The She-King: The Complete Saga

by L. M. Ironside

  My djeser-djeseru, he said silently.

  A commotion rose up from the quayside. They looked round in time to see Hatshepsut's team of brown mares backing frantically as four soldiers struggled to harness them. Nehesi shouted and dashed forward to seize their reins, but not before the hindquarters of one careened into the body of a chariot. The cart lurched backward and smashed into the trunk of a dead myrrh tree.

  Hatshepsut strode to Nehesi's side, stroked the mare's neck until she was calm and blowing.

  “Has the chariot been much damaged?”

  “Just a bit of a wound to the platform, Great Lady. It is still sound enough to drive.”

  Senenmut followed Hatshepsut as she inspected the cart, shaking its platform side to side, assessing the creaking of its springs, the stability of its wheels. The rearmost portion of the platform was dented and splintered, but only a hand's width of wood was damaged.

  “It seems sound enough,” Nehesi said, then cursed as a great white claw dropped onto his face, scratched his shoulder. It bounced from Nehesi's body and fell onto the chariot's platform: an old, twisted branch of myrrh.

  Hatshepsut scrambled into the cart. She laughed as she raised the branch, held it aloft like a war banner. “Nehesi, beware! These trees were sacred to Amun once. Has the god cursed you?”

  “Amun's eyes!” Nehesi swiped at the scratches on his skin. Senenmut could see that he was not bleeding.

  Hatshepsut dropped the branch and grimaced; she spread her fingers wide, then flexed them, spread them again.

  “Is something wrong, Great Lady?” Senenmut said.

  “Sap; it's only sap.”

  “I am impressed that trees so long dead can still have sap in them.”

  “Not much,” Nehesi said. He scored the trunk of the myrrh tree with his knife, rather viciously, taking vengeance for the tree’s attack. Only one small bead of sap appeared, hardly as large as a pomegranate seed. “These trees are so dry, it's no wonder the god throws their branches at innocent men. He must be furious.”

  Hatshepsut raised her palm to her nose, closed her eyes as she inhaled. “Gods, but it smells glorious. Even better than it smells when it's burning on the temple fires.”

  When she opened her eyes again, she looked down at Senenmut with a wide-mouthed grin of triumph. She stretched her palm down to him, and because he could not resist the opportunity to touch her skin, he took her hand in his own and breathed in the scent of the sap. It was warm with spice, sweet as fresh wine, and beneath the odor of the myrrh tree was the odor of her skin, golden and dusty, sharp with sweat. He breathed it in again, deeply.

  “Do you know what it smells like to me, Senenmut?”

  Reluctantly, he let her hand fall from his and gazed up at his king. A halo of light surrounded her face, and the shadow of the myrrh branches fell across her chest like the intricate lace of a fisherman's net.

  “It smells like an answer to my riddle. It smells like our salvation.”

  The soldiers backed her horses into their traces, fastened their harness, brought the reins up to the Pharaoh's hands. She took them up with a confidence she should not by rights have possessed, having been nowhere near a chariot team for years. She laughed at the way the sap stuck the rein to her palm.

  “Come,” she shouted. “There are lions in the hills, and my spear is impatient!”

  She hissed, and her horses sprang away, galloping across the avenue of seshep and out into the barren gold of the valley. Senenmut gestured for his own chariot, but no matter how he drove his team, he could not catch his king. She thundered before him, her short kilt flying in the wind of her passage, her laughter coming to him now and then, faint and sparse, like the memory of myrrh sap in his nostrils.

  “Djeser-djeseru,” he called after her, and urged his horses to run faster.

  PART THREE

  THE GOD’S LAND

  1467 B.C.E.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  HATSHEPSUT ALLOWED THUTMOSE TO DISMISS the evening's final courtier. The boy performed the gesture smoothly, pointing out across the great audience hall; the massive gilded double doors swung open at his indication as quickly as if the movement of his hand had physically thrown them wide, and not the scrambling of the attentive door guards. The courtier, one Penhat, a merchant of great wealth and greater complaints, was quick to bow his gratitude to the two Pharaohs and make his exit. When he receded across the length of the hall, his fast-moving sandals slapping against their own reflections in the floor of well-polished malachite slabs, Hatshepsut permitted herself a small smile. Thutmose had handled Penhat well, deflecting the man's customary gripes with an unyielding yet gracious confidence.

