She sat still for so long that the two men wondered if they had been forgotten, but at last she rose, clapping her hands. "Nofret! Bring out the royal robes, the ones I wore at my coronation. Find my wig, the one with a hundred braids of gold. Get out my jewel box, and break the seal on the alabaster pot of kohl Ineni gave me." Her lip curled. "Damn Thothmes and his whining impudence! Yes, I must yield, but never shall he rule! His will be the emptiest titles in the land. Even the Steward of Amun and the Vizier of the North shall wield more power than he. Damn him!" She was white-hot with anger. "Well did my father warn me. And I did not
listen! Well did my mother pray for me, beseeching Isis for my protection. But I need nothing! 1 am God! Thothmes shall learn who is Egypt. I shall give him a paper land, and with that he will be satisfied!"
Senmut and Hapuseneb bowed and made as if to leave, but she ordered them to stay.
"Why should you go?" she asked them. ''Are you not favored men, advisers of the Queen? Stay and hear what the traitor Menena has to say!" She flung off the cloak and marched into her bathing room.
They heard her order that twenty lamps, hot food, flowers, and the best of wine be brought immediately. The slaves who slept in the little anteroom scurried past Senmut and Hapuseneb, their eyes darting here and there like frightened rabbits; and before Hatshepsut was out of the water, the lamps were being brought in and lit. The room became a dazzling cup: the silver walls, the golden floor, and the gaily painted screens lapped by a warm, liquid light.
In half an hour she was ready, sitting on her little gold-plated reed chair before a table laden with food and flowers. She was like one of the lamps herself, glowing, gold from the Cobra Coronet to the jewel-encrusted sandals.
She placed the two men beside her, one on each hand. ''Do not speak," she told them, "and do not rise and bow when my brother enters. He is still but a prince and subject to me. Pour wine, Hapuseneb, but we will not drink. Not yet. We will be still and wait. Nofret, call in my Chief Herald and my stewards. Call the Royal Fan Bearer and the Seal Bearer, and have two of the Followers of His Majesty stand within, one on each side of the doors. They shall find a queen indeed!"
They did not have long to wait. Within a few minutes there were footsteps growing louder in the passage and then a surprised murmuring as those without found a door unguarded. At the knocking Hatshepsut nodded to the soldiers, and the two men flung open the doors, barring the way with their spears. The startled High Priest and the Prince looked past them into a room blazing with light and full of silent people.
"Who seeks audience with the Queen?" one of the soldiers demanded loudly.
Thothmes had to state his name and rank with the eyes of all upon him. Again Hatshepsut nodded, and the soldiers sprang back to attention, spears withdrawn.
Menena, Thothmes, and three priests shouldered their way through the crowded entrance and found themselves before a ruler surrounded by her advisers. They immediately felt disadvantaged. The golden image before them regarded them coldly, the stern faces of the men behind and around
her mirroring her mild disdain. Menena and the priests went to the floor, and Thothmes bowed reluctantly, his florid face heavy with embarrassment.
Hatshepsut left Thothmes' entourage lying uncomfortably on the floor while she spoke only to her brother. ''Greetings, Thothmes. This is a strange hour to be paying me a visit, and a strange and motley company you keep. Since when has a Prince of Egypt associated with one under the interdict of banishment?" Her tone dripped biting sarcasm, and the portly figure on the floor shifted slightly.
Senmut looked down at it in disgust and some fear. Menena had not changed. His body was perhaps a little more wizened, the folds of his face a little more pronounced, but his eyes had lost none of their cunning. Senmut would never forget the ghostly voices whispering by the tree, and at the fresh remembering he squirmed inside, his conscience rising up in rebuke once more. He tore his gaze from the priest's bald head and fixed his eyes on the young Prince's face. Thothmes wore an expression of acute discomfort as he stood before Hatshepsut, his hands behind his back like a recalcitrant schoolboy. Senmut felt a wave of pity for a man so unprepossessing, so out of his depth.
"I have not come to be teased, Hatshepset," the young man said sullenly. ''Father is dead, and you know as well as I that Menena lost his office on a whim. Why should he not return to Thebes when I myself invited him?"
