of the sails began to fill his ears. Long after Thebes faded from sight, he saw her, standing straight and proud while the wind whipped her kilt about her thighs and tugged the heavy robe borne on her slight shoulders.
'They look very beautiful, five white birds flying to places unknown," Thothmes said, edging closer to her elbow, 'i wonder, will they ever come winging home?"
She started and turned to him slowly, as if waking from a deep dream. She looked for the sarcasm that always tinged his words, but he spoke evenly, with a friendly smile. I suppose, she thought, he feels that now he can cloak his overtures with affection, seeing me bereft of all support. *'Of course they will return," she replied. ''Amun sent them, and he will watch over them and bring them back to me."
''Ah!" he purred. "But when? It will take them almost a year to reach Punt."
"I know. If Punt is there."
''Do you doubt?"
"Not really. But I, like you, Thothmes, have my moments of fleeting indecision."
He raised his eyebrows, and once more the jutting Thothmesid teeth glinted at her. "I do not think that you can allow yourself any more such lapses," he said with a spark of his usual hostility.
She laughed. "Oh, Thothmes! Do you imagine that I shall spend my time closeted in the darkness, mourning for Senmut as the months fly by? I am Pharaoh, and there is much to do!"
The Sacred Barque began to move slowly back to the temple, and they left the wharf and followed it.
"Much for you, perhaps, but what of me? I have drilled and marched and inspected and I am sick of it. School is over for me. Look at me, Hatshepsu. I am nearly seventeen. Give me a post at court."
She shook her head vigorously. "Do you think I am mad or simple? Are you trading on my mercy, Thothmes? I have consulted the generals, and they all press me to make you a Commander. It seems that you are a brilliant tactician. So a Commander you are, from this day."
He sniflFed. "And what does a Commander do in peacetime? Mend his harness? Polish his weapons?"
"Do what you like. The army is yours, as Crown Prince. I can find plenty for you to do, escorting caravans, disciplining tax evaders, and more inspecting, of course!"
"Delightful! A tame Commander, leading a tame army, for a tame Pharaoh who is not a Pharaoh!"
She stopped in the middle of the path and turned on him, gripping his
forearm, her nails sinking into his skin. "I warn you, Thothmes," she said in a low voice, ''subject yourself to me, or you will be sorry. I could have killed you a thousand times over, and do not forget it. And while we speak thus, let me make it plain that you are Commander under me. I at least have seen action. You have not. If I hear that you have led your troops outside the boundaries of Egypt, I will have you imprisoned and your troops will be disbanded and scattered among the other divisions. Is that clear?"
He made no move to free himself, and they glared at each other. *Tes, it is clear," he said. ''Much is clear to me that is not clear to you, Pharaoh, Living Forever. Open your eyes!" She released him, and he strode away angrily, the marks of her nails still white on his arm.
Two months later word reached the palace that the fleet had arrived at the delta and was preparing to enter the ancient canal. Hatshepsut ordered more prayers and sacrifices, listening eagerly as Anen read the dispatch. She could almost see them, floating sflently, moving quietly over the stifl, burning wastes toward the Great Sea. With Thothmes' eyes on her she took the private letter from Senmut and went to her chambers, breaking his seal and devouring the words with a pang of misery. He was well, and all was going as she would have wished. The canal was in a bad state of repair, and they had to run out the oars and pick their way with caution. He recommended that while the floods were high and the peasants idle, a force be sent north to strengthen the crumbling walls. He spoke of the wildlife and the beauty of the desert sunsets. At the end he broke down and told her that he longed for her as his sailors longed for water in the heat of the day, his soul crying for her. She put the letter in her ivory box, together with the trinkets and memories of all her years, and went to the temple, lying for a long time before the God, asking for his power to come through the months ahead unscathed, asking his blessing on the ships, asking a curb for Thothmes. When she rose at last, she forced herself to put all inner doubts away, and she walked on to yet another audience, where Menkh and Tahuti and User-amun waited for her in the glare of yet another hot afternoon.
