Sovereign of Stars

by Lavender Ironside

  Her heart quailed. She would have drawn rein then if she could, would have turned her troops around and ridden back to her side of the hills, packed up her encampment and sailed back to Waset in disgrace. But a wave of Egyptian chariots rolled behind her. They could not be stopped. Not now.

  A loud thunk sounded from the vicinity of her knees. She glanced down the side of her chariot, stared dumbly at the short, fire-blackened shaft of an arrow vibrating above the wheel. She peered up into the ravine walls in time to see the dark forms of Kushites dodge from a cleft in the rock, loose a barrage of arrows down upon the Egyptian force. Instinctively she ducked, though she was beyond the path of the arrows now. She looked back to see shafts bury themselves in the sandy floor of the ravine, or stick in chariots' sides. She watched as one sank itself into the chest of a spearman. He fell backward, his mouth open in a howl she could not hear. The horses of the cart behind him trampled over his body.

  “Amun!” she cried, her voice high and shrieking.

  Beside her, Nehesi grunted in response.

  They were nearly free of the ravine now, nearly upon the relative safety of the open plain. Ahead two troops of Kushites rose from behind ragged boulders that perched on either side of the ravine's lip. They seemed to move as slowly as lazy fish under water, raising their bows and aiming down upon her – upon the men who trusted her enough to follow her into this mad battle. She felt a scream rise in her throat, but before she could let it loose a high-pitched whistling sounded, and in the very instant the sound reached her ears an explosion of pain beat at her chest. Her left hand loosed its hold on the chariot's rail; she rocked back on her heels.

  I'm falling, she said to herself, quietly, sensibly. I'll fall and be trampled like that spearman.

  But Nehesi's thick dark hand closed on her wrist, jerked her upright, and she lurched forward to hang panting on the chariot's rail.

  The ravine walls vanished. Re's blessed heat smashed into her body, pummeled her, screamed along her limbs. Freed from the confining walls, her force fanned out across the plain, and the deafening rattle of horses in flight receded. She became aware of a nearer sound, rumbling like the wheels of her chariot.

  Nehesi was laughing.

  He pulled her to her feet, steadied her. “You didn't drop your spear,” he said. His face was strangely flushed. Battle heat, said a distant voice in her heart. He loves this madness.

  She groped at her chest with her spear hand, awkwardly; her fingers were locked stiffly around the shaft. She had to coax them to loosen enough that she might probe one or two into her wound. The arrow protruded from the center of her breastplate.

  I've been shot in the chest, she told herself in that same too-calm, too-sensible voice. And now I shall die.

  Without looking round from his horses, Nehesi grabbed the arrow in his fist. Hatshepsut wailed wordlessly at him, fearful of the pain, but he yanked and it came free of her armor easily. She stared in horror at the hole in her breastplate, expecting blood to gush like wine from a cask. But none came, and she prodded a finger in tentatively, felt only the sturdy padding of her vest.

  “Hah!” Nehesi tossed the arrow over the chariot's rail.

  “How did you know I wasn't wounded?”

  “No blood in your mouth.”

  “Amun's eyes – this is madness!”

  “I know,” Nehesi roared gleefully.

  “They shot me!”

  The Medjay laughed again, rasping and breathless. He pointed the horses' heads toward Ramose's chariot. The Kushite village was resolving now into distinct buildings – huts plastered with hard mud, the rounded lumps of ovens. She saw dim shapes move frantically between the houses.

  “These dogs would have killed the Pharaoh!” she shouted, and gritted her teeth.

  They overtook Ramose's chariot. The general stared at her levelly. Are you ready? his eyes seemed to say.

  In response she lifted her spear again. The plain came alive with the shouts of Egyptian soldiers. Hatshepsut fell upon Kush with her talons outstretched.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The lanes between the low, mud-plastered houses were narrower than the ravine. There was hardly enough room for a careening chariot. People scattered, screaming; mothers dodged into the darkness of houses with children in their arms. Hatshepsut jabbed her spear toward the men she saw, who lurched out of doorways with blades in their hands, hacking at her as she passed. Many times she felt the shiver of her chariot as the edges of Kushite blades crashed upon it, reaching for her flesh. But Amun was merciful, and she remained unharmed.

