The girl with gazelle eyes from the feast.
“And who is this?” Hatshepsut asked without thinking.
Thut’s hand stopped, a dripping bite of green melon suspended midair. His companion’s eyes snapped open in surprise. She seemed to be of sturdy rekhyt stock, with eyes the color of wet earth during the Inundation and thick bones beneath her many curves. The girl scrambled to the floor in a clumsy henu, her face hidden under the thick braids of a very cheap Nubian wig.
“This is Aset.” Thut gave Hatshepsut a sheepish look and sucked the sticky melon juice from his fingers. His statement explained everything and nothing. The woman kept her eyes averted, too frightened to meet the gaze of the Great Royal Wife, as he helped her to her feet.
“Aset?” Hatshepsut asked, dumbfounded.
“Aset of Waset,” the girl said. “Dancer in the temple of Hathor.”
A common name for a common girl.
Hatshepsut rubbed her temples. “I remember you from the feast last night.”
“Yes, Hemet.”
“And your parents?”
“I have no family.” Aset raised her eyes. “I never knew my father, and my mother passed to Amenti a few months ago.”
Hatshepsut recognized the grief in Aset’s voice and, despite herself, felt sympathy for this little dancer. Life in a temple was easier than most, but it would still be a lonely existence without any family.
“One day you shall be reunited with your mother in the Field of Reeds, as Thut and I shall be greeted by our father when we pass to the West.” Hatshepsut took a seat opposite the one recently occupied by the two of them. This promised to be an interesting meal.
She motioned to a boy-slave to pour her a glass of wine, hoping it hadn’t been too watered. Thut cleared his throat and signaled to the waiting slaves as he took his seat. Aset sat with him, but put a decent space between them. At least the girl had manners.
“Aset will be staying in the Hall of Women.” Thut took off his gold bracelet, then put it on again. It was obvious he expected a challenge.
“I gathered as much,” Hatshepsut said. Filling the Hall of Women was Thut’s right and duty as pharaoh, but she’d wait until they were alone to give him an earful for surprising her like this. He’d made her look like a fool, yet this meant Thut would no longer monopolize her bed each night. She turned to Aset. “The gardens in the Hall of Women are lovely this time of year. The purple saffron blossoms are my favorite part of Akhet.”
Who knew if her brother’s interest in this girl would outlast the Nile’s floods.
Thut’s shoulders relaxed and he mouthed two words to her.
Thank you.
Hatshepsut didn’t wait for the others to serve themselves as she tore a tiny piece of roasted quail from its bone and dipped it in garlic sauce. She would be civilized toward the woman her brother had chosen. It wasn’t as if Aset had a choice.
Then again, neither did she.
• • •
The morning light slanted through Hatshepsut’s windows to bathe her in Re’s golden touch. She yawned lazily, stretching from fingers to toes. She had spent a delicious night utterly and completely alone in her bed. And she had actually slept. Hatshepsut was more than happy to gift the rest of Thut’s evenings to Aset as long as he spared her the occasional night. Great Royal Wife or not, she could ensure her future power only by fulfilling her duty of birthing the future hawk in the nest.
Yet there was plenty of time for that.
As Thut and his newest consort would undoubtedly be indisposed again today, this was the perfect time to attend to something he might not approve of, although Hatshepsut had already received his permission for the first part of her plan.
“Mouse.” Hatshepsut poked her head into the sitting room and beckoned the dwarf. “Please ask Dagi to have the royal barque ready in an hour. I’d like to go across the river.” She bit her lip. “And I have a message for you to deliver to Senenmut as well.” Hatshepsut scrawled a note in hieratic, too excited to waste time executing the formal hieroglyphics on the papyrus.
“And do you require an answer from Neb Senenmut?” Mouse asked.
It seemed strange to hear Senenmut’s name associated with a noble title, a recent gift from Thutmosis to his favored adviser. “No,” Hatshepsut said. “Just deliver the message.”
Mouse bowed and scurried off on her missions as fast as her squat little legs would carry her. It didn’t take long for her to return.
“I took the liberty of having the kitchens stock the boat with a basket of food.” Mouse winked. “For two.”
