Sovereign of Stars (31 page)

Neferure stood before her, back turned to Thutmose,
as tense and fierce as Sekhmet. She held a copper blade in her
hand, its edge streaming with the other woman’s blood.

“Tell me,” Neferure said, her voice vibrant with
triumph, thick with disgust.

“Please, Great Lady,” the woman begged.

Neferure advanced toward her, raising the blade;
although the woman did not look up, she cringed back from the sound
of Neferure’s sandals on the floor, another piteous scream rising
from her throat, broken by hysterical sobbing.

“Stop; I will tell you,” she cried, and a note of
defeat wailed in her voice. “The steward is your father. Him – your
nurse – Senenmut.”

Neferure paused in her advance. Her shoulders
relaxed, her head tilted as if considering something of no
consequence – a child’s song, a pretty stone. The only sound was
the cowering woman’s weeping.

“By all the gods, Neferure, what is this?”

She whirled at the sound of Thutmose’s voice, and
the woman pressed against the wall looked up from the poor shelter
of her own arms. It was Batiret, Hatshepsut’s fan-bearer. When she
saw it was the Pharaoh who spoke, her tears began afresh, her face
wrinkling with the sobs of her relief.

There was a crash from the lower floor, the door
being flung open with force, and masculine shouts. Meritamun had
summoned the harem guards. Neferure stared at Thutmose for one
heartbeat, her eyes flashing with fury. Then she bent slowly,
gracefully, and laid her knife upon the tiles. It gave one solitary
ring, bright as a temple chime, when it connected with the
floor.

Neferure smiled lightly, and, as the guards came up
the stairway shouting for the Pharaoh, she held out her hands
before her and went willingly, docilely, into Thutmose’s
custody.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was long past midnight. Khonsu had closed the
white disc of his eye hours ago, draining the soft silver touch of
moonlight from the world, leaving it bleak and bare. In perhaps two
hours more Re would arise golden and glorious from the horizon,
spreading his warmth and benevolence across the Two Lands. But for
now, the sky was emptied of divinity, and Ahmose felt terribly
alone.

She had not been asleep when the Pharaoh’s
messengers found her. She woke after only a short time in her bed,
and, knowing she would not get back to her dreams any time soon,
she had dressed without waking her body servant and made her way to
the portico of her estate, elevated on a little bluff that
overlooked the river. She had not really wanted sleep tonight,
anyway. Her dreams had been unsettling mazes, full of bright colors
that confused the heart and burned the eye, full of voices speaking
in strange tongues, repeating with the image of blood spilling from
the rim of a bowl, running over the knuckles of an unfamiliar hand.
Ahmose sat patiently, her eyes on the river, until the sails
appeared, moving quickly from the direction of Waset.

Thutmose’s men had been surprised to find her
waiting at her little quay, alert and ready, but they bowed to her
and handed her aboard without even taking the time to tie their
lines.

“Trouble at the palace, Great Lady,” one had said.
“The Pharaoh wishes your counsel.”

And now she rode in a litter through the sleeping
streets of Waset, the curtains drawn tight against the bleakness of
the night sky. The litter tilted, making its way up the final rise
before the palace wall. Her eyes blinked as a brief, denser
darkness settled over her – the passage through the great pylons
into the palace’s outer court. When she stepped from her litter
into the pre-dawn courtyard, Ahmose shivered.

She was conducted at once to Thutmose’s chambers. A
double guard was on duty, standing still as statues in their
blue-and-white kilts. In the hall outside a young man paced, his
kilt rumpled and stained with spots of wine, his hands twisting
into knots. She recognized him: Senenmut’s assistant, the brilliant
scribe. Kynebu – ah, that was his name. She had no time to greet
him; her eyes met his, and she stumbled one step backward at the
force of helplessness and anger burning in his eyes. Then the
Pharaoh’s doors swung wide, and Ahmose was called in.

She saw Neferure first, small and still on one of
Thutmose’s great couches. The girl sat with her hands folded primly
in her lap, her eyes downcast, mild, looking at the floor without
emotion, bearing the force of the anger that filled the room. Two
great hulking guards stood to either side of the Great Royal
Wife.

