Daughter of the Gods: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

by Stephanie Thornton

  “Does she still deny receiving my message after Thut’s death, asking you to return to court?” Hatshepsut kept her voice light, but it still stung that Hatnofer of Iuny despised her so much that she would keep up her ridiculous lie after all these years.

  “She does,” Senenmut answered. “So adamantly that I think in her old age she may have forgotten the truth.” He sighed. “I’ve ordered builders to begin construction of her tomb. My brothers bring her food and their wives check in on her, but Nofret-Hor is the only one of us left at home to take care of her now.”

  Hatshepsut linked her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “Then of course she’ll return. After all, I owe Hatnofer of Iuny a considerable debt.”

  Senenmut smiled. “Yes, come to think of it, I suppose you do.”

  “And Nofret-Hor shall have whatever she needs to make your mother happy and comfortable. Is there anything in particular you’d suggest?”

  “Nofret-Hor,” Senenmut shouted to his sister over her exclamations about the expertise of Dagi’s rowers. “If you could give any gift to our mother, what would it be?”

  Nofret-Hor stuck her tongue between her lips, making quite a show of thinking before a slow smile spread across her face. “Jugglers,” she said.

  “Jugglers?” Hatshepsut gaped at her, dumbfounded. “Why jugglers?”

  Nofret-Hor shrugged. “My mother hears little, but she still loves to laugh. There’s nothing in this world funnier than a juggler.”

  Hatshepsut chuckled. “Then you shall have an entire boatload of jugglers to entertain Hatnofer of Iuny. Is there anything else she’d like?”

  Nofret-Hor puffed out her cheeks, looking like a Nile perch. “And a big, fat ox to eat until the end of her days.”

  Hatshepsut laughed. “Consider it done. Your family shall dine on the fattest ox to be found in the City of Truth.”

  Nofret-Hor grinned, then remembered to bow before scrambling to her feet as Hatshepsut dismissed her. “It must be wonderful to be pharaoh,” Hatshepsut heard her whisper to Neferure as she linked arms with her daughter. “Imagine being able to order all that with a flick of your hand!”

  Hatshepsut smiled and bumped her hip against Senenmut’s, earning her another grin as their barge dropped its mooring stake and Amun’s barque floated into position behind them.

  It was indeed good to be pharaoh.

  • • •

  Nofret-Hor’s visit stretched from days into weeks, but she finally departed with an escort of Hatshepsut’s own medjay, accompanied by a boatful of jugglers and one extremely well-fed ox. She stood on the stern of the royal barge, blowing kisses and calling out promises to exchange frequent letters with Neferure. Hatshepsut stood flanked by Senenmut and Neferure as they waved good-bye, and then she left father and daughter so they might spend the day together. One of Senenmut’s official titles was Overseer of the Granaries of Amun, and he had asked Neferure to help him inspect the god’s accounts, a task Neferure was eager to help with, as it benefited her chosen god.

  In the meantime, Hatshepsut hummed with happiness at the thought of her great task of the day: meeting Ti and Neshi to search for a land of myrrh trees and spices, a task that no longer seemed onerous now that she and Senenmut were happily reconciled. Scribes sat cross-legged on the floor of the administration offices, silently copying ancient treatises and maxims from sages long since flown to the Field of Reeds. The walls were stacked with flaking papyrus scrolls, and dust motes hung heavy in the air, eliciting a sneeze from one of the scribes every so often.

  They pored over maps and archaic histories in search of the right destination, until the grime of dust covered Hatshepsut’s hands, itched her eyes, and filled her mouth. This was a trip that would stretch beyond Egypt’s boundaries so that Ti and Neshi could bring back exquisite luxuries from foreign and mystical lands. Nubian gold or Phoenician cedars were commonplace, too easy to obtain. Her temple would be unprecedented; all its trappings had to be matchless.

  They found precisely what they were looking for buried in musty old records from the reign of Amenemhat II. The pharaoh had ruled five hundred years prior, but tucked deep within the histories of his reign was a reference to the now-mythical land of Punt, a nation that Egypt had traded with since the days of the pyramid builders. Amenemhat’s expedition to the obscure land was the last of its kind. No other trip had been undertaken since then and the maps that outlined the route had been lost to time.

