The She-King: The Complete Saga

by L. M. Ironside

  Hatshepsut played her harp now for Mutnofret. The second wife had come to Ahmose’s garden for wine and fruit on a warm, bright afternoon. The sisters sat beneath a shade tree while the King's Daughter knelt on a cushion, her brow furrowed with the intensity of her concentration. Her deft brown fingers plucked out the notes one by one, and whenever she dropped rhythm or struck the wrong string, Hatshepsut frowned and bit her lip. Even Mutnofret had to smile at the girl’s diligence.

  When the song was over, Ahmose and Mutnofret applauded.

  “Well done,” Ahmose said. “You played beautifully.”

  “A very nice song, Hatshepsut,” Mutnofret said, resting her hands again on the roundness of her belly. Another child was growing there – to replace the one that was lost, Ahmose suspected, although she would never voice such a thought to her sister. No one ever spoke of Ramose.

  “Put your harp away, and then you can see if Sitre-In will take you to the House of Women to play with the other girls.”

  Hatshepsut tilted her head, as if considering Ahmose’s offer. I want to play with the boys. Ahmose could all but hear the words. But the King's Daughter had learned how to please. “Yes, Mawat,” she said, and skipped away with her harp.

  “I must say, you have done wonders with her, Ahmose, you and that nurse. I never would have thought she could be turned into a little lady.”

  “We still have a long way to go. She acts up every day. She kicked Baketamun’s youngest girl a few days ago…bruised her leg quite badly.”

  Mutnofret gave a snort of laughter. “I don’t think you will ever train all the ferocity out of that one.”

  “And what about this one?” Ahmose put her hand, too, on the baby in Mutnofret’s womb. “Another boy, do you think?”

  “It seems I have a habit of making boys.”

  Ahmose shrugged away the words. Mutnofret did not mean them to sting, she was sure. Those days were gone for the second wife. “I can’t believe it has been seven moons. You do not look so pregnant.”

  “I suppose I am carrying him high,” Mutnofret said. “That, or it’s a small child.”

  “Mawat.” Hatshepsut stood near the garden door, waving urgently.

  “What’s the matter, dear one?”

  “Sitre-In says to come here right now!”

  Ahmose and Mutnofret shared a glance. A nurse said for the Great Royal Wife to come right now? Either Hatshepsut had gotten the message wrong, or something was terribly amiss. “Wait here,” Ahmose said, and hurried toward her bed chamber.

  She knew the moment she saw Sitre-In that Hatshepsut had the message right. The nurse was pacing, wringing her hands, and when her face turned to Ahmose it was swollen with tears.

  “Sitre-In! What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, Great Lady,” Sitre-In cried, running to her, throwing her arms around her. Ahmose was so startled she hugged the woman back, hard. After a few sobs, Sitre-In pulled away, covered her face with her hands. “It’s the Royal Son, Great Lady.”

  “What? Which one?”

  “Am…Amunmose.” She choked out the name, her hands still pressed to her face.

  No. No, no, dear Hathor, no! Swiftly, Ahmose looked at Hatshepsut. The girl stood silent in her dress, tugging on her sidelock, watching her nurse cry. All because of this child, Ahmose thought. All this sorrow, for her.

  “What happened?”

  “A snake, Great Lady. He was playing in the tall grass with some boys from the harem. An asp bit him on the foot.”

  “An asp bit who on the foot?” Mutnofret had come in from the garden. Her face was pale. Ahmose looked at her sister, at her dark eyes, her wide mouth, the roundness of her belly, and could find no words. Mutnofret stared back. She held Ahmose’s eyes for a long, long time. Then her hands clutched at the child inside her. “Who? Tell me who!” Her voice rose to a scream.

  Ahmose went to her, took her hand. “Amunmose. I’m so sorry, sister.”

  Mutnofret’s entire body shook hard, like a leaf in a gale. Then she turned her face to Hatshepsut, whose back was against a wall, whose eyes were solemn and knowing. “Another of my children? I must lose another of my children?”

  Hatshepsut opened her mouth, as if she was expected to answer, but could think of nothing to say.

  “Sitre-In, take Hatshepsut out of here,” Ahmose said quietly. She pulled at Mutnofret’s hand. “Come. Let’s go to your rooms. We will learn more from your women.”

