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Child of the morning

Page 2

by Gedge, Pauline, 1945-


  keep up. Wherever she passed them, the laborers rose and bowed before her, but she hardly saw them. From the time she could toddle, the world had worshiped her, the Daughter of the God, and now, at the age of ten, the image of her destiny flowed undiluted with her blood, a natural and unselfconscious certainty of the rightness of her world and everything in it. There was the King: the God, her father. There was the Divine Gonsort, her mother. There was Neferu-khebit, her sister, and Thothmes, her half brother. And then there were the people, existing solely to adore her, and beautiful, beautiful Egypt somewhere beyond the towering walls of the palace, a land that she had never seen but that surrounded her and infused her with awe.

  Once, a year ago, she and Menkh and Hapuseneb had hatched a plot. They would leave the palace and run into the city instead of sleeping. They would go to Menkh's house a mile upstream and play in his father's boat. But the porter, lurking in his cubbyhole by the great copper gates, had caught them. Menkh had been flogged by his father, Hapuseneb had been beaten also, but she herself had simply been reprimanded by her father. It was not time, he had said, for her to leave the safety of the palace. Her life was precious. It belonged to all the land and must be protected, he had told her. He had then taken her on his knee and given her honey cakes and sweet wine.

  Now, a year later, the adventure was almost forgotten. Almost. One thing had then been brought home to her. When you are grown up, you can do anything, but you must wait. Wait.

  Neferu was standing by the enclosures, alone. She turned and smiled as Hatshepsut came up panting. Neferu's face was pale, her eyes strained. She had not slept. Hatshepsut slid her hand into the older girl's, and they set off.

  ''Where is your slave?" Hatshepsut asked. ''I had to bring mine."

  ''I sent her away. I like to be by myself sometimes, and I am old enough now to do almost as I please. Did you rest well?"

  *Tes. Nozme sounds like a bufl when she snores, but I still manage to fall asleep. I miss having you on the next couch, though. The room seems so big and empty."

  Neferu laughed. ''It is really a very smafl room, dear Hatshepsut, as you will see when you are moved into a big, echoing apartment like mine." Her voice held bitterness, but the child did not hear it.

  They went through the gate and strolled down a wide, tree-lined path flanked on either side by cages, most of which were occupied by an assortment of animals: some local, such as the ibex, the family of lions, the gazelles; some brought back by their father from the foreign lands

  where he had campaigned in his youth. Most of the beasts were asleep, lying quietly in the shade, their smell a warm and friendly thing that enveloped the girls as they passed. The path ended right against the main wall, so close to them that it seemed to rear up and cut off the sun. At its foot was a modest, two-roomed mud-brick house where the Keeper of the Royal Zoo lived. He was waiting on his porch, watching for them. As they approached, he stepped out and went down on his knees, touching his forehead to the dust.

  ''Greetings, Nebanum," said Neferu. 'Tou may rise."

  ''Greetings, Highness.'' The man struggled to his feet and stood with his head lowered.

  "Greetings!" Hatshepsut said. "Come on, Nebanum, where is the baby gazelle? Is he well?"

  "Very well. Highness," Nebanum replied gravely, his eyes twinkling, "but always hungry. I have him in a little pen behind my house, if you would care to follow me. He is a very noisy baby. He bawled all night long."

  "Oh, the poor thing! He misses his mother. Do you think I could feed him?"

  "I have prepared goat's milk if Your Highness would like to try. But I must warn Your Highness that this baby is strong and might knock Your Highness over or spill milk on Your Highness's kilt."

  "Oh, that doesn't matter. You two"—she turned and looked up at the patient, perspiring attendants—"stay here. Sit under a tree or something. I won't run away." She stepped to Nebanum. "Go on!"

  Neferu nodded, and the little party rounded the house. The wall was no more than ten steps away, casting a cool shadow; and beneath it was a small, temporary pen made of wooden stakes and twine. A brown head, all big, liquid eyes and long eyelashes, poked over the top. With a cry Hatshepsut ran up to it and thrust her hands through to pet it. Immediately the soft mouth opened, and a pink tongue rolled out.

