Child of the morning

by Gedge, Pauline, 1945-

  Senmut nodded, and the servant disappeared, melting into the crowd. The heat of the night and the warmth of the bodies were already melting the brown cones on the heads of the guests, and the perfume had begun to trickle down their necks. Senmut, waiting for his wine with a dry throat and jumping nerves, felt himself enveloped in the same thick miasma, but it was not unpleasant. He put up a hand and dabbled his fingers under his ear, then rubbed his hands together and raised them to his nose. His wine arrived, presented in a flagon of gold beaten so thin that he fancied he could see the outline of his hands through it as he took it and drank. Out of the corner of his eye, over the bobbing heads of the people, he saw both doors at last flung wide and a glitter of precious stones in the dimness beyond. Conversation ceased. The breeze played fitfully.

  The Chief Herald took a deep breath and raised his voice. ''Horus, the Mighty Bufl, Beloved of Maat, Lord of Nekhbet and per-Uarchet, He Who Is Diademed with the Fiery Uraeus, Making Hearts to Live, Son of the Sun, Thothmes, Living Forever. Great Royal Wife Aahmose, Lady of the Two Lands, the Great Lady, Royal Sister, Beloved of Pharaoh. Crown Prince Hatshepsut Khnum-Amun, Beloved of Amun, Daughter of Amun."

  Knees were bent, arms were extended, foreheads went down, and the floor of the hall became fluid, rising and falling like the waves of a lake.

  Senmut, exposed on the dais, went down also. He felt a little sick. What if Pharaoh did not like him? What if he said the wrong thing and was ordered ignominiously out of the chamber? The thought of disgrace was worse than the thought of death. All this flashed through his mind as his head met a cushion and rose again, and he was on his feet once more, watching the royal entourage thread its way through the adoring people.

  In close quarters Pharaoh exuded authority in far greater measure than the short, squat figure Senmut had seen striding down the avenue to Luxor. Up close his shoulders were more markedly broad, his legs more muscled, his head more bull-like and belligerent, his eyes sharper, always flicking to and fro, missing nothing. Tonight he was wearing yellow, one of his favorite colors. His kilt was yellow and dusted with gold leaf, and his sandals were chained gold. His pectoral was of two crystal hands, the fingers outlined in gold, holding the blue turquoise Eye of Horus inlaid

  with amethyst and the blue faience glass that his Vizier of Lower Egypt had brought him that very afternoon. Thothmes' leather cap was yellow, its two wings falling nearly to his waist; and above his shining forehead the Cobra and the Vulture reared, their cold crystal eyes staring at the crowd.

  Senmut looked at Aahmose with frank interest. He had never seen Hatshepsut's mother and was a little disappointed, for there was little resemblance between them. Aahmose was comfortably plump and smiling, but though he knew that all loved her for her sweetness, there was nothing of the fire, the dart, the spark of the daughter.

  At last, when the Fan Bearer at the Right Hand of the King and the other officials clearing a path were almost upon him, Senmut saw Hat-shepsut. She was still in a boy's garb, the kilt swaying inches above her knees, but tonight no one could mistake her sex. The black eyes were lidded in heavy green, and the kohl gleamed around them. The full mouth was red, and white buds were entwined in the dully shining tresses, surmounted by a delicate, filigreed crown of silver that seemed to weave in and out of her hair and about her ears. Silver clung to her throat and caressed her shoulders, and silver snakes crawled around both arms, their tails and flat heads carved of deep chalcedony. Her belt was silver, also, as were her sandals, and while in the afternoon brightness she had glittered and flashed like the Sun Himself, tonight she glowed dully, coldly, the moon at the full. Senmut, utterly out of his depth, was afraid.

  Pharaoh's emblems were laid at the foot of the dais, and the officials melted away. Thothmes mounted heavily and settled himself on the cushions, Aahmose beside him, and Hatshepsut came to sit beside Senmut, a glad smile lighting her face. Pharaoh bellowed for food, and the diners sank to the floor to eat.

  ''I am glad that you are here," Hatshepsut said to Senmut. ''I am also lamentably hungry. Your goose will appear before long, and then we shall know whether or not you have an eye for tender flesh! Do you like my bracelets?" She extended both arms in a rush of perfume. 'The Vizier brought them home for me. Now"—she leaned over her mother and tapped Thothmes on the knee—''father, this is the priest I told you about. Do not rise again, priest. You have had enough exercise for one day."

