Child of the morning

by Gedge, Pauline, 1945-

  him, banging their spear butts on the stone paving of the courtyard. "You liave all heard how my brother, the noble Wadjmose, died and how he has been avenged. Now let us give thanks to Amun and take this sacrifice to the temple at Thebes so that the God may know his trust has been rewarded!"

  The Nubian was hauled to his feet and led away, and Thothmes and Hatshepsut went together to the banqueting hall, where there would be a feast for them and for all the officers before the trek back to Thebes.

  ''Was it very bad?" Thothmes asked her hesitantly, noting with a kind of jealous awe how the sun had turned her velvety skin almost as black as the skin of the wretched Nubian and how her legs and arms were taut with new muscle.

  She smiled indulgently across at him. "It was very bad—and very good," she replied as they passed under the frowning eyes of Thothmes the First and turned toward the hall. "I am more than sorry about Wadjmose, but I am more than glad that I know my officers far better than I did before, and they me."

  That was not what he meant, and she knew it, but she went on teasing him, smiling that enigmatic and infuriating smile. He shrugged his shoulders and sat, waiting impatiently for his generals to file in before he clapped his hands for the feasting to begin.

  She was impossible. While she was gone, he had built up a hopeful picture of her in his mind—returning shaken and tearful, needing his comfort—but here she was as healthy and clear-eyed as a young gazelle and about as reliant on him as the stones of the temple. In between the innumerable courses, she shouted down to the men, and they sallied back respectfully but with aflfection, and she joked and laughed with them all as if they were her family. He had ordered three troops of musicians for her enjoyment, and four cartloads of lotus flowers had come from Thebes to delight her nostrils. She wept, not at the beauty of the dancing, but at the new song of Ipuky, composed to immortalize the men who had died in the desert. Though she caught the blossoms to her and buried her face deep into their fragrance, she did not thank him for his thoughtfulness. He wanted then to have done with her, to leave her to her palace and her governors and meet her only on state occasions. But he knew as he watched the darting eyes and the graceful, quicksilver hands, that though inwardly he might rage at her, he loved her as her men loved her, the soldiers and the nobles of the land, with a kind of helpless longing.

  She turned to him, taking his hand and smiling into his eyes. "It is good to be here," she said. "Now I know how the soldiers feel when they come through battle and see their home once more."

  ''Good/' he said awkwardly. ''I have missed you, Hatshepset/' He did not mean to say that, and he turned from her and picked up his wine, annoyed with himself.

  ''I have missed you, too," she answered lightly. ''Now what is this?"

  A man had entered and was bowing before them, his arms holding a drum. He was naked but for a loincloth, and around his head he wore a blue ribbon, tied at the back, its ends touching his shoulders. Behind him came a woman, and at the sight of her Thothmes sighed with satisfaction, settling back on his cushions.

  While she prostrated herself, he said to Hatshepsut, "This is my new dancer, Aset. She has been working here in the home of the Governor, but I think I might take her back to Thebes with me and put her in the harem. She pleases me very much."

  "Ever an eye for a pretty body!" Hatshepsut chided him, laughing, but her eye skimmed the other woman swiftly as she rose from the floor in one supple motion and stood ready while the drummer sank cross-legged, the drum between his knees. She was tall, a leggy girl, quite unlike the voluptuous, giggling servants Thothmes liked to take to his bed. As Aset waited, one long, graceful limb flexed, Hatshepsut felt an unpleasant shudder run through her, as if she had lifted her blanket and found a snake curled up on her couch.

  Aset's hips were small, her waist long and tight, her breasts high, tiny, and large-nippled. Her head, too, was small under the waves of black hair that hung to her buttocks, and those watching her had the immediate impression of a sleek cat about to stretch or to spring.

  The drummer began a slow rhythm, and the woman raised her arms and turned her face to them, rising on the tips of her toes. Hatshepsut was disappointed. Not that the face was plain. It was a pleasing oval, with straight brows and a wide, gold-spangled forehead, but the lips were thin and unlovely, even when parted in the ecstasy of the dance. The eyes above high cheekbones were too close together, and Hatshepsut noticed that they were suddenly narrowed in a swift and cold scrutiny of the Queen. In that split second Hatshepsut stared back in haughty challenge.