Thutmose stalked between Neferure and a stool in the
corner, where young Batiret, Hatshepsut’s fan-bearer, sat shivering
and whimpering, a pair of the Pharaoh’s women fussing over her,
speaking to her in low, soothing tones. A length of linen bound one
arm just below the shoulder. Ahmose could plainly see the red stain
seeping through the bandage. Batiret’s lip was split, too, and a
small cut stood out above one eyebrow, clotted with dark blood.

“What is it?” Ahmose said slowly, sick realization
growing in her stomach.

“What indeed!” Thutmose clenched his fists,
unclenched them, rounded on her with a stark rage on his face that
Ahmose had never seen before.

“You put these ideas into her heart, Ahmose.
You!”

Ahmose glanced at Neferure. The girl did not look
up, did not respond to Thutmose’s shouts. She only remained quietly
in her place, her eyes fixed on nothing, peaceful as a cow in a
field.

“I don’t know what you mean, Majesty. I beg
enlightenment.”

“I cut her,” Neferure said, her voice light as a
pipe. “I found out.”

“Found out what?” Ahmose felt her hands go cold, her
face go hot.

“That Senenmut is my father. That I am a product of
filth and adultery.” She said it easily, without rancor, a
statement of plain fact.

Ahmose sucked in a chilled breath.

“It’s why I am the way I am, isn’t it,
Grandmother?”

Ahmose said nothing. Her mouth was stopped by sudden
fear.

“Amun spurns me – the gods will not enter me,
because my very beginnings are a vile offense to them. No wonder I
have never been able to reach them, as you can do. Now it makes
sense.”

“I did not put these thoughts into her heart,”
Ahmose said quietly, urgently, as Thutmose paced. “I did not
counsel her to abuse a servant.”

“She used a knife on the poor woman! Look at
her!”

Batiret cringed under their stares, and the women
tending her huddled close in defense.

“I…” Ahmose tried to form some response, but she
could see only the vision from her terrible dreams, the blood
spinning in the bowl, dropping over its rim to fall upon hot,
smoking coals.

“Neferure must be confined,” Thutmose said, loudly,
a command to the soldiers – to everyone present. “She will remain
under strict guard until Hatshepsut returns. No one will see her
but one servant of my choosing – and myself, should I have any need
to speak to her further.” He glared at the girl, and Neferure went
on blinking into the near distance, unconcerned. “Make it so,”
Thutmose said to one guardsman. The man saluted with a fist across
his chest, then sped away to prepare a confinement chamber.

“If I may, husband,” Neferure said. “I would ask for
one of my shrines to Hathor to be placed in my room, if it pleases
you. And a harp, so that I may play hymns.”

Thutmose looked uneasily at Ahmose, searching for
some reason to object. But Ahmose could think of none, and
reluctantly, she raised her chin.

“Very well. Now get her out of my sight.”

The girl went unresisting from the chamber. When she
was gone, Thutmose knelt beside Batiret, who shivered on her stool.
“Sweet lady,” he said, “loyal woman. I cannot make this right for
you. I cannot undo what my wife did. You have always been a good
servant to the Pharaoh – to my mother, and to me. You will be
compensated. And you will be protected; I will see to it. What
would you have? Would you be released from service?”

“No, Majesty,” Batiret said quietly. “I would
continue to serve Maatkare. I would ask only – there is a certain
scribe, Kynebu.” Batiret’s eyes flooded with tears once more, and
she dashed them away with the back of her hand. “I would see him if
I may, Majesty.”

“I believe the lad is outside now,” Ahmose said.
“Shall I send him in?”

Batiret fell into Kynebu’s arms, keening, and he led
her gently away, kissing her hand, tucking her trembling shoulders
under his arm. The women who had tended her followed, with
instruction from Thutmose to communicate with Hesyre in the
morning. He wished to know how Batiret fared, and would send her
gifts to make some small amends for the abuse she had suffered.

When the lot of them were gone, the young king
dropped all his careful self-possession as a child drops a stone
into the water. The Pharaoh’s majesty and anger fell away from him
with an undignified plunk. He rounded on Ahmose, a terrible plea in
his eyes.

“Gods, Ahmose, help me. I don’t know what to do, how
to handle this.”

She drew a deep breath, seeking steadiness that
would not quite come. Her legs trembled, and she sank onto the end
of the couch, far from where Neferure had perched. “We haven’t much
choice but to await Hatshepsut’s return. And her judgment. The
matter concerns her, after all. And she is the senior king.”

