King and Goddess

by Judith Tarr

  “I had been thinking,” she said, almost as if to Senenmut, “that I might send an expedition to this fabled country. Everyone seems to have heard of it, and its spices are famous, but few have ever been there.”

  Senenmut was frowning. He looked angry. Nehsi suspected why; and in a moment knew surely. “Would you lead such an expedition?” the king asked.

  “In a moment,” Nehsi answered promptly. And so he would. Living in Thebes, ranging the Two Lands in the course of his duties, nonetheless he never quite lost the desire to see another country. His own Nubia he knew, having been there more than once. But to go farther, even as far as Punt—“In less than a moment, lady. When would you like me to leave?”

  She laughed. Her scribe did not. He had wanted this, then. Was he weary of her? Bored with his myriad of titles? Greedy for yet another? Ambassador to Punt would be a new one, and unusual.

  Nehsi did not see great profit in asking. The king, who seemed oblivious to her lover’s sulkiness, said to Nehsi, “You may want to delay a little, if only to gather together your expedition. It’s a long road, and little known, except among the spice-merchants. You’ll need ships to sail there, and weapons for defense against raiders at sea and on the shore, and—”

  “—gifts for the rulers of that country, and bribes for those lords and robbers whom we meet along the way, and a courtier or two, and guides, and—”

  “—servants, soldiers, scribes.” Hatshepsut loved to play the game of finishing one another’s thought. She also loved to win it, to end with a flourish. This once, he let her. “And interpreters, of course. We mustn’t forget those.” She paused, sighed. “Oh, I wish I could go with you!”

  “You could, you know,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No. If the king comes, however small the army she brings with her, it’s no longer an embassy; it’s an invasion. I don’t want to conquer Punt. I want to trade with it. Exchange gifts and courtesies. Grow rich exchanging Egyptian gold for boatloads of myrrh.”

  “But if you conquer it,” he said, “it’s all yours for the taking.”

  “Conquest is expensive,” said Hatshepsut. “Trade is much simpler. Then if the people who trade with us are intrigued enough by what we offer, they’ll ask to see more of us. They’ll study us. Imitate us. And in the end, perhaps, become us—ask to be made a part of our greater kingdom.”

  “That is . . . interesting,” Nehsi said.

  “Ridiculous, you mean,” said Senenmut, more waspish even than usual. “It’s not a thought most people could have. Gods think like this, you know. It’s men who have to ramp about with weapons, conquering people who then devote their lives to begging for gold and grain and guards against their enemies.”

  “I meant,” said Nehsi, “that it’s a most unusual and intriguing way to think. Slower, too, than war; but as her majesty says, much less expensive.”

  “Do you accuse her majesty of stinginess?”

  “Certainly not,” Nehsi said calmly. “I find her a very practical and exemplary image of a king.”

  Senenmut regarded him narrow-eyed, but he had a face that none could read unless he wished it. Which, at the moment, he did not.

  The king’s scribe, that man of innumerable titles, gave way with poor enough grace. He would not forgive anyone who won this prize.

  Nehsi could not have said that he cared overmuch. He was going adventuring—he, who had dreamed of such things when he was young, and yearned for them through all his years of being the king’s good and faithful servant.

  38

  The expedition into Punt was a mighty undertaking. Nehsi saw it begun in time so brief that those who were not mute with the shock of it were screaming in protest.

  He heeded neither faction. It would be done in the time he had allotted. Therefore it was done.

  He had learned that from the king: to expect the impossible, to consider no alternative but that it be done, and thus to see it accomplished. Anything less encouraged people—courtiers and servants in particular—to grow slack.

  They called him a hard man and worse, but on the day that he had set for the departure, the whole of the embassy was ready and waiting when he came out to his ship. It was a sea-expedition, this, north down the river of Egypt and across through the channel that had been dug by one of the old kings, that was most passable when the river ran at the flood. It ended in the eastward sea, on which his ships would sail southward into the land of myrrh, where the incense-trees grew.