  The rhythm quickened, and the men fell silent, eyes on the straining, flat belly, the taunting, rearing breasts. Aset fell back suddenly, then twisted to her feet, the hair flowing to her knees as she bent again.

  Hatshepsut watched, all at once quite sober. The woman was full of a subdued and smoldering fire, a drawing, tempting, maddening promise, and Thothmes was looking at her as if bewitched, his breath coming fast and his eyes glazed with desire.

  Why does she disturb me? Hatshepsut asked herself. She is not the first

  g()(xl dancer Thothmcs has been pleased to favor for a time. But she watched the dance to its end, and the hand she laid on Thothnies' arm when the thunder of delighted applause broke out was cold.

  *AVhat (k you think of her?" he asked eagerly, his full cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. "Was she not incredible? She never needs music, only the drum. Her body makes all the music a man could desire."

  Hatshepsut looked at him fondly. ''She is not as beautiful as I," she replied easily, "but she has a certain charm, for a common dancing girl."

  "Well I like her." Thothmcs was angry. "And I intend to have her at Thebes."

  "I did not say that I did not like her," Hatshepsut said equably, "although in truth I find her a trifle—cold under all that fire. By all means have her if she makes you happy."

  Her immediate acceptance of Aset stung him; he had had some hazy thought that his sister might show some jealousy. When she did not, continuing to drink her wine, an annoying smile on her brown face, he got up abruptly.

  Aset waited to be dismissed, a lazy half-smile on her foxlike face, her eyes half-closed as she stood beneath the dais, facing the royal couple. Hatshepsut popped a piece of melon into her mouth. "Are you retiring so soon, Thothmcs? Will you not come to my chambers tonight?"

  "No, I will not! I—Oh, I don't know, Hatshepset. I might. Well, yes, perhaps I will if you invite me." He sank back beside her, putting a tentative arm around her, and the smile vanished from Aset's face. Thothmes tossed her a jewel and smiled upon her, but even though she bowed and walked away as respectfully as Hatshepsut could wish, there was affront and thwarted ire in every inch of her upright, naked back.

  I think she is dangerous, Hatshepsut said to herself as her brother's arm went around her. I do not know how. Perhaps I have been living on the edge of danger for too long and am jumping at mere shadows. Shall I blame Thothmes because I find him a pleasant bore? But she was suddenly hungry for his body, with a great burst of unexplained passion, and she leaned heavily against him so that he slopped his wine.

  "Let us leave," she whispered in his ear. "I am sick with my own desire."

  Startled, he left the dregs of his cup and got to his feet. "Stay and eat and be happy!" he told the company. As they prostrated themselves, he found himself hurried out the door and down the passage by a woman who whispered words that inflamed him even as he ran with her. She did not wait to reach her rooms but led him straight into the garden, drawing him in under the thickly clustered trees, and there he had her quickly, sharply.

  as a soldier takes a captured slave, and they lay panting together on the grass while the music of the feast drifted faintly to them on the night air.

  They returned to Thebes in two days, both riding on litters, Hatshepsut full of disgust and abhorrence toward him and herself. When they arrived, the city welcomed them with open arms. Before going into the palace, they went to do homage to Amun, and whi
le she proceeded slowly through the great hall forested with pillars, under the roof her father had built, she caught sight of Senmut, standing with Benya and User-amun. Her eyes flew to his, and he began to smile, a smile that spread from his wide mouth to fill his dark eyes, a smile full of approval and steady, sane gladness, and she answered it, a great pool of relief and anguish welling up inside her. Lying on Amun's floor beside Thothmes, shrouded in incense, she could think of nothing but herself and Thothmes locked together under the trees and then of Senmut's open smile, and she said her prayers feverishly, beseeching her Father for his protection from she knew not what.