Thutmose snatched the wig from his head, hurled it
against the wall. He pressed the heels of his hands against his
eyes, let out a long breath that hissed through his tight-pressed
lips. When he had marshalled his emotions, he watched Ahmose
steadily for a moment, and she felt pinioned by his stare.

“Is it true?”

She nodded.

Thutmose sighed. “And what of the throne – of our
house’s safety? How long has this been going on, right beneath the
gods’ noses, and what kind of punishment can we expect? Gods,
Ahmose – none of my women are with child – not a one of them, and
not for lack of trying! Is this the price we will all pay? Or will
it be something else, something yet to come? You are god-chosen:
tell me!”

“Thutmose,” she said, and her voice sounded weak
even in her own ears, “Majesty, even the god-chosen do not know
what the gods intend all the time. I cannot see the end of this.
They show me nothing. I am sorry.”

He sank onto the couch opposite her, slumped, his
shoulders trembling.

“We all must live with the uncertainty,” Ahmose said
quietly, “until the gods choose to make their judgment known.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Pharaoh returned to Waset in triumph nearly a
month later. She stood straight and regal beneath a sun-shade,
surrounded by her servants and a chosen cadre of noble ladies who
stared with wide eyes from behind their fans as the ships were
unloaded. Noble men ranked themselves well back from the quay,
heads bobbing like storks as they watched the treasure of Punt come
ashore, as they discussed the new wealth, its exotic nature, the
obvious bravery and cleverness of Maatkare, her obvious favor with
the gods. Basket upon basket came ashore, mounded high, the mounds
secured with sturdy, coarse linen, holding the goods tight against
the rocking of the ships and the stumbling of the expedition’s
donkeys through the sands of the Red Land. The cages were borne
down the ramps with their baboons huddled close inside. Ivory,
silver, obsidian, agate, cloth dyed the intense sun-yellow that
Queen Ati had favored – all the fine goods made their way to shore
as Hatshepsut looked on in approval, then gave the signal for the
litters and chariots and servants to do their part. She stepped
aboard her own fine litter, uncurtained so the city might look upon
their Pharaoh’s victorious face, and made her way to the great
palace at the head of the parade.

Her family was waiting to greet her when she was
lowered into the courtyard. Thutmose stood in his red and white
double crown, arms folded across his chest, eyes distant and
troubled in his mask of careful paint. Despite his obvious
distress, she smiled to see him. She had been gone only a few
months, but it seemed in that time he had grown yet more, become
more of a man, and her heart was constricted by the strength of her
love for him.
Little Tut,
she said to herself, longing to
hold him in her arms again as a tiny babe.

Ahmose waited a step behind the young Pharaoh. The
long strands of an ornately braided wig fell over her shoulders to
the middle of her chest, framing a face that seemed far more deeply
lined than Hatshepsut had remembered. There was something of worry
in the look Ahmose turned on her daughter, something of regret and
shame – something of fear.

As the parade of goods made its way into the
courtyard behind her, accompanied by raucous cheers and the singing
of palace servants, the excited chattering of the courtiers,
Hatshepsut looked round for Neferure. At first she thought the girl
absent. Then she spotted her, standing sedately between two very
large palace guards. The size of them made Neferure look as tiny
and fragile as a child’s doll, and Hatshepsut was overwhelmed by a
surge of warmth for the girl, a gladness in her presence that she
seldom felt. She stepped toward her daughter, her hands just
moving, just beginning to outstretch for a mother’s embrace – and
stopped short, blinking. Neferure wore the vulture crown upon her
head, the golden visage of the goddess Nekhbet rearing from the
smooth, pale brow to stare into Hatshepsut’s eyes, the wings of
lapis and carnelian, malachite and gold falling to either side of
the demure little face.

It was the crown of the Great Royal Wife.

There was no time to ask questions. Hatshepsut swept
past Thutmose and her mother, led the whole lot through the wide
promenade flanked by its rows of sandstone columns, into the Great
Hall where her throne awaited her. The parade followed behind,
chanting her name, and Hatshepsut could feel joy at none of it, for
an unseen dagger as cold as the spray of the cataracts twisted
inside her gut. She flowed down the length of the Great Hall like a
cataract herself, noisy and wild, her golden sandals slapping
against the polished malachite floor, and climbed the steps of the
royal dais to all but throw herself upon her throne. Thutmose took
his throne with careful ceremony, staring out across the hall,
avoiding Hatshepsut’s eyes.