by Jerry Dubs
The clue to what truly caused their illness could be found in the small puncture of a snake bite, or the stain of red berries on their fingers, or the way they shifted their weight to avoid pain.
I must step back even farther here, Pentu thought.
This man and his message are a clue. Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s extended absence is a clue. The arrival of Governor Seni and his insistence on an audience with Pharaoh Hatshepsut are clues. The rumor of Pharaoh Thutmose’s imminent arrival is a clue. And now this Medjay warrior searches for Governor Seni.
Pentu felt the breath of the Seth animal on his neck as he realized that the clues all pointed to the palace where Maya was sitting on the throne for Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
Maya is in danger.
***
Senenmut arrived within the hour, panting from the hurried walk from the palace. Pentu showed him his patient and recounted what the Medjay warrior had said before falling back into unconsciousness.
“We need a fire and iron rods,” Senenmut said anxiously. “And sharp knives.”
“He won’t survive torture,” Pentu said as they stood beside the bed where Kebu lay unconscious.
“But he knows something about Pharaoh Hatshepsut,” Senenmut said. “We have to make him talk.”
“He can’t talk if he is dead,” Pentu said.
Senenmut paced beside the bed, pausing to look down at the unconscious warrior. “Where is Neferhotep?” he asked. “He should be here, we should have a soldier here. What if he,” Senenmut motioned toward Kebu, “wakes up?”
“I’ve sent for Neferhotep,” Pentu said, kneeling by the bed. “But I don’t think we have to worry about this man. He is so weak he can barely sit.” He touched Kebu’s forehead, the fever had returned, however the skin around the man’s eyes seemed to have relaxed.
“The problem,” Pentu said as he got to his feet, “is that he is a Medjay warrior. They follow orders. They don’t divulge secrets.”
“Anyone can be forced ... ” Senenmut began.
“Yes, yes,” Pentu agreed. “But ... ”
“The pain to make him talk could kill him. I understand,” Senenmut finished for his friend. He walked across the room and leaned into the doorway. The opening gave way to a quiet garden surrounded by walls tall enough to hide even the drivers of passing chariots.
“I have an idea,” Pentu said walking up behind Senenmut. He laid a hand on Senenmut’s shoulder. “Didn’t you train as a scribe?”
Pharaoh arrives
“What is your secret?” Maya asked Pentu, leaning her head against his shoulder as they stood by the garden window in her bedroom that night.
The crowns of the garden palm trees were flat, black silhouettes rising above the high wall in front of a sparkling sky of midnight blue. The surface of the huge pond, large enough for three of Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s ships, lay still beneath Khonsu who was just a silver sliver in the dark belly of Nut.
Pentu wrapped an arm around his wife and tilted his head to kiss her. She raised her face to his. A knowing smile crossed her lips before she offered them to him.
After a moment she ended the embrace and, pulling back from him, she looked up, her eyes repeating her question.
Soft yellow light from an oil lamp by the window suffused the room, softening the shadows that lay on her husband’s face. Still she saw that six months of deception had carved lines beneath his eyes and darkened the skin that lay below them.
“Don’t look like at me like that,” Pentu said lightly. “That’s how I study my patients. It is a little disconcerting.” He smiled, the movement deepening the lines on his face.
“You haven’t answered me,” Maya said, sliding her hand down his arm and entwining her fingers in his. “I can tell by your eyes that you have a secret.”
“I found an injured man on the street yesterday,” Pentu said casually, his thumb rubbing the back of Maya’s hand. “He had the most unusual wound I’ve ever seen.” He cocked his head to the side as he spoke. “There was a gash in his thigh, from a spear or an arrow. It was old, but hadn’t healed. Well, the man was unconscious, delirious when he woke. I cleaned the wound, and would you believe it, inside the wound I found tiny spiders and a few sacs, eggs!”
