The Bull of Min (The She-King)

by L. M. Ironside

  “And so you are going away again.” Meryet gave a dramatic sigh, but she smiled at him. The years had not diminished her beauty, though time on the throne had hardened her features. It was a pleasant enough hardness, the sharp definition and unbreakable countenance of a goddess carved in stone.

  No – not stone. Stone breaks all too easily. Thutmose knew by now how easily stone cracked, how it smoothed beneath the cruel bite of the chisel. Meryet would never break.

  Beside his wife, Amunhotep bounced on the balls of his feet. He was seven years old now, growing fast, taller than Thutmose could believe. “When do I get to sail with you, Father? I want to go to war!”

  Thutmose raised the boy’s chin in his hand, savored the precious sight of him in his childhood sidelock, the sweet roundness of his face. “Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up, Amunhotep.” Amun knows you’re doing it fast enough already.

  The prince scowled. “Well, I am in a hurry. Waset is boring. I want to fight in the north like you!”

  “I know.”

  “Your time will come,” Meryet assured him. She took Thutmose’s hand. “I will keep your throne warm until you return.”

  He laughed and swept her into his arms, kissed her long and deep until Amunhotep groaned in protest.

  “I’ll hurry back,” Thutmose promised.

  “As soon as you’ve made Egypt a little bigger; I know. Be safe, Thutmose. Go with the gods.”

  The mist parted for him as he made his way down the water steps. His great war boat rocked eagerly in its moorings, its cedar nose reaching high and arrogant above the fierce Eye of Horus that stared at him from the prow. After so many campaigns both up and down the river, the ship was his oldest friend, save for Meryet. His feet found the ramp as easily as his hands could find the hilt of his sword or the haft of his spear.

  The pre-dawn lights of Waset receded into a black, mist-shrouded distance as his rowers struck out for the middle of the Iteru, where the northward current ran fast and deep. Thutmose took up his favorite position in the ship’s prow. He watched the sun rise, a gathering glow piercing through the fog, a golden light spreading across the horizon, illuminating the mist with such ferocity that he had to drop his eyes from the sky to the ship’s rail.

  He studied his own hands where they lay on the gilded rail, lifted one to inspect beneath his nails. He had scrubbed and scrubbed his hands in his bath that morning, as he did every morning and every night. There was not a speck of stone dust beneath Thutmose’s nails, and yet he could feel the accusing grit of altered and destroyed monuments there, and everywhere on his body, pressing into his flesh, stinging against his skin. He could feel the grains of dust that had once been Hatshepsut’s image, Hatshepsut’s name – her kas. The sense of her destruction never left his body, a palpable discomfort, a weight around his neck.

  But Amunhotep’s inheritance was secure. The legacy of Thutmose the First would go on into eternity. It was Hatshepsut’s legacy, too – she was a part of all he did, all he achieved – she who had been a mother to Thutmose.

  He lifted a small leather pouch that hung from his sword belt. The drawstrings were stiff with the dirt of many foreign roads, many campaigns past, but his fingers knew how to work them open. Inside was his small treasure, the seed he would plant when he reached the lands far beyond Retjenu, beyond Ugarit, stretching away to the north and east, the new borders he had laid to expand Egypt out across the whole of the earth. He lifted the treasure out of the bag, examined it on his palm.

  It was a stone scarab – not large, carved in simple granite, not bright turquoise or lapis or brilliant deep malachite, river-green. It was plain, but strong; enduring enough to last centuries unchanged, so long as no chisel or hammer found it. He studied the shape of the scarab’s wings, the intricate detail of its feathered antennae folded back across its rounded body. Thutmose turned it over in his hand.

  On the flat reverse side was a name, encircled by the cartouche of royalty. He traced the familiar characters with his thumb. Maatkare Hatshepsut.