"Our father never acted on a whim in his life," Hatshepsut said coldly, "and it is not the place of the Prince to recafl the exiled. It is the prerogative of the Queen."
The food steamed on the table before her, the wine standing ready in silver cups, but no one moved. All sensed the gathering of power in Hatshepsut, the will that projected into the room a presence of almost superhuman strength. They also felt the stubborn will of Thothmes, bolstered by his High Priest, and they held their breath and waited.
Thothmes nodded, looking at Menena out of the corner of his eye. He wished that Hatshepsut would give the order for the priests to stand, for he felt much abler with Menena on his feet, offering mute assistance. But she continued to sit, watching him inquiringly, making him feel that he had interrupted some important conference which would go on as soon as he left. The men with her, nobles all, people he had been to school with, met his traveling eye as if they were looking right through him. He was angry and sorry, but the words he wanted to hear did not come, and, floundering, he was forced to manage by himself.
"A queen without a king may take upon herself such prerogatives," he
answered her at last, "but I have decided, sister, to relieve you of the burden of such a heavy load. I am willing to take my rightful place as Pharaoh of Kgypt at once."
Though no one moved, it seemed as if the whole company had sighed and loosened. Hatshepsut began to smile at him, her eyes lighting at last.
He folded his arms and planted his feet squarely apart. ''What say you?"
**I know perfectly well why you are here," she said. ''I have been waiting for you. Oh, Thothmes, end this playacting! Menena get up, and your rabble with you. I do not like you. I have never liked you, but it seems that I must put up with you after all."
The High Priest rose, his oily face flushed but calm, and he bowed silently.
Hatshepsut gestured. *'Sit, all of you, and we will eat and drink and discuss the matter as befits our high station. My advisers will listen and give their opinion. But you, Menena"—she stabbed the air with a long finger—*'I do not wish to hear your voice!"
When they sank to the cushions and Nofret began to serve them, Hatshepsut raised her cup. ''Drink now, my friends," she said to Hapuse-neb and Senmut, smiling on them, her eyes watchful. She drained her cup and set it back on the table with a bang. "Well, Thothmes, let me understand you. You want to be Pharaoh. Is it so?"
"It is not a matter of wanting," he said petulantly. "It is the law. Egypt cannot have a woman on the throne."
"Oh? By what law? Is not the Ruler the law. Beloved of Maat, embodying Maat in her own person?"
"In his own person," he corrected her swiftly. "Our father was Maat, and he ruled within the law as Pharaoh. He made you a mighty queen, but it was not within his power to make you male."
She leaned toward him. "My father is Amun, King of all the gods. It was he who gave me life and prepared a throne for me in Egypt. He intended me to be Pharaoh from the time before I was born of the gentle Aahmose. He gave me the sign on the day of my coronation."
"Then why did he not make you male?"
"My kas are male, every one of them! I am female because Mighty Amun wished to have a pharaoh who was more beautiful than any other being on the earth!"
"You cannot change the law of the land," he repeated peevishly. "The people will not understand a female Horus. They want a man to rule them, to make the sacrifices for them, to lead the army into battle. Can you do these things?"
"Of course I can! As Queen I am female, but as Pharaoh I will rule as male."
&nbs
p; 'Tou confuse the issue with your silly arguments. The fact remains that I have a claim to the Horus Throne, and I want it. It is my birthright." A gleam came into his eye as he munched on his shat cake with relish. ''Besides, Hatshepset, if you rule, who can come after you? What title will a husband have? Divine Consort? Great Royal Wife of the female Horus? And if you take no husband, Egypt will have to look outside her borders for a royal son to put on the throne. Is that what you want?"
The crafty barb had gone home. She sat back in her chair as if struck by a heavy fist.
Senmut and Hapuseneb exchanged glances. This consideration had escaped them. Hapuseneb pursed his lips and imperceptibly shook his head. Senmut knew that the Queen was beaten even before she had begun. With her love for the country she would never allow a foreign power to sit on the Horus Throne, and he watched the struggle played out on her pale face.
