Sovereign of Stars

by Lavender Ironside

  Before the chancellor could do more, though, a stir of activity rose. Bita-Bita craned her neck to see, and said in hasty Egyptian, “Many of them are speaking two names, Great Lady. Parahu, and Ati.”

  “Important folk,” Ineni suggested.

  “King,” Hatshepsut said. “I heard the word king, did I not, Bita-Bita? And queen.”

  As a child’s sand-palace crumbles at the touch of water, so the crowd of Puntites fell, dropping to their knees on the sandy expanse of the beach, heads bowed and hands outstretched. As they lowered, Hatshepsut could see into the crowd’s depths. It parted before the progress of a man, wizened, small in stature, his close-cropped, tightly curled hair showing beneath a red cloth cap. His beard was likewise shot with white, and curved upward at its point, like the beards of many of the Puntite men in the crowd. The well-stretched lobes of his ears swung with golden bangles; about his shoulders he wore a wide collar, similar in style to those of fashionable Egyptian courtiers. But where an Egyptian collar was made of gold and precious stone, or electrum foil shaped into dozens of tiny flowers, the man’s was made of feathers – hundreds of iridescent feathers, catching the light in ripples of blue, violet, green. The cloth wound about his waist was white, embroidered brightly at its hem with images of running animals whose forms Hatshepsut did not quite recognize. Each stride jangled, for one leg was bound with hundreds of metal rings – copper, silver, gold, above the knee and below it. He carried a staff as he walked, ebony worn smooth and shiny from many years of handling. He did not seem to need the thing for support, and Hatshepsut understood that the staff carried ceremony, reverence – as her own crook and flail carried reverence. The man cried out as he went, his voice nasal and high, brandishing his black staff, shouting words Bita-Bita struggled to interpret: admonishments to be wary of him, for he carried great magic in his bones.

  Behind the man, a tiny white donkey moved with mincing steps, its neck thrown back with the strain of carrying its burden through the sand. For on its back rode the largest and strangest woman Hatshepsut had ever seen. Her shoulders were round and broad, slick and shining with some aromatic oil that caused her skin to glow like polished wood. Her breasts, exposed, hung pendulous against her body, each one fleshy and wide, the large nipples bearing gleaming golden studs. Her abdomen sat upon itself in neat stacks of flesh. When the king in his feather collar halted, so did the struggling white donkey, and, with an air of immense dignity, its rider dismounted. Standing, the woman’s hips and thighs were especially large; they soared from her body, clearly visible beneath the sheer weave of her bright yellow kilt, the flesh dented and pocked as the sand was marked from the activity of so many feet. The woman slapped her thighs, drawing all eyes to her body; she turned slightly, as if giving Hatshepsut a better view of her full majesty. Her buttocks jutted well out from her back, and gleamed in the sun beneath the kilt. When the woman looked frankly up and down the length of Hatshepsut’s frame, her keen, wide-set eyes darkened with something close to mockery, and the full lips twisted into an appraising sneer. Hatshepsut was not accounted the slenderest woman in Egypt, but beside this woman’s size and forcefully female shape, the Pharaoh felt positively puny.

  “He is Parahu, king of Punt,” Bita-Bita said, crouching beside Hatshepsut in a half-bow. “And she,” the girl indicated the great, strutting woman with a quick shift of her eyes, “is Ati, his queen.”

  **

  Decades had passed since Punt had enjoyed major trade with Egypt. Parahu was eager for the gifts Hatshepsut bore. Once her mission had been made plain – to give Kushite gold, and a goodly sum of it, in exchange for the wealth of Punt – its fine woods, its animals for Egypt’s menageries, and most of all the resins, incense, and myrrh trees so beloved by Amun – the people on the strand set up a great cheer, some of them breaking out into a lively, hopping dance right there on the sand. Hatshepsut’s men caught the festive mood, and when the ships had been made secure the whole gathering, Egyptian and Puntite, went clapping and singing songs by turn, each people doing their best to pick up the words and the tunes of the others’ music, all encompassed by a feeling of brotherhood and, for the Egyptians who would not be required to return to their boats for several days, relief.

