"By Amun!" Benya swore. "We shall all die in this blistering! Well, I suppose I must gather my apprentices and begin to search the rock. Two obelisks. Two executioners, more likely. Curse the day I ever met you, O driver of men."
"Choose with care, and do not take too long," Senmut warned him. "We have little time. The men can work in shifts, and when the sun goes down, I have lamps to be lit."
Benya groaned, mopping his brow. "You to your job, then, and I to mine! Thank all the gods my tomb is ready."
But mine is not, and I am not ready yet to lie in it, Senmut thought as he watched Benya lope away. He swung to the boats, shouting for the burdened men to hurry.
With the knowing eyes and delicate hands of a master physician, Benya sounded the lowering rock and chose his veins. His apprentices marked out the two long, tapering shapes. At once Senmut ordered out the massive stone hammers, and the workmen began to pound, the dust rising in a vast cloud that whitened their skin and set them coughing. Senmut took his turn, grimly swinging the hammer while his sweat mingled with the sweat of the peasants. Day after day Benya strode up and down the lines of shining, muscled backs, shouting and cursing but never raising the
whip that trailed from his brown hand like a thin snake.
In a month the obelisks began to emerge, though they still held firmly onto their bed of rock. Senmiit ordered a day and a night of rest. He sent heralds north with reports of their progress and formal greetings. While the men slept and swam, he spent the hours pacing up and down the long, stubborn shapes, his eyes alert for any crack, any suspicion of a crumbling.
Soon they were back at it, sore and bone weary and dispirited. Almost unnoticed, the river and the humidity began to rise. The air became full of biting, stinging insects. Senmut took six men from the hammers and gave them whisks. They walked about, beating at the flies, while their friends worked.
In three months the hammers were put aside and replaced by the chisels. The pace was slower, the handling more delicate. Benya stopped swearing and peered over each man's shoulder, admonishing and advising. He begged Senmut to halt the work at night, for the lamps did not cast enough light. He was afraid of a sudden split, but Senmut shook his head firmly. If they rested each night, the job would not be done in time. So Benya retired, muttering, and the work went on.
At last the first stone was ready to be freed. The stonemasons waited by the bank to chip oflF the last threads and to polish its gently sloping sides. Senmut, his heart in his mouth, ordered the ropes flung around the tip and the nine-foot base. Benya checked the knots and adjusted the tension himself. When he was satisfied, he sprang away, looking over the logs that stretched to the river, the logs over which the obelisk would roll. Benya raised an arm, his keen eyes on the granite as it began to move slowly, ever so slowly. ''Hold back!" he shouted. ''Now more on the tip —more—not so fast, or it wifl slip! Pull together!'' Senmut, perched nervously on the rocks above the site, watched the colossus grind to the logs.
All at once there was a scream of rage. Senmut left his vantage point and ran toward the sound. Benya was cursing and yelling, shaking his fists; and the workmen, shattered, dropped the ropes. Senmut looked down, gasping. In the base of the rock was a huge, jagged split, and even as he watched a piece of stone broke free and clattered to the sand at his feet. He bent and picked it up, stunned.
Benya was silent, trembling with disappointment. "Oh, God. Oh, God," he whispered. "This is my fault."
Senmut put a hand on his shoulder, determination hardening in him. "Not so. Well does stone love you, Benya, and do your bidding. No, we have been working long without proper light at night. It may be that we
struck wrongly in the dimness." He straightened and tossed the piece away. ''We begin again!" he shouted. ''Now! This very hour! Benya, stop blaspheming and get up into the quarry. Try there." He pointed. "Find another suitable vein, and we will get out the hammers. Back to work! The King has commanded two obelisks for her festival, and two obelisks she shall have, though we all die under the sun!"
The men sullenly turned away, but they respected him for laboring beside them. When he snatched up the first hammer and strode to the rock face, which was hot to the touch, they followed him. Benya, sulking, gave his whip to an apprentice and retired to a small hill of sand, but he soon joined Senmut, restored to good humor by the sight of a Prince of Egypt stripped naked and sweating with the fellahin.
