“Please,” Hatshepsut pleaded. “I can’t trust this to a regular messenger.”
“You’d let me travel from the Hall of Women?”
“Thut is dead.” Hatshepsut spoke softly.
“But I’m the pharaoh’s mother. Is it safe?”
Hatshepsut was taken aback, having thought Aset would jump at the opportunity to take a trip. She hesitated for a moment—perhaps Aset knew better than she did the dangers that lay outside the palace walls—but shook off her doubts. “It should take only a couple days to travel to Iuny and back. Nothing will happen to you or Tutmose while you’re gone. Dagi will take you upriver on one of the smaller boats and even accompany you into the city to deliver the letter.”
Aset seemed to mull over the idea, then nodded slowly. “If I leave now, then Tutmose and Neferure will hardly notice I’ve been gone.”
Hatshepsut hugged her. “Thank you, Aset. I owe you.”
“I’m sure I’ll find a way for you to repay me.” Aset tapped her chin with her finger. “I just have to figure out what to wear.”
Hatshepsut watched her friend rise and start riffling through her many ebony trunks, then padded silently to her own bed. Now she had to wait for a reply.
The next few days were going to be torture.
Chapter 16
Days passed.
Hatshepsut lay naked on the cooling room’s granite slab, limbs spread so her skin touched only the cold stone. Wet reed mats hung from windows, chilling the meager breeze to provide some cool air during the day. More mats soaked in shallow silver trays filled with water. Girl-slaves waved falcon-wing fans, wafting the tepid air over her flushed body. This was the only habitable room in the palace now that they were at the height of Shomu. It was too hot to think, much less move.
“Did the priests of Anubis addle your brains, you thickheaded buffoon?” Aset’s shrill voice sounded from the other side of the door. “I don’t care if the regent gave orders not to be disturbed—I’m the mother of the pharaoh, and I have information she’ll want to hear.”
Hatshepsut sat up to tell the guards to let her in, but Aset pushed through the door on her own. She was sweat stained, her wig plastered to her head and a thin sheen of perspiration on her upper lip. Hatshepsut dismissed the bath slaves with a wave of her hand. “I see you got past Nomti’s guards.”
Aset waved everyone from the room. “People scatter like ants if you act like you’re in charge. Anyway, those guards have been clubbed over the head a few too many times.”
“I’ll remember to tell that to Nomti.”
Aset mopped the sweat from her brow and handed over a rumpled papyrus. Hatshepsut unrolled it, letting the string drop to the ground. She had to squint to scan the lines. “I don’t understand.” She frowned. “This is the letter I wrote.”
“I found Senenmut’s mother, widowed and living on the outskirts of Iuny,” she said. “I tried to deliver the letter to her, but she’s a rekhyt.”
“So?”
“She can’t read.”
Hatshepsut wanted to kick herself. Of course the woman couldn’t read.
“So you left?”
“No, I read it to her. I didn’t think you’d mind me opening it.”
“And—?”
Aset shook her head. “Senenmut won’t be coming to court.”
“Why not? If it’s the position, I plan to promote him as soon as I can, possibly make him Steward of the God’s Wife or Steward of Amun—”
Aset laid her hands over Hatshepsut’s. “Senenmut’s not coming back because he died in the quarries. He’s dead.”
Hatshepsut shook her head so hard her earrings slammed against her neck. “That’s not possible. Nomti said he was still alive.”
“Nomti was wrong. I heard it straight from his mother’s mouth. He’s gone to the West.”
“No.”
Hatshepsut refused to believe it. But the bright light of hope in her ka dimmed, leaving her emptier than before. She had lost him a second time.
“His death was probably a gift from the gods after so long,” Aset whispered and squeezed Hatshepsut’s hands. “Two years at the quarries would be enough to make anyone pray to Anubis to come for them.”
“But I thought he was alive. I thought after all this time—”
She couldn’t get the words out. Instead, she hurled a clay pan at the wall, showering the room with water and shards of terracotta. It didn’t make her feel any better.
