Daughter of the Gods: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

by Stephanie Thornton

  The hippo bellowed and Neferubity went flying, crashing into a clump of papyrus and mud. The monster stopped still, leveling a yellow stare at Hatshepsut. Then he snorted and lumbered off, disappearing into the river with scarcely a sound.

  Panicked screams far in the distance broke the gods’ curse. Time hurtled forward and the world snapped back into focus.

  “Help! For the love of Amun, someone help!” Hatshepsut raced to Neferubity, tripping into the mud at her side. Her sister was curled up like a newborn babe, her right leg bent at a painful angle and the jagged white edge of bone poking out of the maimed flesh. Neferubity gave a tortured cry when Hatshepsut touched her ribs.

  “Everything’s going to be all right.” Hatshepsut wiped the mud from her sister’s eyes and took her hand, alarmed by the slackness of her grip. Neferubity’s wig was askew and coated with brown slime, her eyes screwed tight against the pain. She opened her mouth as if to speak but only gurgled, a froth of red blood streaming down the mud on her cheeks to feed the earth below.

  “Help is coming,” Hatshepsut said, clutching Neferubity’s hand as if to keep her sister’s ka from flying away. Blood poured from her leg, pools of red like broken wings in the mud. The crushed papyrus reeds trembled, and the foul stench of death returned. Anubis circled her sister now—Hatshepsut could almost make out his yellow eyes amongst the reeds. “You have to hold on.”

  Neferubity’s chest heaved and her lungs rattled, the blood seeming to seep out of her body from all directions even as she gasped for breath. Her nails dug into Hatshepsut’s palm for a fleeting moment, as if she might cling to this life. But Anubis was too strong; he had her sister tight in his jaws and refused to release such a prize as the pharaoh’s eldest daughter.

  Neferubity blinked but her eyes were unfocused, her voice less than a whisper. “I’ll watch you from the Field of Reeds, Hatshepsut.” More blood trickled from her lips. “Make me proud.”

  Hatshepsut shook her head, the braids of her wig slapping her cheeks. “Don’t say that. You’ll be here, watching me ruin everything I touch.”

  “Neferubity?” Their mother’s voice trembled, barely penetrating Hatshepsut’s mind.

  The nobility had arrived, their wide eyes ringed with kohl and mouths slack with shock. Ahmose rushed past the courtiers and stumbled into the mud next to Hatshepsut. “Neferubity!”

  But it was too late. Neferubity looked beyond Hatshepsut, her blank eyes already staring at Ma’at’s scales in the afterworld. Their mother gave a mangled sob, drawing the body of her eldest daughter to her chest and silently rocking back and forth as tears streamed down her face. The courtiers on the shore wailed, the women clawing at their hair and breasts in the traditional display of mourning.

  Hatshepsut stood and stumbled away, watching the whisper of her sister’s ka depart her body. She stared at Neferubity’s footsteps in the mud, evidence that she had been alive only moments ago, and at the imprint of her own body, where Neferubity had shoved her from the hippo’s path.

  Anubis had claimed the wrong sister.

  Chapter 2

  Her sister was dead.

  It had been almost three months since Neferubity’s death, long enough for the lotus blossoms left in her tomb to dry and their petals to fragment and blow away, long enough for the offerings of ox leg and milk to sour and draw flies before disappearing entirely. Still, the pain was raw, as if the hippo hunt had been only yesterday.

  Hatshepsut reached out to touch a clump of papyrus reeds as the skiff bobbed its way across the Nile from the tombs on the West Bank. The morning was still cool enough; Re’s scorching heat had not yet wrung the sweat from her pores. The rowers gave a hippo wide berth, but the lazy river cow only yawned, water filling its giant mouth. Overcome with rage, Hatshepsut grabbed the rower’s hunting stick and hurled it at the beast. Fresh pain tore across the cuts on her wrists, dropping pearls of blood into the muddy river. The wooden shaft disappeared into the waters with scarcely a ripple, and the hippo submerged itself below the silty waters, leaving only a foam of bubbles on the surface.

  There was a hesitant touch at her elbow, and the head rower stood next to her, his eyes on the planks of the boat. “Satnesut?”