They were finished with four days to spare. When the mighty spires were settled aboard the raft, base to base, Senmut ordered wine all around and drank happily with Benya. They toasted each other and their men. On the river the engineers' boats circled warily, alert for any sign of shift. They had not all come through alive. Three men had succumbed to the heat, and their hearts had given out. Another six had been crushed when the unwieldy stone had slipped on them as they strained with the others to shovel out the sand beneath it. Senmut had them buried honorably, but he turned from the graves with satisfaction, giving barely a fleeting thought for the men who had been as he once was, peasants in the service of Pharaoh. He considered that on the whole a miracle, brought about by his own efficiency, had taken place.
It took thirty-two sturdy boats to tow the monoliths back to Thebes, even though Amun had sent the floodwaters hurtling between the straining banks, the water already spilling onto the land. Senmut, perched high in his little cabin above the raft, watched anxiously as the slack was taken up and slowly, ponderously, the boats caught the current and began to move.
They moved on, not stopping to tie up overnight, their nerves strained to the breaking point. Even Benya was silent for hours, his eyes on the hulks lying so low in the water, his hands white as they gripped the prow. Long before Thebes came into view, small crafts, fishing boats, and nobles' barges joined them, hugging the banks and ringed with excited, expectant faces. Early in the morning Hatshepsut saw them, a black tide on the breast of the river. She had summoned the army to the temple water steps, and they thronged behind her. Under the trees the temple gardens were thick with crowds from the city; they had been given a free day to see the giants dragged into the temple's outer court. As the raft neared the steps, dipping alarmingly as the sailors jumped down and
waded ashore with the tow ropes, Hatshepsiit ran to help. Hapuseneb, draped in his leopard skin, began the prayers behind her. Senniiit left the high, tiny cabin and picked his way ashore. At his orders the muddied water became full of soldiers who leaped from the high banks to drag the stones up onto the waiting rollers. Inch by inch the obelisks neared the first pylon, surrounded by the excited, shouting crowd. Senmut paced next to Hatshepsut, his eyes narrow as he watched each labored step. Where the cedar roof had once been, he could see a broad stream of light pouring into the temple, illuminating the two mountains of sand onto which the stones would be dragged. They would be towed up bases first, then slid down the other side and into the square, notched foundations that gaped in the floor of the inner court. He went ahead swiftly, Puamra, the young architect, joining him. Together they checked every foot of the preparations. With a thunderous grinding the stones were hauled through the outer court. Senmut and Puamra stood to one side, where Hatshepsut strode to stand with them. They watched silently as the mighty shafts began to cant upward and swarms of slaves scampered up the hills of sand to guide them.
'Tingers to the Heavens," Hatshepsut murmured. 'Tou have done well, Senmut. Did I not tell you that we could do anything?"
He bowed to her absently, his thoughts on the imperceptible shifting of the gray hulks. He saw Benya pacing backward and forward, shouting orders that echoed between the pillars as ropes mushroomed from the tips and hundreds of men leaned back, taking the strain. Senmut jerked his head at Puamra, and they went to stand beside the pits, under the shadow of the teetering bases. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Thothmes and two of his young friends, Min-mose, the apprentice engineer, and Menk-heperrasonb, his fellow soldier and architect, standing silently with their hands on thei
r hips, their faces dark in the shadows and their expressions tense. Neferura drifted to her mother's side, whispering to her and pointing out Thothmes, but Hatshepsut was caught up in the drama of her moment and only nodded briefly.
There was a second of rest while men rubbed their aching arms and legs or squatted, exhausted, on the golden floor. Standing beside Senmut, his arm raised, Benya rallied them for the final effort. ''Begin to lower! Slowly, you fools! Take the strain—easy—easy—don't let them swing!" He dashed forward, gesticulating madly. With a reverberating thunk the first obelisk sank, its base catching the deep notches, the slaves pulling on the ropes that steadied the tip and running back to draw it upright. Hatshepsut cried out, and Min-mose, smiling, muttered something to Thothmes.
The second base edged to its foundation, slid past the rim of the pit, and sank slowly. As it settled and the tip began to rise, it started to yaw.
