Sovereign of Stars

by Lavender Ironside

  Neferure ceased her screaming and climbed to her feet. She tugged her dress straight, smoothed the locks of hair that had pulled free of her braid, and walked sedately from her chamber with Takhat trailing behind, muttering in impotent wrath.

  **

  The guards on Hatshepsut's door clapped and called out Neferure's presence, but it was a long time before the door opened.

  To Neferure's uneasy surprise, it was Senenmut who opened the door. He gazed down at his pupil slack-jawed, in a state of dumbfoundedness totally unfamiliar to the girl. She narrowed her eyes at him. His only duty was not to Neferure, she knew. He was still the king's chief steward, and had many other titles besides. There were a dozen reasons why he might be in the king's personal chambers so long into the evening, but it rankled her all the same.

  “I want to see my mother.”

  Senenmut glanced over his shoulder, into the dim depths of the king's anteroom. It was poorly lit – too dark for reading off tallies or drafting plans for more obelisks or...or whatever Senenmut's duties to Hatshepsut may be.

  The sound of a far door swinging reached her, and the light scuff of slippers on faience tile. Senenmut pulled the door wider, stood back for Neferure to enter. Takhat refused to come; she lurked in the hall with the guardsmen, her hard stare full of unpleasant promise. Neferure shrugged at her wet-nurse and escorted herself into the king's presence.

  Hatshepsut made her way from the door to her private chamber, wrapped in an informal light robe instead of the gown or kilt Neferure had expected. Had she been sleeping, then?

  “Light a few more lamps, Senenmut. Neferure, what is the meaning of this?” Her voice held an unmistakable impatience. Hatshepsut was often awkward in her attempts to be motherly, but she seldom lost her patience.

  Courage flooded Neferure's limbs; it replaced the former quivering in her ka with a welcome rush. “I want to be a Hathor priestess. I want to go to Iunet and pledge myself to the goddess, like those other girls.” She felt grown-up and powerful, standing in the king's chambers without her wet-nurse, speaking the true words of her heart.

  Hatshepsut frowned. “You cannot. Your duties lie in Waset, with Amun. You know that.”

  Somehow she had not expected such a flat denial, though flat denials were Hatshepsut's most oft-traded ware. “But why? You told the girls in the throne room today that they were the best in all of Egypt. I am the King's Daughter. I am descended from a god! Am I not better than they? Will I not please Hathor more?”

  Senenmut had finished with the lamps; he sank onto the edge of the couch where Hatshepsut sat and clasped his hands on his rather rumpled kilt. “You are the very best girl in all of Egypt, Neferure.”

  “And that is why you are reserved for Amun,” Hatshepsut added.

  “I am not even God's Wife! Amun will never miss me.”

  “You are God's Wife; don't say such things.”

  “I am not!”

  “You hold the title, and you are learning the duties, little by little, as is maat for a girl your age. One day you will take on the role fully and serve Amun as I did, and as your grandmother did, and her grandmother before her. You will be his adoratrix. That is your duty: the adoration of Amun. It is a light duty, to love a god. Would you rather grind wheat? Tend cattle and step in their dung? Get blisters on your fingers from spinning and weaving?”

  “I am not his wife. He spurns me!”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He never speaks to me. Lady Ahmose said I could hear the gods speak, but I...I...” Bereft of words, she could only pound her fist against her chest, helpless to articulate the way she burned there, the way some unknown god always whispered there, too distant to hear, too unknowable to draw near. She craved that nearness, yearned to feel enlightened, understood in the way only a god could understand. And she would be understood, and enlightened, and known if she could but let that quiet god in. She was sure of it, sure of it.

  Senenmut's eyes filled with sympathy, but something else, too. Resignation. Even he knew it was useless to make such demands of Hatshepsut. She was the Lord of the Two Lands, and Neferure was, in spite of the vast potential she felt coiling far deep inside her like a seed in the black soil, nothing but a little girl.

  Briefly she considered another tantrum, but her mother's eyes were dark and hard and impatient, her mouth tight with disapproval, and Neferure's throat was too raw and constricted to scream.