  “Give me a ship and I’ll find it,” Neshi said.

  “We might as well throw gold into the Nile,” Ti countered. “It’s been too long since the last trip. There has to be something safer.” It was interesting to watch the identical men argue—they so rarely disagreed.

  “But there’s a description of the route right here.” Neshi smashed his finger into Amenemhat’s account. A piece of the decrepit papyrus flaked off. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Hatshepsut reread the vague account aloud, imagining the voyage in her mind’s eye. “Down the length of the Nile, through the Delta’s marshes, overland across the Sinai, and down the Red Sea. There you will find the Gods’ Land, filled with myrrh and frankincense, ivory and ebony, giraffes and baboons. The land of Punt.”

  “Imagine all of that decorating your temple.” Neshi was practically salivating. “There’s something you could write about on one of your obelisks.”

  “Or on the temple itself,” she said.

  The idea was more than tantalizing—new luxuries unseen in Egypt for five hundred years, brought back to her mortuary temple, her single most important monument. It made her wish she could travel to Punt herself to witness it all firsthand.

  “If you’re willing to lead the expedition, I’ll finance it,” she said to Neshi. A grin broke across her face as he whooped with delight.

  “I’ll stay here, if you don’t object,” Ti said to Hatshepsut. Neshi sobered slightly, but Hatshepsut nodded. She couldn’t recall a time when the two men had been separated. “Good,” Ti said. “After all, someone has to stay behind to make sure you don’t spend all your money on temples and expeditions.”

  It took many months to design and build the appropriate seaworthy vessels, but finally, as Senenmut broke ground on her temple, the entire court and most of Waset gathered to send off two hundred men and five ships from the docks. Hatshepsut wished she could join them, but as pharaoh her place was on the Isis Throne, not gallivanting off on some wild adventure. Such was the price of the double crown.

  The outcome of such a massive and dangerous undertaking wouldn’t be known for months, perhaps years. The voyage might be a wild success, or, should Neshi fail, it might be a dark shadow on her reign.

  The red sails puffed like giant ruddy cheeks, and hundreds of sturdy cedar oars were raised in salute to Hatshepsut. The High Priest of Amun intoned a prayer, surrounded by a clutch of solemn wa’eb priests, as he overturned a vial of myrrh into the Nile to bless the waters. Neshi gave his a final bow from the front of his boat as acrobats and dancers took to the crowd on shore, vendors hawking overpriced melons and half-burned meats over the beat of the boats’ drums. She prayed she would see them all again.

  Hatshepsut stayed to watch as the last red sail melted into the brown horizon. The Great Cackler himself would protect the expedition, just as Sekhmet watched over her.

  The gods loved her too much to forsake her now.

  Chapter 26

  YEAR FOUR OF PHARAOH HATSHEPSUT

  The morning sky was aglow with buttery young sunshine, warming the granite in the forecourt of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple. The breath of the gods whipped puffs of white into a fluffy bird with the beak of an ibis and the feathers of an ostrich, then morphed it into a ship with billowing sails, a reminder of the ships that had set off from the City of Truth three years ago. Hatshepsut and the rest of Egypt had long ago given up hope of hearing from Neshi and his men. Surely they were lost, killed on the overland trek across the Sinai Peninsula or drowned in a storm while sa
iling the Red Sea.

  This would be the greatest stain on her rule as pharaoh. What should have been one of the brightest accomplishments was instead an abysmal failure. And even that didn’t plague her as did the thought of those two hundred men meeting unknown and possibly gruesome deaths while their kas were obliterated, with no bodies left behind to mummify and place in their tombs. It was as if the gods wished to remind her not to become complacent, to remember that disaster could strike at any time.

  She had hoped that the discovery of Punt and the completion of her mortuary temple would be the crowning achievements of her reign, but now the temple would have to stand alone on that pinnacle. The sacred place was almost finished, christened Djeser-Djeseru, the “Holiest of Holies.” It was all Senenmut had promised her, and more.