Senmut shouted, 'The notch! It has not caught the first notch!"
Benya screamed something unintelligible. Hatshepsut stepped forward, but Puamra barred her way. ''Back, Majesty! It may yet fall!"
Thothmes and Menkheperrasonb had drawn closer, and Senmut had time to see the grin of pure delight on Menkheperrasonb's face before rushing forward, a nervous sweat running down his back.
With a grind the obelisk reared and steadied as all held their breaths, craning upward. It stayed proudly aloft, and Benya collapsed in a trembling heap. The overseers began to shepherd the slaves out of the court.
"Leave the sand," Hatshepsut ordered Puamra. "The two tips have yet to be plated, and the inscriptions must go on." She had wanted to coat them both from floor to tip in electrum, but Tahuti had withdrawn from the suggestion in horror.
"Majesty," he had said primly, "you are very wealthy, but even your vast treasury would be quickly emptied if you took so much gold and silver from it."
She had laughed at his reaction but bowed to his figures. She had contented herself with weighing out the precious metals for the tips herself, plunging her bare arms up to the elbows in the weighing baskets, the gold dust rising in a shimmering cloud and settling on her breasts and her stomach, and gently powdering the floor of the treasury.
Thothmes sauntered over to where she still stood with Neferura and Senmut. He bowed negligently, his black eyes impudently alight. "Congratulations, Flower of Egypt," he said, his voice holding the deepness of his approaching manhood. "Truly your monuments speak of a reign unending!"
Hatshepsut looked coolly into the blunt, haughty features, ignoring the undertone of sarcasm. "Greetings, nephew-son. I am glad that you approve. Where is your mother on this auspicious day?"
He shrugged. "She has a slight indisposition."
"She had better recover before my celebration. Shall I send her my physician?"
"That will not be necessary, dear aunt-mother. I do not think that her malady merits the hands of one who tends Pharaoh."
They were playing with each other, smiling with their lips but sparring with their eyes. Senmut listened apprehensively, feeling the air spark as the two forceful wills clashed. Thothmes was already a man to be reckoned with, and Senmut wondered why Hatshepsut persisted in dismissing him as a youth. He saw Neferura's eyes fixed solemnly on her brother's face.
but King and Prince did not seem to know that she was there.
Thothnies waved an arm in the direction of Min-mose and Menkheper-rasonb. 'Tour fine obelisk almost came to grief/' he remarked. "Perhaps you need the assistance of my engineer and my architect. It seems that your experts, Majesty, are getting old."
''Do you think so? Then recommend your men to me, Thothmes. What mighty works have they accomplished? Where may I see their skill?''
He flushed, his protruding teeth biting his lip. ''As yet they have done little," he scowled. "But in time their works for me will equal and surpass all that I see here!"
"Then I suggest that you send them back to school, Prince, so that in time—" she stressed the words, smiling, "in time, they may attempt some small venture."
He was struggling between anger and admiration, and admiration won. He shook his head. "Oh, you are hard, aunt-mother. How the Double Crown suits you!"
"It would not suit you, Thothmes," she replied as they began to walk toward the outer court. "It is still too large for your head."
"The size of my head has little to do with it," he snapped. "It is what is within my head that is important."
"Indeed? Is it so? Then bring your oversized head to my Myriad of Years. I order it, Thothmes. You have been negligent of late, missing from the temple and from my feasts. I will not have insubordination. Also, I forbid you to criticize my ministers. Where are your own? Can they equal the selfless devotion, the many abilities of their betters?"
He did not answer, but bowed, scowling, and strode back to Menk-heperrasonb and Min-mose.
Neferura put a timid hand on her mother's arm. "Why do you make Thothmes so angry?" she asked. "Do you not like him?"
"I like him very much," Hatshepsut retorted. "He is full of the bull strength of your grandfather. But he is impatient, Neferura, and sometimes rude. He needs to be curbed like an unruly horse."
Neferura said nothing, but Senmut felt her warm hand steal into his own. He squeezed it, and they went to the palace together under the dry trees of summer.
