Ahmose, I beg you.” Suddenly he laughed and his hand closed over hers, warm and firm.
“Me shut you out?” he chortled. “When I was in terror of returning to find myself wandering about with nothing to do while my wife ran Egypt? I think that we have both been suffering from subtle delusions, Aahmes-nefertari, why I am not sure. The vestiges of the constant anxiety under which we lived during Kamose’s campaigns? The luxury of groundless suspicions now that there has been a lessening of the tension under which we lived for years? It does not matter. I say again, I am sorry and you are right. We have always lived and moved as one. Let us continue to do so. What do you say?”
I say that I still feel the ache of disenfranchisement, she thought to herself, and your present indifference to our daughter’s death, no matter what you felt when you received the news, is a betrayal that may dim with time but will never be wholly erased from my heart. She forced herself to look up at him with a smile. “How are we to do that, my husband?” she asked.
“I hear the sting in your voice,” he murmured. “We will begin by presiding together at the conference of ministers each morning. You will teach me. I will learn. When I know as much as you, we will listen together and make all decisions together. Agreed?” She sighed inwardly.
“Agreed. I want to show you the new barracks and also the plans for the old palace that Sebek-nakht and I have drawn up,” she said. “They are very good, Ahmose. You will approve, I think. If not, I will allow you to change them.” His eyebrows rose and for a moment he was nonplussed. Then he beamed, and reaching down he pulled her onto his lap.
“Kiss me,” he ordered, closing his eyes. She obeyed, sinking into the familiar feel of his mouth, the taste of him, the odour of his body, the steady pressure of his embrace, seeking the security she had always found in these things. But although they tumbled onto the couch and made love, although she fought to submit to both his desire and her need, a part of her mind remained coolly disengaged. He did not come to me, it whispered. I had to come to him. He did not kiss me. He commanded me to kiss him. Our bodies strive to join but it is more like a struggle than a blending. Even as he enters me, his ka is wandering far away and mine is watching our small child die.
Afterwards they lay side by side gazing up at the flickering of the lamplight on the blue and white painted sky of the ceiling. After some time Aahmes-nefertari stirred. “I forgot to tell you that the one man you did not meet this morning was my chief spy in the south,” she said. “He is still in Kush. He has men stationed in Esna, Pi-Hathor, Swenet and in various villages in Wawat.”
“You are spying on Wawat? On Hor-Aha’s people?” Ahmose said, startled, and she nodded, her tangled hair brushing against his neck.
“Not seriously,” she replied. “Aahotep and I do not expect trouble from the Medjay tribes. But they can be volatile, as you know. We like information regarding any offensives Teti-En might decide to make from his strong hold in Kush.” Ahmose raised himself on one elbow.
“And why are you still watching Pi-Hathor?” he demanded. “Het-Uy, the mayor, signed a pact with Kamose. He swore that he would not interfere in Kamose’s war against Apepa.”
“But Kamose is dead,” Aahmes-nefertari said. “The Setiu brought prosperity to Pi-Hathor. It was the city that marked the foreigners’ southern boundary and it built ships for the Setiu kings. The spies tell me that both Esna and Pi-Hathor are restless. Nekheb has become our centre for the construction and maintenance of vessels, Ahmose. We are ignoring the two towns, although they are also in the Nekhen nome. Do not forget that they are still full of Setiu people.” Ahmose grunted.
“So you think that with the death of Kamose they regard the pact as dissolved?” He groaned. “Gods, there is no end to it! No sooner do I gain some control in the north than we are once again threatened from the south! And only two days’ sailing away!”
“I do not believe we need to panic,” Aahmes-nefertari said carefully. “After all, a large number of our ships have recently gone past both cities on their way to repairs at Nekheb. Esna and Pi-Hathor have seen our strength. They will not act precipitately. Besides, we will be forewarned. The spies will send us word.” She smiled faintly up at his worried frown. “Quashing a couple of rebellious townships with a force of Medjay is nothing compared to your victory at Het-Uart. Kay Abana could do it with one vessel!” Ahmose grinned and lay down again.
“He has changed his name to Ahmose Abana,” he told her. “The man is incorrigible.”
“And what of Ramose?” Aahmes-nefertari wanted to know. “Where is he?”
“I left him at Khemmenu to become acquainted with his duties as governor,” Ahmose said. “I am hoping that he will be too busy to spend much time thinking of Tani.”