  On this morning of dancing clouds, Hatshepsut traveled to the Western Valley to check the progression of the temple’s final frescoes in the Hall of Birth. The northern portico of the mortuary temple was devoted to the story of Hatshepsut’s divine birth to her mortal mother, Ahmose, and her hallowed father, Amun. The invisible god had been her father’s patron, so it was scarcely stretching the truth to claim him as her divine father, yet another way to overcome the obstacle of a woman ruling. If the Great Cackler decreed it, so it would be.

  Hatshepsut gazed at the chiseled outline of Osiris Tutmose, glad she had commissioned Aka to depict her father rather than a younger artist who had never met the pharaoh. The figure was stylized, but miniscule details identified him from the mass of other men depicted on the walls. He was there in the hook of his nose, the way the lips curved up slightly at the edges, and the receding chin. His figure loomed over everyone else’s on the relief, even the gods’.

  She wished he could see her now.

  Another frieze depicted her as pharaoh. This time the figure bore no likeness to the subject. The cartouche above the image identified her throne name—Maatkare—but she wore the short kilt and false beard of a man, a mirror of her costume at all formal occasions. She despised it. Not only did the beard scratch and leave a rash on her chin for days afterward, but she hated the pretense. Her monuments were scattered about Egypt, but her advisers had deemed the deviation of a female pharaoh too outrageous for the illiterate rekhyt to stomach, so each image depicted her as a man. It was one thing for the commoners to accept the pharaoh as a living god, but quite another for them to swallow a woman as that god. She understood the logic, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

  Footsteps crunched behind her, followed by the scent of cinnamon on the air and the low hum of Senenmut’s voice.

  “Do you like it?”

  She nodded without turning around. “It’s exquisite, more majestic than I could have dreamed.”

  This would be her tribute to Egypt, something to last for all time.

  Her pyramid.

  “Your father would be proud,” Senenmut said. “He might even be a little put out to discover that thus far, his daughter’s reign has been even more successful than his own.”

  Hatshepsut laughed at the truth. “You exaggerate.”

  “Humility doesn’t sit well on you.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Egypt has been at peace for over a decade, her enemies vanquished and her storehouses perpetually overflowing. Your people adore you. I adore you.” His eyes swept over the columns and reliefs of the temple he had built for her. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, Egypt is now littered with your monuments.”

  Her chuckle echoed off the columns and into the sunshine. “I suppose it is.”

  “Even your mother would be proud,” he added.

  “She’d be proud of this.” Hatshepsut pointed to the carved depiction of Ahmose being led to the birthing chamber by her attendants. “You can’t tell if she’s pregnant or simply eaten too much at dinner.”

  Senenmut laughed, that throaty chortle that still had the power to make her feel a little warmer. “A final gift for your mother.”

  They stood that way for some time, swathed in each other’s embrace. A timelessness imbued within the temple’s stones made the rest of the chaotic world seem far away.

  Hatshepsut was the first to speak, her voice so low it blended into the breeze. “I have a surprise for you.”

  “Really?” Senenmut arched a brow. “I have a surprise for you, too.”

  “The best minds think like me,” Hatshepsut joked, and received a playful jab to her ribs in response. “Which one first?”

  “After you.” Senenmut released her with a mock bow.

  She took him the long way through the temple, wandering through the chapels dedicated to Hathor and Anubis. Although Hatshepsut still favored Sekhmet and Amun, she had chosen to honor the cow goddess of love and the jackal god of death, having come to appreciate their positions as the creator and taker of life, greater even than that of the nine gods. One relief showed Hathor as a cow suckling the infant Hatshepsut, and another depicted Anubis introducing Hatshepsut to the world of gods in the next life. The rest of Hatshepsut’s days would be written on the walls in between, but her story began with Hathor and would end with Anubis.

  It was to Djeser-Djeseru’s second terrace that Hatshepsut guided Senenmut, to a statue niche on the southern wall. Above the door were fifteen empty stone vessels, each dry now but soon to be filled with sacred oils and unguents. The alcove was empty as well, but would house a statue of Amun once the temple was finished. Senenmut stood back, unsure what he was looking for.