  The lane opened suddenly on a great courtyard. At the center was a communal well; a few scraggly trees sprouted from the hard earth around its mudbrick walls. A group of Kushite men gathered here, short swords raised before them, as Egyptian chariots spilled into the commons. They made for the men clustered around the well. Hatshepsut watched, quietly disengaged, her kas far away, as Egyptian spears cut down the Kushites with the swiftness of striking snakes. Soon the ground around the well was dark with bodies and blood.

  All at once, Nehesi gave a hoarse cry and one hand left the reins. A dark, thin, fast-moving blur bounced off the haunch of one of their horses. Hatshepsut seized the rein with her rail hand before it could slither over the rail and fall amid the horses’ pounding hooves. She returned the rein to Nehesi; his upper arm streamed blood.

  “An arrow.”

  “Who shot it?”

  She turned, tried to pick out the archer, but as they circled the commons all she could see was the dark shade of narrow lanes alternating with the sun-struck flanks of the houses. A slim form dropped from the flat of a roof into the commons, then darted into the nearest lane. The short dark curve of a horn bow was clutched in the man's hand.

  “There!”

  They gave chase. The streets were deserted now; the people of the village cringed inside their homes, hoping they would not be found. Ahead of them the bowman dodged around corners and through alleys; he was fast, and Nehesi was obliged to work the reins as deftly as a fisherman works his nets in a fast current. The horses roared deep in their throats as they responded to Nehesi's commands. The grating of their hooves on the packed earthen lane made a terrible sound, a dangerous rasp like a whetstone against a blade.

  At last the Kushite slid into an alleyway too narrow for the chariot to follow. Hatshepsut leaped from the platform and gave chase. She heard Nehesi bellowing for her to stop; she ignored him, slipped between the two houses with the sound of the fleeing man's feet ringing in her ears.

  The alley gave way to a tiny courtyard between four or five mudbrick homes. The courtyard was shaded by a small, wiry olive tree and by bright cloth canopies erected on poles. The man sprinted across the courtyard toward the door of one home. Hatshepsut could only presume that he thought he had lost the chariot in the village's lanes. He had not reckoned on its spearman following him to his own house.

  She pelted after him, her temples pounding with her fury. The man was tired; his feet were slow now. She shouted something at him, some curse, or nonsense – just a cry of vengeance, of rage at the arrow that had stuck in her own chest, at Nehesi's bloodied arm. The man spun to face her nearly in the dark, open doorway of one of the low-roofed homes.

  He was young – in truth, not much older than she. His eyes were wide with fright. He had no blade, only his bow; he raised it toward her, nocked an arrow, though surely he could see that Hatshepsut would be within the range of the spear she carried before he could fire. Her heart worked calmly, calculating the distance, her speed, registering the terror in the man's eyes. Somehow his fear seemed to fuel her, as a breeze enrages a fire. She looked on him and thought of Ankhhor, of Iset dead in her arms. You will die, that I might protect the ones I love, she told him silently, and, as he aimed his bow at her face, she thrust her spear hard into his gut.

  A hot spray fell upon her face, her hands. The man screamed, a terrible, grating sound, as he pitched backward with the force of her thrust. Hi
s arrow loosed over her shoulder.

  She followed her thrust with her shoulder and back, just as Nehesi had shown her, and stood over him to reclaim the spear from his body.

  Hatshepsut never knew what caused her to glance up then, into the doorway of the man's home. Some cruel god, no doubt, looking down on the scene with a cold, still heart.

  A woman stood trembling, a baby no older than Neferure clutched in her arms. Her mouth was open with an anguished scream, but Hatshepsut never heard it. She did not know whether the roaring in her ears drowned out the sound, or whether the woman was too choked with the force of her grief for her voice to raise beyond her own chest.

  Hatshepsut stared into the woman's eyes for one startled, pained moment. Then a rough hand seized her arm and she spun, raising her spear.

  “Hold!”

  It was Ramose.