“You thought you could apologize to him,” Aset said. “That you could live again.”
Hatshepsut sat down, hard. “How did you know?”
“I may be a rekhyt myself, but I’m not stupid. Something broke in you when Senenmut left, but you changed the day you heard he might still be alive.” She touched Hatshepsut’s cheek. “It seemed you might be happy again.”
She gave a wan smile. “I suppose now we’ll never know.”
“That’s up to you.” Aset straightened. “You can choose to be miserable for the rest of your life, blaming yourself for what happened, or you can thank the gods for the short time you had together.”
“I’m not sure I feel like thanking the gods for anything right now.” She stood, picking up her damp sheath and slipping it over her head. “I need to get dressed.”
“Perhaps you should stay here for a while longer, clear your mind—”
“The day is ruined.” Hatshepsut straightened her shoulders as if preparing for battle. “There’s other unpleasant business I might as well attend to.”
• • •
Two guards stood at attention outside Mensah’s cell in the palace. His new room was adjacent to a set of storerooms, stocked full of onions and garlic, from the smell of them. Clay jugs of wine stood in lines on wooden racks in the hall, fermenting for a second time. The former vizier would be lucky to be harvesting onions or straining grapes when Hatshepsut finished with him. She had a mind to banish him to Aswan so he could share the experience of what he’d done to Senenmut. Ma’at’s justice demanded that someone pay for everything she’d been through, for everything Senenmut had suffered. It might as well be Mensah.
The guards opened the door for her, but her eyes took a moment to adjust. Mensah’s chamber was windowless, filled with the sour smell of stale urine and fear. Nomti had done well when she’d told him to find the most uncomfortable room in the palace to hold the traitor.
A guard struck the wick of an oil lamp and it flared to life, illuminating Mensah sitting cross-legged in the corner. He blinked against the sudden light and tried to shield his eyes from the lamp. Black stubble covered his scalp, grown during the time he’d been locked away, and his cheekbones had taken on leaner lines, yet his face and body were still chiseled like the statue of some pompous god. He wouldn’t be so pretty when she was finished with him.
She took the lamp from the guard and motioned toward the hall. “I’ll call for you when I’m done.”
Mensah bowed in a sort of henu, arms bound behind his back in copper shackles. She left him with his forehead pressed to the dirt, and circled him like a lioness about to devour her prey. She intended to play with her food before she destroyed him.
“I’d offer you a chair, but, as you can see, I haven’t any at the moment.” He dared glance up at her, but she pushed his face back into the ground with her foot. “I wondered when you’d come.”
“More like you wondered when you’d have to pay for what you have done,” she said. “I come seeking Ma’at’s justice.”
“As you should.” He kept his face to the dirt. “But perhaps you might like to hear the whole story before you order me thrown into a sack and drowned in the Nile.”
“I have more creative ways to watch you die. And I don’t need to hear the story. I lived it. You followed Senenmut and me into the desert, embellished the tale to my brother, then lied to me so I would come watch the drama unfold. You destroyed a man and ruined three years of my life.”
“Is that how it seems to you?
”
“Of course that’s how it seems.” She tipped his chin with her foot so he had to look her in the eyes when next he lied. “Because that’s how it happened.”
“That’s only part of the story. Didn’t you get my message?”
“The drivel about trying to protect me?” She threw her hands up. “I won’t stand here and listen to your lies.”
“It’s not a lie. I was only trying to save you.”
“Thut beat me that night, locked me in the Hall of Women for three years, and ordered Senenmut’s death. How is that saving me?”
“Senenmut was dangerous for you. Don’t you see?” Mensah sat back on his feet, his shoulders slumped. “Let’s say I ignored all I saw in the Western Valley. Do you honestly believe you and Senenmut wouldn’t have found yourself in a similar situation later, that you wouldn’t have done something more reckless than just kissing him?”
She didn’t answer.