  The king and her ministers bade farewell to him at the quay of Thebes. Where another king might have put on his full panoply, so much gold that he could barely move, she chose the starkness of simplicity: white gown, pectoral like gilded vulture-wings embracing the disk of the sun, the Two Crowns. He in kilt and cloth headdress and heavy golden collar looked well beside her, and he knew it as well as she.

  Amid all the people who had come crowding to see the ships sail into the incense-country, they two could be alone if they chose. No one could hear them through the roar of the throng, but they heard one another clearly enough, her voice pitched clear and his drum-deep.

  They did not say much, at that. There was nothing that needed saying; not between them who had been friends from childhood.

  Still they dallied, while Nehsi’s mariners readied the ship, and the last of the embassy straggled aboard, and the people of Thebes shouted and cheered. Then there were only the two of them, and her flock of ministers growing perceptibly bored. Nehsi was aware of his captain behind him, standing quietly but being conspicuous about it.

  “The wind is freshening,” Nehsi said, “and blowing for once from the south. Best we go.”

  “Yes,” said the king. But she did not move, and neither did he.

  He swallowed. His throat was tight. He had not been apart from her for any great while since they were children. He had lived as close to her as her shadow. Even when in late years he had traveled about the Two Kingdoms, acting in her name, he was never truly parted from her: she was Egypt, and while he was in Egypt his soul was never far from her.

  Now he was leaving Egypt. He would not see her for months, seasons—a year, perhaps, or more.

  He should have thought of that when he accepted this embassy. It would not have stopped him, but he would have had time to prepare. He might not have needed to stand here, as purely lost as he had not been since he was weaned, and with the same preposterous desire to open his mouth and howl.

  Which of them moved first, he did not know. The embrace was swift, breathless, bruising-tight. Anyone who still believed that they were lovers would be gratified, surely.

  Her scribes and historians no doubt would write lengthy speeches for both of them, full of beautiful words and elaborate phrases. In the plain and living world, she said simply, “Stay safe. Come back to me. May the gods keep you.”

  “May the gods watch over you,” he said. He bowed low, for the edification of those who watched, and rose, and turned on his heel. He did not look back. He felt her eyes on him, distinct as the touch of her hand, but he kept his own fixed on his ship. The moment his feet were firm on the deck, the captain sang out to the oarsmen.