  Afterward they sat before the golden God on their thrones. The Nubian was stretched on the floor, and in a short and savage ceremony Menena smashed out his brains with a golden club. It had been long since such a sacrifice had been made to the God, and Thothmes was clearly uneasy, but Hatshepsut and the generals watched impassively, their minds full of the blackened body of Wadjmose and the new mounds even now being pawed at by the desert jackals.

  When the black body had ceased to twitch, Hatshepsut got down and stood looking at it. ''Egypt will live forever!" she called, and the gathering murmured assent. She stepped over the blood already congealing under her golden sandals and strode into the sunlight.

  "^S^

  She signaled for Senmut and User-amun to follow, and once in her own palace she settled gratefully into her silver chair and bade them sit beside her, holding out her hand for her Seal. Senmut handed it over, bowing. As their fingers brushed, she felt his tremble.

  ''Is there anything that I should know?" she asked them, laying the Seal on the table. ''Has all gone well?"

  "Very well," Senmut answered her. "The tribute from Rethennu arrived, and Ineni caused it to be distributed. Ahmose, the Vizier of the South, is here, bringing taxes; and beside the temple, the God's granaries are filling."

  "Good. And what of my temple, Senmut?"

  He smiled. "The first terrace is completed, as you wished. It is more beautiful than even I imagined it would be, and now the ground is being prepared for the second."

  Her eyes lit up. "Then we must go immediately and see it. User-amun, I thank you for your help. Go to your father now, for I hear he is ill; and if he wishes to rest for a few weeks, I am sure you can take over his duties for him—I forgot! Senmut, I have appointed Nehesi, the black one. Bearer of the Royal Seal. Any documents that must be imprinted take to him. He will, of course, be subject to me and to you. Find him for me —he is probably with the men on the training ground—and take the Seal and its belt to him. Find him an apartment here somewhere. Now, allow me to bathe, and then we will cross the river and look upon my valley. How I have missed it, far away in the cursed Nubian desert!"

  They boated over the Nile together, got onto canopied litters on the other side, and were carried to the site. Between river and cliffs spread the village of the slaves who were working on the temple, row upon row of mud houses fronting each other. They skirted these, coming at last to the deep defile that opened onto the holy place. As they got down, Hatshepsut drew in her breath.

  "For you. Mighty Amun, a token of my love and devotion," she said. "Never have you been given such adoration!"

  A quarter of the way up the cHff a terrace hung, seemingly suspended, held to the side of the rock by magic. Its lovely pillar-fronted face glowed softly, pink in the afternoon light. Two of its sides hugged the side of the valley, and the third linked to an artificial wall planned by Benya. It was not square, which would have been an affront to the valley; rather, it was an oblong that seemed to have been there all the time, having needed only a little finishing by the hand of man. But Hatshepsut knew that behind those delicate pillars lay two shrines hewn deep in the roots of the cliff, one to Hathor and the other to Anubis. In the middle of the front was a gaping, jagged hole, and around it a thousand men swarmed like flies on honey.

  'That is where the next terrace will join the one completed, by a ramp such as the one we talked of," Senmut told her. 'This terrace will reach the ground, and another lower one will complete the temple. Your own holy place is within, between those of the gods, but none of them is finished. Would Your Majesty like to go closer?"

  ''No," she replied. "I will watch from here, as I have always done. And at the last, when it is completed, then I will put my feet upon the stone. You have wrought a miracle, priest! There are many who said it was impossible, but your genius has made my dreams take form."

  She was overcome, as she always was when she came to watch the work, feeling the God around her, within her. But on this day she felt ill also, faint and dizzy. He saw her pale under the desert tan and was concerned. She left him abruptly and went and lay on her litter, her eyes closed.

  He felt a pang of anxiety. Was she ill? Had she fallen victim to some disease picked up from the inhospitable desert sand? He knew better than to suggest that she take to her couch and call a physician, but he told Hapuseneb and Nehesi. The next day, when she appeared in the audience chambers as usual, a trifle wan but her own vigorous self, he felt foolish. Yet, he continued to watch her with wary eyes, visions of Neferu's death by poison haunting him once more.