Something in his face seemed to break. “I loved you, Hatshepsut. I’d have done anything for you. Thut would have discovered you two sooner or later, and he would have had you both killed. I had to save you, even if it meant hurting you.”
She swallowed, clenching and unclenching her fists. “I wasn’t yours to save. And you didn’t have to follow me in the first place.”
“Thutmosis ordered me to.”
“Because he thought I’d be unfaithful with you.” She laughed, the sound hollow. “And you were bound to obey, following your orders with relish. My brother seemed to believe that Senenmut and I shared more than a kiss. Who else might have planted such an idea in his mind?”
Mensah shrugged. “The pharaoh jumped to his own conclusions. I told him only what I saw.”
“So, you thought to control my fate?”
“Not control. Only save you from yourself.”
“But then you lured me to Thut’s chambers with the lie of his illness. I had to watch my brother beat Senenmut and then face his wrath.”
“I have no excuse for that.” He hung his head. “I was overcome when I saw you with Senenmut in the valley. You cast me aside and took up with a rekhyt. Any man would have been beside himself with jealousy.”
“But you’re not any man, Mensah. You were vizier to Osiris Thutmosis, and the son of one of Egypt’s most noble lineages.”
“And you’re the daughter of Sekhmet. You don’t know the power you hold over men, Hatshepsut. I’m only a man. I loved you.”
“But you betrayed me.”
“And I’d betray you again to save your life.” He tilted his chin in defiance. “I’d die for you if I had to.”
“That won’t be necessary.” She stared at him, still angry, but much of her fury and lust for revenge suddenly deflated.
“We could be good together, Hatshepsut. You rule the Two Lands now, but I could help you. My family has helped Egypt rule for centuries. You wouldn’t have to be alone.”
The man had gall.
“You shall be stripped of your land and titles. You shall take up residence at the Temple of Amun and do the god’s bidding as a wa’eb priest.”
Reduced to rags and forced to do the work of a rekhyt. It was more than he deserved.
“You are the regent of Egypt. The land sails in accordance with your command.” He bowed his head. “I will do as you wish.”
His voice stopped her at the door. “I still love you, Hatshepsut. Think of what I said.”
“Speak of it again and I’ll have your tongue cut out.”
She slammed the door behind her and stormed past the wine jugs and around the corner, cursing under her breath. It would have been easier to kill Mensah and be done with him forever, yet she didn’t want that stain on her heart, hadn’t been able to bring herself to order his execution.
Was that mercy or weakness?
She stared out a window at the Nile and drew a shuddering breath. She’d let him live.
She hoped only that she wouldn’t one day regret the decision.
• • •
Hatshepsut sat stiffly upon her throne in the Court of Reeds, a simple ebony chair dwarfed by the empty Isis Throne next to her. One day little Tutmose would join her for audiences, but for now she sat alone upon the royal dais. This, the deliverance of Ma’at’s justice to her people, was her most important job, and also the most exhausting, especially since she’d expanded the sessions to last all day. She’d settled cases this afternoon concerning the accidental death of a farmer’s prized ox at the hand of his neighbor, a widow’s plea to rescind the banishment of her eldest son for shirking his annual season of labor at the Temple of Amun, and so many more cases that she’d lost count. Hatshepsut didn’t have the heart to turn anyone away; to lose a day’s work was a huge sacrifice for a farmer or fisherman. If they could stand outside all day waiting to be heard, she could manage to sit upon a throne once a month to hear their cases.
“I believe that was the last one, Hemet.” Kahotep, an ancient herald who’d once snuck her almonds from his pocket, peered at his scroll. “I’ll make sure there’s no one else.”
She rubbed her temples and twisted from one side to the other to find some relief for her aching back. Neferure had been ill these past days, feverish and lethargic, so Hatshepsut had stayed up with her, despite the assurances from Gua and several priests that she would be fine. She straightened as Kahotep reentered the throne room, stopping between two colossal sphinx statues.