  They backed swiftly from the quay, came about, turned prow to the north. The rest of the ships followed, precise and orderly before the king’s face, catching the wind in their sails, riding the river toward the land of Punt.

  ~~~

  Nehsi could retreat to his cabin and snivel because he had left his beloved king behind; or he could stand on the deck in the shade of the canopy, with the wind blowing back the lappets of his headdress, and let the people of Thebes see what a bold brave explorer he was. The morning was splendid, cool and clear, and the ship ran well, making good speed down the river. He dared not look back to see if the king still waited by the shore, gazing after him; if he did that, he would lose his famous composure. He kept his face turned to the north, and let it bathe in wind and sun.

  Once they were underway, the crew settled into a kind of
ease. They were good men; had been together on this ship for seasons now, sailing the trade-routes in the king’s service. They were proud that she had chosen them for this voyage. He saw no sullen faces, no men slacking their work or refusing to move at their captain’s command.

  He nodded, approving. They would do well.

  Of the embassy he was less certain. The scribes were of his own choosing, with Senenmut’s help—the king’s scribe had never been one to let jealousy interfere with his competence. Nehsi did not think that they would fail him. One of them, the youngest, earnest and shakily brave, was sitting in a corner of the deck, papyrus on knees, scribbling busily: recording the departure, Nehsi supposed, and embellishing it for posterity.

  The servants, too, he trusted: they were his own. The guards were men of his old company in the palace, under a captain he had trained himself. The nobler members of the embassy had firm instructions to obey Nehsi in all things; they might even do it, in fear of the king and, more to the point, the king’s large and formidable ambassador.

  Well, then, he thought as he surveyed his domain. It all seemed in excellent order, every man in his place. He had nothing to fret over.

  Unless he chose to trouble himself with the one member of the embassy who was not of his choosing, the one whom the king had given him on the advice of the House of Life. It was a strange choice for those firm followers of tradition, but it was, they declared, the best in the circumstances.

  The interpreter on whom he must rely in the land of Punt was of that blood and nation, perhaps even kin to its king, though Nehsi had no certain knowledge of that. It was a woman, which did not dismay him who served the king’s majesty of Egypt. Her father had been an Egyptian of the minor nobility, her mother a woman of Punt whom that lordling had met on an expedition there, become enamored of, and brought home to be his wife.

  She looked Egyptian enough aside from the deeper reddish duskiness of her skin. The people of Punt were not like Nubians; they were closer to Egyptians, and most probably were kin.

  She was not displeasing to look at. In fact she was a beauty. Nor did her youth dismay him: she was a woman grown, if a very young one, and learned, could read and write the language of Egypt. She was altogether an admirable creature.

  With one singular exception. She had, from the moment she met him, said not one word to him. To others she spoke easily enough, if never volubly. She had proved to the satisfaction of the scribes, one or two of whom had a smattering of the language of Punt, that she spoke that tongue well and fluently; and the ship’s captain, whose name was Sinuhe, agreed. But to Nehsi she said nothing.

  When she was brought to him only the day before, and presented as the interpreter whom he had been awaiting, she had looked him hard and steadily in the face, then bowed to the exact degree that was proper for a woman of lesser rank before a prince of Egypt. The scribe from the House of Life who brought her there, who happened to be her uncle, did all the talking. Her name was Bastet, which was not terribly common in this age of the world: fathers were usually more careful of naming their daughters after goddesses.

  Whether she had grown to fit the name or the name had grown to fit her, it was apt. She had a cat’s smooth grace and watchful silence, and, he suspected, not a little of its ferocity.

  While her uncle chattered on about her father and her mother and her upbringing and her erudition, all of which he proclaimed to be most excellent, she knelt in front of Nehsi with her little cat-face lowered and her hands resting on her knees, saying not one word. Nor did she speak thereafter, even when he spoke to her, calling her by name. Her uncle, who though an incessant babbler did not seem to be a fool, said, “Don’t mind her, I beg you, great prince. She’s shy, but she gets over it. She’ll be as voluble as you could ask for, once she stands in front of the King of Punt.”

  “One would hope so,” Nehsi said. He tried again to startle a word out of her. “You! Girl. Did a lizard run away with your tongue?”

  She kept her head bowed, her body quiet. She said nothing.

  “She does this sometimes,” her uncle said. “You mustn’t mind her, my lord. She’s been a little spoiled. Not sheltered, mind you, lord—she’s been raised as free almost as a boy, though with the delicacy proper to a girl. She does know proper manners; she just chooses, sometimes, not to show them.”

  Indeed. Once her uncle had been escorted out and the girl—Bastet; of all names to give a child—turned over to the servants to feed and look after until the ships should sail, she proved herself friendly enough to her fellows. All but Nehsi.