  “No. Ramose died in my rooms.” The name was like a slap, it had gone so long in the palace unspoken. Ahmose felt it, and Hatshepsut, too. The girl’s shriek carried from the antechamber, and Sitre-In hushed her.

  “Then we will go to Tut’s rooms. Come.”

  And they were outside the Pharaoh’s apartments, abruptly, in a terrible nightmare jump. They must have walked, though Ahmose could remember not a single step of the way between her hall and Tut’s. All she knew was that she held Mutnofret’s hand, and that Mutnofret shook and shook. Ahmose pushed open Thutmose’s door. The Pharaoh sat on his couch, surrounded by dropped scrolls. Two stewards bent over him, speaking quickly, quietly. And the look on the king’s face was terrible.

  “Why do you rebel against the gods?” Tears burned Ahmose’s eyes. Her face was sticky and hot. “Do you think you know better than they?”

  Tut’s fists rested still on the arms of his throne. He stared straight ahead, saying nothing. She had searched for him all night, and finally found him here in the great hall, sitting on his gilded chair, the double crown lying on the floor at his feet.

  “A vulture took Ramose, and now an asp takes Amunmose. Nekhbet and Apep. Two of your sons dead! How can you doubt?”

  Still he said nothing, his eyes hard.

  “Tell the people that Hatshepsut is your heir, Tut. Do it before you lose your eldest son.”

  Finally he turned to her. “No.”

  The quiet ferocity of the word staggered her. She stepped back, catching her breath. He had never spoken to her before with such anger, with such hatred. She had never seen this mask he wore now. It was not the face of the sweet, boyish man with whom she rode chariots and shared supper. This was the face of Thutmose the general, Thutmose the conqueror, Thutmose who hung his enemy’s body from the prow of his ship.

  Tears stung her eyes afresh. “Then Wadjmose will die, too.”

  “He will not.”

  “Tut, please. Do not challenge the gods this way.” She would have fallen on her knees to beg him, if she’d thought it could make a difference.

  He was on his feet now, moving toward her with the speed of a stooping falcon. She gasped and skittered backward, trying to stay clear of his fury. Her back hit a pillar, and he was upon her; his hand closed around her arm. He shook her roughly. “Bear me a son, and Wadjmose will be safe.” His other hand was at her breast. He squeezed it hard, so hard she screamed. He let go, and for one heartbeat relief flooded her. Then horror as he grabbed at her thigh. Not her thigh – the fabric of her gown. And his hand clutched hard, jerked it up, so her legs were exposed. He forced his knee between her own, pushed her legs apart. Shrieking, Ahmose twisted, kicked out at him, but he stepped quickly and her foot connected with nothing. Her dress fell back into place.

  Now his teeth were against her neck. He bit, and she cried out again. Why were no guards coming to aid her? “You talk of rebelling against the gods? You? God’s Wife? You were supposed to give me a son, Ahmose. That was the duty the gods gave you. A son!”

  He pushed away from her, shoving himself back, reeling like a drunkard back up the steps of the dais. He leaned against one arm of his throne, trembling, coughing, and Ahmose leaned against the cool pillar, her breast and neck throbbing, grateful for the space that separated them.

  He is mad with grief, she told herself. It was small comfort.

  “Gods forgive me,” Tut said, softly; and now tears ran down his face. “What have I done to you?”

  “I know…I know you are grieving,” she said in a small, broken voic
e. “I will forgive you.”

  He shook his head.

  “I will,” she insisted.

  “I don’t know what to do, Ahmoset.”

  “The gods want their son. They will have her, whether you give her willingly or not.”

  He looked up, his eyes so hurt, so angry, so sad. “My dream. You must give me a son.”

  Two of her nephews were dead. Her sister was shattered. Ahmose wanted to scream her words at him, but she could only summon up a pale whisper. “I already have,” she said, and crept out of the great hall.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  THE TOMB WAS UNCHANGED. DENSER growth on the bluff above the opening, perhaps, but otherwise it was still cool, still green, still pleasant. Ahmose held Mutnofret’s hand through the ceremony, and when Tut came forward with the other men to carry Amunmose into the cold black ground, both sisters turned away.