  How many of these scarabs had he left in his wake, planted like hopeful vines across the expanding frontier? How many small tablets that bore her name and titles, how many tiny statues of her image, striding as bold as a god? Dozens. He would hide this one in the earth somewhere, in a cave, if he found one, or bury it on a hilltop just beneath the surface where the sun’s rays could reach through the dust and warm her name, bring her back to life. Her name intact, fixed into eternal stone.

  He hoped it was enough to atone for what he did in the temples and courts of the Two Lands, scraping her from history with the stroke of his workmen’s chisels.

  Thutmose slipped the scarab back into his pouch, tightened the strings carefully so it would not be lost. Too much of her was lost already. Many nights he had lain awake, imagining her kas scattered, torn loose from their familiar stone moorings in the Black Land. He pictured her forlorn kas wandering, disjointed and confused but not dead. Never dead, so long as he had his scarabs to plant in the earth, his little statues.

  It was a very small comfort to him.

  A far greater comfort was the battle to come. War was his only balm now, the only cure for the deep, aching wound in his ka, a wound as deep as if it had been carved by one of his own chisels. Yes, he was strong, and he gloried in his strength and his strategy. He would add more lands to Egypt’s territory; of this he had no doubt.

  But he did not fight merely for the sake of it, nor push the borders of the Two Lands ever outward to increase his wealth or his infamy among the world’s lesser kings.

  He did it for the sake of his scarabs – for the sake of her name.

  For he had destroyed every one of her monuments that he could reach, erased her name from obelisks and temple walls. He did it for the sake of Egypt, ah – but knowing his reason was just did not ease the burden of his guilt.

  If he must banish her kas from the Two Lands, if he must erase her memory from the hearts of men, then he would expand his empire until it was so great that Hatshepsut’s lost kas would never find themselves without Egyptian gods. He would make all the world his, and no matter where Hatshepsut wandered, she would never be without the light of Amun-Re to guide her home.

  My command stands firm like the mountains; the sun’s disc shines upon my royal name. My falcon rises high above the kingly banner, eternally.

  -Inscription from the Temple of Pakhet by Hatshepsut, fifth king of the Eighteenth Dynasty

  THE END

  THE BULL OF MIN

  The She-King: Book Four

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  Excerpt from Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony, available now from Libbie Hawker and Running Rabbit Press.

  SMITH

  26 April, 1607

  He was far away, reclining on a bed of cool silk, the sweat drying on his skin. The window was unshuttered. A breeze moved the long wisp of curtain, carrying a scent of rosemary into Antonia’s chamber, bringing with it the rich perfume of Constantinople in elegant decay: the dust of hot brick; ancient incense from the church on the hill; fish offal sharp and salty at the wharf; the inoffensive, homey tang of horse dung drying on the bare streets. Antonia moved from behind her screen, dipped a rag into a basin, and the water fell like stars over her smooth skin. I should like to see it, she said, her voice distant and wavering in memory, an ech
o from a lost shore. He could no longer recall her face – not with any accuracy, though he remembered that she was beautiful. He did know her voice. The subtle rich smoke of it. The water pattering down her shoulder, tracing over the curve of her hip, puddling under her small foot. See what? he asked. His Greek was near as bad as his French, but she understood him well enough. The world, she said. All of it. I want to see it all.

  He could smell her still – her and Constantinople, and the rosemary. The memory shut out the stink of the brig, the reek of peat tar and his own piss. Antonia’s bed was softer than the narrow plank where he huddled; he no longer felt the damp roughness of the wood, nor the splinters pressing through his clothing. The Susan Constant heeled. He cursed and braced himself; the chains of his fetters clanked. A cry came through the thick boards of the deck, muffled, but even in the brig he could hear the joy and relief in the man’s voice.

  “Land!”

  He pressed himself against the Susan Constant’s curved rib, bobbed his head to peer through a chink in the wood. But only sunlight came through. It hurt his eyes, made the tears stream down his face and into his long, matted beard.