  The girl squealed, "Look Neferu! See how he sucks at my fingers! Oh, hurry, Nebanum, he is so hungry that I should have you whipped! Get the milk!"

  Nebanum barely concealed a laugh. He bowed again and disappeared around the corner.

  Neferu came and stood by the pen. "He is beautiful," she said, stroking the sleek neck. "Poor thing, to be a prisoner."

  "Don't be so silly!" Hatshepsut retorted. "If father had not brought him home, he would have perished in the desert, eaten by lions or hyenas or something."

  '*! know that, really. But lie seems pathetic in a way, so eager for love —so alone—"

  Hatshepsut turned with another impatient word, but it quickly died on her lips. Neferu was crying, the tears running unchecked down her cheeks. Hatshepsut watched with astonishment. She had never seen Neferu anything but composed and dignified, and this sudden breakdown afforded her an unexpected moment of interest. She was not in the least embarrassed, and after a second or two she withdrew her hand from the fawn's mouth and began to dry it on her kilt.

  ''Whatever is the matter, Neferu? Are you ill or something?"

  Neferu shook her head violently and turned away silently, struggling to regain some control. Presently she picked up the hem of her sheath and wiped her face. **I am sorry, Hatshepsut. I don't know what's the matter. I didn't sleep at all today, and I think I must be a little tired."

  ''Oh." Hatshepsut did not know what else to say, and as the moments ticked on, she began to feel uncomfortable. When Nebanum reappeared with a tall, narrow jar carried carefully in his hand, she ran to him in relief. "Let me carry it! Is it heavy? You open his mouth, and I'll pour it in."

  Nebanum opened the pen, and they went in. He gently took the animal between his knees, forcing open the jaws with both hands.

  Hatshepsut, her tongue between her teeth, balanced the jug close to the squirming face and began to pour. Out of the corner of one eye she saw Neferu turn and walk away. Damn Neferu! she thought angrily. She has spoiled this lovely day! Her hand shook, and the milk began to cascade down her front, pooling uncomfortably under her bare toes.

  Nebanum took the jar from her as she held it out, and the fawn wobbled away, licking its lips and looking at them sleepily with one rolling eye.

  "Thank you, Nebanum. It's harder than it looks, is it not? I will come back tomorrow and try it again. Good-bye."

  The man's mouth twitched, and he bowed very low. "Good-bye, Highness. It is always a pleasure to see you here."

  "Of course it is!" she flung back to him over her shoulder as she began to run. She caught up with Neferu just as her sister was turning out of the gate. Hatshepsut impulsively took her by the arm. "Don't be angry with me, Neferu. Have I made you angry?"

  "No." The older girl's arm slid around the bony young shoulders. "Who could be angry with you? You are lovely to look at, intelligent, and kind. No one dislikes you, Hatshepsut, not even me."

  "What do you mean? I don't understand you, Neferu-khebit. I love you. Don't you love me, too?"

  Neferu drew her in under the trees, leaving the servants to wait in the

  middle of the path. '*I love you, too. But lately—oh, I don't know why I should be telling you; you are far too young to understand. But I must talk to somebody.''

  '*Do you have a secret, Neferu?" Hatshepsut cried. 'Tou do! You do! Are you in love? Oh, please tell me all about it!" She tugged at Neferu's arm, and they sank down together onto the cool grass. ''Is that why you weep? Your eyes are still all puffy."