  “Look carefully.” She could hardly wait for him to find it, but the surprise was well hidden, just as she’d intended.

  Senenmut perused the carvings, mumbling the hieroglyphs as he went. He finished scanning the wall and gave her a quizzical look.

  “You’re sure there’s a surprise here?”

  “Look closer.”

  He continued the search, lingering over an inconspicuous offering scene depicting a kneeling man holding two ankhs—the symbol of eternal life—to the supreme god. An image of Hatshepsut stood before the man, offering a green vial of perfume to Amun. Senenmut inhaled sharply as he read the hieroglyphs that identified the supplicant.

  “Me? You put me in here?” He expression was blank with shock. “But this is a holy site.”

  In ordering the artist to include Senenmut, Hatshepsut had broken with a tradition countless millennia old. The portrayal of a person in a site as sacred as this one was not a mere picture, but a true substitute for the person represented. By placing Senenmut’s image within the temple precincts, she allowed him to bask in the power and glory of Amun just as she would for all time. The sacrilege was no small favor.

  She shrugged, trying her best to appear nonchalant. “For some reason I can’t fathom the idea of eternity without you.”

  She’d barely lived through that once. There was still a pig heart buried in the garden to prove it. Yet Senenmut stared at the image of himself as if it were a cobra poised to strike.

  She sighed. There was only one way to wake him from this stupor. “I’ll have the workmen chisel it off tomorrow.”

  “No.” Senenmut spoke quickly. “Don’t do that. I’m just … in awe. To think that a rekhyt—”

  “I don’t care about that and you know it. All that matters is that you have a place with me in the next world.”

  Senenmut laughed. “You don’t want to be bored when you get to the Field of Reeds.”

  It was Hatshepsut’s turn to laugh. “Perhaps.”

  Senenmut clasped her hand in his and kissed it once. “Thank you.”

  “This isn’t the only picture of you.” She bit her lip and traced the white scars on her wrists, unfaded even after all the years since Neferubity’s death.

  His eyes narrowed. “How many secret Senenmuts have you hidden around here?”

  “Well, they’re all very small and out of the way, where no one will really notice.” Hatshepsut stalled. She felt like a little girl admitting to stealing not one but dozens of honey rolls.

  �
�How many?” Senenmut prodded.

  “Sixty.”

  “Sixty!”

  She had sworn to make it up to him when he asked for a child. Now she had returned him sixtyfold. “You’re stuck with me for eternity, sehedj ib.”

  One who gladdens the heart.

  The name was fitting; Senenmut made her heart feel as if it had wings. She chuckled at the look of horror plastered on his face. “I asked the artists to scatter you all over the place.”

  “What in the name of Amun are you thinking?” He glowered at her now. “One picture might not be noticed, but sixty? Sixty?”

  This she had expected.

  “Just listen for a moment.” She spoke calmly and gestured for him to sit at the base of one of the pillars with her. He did, but she had a feeling his fingers itched to wring her neck.

  “What I did three years ago was an aberration tolerated only because my seven years as regent were idyllic. I can control what Egypt says about me during my lifetime, but not what will be said of me—of us—years down the road.”

  “I don’t see how I play into this.”

  “When has a rekhyt ever risen so high?”

  “I thought you didn’t care about my birth.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Never.” It wasn’t a bluff because it was the truth.

  “What if history decides to erase us, to remove the female deviation and her consort from the record? What if our bodies are destroyed and my monuments torn down? Without some tangible evidence of our lives on earth, we could disappear from the Field of Reeds. I can’t let that happen to either of us.”

  Senenmut pulled her closer. She shivered, trying to push the nightmare from her mind.

  “I’ve planned the odds in our favor,” she said. “Even if this temple falls to the ground, somewhere in the rubble the images of you and me will keep our kas alive.”

  “I think Egypt will laud you as one of their golden kings for all eternity.” Senenmut entwined his fingers through hers. “But it’s probably wise to be prepared.”