He shook his head. “It was most unusual. I can’t wait to tell Akila and Imhotep about it.” He coughed lightly. “So, as I said, the man was delirious, mumbling at times. He has a heavy accent, southern, I believe,” he added, deciding to omit the news that the man was a Medjay warrior. “But, I’m certain he mumbled something about some women. I thought it might be news about Pharaoh Hatshepsut. Of course, he could have been talking about his sisters or a girlfriend or ... ” he said with a shrug.
“I won’t know more until he wakes and can talk. I’ve told Senenmut about it. He’s excited.” He decided to withhold Senenmut’s enthusiastic suggestion to torture the man.
“That’s all rather vague,” Maya said, studying her husband.
“I know,” Pentu said. “It is probably nothing. I’m sure that Senenmut and I are caught up in our anxiety over Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s long absence. No doubt we’re attaching too much importance to the mumbling of a delirious stranger.”
He smiled confidently, hoping that the shadows and Maya’s trust of him would combine to help him conceal his fears. He was certain that the injured warrior held a secret and the man’s invocation of Governor Seni’s name made Pentu believe the secret would be a dark one.
Turning to Maya he pulled her into a soft embrace. He laid his cheek against the top of her head and she wrapped her arms around him, drawing him so close that it felt as if their bodies were one.
“This will soon be over, beloved,” Pentu said. “Pharaoh Hatshepsut will return in glory with the riches of Ta Netjer and you can step from the throne and return to being the most beautiful Keeper of the Wardrobe in the long history of the Two Lands. And I can go back to being a doting husband instead of a secretive lover.”
Maya pressed her face to his chest and nodded, blinking back tears.
She tried to imagine Pharaoh Hatshepsut racing through the desert to rescue her, but the image kept changing to the angry face of Pharaoh Thutmose staring at her accusingly.
***
A few minutes later, as Pentu hurried from the palace to his home, eager to see if his patient had awakened and become lucid, a boat slid toward the royal pier of Waset.
Two sailors jumped from the boat to secure it to wooden posts and, while the boat was still rocking in the water, Pharaoh Thutmose nimbly stepped ashore. He stood for a moment in the darkness and stretched his arms and shoulders. As he moved the earthy smell of his sweat rose and he smiled.
Throughout his youth his body had smelled of the lavender scented water of his twice-daily baths and of the myrrh-scented air within the temple chambers. It was not until he had left the temple to travel with the army had he learned that his body had its own aroma. As did the horses, the hot sand, and the linen of the tents. Even the fletching feathers of his arrows held a faint scent of the wind.
He inhaled deeply now, detecting not just his own lightly briny smell but a dank undertone of decay from the river’s edge. The air also carried the charcoal echo of recently doused fires, the lachrymose bite of onions, the acrid tang of incense and burning oils. The aromas swirled through Pharaoh Thutmose, enlivening him and welcoming him back to Waset.
He nodded to the men and then turned to walk alone to the palace, each step taking him deeper into the ka of the Two Lands.
It was night and because he was unaccompanied by guards, he could walk through the city and see it, not through the innocent eyes of his childhood, but with eyes that had seen the great desert of Sinai, the hustling crowds of Men-Nefer, the dust from racing chariots and the death of enemy charioteers. Later, when the army had returned, he would slip from the city and join General Pen-Nebheket to lead the victorious troops into Waset.
He walked with the looser gait that he had fallen into since he had left Was
et, with his fingers unfolded from the tight fists of his childhood, with his neck no longer rigid. Striding with confidence and enthusiasm Pharaoh Thutmose, third of his name, leaned forward, eager to see the Foremost of Ladies, daughter of the great god Amun, his stepmother and co-ruler, Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
***
Maya stood by her bedroom window and, with hands resting on the cooling stone wall, leaned forward into the night air.
When Pharaoh Hatshepsut had first asked her to impersonate her while she secretly went to Ta Netjer, Maya had thought of it as a game. She knew the palace and she knew Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s routine. Senenmut would stay behind to govern. All Maya had to do was wear Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s clothes, mimic her walk and posture, sit on the golden throne and look regal, confident, and commanding.
Senenmut would govern. Her son Neferhotep commanded the palace guard and would protect her.