Neferura came to her late one night as she was being prepared for sleep. The girl was announced and came swiftly across the golden floor, her bare feet making no sound. Hatshepsut motioned for Nofret to lay aside the sleeping robe and put down the comb, ordering her evening wine and dismissing her. Neferura stopped before her and bowed. She was dressed in a white, transparent sheath that showed the slim hips and budding
breasts, and around her neck she wore a collar of pieces of square amethyst inlaid, like tiny tiles in the gold. A plaited, white and gold band circled her forehead, but her face was free of paint, and her black eyes met those of her mother uncertainly. Hatshepsut smiled and offered her a chair, but Neferura continued to stand, looking down as she nervously clasped her hands under her tiny breasts.
'This is a pleasant surprise!'' Hatshepsut said. She had been so busy with the plans of the expedition that she had seen little of her daughter, though she had sent for the girl's tutor, as she did every week, to hear a report on her progress. Pen-Nekheb had wheezed and shuffled his way into her presence some months ago to tell her that he did not advise any military training for the girl; she was too frail. Hatshepsut had been deeply disappointed but had agreed that nothing must endanger the health of the Heiress. She anxiously watched the play of the lamps on the small figure, their flickering emphasizing the long, thin legs and the bony shoulders. Neferura always put her on edge of late.
''How have you spent your day? Standing in the sun while the troops went through their paces?" She teased Neferura gently, but Neferura did not smile.
"Mother, I want to talk to you about Thothmes."
Hatshepsut sighed to herself. Did not everyone want to talk about Thothmes? She sat in her chair while Nofret returned and began to pour the wine into the cup on the table at her elbow. Neferura hovered before her. "Speak then. You know that you may always tell me what is on your mind."
"He and I have been promised to each other for a long time now, but still you make no move to take us to the temple. Why do you wait? Have you changed your mind?"
Hatshepsut looked into the troubled, beseeching eyes. "Did Thothmes send you to me to plead on his behalf?"
"No! I spoke with him at noon, when we ate, but he did not have much to say to me." She blushed and looked at the floor. "He never says much to me."
"Do you really love him, Neferura?"
She nodded fiercely. "Yes! I have loved him for as long as I can remember! I want to marry him, and you have promised him to me. But the time goes by, and I wait and wait."
"You are both still so young. Only seventeen. Can you not wait a little while longer?"
"Why should I? How old were you when the Steward Senmut first caught your eye? Oh, mother, I am sick of being a pawn, pushed around
by you, used by you. Can I not be myself and marry Thothmes?"
Hatshepsut quickly lifted tbe cup to her lips to hide the jolt Neferura's words had given her. Am I really so hard? she thought, dismayed. Am I losing all, even the love of my dear Neferura? She sipped the wine and put the cup back on the table. Then she rose and put an arm around the thin shoulders, stiflF beneath her touch, 'is that how you see me, Neferura? Do you know what it means to marry a Crown Prince, and such a one as Thothmes?"
The girl defiantly shrugged oflF the arm. ''Of course I know! And you put my marriage off because you are afraid that in marrying me Thothmes is immediately legitimized and can then topple you from the Horus Throne!"
''Quite right. And he would. You think you know him, Neferura, because you love him, but I see him th
rough the eyes of state. I have known him since he was a baby, led through childhood by his scheming mother. I tell you that if you marry him, you condemn me to death. I am sorry, but there it is."
"I do not believe it! Thothmes is wild, but he is not ruthless!"
Hatshepsut went back to her chair and sank into it wearily, pushing the hair from her face, 'it is true. I cannot take the chance. I am sorry again, Neferura, but you will never wed Thothmes."
"Then I will take him to the temple myself!" Her eyes blazed with fire, the spark born of Hatshepsut herself. Then Neferura's hands flew to her face, and she turned to leave. "No, I will not do that. I would never allow him to harm you that way, mother." Halting, she came back and stood beside the table on which lay the little Cobra Coronet. "You know, I do not want to be Pharaoh. That is what you wish for me, is it not? I would rather stay a Princess all my life. I would rather be at peace, like Osiris-Neferu-khebit. Do you not think," she offered forlornly, "that you might let us marry and then make Thothmes a vizier or a nomarch? We could live far from Thebes and from you. Then there would be no danger."