At length she answered Thothmes, her voice dead and cold. ''Do you care about Egypt, Thothmes, or do you only think of the glory of the Double Crown upon your head? For to me Egypt is my life, and her service is my vocation. Your words are true, but they were not spoken from an unselfish heart."
"You are unjust!" he protested. "Of course I love Egypt, and it is because I love her that I am willing to marry you and ascend the Holy Throne with Steps."
"Is it so?" she whispered softly, breathing in his face. She bent almost double so that she could look right into his eyes. "Is it so? How noble of you, dear brother, how kind."
"We have never agreed," he said, dropping his gaze. "But it may be that we can work together for a common cause. Our father grew old and dreamed, but it was the dream of an old man with a favorite child, and now he is gone. Face it, Hatshepset. Egypt needs me at last."
She sat back. "And does she not need me?" Hatshepsut hissed at him. "Where were you when I rose at dawn day after day to attend to the affairs of the kingdom? Where were you in the nights when I lay sleepless because the weight of government is my blanket and the hard stone of necessity is my pillow?" Her hands were clenching the arms of her chair, and they trembled as she struggled for control.
Senmut was tense in every muscle, feeling along with her the bitter disappointment and the hard dying of the hope that she had shared with her father.
She finally slumped into a thoughtful pose. "It does not matter," she said dully. "I will make a bargain with you, Thothmes. We must bargain, for we know that neither of us is as strong as we thought we were. I will build with you and appear in public behind you. I will worship with you in the temple and share with you my royal bed so that Egypt may have an heir. Thus will the people be satisfied—having a male on the throne. But you must leave to me all government."
Menena made a half-strangled exclamation, and she swung around to face him. "Do not speak, betrayer of the trust of the God! Or in this very room I will tear from you your badge of oflice and grind it under my sandal!"
She turned again to Thothmes and spoke gently. "Only thus will Egypt be preserved. You must admit that you know nothing of the ways of the courts or the dictating of the dispatches, and around me I have many loyal men who give me their advice. Is it not so?"
He looked into the sweet, smiling face with bewilderment. He had expected a declaration of war, an explosion of violent, destructive anger, but he did not yet know her and the depth of her love for her country.
"Then I will be Pharaoh?" he asked.
"Of course you will. Neither of us has any choice in the matter. I can see that before long the people and the generals would have demanded it of me whether I would or no. Then I would have continued, but as Divine Consort. So let it be so. We will go together into the temple, and I will give you my blood so that you may set the Double Crown upon your head. But never forget, Thothmes, that I wore it before you!"
This needless and cruel humiliation stung him. "How could I forget!" he answered her hotly. "You think that I will not be a good Pharaoh, but my father was also your father, and our blood is the blood of royalty. Do not forget that either!"
"You always were lacking in humor, Thothmes," she said. "Well, eat and drink, and then go back to your bed. In the morning the heralds will be sent out, and we will marry. But you"—she looked at Menena—"serve him well, or this time you will be executed instead of banished, and I myself will come and applaud!"
When Thothmes and his cohorts had gone, Hatshepsut looked around the grim and silent company. "I dreamed, after all," she said sadly. "It could not have been any other way. Now drink with me, all of you, and pledge to me again your lives and your gifts. I need you all, as you need me. Duwa-eneneh!"
Her Chief Herald bowed.
"Send out the word as speedily as you can. Begin tonight, or I shall
change my mind. Hapuseneb, Senmut, do you think that he will change his mind also? Will he meddle in all that I have done?"
They gathered around her and drank a trifle gloomily, each giving his opinion. When at last the sun rose free of the horizon, they accompanied her to the temple for the morning rites, sacrificing with her and to her, the Queen of Egypt.
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^S^
On the day of the coronation a wind blew from the desert. It was not a khamsin, and the sky remained bright and clear, but it ripped at the blue and white pennants that once more fluttered from the masts lining the avenues of city and palace, lifting the skirts of priest, commoner, noble, and slave alike. Hatshepsut felt it brush her like an impatient cat as she was lifted high on her throne upon the litter, and her wig began to whip about her face. This time she had dressed with deliberate simplicity. She wore only a soft white kilt and a little silver, as befitted the Queen. The little Cobra Coronet sat on her head, held in place with bronze pins. It sparkled in the sun, for the wind was too strong for the gay canopies, and she and Thothmes were exposed above the heads of the populace. There was a pause as the procession formed behind the royal pair, and Hatshepsut sat quietly, listening to the wild cheering.