  All at once her vision blurred. Hot tears slid down her cheeks, tickled alongside her nose. She wiped at them, angry to have lost composure before the king.

  Senenmut came to her. He sank to his knees so that she might weep on his shoulder. But Hatshepsut rose and returned to her private chambers, a coldness in her silence that both frightened Neferure and made her feel faintly, quietly triumphant. But far larger and darker than her triumph, she felt a weight of sorrow dragging at her heart. It was a desperation she could not explain, even within her own thoughts. She only knew that inside she was like a chasm in the hills, a dark cleft in stone that echoed with a terrible emptiness Amun could not fill.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The grain stood waist high. It tickled Thutmose's forearms and the small of his back, but he did not flinch. He tried to stretch himself taller, to rise out of the emmer field as regally as Hatshepsut, who stood proud and unmoving like a statue beside him, gazing toward the procession that made its slow way from the Temple of Min.

  The two Pharaohs were dressed in identical finery: long formal kilts, white-pleated below the embroidered and beaded aprons which hung to their knees. The aprons depicted the Two Ladies who protected the double land, Nekhbet of the south and Wadjet of the north, the vulture and the cobra everlasting. Woman and boy wore broad golden collars adorned with long cabochons of turquoise, lapis, and carnelian; they glowed in the mid-day sun.

  The collar was heavy; Thutmose shrugged his shoulders, slowly and carefully, to ease its weight. He hoped none of the festival-goers would notice his discomfort. Hatshepsut made no concessions to the weight of her ceremonial garb, and Thutmose was determined to follow her lead as best he could. Sweat had begun to collect beneath his stiff artificial beard. It was made of braided flax stems wound about with golden bands, and it was unwieldy and itchy at the best of times. He was afraid it would become a torment in the heat of the day, but he would not poke his fingers beneath the straps to rub the irritation away. Not unless Hatshepsut did first. The only kindness of ceremony was the high spire of his white crown. In spite of its height it was ingeniously made, light and hollow. It protected his head from the sun and kept him cooler than any wig would have done. The Pharaoh's crown was one small mercy.

  Yet for all their matching garb, Thutmose felt conspicuously inferior beside his co-regent. It was not only that she was taller – though in truth, she was by no means a statuesque woman. Hatshepsut exuded a compelling force of absolute confidence, a natural power which Thutmose despaired of ever developing himself. He loved and admired her, for she was the only mother he had ever known. And he envied her with the casually entitled envy only a boy-king can feel. Why should she not have such a force of presence? She was the offspring of Amun himself, while Thutmose was the son of a Pharaoh, ah – but a Pharaoh bred of distinctly mortal flesh.

  “You remember what is required of you,” Hatshepsut said quietly as the approaching procession drew nearer the edge of the field.

  It was not a question, and Thutmose had no need of questioning. In his drive to become as much a Pharaoh as she, he had immersed himself in his studies, surpassing the expectations of his tutors, even of Hatshepsut herself. He remembered the required steps of the Min ceremony. Of course. They were in his blood now, so thoroughly had he pored over the scrolls and practiced the movements, the words, even rehearsing alone in his chambers when his tutors had left him. He nodded without looking up at her.

  The procession came singing, acrobats with long-braided, unshorn hair flipping hand over foot along the broad, dusty ro
ad, priests and priestesses waving papyrus-frond banners on painted poles high above their heads. Thutmose caught a flash of gold from the midst of the parade. It flashed again, and he heard a bellow. The white bull. The representation of Min in the flesh, who would oversee the opening of the harvest and impose his mighty fertility upon the Two Lands – and upon the Pharaohs – for another year.

  Beyond the bull, the statue of Min bobbed above the crowd, held aloft on a broad wooden shield borne by a cadre of priests. The nobility of Waset thronged behind, clapping and singing, some of them already well and truly drunk, to judge by the stumbling and laughter. Let them be merry: the fields had been remarkably fertile this year, and it was only the first of three or perhaps four reapings. This harvest would be one to celebrate.