  He is not a boy any longer, Hatshepsut reminded herself, eying him, seeing as if for the first time the strength of his jaw, the height of his brow, the stern angle of his nose. His sudden maturity always startled her anew, no matter how many times she saw him in a day. Somehow, in an eyeblink, the softness of those fat baby limbs had turned to muscle, just beginning to find its definition through near-constant work with spear and chariot and bow. The protruding belly she had tickled and kissed so many times until he giggled had changed to the lean, straight body of a soldier. Even his smell had altered itself from the sweetness of childhood, a scent like honey and cut grass, to the sharp, acrid stink of a man's sweat. She had employed several servants whose sole purpose it was to urge the young Pharaoh into his bath between drilling with the soldiers and courtly duties. She had admonished them to keep the king's armpits well perfumed.

  All my years are gone, she thought, staring at Thutmose's new manly bearing with a morose pang. Then she chided herself for a fool.

  “Your servant missed a patch shaving,” she told him, and tapped her own jaw near her ear to show where.

  Thutmose blushed. “I did it myself. I told them to leave off; I wanted to try it.”

  “No matter. It takes practice, or so I have heard.”

  “Are you ready for supper? I am famished. I'll dismiss the whole lot of stewards and guards if it be your will. Or you can dismiss them,” he said, his brow pinching in the way it had when he was just a small thing, his peculiar means of looking both certain and uncertain at once. “I don't wish to take all the work for myself.”

  Hatshepsut turned to the Steward of Audiences, opened her mouth to speak the closing of the court. But the doors at the far end of the hall opened again, their twin scarab carvings winking in the bright lamp light as they swung to face one another. Hatshepsut and Thutmose held one another's eye, the boy quizzical, she with pursed lips and a growing sense of irritation.

  It was Senenmut who entered; even with the distance of the great hall separating them, Hatshepsut recognized him. She would have picked out his posture, his quiet stance and his deliberate gait from a crowd of a hundred men. But he did not make his way to the foot of the throne, as supplicants did. He moved a few paces into the hall, then stepped to one side and called out in a clear voice, “The lady Opet of the King's House.”

  The breath caught in Hatshepsut's throat.

  Opet wore a flowing gown of pale red linen, an open weave that clung to her skin. Her upper arms were bound in gold and silver torques, her throat adorned with the large, shining body and spread wings of a turquoise scarab in flight. A somewhat old-fashioned wig of long, braided locks framed her shoulders and face, which was demurely downcast. As she drew nearer the foot of the throne, her steps grew hesitant and her face blanched beneath its artful paints.

  Opet bowed very low and presented her palms to the Pharaohs. Hatshepsut, sensing already what was to come, peevishly let the woman hold the position until she saw Opet's back begin to tremble. Then she scolded herself once more.

  “Lady Opet, rise.”

  Opet did so, straightening and clasping her hands at her waist, though her eyes remained on the floor.

  “What brings you to court?”

  “I have...I have come to petition the Good Gods for release from the harem.” At last
her eyes lifted, met Hatshepsut's own. They were full of apology and fear…and pleading.

  “Does it not please you to live as a king's woman?” Hatshepsut struggled to keep bitterness from her voice. Senenmut told you this day would come. You have expected it. But not from Opet – not from her own half-sister, with whom she had so often walked arm-in-arm through the harem gardens at night.

  “It has pleased me for a long while, Majesty. But I have seen more than thirty-five years, and I have no children.”

  She spread her hands before her body, as if to emphasize the point. Through the loose linen of Opet's gown, Hatshepsut noted the girlish firmness of her breasts, the tightness of her belly. It was a body that had never known motherhood, and yet a body that was still surely capable of bearing...for a few more years. Sympathy for her sister overtook Hatshepsut's bitterness. Opet had always been kind, a friend and ally. She would not deny a child to such a loyal servant of the throne, even had she the strength of will to do so.

