The Sekhmet Bed (24 page)

Tut. No
. “It’s why the gods have brought me here. I am the one to restore righteousness. The Pharaoh will strike the bodies of the Hyksos, and I will strike their spirits.” When she said it, it felt so right that it had to be true. She still shook with the power of Amun’s touch. “I will spend my nights in the Temple of Mut, and I will lead all the priesthood in prayer. I need only a modest room. I must be near the gods, if I’m to do their work.”

“Of course, Great Lady.” The High Priest bowed.

“I cannot give up my service to the throne, though. Not entirely. In the daytime, I will be at the palace, supervising the court. The gods want a strong, young, righteous ruler on the throne, with the Pharaoh away at war.”

She turned to Ineni. Sweet, clever Ineni, her dearest friend. She had just committed herself to daily and nightly work. Holy work, to be sure, but it would leave her little time for anything but court and prayer. Would she and Ineni see each other again? Of all the things she was giving up for Egypt’s sake, she would miss him the most. “Bring Twosre to me, and a trunk of my clothing. She’ll know what to pack. I’ll begin leading prayers this very night, and I won’t be back at the palace until morning.”

Ineni’s shoulders slumped. “As you will, Great Lady.”

TWENTY-ONE

Ahmose returned to the palace early in the morning. She’d hardly slept that night. Alive with her new power, Ahmose had danced and sang and smoked semsemet at the shrines, crying aloud from the force of the divine fire that burned inside her. She’d whirled and clapped with the sistrums until her arms and legs were as weak as grass. She’d prayed on her knees, bending her back, howling to the gods, and the priestesses howled with her. Such a music they’d made! The gods’ eyes were surely on the Pharaoh now, far to the north. Ahmose was feverish with power.

She arrived in the throne room before anyone else. Dressed in the white smock of a priestess with a simple wig and a golden cobra circlet, she was as understated as she had been at her wedding feast, but now at last she was radiant with confidence. No queen’s treasure could outshine her.

She ascended the steps to her throne and sat as gracefully as if all the eyes of Egypt were upon her. The great hall stretched out before her, its pillars alive with the stories of kings of the past. The wind catchers along the eastern wall let in shafts of golden-pink light. These, too, were like pillars, brilliant bright pillars sparkling with the early motes of morning. Soon enough, this hall would fill with her subjects, the people of her land, looking to Ahmose for guidance. Looking to the God’s Wife for judgment. Now, though, she let the silence reach into her bones, fill her up with peace and pleasure. She felt like a queen at last. A true queen, strong and beautiful on her throne. Nothing could shake her.

First one, then three, then a dozen stewards and servants moved into the hall. They were like a trickle of water from a jar, hesitant and thin, speaking low so as not to disturb Ahmose’s peace. She watched them go about their business, set up their tables and benches to mind the petitioners, sweep the floors free of sand and pebbles. One servant approached her and asked if there was anything she might wish from the kitchens. Ahmose waved the man away. She was full of the gods’ power. She needed no other sustenance.

At last, Mutnofret made her appearance in the hall, just as the crowds were beginning to gather outside the great double doors. Ahmose could hear the voice of the gathered people like a wind in an orchard. The second queen came in through the rear door, behind the dais. Ahmose heard her voice, too, and did not deign to look around. Mutnofret was ordering refreshment from the serving man, and calling for her body servant to bring a lighter wig. Mutnofret was here, and Ahmose had pulled the power and the peace of the morning deep into her bones. It was time to move as the God’s Wife.

Mutnofret climbed the dais, her round belly swaying, leaning on the arm of one of her women. She settled onto her throne, sighed, and turned to Ahmose.

“What are you wearing? You look like an apprentice from the temples.”

“Good morning, sister.”

“You can’t attend court looking like that. Go back to your rooms and change. And be quick! There’s already a crowd gathered.”

“I will not change my dress. I am the God’s Wife of Amun. If these people wish to see me, let them see me as a priestess.”

“God’s Wife? You? Did Nefertari hand you the title?”

Ahmose said nothing.

“Well,” Mutnofret went on, “you look like a fool. And your eyes are all red. By Hathor, Ahmose! You should at least try to look like a queen.”