  Hatshepsut’s eyes flicked to where the rest of the rowers stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Standing on the prow with chest heaving and scarlet ribbons of blood unfurling down her arms, she wondered if perhaps they were right.

  Her eyes burned from the tears she’d shed at Neferubity’s tomb, even as donkeys brayed and children laughed, while the boat neared the East Bank. The musky scent of incense clung to her skin; the precious smoke had traveled into the sky to guide her sister’s ka up an invisible ladder formed by the gods’ outstretched arms.

  But she didn’t want Neferubity with the gods. She wanted her here.

  Hatshepsut touched the necklace of Sekhmet at her throat, her last gift from her sister. Life continued here in Egypt’s capital, despite Neferubity’s absence from this world. The rowers—young men clad only in loincloths—grunted as they tied up the royal barque. One tripped in his haste to help her to the dock.

  “Hatshepsut!”

  She hadn’t heard that gruff voice in almost two years, but she would have known it anywhere.

  Her brother.

  The child of a lesser wife named Mutnofret, Thutmosis was their father’s only living son and, therefore, Egypt’s “hawk in the nest.” There had been three other sons born to Pharaoh Tutmose—although none from the womb of the Great Royal Wife—before either Hatshepsut or Thutmosis had been born, but one by one Anubis had claimed them all, leaving the pharaoh with only a single son and two daughters born from his seed.

  Yet Anubis’ greed now left Egypt with only the hawk in the nest and one royal daughter.

  Thutmosis was younger than Hatshepsut by almost a year but had become a man during the military campaign in Canaan, his shoulders filled out and his lips and cheeks rubbed with red ochre. Hatshepsut took after their father in looks with her dark hair and short stature, but Thut possessed his mother’s pale skin and ready smile. Fortunately, he hadn’t inherited her affinity for honeyed rolls. Kipa, his wretched pet monkey, munched a fig while sitting atop his shoulder and picking at the braids of his wig. Hatshepsut was shocked as her brother hobbled toward her, leaning on an ivory walking cane and pursing his lips every time his weight shifted to his right foot.

  Thut’s cinnamon-colored eyes were warm under the thick lines of kohl as he opened his arms to her. “By the great nine gods, Hatshepsut. Now I know I’m finally home.” He stood back to look at her, his gaze trailing down Hatshepsut’s bare breasts and coarse white skirt. Sand from the desert still clung to her papyrus sandals. “Let me guess. Gallivanting through the Red Land on your chariot this morning?”

  Hatshepsut thought to lie, but Thut had always known when she didn’t tell the truth. She rubbed her eyes, not caring if she smudged the streaks of kohl that Sitre had painted from her lids to her temples. “Visiting Neferubity’s tomb.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish I’d been here.” He pushed the braids of Hatshepsut’s wig behind her shoulders. “One day we’ll meet our sister in the Field of Reeds.”

  Hatshepsut hugged him hard, burying her face in his chest and breathing in his scents of linen and sweat so he wouldn’t see the tears well in her eyes. These days it seemed she was capable only of crying or flying into a rage. His fingers stroked her sharp shoulder blades so that she didn’t want to let go. “It’s my fault,” she said.

  His hand stopped moving. “What’s your fault?”

  “Neferubity’s death. She saved me and I froze.” Hot tears streamed down Hatshepsut’s cheeks, and her nose started running. “I should have been the one to die.”

  She feared the loathing in his eyes if she looked at him. She shouldn’t have said anything.

  “Hatshepsut, it’s not your fault Neferubity died.”

  She wiped the tears and snot with the back of her arm. “Of course it
is.”

  Thut gave her a sad smile and pulled her into his arms again. “The gods do as they please, Hatshepsut. They meant you to live that day, and so you did.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  He might believe that, but she didn’t. And neither did her mother.

  Never close to the daughter whose birth had almost killed her and who should have been born a son, Ahmose could now scarcely stand to be in the same room as Hatshepsut. Her golden eldest daughter was dead, and Hatshepsut’s ka was stained with Neferubity’s blood, a crime it seemed unlikely Ahmose would ever forgive.