  Hatshepsut let her spear arm fall. Her whole body shook violently; she wanted to tear the armor from her and throw herself to the ground. She was unspeakably thirsty; her tongue felt thick and useless in her mouth.

  Ramose took in the sight of the blood spattering her, glanced toward the dead bowman on the ground.

  The woman had vanished from the doorway. Thank the gods she is gone.

  “Your first kill,” Ramose said. He sounded as proud as a father.

  Bile rose to the back of Hatshepsut's throat. She blinked rapidly, turned away from him. Was this not why she had come? To win the loyalty of her own army? If I had been born male, I would not have to do this. It would be enough for me to wait on my throne while my men killed in my name.

  “Take his hand,” Hatshepsut commanded. She felt relief when her voice did not shake.

  She left Ramose bending over the man's arm with his knife drawn as she stumbled back to her chariot.

  **

  They had lost few Egyptians. Hatshepsut knew she ought to be proud of that fact, but her heart seemed able to do nothing but brood. She saw again and again the face of the woman in the doorway, and the babe clutched to her thin breast.

  I have done a great evil today. And yet what else could she do? Allow her own children to fall victim to the same type of beast who had taken Iset from her? You cannot have done evil, she reasoned with herself. Amun would have stopped you. If this had not been the god's will, you would not have succeeded.

  The Egyptian chariots made for the ravine, carrying the small treasures of their raid: sacks of grain and roots, jars of the sour beer Kushites preferred, a few bright pieces of cloth torn from the sunshades of courtyards and doorways. This had been only a small farming village. The material gains were slight, but through her pensive mood Hatshepsut saw that she had, after all, accomplished her goal. As their chariots passed hers, men raised their swords in salute to their Pharaoh, and cheered when they looked upon her blood-spattered face.

  At the mouth of the ravine they were greeted by white kilts and head-cloths amongst the rocks. Her own forces had taken the whole length of it, driving the Kushite sentries away. Nehesi, his arm bound tightly in linen, drove the horses at an easy walk. The poor, brave beasts' heads drooped with weariness. The coldness of evening shadow sank deep, making the skin beneath her armor clammy. She pulled the head-cloth from her brow and used it to scrub the sweat and blood of battle from her forehead, her burning cheeks.

  “You did well,” Nehesi murmured.

  Hatshepsut did not reply.

  As night fell they gained the Egyptian plain. Nehesi escorted her to her tent; she stood quietly while the women washed her, hurried the basins of water from her presence so she would not have to see how the water was tinged pink with the blood of the Kushite bowman. Hatshepsut refused her supper and crept into her bed, shivering and silent, while across the camp the sound of celebration rang beneath the stars.

  Not long after she had retired, she heard her women whispering. Two bodies slid into her bed, warm and gentle; hands caressed her shoulders, her back, brushed the tears from her face.

  “I miss the children,” Hatshepsut confessed in a voice barely louder than a sigh. She could not banish the image of the baby in the doorway, or its mother, from her thoughts. “Neferure – Thutmose. I want them.”

  “I know.” It was Tabiry. Her voice in the darkness was soothing as balm.

  “And Senenmut.” And Iset.

  “Yes,” Tabiry said.

  The woman lying at Hatshepsut's back threw a soft arm around her, pulled her tight against a comforting chest. “Weep, Great Lady. You are safe with us.” She recognized the voice of Keminub, the soft-eyed, silly-hearted woman who had sighed like a little girl when Hatshepsut had come south to bed her brother. Her voice and her smell were warm and spicy, comforting.

  “I killed a man.”

  “Ah, Great Lady.”

  “I never had before. Nebseny was different; he killed Iset. But that man – the Kushite – he was only trying to defend his family, his woman and his child.”

  They went on holding her in silence. Nearby in the camp a group of men burst into drunken song.

  When Sinuhe came home

  To the fair and green Black Land

  Oh, the Pharaoh bent his knee to him,

  When Sinuhe came home!

  Tabiry dabbed tears from Hatshepsut's face with a corner of the linen sheet.

  “I did not need to kill him. I did not need to follow him. I chased him down like a leopard after a gazelle. He was only one man – just a young father. His only sin was firing an arrow.”