  Footfalls on the deck above. A grunt, an oath, and with a squeal of hinges the trap opened. Light as bright and shocking as the flesh of a lemon fell into the small chamber. With it came a great gust of fresh air, carrying the scent of a new world. It was rich and green, damp, spicy, fertile. It startled him, how much it smelled like the coast of England.

  “John Smith.”

  “Aye.” His voice grated like the hinge.

  He waited for an explanation, perhaps even a word of congratulation that they had made it, after all, to the New World. Instead a ladder dropped into his rat-hole, a sad thing made of worn rope and faded dowels. He climbed it gingerly.

  Wingfield was waiting. He stood straddle-legged, the sun gleaming on the neat jut of his red beard, his body moving with unconscious ease as the Susan Constant dipped into the gentle trough of a wave and rolled up to its white crest. Edward-Maria Wingfield rode a ship as easily as some men ride horses. The damnable creature pointed ever upward as surely as a compass needle points north, as if God Himself had tied a line to Wingfield’s helmet and kept him permanently in divine plumb. He was the only shareholder of the Virginia Company to set sail for the New World, and he thought his wealth had given him the right of leadership. Some of the men, fivescore and four all told, agreed with him. Wingfield did cut a dashing figure, Smith grudgingly conceded, in his perfectly polished steel armor. A foolish figure, too. One storm, one slip on a wet deck, and Edward-Maria Wingfield would find himself and his fine armor beautifying the sea floor. Smith had warned him not to wear the stuff aboard the Susan Constant. The warning had been scorned and dismissed, as ever.

  All the men were on their feet, swaying with less grace than Wingfield, even after so many months at sea. The deck was crowded – the whole ship was crowded. It was a freighter, a trade ship, and not a large one. Its hold was outfitted to transport goods, not men. The Virginia Company had purchased it for a song, and songs were a good bit less dear than gold. Beyond the crowd, Smith could make out the two sails of the Godspeed beating toward the deep green arc of a bay. A thrill of dense woodland spread north and south, fading far off into a blue haze. Southeastward, lagging behind, the Discovery was a smudge on the horizon.

  “Clackety-clack,” one of the men jeered, pantomiming his own hands in chains.

  “In fetters again, Smith,” another called – a smoother voice, one of the many useless gentlemen who plagued the voyage. A smoother voice, aye, but no less mocking. “Just like in the Ottoman, eh, lads?”

  The men laughed. No one believed him about what had happened after Antonia. He was already a slave when he’d been gifted to the Greek woman, taken as booty after a misstep with the Tartars. His too-trusting master had sent him to Constantinople to guard the door of his mistress. It wasn’t Smith’s fault that she had fallen in love, though what Antonia had seen in Smith, short and broad as a half-grown bear, he still couldn’t say. But once his master realized the truth, it had been the cane for Antonia – that soft white flesh raised in red stripes – and a sale into hard labor in the Crimea for Smith.

  Let the men laugh. Their scorn changed nothing. Their mockery was a good deal easier to bear than the iron collar round his neck had been. They did not believe him, when he told them how he had taken up his scythe in his Turkish master’s field, struck the man off his own horse, even as he rode to beat Smith for insolence. Let them call him a fool and a knave. Smith could still hear the rush of his scythe through the air, the crack of it upon the Turk’s head. He could see even now, five years later, the stillness of his master as he lay in the furrow of his own field. He recalled how his master’s horse had shifted and pranced when Smith had raised his foot to the stirrup and clambered aboard. Muscovy and freedom had been but one hard ride away.

  Laughter changed nothing.

  “And here we are at last, lads,” Wingfield said. He spoke in his gentleman’s voice, the orator’s voice, booming out across the waves as if an audience of fishes might hear and applaud. “The New World. Each man behold it – even,” with a glance at Smith, “mutineers – and give thanks to God.”

  “Amen,” the more pious sort murmured.