Wk>^
The Myriad of Years was an extraordinary occasion, formal and dazzling. Hatshepsut called all her advisers together in the afternoon and sat on the Horus Throne, the Double Crown on her head and the Flail and the Crook clenched tightly in her hands. In a short and pointed speech she reminded them of all she had accomplished as ruler even before the death of her husband, and she had her Scribe read to them the inscriptions the artisans were carving on the sides of her obelisks. While Anen spoke the words, her gaze traveled over them all.
Thothmes sat among them, his arms folded over his broad chest and his face raised to hers in pride and challenge. He listened, but it was only as Anen was concluding that he became restless.
'The God knew himself in me, Amun-Ra, Lord of Thebes. He caused that I should reign over the Black Land and the Red Land as a reward. I have no enemies in any land; all countries are my subjects. He has made my boundary to the end of heaven; the circuit of the Sun has labored for me. God has given all these things to me who dwells with him, for he knew that I would oflFer them to him. I am in truth his Daughter, who glorifies him. Life, stability, and satisfaction be upon the Horus Throne of her who lives, like Ra, eternally."
She met Thothmes' gaze and held it, mocking him, yet sad. He read a sympathy in the beautiful eyes. He smiled at her faintly and dropped his gaze.
Only that morning he had paced before her biography in the valley. He had stood before the calm, definite words astounded and angry, for since his last visit new inscriptions had been added. '*! am God, the Beginning of Existence," he had read, and he had wanted to snatch up a hammer and pound at the plaster until the offensive line was nothing but a little pile of white dust at his feet. He knew that she spoke so surely from a knowledge that was deep within her and evident to all close to her, and he had stood there in the sanctuary, shaking his fist at her likeness in a fit of wild jealousy and something else, something perilously close to affection.
He looked at her far above him, gold-clad, magnetic, enigmatic, the
woman his mother hated, the King who had taken his hirthright from him. But her eyes, so steadily commanding his own, held warmth and complicity and a kind of understanding. He looked away, angry at himself for unbending to her and forgetting what she had done to him, even here in her audience chamber with the symbols of her godhead all around her.
The men crawled to her with gifts, and as the sun sank, the pile of fans, inlaid boxes, miniatures, and other rich knickknacks grew higher. Senmut, his worldly, cynical face framed in his massive black wig, came last, followed by Paere, his body servant, staggering behind him, bent under the weight of an enormous fur. Senmut caught it
up and laid it at her feet. With a cry of delight she reached down, laying aside the Crook, and stroking the thick, shining pile. She had never seen anything like it.
''It comes from the cold mountains of Rethennu," he said, ''and is very rare. I could find nothing else worthy to touch the body of Pharaoh." He retired coolly, ignoring the murmurs of surprise that fluttered around the room. Already its heat warmed her painted feet, and she looked to him and smiled, thinking of the winter nights when they would lie together, making love on its thick, blue-black back.
"I have heard," she said, "that in Rethennu it is very cold and that the mountains are very high and tipped with a white substance which is like a solid river falling from the sky. Is this so?"
He smiled a little sadly. "Truly Your Majesty knows her own land as well as the gods know the heart of every man, but it is a pity that Your Majesty did not travel north. There are lands full of marvels beyond the horizon. The white substance is called snow, and if one picks it up, then, lo, it melts away and leaves only a handful of water." He turned to her and smiled again, looking into her eyes.
Thothmes saw the private, meaningful glance fly between them, and a new rage began in him, but at fifteen he could not grope to its roots. When she rose to go to the feasting, he pushed his way out the door and ran through the halls. Not even the monotonous salute of guard after guard could soothe the wound throbbing within him.
That night, as he stood between the open double doors of the banqueting hall while his many titles were called and all waited to bow as he made his way to the dais with Hatshepsut, Senmut's thoughts were as dark as the evening sky glimpsed at the end of the long, brightly lit room. On this, the day when Hatshepsut celebrated her complete hold on Egypt, he felt that the time was fast approaching when his own hold on Thothmes and the affairs of Aset was slipping. He had always been able to get at Thothmes' servants and friends through his own spies. Without any
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