  “He would have killed you, if he could have done so.”

  “Can I ever be who I was before, now that I have killed?”

  “This is what it means to be Pharaoh. Your brother never understood, but you see it plainly.”

  “I do not want to be Pharaoh. Not anymore.”

  Tabiry chuckled like a mawat at a child's foolish declarations. Hatshepsut felt warm lips press against her forehead. “You do not mean that. I know it.”

  Hatshepsut lapsed once again into silence. She is right. For she could still feel her kas burning with a rage that cut through her shock and horror and grief. No one will take my throne from me. It is mine. Amun gave it to me.

  This is what it means to be Pharaoh – to be the son of the god.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hatshepsut's chariot swung onto the main avenue of the cowering city at an undaunted trot. Above the rhythm of her horses' hooves she could hear Egyptian voices raised in cheers. Beyond the flat roofs of the mud-washed homes, the spindly dark point of a pyramid rose into the air, and about its peak billowed a cloud of dust shining in the mid-day sun. It was from the pyramid's base that the cheering rose. Not a single man accosted Hatshepsut from the houses lining the broad street. The city was thoroughly conquered.

  It was her fifth victory in the kingdom of Kush. Five days she had been in the southernmost reaches of her empire, and five settlements had fallen to her spear: the tiny farming village first, but each victory larger, until at last she had taken a city of at least five thousand. Each day she rose from her camp brimming with fire, stoking her wrath with the sharp pain of memory: Iset's face, her body, her voice raised in song. She thought of her children, the feel of them in her arms, and strapped her ferocity to defend them like armor to her chest. Each morning she set out with her men at her heels, prepared to fight and wound and kill if it meant the army would be hers, loyal and ready to do her bidding no matter what whispering dogs like Ankhhor might tell them, now or in years to come.

  But each night when she returned she fell into her bed buffeted by grief. She wrestled with it deep in the innermost seclusion of her heart, that quiet, dark place where her kas lived. She fought to overcome a suffocating weight of horror, always the same weight, always the same horrors, each night as the camp grew more wild with celebration. For now she understood what it meant to rule a kingdom. Now she knew that the Pharaoh must wield not only wealth and fair judgment and cleverness, but terror as well, when the gods required it. Each was but a tool in her hand, to c
arve the kingdom into whatever design best pleased Amun. And she must raise and wield each tool with equal ease, and never let the weight of her burden show on her face.

  This would be her duty and her privilege, until the gods called her to the Field of Reeds.

  She found the certainty of her task exhausting, and yet somehow exhilarating, too.

  Hatshepsut's horses broke from the rows of shops and homes into a wide common square. At its heart rose the pyramid. Quarried from black stone, far too narrow at its base, it rose to an eerily slender point in the burning mid-day sky. A short hall, roofed in black, protruded from its foot. The hall was flanked by two pylons not unlike those which guarded Egyptian temples, yet they were far too alien in their darkness. The deep, light-eating blackness of the monument seemed to spurn the very idea of Re.

  The conquered men of the city crouched near the mouth of the pyramid, kneeling in the dust with their heads bowed. They numbered perhaps a hundred, all told.

  Hatshepsut landed from her chariot and paced the line of Kushite men, gazing down upon their stooped shoulders and heaving chests. Ramose joined her. He squinted as he approached, for the sun glinted sharply off her long tunic of polished bronze scales and the shining pinnacle of her bright blue war crown. She had worn the ceremonial battle garb of the Pharaoh since her second conquest. It was heavier than she could believe, and the dragging weight of it surprised her each time she put it on. Yet once she was in the thick of battle she did not seem to notice its weight or heat.

  “When they heard you had given word that their women and children were not be harmed, they fell back here, to defend their god,” Ramose said.

  “Dedwen.”

  When she said the god's name two or three of the nearest Kushites looked up in surprise. The glinting in their eyes quickly turned to anger. She could see it burning, this rage at hearing the name of their god on the tongue of the Egyptian king. And an uglier emotion dwelt in their hard stares: loathing for the fact – so obvious now, in the slenderness of her form, the lightness of her features, the pitch of her voice – that the new Pharaoh was a woman.