  Senmut found himself caught in the most all-embracing, searching, piercing gaze he had ever known. Ineni's slow appraisal had been as nothing compared with this sudden roasting. Thothmes' eyes trapped him and proceeded to shake him apart, bit by bit, and Senmut needed all his will just to keep his eyes fixed on the other's.

  After a moment that seemed to be an eternity, Pharaoh grunted twice.

  'Toil are elusive, young man," he said, his voice rough and deep but not unkind. "For many weeks I have heard of you from my Clerk of Works but never a shadow of you have I seen. Ineni thinks well of you. He says that you have talent and imagination. My daughter likes you. You are fortunate." He swept the blooms from the table as his slave bent with the first course, the flowers landing in Aahmose's ample lap. ''Is that scruffy priest's kilt all that you have to wear? Where is your wig? Well? Where is your voice, also?"

  Hatshepsut was watching, an amused little smile playing about her mouth.

  Senmut answered as carefully as he had when he met Hapuseneb. "I am only an apprentice, Mighty Bull, and a we'eb priest under all priests. It is not fitting that such a one as I should be adorned as my betters."

  Thothmes shot him a keen glance from beneath his lowering brows. "Well spoken. But sentiments will not buy food, as the great Imhotep once said."

  "I am well fed. Mighty One. My master works me hard, but he is just."

  "I know that better than you. Where do you live?"

  "I have a room off my master's office."

  "Indeed. Hatshepsut, do what you will with him. I like him. Now we will eat. Where is the music?"

  He turned from them abruptly, and Senmut let out a sigh of relief. A slave waited patiently beside him, loaded tray in hand; and now that the interview was over, the young man discovered an overpowering appetite. The spicy smells wafting around him were making his mouth water, and he nodded at last for food. Hatshepsut was already eating with dedication, her eyes darting around the company. Senmut tucked a lotus bloom into his belt and began to eat, too. His cup was quietly refilled, and the perfumed wax dripped onto his chest. He wanted to enjoy the night, to get drunk as all the others would do, to laugh and dance and reel home with the dawn; but as always that other self stood beside him, watching all with steady, cynical eyes, cold and sober and calculating. Senmut shrugged, knowing that he would not get delightfully drunk or scream with laughter or applaud the gyrations of the dancing girls too loudly. It was not within him, such abandonment. He ate quietly, and once Hat-shepsut's appetite was satisfied, she began to point out the guests to him, whispering scandals in his ear, her eyes alight.

  "See over there, to the right of the fifth lotus column, beneath the lamp? The fat woman with gold hanging to her knees? That is Second Wife Mutnefert, mother of my brother Thothmes, she who refused my father entrance and locked herself in her apartments for months when I

  became Crown Prince. It is said that she makes love to the Chief Herald, but I do not believe it. If it were true, my father would have killed her a long time ago.*'

  'Thothmes is not here/' she replied in answer to his hesitant question. ''Father has sent him with pen-Nekheb on a tour of the northern garrisons. He hopes that Thothmes will learn something, but he will be disappointed. Thothmes wanted to take his concubine, and father nearly exploded. . . . See? There, waving to you. It is Menkh!"

  It was indeed the lively young man, and Senmut waved back. Menkh had a girl in his lap and ostrich feathers stuck defiantly in his wig. Hapuseneb sat below the dais, deep in conversation with his father; and though Senmut was sure he had seen him
, Hapuseneb did not look his way.

  As soon as the eating was over and the entertainments were to begin, the Vizier and his son rose and approached the dais. Thothmes waved them on.

  ''What is it, my friend?"

  "I wish to be excused, Pharaoh, and to go home to my wife. I am weary with traveling."

  "Then go. You, too, Hapuseneb. Be in my audience chamber one hour after dawn tomorrow with the reports." He dismissed them, and as they turned, Hapuseneb caught Senmut's eye and gave him a warm smile. They left, and Pharaoh heaved himself to his feet.

  "Silence! Is Ipuky here?"

  From the back of the hall the blind musician was led by one of his sons, and he stood before the dais, his new lute cradled in one scrawny arm. "I am here. Majesty," he said. Senmut looked at him in amazement, for his voice was as strong and full of melody as all the sounds of nature. Pharaoh jerked his head, and a slave helped the old man forward and left him sitting at their feet.