  She glanced at Thutmose. The young king was subtle and observant enough to grasp that there was more at stake here than the simple petition it seemed. He leaned forward slightly in his seat, his mouth firm and pale, as he took in the scene. And yet Thutmose could know nothing of the closeness between Hatshepsut and Opet, could know nothing of the stinging in her heart. Far more important than her stinging heart, she suspected her co-regent grasped little of the political implications, bright as he was. His blindness was not his fault. It was an artifact of age. A boy whose primary preoccupations were his bow and his team of horses would have had little reason to turn his thoughts to what it could mean for a lesser daughter of a long-dead Pharaoh to conceive a son with some tjati or some general.

  Hatshepsut wondered whether she might convince Thutmose privately to sire a child on Opet. Straight away she dismissed the idea. He was a fifteen-year-old boy – a young man in truth, and by the gods, young was the meat of it. Beautiful though Opet may be, she was more than twice Thutmose's own age. He was not likely to turn his attentions to her – not over a bit of politicking he could scarcely grasp.

  There was nothing for it. Opet must be granted her release, to go forth and breed with some scheming noble. Hatshepsut could not countenance keeping any woman confined against her will, but particularly not Opet. She of all women deserved to know that peculiar, painful joy of watching a sweet baby grow into a man like Thutmose.

  She rose from her throne abruptly, made her way down the steps to take Opet's hands in her own.

  “Sister, I wish you happiness, and a house full of children. Is there some man already?”

  “No, Great Lady,” Opet said, her eyes flooding with tears of gratitude. “I thought to set myself up in a small house with a staff of a few servants, and to enter Waset society with the next festival. I may be able to find a suitable husband before it is too late for me. The kings I have served have been good to me; I have some small store of my own things – jewelry, fine linens, some furniture. I can sell them and buy a little home of my own in the city.”

  The news that no ambitious man had yet attached himself to Opet gave Hatshepsut some small measure of relief. “Senenmut will see to you; he will give you enough goods and silver and gold to establish yourself well.”

  To Hatshepsut's surprise, Thutmose also descended from the dais, and took Opet's hand in his own. “Lady, I regret that we had no opportunity to become well acquainted. But the throne makes its demands on me, and I have less time than I wish for my women.”

  “Thank you, Majesties.”

  “Senenmut, see her out, and arrange a gift suiting her years of service.”

  “Well,” Hatshepsut said, lifting her cup of wine toward the Great Steward, raising one black-painted brow in a half-resigned, half-angry arch. “You spoke the words, and like a slighted god's curse, they have come to be.”

  Thutmose exchanged a rueful glance with Senenmut. The young Pharaoh liked his step-mother's steward. Senenmut was thoughtful and sensible, quick with a solution to near any problem, and deeply loyal to Neferure, whom Thutmose thought of often. The steward was a good sort, as Nehesi would say.

  Senenmut drew in a deep, long breath before he replied. “It's not as though you failed to see this coming yourself, Great Lady.”

  Hatshepsut grunted in disgust, set her cup rather heavily on the table. “I know. I know. And yet what else could I have done with Opet, but let her go?”

  The supper Thutmose had been so eager for lay barely touched on his co-Pharaoh's table. When the great hall's doors had closed behind Lady Opet's retreating back, Hatshepsut had all but dragged Thutmose to her apartments for a rather rushed and sober meal. He could sense the tension crackling in the air about Hatshepsut's body, and by the time their food and Senenmut arrived, both Pharaohs had gone off their appetites. Stewed greens went cold and rumpled in their onion sauce; fish roasted in their scales stared up, their flesh still untasted, from their beds of spiced lentils. Somebody – Thutmose was not sure who – had torn a leg off the well-browned goose, then let it fall back onto the platter uneaten.

  “You could have done nothing, Great Lady, and that is the gods' own truth. Unless you would have her killed.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then it does you no good to brood over the thing. It has happened. Opet will not be the last to leave the harem. Rather than fret over it, best to plan now how you will cope.”