“Is it love or obsession?” Aahmes-nefertari murmured, more to herself than to Ahmose, and realized too late that she had not disguised the moment of envy behind the words. He did not reply. Although their conversation had seemed intimate, a return to the seamless connection that used to bind them, Aahmes-nefertari knew that its fragile weaving had not bridged the gulf between them. The silence lengthened, increasingly fraught with those things that had no present resolution, and she could not break it. At length she ventured a glance at her husband, and seeing that he had fallen asleep she eased herself cautiously over his supine body, gathered up her discarded robe and sandals, and made her way back to the blessed seclusion of her own rooms.
9
SHE WOKE AT DAWN after a troubled sleep in which she dreamed she was holding her copper mirror up to a face so misshapen and grotesque that she did not at first recognize the features as her own, and she came to consciousness sprawled sideways across her couch with the sheet tangled about her legs. The omen of the dream was bad, she knew. As she ate her morning bread and fruit and watched Senehat moving about the chamber, raising the window hangings, laying out a clean sheath, exclaiming softly to herself at a puddle of dried wine on the floor, she pondered its message. I face a completely new and not necessarily comfortable life, she thought. Surely it does not mean that Ahmose will die! But of course not. More powerful omens given by Amun himself support his rise to divinity and his continued position as King in Egypt. A breach has opened between us and the dream reflected it. It cannot endure for long. We love each other too much. It will be healed.
Bathed and dressed and escorted by one of her guards, she made her way to the reception hall, greeting a waiting Khunes as he fell in behind her. Ahmose was already there, seated on the dais in the chair from which for the last six months she had presided, Ipi cross-legged at his feet. She bowed to him as the assembled overseers and ministers reverenced her, swallowing the tide of resentment that she could almost taste and forcing a smile. Another chair had been placed beside his and she mounted the dais and sank into it. “We will not need you today, Khunes,” Ahmose said loudly and the scribe, who had already set his palette on his knees and was opening his ink, glanced up at him in surprise.
“Majesty?”
Ahmose waved at him peremptorily. “Ipi is Chief Scribe,” he explained brusquely. “I thank you for your service in his absence but now you are free to return to the exclusive business of the Queen.” Khunes’s eyes fled to Aahmes-nefertari in consternation. She held out a warning hand to him and turned to her husband.
“Forgive me, Majesty,” she said cautiously, aware of the many listening ears, “but Khunes has recorded every consultation I have had with these, your officials. He is well informed regarding their ongoing requests and problems. Perhaps
today he might be allowed to take the dictation and then spend some time acquainting Ipi with his particular duties here so that Ipi may assume a scribe’s responsibilities tomorrow.” She saw Ipi nod gravely. The suggestion was, after all, a sensible one. Realizing that Ahmose had spoken impulsively, she leaned close and said in a low voice, “I am not trying to countermand you. Nor do I want to retain control of your court. My concern is for speed and efficiency.” He did not look at her.
“It was strange and pleasant to be roused this morning by a priest and his acolytes singing the Hymn of Praise,” he murmured. “You have become the very spirit of efficiency yourself, Aahmes-nefertari. Thank you for preventing me from tripping over my own royal toes.” He raised his voice. “The Queen speaks wisely,” he went on. “Khunes, prepare the papyrus. Ipi, I can do without you for the rest of the day. Closet yourself later with Khunes.”
“The scribes’ offices and the new archive room are finished, Ipi,” Aahmes-nefertari said. “They are ready for you to occupy. Khunes will show you everything.”
“Already I wish that I had stayed in bed,” Ahmose whispered to her, his flash of irritation gone, and she laughed quietly, her own urge to challenge him swamped in a rush of affection.
“Swear them in, Majesty,” she whispered back. “They are very eager to serve you.”
For the next few hours the men she had so carefully selected came forward to kiss her husband’s feet and hands and vow their loyalty to him and then settled down to a discussion of their current triumphs and worries. Ahmose seemed content to listen, asking few but pertinent questions while Aahmes-nefertari steered the course of the deliberations and Khunes’s pen worked away industriously. When it was over and the men had been dismissed, Ahmose rose and stretched. “You have chosen well,” he remarked, as they left the hall and emerged into the blinding sunshine of mid-morning. “I am particularly impressed with Amuniseneb. The state of the granaries and the projected abundance of the harvest are of vital importance and he seems to be fully informed regarding both. Do you think that Neferperet as Royal Treasurer will make us rich, Aahmes-nefertari?” She laughed.
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