  *'How can you know what it is like?" Neferu said slowly, pulling up a blade and running it back and forth over her palm. 'Tor you life will be easy, an endless game, day after day. When you are old
enough, you will be able to marry whom you please and live where you please—in the provinces, in the nomes, in the mountains. You will be free, able to travel or not; you will be able to do whatever you and your husband choose, enjoy your children. But I—" She flung the piece of grass away and clasped her hands together, leaning against the trunk of the tree. From the stress of her emotion her sallow skin took on an even yellower hue, and the muscles of her neck stood out like little knotted cords. Seen this way, she was no longer regal or dignified. Whatever prettiness she had, in her hands, in her thin nose, and in her long black hair, was overlaid by the distress that made her seem like nothing more than a collapsed and faintly fluttering white sail, 'i am set apart," she continued woodenly, "fed on delicacies and clothed in the finest linen. Jewels fill my boxes and chests like hand-fuls of pebbles, and all day slaves and nobles prostrate themselves before me. All I see for days on end is the tops of people's heads. When I rise, they clothe me; when I am hungry, they feed me; when I am tired, there are a dozen hands to draw back the covers of my couch. Even in the temple when I pray and sing and shake the sistrum, they are there." She gestured wearily, her hair falling disheveled about her neck. "I do not want to be Great Royal Wife. I do not want to be Divine Consort. I do not want to marry silly, well-meaning Thothmes. I only want peace, Hatshepsut, to live as I choose." She closed her eyes and was silent. Timidly Hatshepsut put out a hand and stroked her sister's arm. They held hands while the sun began to sink, the shadows to lengthen imperceptibly.

  Finally Neferu stirred. "I have had a dream," she whispered, "a horrible dream. I have it almost every time I sleep. That is why I did not go to my couch today but came out here to the gardens and lay under a tree until my eyes were burning from tiredness and the world seemed as unreal as if I had slept after all. I dream—I dream that I am dead, and my ka is standing in a huge, dark hall that smells of rotting flesh. It is very cold. At the end of the hall there is a doorway through which light streams,

  lovely, bright, warm sunlight. 1 know that Osiris waits for me there. But where my ka is, there is only the dark, the odor, and a terrible despair because between me and that door there are the scales, and behind the scales there is Anubis."

  ''But why should you fear Anubis, Neferu? He only wishes that the scales should balance."

  'Tes, I know. All my life I have tried to do right so that when my heart is weighed, I will have nothing to fear. But in this dream something is different." She knelt, her hands trembling as she rested them on Hatshep-sut's shoulders. ''I approach the God. He has something in his hand, quivering and pulsing. I know that it is my heart. The Feather of Maat, so beautiful, is lying on the scales. Anubis's head is bent. He lays the heart in the other dish, and the scales begin to dip. I am frozen. Lower it falls, lower, and then with a little thud the dish containing my heart strikes the table. I know then that I am finished and will never walk that cold floor to the glory of Osiris, but I do not scream—not, that is, until the God raises his head and looks at me."

  Suddenly Hatshepsut wanted to get up and run away, far away, anywhere so that she could not hear the end of this terrible dream. She began to wriggle with fear under her sister's grip, but the fingers tightened, and Neferu's eyes blazed, burning her.

  '*Do you know what, Hatshepsut? He looks at me, and it is not with the glittering eyes of the jackal. No. For it is you who condemns me, Hatshepsut. You in the apparel of the God but with the face of a child. It is more terrible than if Anubis had turned his dog face toward me and opened his mouth and snarled. I scream, but your face does not change. Your eyes are as cold and as dead as the wind that blows through that accursed place. I scream and scream, and I wake up screaming, my head pounding." Her voice had sunk again to a whisper, and she gathered the puzzled, frightened little girl into an embrace.

  Held against her bosom, Hatshepsut could hear the uneven racing of Neferu's heart. All at once the world did not seem to be such a safe and fun-filled place anymore. She was aware for the first time of the unknown realms that lay behind the smiling eyes of friends, of those one trusts. She felt as though she herself stood in Neferu-khebit's dream—but on the other side of the door, in the benediction of Osiris, looking back into the gloomy shadows of the Hall of Judgment. She wrenched herself free and stood up, brushing off the grass that clung to the milk stains on her kilt. 'Tou are quite right, Neferu-khebit. I don't understand. You frighten me, and I don't like it. Why don't you go and see the physicians?"

  *'I have seen them. They nod and smile and say that I must have

  patience, that young people have strange things on their minds when they are growing up. And the priests! Make more offerings, they advise. Amun-Ra has power to deliver you from all fear, they say. So I make offerings and I pray, but still I dream." Neferu rose also, and Hatshepsut clung to her arm as they started back for the path.

  ''Have you told mother or father?'*

  ''Mother would only smile and offer me a new necklace. You know that more often than not father becomes very irritated with me if I am with him for too long. No, I think I will just have to wait and see whether or not this thing will leave with the passing of the months. I am sorry if I upset you. I have many acquaintances these days but no friends, little one. I often feel that there is no one at all who cares about who I am inside. I know that father does not, and if not he, then who? For he is the world, is he not?''