“Two?” Hatshepsut was already dressed in a simple white sheath and soft calfskin sandals, but the Nubian wig Sitre had chosen remained on its ebony stand. Hatshepsut checked the copper mirror and tucked a tuft of dark hair behind her ear. “And who will be joining me for lunch?”
Mouse shrugged, a wicked gleam in her eye. “I thought perhaps Neb Senenmut.”
“We’re picking out a spot for my tomb, Mouse, not going on a picnic.” Hatshepsut hadn’t planned to spill the secret, but she didn’t want Mouse thinking this was all a ploy for her to spend time with Senenmut. It wasn’t.
At least she didn’t think it was.
“Oh.” Mouse’s lips twisted into a pout. Apparently the idea of her mistress cavorting on the sands of the West Bank was more interesting than determining one’s eternal resting place.
“But thank you for the food. We’ll probably be gone all day, and I’m already starving.”
“Enjoy yourself. And try not to get dirty.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Hatshepsut called over her shoulder. She couldn’t wait to be free of the palace, at least for one morning. A giggle slipped under the doorway as she passed Thut’s apartments, followed by her brother’s muffled voice. She stopped in her tracks.
She’d heard those same sounds before. In the garden that night of the Festival of Intoxication.
She cared less that Thut had been so brazen as to have a tryst with Aset in the gardens than that she had been in the same garden alone with Senenmut. Thut loved Senenmut, but not enough to forgive him the treason of a private interlude in a moonlit garden with his Great Royal Wife. It was only by the grace of the gods that Thut hadn’t stumbled upon Hatshepsut and her adviser. Senenmut wouldn’t have survived the encounter.
Her adviser.
Hatshepsut stopped walking. Senenmut was loyal, someone with the intelligence to assist her and the backbone to tell her when she was wrong. A rare gifts from the gods, even if it was in the guise of an arrogant and ambitious rekhyt.
“May I help you, Hemet?” Mensah appeared out of thin air. “I’m sorry to inform you that the pharaoh—”
“I’m not here to see my brother. I’m on my way to the docks.”
“Of course.” Mensah bowed and stepped out of her way. The soft shuffle of his sandals seemed to follow her, but when she turned to ask if he needed something, he had disappeared.
Good. The last thing she wanted was for Mensah to report to Thut the details of her trip across the Nile.
Sunlight hit Hatshepsut in the face as she emerged from the palace. She wanted to run, but restrained herself to walk at a dignified pace down the path to the river’s edge.
Senenmut was waiting for her, standing on the dock next to the sailor Dagi.
Hatshepsut attempted to suppress the grin that threatened to break upon her face, but she had as much luck as squashing a sneeze.
“A lovely day for a boat ride, isn’t it?” Senenmut asked as she approached, a lazy smile spreading across his lips and making her suddenly warm. He, too, had dressed casually for today’s excursion—bareheaded and wearing only a short kilt. His single adornment was Thoth’s leather armband high on his bicep.
“It certainly is,” Hatshepsut said.
Dagi bowed and gestured for the two to board a painted cedar ship that loomed high over the other boats. A giant Eye of Horus was emblazoned in gold on the side, and red and white roy
al pennants snapped in the breeze. A grin crinkled the sailor’s ruddy cheeks. “I’m mighty pleased to be summoned today. I feared the crew and I’d be put out to pasture after Osiris Tutmose was taken to his tomb.”
“No such luck, my friend.” Hatshepsut boarded, and Senenmut followed behind her. “I’ve plans for the valley, so your services will be needed more often.”
“Good.” Dagi shoved off thick ropes that tied the boat to the dock and freed the vessel before he stepped aboard. “That’s what I like to hear. Wouldn’t want the wife to make me take up farming again.” His grimace elicited a chuckle from Hatshepsut and Senenmut. “Them dusty old sails can’t wait to be unfurled. And your little attendant lugged down two baskets the size of baby rhinos.”
She smiled. “As long as they’re not so heavy that they sink the ship.”
Dagi seemed to contemplate that. “I doubt they will. Close, but not quite.”