  "Give me your lute," Thothmes commanded, and it was handed over. "The Crown Prince has been studying this instrument and wishes your opinion of her skill. We also wish to be entertained."

  Hatshepsut made a face at Senmut and rose, and all at once that tiny gesture swept him back to the edge of Amun's Lake in the cool dawn, to a naked, bedraggled, and sorrowing child. How far I have come since then, he thought, not without sadness.

  Hatshepsut put one foot upon her table and swung the lute across her knee. Bending her head and biting her lip in concentration, she sought the first chords of the song with her long fingers; and Senmut sat back, wine in hand. The hush deepened. Ipuky sat calmly, waiting, his fingers

  laced and still in his lap. Finally Hatshcpsut raised her head and gazed out over the congregation. Two plaintive, running chords came from the lute, as sweet and melancholy as a winter's night. She began to sing.

  Sweet of love is the Daughter of the King! Black are her tresses as the blackness of the night, Black as the wine grapes are the clusters of her hair, The hearts of the women turn toward her with delight, Gazing on her beauty, with which none can compare.

  Her voice was high, thin, and pure, the calling of the first bird in the drowsy dawn, and the song she had chosen suited her so well that Senmut was sure she had plucked it from his mind. A superstitious awe began to steal over him. Indeed she was the Daughter of the God!

  Sweet of love is the Daughter of the King! Fair are her arms in the softly swaying dance. Fairer by far is her bosom's rounded swell! The hearts of the men are as water at her glance. Fairer is her beauty than mortal tongue can tell.

  No one moved. The song was well known, a love song of antiquity, usually sung in a lewd manner when the guests were far gone with wine and usually accompanied with suitable suggestive postures. But Hatshepsut gave it a treatment unequaled in its daring and its simplicity, singing it in innocence. The captivated people forgot their intrigues and dalliances and were once more in the throes of young love.

  Sweet of love is the Daughter of the King! Rose are her cheeks as the jasper's ruddy hue. Rose as the henna which stains her slender hands! The heart of the King is filled with love anew. When in all her beauty before his throne she stands.

  There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the entire company was on its feet, stamping and clapping, crying her praises. Hatshepsut handed the lute coolly back to Ipuky and sat down firmly, ignoring the storm. 'The fools!" she snapped to Senmut. 'They know not what they applaud, but shout because I am beautiful and sing of beauty. The tune is easy, and I do not have a great voice. Yet for the sweet and powerful Ipuky, who can fill the temple with his music, for him they clap tepidly and turn away to what they think are better things. Fools!"

  When the tumult had died down, Thothmes asked the great musician's opinion.

  Ipuky considered for a moment, then made his pronouncement. 'The song is easy to sing, but Her Highness has arranged it well to hide the fact that her voice does not yet have its full range and depth. Her skill with the lute is well known."

  Hatshepsut applauded loudly, whispering again to Senmut, 'Tou see!"

  Thothmes thanked the old man. The tables were removed, a space was cleared, and from far down the hall came the click of castanets and the rattle of the tambourines. Aahmose was asleep, snoring gently, lying among her cushions. Thothmes abruptly stepped off the dais and went to a chair that had been abandoned at the edge of the throng.

  ''Now we shall see the dancing," Hatshepsut said. "Let's sit on the floor over there by Menkh so that we may see the feet of the girls better." She hopped off her cushions, Senmut following, his wine flagon still in his hand.

  Seven girls ran in, Syrians, Senmut judged by their swarthy skins and hawk noses, their black hair tumbling loose to their knees. Each carried a tambourine and a bell. They were naked, but for jangling bracelets of copper and a multitude of rings on their toes, and their bodies glistened with the oil that flowed from their perfume cones. Their eyes spoke of natures untamed. Senmut remembered little of the dance, if dance it was. He was heady with wine and rich odors and the nearness of the Prince. The full breasts and red-painted nipples of the girls roused him until he could think of nothing else. With a clashing of rattles and a twinkle of castanets they were gone, and the jugglers took their place, with balls and hoops and wooden sticks. After them came a magician who showered gold dust upon them and turned flowers into balls of fire.

  Pharaoh was in a fine humor. He laughed and drank, slapping his massive thigh and clapping vigorously, but Aahmose slumbered on. At last, when the water clock had almost drained and in the east the sky grew gray, he rose, shouting, 'To bed! All of you!" and lumbered out the doors.