I am doing the right thing, the just thing, she thought. They want him. He makes them feel safe. To them I am mighty and beautiful, but not as mighty as a king or as beautiful as a head that bears the Double Crown. Security. That is what they applaud so enthusiastically. Well let them have him. Let the people and their chosen king make each other happy, while I pursue the path of my father and bind the country to me with the chains of power. I do not care for the crown, a shallow thing worn by a shallow man! I have cared all my life for only two things: the people and the povv'er. And though for a time I have lost the people, I still have the power. I would not be Thothmes for all the gold in the mines of my dominions. For what is he, inside himself? Did the God conceive him?
Thothmes waved, and they set off, the sound of the drums and the pipes stolen by the wind and carried far across the water. Hatshepsut watched the bald head of her new husband bob gently up and down, a little white nob above the ornate, high-backed throne she herself had sat on on her way to her own coronation.
It seems so long ago, she mused.
But it was only five years. Five years! Now I am twenty, and once more in so few years my life is to undergo a change. Is this to be the sum of my immortal existence, Amun, my Father? Am I to be no more to you.
to Egypt, than the willful wife of a soft and vacillating Pharaoh? In pride I was born, of your eternal and beautiful loins; and in pride have I lived, doing all as you have wished. Deep within her something protested fiercely that this was not the end, that she had not been born to ride behind her brother for the rest of her life. As the silver petals woven into her wig lashed at her cheeks, driven into a semblance of life by the wind, she beat down the resentment that threatened to overwhelm her. I am good at waiting, she thought, dismounting. I still have all the years of my youth before me.
She walked slowly to where Thothmes stood, weighed down by the golden garb of the King. She took his arm as her father had taken hers, and casting a withering look at Menena in his leopard skin, she turne
d to the first pylon as the horns blared and the sistrums held in the hands of her priestesses began to jingle.
The ceremony ended without incident, and Thothmes the Second was now also the Horus of Gold, Lord of Nekhbet and Per-Uarchet, King with Divine Sovereignty, Son of Amun, Emanation of Amun, Chosen One of Amun, Beloved of Amun, Avenger of Ra, Beautiful of Risings, Prince of Thebes, the Power that Maketh Things to Be. He and his Divine Consort were carried back to the palace amid a wave of hysteria that seemed about to engulf the royal party.
At the great feast the lords and vassals of the kingdom presented their homage as befitted their position, but the young men who had sat below the dais looking up at Thothmes the First and his daughter now thronged the honored couple. Senmut found himself between Senmen and the new Pharaoh himself. Thothmes did not seem much interested in conversation. He ate and drank immoderately, looking up only to run an experienced eye over the curves of the nubile dancers. Senmut watched his pudgy hands fondle the food, his ample waist bulging out over the jeweled belt, and he grew more and more depressed.
Hatshepsut seemed to be gay. She laughed and chatted with all who passed, elfin and somehow small beside the overblown King. But Senmut thought that there was a note of desperation in her shrill laughter. He sensed that her glib and ceaseless talk hid a feverish desire to hold the moment.
The afternoon flowed into night, and the night into deeper night. Finally, Thothmes drained his last drop and got to his feet, his Standard-Bearer and the dignitaries who would escort the couple to Hatshepsut's new palace following also. She herself stopped talking immediately and meekly took her place behind Thothmes. Only Senmut saw the spasmodic jerking of the fingers that let go the cup, the tightening of the oil-saturated
shoulders. He turned to find Hapuseneb at his elbow.
"Relax, my friend," the deep, calm voice said. ''Remember that it is blasphemy to think of her as anything but divine, a great and noble queen. She does not need your anxious frowns. Besides, Thothmes is well versed in the arts of the bedchamber. He has devoted the better part of his life to the proving of his manhood. The little slaves and all his concubines adore him."
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