Hatshepsut and Senenmut ignored the goat-hide awning and took their seats on the prow to enjoy Re’s morning light, far enough from the rowers to be out of earshot.
“So, is this a pleasure cruise or does your invitation have a more sinister undertone?” Senenmut closed his eyes and leaned back, hands clasped behind his head.
Her tongue tied itself in knots at the sight of him in the sun, the lines of lean muscle stretching across his chest and shoulders. Why in the name of Amun had she asked Senenmut to accompany her? Sometimes she doubted her own sanity.
The striped sail snapped in the breeze behind them, a rainbow of red, yellow, and blue. Today the Nile sparkled green in Re’s warmth. They passed wooden water wheels turning lazily in the muddy channels that fed Egypt’s crops of flax, barley, and emmer.
“Hatshepsut?” Senenmut peered at her, his brow furrowed.
She took a deep breath and tucked her feet beneath her; she liked looking at him. “By sinister, do you mean ‘Is there work involved?’ Because there might be.”
He shook his head, eyes closed again. “A morning boat ride on the Nile, the sun on my face, and a picnic. I knew it seemed too good to be true.”
“You can have all that, but I have a job for you as well.”
“A secret one, judging from the apparent lack of entourage today.” He peered at her through one eye, his expression hooded. “Does the pharaoh know we’re out here?”
“Thut gave me permission to visit the West Bank. He thinks I’m going to visit our father’s tomb.”
“So, he doesn’t know what you’re really up to?” Senenmut frowned. “For that matter, neither do I.”
She waved her hand. “Thut’s too busy with his latest concubine to care.”
Senenmut’s eyes opened a little wider. “That didn’t take long.”
“Thut can be very efficient when he wishes to be.”
“You disapprove of the girl?”
“Actually, no. She seems malleable, a rekhyt dancer in the Temple of Hathor. Anything that keeps Thut from my bed—”
His jaw clenched. The last thing she wanted to discuss with him was her brother in her bed. Hatshepsut smoothed her linen sheath over her legs, needing something to do with her hands. “It looks as though she’ll be keeping Thut indisposed for some time.”
Silence fell, and then Senenmut asked, “Does Mensah know you’re out here?”
“Mensah? Why would he need to know?”
“He seems to hold some claim to your affections.”
“That was a long time ago.” She wanted to add when I was young and stupid, but held her tongue. “And I don’t need either Mensah or Thut’s permission to pick out my tomb.”
“Planning on dying soon?” Senenmut closed his eyes again. Re’s light danced on his face.
“No, but I’d hate for my ka to disappear into oblivion simply because I hadn’t planned ahead.”
“Your father began planning his tomb the day he took the Isis Throne.”
“Yes,” she said. “Some tombs on the West Bank are for royal families going years back, but farther south, the valley is completely empty. Essentially we can make a fresh start.”
“We?” Senenmut looked at her.
“You seem to have a knack for architecture, Senenmut of Iuny,” she said grudgingly. “First in the military and now with your temples in Nubia. I thought you might like to try your hand at something everlasting.”
“And your brother? Am I designing his tomb as well?”
Hatshepsut shook her head. “I hope to outline my tomb and then present him with the sketches. He can follow suit or do something different. There’s no decree that says he has to be buried in the valley. Although since our father is there—”
“I’m sure he’ll mimic you.”
She shrugged. “Possibly.”
“I believe I’m up for the challenge of building your tomb, but I’d like Ineni on the job as well.” Senenmut dipped his finger into the green waves of the Nile and started to sketch something on the dry planks of the bench. “There’s no one in the capital with more architectural experience.”
“He designed my father’s tomb,” she said. “I think the two of you would make a perfect team.”
“What are you thinking in terms of design?”
“Something simple. Inaccessible.”
“Like a cliff tomb?”
She looked at the picture he’d created from damp wood and water. A cliff rose from a valley, a tiny dark doorway perched under the ledge. From there, a narrow shaft descended into the mountain. She nodded. “Precisely.”
The design faded in the heat, but its imprint remained in Hatshepsut’s mind. Now they just had to carve it into stone.
The boat lurched as it docked, and Senenmut shaded his eyes as he stood, looking out at the desolate golden sands before him on this, his first visit to the forbidden Western Valley. “The land of the dead.”