  When the priests of Min reached the edge of the field, they used staffs and switches to maneuver the white bull into position so that he faced from the east, from Min's direction, with the red desert at his scornful back and the black soil before his approving gaze. Thutmose watched the beast warily. It was huge – much larger than he had expected, its shoulders high and rounded with tense, quivering muscle. The priests had pampered it and fattened it on sweet grains and beer; its body trembled with weight and power when it stamped a gilded hoof. A burnished sun-disc was tied between the bull's upright horns, and when it tossed its great, stern head amongst a cloud of black flies the disc shivered and swung and threw bright light into Thutmose's eyes.

  The shield that bore Min's statue sank to the ground so the god might watch the proceedings. When the priests backed away, there was Neferure, slim as a reed, frail-looking, with her large, haunting eyes peering solemnly out from the cascade of ribbons adorning her God's Wife crown. She stepped upon the shield with tiny silver sandals and laid one hand on Min's shoulder. She was only a little girl, but already she was beautiful, with delicate features and luminous skin, and a quiet, obedient, thoughtful nature. More than once, Thutmose had wondered why Hatshepsut had made no move to betroth her daughter to him. He had overheard enough talk amongst soldiers and guards and drunken men at feasts to know that grown men were especially happy when they could marry beautiful women, and Neferure would grow up to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Gazing at his sister now, at the brightness of her crown and the elegance of her small hands, Thutmose wished jealously for her, but she remained as distant and aloof as a star.

  When the nobility had drawn up in a wide arc and some semblance of quiet fell over the crowd, Hatshepsut raised her palms toward the statue of Min. Thutmose did the same.

  “A blessing to you, Min, who fertilizes the Mother. Deep is the secret of what you did to her in the dark.”

  The High Priest of Min stepped forward, bearing the ceremonial hoe. Its handle was carved at each end with lotus blooms, and it was painted in bands of red and blue – too ornate an instrument for any rekhet farmer to use. Thutmose had his doubts about its ability to break the soil. But he stepped forward to receive it, proud that his movements were sure and direct. He drove its tip into the earth, pulled with all his strength; the roots of grasses and weeds made a tearing sound as the deep black earth revealed itself, full of the rich scents of growth and renewal.

  The High Priest appeared again, and passed a golden vessel of river water into Thutmose's hands. The vessel was heavy; he took an unsteady step, clutching it to his chest, his heart lurching in a moment of terrible panic. Water sloshed onto his shoulder, and his face went hot with humiliation. But he righted himself, and with great solemnity he poured the water into the trench he had opened.

  “The earth is renewed,” the priest intoned. “Thanks be to Min.”

  Hatshepsut came forward from the emmer field to stand at his side. The priestesses sang their hymns to the god while the sun grew ever hotter. Thutmose willed himself to remain immobile, staring over the heads of the gathered crowd with what he hoped was a mysteriously distant expression, silently cursing the flies that landed on his legs and arms to drink his sweat with their prickling tongues.

  Over the harmonies of the hymn, the white bull's tail sliced repeatedly through the air with a sharp whistle like a goose's wing. Thutmose heard the best grunt and stamp. Suddenly he gasped in pain – one of the flies had bitten him on the back of his knee. He could not stop himself slapping at it, shaking his leg to ease the sting.

  Mercifully, the hymn came to a close and Neferure presented the double crowns, red and white, to the two Pharaohs. The opportunity to bow his head to the God's Wife and receive the new crown was welcome; with his face ducked and Neferure's slight body blocking the eyes of the crowd, he could flick the sweat from his eyes.

  “Thank you, sister,” he murmured.

  Neferure made no reply.

  Thutmose was still too small to draw the ceremonial bow, and so he retreated gratefully to the emmer, where the flies were less thick, as Hatshepsut stepped forward. A priest had planted four different-colored arrows point down in the soil.

  “In the name of myself, Maatkare Khnemet-Amun Hatshepsut, and in the name of Menkheperre Thutmose, the third of his name, the Good Gods, I fire these arrows to the four winds.”

  She drew the bow so effortlessly, looked so strong and divine as she held herself poised for a moment, the fletchings against her cheek, her eyes keen and far-seeing beneath the double crown. When she loosed, each arrow passed above the crowd faster than a falcon diving.