  Mutnofret was silent almost all the time now. She always held her hands upon her belly, and when she did speak it was usually to the growing child. Seeing her this way, withdrawn, gentle, Ahmose had to struggle to recall a time when Mutnofret was ever anything else. When had the second wife been a scheming viper? When had she been full of hate? That was a thousand-thousand years ago, before the world was formed. The world was loss, grief, a pillar against Ahmose’s back, Hatshepsut throwing her harp, Mutnofret whispering to the baby she carried. No other world had ever existed for the daughters of Amunhotep. A sapling in Ahmose’s hand…no. That other world had never been. That was a story the nurses told their children.

  When pleading for Hatshepsut’s heirship failed, Ahmose begged Tut to choose Wadjmose instead. She thought perhaps any heir would suffice now, that so long as the succession was secure, even Amun would overlook his own daughter being set aside. Sometimes she even convinced herself that if Wadjmose were proclaimed heir, he would be safeguarded, as though the gods could not touch a Pharaoh’s proclaimed successor.

  But it was useless. Tut still clung to his long-past dream, the baby in Ahmose’s arms, a son to rule after he was gone. She begged for him to be sensible, and he pleaded to come to her bed. But ever since that miserable night when he had shaken her and bitten her, Ahmose had shunned him. As soon let a leopard into her bed. He was no longer the Thutmose she had loved. He was a beast that could not be trusted, terrifying and powerful in his rage and grief.

  She walked with silent Mutnofret at the head of the procession, all the way out of the green valley and to their litter. She and Mutnofret rode together, hands clasped, heads leaning. Now and again the baby kicked. Ahmose watched it glide beneath Mutnofret’s robe. Would this one, too, be taken?

  And Wadjmose…when would the gods come for him? For she had no doubt now they would. The precious boy still studied and trained, all the seventy days while Amunmose’s body was prepared for burial. Wadjmose was committed to becoming a general like his father, focused on his target like an arrow fired from a bow. Ahmose was glad. She did not want her nephew to worry over his death.

  They were carried all the miles back to the Waset palace. The mourners marching behind their litter keened and cried, and Mutnofret, her head tucked against Ahmose’s shoulder, keened with them, a high, piercing, sustained call, grief and loss given form. It flew up into the white sky, up and up, never stopping, a flock of black birds over Egypt.

  Mutnofret’s cry stayed with Ahmose for days. In her bath, in her garden, in the awkward notes of Hatshepsut’s harp, she heard her sister’s voice. It was there in her sleep, falling out of the dreaming sky in the form of singed white feathers. Many nights Ahmose would wake crying, too, and would bury her face in her linens, giving full voice to her own grief until her throat was raw. Not only for the boys, nor for Mutnofret. Not even for Tut, for the loss of his gentle hands, his sweet trust. If she had been asked, Ahmose could not have named the exact source of her sorrow. She could not find the dark, cold well from which it rose. She only knew its waters flooded her, and tore cries from her chest in the night. But always Mutnofret’s wailing a pallid echo in her ears.

  And then, one morning when Ahmose had slept late, exhausted from a dream of choking on black mud and white feathers, Mutnofret’s cries were real.

  The screaming jolted her out of fitful sleep. For one heartbeat she was hardly more than a girl again, awakened in the harem by the women mourning her father’s death. Then she saw her pillared wall, her niches full of the gods’ images, Hatshepsut’s harp lying in the corner. She sat up on her bed, dizzy. The screaming was high and frantic, and thin as broth, muffled by walls and the distance of the courtyard.

  Ahmose ran from her room, never caring that she was naked and unshod. She sprinted across the vined courtyard, into Mutnofret’s hall, through her door. Serving women were clustered about the second wife, all of them frantic, all of them weeping. Mutnofret was dressed in a light robe, and its skirts were soaked to the hem. Her feet shone with a slick wetness. She was screaming, crying, the terrible voice of grief come to life again, more shocking and vital than in any of Ahmose’s dreams. Mutnofret’s fingers reached up to her face, clawed, traced bright red lines down forehead, cheeks, chin.

  “Mutnofret!” Ahmose was at her side, shaking her. “What’s wrong? Mutnofret!”