  The music ceased. The slaves began to carry out those guests too drunk to walk, and the rest drifted away, slipping into the garden and down to the water steps or into the passages, tired, silent wraiths.

  Senmut blinked and got to his feet, weary and satiated, longing for his couch yet heated with strange fire.

  Hatshepsut, cloaked and hooded now, touched his arm. "Come to the training grounds tomorrow before noon, and before we hunt again, you can earn your own throwing-stick," she said. While he was still bowing, she walked the long floor to the colonnade and the dim garden beyond.

  He stimibled after her, knowing the way baek to his eell better from the outside, but the same slave who had brought him beckoned him to the door, and he followed gratefully, soaked in perfume and sweat, every limb exhausted.

  In the same year, in the height of summer, when human, animal, and plant were beaten to the ground by the scorching anger of Ra, Aahmose died. She had awakened in the hot night, calling for water, and Hetephras had brought her a drink from the stone jar that stood cooling in the hall. Aahmose had drained the cup and asked for more, complaining of the heat and her aching arms, clutching her heart with a shaking hand. She had curled up and gone back to sleep, only to awaken once more, this time calling in great fear for Thothmes. Her agitation was so violent that Hetephras had gone herself to rouse Pharaoh, but by the time they had returned, Thothmes sending for the Physician on his way, she was dead.

  Hatshepsut had been sleeping soundly, stirred this time by no premonition. They came for her and she walked the long halls and stood looking down on her mother as if still in a dream. Aahmose looked to be a part of that dream, smiling faintly, gentle in death as she had been in life, a peace in the dulled eyes that spoke of a favorable weighing. Sebek would go hungry again.

  'Tou are young again forever," Hatshepsut quoted softly from the Rite of Burial. ''How beautiful she must have been, father! I feel no sorrow for her. She loved to live for us all, and even now she walks the blessed fields of Osiris."

  Thothmes was not surprised. Aahmose had prayed more to the consort of Osiris than to Mighty Amun and would be justly rewarded for her faithfulness, but his daughter's intuition often amazed him. 'The tomb in the valley is almost completed," he said. "She will lie safe." His own thoughts, as always, were hidden behind the mask of his kin
gship; but he sat heavily upon Aahmose's little retiring stool, his eyes on her quiet form, and after a while Hatshepsut went back to her couch and left him alone.

  During the seventy days of mourning a great peace settled over Thebes. It was as if Aahmose was presenting the essence of herself as a final gift to the city she loved, and somehow all passion and all strife sank out of sight, and the life of Thebes slowed, became gentler. Thothmes went about his business silently, and Hatshepsut spent much time with the animals and Nebanum, as she had before. But this time the quiet of the park, the trusting, uncomplaining beasts, the love of Nebanum—all seemed to fuse into a long, deepening sense of contentment. She realized

  that she had been heading for her fifteenth year in an increasingly wild mood, gulping at life instead of biting it daintily, and the absence of feasts and dancing and chariot racing did not irk her as it would have done only weeks ago. She suddenly remembered her valley one parching, violet evening as she sat on the roof, and an idea came floating into her mind, waiting to take form. A temple. Not rising to compete foolishly with the unconquerable cliffs, but somehow complementing them, finishing them, expressing her own royal invincibility and beauty. She frowned restlessly over the vision, blind to the blood of the setting sun. She needed an architect, one who knew her quicksilver mind, her dreams, and it was not of Ineni that she thought. She scrambled up, went quickly down the stairs, and sent a passing guard to fetch Senmut.

  She went back onto the roof and waited impatiently, aware that the long twilight had begun. Presently she could see him striding through the trees, following the soldier. He must have been bathing. He had on only a small kilt, and even his architect's badge was missing. She thought critically how wide his shoulders were, how long and supple his legs, how inviting his breast to an admiring hand. The soldier pointed, and as he looked up, she read eagerness in his face. Suddenly he was before her, bowing, the face that had shown such joy now a mask of polite expectancy, the servant called for some reason by his master. She noticed how brown he was, how high the cheekbones, how sensuous the mouth under an uncompromising nose. She met his eyes and turned abruptly away. ''Greetings, priest. Your shoulders are still wet. Were you bathing? Come and sit with me here on the edge, and watch the last of the sun."