  Thutmosis lifted Hatshepsut’s hand to kiss her palm, but his eyes narrowed at the crimson slashes across the pale flesh of her wrists. “I sacrificed a bull to the gods for Neferubity at Iunu. I see you’ve been making your own sacrifices.”

  Hatshepsut thrust her chin in the air. “And if I have?”

  “Neferubity wouldn’t have wanted this.” His tone was curt, and she stepped away, wounded. “Find some other way to honor her.”

  Hatshepsut had already sacrificed her willow longbow and feathered arrows, her favorite golden hunting stick engraved with golden hares, and her hunting dog, Iwiw, all buried with Neferubity in her tomb. She brought cornflowers to her sister every day so Neferubity could enjoy their color and fragrance in the Field of Reeds. None of that changed the fact that it was Hatshepsut’s fault her sister was dead.

  She glanced at Thutmosis’ carved ivory cane, its top painted with red and blue lotus blossoms. Her shining half brother had once been carved in the image of Horus himself. Not so now. “You never wrote of this,” she said. “What happened?”

  Thut’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “An elephant hunt gone awry. The break never healed right.” He tapped the walking stick on the ground. “But I managed a nice cane from one of its tusks.”

  If only Neferubity had been so lucky.

  This was the brother who had helped Hatshepsut steal their father’s chariot one night to race through the market of Waset. He had taught her how to climb trees and take down an ostrich from thirty paces. Now Thutmosis was broken, and so was she. Only her wound wasn’t so easy to see. “We didn’t expect you back until after the harvest,” she said.

  He threaded her arm through his and they walked into the dark interior of the palace, Kipa clinging to his wig. Two girl-slaves fell into step behind them, one offering a tray of watered wine. Thut waved them away, his voice so low that only Hatshepsut could hear it. “Father’s health has been deteriorating. He suffers from terrible fevers and chills. After the news of Neferubity, we thought it best to return to the capital.”

  Thut peered at the position of the sun through one of the clerestory windows. “I have to go—Father waits for me in the gardens. You’ll be at my mother’s naming-day dinner tonight?”

  Hatshepsut stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Of course.”

  He opened his mouth as if to say more, but pressed his lips to her forehead instead. “Then I’ll see you soon.”

  Hatshepsut waited for her brother to disappear around the corner and the echo of his cane to fade away; then she cut through the palace kitchens. Two slaves strained a giant vat of beer, while another knelt over a wooden slab on the ground to knead bread dough in a courtyard open to Nut’s vast blue belly. Hatshepsut picked her way around a cluster of domed clay ovens, her stomach growling at the scent of the baking flat loaves. She was almost past the palace granary when a hand closed around her wrist and yanked her into a dark storeroom.

  Another hand clamped hard over her mouth, muffling her yelp of terror. Ropes of garlic and bundles of dried parsley hung from the low ceiling, and the air was tinged with the scent of earth and dust. She started to bite down on the hand over her mouth, but stopped at the familiar spice of a man’s musk perfume. A strong arm snaked around her waist and lips trailed to her bare breasts, fingers running down her spine in a way that made her moan with pleasure.

  “Not now, Mensah.” She danced out of his arms, smoothing her hair. She had more important things to attend to right now.

  “But I want you. Here. And now.” Even in the dim light she could make out the glint of his earrings, bright as the flash of his lazy smile. As Imhotep’s son, Mensah was accustomed to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it.

  Not this time.

  “I can’t.” Her body was responding to his closeness, aching in anticipation of his touch. There had been kisses with other men—boys, really—including twin courtiers who’d caught her in a dark hallway outside a banquet a few weeks ago, but only Mensah made the blood race through her veins like hot wine. Breathless, she kissed him. “Meet me in the stables tonight.”

  His fingers caressed the nape of her neck, his breath warm on her ear. “I can’t wait that long.”

  “Before dinner, then.”

  “You’re torturing me, woman.”

  “Think of this as an excellent opportunity to cultivate patience.” She flashed him a grin and paused at the door.

  “Patience is a worthless virtue.” He closed the distance between them with three strides, his mouth on hers in a way that made her want to forget what she’d been planning.

  She pushed away, chest heaving. “My brother is home.”