  Maybe she simply did not like Nubians. Or maybe she was afraid of him—though she looked a bold brash creature, from all that he could see. He frightened children sometimes, as big as he was, and dark, and not inclined to smile unless he had good reason.

  Whatever caused her to do it, Bastet the interpreter sailed on his ship but had as little as possible to do with him. That would have to change. When they came to Punt, she would be interpreting for the people of that land to the commander of this expedition. It would be embarrassing if she declined to speak out of fear or dislike.

  He could hope that she would warm to him, or at least bring herself to speak a word or two. To that end, the first night of the voyage, when they had moored in good harborage a gratifying distance downriver from Thebes, Nehsi summoned her to take the evening meal with him in his cabin high up on the ship’s deck.

  He was rather surprised that she obeyed the summons. It would have been like what he had observed, for her to refuse. When she came, she was dressed handsomely but not elaborately, with good sense for what a woman should bring to wear on a long voyage: good plain linen, a collar of faience beads, a gleam of gold rings in her ears, and a wig of good quality, well made. She had scented herself with oil of roses: a rare choice, and appealing.

  She brought with her a companion, one who shocked Nehsi into speechlessness.

  “Papa,” said his daughter Tama, whom he had left safe, he thought, in the strong arms of her nurse. “Bastet said I had to stop hiding in the linen-chest. She said you’d whip me till I bleed. You won’t do that, will you, Papa? I’ll scream.”

  “What in the name of Set and Sobek—” Nehsi drew a breath that was sharp enough to cut. “What were you doing in the linen-chest?”

  “Coming with you,” Tama answered. “Nurse said I had to take a good look at you, so I could remember. You aren’t going to come back, she said. You’re going to die. I don’t want you to die.”

  “I am not going to die,” Nehsi said through gritted teeth. That idiot of a nurse, however, when he got his hands on her . . .

  Tama shook her head at him. “Nurse said you are. You’re going to Punt. Punt is far away. It’s not even Egypt.”

  “I am not going to fall off the edge of the world,” Nehsi said. “I promise you. Have I ever broken a promise?”

  “No,” said Tama.

  “Well then,” Nehsi said.

  She thought about that. To do it, she climbed into his lap and wrapped arms about him, as far as she could reach, and rested warm and faintly milk-scented against his breast. He looked down at the top of her head in heart-deep love and profound exasperation.

  “Gods,” he said. “I have to find a boat to send her back. A servant whom I can trust, to make sure that she doesn’t slip away and follow. A guard or six to keep her safe.”

  “I wouldn’t bother,” said Bastet. At last: words from her, and perfectly matter-of-fact, too. “I’ll look after her. How much trouble can she be?”

  Nehsi startled himself, and probably the girl as well, with a snort of laughter. “You see her here, and you can ask that? She had to have planned this for days, and like a general of armies, too, to know just which chest was going in my ship, and just when to hide in it and not be detected. How did you find her?”

  “I was hungry,” Tama said in his lap. “I came out to get something to eat. Bastet was watching. She knew I was in there, she said.”

  Nehsi
turned his hard stare on Bastet. “How did you know that?”

  He was sure that she was going to go silent on him again, but for a miracle she answered. “I knew where I would be if you were my father and I were determined to keep you from dying in a foreign country.”

  “But how did you—”

  “I knew,” said Bastet in a tone as flat as it was final.

  Nehsi opened his mouth to press her further, but desisted. Those whom the gods spoke to, who knew things that others did not know, were not always inclined to explain themselves to common mortals.

  Of course she might have seen the imp climbing into the chest, and omitted to mention it.

  He would not pursue that, he decided. Not for the moment. The servants were waiting for them, shifting from foot to foot in the way they had when dinner was growing cold. His cook was already beside himself; and when Merenptah was upset, all the servants suffered.

  Nehsi allowed the meal to be served on the deck of his ship, each dish brought steaming from the kitchen-boat moored alongside, passed over the sides by servants with deft hands and an unwavering eye. Tama partook as the others did, with exemplary manners. Under any other circumstances she would have made her father proud.

  After a fine roast duck, fresh-caught on the way, and one of Merenptah’s famous cakes, Nehsi should have been free to rest as he pleased. Instead he contemplated his scapegrace daughter and this oddity of an interpreter, and sighed.

  “To be sure,” Bastet said, echoing his thought with uncanny accuracy, “it would be a great inconvenience to send the child home. If I agree to look after her—since I have little else to do before we come to Punt—surely she can stay.”

  Nehsi did not like the shape or the taste of that at all. And yet it was tempting. It was easy; it was simple. It put him out very little.

  Still. A child so young on a voyage so long, into countries little known, but known to be dangerous . . .

  “I’ll guard her,” said Bastet. “I’ll look after her, protect her. I can shoot; I’m good at it. You just ate the duck I shot this morning.”