  It was Thutmose's turn to resume the ceremony. He reached both hands into the small wooden cage the High Priest proffered. The black gebgeb birds inside scolded and snapped at his fingers, but he caught one and drew it forth. It glared at him with a spiteful yellow eye.

  “For the son of Horus, Imsety,” he announced, and tossed the gebgeb into the air.

  It fluttered, faltered, caught itself on indignant black wings, and sailed into the field of emmer.

  Thutmose drew out another.

  “For the son of Horus, Hapi.”

  The second gebgeb flew in the opposite direction to its brother. It was a good sign.

  “For the son of Horus, Duamutef.”

  This bird soared over the heads of the noble ladies gathered in a knot to Thutmose's left. They shrieked good-naturedly, and the bull snorted. The deep animal sound made Thutmose uneasy.

  He reached into the cage for the final bird, but it evaded him, rattling between its wooden bars, screaming. At last he caught it and winced; its strong bill closed over the skin of one knuckle and twisted viciously, but Thutmose would not let it go.

  “For the son of Horus, Qebesenuef.”

  He tossed the gebgeb into the air. It scolded as it righted itself against the hot blue sky, then sailed directly toward the white bull of Min.

  He heard the women scream before his eyes registered the danger. The bull, already tormented beyond its patience by the flies, raised its head to roar at the black bird. The motion jerked the restraining ropes free from the priests' hands, and in a heartbeat the bull was charging straight toward Thutmose. He was aware of the High Priest leaping out of the way, but could not seem to make his own legs move. The bull bore down upon him, and his eyes filled with the image of the sun disc swinging wildly between the sharp horns, blinding him with its brilliant and terrible light.

  A hand hard as bronze caught his upper arm, yanked him backward into the wheat. He had a brief glimpse of a canopy of green-and-gold emmer heads nodding above him, shielding him from the bull's view, as he fell hard onto his backside. Thutmose scrambled up at once. Hatshepsut was beside him, her hand still clutching him, her eyes wide with shock.

  The awful, roaring weight of the bull thundered past, scattering nobles into the field and back toward the temple road. But rather than give chase, it turned, flipping its head this way and that in a fury. The sun disc spun madly on its ties. Thutmose could smell the bull – a sharp, bestial odor of sweat and power, of a god's rage. He watched, helpless, as its eye fell upon little Neferure standing still beside the statue of Min.

  The b
ull bellowed, and Thutmose screamed, “No!”

  He could do nothing to stop it. It lowered its horns and charged.

  Thutmose heard a strange, sudden sound, high and wailing and helpless. In an agony of disbelief, he realized Hatshepsut was crying out for her daughter, all her regal composure gone, her voice womanish and afraid.

  There was an explosion of dust and a terrifying thunder like two great blocks of stone scraping. Thutmose could not see; all was too-bright dust glimmering in the sun, obscuring everything, everything but the sounds of panic.

  But in another moment the dust settled, dissipated on a river breeze. The bull stood quivering in its tracks, its legs still rigid from the abruptness of its stop.

  Neferure stood on her toes at the edge of Min's shield, face to face with the white bull. She reached a small, pale hand up and allowed it to smell her skin. It blew out fiercely. Then it lowered its head, nodded, bowed. Neferure caressed the broad white forehead, the tense, mobile ears, the triumphant, shining horns.

  She peered up from amidst the ribbons of her crown, caught Thutmose's eye. The piercing force of her look stole his breath away, and he knew all at once that the girl held within her ka a power as great as Hatshepsut's. Perhaps greater.

  For the first time in his life, the young Pharaoh feared his sister.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Neferure had been back in her small private apartment only a handful of minutes before the summons came. She heard a clap at her door, followed by Takhat's muttering as she scrambled to answer it, dumping the load of linens she had been sorting for washing and pleating onto Neferure's fine red couch. Neferure, reaching up to place her God's Wife crown upon its shelf, froze and held her breath, listening.

  “To the palace?” Takhat said. “But we must prepare for the feast! If we go to the palace now, there will be no time...”