"My poor Neferura," Hatshepsut said quietly. "How long do you think Thothmes would be content to govern a small nome when he could rule a kingdom? Cive me another year, one year, and after that time I will take you both to the temple. I promise this."
"No! I do not wish to cause your death!"
"It may not come to that. In a year Thothmes will see that I am no threat to him and will let me live in peace."
Neferura laughed, bending to kiss Hatshepsut on the cheek. "Oh, mother, you never give up, do you? Power is all you live for. Power and Egypt. Often they are one and the same to you. What will you tell me
at the end of a year? Will you go to govern a nome and leave Egypt to Thothmes? I do not think so! And neither does he. I know that he does not love me, but it does not matter. I will be a good wife for him."
*'I am sure that you will. In one year."
**By then Senmut will be on his way home." She laughed again, fighting tears. **I hate being First Daughter, mother. I hate this," she said, holding up the little crown. *'I hate your plans for me, and I hate the needs of state that keep me from Thothmes. Let Meryet be First Daughter!"
''Neferura, Meryet's greed would tear this country apart if she ever became Pharaoh, and well you know it!" She had been about to tell Neferura that Thothmes would never have looked at her if she had not been First Daughter, but at the sight of Neferura's distorted, unhappy face she bit back her words.
O Amun, she pleaded, why did you not give me a spirited daughter and a lordly, capable son! What will happen to my life, my blood, my Egypt, after I have left to ride the Holy Barque?
''I know it," Neferura avowed, looking up at her mother. *'I would rather Thothmes wore the Double Crown than that she should ever have the chance at the throne."
"So would I," Hatshepsut said. ''I do not hate him, Neferura. He is of my own royal blood, and I have always treated him with affection. But he shall not take my crown from me as long as I live, that I swear." ''It is not his! It never was! As the Incarnation of Amun the crown is and always will be mine, she finished fiercely."
''But after you, mother, what then?"
Hatshepsut lifted the cup again, studiously avoiding Neferura's contemplative stare. "Then if you do not want it, it must go to Thothmes."
"I do not want it."
"I am sorry." Hatshepsut glanced at her daughter as Neferura bowed and went out, the door closing softly behind her. She drank deeply, draining the cup to the dregs.
No further word came from the expedition, and Hatshepsut resigned herself to patience. Her thoughts were often on Senmut and Nehesi, charting unknown waters. As the months went by, she tried to imagine them, sunburned, hardened, sailing on and on. But somehow the picture distressed her, and she threw herself into her work. The God's feasts and her Anniversary of Appearing came and went with the customary celebrations, and she entered her thirty-fifth year with the same vitality that had heralded her twentieth. But Thothmes and his dogs snapped closer and closer to her divine heels, and it took every ounce of her control not to
break and run from them, not to relinquish Egypt and hide.
A demon drove Thothmes, too, the same demon that had whipped at his grandfather and burst forth from Hatshepsut herself. Though he was careful to keep his troops within the borders, he was never at rest, dashing from nome to nome with his soldiers, lashing the horses that drew his chariot as he and Menkheperrasonb and his other fierce friends, young Nakht, Min-mose, May, Yamu-nedjeh, thundered like wildfire through the streets of Thebes and threshed the desert floor into clouds of red dust.
She watched it all calmly, her hands still curling stubbornly around the Crook and the Flail. She and Menkh and User-amun and Tahuti went about the business of government as usual, ignoring the constant comings and goings at the barracks, on the training ground, and even in the halls of the palace itself, where Thothmes strode, laughing. Hatshepsut had a palace built for him beyond her gardens. She insisted that he live there, and he and his friends retired to his new porticoes and chambers, galled because the nobles and princes still preferred to feast and gossip and pass the nights with Pharaoh, her thousand lights still playing on the water and the grass. Then he would be off again, racing south to the Nubian border, or west behind the Necropolis and into the desert, a madness of impatience on him. Hatshepsut knew that her years of power were running out.