  “I know how. I have been planning it for more than a year. And yet….” Her voice grew small and quiet. Such gravity was so unlike Hatshepsut; it made Thutmose feel quite uneasy. He picked at the goose leg while she spoke, glad for the distraction. “With the flood's failure last year, how much more disruption can I face? How much time do I have? Will there be enough time, to get there and back before my enemies can move?”

  Thutmose blinked several times. Get where? What enemies?

  “You recovered from the bad flood well enough.”

  “Only just. It was touch and go.”

  “Your building projects were a wise move in dealing with the flood. A public display of piety went far in reassuring the people that you still have the favor of the gods. And when we return from Punt laden with treasure, with myrrh trees to restore Amun’s full glory, none will find doubt in his heart. Not even your enemies.”

  Punt. Thutmose knew the name well. The land was far-off, across the waterless heat of the Red Land to the east, and further still. Some said it required ships to get there – ships worthy of waters far rougher than the Iteru in full flood. It was reputed to be the original home of Amun, his favored land where the myrrh trees he loved grew in profusion, where magic fell from the sky as rain. Some said Punt was naught but a myth, but Thutmose had read scrolls written by men who had been there, who had seen its strange people, its unique animals, its wealth of exotic treasures.

  “The only question that remains, I think,” said Hatshepsut, “is how much longer I can retain the women still in my harem. Oh, the daughters and sisters of merchants, or architects, or various high priests can leave at any time. I shall not worry over their departure. It's my cousins and half-sisters I must keep, at least until our plans are final. At least until we return.”

  “They will become pawns on the nobles' senet board,” the Great Steward said. The words were an agreement with Hatshepsut, but as he spoke he looked levelly at Thutmose. Do you understand what is going on here? his eyes said. Do you grasp the danger? Do you see our need?

  And at once, Hatshepsut's dilemma struck Thutmose with full force. This is about the succession. It is about an heir – my heir.

  Ah, he understood the complexity of the problem now. This was not about Hatshepsut's half-sister yearning for a child. It was about the blood Lady Opet carried within her – the same blood Thutmose himself carried: the blood of Thutmose the First. How many other relations dwelt in the harem, ready to bear children – impatient to bear children? Poised to leave, to lend their royal blood to some other great house, to pave a way – w
itting or no – to Thutmose's throne?

  But I am the king, he wanted to shout, right there in Hatshepsut's fine chambers, as though the men of those shadowy great houses might hear him. He clenched his fists, dismissed the childish urge.

  “Oh, Amun,” Hatshepsut sighed. She lifted herself from her couch, made her way to one soaring, painted wall. Her footsteps dragged with weariness. “If only I could clear my thoughts. If only I could think. My heart is all a-scatter; I will not sleep a moment tonight, I promise you.”

  She stood for some long time, her back to Thutmose and the steward, studying the images on her wall. In bright reds and golden ochers, in lapis-blue, some old king Thutmose could not identify lifted a bow to a flock of birds in flight. No doubt he could have brought down a whole brace with a single shaft. Kings in paintings had no cares at all, and their arrows always flew true.

  “You must move in this,” Senenmut said, “and the sooner the better. Allow me to announce your expedition to the court. We need no more preparation; we can have all the supplies we need within two weeks or less. The season is right for the journey. If you wait longer, you must wait an entire year before the Red Land is cool enough once more to traverse.”

  Hatshepsut turned. Her face was solemn with thought. “You are right,” she said. “The time is now.”

  “Trust that it will work. Have any of my plans failed you yet?”

  “This was my plan,” she said peevishly, though a glint of good humor sparkled in her eyes. She sank onto the couch beside Thutmose, laid one hand gravely on his shoulder. “I will be gone for many months, Thutmose. It is necessary. The throne will be yours alone while I am away.”

  He nodded, striving to quell the sudden nausea of excitement and fear that rose in his belly.

  “I will leave you with advisors, of course, but you are old enough now to rule wisely.” She hesitated, then added, “I trust you.”