“There’s only one more, Hemet,” he said, studying his scroll before rolling it up. “Senenmut of Iuny.”
Her legs would have given way beneath her had she not already been sitting down.
A dark figure strode into the room, his gait measured in perfectly equal strides as he crossed tiles painted with images of Egypt’s enemies. He was dressed in a long kilt and formal wig, his face leaner and his nose possessing a decided list to the right, likely a final gift from her brother. Otherwise he looked as if not a day had passed since that terrible night.
It was really him.
She struggled to swallow, feeling as if a viper had wound itself around her throat.
His gaze was inscrutable, but his eyes met hers for a fleeting moment before he bowed in a full henu, forehead to the floor and arms stretched before him.
Mottled scars crisscrossed his bare back, layers of stiff white ridges mangling his copper flesh.
Her hands flew to her mouth, too late to stifle a gasp of horror. Those were not the markings of a normal whip, but the infamous strips of sun-dried hippo hide used by the overseers at Aswan’s quarries. Twenty lashings with such a weapon were enough to render a man unconscious, and a hundred meant certain death. Senenmut seemed to have received some number in between. She swayed in her seat. “By the gods.”
He stood stiffly. “As Amun endures and as the pharaoh endures—”
She raised one hand to cut off the court recitation and just stared at him, unable to form any words.
He didn’t move. “The gods have been generous to you, Hemet.”
Hemet. She cringed at the formality.
“They have. I’m glad to see your mother decided to deliver my summons—”
“Summons?” Senenmut straightened. “My own curiosity has brought me here today, not your summons.”
“But I don’t understand.” She frowned. “I sent a message to Iuny requesting your presence at court.”
“My mother delivered no such message.”
“She claimed you were dead.”
“As you can see, I am not.” His tone was perfectly measured, betraying no hint of emotion.
“Your mother lied.” It wasn’t an attack, merely a statement of fact as her mind struggled to make sense of his presence.
“Please forgive her impertinence. My noble mother was likely under the impression that returning to court would not be in my best interests.”
“I hope your impression differs from your mother’s.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“And yet you
are here.”
“As I said, I wished to see the truth of our regent with my own eyes.”
Perhaps. Or perhaps now that Thut was dead, the final barrier against Senenmut’s return to Waset had been removed, making possible the resumption of his old life at court as well. His arrival had not gone precisely as she’d planned, but either way she was grateful to the gods for his presence.
“You escaped Aswan?”
His eyes narrowed, a flicker of some emotion gone so quickly that she might have imagined it. “After two years of hard labor and bribing the overseer, yes.”
If anyone could find a way out of Aswan, it was Senenmut.
“In my message I offered you the position of tutor to the Royal Princess Neferure. And Steward of the God’s Wife,” she added hastily. She might have offered him the double crown if it would make him stay. “Of course, I’m prepared to compensate you handsomely if you do return to court.” She sat, hands folded in her lap, glad he couldn’t see her damp palms or the perspiration she felt gathering at her temples. She cursed herself for dismissing her fan bearers.
“The God’s Wife?”
“God’s Wife of Amun. One of my titles.”
He gave a deep exhale and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You wish me to be your steward?”
“And my daughter’s tutor.”
She waited for him to respond, to reject her outright or possibly accept. Instead he watched her; then his chest rose and fell in a silent sigh.
“I am not the same man I was three years ago, Hemet.” His voice was quiet. “You should know that.”
He was right. Gone was the self-assured councilor with the easy sarcasm and ready smile. He was obviously scarred, but surely his ka couldn’t have changed that much.
“And I am no longer the same woman.”
“No, I suppose not.” His gaze flicked over her, making her more than aware of the bull’s tail at her waist, the crook and flail in her hands, and the golden vulture crown over her wig. A heavy pectoral of carnelian, turquoise, and gold covered her breasts. She was scarcely a woman now, dressed in all the trappings of the pharaoh. The heavy uraeus bared its fangs at her brow, ready to strike her enemies.
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