“Thank you, Mother.” His voice was hoarse and quiet. He drank a draft of his beer to wet his throat, not tasting its pleasant bitterness. “I will rule well.”
He thought of heirs, of successions. There were many lovely girls in his harem, and he visited them as often as time allowed, though none, so far as he yet knew, were with child. He should take one as his chief wife, he knew. A child from the body of a Great Royal Wife would be most definite in the line of succession; no man could dare to raise his eyes to the throne if Thutmose had a wife, and his wife had a boy. He considered the harem women one by one, pondering which would be the best choice, whose lineage was purest and closest to the throne.
“I know you will rule well.” Hatshepsut gazed at him levelly, and he returned his bowl of beer to the table before she could see the tremor in his hands. “Your word will be command, Thutmose, and so you must think carefully before you speak. What a Pharaoh says to his subjects cannot be unsaid.”
Thutmose nodded.
“It is settled, then.” Hatshepsut stood briskly, stretched with her hands in the small of her back, suddenly as carefree as a girl. “Make the announcement in the morning, Senenmut. In two weeks we leave for the god’s land.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE COURT IN ALL ITS fulsome splendor turned out on Waset’s whitestone quay to witness the departure of the king. Beyond the protective rank of soldiers that were the hallmark of Hatshepsut’s reign, Ahmose watched the press of the crowd move this way and that like a school of lazy fish, arms and throats banded in gold, the hems of bright-dyed gowns and kilts rippling. Women displayed the latest fashion, the short-cropped, round silhouette of the Nubian wig, which left necks temptingly bare, shimmering with dampness in the humidity of the crowed riverside. The ladies of the great houses waved fans before their faces, leaning to whisper behind their plumes. Men eyed Hatshepsut’s war ship, Amun Strides from Darkness, with a speculative air as it bobbed against its lines, rocking to the rhythm of the final lading. When the last man scrambled aboard, a large clay jar of provisions perched atop his shoulder like one of the chattering pet birds so popular with the harem girls, Hatshepsut emerged from her ship’s cabin. Expectant silence spread through the crowd.
The Pharaoh made her way to the ship’s gilded rail. Since the day of her coronation, Ahmose could recall few occasions when Hatshepsut had presented herself to such a large crowd in a man’s clothing. Yet now she was dressed simply and distinctly as a male, with a plain white kilt falling to her knee and the simple cloth crown of Nemes flaring about her face like a lapis cobra’s hood, rippling lightly in the wind. The golden visages of vulture and cobra reared above her brow, the king’s simplest circlet decrying her power in frank and forceful terms.
“In the name of the god,” Hatshepsut said, her voice rich and low, a voice meant to carry to every ear in the crowd, “I travel to Punt, the legendary place, to bring back gifts for Amun. Your king Menkheperre shall rule in my absence, wisely and well.”
Ahmose glanced across the small bare patch of whitestone to young Thutmose. Menkheperre himself stood with arms folded across his well-muscled chest, watching his co-king’s departure with an air of perfect confidence, the two-tiered Double Crown rising tall upon his head. His poor dead mother’s beauty had refined the stamp of Thutmose the First, Ahmose’s own departed husband, but the resemblance was there, for those who had eyes to see it. The young Pharaoh was not as tall as most men, yet the breadth of his shoulders promised a burgeoning strength at least as great as his grandfather’s. His nose had grown out of its childish snub and was beginning to take on something of his ancestor’s hawk’s-beak. And the way his jaw set firmly, the way his eyes remained steady and calm on Hatshepsut, pained Ahmose’s heart with remembrance.
Hatshepsut spoke on, and the crowd beyond the ring of soldiers cheered. Neferure, reed-slim and swaying lightly in the morning heat, twitched at the sudden sound, lifted her eyes from the paving stones to gaze about her for a moment, her expression vague, a woman coming out of a dream. Neferure’s quiet obedience in the face of her mother’s stirred Ahmose’s pity, as it so often did. The girl had always served loyally, had always been mindful of maat, and yet she was so sad, so unfulfilled.
I was that way once, Ahmose mused, lifting her hand in farewell as the sailors cast off the lines and the royal musicians raised a triumphant song. Young and earnest and confused, wanting to serve maat and never knowing what maat was.
