The man evidently took Thutmose's astonished silence for permission to speak on. “My lord has no doubt visited the harem several times.”
“Ah,” Thutmose said impatiently, feeling the heat rise to his cheeks.
He had, in fact, visited the harem several times – as often as he could manage, between drilling with the soldiers and hearing the endless stultifying complaints of courtiers in the great hall. He never knew how he found the courage to enter the first time, though he'd repeated to himself again and again as he rode from the palace to the harem in a closed litter, You are the Pharaoh. The women are yours. Still, his legs had shaken violently as he allowed his guards to lead him into the intoxicating cool shade of the harem garden. And when he greeted the surprised and enthusiastic women, his voice had cracked like a worthless boy's.
But they had been good to him. A few in particular, young and gently spoken with smooth faces and soft breasts, had led him into the great inner chamber of the House of Women. Servants had gone before them, scattering flower petals and singing, and the women's hands had been both coaxing and instructive. He passed nearly a whole day there, and when he returned two days later his legs did not quiver so badly. In two days more, he strode into the chamber on his own, and called his favorite women by name.
This business, though – Neferure – this was a different matter. How could he explain to Hesyre the strange potency that pulsed within his frail, pretty wife? How could he admit that lust for her and fear of her unknown power pulled at him equally, drawing him like a beast to water, so that he could not turn away from her, even if he had wished to?
“I would implore my lord to recall that the Great Royal Wife is very young, and lacks the experience of the women of the harem. It would be wise to treat her gently.”
Thutmose snorted. “Hesyre, how little you know her.”
“My lord, you are pale. Please, sit. I will fetch wine.”
“I don't need any wine,” Thutmose said, but he sank onto his couch all the same.
How many years had passed since Thutmose had seen his sister tame the bull of Min? He counted backward. Five, it must be. Five years, and all that time he found himself unable to look upon her without a tremble of awe, a shiver of foreboding. Even these past months since Hatshepsut had been away, each night when he held Neferure locked in his arms, their bodies moving in concert, somewhere through the fog of lust his ka quailed at her nearness. At festivals he watched her make offerings to Amun, her eyes burning with an intensity he could not understand, and he remembered the white bull. At court he watched her sit still as a seshep upon her small golden throne, the vulture crown of the Great Royal Wife gleaming on her brow, her mouth and hands revealing none of her thoughts. He remembered the white bull.
He remembered the thunder of its passing, the rage in its breath. And the slender paleness of Neferure halting that terrible beast in its tracks, taming its wild heart with the touch of her hand. Never could he forget the way she had looked up at him as she stroked the bull between its horns. Her eyes were like offering fires.
For all the power he wielded, for all the divine might his seat granted him, Thutmose knew he could not understand the haunting combination of darkness and light that moved in Neferure's ka. He could only sense that it was a power all its own – a power of a sort he could never grasp. Its starkness and strangeness filled him with fear.
And yet her body filled him with desire. She was undeniably beautiful. Her solemn face was as finely made as the greatest artist's carving, with full lips and dark eyes that seemed to place her very ka on delicate display. Her body now had the shape of a woman, with high breasts unmarked by the smallest freckle, with a backside as round and swaying as any harem girl's. Recollecting the way she moved when she walked, his mouth went dry. He wished suddenly for Hesyre's wine.
A clap sounded outside his door. Thutmose leapt to his feet.
Hesyre opened the door a crack, peered into the darkness of the hall.
“The Great Royal Wife,” said a familiar voice: Takhat, Neferure's peevish old wet-nurse.
Hesyre raised his meticulously painted brows, waiting.
“Let her come in,” Thutmose said. “Hesyre, accompany the lady Takhat to the garden until I send for you.”