  “With the pharaoh. My father informed me.” He rubbed his jaw, the muscles of his arm bulging under its gold armbands. He smiled, that same grin that reduced the girl-slaves in the palace to tittering birds. “Go to your brother, then. I can’t compete with the hawk in the nest.”

  “I’ll see you tonight.” In the darkness she gazed at his outline, the shoulders of a bull narrowing to a trim waist. Mensah was the spoiled youngest son of one of Egypt’s oldest families, his lineage recorded in the temples back to the pharaohs of old, and she was the youngest daughter of the pharaoh, forbidden to marry and destined only to adorn court banquets. It was natural that their relationship had taken this recent, and rather physical, turn. With him she could forget about Neferubity, at least for a while.

  Hatshepsut hurried through the maze of columned hallways to her chambers. The rooms were empty—her servants wouldn’t expect her for a while longer.

  She yanked off her wig, freeing the snarls in her dark hair, and grimaced at her reflection in the copper mirror before slipping barefoot into the gardens. Palms hung heavy with ripe dates, filling the air with their sweet scent. A tame gazelle glanced up from its breakfast, flicked its ears, and went back to munching a jujube branch. Everything smelled fresh in the cool morning air, and the birds chattered overhead. However, it wasn’t the sound of sparrows and finches that greeted her ears, but the low timbre of human voices. A cluster of willows shaded the far corner; one listed dangerously to the center, akin to some of the nobility after imbibing too much spiced wine at her father’s feasts. Beyond the trees, as she had hoped, her father and Thut were on the other side in the main palace gardens. Threading her way around several sleeping cats, Hatshepsut crouched behind a hedge of stunted palm trees and juniper bushes.

  A little eavesdropping couldn’t hurt.

  “The Akkadians will have to wait to present their prospective princess to you, Thutmosis,” her father said. Hatshepsut could just make out the white of the pharaoh’s long kilt through the dense leaves. “I will not allow you to wed some foreign princess before you’ve married Hatshepsut.”

  She choked, doubled over as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

  As the pharaoh’s eldest daughter, Neferubity should have married Thut and been his Great Royal Wife, borne his children and the next heir. To keep the line of succession straight and avoid imposter claims to the Isis Throne, the hawk in the nest always chose a wife from within the family, and the pharaoh’s younger daughters were forbidden to marry. Dalliances like hers with Mensah were ignored as long as no children came of such relationships. Hatshepsut took no chances, faithfully using the crocodile dung–and-honey pessary procured at great cost from the Royal Physician. A f
uture without responsibility, a future of doing as she pleased when she pleased: such was the life Hatshepsut had envisioned for herself. Yet that life had been buried along with Neferubity in her tomb.

  As Pharaoh Tutmose’s youngest daughter, Hatshepsut had never been important. Now she was precious for two things: her royal blood and her womb. The idea of trading her freedom to marry Thut and bear Egypt’s future heir made Hatshepsut wish she could trade places with her sister.

  She jumped as something touched her foot. A striped cat threaded its way between her legs and into the juniper bush.

  “Who’s there?” her father’s voice rumbled.

  Hatshepsut backed away in full retreat, but her bare foot stepped on something thin and furry atop the granite tile. The screech of a cat rudely awakened from its nap rent the morning stillness. Hatshepsut jumped back to avoid the unsheathed claws of the angry feline she had just mauled, but her balance faltered. She slipped and plunged back into a fountain’s shallow waters with a violent splash.

  Shimmering orange fish darted like underwater flames to avoid their intruder. Drenched and mortified that she might be seen, Hatshepsut struggled to sit up amongst the floating lotus blossoms.

  Too late.

  The men crashed through the trees, but stopped short when they saw her.

  “Hatshepsut?”

  The gods were enjoying a good laugh at her expense right now.

  Thut bent to pluck a waterlogged pink lotus from Hatshepsut’s skirt, scarcely managing to keep a straight face. Kipa scampered from one of his shoulders to the other and bared her little yellow teeth as Thut offered his hand to help Hatshepsut from the fountain. “I’m sure one of your attendants could have arranged a bath if you’d only asked,” he said. “Amun knows you needed one.”

  She flicked some water at him. He only grinned wider.