  He himself was very tired, flogging himself between his duties in the temple and the palace and his daily visits to the building site. He found that often he had to give to Senmen the responsibilities he would have liked to have seen to himself. He disliked his work in the temple and often came face to face with Menena, those sudden moments unnerving him, but he gave the High Priest the reverences of his station and received a grudging bow in return. Senmut did not trust Menena. He could never forget how the man had betrayed the trust of one Pharaoh, and he wondered whether Thothmes the Second ever pondered the reason for the High Priest's dismissal. In the end, for his own peace of mind, Senmut

  placed spies in Menena's household and in the temple; but he could never rid himself of the feeling that one day the man's scheming, cunning mind would bring disaster to them all. He went to bed with Ta-kha'et and the cat each night, dreading the reports of his spies in the morning; but the days ran on, carrying him down his chosen path, and the cat sensed no demons in the dark.

  Two months after Hatshepsut's return from Kush, Nofret ceased struggling to overlap the ends of the kilt that she was wrapping around the royal waist. She dropped her hands in momentary annoyance. "Majesty, forgive me, but these kilts are all too small. Perhaps you should order some larger ones."

  *Tou mean, perhaps I should stop dipping into the sweetmeat box," Hatshepsut answered her, smiling, but all at once another possibility caused her to finger her belly with thoughtful hands.

  ''Nofret, send for my physician. Bring him here at once. And do not worry," she added, seeing the woman's worried frown, *i do not think that I am ill."

  While she waited, she sat on her couch, her attention to the chores of the day suddenly drawn away by a tide of elation mingled with apprehensive awe. Of course it was bound to happen sooner or later, she told herself. Why did I not think of it before? I have been so busy making war that I never thought about the possibilities of making a baby.

  When the physician arrived, she demanded an examination, lying on the couch tensely while he probed and prodded. At last he straightened, and she sat up eagerly.

  ''Well? What do you think?"

  "It is a little too soon to say. Majesty—"

  "Yes, yes. Caution is necessary in your profession. But can you perhaps guess?"

  "I think Your Majesty is with child."

  "Ah! How blind and stupid I have been! Egypt will have an heir!" She got off the couch, beaming upon them. "Nofret, go and find Pharaoh. He may have returned from the temple by now. Tell him that I need him urgently." Nofret gave her a strange, frightened look as she hurried out, but Hatshepsut was too wrapped in herself to notice.

  "Your Majesty will have to give up sweetmeats and take only a little wine. Go to bed early, and rest as much as you can, and do not eat too much broiled food. You m
ust also be careful to—" The physician followed her as she paced excitedly about the room, giving her instructions in his dry, bookish voice, but she was not listening to him. Her thoughts were

  turned inward, to her own body, its mysteries, its beauty, and suddenly the future seemed more precious to her than it had ever been before.

  Thothmes burst in at her door. He had been watching the work going forward on his new pylons in the temple when Nofret had come to him. He had torn himself away reluctantly, but the woman's face had struck fear into him, and he strode after her with unaccustomed speed. By the time he reached Hatshepsut's palace, almost running along the cool, wind-caught cloister that joined her chambers to the great palace, he was out of breath and red in the face.

  ''What is the matter?" he asked, panting, noting the physician.

  She ran to him, her face alight.

  He sat down heavily on her little chair and mopped his brow. ''It cannot be too serious. You never had a healthier glow."

  She held out her arms to him, waiting to be embraced. "Thothmes, Egypt is to have an heir, and I am going to produce him!"

  He got to his feet again, infected by her buoyant mood, and held her briefly before letting her go and sitting down again.

  She had caught on his face a look of wariness that she did not understand.

  "Are you not happy?" she demanded. "Did you not wonder whether there would ever be an heir, and can you not rejoice that no foreign prince will sit on the Horus Throne now that I am about to give Egypt the greatest gift of all?"

  "That depends on the sex of the child," he grunted. "If it is female, then we still have to look for a royal prince."

  "Why, I do believe that you are not happy at all! Even with all our diflFerences, you could at least be happy for Egypt!"

  "I am, I am!" he said hastily. "Of course I am. But you know I am right, Hatshepset. If you do not give birth to a boy, then we will have to start all over again."