Hatshepsut stood and brushed the wrinkles from her sheath. “Shall we?”
Dagi was already on shore, the plank outstretched for them to disembark. Hatshepsut was halfway down the incline when her sandal caught a warped section of wood. She stumbled forward and was about to pitch headfirst into the river, but Senenmut’s arm snaked around her waist to stop her.
“You all right, Hemet?” Dagi asked, his arms out to help her.
Hatshepsut pushed an imaginary strand of hair from her eyes. “Except for my pride, yes.”
“We promise not to tell anyone you almost took an unscheduled swim. Right, Dagi?” Senenmut’s voice was infused with laughter. She enjoyed the feel of his arm around her, perhaps a little too much.
“My lips are sealed,” Dagi said.
Senenmut’s arm fell away, replaced with his open palm on the small of her back to guide her down the final steps of the narrow plank.
“We’ll be back in a couple hours,” Hatshepsut said to Dagi.
“The food’ll be ready.” He handed a skin of water to Senenmut and bowed as the two started up the thin path cut through the sands.
The sun-baked earth yawned unendingly before them, sparse tufts of grass tucked into pillows of brown sand. An ever-present haze of shimmering heat clouded the far-flung cliffs. Tucked within those sepulchral rock faces were uncounted tombs, the final resting places for pharaohs, queens, and other royalty from dynasties long since past. It was here that Neferubity had been buried what seemed a lifetime ago. A trained eye could discern a shadowed entrance here and there, but most of the tombs had long since disappeared beneath blankets of sand, just as the inhabitants had intended. To those who still walked the earth, the valley was empty, forsaken. But for those buried within its rocks, this was a city teeming with centuries of Egypt’s most illustrious kas as they departed the underworld each night to reunite with their earthly bodies. Each time the angry winds of a khamsin blew, the secret rooms with all their precious treasures were protected anew, providing a deterrent against tomb robbers for centuries. And of course the handful of guards paid by the throne to protect the valley also assisted in ensuring the perpetual sl
eep of those buried here.
Senenmut and Hatshepsut walked in silence. The lazy hum of the river disappeared until they heard only rocks crunching underfoot. A thin sheen of perspiration clung stubbornly to her skin as Re’s heat intensified. They reached the foot of the cliffs and paused for a moment to rest in the meager shade of a boulder off the path.
“Anything strike your fancy?” Senenmut took a long drink from the water skin. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and tossed the jug to Hatshepsut.
The water tasted like leather, but she drank her fill. “These cliffs are too easy to access. Farther up they get steeper. Dangerously steep.”
“Perfect.” Senenmut offered his hand to help her stand. He looked to the west. “What is that?”
Where they stood they could see only the Red Land, with no trees and no view of the Nile, yet still there were wonders to be found. Hatshepsut shaded her eyes, smiling at the sight of the secret community nestled into a rock amphitheater. “The Place of Truth.”
“It looks like a village, but that’s not possible, not here on the West Bank.” Senenmut glanced at her. “Or is it?”
“My father founded the town,” she said. “For the workers building his tomb.”
“A secret village of stonecutters?”
She nodded. “And plasterers, craftsmen, artisans. Everyone needed to build a royal tomb.”
“And they stay out here, hidden in the desert, of their own accord?”
Hatshepsut cocked her head at him. “Of course. At least after we drag them out here in chains and whip them into submission.” He blinked, and she laughed. “The servants in the Place of Truth are paid three times their normal wage and are allowed to work on their own tombs on their days off. They’re sworn to secrecy about what they do, but those who live here are honored to be chosen for such a position.”
Senenmut stared awestruck at the village. “A secret city of Egypt’s most talented artisans.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to meet them?”
His eyes widened. “Could I?”
“Of course.” She grinned. “But only if you can keep up.”
Their skin glistened with sweat by the time they reached the border stones of the Place of Truth. Headed toward them, a workman in a loincloth carried a box of paints in one hand and a leather satchel in the other, his head bent against Re’s glare. He glanced up at their approach, continued on his way for a moment, then dropped into a full henu in a puff of dust.
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