Amun Strides from Darkness pulled from the quay, drifted westward to meet the remainder of Hatshepsut’s expedition fleet where it held mid-river. Neferure trembled amidst the cheering, and Thutmose glanced at his sister from the tail of his kohl-rimmed eye. The look he gave her brimmed with an intensity that made Ahmose wonder. Was it desire in the young Pharaoh’s gaze, or…fear? Thutmose offered his arm to Neferure, who took it with wordless complacency. He steered her across the paving stones to where Ahmose stood in the mercy of her sunshade.
“Grandmother,” said Thutmose, by way of greeting.
She was not his grandmother, of course. The young man did not know his true grandmother; she had been banished to some lonesome estate when the king was but an infant. I suppose I am the closest he has to a grandmother. How Mutnofret would hate me afresh, if she knew.
She bowed to him. “Majesty.”
“It will be a fine expedition.” Thutmose patted the back of Neferure’s hand absently, gingerly, as one pets a skittish cat.
“Ah, I expect it will.”
“Will you…will you come to me at supper time, Grandmother? I would enjoy your company.”
He wants my counsel. She saw it at once in the slight tension around his eyes. And he is too clever to admit even the smallest misgiving where his courtiers and soldiers might hear.
Ahmose turned her head casually, feigning to glance toward the jar of wine her women poured for the king. But she raised her eyes past her servants, past the backs of the soldiers, to the press of the crowd. Here and there a pair of noble’s eyes made contact with her own, then blinked and slid away again with a palpable air of nonchalance – and here and there one lady swayed close to another, her mouth tight-pursed. Ah, there will be eyes and ears on you, young Menkheperre. There will be lions waiting to close for the kill, with your mawat gone from the throne. At least, thank the gods, the boy was wise enough to know it.
“I would be honored, Majesty. I shall come to you at the customary hour.”
“Good.” Thutmose took the offered cup of wine, drained it in a single long draft while the horns keened their marching tune and the rattles chimed. When he returned the cup to Ahmose’s servant with a nod of his head, his hand did not shake.
Ahmose was admitted into the presence of Menkheperre Thutmose, the Third of His Name, by a strange, wispy fidget of a man, lanky and wiry with a mouth that was too soft and too wide. Hesyre was Ahmose’s own age, if not older, but the lines of his face had more to do with particulars and details, fusses and primps, than with the cares of governing a kingdom. She raised her brows at him, assessing as he bowed and stood aside to admit her. She was amused to note that his brows raised in return, tenting the loose skin of his eyelids, weighing Ahmose fearlessly in his turn, and measure for measure.
“Hesyre.” Thutmose’s voice called from the depths of his apartments. “Is it my grandmother?”
“Ah, Majesty,” Hesyre responded in a voice of carefully modulated respect. “The Great Lady Ahmose of the house of Waser Thutmose the First, may he live; the dowager regent.”
Thutmose laughed, a sound full of his youthful exuberance. “I know who she is.”
“Ah, Majesty.”
Hesyre gestured, and Ahmose fell into step behind him.
There had never been any dispute that Hatshepsut was the more senior of the two kings, and so the original Pharaoh’s apartments – the rooms ready-built for the king by the palace’s architect – had gone to her. But she had gifted her co-regent the next-finest rooms since his infancy �
� a complex that had originally been built to house high-ranking dignitaries from foreign lands, to impress them with the splendor and wealth of Egypt. Thutmose’s chambers lacked for no luxury. Angular arches spaced at regular intervals near the ceiling held well-placed windcatchers, which filtered a sweet-smelling breeze from the adjacent garden and cooled the interior of the apartments. The anteroom was wide and well-lit by ranks of bronze lamps with electrum reflecting-discs. The flickering light of the many braziers illuminated a ring of fine couches, their legs carved of ebony and marble, upholstered in the priceless silks of the far north, brightly dyed in an array of colors. The silks could only be obtained through costly trade of gold and turquoise. That Thutmose owned many lengths of the precious fabric, and had used it for the express purpose of sitting upon, spoke of the young man’s subtlety. He was savvy enough to obtain such goods in quantity, and clever enough to display them in such a carefree manner. Only a man thoroughly secure in his own power would upholster his couches in silk. Of course, Ahmose mused, it may have been Hesyre’s idea. Beyond the couches, a brilliant and thorough mural of Egypt evicting the Heqa-Khasewet from the Two Lands wrapped the antechamber on three of its walls. Ahmose recalled it from her early days in the palace, when she was the Great Royal Wife, younger than Thutmose himself. She gazed about her, allowing her eyes to roam over the scenes of conquest and victory, wondering that Thutmose hadn’t ordered the murals painted over with fresher, more modern scenes.