  They were led through the grassy dunes to the edge of the forest, where the village of Parahu resolved out of the gloom like a vision in a Shemu heat-dream. Naked children swung from the branches of trees, dropped down to dodge between great trunks that stood in groups of four, stripped of bark, stoic and still like the legs of oxen waiting at the plow. It took Hatshepsut some time to realize that the trunks held aloft platforms, and on the platforms, half-concealed by the lower reaches of the forest’s canopy, stood strange houses made of mud. They were heaped and rounded like bee hives, each one with a little door covered by a cloth. Thin wisps of smoke rose from some houses to dissipate among the treetops. Near each home’s base-poles stood smaller mud hives; a girl bent over one, feeding sticks into its depths, and a shower of sparks rose up from the oven to dance about her face.

  They gained an open clearing, ringed all about by the elevated houses and the dark sentinel trees. In the midst of the clearing stood a fire-ring as wide as a man was tall, lined with large white stones and heaped inside with piles of ash. The ground around the ring was well trampled, worn featureless by generations of feet. Hatshepsut was reminded of the courtyard in Kush where she had conquered Dedwen. This, then, was the communal meeting-place of Parahu’s village. The king of Punt circled the unlit fire-ring, his arms thrown wide, his black stick waving. He cried out in his strange, high voice. Bita-Bita leaned close to offer her translation. There was to be a celebration, it seemed, to welcome the She-King of Egypt to Punt’s glorious shores. The people cheered, the women trilling a piercing, wordless song of joy. Hatshepsut grinned.

  A retinue of young women led her along a dark forest path wet with dew and rich with the scent of loam. They came upon the four posts of a Puntite house, and indicated with gestures that Hatshepsut should climb up into it via a crude ladder made of lashed wood. She stared up at the platform, which seemed to stretch above her, tripling its height.

  “Nehesi, you will go up first.”

  “And leave you here with these strangers?”

  “I’ll be all right. The sharpest weapon any of them has is a feather fan. An anyhow, I have Ineni and Senenmut here.”

  “Stewards! What good are stewards?”

  “What good is a chancellor? Climb.”

  Grumbling, Nehesi tested the ladder with his hands and the toes of his sandals, bounced against it to be sure of its solidity, then climbed gingerly up to the platform. He crawled through the rounded door of the mud hut. Hatshepsut waited until his head and shoulders reappeared; he motioned to her, and she made her way up the ladder, cringing at the way it wobbled faintly beneath her. Arms and legs trembled from the effort by the time she gained the platform. It was made of split logs laid side by side, lashed together by some tough, fibrous vine. The platform created a small porch before the door of the mud hut. Nehesi was holding aside the door-cloth, which was, she could now see, made of thick wool colored a deep purple-blue. Hatshepsut crawled inside.

  The interior was not at all unpleasant, for all the humbleness of its outer walls. The mud was thick and dry, quite pleasantly cool. It trapped the ample shade up among the leaves of the nearby trees, and the sweet smell of the treetops, too – exceptionally fragrant growth, as pleased the god Amun. Even Nehesi could stand to his full height inside. Many soft mats, covered in woven wool bright with unfamiliar patterns, lay along the walls. The inner walls themselves were painted with bold shapes, some of them recognizable as dancing women, men wielding spears and short bows, gods in postures of supernatural power. Other shapes were painted only, it seemed, for the harmony of their proportions: rows of circles, squares within squares, a line of triangles dancing now on their bases, now on their tips, like pyramids frolicking in a child’s dream. At the door’s threshold an intricate w
hite line writhed in a circle, twined back upon itself. Bita-Bita whispered that it was a charm to keep tree-snakes away. In the center of the floor, below the highest point of the humped roof, sat a low table of ebony wood and several three-legged stools. The table was piled with fruits Hatshepsut did not recognize, jars of sweet-smelling liquid, tiny eggs with pale blue shells in bowls made of slick-polished wood.

  Bita-Bita ducked into the house and gazed about, smiling. She was followed by a Puntite girl of a similar age, who immediately prostrated herself full length across the log floor, her fingers outstretched toward Hatshepsut. The girl murmured a few words, and Bita-Bita said, “She has been given to you as your servant for the days you will spend in Punt, Great Lady. And this house – this house is very fine, and belongs to Queen Ati, who has loaned it to your pleasure, although you are quite small for a woman, even a king-woman.”