She and Menkh went to the training ground one winter day to take her chariot around the circuit. She still drove as often as she could, sometimes alone, glad to be free of her worries for a while and concentrate on nothing more than the tug of harness and the whistle of wind in her face. As she and Menkh approached, they saw a crowd of soldiers gathered on the edge of the course. Her Standard-Bearer ran ahead to clear a path for her, and the soldiers parted, falling silently to the ground. She paced slowly through the crowd until she came to the circuit itself. A target had been set up, facing into the circuit, and a hundred paces to the right of it a line had been painted on the ground. Thothmes and Nakht stood behind Thothmes' bronze chariot, talking beside a young retainer who held two spears. She went up to them curiously, Menkh following.
''Greetings, Thothmes. What are you doing?"
They looked up, and bowed. Thothmes put on his helmet and reached for his gauntlets. ''Greetings, Pharaoh. It is a new game that I have just devised."
"Then tell me about it!"
His servant handed him a spear, and he hefted it expertly, watching her. She was dressed in her usual white boy's kilt and white leather sandals, her white helmet, bearing the Uraeus, and a copper collar inlaid with jasper about her tall neck.
'*If you like/' he said. *'I get into my chariot, and beginning at the target, I ride around the circuit, gathering speed. When I reach the straight, I am at full attack. Before I pass the white line, I must throw the spear and hit the target."
''Have you done it?''
"Not yet, but I am about to. What are you doing here?"
She indicated the golden chariot rolling toward them, driven by one of her Braves. ''I come for exercise."
''Shall I take away the target and wait until you have done your circuits?"
"No." An idea came to her, a mettle rising in her as she looked at his grinning face. "Leave the target. I, too, would like to try your new game."
His smile grew broader. "Indeed? Then shall we have a contest, you and I?"
Her chariot came to a stop beside Thothmes', and the Brave of the King jumped down, throwing the reins to Menkh. Her eyes ran speculatively over the gleaming, burnished prow of it. "Very well. Give me a spear. Seeing that the game is yours, you may ride first."
He shook his head slyly. "Oh, no. As Pharaoh you may go first. But I think a contest tame without stakes. What shall we wager?"
"I have more gold than I know what to do with. Name your price, Thothmes." She realized as soon as the words were out that they had bee
n foolish, for he went suddenly still, licking his lips reflectively.
He began to smile slowly. "If my spear finds the center and yours does not, you will give Neferura to me in marriage, in the temple, before this month is out."
A low swell of approval rose from the listening soldiers. Menkh whispered to her, "Majesty, do not agree. It is too great a thing to throw away on a wager."
Though she knew what he meant, she ignored him, gazing soberly into Thothmes' mocking eyes. She nodded decisively. "Agreed. And if my spear finds the center, you will give her up forever."
The small crowd was silent now, tensely, quietly watching the royal pair.
Thothmes nodded, his lips compressed. "Do we understand one another?"
"We do. Let us begin. I do not mind riding first. Menkh, my gauntlets." He bowed and handed the heavy white leather gloves to her. She drew them on, squinting up to see where the sun lay. She walked swiftly to her chariot and mounted, taking the reins from Menkh and drawing them tight in her hands. The little horses shuffled and tossed their heads.
She clucked to them, and as the wheels began to turn, the soldiers drew back. She trotted slowly once around the circuit, her eyes fixed on the small, round piece of wood painted a dazzling white. She stopped where she had begun, getting down to check the harness. She held out a hand for the spear, and the retainer gave it to her. With a last glance around she shifted the reins to one hand, winding them tightly about her wrist. She shouted to the horses, swinging onto the circuit and gathering speed.
Thothmes stood with his feet apart, his fists balled on his hips, his eyes narrow as he watched. The soldiers began to shout as she bent lower, already halfway around, the sun sparking from her wheels like flickering fire. They heard her call sharply, and the horses began to strain, their manes flowing, their hooves beating a thunderous tattoo on the packed, gray sand. She came around, wheeling into the straight, her spear sweeping in a glittering arc. They had a brief glimpse of her face, her mouth open and taut in deadly concentration, her eyes steady on the target. She whipped past them, and they saw the spear leave her hand, fly up, up, a black shaft against the blue sky. With a thud it was buried, quivering in the stout wood, and she yelled, leaning back to pull in the horses. With a cry they all rushed forward, milling about the target. As she trotted in a circle and came up to them, Thothmes strode up to the canting spear. Its tip had struck true to the center.
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