  Smith kept his eyes on Wingfield, but in his heart he did thank merciful Christ. They would go ashore soon, the locked box with sealed orders from the Virginia Company would be opened, and Wingfield would no longer hold sway, by order of their employers. Smith had no need to hope for it; he knew it would be so. God had shown him favor in the past, and He would again. Smith’s days of wearing chains, whether in the Crimea or Constantinople, or in a ship’s brig, were over.

  The Susan Constant breasted the last high wave at the bay’s mouth and sailed into smoother water. Wingfield set about ordering the men, placing them in ranks according to class, eyeing them with all the pomposity and bluster of a general. “We will send a party ashore,” the man declared, tugging at his copper wedge of beard.

  Smith shifted; his chains rattled. “I would advise against it.”

  Wingfield rounded on him. “Shut your mouth, Smith. I will deal with you later.”

  “No doubt,” said Smith, half feeling the bite of a rope around his neck, but unable to stop himself from speaking on. “Still, I would advise against it.”

  “I have no use for your advice.”

  “You might, if you had any sense.”

  Wingfield was on him in two furious strides. Smith did not cower, but he braced himself for a blow. It never came. Wingfield’s face was very close to his own, and his breath was hot with anger.

  “You tried to set my men against me…”

  “I did not, and they aren’t your men. You aren’t even the captain of this ship. It’s Newport’s command, or have you forgotten?”

  “Be silent. You incited mutiny. Why in God’s good name you believe I should have any use for your advice, or for any part of you, is a mystery to me. Now keep your mouth well shut when your betters speak.”

  Matthew Scrivener cleared his throat. “Your pardon, Master Wingfield. Perhaps we ought to hear Smith’s reasons.”

  Scrivener, sallow though he was from the long voyage, still held a gleam of bright awareness in his eye. He was possessed of that trait which was most scarce in gentlemen: intelligence.

  Wingfield’s eyes narrowed with anger, but Scrivener spoke on: “After all, sir, the box has not been opened. You are not the governor of the colony yet.”

  Wingfield fairly choked on his red-faced rage. Smith ran his fingers through the mess of his beard to hide his grin.

  “Very well. Advise us, John Smith, you font of wisdom.”

  “We don’t yet know the state of the naturals. Are they friends or foes? None of us can say. We ought to anchor in the bay, as near as we might come to the shore, and bide our time. The naturals will show themselves, soon or late. They know we are here already, or I’m a virgin girl.”
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  One of the men grabbed his cod through his stained breeches and waggled it, shouting to Smith a most indecent proposal.

  “The state of the naturals?” Wingfield sputtered. “Friends or foes? Don’t be a fool. You’ve read the reports from Spain. They’re eager to trade, and once we bring them the Christ, they’ll be more eager for us still. They’re savages, Smith. They need our guidance. They’re like babes in a wood, waiting for a kind hand to raise them up to civilization, to show them the light and the path.”

  “Truly?” said Smith. “You don’t suppose they may be hostile to us – see us as invaders?” He cast a significant glance about the crowd. There were plenty in London – even in King James’ court – who disparaged the very thought of colonization. If the Virginia Company had faced such widespread opposition to the colony – resistance on the grounds that England had no right to wrest from the naturals their own God-given land – then surely at least a few of the men on this voyage felt the same.

  “Don’t be naïve.” Wingfield pointed into the crowd. “Archer, choose five men. You’ll go ashore. I will need two sailors to row the landing boat. Smith, allow me to offer you advice in turn. Keep your useless thoughts to yourself unless the governor requests them.”

  Smith watched from the rail as Gabriel Archer directed his men into the boat; he stood well back from the lines when the sailors lowered the little vessel to the waves. A pair of oars ran out, and the silent sailors in Archer’s crew began to row.

  Scrivener made his way to Smith’s side. “The mutiny charges are thin, Smith; we all know that, even the men who hate you. We’ll be on land soon, and they will be in a generous mood. It will come to nothing – nothing but Wingfield’s spite.”