  Hatshepsut grinned wryly. “The Queen is too kind, and very stately. I am humbled before her obvious majesty. What is the girl’s name?”

  “Kani,” said Bita-Bita, and soon Hatshepsut set Kani about the task of making her own majesty more obvious, in accordance with Puntite custom.

  By the time bells rang near the whitestone firepit – an announcement of sunset and the feast to come, Kani said – Hatshepsut looked as close to the Puntite conception of royalty as she could manage. She wore a knee-length kilt of red wool, undeniably itchy compared to the fine linens of Egypt, and two cuffs of iridescent feathers around her wrists. She would not allow Kani to pierce her nipples with her long, translucent fishbone needle; instead, she had Senenmut fetch from their own trade goods several lengths of golden chain. Draped round her neck, the chains did the trick of adorning her breasts with the requisite gold, and spared her the pain of diplomacy. Baubles of glimmering white shell were tied to the braids of her wig, and at last Kani painted her face, rubbing an intense red stain into her cheeks and onto her lips. It had a bitter taste that made her mouth tingle; when Bita-Bita explained that it was made by crushing up the bodies of certain insects, Hatshepsut restrained herself from shoving away the little pot of dye in Kani’s hands. Brushing powder of scarabs’ wings onto her eyelids was one thing. Smearing crushed grubs across her lips was quite another.

  “You look breathtaking, Great Lady,” Senenmut said, his voice dancing with laughter.

  Parahu’s men kindled a great fire in the central pit. Hatshepsut was ushered to a low-backed ebony throne beside Queen Ati’s own. The Queen was adorned simply by Egyptian standards, with a necklace of golden discs and the bright yellow cloth she seemed to prefer, a skirt of open weave loosely draped across the thighs of which she was so proud. A yellow ribbon lay flat across her lined forehead, holding back hundreds of thin black braids. Close to the woman now, Hatshepsut was startled to note that two blue-green lines had been permanently tattooed around Ati’s mouth, accentuating the woman’s natural, stern frown. Ati needed no ostentatious finery to prove her power. She wore it in her very flesh, in the broadness of her face, the forceful jut of her chin.

  Course after course was brought before the royal thrones, proffered up on great platters held by pretty girls with wide, laughing smiles. The deep ruddy glow of the firelight, its constant movement, had a soothing, intoxicating effect. Despite the foreignness of the feast, Hatshepsut found each dish more delicious than the last. She sampled round-bodied fish with intensely salty flesh, charred in their own crisp skins; gamey bits of meat on skewers, the name of which Bita-Bita translated rather hesitantly as “tree rat”. A dish of some hard, green fruit with grainy flesh pleased her, for it was drizzled in honey and sprinkled with the spicy petals of an unknown flower. There was gazelle meat cooked with the pods of red peppers, fiery on her tongue; bread made from the tubers of a woodland plant; songbirds stewed until even their bones were tender, and hardly crunched in her teeth. A girl unfolded shiny, broad leaves of a tree, fire-singed. The opened packet set free a gout of steam, exposing the delights inside: several fat white grubs as large as Hatshepsut’s thumb. Feeling brave, she popped one into her mouth and was surprised that it tasted creamy and mild, and was not unlike the fine cones of cheese she favored at her own feasts. She turned nothing away, but partook openly, expressing her approval to the Queen in ever more earnest gestures and the few Puntite words she had.

  Even more than the food, the entertainment entranced her. Punt had no lack of fine performers. Troupes of adolescent boys danced, stomping, their bodies trembling with dramatic tension as they enacted a tale of bravery with well-rehearsed coordination. A chorus of girls sang in the firelight, whirling and clapping, their colorful skirts flying, their voices high and sweet. Tumblers broke from the great ring of feasters who gathered just beyond the reach of the light, springing hand and foot across the courtyard, leaping and twisting in the air, and the flicker of the fire seemed to still them against the night sky so they hung in lively tableaus like scenes on a temple wall. With each new performance, Hatshepsut cheered her approval. And Ati, her imposing body overfilling the throne beside her, softened her aloof arrogance, eying Hatshepsut with reluctant approval.