  Hatshepsut sighed. Already she had lost the thread of Neferu's words. "Neferu, why will you have to marry Thothmes?"

  Neferu shrugged wearily. "I do not think that you would understand that, either, and I feel too tired to begin to explain it to you now. Ask Pharaoh when you see him," she replied a little grimly. They finished the walk in silence.

  When they reached the sun-splashed hall that led to the women's quarters, Neferu stopped and gently withdrew her arm. "Go in to Nozme now, and have another wash. To look at you, no one would know that you are not a dirty little street urchin who has crept in here by mistake." She laughed shakily. "I must return to my own apartment and think about what I shall wear tonight. You can go, too," she nodded to the two weary servants behind them. "Report to the Royal Nurse later." She absently patted Hatshepsut on the head and glided away, her bracelets clinking.

  Hatshepsut wandered to her own rooms in a subdued frame of mind. Things had been so much simpler and happier when she and Neferu were younger and had romped and laughed their way from day to day. Now it seemed that she would have to content herself by playing with the young aristocrats and sons of nobles who filled the schoolroom each morning, letting Neferu-khebit grow up and away. Already the gulf had widened between them. After the simple, time-honored rite that had signaled Neferu's entrance into the mysterious and awesome state of womanhood, Neferu had moved into a northern wing of the palace, with her own garden and pond, her own slaves, advisers, and spokesmen, and her own personal priest to make the sacrifices for her. Hatshepsut had seen her change from a gentle, carefree girl into a stately, withdrawn adult, drifting about with her quarreling, bowing retinue, but apart, cold.

  I shall not change like that, Hatshepsut vowed fervently as she turned in at the door and Noznie swept fronri her own room to greet her. I shall always he gay and have nice dreams and love animals. Poor Neferu.

  She was uneasy and turned a deaf ear to Nozme's immediate, shrill protestations at the state of her second clean kilt of the day. She reflected on Neferu's dream in a cloud of gloom that refused to go away. Finally the woman's grumbles penetrated, and some new stubbornness in the girl rebelled. ''Shut up, Nozme," she said. ''Get this kilt off me, and brush my youth-lock, and shave my head, and just—shut up."

  The result was surprising. There were no shouts, no splutters. After a shocked silence during which the nurse stood, her mouth tight as a trap and her hands frozen in midair, she inclined her head and turned away. "Yes, Highness," she said, knowing that the last baby was feeling its wings, surprised at its own temerity, and that her days as Royal Nurse were numbered.<
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  The Sun was sinking at last. Ra was journeying to his rest, and the red, fiery skirts of his hot Barque trailed through the Imperial Gardens as Hatshepsut went to greet her father. Great Horus was brooding in his great chair, his belly hanging over his jeweled belt. His barrel chest was afire with gold, and atop his massive head the rearing symbols of kingship gleamed in the slanting rays of his Celestial Father.

  Thothmes the First was aging. He was in his early sixties, but he still gave the impression of the enormous, bull-like strength and singleness of purpose that had caused him to snatch up the Grook and the Flail held out to him by his predecessor and to use them to bludgeon to death the last remnants of Hyksos domination. He was immensely popular with the common people of Egypt—a God, at last, of freedom and vengeance, who had made the border something more than a word. His campaigns had been tactically brilliant, bringing much booty to the temples and the people and, more importantly, security in which to till the soil and ply their trades. He had been a general in the army of Pharaoh Amunhotep, and the King had passed over his own sons to place the Double Grown on Thothmes' willing head. He was ruthless, too. He had given up a wife in order to marry Amunhotep's daughter, Aahmose, thus legitimizing his seat on the throne. His two sons by his first wife were now in his army, grown men, battle-hardened, patroling border garrisons for their father. His power and popularity were greater, perhaps, than any Pharaoh's before him, but that power had not weakened or softened him. His will was still as strong and absolute as a granite pillar, and under that will the country had licked its wounds and lived and blossomed.

 

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