Neferure appeared in his chamber with a supernatural speed. It seemed he blinked, and she materialized like a goddess stepping from the river mist. More likely, his agitated nerves altered his perception of time, so he did not see her stepping across the threshold in her tiny golden sandals, did not hear her words as she dismissed Takhat. But she was suddenly there, standing in the center of a fine carpet of felted wool, pulsing with a radiance he could scarce look upon, and could scarce look away from. Thutmose did not know whether the glow about Neferure's face was from the lamplight or from her own being, but with wonder and trepidation, he saw that she was in fact glowing. A palpable longing seemed to travel down her skin, from her bare shoulders over her thin arms to her clasped hands. It was a desire more akin to religious rapture than physical longing.
She shivered.
“Are you cold?” Thutmose asked foolishly.
“No.” Her voice was high and bright, a chime in a temple.
“Please, sit with me.”
As if his invitation had snapped some tethering cord, Neferure swept to the couch, nearly running. She settled upon a silk cushion and stared at him, the usual wild expectation evident in the blackness of her eyes. Thutmose’s heart told him desperately that he did not know how to meet her tacit demand. But his body said otherwise, and as always, he responded to her presence, and the mist of his desire for her enveloped him, silencing the worries of his heart.
He kissed her neck below her ear, and felt a hot thrill run through him when she arched her back, encouraging him with a moan. He liked to draw her out, to push her longing further until she was frantic for him, and fell upon him scratching like Pakhet, and so he fondled her breast for a time until she was panting, clutching his shoulders. Then he made himself pull away.
“Are you hungry? Would you like beer, or melon water?”
She steadied herself with a few breaths, warming to his game as she always did. “Melon water,” she said.
“I will have beer, myself.”
He realized with a sudden clutch of embarrassment that he had sent all his servants away. There was no one to pour. He wondered, was it more seemly for a Pharaoh to serve the God's Wife of Amun, or for the wife to serve the king? In his indecision he stared helplessly at the jugs on his table, then, unnerved by his own stillness, lurched forward and seized the jug of melon water. It sloshed over the rim and splashed on the table, but he managed to offer Neferure her bowl at last.
She took one small sip and set it aside. As he raised his bowl to his lips, she lowered it for him with a hand on his wrist. Her fingers were cool; a shiver traveled up his skin from the place where she touched him.
“I come to you eagerly,” she said.
“I can see that.”
“I am ready.”
Thutmose gaped at her. She was always ready, it seemed, always desperate for him – a fact that flattered him as much as it frightened him. But she did not speak now of merely lying together. He caught in the dark fire of her eyes some deeper meaning.
“I have waited, Lord. I have opened myself to you, so many times. I have lain before you as a holy offering.”
Thutmose drained his bowl of beer in one long draft. When he returned it to the table, Neferure was suddenly upon him, pressing herself against his chest, her back arching, her mouth tickling the sensitive skin of his neck with a soft moan.
“Oh!” said Thutmose. He could think of no other response for his mouth to make, though his body had no such trouble. He tore fiercely at her gown, seeking to raise it to her waist, to take her now, there on the supper couch, and to Set with drawing her out. He hurt everywhere from the need to be inside her, now, to hear her cries, to feel her hot breath on his neck, to spend himself within.
But her gown had twisted about her legs, and he only succeeded in tangling it more. He stroked her shoulders, which were as smooth as new leaves, trying to calm her enough that he might sort out her linen. Neferure's breath hissed, a sound that lit all his veins afire. Even the soles of his feet throbbed with the feel of her, and he kicked his legs helplessly. The movement shook her, for she was half in his lap, and she dropped one hand to steady herself. It landed on Thutmose's thigh beside his aching manhood.
Neferure sat back suddenly, staring at where her hand lay, at the shape of Thutmose's member beneath his kilt. In an instant her eyes raised to his, and it was as though a different girl sat in her place, as though a different ka inhabited her body. She looked at her brother with mild confusion. A slow frown creased her brow, pinched her features. It was a look of disappointment.
“I...I...” Thutmose squirmed away from her, tripping over his tongue.
They drew apart, sat for some long time in heavy silence while Neferure jerked at the accursed skirt of her gown. Neither dared to look at the other. The despondent fizzling of a lamp's wick burning out echoed in the vastness of Thutmose's chamber. It made a sound far too large for itself. At last, Neferure turned to face him.