  Between a course of sweet nut milk drunk from salty shells and a trio of women playing on reed flutes, Hatshepsut ventured to look Queen Ati full in the face. The woman returned the stare, unblinking and direct. Her eyes, wide and dark as the mouths of tombs, reflected back at Hatshepsut the hypnotic dancing of the firelight. Ati’s red-stained lips tightened in slow deliberation, darkening the lines around her mouth with shadow. She leaned toward Hatshepsut as if drawn suddenly toward an irresistible prize.

  Hatshepsut, forgetting her careful diplomacy, shrank back on her ebony throne, momentarily seized by terror. In another moment the tumblers began their performance again, and she forced her eyes away from Ati’s face, fixed a smile onto her lips with effort. She could still feel the Queen’s stare prickling along her skin.

  **

  The days that followed were rapid and wild with activity. At the base of an especially large and well-tended hut, in the growing humid heat of the Puntite afternoon, Hatshepsut presented her full array of Egyptian treasure. Parahu and Ati sat once more on their ebony thrones, which had been carried and placed here, before the stateliest of their royal dwellings, by two strong young men with the upcurved beards characteristic of their land – sons of the Queen, Bita-Bita said. In a grove beyond the great house’s pilings, the little white donkey grazed in the undergrowth, tethered to a tree.

  Ineni directed the laying out of Kushite gold in all its forms for Parahu’s inspection, while Hatshepsut stood by unmoving, her arms folded beneath her breasts, supervising the offering. Ineni presented plates and cups, bracelets and chains, figurines of animals and lesser gods. There was gold in flat discs to be used by smiths as raw material; gold tainted by copper so it shone with a pinkish hue; gold in thick nodules, pulled straight from the earth. And he offered, too, several large baskets of turquoise, unworked and ready for a craftsman’s touch. Ineni licked one raw stone and held it out in the sun, so Parahu could see the rich quality of its color.

  The king of Punt seemed beyond pleased. He held himself in regal stillness, nodding lightly at the offering, his metal leg-rings chiming softly whenever he shifted this way or that to gain a better view. But Hatshepsut did not miss the glimmer in Parahu’s eye, and indicated to Senenmut with the raising of her brows that they ought to bargain well. In the end, Parahu agreed to a healthy quantity of incense – resins of three types – along with a brace of baboons trained to the leash, twenty cords of precious ebony wood and twenty-three of cedar, several tusks of elephant ivory, and a selection of precious oils in well-made clay jars. Best of all, though, were the trees. Ineni and Senenmut secured the king’s permission to transport enough living myrrh trees to line the avenue leading to Djeser-Djeseru. Amun’s walkway would bloom again with fragrant, green life.

  Nehesi set about organizing squadrons of men to measure out their share of Parahu’s stores of resin and fashion secure cages for t
he baboons. Day by day Hatshepsut oversaw the preparations and the collection of her goods, busying herself with the work. It seemed no matter where her work took her, moving from this group of men to that, approving the packing and loading of the fragrant myrrh into bundles and baskets, Queen Ati lurked somewhere nearby, perched on the back of her sweating donkey, watching Hatshepsut’s movements with quiet intensity in those dark, deep-set eyes.

  Soon messenger girls began arriving at Hatshepsut’s hut, begging the She-King’s pardon for their intrusion, but wouldn’t she please come share her supper with Queen Ati? Hatshepsut scuffled her feet against the snake-charm set in the floor and told Kani to refuse the invitation with regrets. For she could not forget the way Ati had lurched toward her suddenly at the feast, her eyes alight with an unsettling greed. Hatshepsut was all too aware that she was in the god’s land, and the divine drew as close in this place as in a temple. Ati was a force Hatshepsut could not quite bring herself to face.

  One night when a messenger lobbed some insult at Kani and the two fell to pulling each other’s hair, screeching like cats, Hatshepsut realized she could push propriety no further. Ati was growing impatient, and her brusqueness was rubbing off on her servant girls. The following day Hatshepsut’s men would depart for the deep woodlands with their shovels and coarse linen slings, to dig up and bind the precious myrrh trees, roots, soil, and all. Hatshepsut would not accompany them, as such work was unfit for a king’s hands. She was as sensitive to image as always, and knew she could not twist her way into accompanying them into the forest – not without making herself seem even more peculiar than she was already. There could be no more avoiding the Queen of Punt, or her hungry, black stare.