As she stood inspecting the walls, one of several cedar doors banded in bronze and gold swung wide, and Thutmose emerged. The scent of fine oils – a masculine perfume of galbanum and the blood-red resin of Kush – followed him into the antechamber.
“Grandmother. It is good of you to come to me.”
Ahmose smiled. “You are the Pharaoh. Should any lady of the court disobey a summons from her king?” Thutmose waved her to the silk couches, and she sank onto one the color of emeralds, the deep, rich green of the season of growth, when the Two Lands came to glorious life and the river banks and fields teemed with new leaves and the rich scent of foliage. Surreptitiously, she allowed her hand to smooth across the surface. It was cool beneath her fingers. Ahmose could never resist the lure of silk.
Thutmose seated himself with an easy confidence and clapped for his servants. Their supper shortly arrived, but Ahmose left her bowl empty, waiting for the young Pharaoh to fill her ears instead. When the meal had been laid out to his satisfaction, he dismissed his servants and sat listening, his head tilted almost imperceptibly, until the door to their quarters down the hall closed with a muffled bump.
“And how can I serve His Majesty?” Ahmose said softly.
Thutmose narrowed his eyes. “Was it so obvious, that I need your advice? Already, when Hatshepsut has been gone from the palace only a few hours?”
“Not as obvious as you fear. I have learned a certain degree of observation and inference, you see, serving the throne as long as I have.” She smiled wryly, and he relaxed.
“You know why Hatshepsut undertook this journey to Punt, I assume.”
“My daughter has always enjoyed adventure.”
“This is no mere adventure. She went because she had to.”
“Had to?”
“She has built more monuments than any Pharaoh before her, I think, but has had fewer military campaigns. Her temples and obelisks are for the gods, yes, but more so for the people. To prove to them – to make a point, you see – that she has the gods’ favors, and therefore cannot be lightly displaced.”
“She fears displacement?” It was not a surprise. Secret bids for Egypt’s throne began nearly fifteen years ago, when Iset was killed by poisoned wine meant for Hatshepsut’s lips. Of course the senior Pharaoh feared displacement.
“What she needs,” Thutmose said, his voice hesitant with care, “what we need as the Great House of Thutmose the First, is an heir.”
“She made Neferure heir.” Despite her resolve to remain neutral before the king, Ahmose’s mouth tightened.
Thutmose raised his brows when he noted her expression. “Neferure is a woman, and I wonder whether a woman as heir might stretch the bounds of what Egypt is willing to accept. I do not speak of disinheriting Neferure – there is no need, and I will not see my sister ill-treated. But surely by all the gods’ laws a male heir would come before a female.”
Ahmose sat forward on the silk couch. “You would marry, then, and get a son. Yes – that would do the trick. Neferure could remain heir until you have your son. Then she would not be disinherited – only superseded, as the law of the gods would decree.” Ahmose had never approved of Hatshepsut’s decision to proclaim Neferure heir, but as she had fought tirelessly to place her own daughter on the throne so many years ago, she could not in good conscience gainsay Hatshepsut’s decision. If Thutmose had a legitimate heir by a Great Royal Wife, the priests of Amun would indeed uphold a son’s claim over a daughter’s. Ahmose felt sure of it.
“It may be our only means of keeping the nobles in their place – of giving Hatshepsut enough reassurance that she rests easily at night, and Egypt continues its business uninhibited.”
Ahmose lifted her chin in admiration for the young man’s quick and thorough thinking. It seemed impossible that such a bright and earnest king could descend from Mutnofret’s insecurity and the pig-headed selfishness of the second Thutmose. And yet here he was, as worthy a descendant as Ahmose’s dead husband could have wished for. She felt one brief stab of envy that the boy did not come from her own blood, then pushed the unbecoming emotion away firmly. I am the one he calls Grandmother, after all.