“Well, after all, I am the Great Royal Wife,” she said.
Thutmose could not discern her meaning. He thought it wisest to make no reply.
“Do you wish to use me for your pleasure? Very well.”
“I...what?”
“It is my duty.”
“After so many times, after the way you’ve behaved toward me, I should think, Neferure, that it is more than duty to you.” The sudden shift in her demeanor stung him, and he scowled at her, offended.
“I make no complaints.”
“You come to me wet as an eel every night, and yet you sit there and say ‘I make no complaints!’”
“Is my lord angry?”
“No. Yes! I don't understand this. I don't understand you!”
Neferure shrugged.
“You came into my chambers looking like you greeted a god.”
She flinched, looked quickly away from his face.
“And now you talk of duty, and look on me with...with disappointment. No, with disdain. What is happening, Neferure? Was your ka somewhere else?”
She drew a shaky breath, held it a moment, then said, “Perhaps. When Takhat brought me your summons, I was praying in my temple.”
Of course.
After their marriage, Neferure had refused to move from her little palace in the gardens of the House of Women. Ahmose, before she had fled for her estates, had advised him to let the matter lie, to allow Neferure her private residence so long as she maintained her duties. It seemed the Great Royal Wife spent all her free time in the Hathor shrine on the palace's roof-top, praying. Nearly every evening that Thutmose had visited the harem, he had seen the orange glow of an offering brazier moving fitfully between the pillars of Neferure's temple. Its light cast a feeling of eerie unwelcome to the night-time garden.
Against his better judgment, Thutmose said slowly, “What did you pray for?”
“The same thing I pray for every night: for the god to fill me.”
“Which god?”
“Amun. Or any god. Each day, each night, I make the same prayers. And why not? It is my birthright, to be the consort of a god, to be the beloved of a god, as Ahmose was. To bear a son who is half-god himself, as my mother is. I prayed tonight, as every night, that the gods would fill me at last. That they would be unambiguous, that I would know their hearts, and they would know mine. That I would come into my own powers as a god-chosen woman. That I would be god-chosen in truth, and consort to divinity.”
These were things Thutmose truly could not grasp. Hatshepsut had long said that Neferure was god-chosen, as had Ahmose. He knew being god-chosen must have something to do with her strange, compelling force, even with the white bull of Min. But he did not care to understand the matter further. It made him feel weak and frightened, as though in this realm he had no say, no control, Pharaoh or not.
“I thought,” Neferure said, “that when I came to you tonight we would join as Nut and Geb are joined, the earth with the sky, and at last the gods would fill me. It was my vision in Iunet, you see.”
She gazed at him expectantly, but Thutmose was forced to shake his head. Vision in Iunet?
“When you said you would take me as Great Royal Wife, I saw my way clear. You have seen the carving on the wall of Djeser-Djeseru, the story of Hatshepsut’s birth. Don’t you see, Thutmose? Amun came to our grandmother because she was Great Royal Wife, and worthy to love Amun.” She panted with exasperation, her brows pinching at the confusion on his face. “As I am your Great Royal Wife, I, too, am worthy! Amun is supposed to come to me through your body! I will join with you, but it will not be you – it will be Amun!”
In spite of her strange words and the angry fire in her face, Thutmose’s own body still throbbed with its untended wants. “We can still join,” he offered sheepishly.
“No! Don't you see?” Neferure scrambled to her feet, trembling. “I was wrong, this whole time, the whole time we’ve been married. And I only see the truth now. It’s like I’ve wakened from a dream. I was not meant for Amun, Thutmose. He does not love me.”
“...Amun?”
“I serve him, as I serve all the gods. I do my duty to him, and to the throne, because is Maat herself not a goddess? How can I serve all the gods, even Maat, if I do not serve maat? If I do not do my duties – all of them?”
Thutmose was well and truly lost now. He sank against the backrest of his couch and watched as his wife paced the length of his felted carpet with clenched fists, words spilling from her mouth faster than Thutmose's ears could catch them.
