Sovereign of Stars (5 page)

They sped through the ravine. She was dizzied by the
nearness of the walls, their rapid flight; she hunched beside
Nehesi, cringing from the frightening way this chariot or that
would overtake them and then fall back, blurring in and out of the
deep blue shadow of cold stone like demons flickering around a
brazier's weak light.

You are the daughter of Thutmose the First. You are
the son of Amun.

She gulped in a deep breath, then another; her chest
pressed painfully against her armor. She forced herself to
straighten, forced her legs to steady. Her men would see her stand
proud and unafraid – they would, by all the gods. She raised her
spear above her head, and when she heard the men behind her shout
in response a frail wave of gratification battered against her
fear. It nearly managed to break through.

The ravine twisted this way and that; her horses
leaned together in their harness, and she and Nehesi leaned with
them, tilting their chariot to keep it on course. At last the cliff
walls began to lower. She caught a flash of bright blue sky above,
felt one quick buffet of heat as they passed through a patch of sun
breaking over the hills to fall into the stream bed, then back into
the dense coolness of shadow. Their passage straightened. She could
see the far mouth of the ravine yawning upon the open sky, the
green flush of new grass on the Kushite plain.

In that gap of revealed horizon, growing nearer and
more real by the moment, a smudge rose vertically into the sky.
Cook fires – the ovens of some small village, busily baking loaves
of bread or simmering grain slurry for beer.

Gods. It's a village like any other, like any in
Egypt.
A village full of women and children, grandfathers and
craftsmen.

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. His 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.