Her only worry was that Pharaoh Thutmose would see through the charade. However, he was far away with the army and by the time he returned, for General Pen-Nebheket was known to be cautious and slow moving, Pharaoh Hatshepsut would have resumed her place on the throne.
But the days had become weeks and the weeks had become months. The river had flooded. The flood had receded and the fields had been planted and turned green. Now harvest was approaching and still there was only silence from the great expedition to Ta Netjer.
Maya crossed her arms and bit softly on her bottom lip, nervous habits that she had adopted from Akila.
Unasked, her thoughts turned to Meryt, her long lost mother.
Meryt had lived a life that took her to the inner sanctums of the temples, especially that of Re, and also to the royal chambers of King Djoser’s court. Yet she had still ground her own wheat, cooked and sewn. She had friends who were the very ka of the Two Lands, yet she was married to Imhotep, an outlander — or a god! — who had adopted the Two Lands as his home.
“It was so it will be.”
Those words fell often from Imhotep’s lips, as he reassured the king — or himself — that all would be well because he remembered from his life in the future that it had turned out auspiciously.
Maya closed her eyes and brought her father’s face to mind. She was certain that if something had happened to him, she would know it. All the years he had been lost to her, his time frozen in the courtyard at Abu while she grew, married and had a child, she had never felt that he was lost to her.
If he was safe, then, she was sure, Pharaoh Hatshepsut was safe, too. She would return soon and reclaim her kingdom and no one would ever know what had happened.
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps intruded into her thoughts.
She whirled from the window and watched as a shadow advanced through the bedroom doorway into her room. Fear fell on her; Neferhotep had gone, leaving guards by the entrance to her royal suite; her servants had been dismissed until dawn.
No one should be here.
I should say something. I should be angry that someone is approaching my room at this late hour, she told herself. But her throat was tight, her tongue silent.
The shadow paused and slowly, hesitantly a foot stepped into the room. The shadow wavered and evaporated, eaten by dancing light from a torch carried by the figure.
Without thought, Maya fell to her knees.
“Pharaoh Thutmose,” she said, her voice soft and breaking, “long life!”
***
Pharaoh Thutmose paused inside the doorway.
His stepmother’s chamber was unchanged.
A wooden screen painted with scenes from the story of Isis stood against the distant wall. Above it a series of coiled cobras, the god Mehen, marched across the wall just below the ceiling. And below the guardian snakes flew the vulture goddess Nekhbet with one royal blue wing outstretched in protection, the double crown of the Two Lands on her head.
The woman kneeling before him looked like his stepmother, but her shoulders were slightly smaller and her voice sounded different, yet somehow familiar.
Pharaoh Thutmose blinked. The room, the woman, the sounds all seemed to be painted on water, reflections of reality.
Suddenly, it struck him that Pharaoh Hatshepsut would never prostrate herself before him.
He felt his knees stiffen and his hands clench into fists.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Maya, Keeper of the Wardrobe,” she answered, her eyes still on the floor.
“Where is Pharaoh Hatshepsut?”
“I do not know. She has gone on a great expedition to Ta Netjer. Before she left she told me to sit on the throne for her until her return. She did not want to worry the cattle of Re, with her absence.”
“Rise,” Pharaoh Thutmose commanded, stepping closer to Maya.
She stood, keeping her face downturned.
“Look at me.”
She raised her head, fighting to keep her composure.
He studied her face, his eyes moving from her forehead, wide, yet not as wide as he remembered, to her eyes, shaped like the top edge of the rising sun, but more narrow, to her cheekbones, strong, but not as high as Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s, to her lips, full as he recalled, but trembling now, a motion that he was sure had never taken root on his stepmother’s mouth.
The face was pleasing, but somehow coarser than he remembered.
“She did not trust sending a message to you. Lord Senenmut has spoken in her stead. We thought that she would ... ”
Pharaoh Thutmose raised his hand to stop her.
“When you say Ta Netjer, you mean the place, the Land of God,” he said. “You do not mean that her ka has gone to the Field of Reeds.”