“Your insight is to be commended, Majesty. I believe you are right.”
“You do?” Thutmose squared his shoulders, and Ahmose stifled a fond chuckle at his sudden boyishness.
“I told Hatshepsut as much, years ago, well before she proclaimed Neferure her heir. I warned her against it. I feared it would pit you and Neferure against one another someday – or at least, would set Neferure at odds against your future sons. But I don’t think it would trouble her, to know that you had an heir of your own. I don’t believe the girl cares for the title at all.”
Thutmose squinted at the beer in his drinking bowl. “It is difficult to know what Neferure cares for. Hathor – I know she cares for Hathor. Whenever I visit the harem, I hope to see her among the other women. But she is always in her little palace, apart from them. And it seems there is a constant stream of smoke rising from the rooftop, where her Hathor shrine stands. Beyond the goddess, though…” He shrugged.
“Well,” Ahmose said, setting aside the familiar pang of sadness at the thought of Neferure, “I suppose we must choose a Great Royal Wife, then.”
A flush crept into Thutmose’s cheeks. “I don’t know how to choose.”
“And so you have turned to your old grandmother.” Ahmose waved away his embarrassment. “It is only natural. I am honored to be of service, Majesty.”
Thutmose put forth the names of several young women from the harem, each of them worthy candidates who could trace their lineage easily to the throne. He had put as much careful consideration into this matter as any other, and Ahmose felt a glow of pride at the young Pharaoh’s competence. They debated the women in turn, examining the benefits each might bring to Thutmose’s court with a detachment that left an uncomfortable pinch in Ahmose’s belly. This was how my mother and my own grandmother discussed their choice – Mutnofret or me for Great Royal Wife. It sickened her, to realize she examined so many young women as if they were objects, baubles to set upon a bedside table to beautify a room. And yet what else could she do? The wrong choice could incite political disaster. Egypt was at stake. Mother, at last I understand you. Ahmose pressed her hands to her stomach to soothe away her guilt and regret, and the conversation went on.
Thutmose summoned his servants to replenish their food and fetch wine. They had debated the women for hours, and at last had settled upon three, all of them girls with royal bloo
d whose families had so far shown no alarming signs of overt ambition. A platter of figs and cheese arrived, and Thutmose stared at it morosely, all the talk drained out of him.
Ahmose leaned back into the luxury of the green couch, eying Thutmose’s weary expression. There was a becoming melancholy about him. It charmed her when she recognized its source, and she laughed lightly. “All three of these girls are good choices, yet you do not love them.”
He shook his head. “Love doesn’t enter into it, Grandmother. My duty is to get a legitimate heir, to protect the throne.”
She recalled the look Thutmose had given Neferure that morning on the quay, the sidelong glance full of some potent, un-nameable emotion. “We have overlooked one candidate for Great Royal Wife, I think.”
He sighed. “And who is she?”
“Neferure.” When she said the name, the prickle of the gods’ touch ran along Ahmose’s skin. Yes, her heart whispered. Ahmose breathed deep, accepting the certainty, the inevitability.
Suddenly animated, Thutmose stared at her, a tension of longing brightening his eyes. “But she is Hatshepsut’s heir.”
“A position she does not want. I think her heart craves something else. Consider her: she is dutiful to a fault, dedicated to maat. She is god-chosen.” And well do I know how that qualifies a woman to be a Pharaoh’s wife. “And she is lovely.” She added this last offhandedly, but allowed a small smile when she saw how Thutmose flushed. “If you married her,” Ahmose added, “and she bore you a son, the child would be unassailable as heir. You and Neferure are both the children of Pharaohs – she is the child of two Pharaohs, in fact.” After fourteen years of keeping up the deception, the lie of Neferure’s parentage slipped easily from Ahmose’s lips, without a single hesitation. “You are a Pharaoh yourself. Can an heir have a stronger claim? How could any noble hope that his fellows might proclaim his son king, if the best he could offer Egypt was the child of a Pharaoh’s cousin? Your son with Neferure will be four times royalty, and through her, descended directly from Amun.”
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