  If Mutnofret heard, she gave no indication. She scratched her face again, and this time she drew blood.

  “Great Lady,” one of the serving women cried, “the baby is coming!”

  Ahmose looked down at Mutnofret’s wet robe. The waters had broken, at least a month too soon. Was this what drove Mutnofret mad with sorrow?

  “And the Royal Son, Great Lady,” another woman said, her face distorted with weeping.

  “No.”

  “He was swimming, Great Lady. This morning. Swimming in the river with the other boys. It was a crocodile, Great Lady, took him under the water before anyone even knew it was there.”

  Ahmose held onto Mutnofret’s wrists, trying to keep the sharp nails from her sister’s face. But grief weakened her grasp, and she let go, powerless, and pale.

  Not even a body to bury. There would be no afterlife for Wadjmose, the serious one, the good boy, the little soldier.

  Ahmose watched from a great distance as Mutnofret raked at her face, and screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

  Twosre entered Ahmose’s bed chamber quietly, taking a long, drawn-out time to close the door so its bump would not disturb the silence. Ahmose watched her serving woman with dull, disbelieving eyes. I have news, Great Lady. Were the words coming from Twosre’s throat, or from Ahmose’s heart, or from Mut’s eyes? News, news. News of more grief, news of more loss. Ahmose hadn’t the strength to brace herself. She sat, barely holding herself upright, passively waiting the fresh sorrow. Your sister died in birth, and the baby too. Wahibra cut her open with a copper knife, and she died.

  But no…different words were coming from Twosre’s mouth. Ahmose made her repeat them, struggling through the river-fog to understand.

  “A healthy boy. Small, as you might expect from an early birth, though he seems strong enough. The midwives are cautious, but they expect him to live.”

  “Oh.” Should Ahmose be pleased or afraid? Another boy for the gods to take. “And Mutnofret?”

  “She seems…numb. She has named the baby Thutmose. She said the name will protect him.”

  Nothing will protect him. Nothing but his father. Ahmose nodded.

  “Great Lady, the Pharaoh is outside. He waits to speak to you. He said I am only to let him in if you will have him. He said to…” Twosre flushed, and her hands fluttered at the collar of her dress. “He said to beg you, Great Lady. To beg your audience on his behalf.”

  Ahmose shook her head. She did not understand. Did the Pharaoh want to come to her bed? What business could he have here? “Send him in,” her voice said from across the river, from miles and miles away.

  When Thutmose came, Hatshepsut came with him. Sitre-In tried to follow, but the Pharaoh stilled her with a gentle hand on her shoulder;
the nurse withdrew.

  Carefully, Tut picked up their daughter and carried her to Ahmose’s bed. He sat with the girl on his knee. “You were right, Ahmose. Right the whole time.”

  Ahmose said nothing. There was nothing to say. Hatshepsut toyed with something in her lap – a doll made of blue cloth, and for once it was whole, not ripped. The girl held it up to her face, rubbed it against her cheek. Ahmose saw the golden linen plumes rising from the doll’s head. Amun. She wondered who had given the toy to Hatshepsut.

  “The gods forgive me,” Tut was saying, distantly. “The gods forgive this stupid man everything. I did not listen to them. I did not listen to you, and you were given to me so I might do their will. Ahmose, forgive me. Forgive me. Mutnofret, forgive me.”

  Hatshepsut looked up at her father’s face. She used the doll’s hand to dab away a tear.

  “You must complete the task they have given you, Thutmose, if the gods are ever to grant you peace.”

  “And yet you know the people may not take it well. I see the gods’ power, and I do not doubt them. How could I doubt them now? But my heart still fears. If I lose the throne, Ahmose, it will mean death for all of us.”

  Inspiration came to her, that true, deep surety that could only come from the gods, that only the god-chosen could know. She spoke Mut’s words into her husband’s ear. “It may take time for you to grow used to the idea. You are only mortal, after all, and you fear. Proclaim her at the Amun shrine in Annu, Tut, to the priests there. Just a few men need know. For now, it will be enough. And soon word will spread. The people will come to accept it gradually, in the gods’ own time. All will be done in the gods’ time. And we will be safe.”