Maya gasped and covered her open mouth. “No, no, no! Long life to Pharaoh Hatshepsut! No, she is well.” She stopped and looked off toward the garden window. “She was well when I last saw her. She has been gone for almost a year, since before the flood.”
Pharaoh Thutmose put his hands on her shoulders. “Yes,” he said, “I do remember you now, Maya. I never noticed the resemblance before.” He looked away, shaking his head.
Everything was different since he had left Waset.
His childhood confusion had fallen away like the cutting of the sidelock of youth. The gods were no longer distant forms to worship, they were here, beside him.
A veil had fallen from his eyes and from his mind, and he saw the Two Lands with a clarity that had been hidden in the shadows of the temple.
“Pharaoh Hatshepsut only meant to protect the Two Lands. And to increase their power. She hopes to find Ta Netjer and to bring all the riches from the land here. She ... ” Maya stopped as Pharaoh Thutmose raised his hand once more.
He laughed now, his eyes moving about the room and he slowly turned in a circle.
The gods — was it Re offering a new dawn or Ma’at striving for balance or Isis longing for her lost husband? — the gods were offering Pharaoh Thutmose a chance to take the throne for his own. His stepmother, who had usurped the throne from his father and who had held power in his stead, was away. In her place was a defenseless woman.
The knife in his belt suddenly seemed to call him.
The priests, the magistrates, the merchants, the soldiers and guards, the fishermen, the beer makers, everyone in the Two Lands would salute him if he took this life. The gods themselves would approve; he would restore ma’at and set a true son of Amun on the throne.
He thought of Pawura bringing him sacks of hands. He thought of Shu raising the desert to bury the Hittites.
And yet ...
And yet, this Maya had sat on the throne and the gods had not struck her down.
He had a sudden thought.
“Have you worshipped?”
She nodded.
“No, I mean truly worshipped, as my stepmother worships. Have you entered the inner sanctum and gazed up on the form of the god?”
She lowered her eyes and nodded.
Pharaoh Thutmose frowned. What are the gods playing at? Is this woman intended
to take Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s place? Is she herself of divine birth?
“Who is your father?”
“Imhotep,” Maya answered.
So, a god, he thought. Yet she does not claim to have been fathered by Amun nor Ptah.
“He has gone with Pharaoh Hatshepsut,” Maya offered, seeing Pharaoh Thutmose’s reaction to her father’s name. “To Ta Netjer.”
Pharaoh Thutmose stared at Maya, trying to see her ka as he had so easily seen the souls of so many others. He saw fear, but he also saw truth.
Although he had been away from Waset, he had heard stories that Bata had opened a door to the distant past and the god Imhotep had stepped through it. The rumors said that although this god was ancient beyond reckoning, he looked like any other man. They said that he walked with a limp and that his head was ungainly large for his narrow shoulders, proof of the vast knowledge he carried. They said that although he had been welcomed by Pharaoh Hatshepsut, he had not claimed any special privileges.
And there the rumors had stopped. This god had not performed miracles. He had not claimed the throne. In fact, they said that he himself did not lay claim to divinity.
Yet his daughter was sitting on the throne of the Two Lands and he had lured Pharaoh Hatshepsut to travel to Ta Netjer.
What do the gods intend?
The knife seemed less urgent now; this woman was not a threat and the throne itself lay in his grasp if he chose.
But what do the gods want?
“Tomorrow is the tenth day,” he said. “Will you worship Amun in the morning?”
“Yes, Pharaoh Thutmose.”
“Go to him tomorrow,” he said. “I will speak with Amun tonight and tomorrow we will reveal our thoughts.”
The Last Hours of Night
The Fifth Hour of Night
Re had long disappeared, his flaming barque sinking beyond the palm trees that hid the western horizon from view. Sitting at her dressing table, Maya stared into a polished bronze mirror she held in her hand. Flames from a wick floating in a shallow oil lamp threw yellow light onto the face of Pharaoh Hatshepsut that stared back from the mirror.