“I was pledged to Amun from my childhood, and yet he wants nothing of me! It's another god who longs for me, but I am kept from her side by maat. Hathor calls to me, Thutmose – Hathor desires me, for her own purpose. I am hers, her vessel, her tool – and yet because I am the King's Daughter, and the God's Wife of Amun, and the Great Royal Wife, I can never be hers! I must serve Amun, a god who is cold, who cares nothing for me and spurns even my body. Why does he turn his back to me? Why? I have done all my duties, fulfilled all the commands. I have done as my kings have commanded – the Pharaoh is the body of the gods on the earth, even of Amun! Especially of Amun! And yet Amun will not love me!” She stared at him. Her eyes traveled down his body to his lap, and he folded his arms protectively there, shielding his vulnerable parts from the fury of her gaze. “You have a man’s body, and always have. I see that now. You are not a god.”
Tears coursed down her cheeks; her nose ran, but she did not wipe the mess away. Thutmose found a square of linen in the box beside his couch and went to her, offered it, but she continued pacing as if she did not see him.
“Amun, why can you not love me as Hathor loves me? Don't you see how it pains me, that you spurn me so? Oh, what have I done to deserve your scorn? How am I unclean?”
She fell to her knees, wailing. Thutmose gathered her in his arms and rocked her, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
“There, sister. There. Amun doesn't hate you. You are his wife – my wife. You are the most blessed of ladies in the Two Lands.”
“I am not,” she insisted, her tears hot and wet on his shoulder. “Amun wants nothing of me. And I can never be with the goddess who loves me.”
“I'll send you to serve Hathor permanently, if it will make you happy.”
She pushed him away. “You cannot. Don't you see? Mother is right, though it's bitter on my tongue to say it. I am needed here, in Waset, at Amun's temple, to perform all the rites of my offices. It is maat, and without maat, Egypt will die. Oh, unhappy me! I am cursed to misery forever!”
Thutmose took her hands, coaxed her to her feet. “I don't like to see you so distraught.”
She took the square of linen from his hands, wiped her face clean. “It is my duty as Great Royal Wife
to lie with you,” she said calmly, “and I will do it. I am nothing if not dutiful.”
“I can see that you are,” Thutmose said dryly. “We do need to get an heir, Neferure. It's of the utmost importance, now that I have removed you from your heirship and made you my wife. Without an heir, the throne is in danger.”
She nodded, took a step toward the couch. He stayed her with a hand on her arm.
“The way you looked at me…earlier, when we stopped. I may not be a god, Neferure. I may have only the body of a man. But I am still a Pharaoh.”
He had meant it lightly, but she did not smile. “Ahmose is god-chosen, and she lay with a god. I am destined for the same. You may be a Pharaoh, but a Pharaoh is not a god until he is dead and resurrected. Now you are only a man, made of mortal flesh. I deserve no lesser a consort than a god.”
Thutmose's heart chilled. What kind of a woman disdains even the love of a Pharaoh?
And at last he knew where his dread of Neferure came from. Now he understood the fear he’d felt when she tamed the bull. There was something dangerous in the way she understood herself – in her very will. Something inhabited her heart that did not dwell within normal women, nor within men. Not even Pharaohs thought so highly of themselves. At least, Thutmose did not. There was danger in such self-assurance. He could not quite grasp the danger – could not discern its exact shape, or know its boundaries. He only knew it was danger.
Thutmose let his hand fall from her arm. He made his way to his door, summoned his guard, and asked the man to send for Hesyre and Takhat. When the wet-nurse arrived, she looked expectantly at her charge, but at the sight of Neferure's tear-stained face and still-clothed body, Takhat's face fell into a deep, worried frown.
“The Great Royal Wife is too tired for company tonight,” Thutmose said. “Take her back to her Hathor shrine and let her pray before she sleeps.”
When they had gone, Hesyre turned to Thutmose, dry-washing his hands. “Lord...”
The She-King: The Complete Saga Page 75