Ahmose turned her face, sharply, and stared into Mutnofret’s eyes. The second queen pursed her lips, but she fell silent.

Beer and bread arrived, and Mutnofret turned her attention to breaking her fast. Ahmose surveyed the hall. It was nearly ready now, the stewards just beginning to fall into position. The pillars of light had crept only a hand’s breadth across the floor.

Mutnofret finished her food, waved the platter away, and nodded to the chief steward.

Ahmose’s mouth quirked. Amusing, that the second queen should think it was for her to begin court. Ahmose rose smoothly from her seat and took the flail from its support beside Tut’s empty throne. She held it across her breasts. Mutnforet glared at her. “Steward,” Ahmose said, “you may open the court.”

She remained standing as the crowd entered the hall, filing into their orderly lines where the stewards directed them. She looked commanding with the flail, she knew. Powerful. “The throne of the Pharaoh welcomes you. Let the spirit of righteousness guide us here. Maat.”

The chief steward raised his voice. “You will be directed to the stewards first. If your petition requires adjudication, you will then be directed to either the Great Royal Wife or the second queen.”

Now was the time. Ahmose took a step forward. “I regret to inform the court that the second queen will not be attending this court session. Her pregnancy troubles her.” Ahmose turned to Mutnofret and smiled, sweetly. “I have excused her from her duties. Perhaps when her child is born, she will feel well enough to join us again.”

Before the court, Mutnofret could do nothing without looking like a contentious child. Any action she might take, except to retreat to her chamber, would be unseemly. Mutnofret stood, holding Ahmose’s eye steadily for a long, tense moment. Then she waved a servant to her side, and waddled down the steps. At the base of the dais, she turned to look up at Ahmose.

“
You are too kind to excuse me from the burden of duty, sister. Won’t you please come visit me this afternoon, so that I might thank you properly?”

Ahmose twitched the flail at her sister, a dismissal. She would not go to Mutnofret’s rooms, this afternoon or any other. The God’s Wife was stronger than the second queen. The God’s Wife had the power to sidestep Mutnofret’s traps. The God’s Wife would let Mutnofret remain in her apartments and claw the walls in her useless rage.

The God’s Wife had taken the throne.

TWENTY-TWO

“
Another boy.” Twosre stood, arms folded, eyes severe, in Ahmose’s modest chamber. “She calls him Amunmose.”

Ahmose bit her fist to smother a yawn. She’d spent a long night dancing and chanting with the Mut priestesses. Her muscles were tight and sore. Their official mission had been to strike fear into the hearts of the Hyksos warriors, but when an apprentice brought word that Mutnofret had gone into labor early that evening, Ahmose had slipped in a few private pleas to make the child a girl. “How is my sister recovering?”

“Quite well, Holy Lady.”

Sometimes even women who’d borne before died of complications. It would be convenient for Mutnofret to slip off to the afterlife and free the Horus Throne of her oppressive presence. No such luck, though. She would carry on as capably as the brood mare she was, it seemed. Ahmose cleared her throat. “Did she ask for me again? At the birthing?”

Twosre made a funny little grimace, eyebrows up, mouth down. No need to answer. The woman’s face said it clearly enough. No, of course not. After Mutnofret’s dismissal from court, the last thread between them was cut forever. They were sisters no more.

“And the new baby? Is he well?”

“Quite strong and healthy. He cries like a bull calf.”

“I’m sure the Pharaoh will be glad to hear it.”

“
Holy Lady…” Twosre hesitated. Ahmose nodded for her to go on, trying to erase the anger from her face. It was not Twosre who enraged her. “It’s not my place to ask, Holy Lady, but all the palace servants want to know. Have you had any success with the Pharaoh? With the heirship for Prince Wadjmose?”

Ahmose’s frown deepened. “No. I get few letters from the Pharaoh these days, and they’re all full of battle stories. They made Tyre a base for many weeks, and cleared the surrounding land of Hyksos. Most of the vermin have fled north. The Pharaoh pursued them. They’ve had several battles along the way, he said. Heavy losses at a few. The Hyksos ambushed them from the highlands near Kadesh. They nearly lost that one, but Tut…Thutmose turned it around on them.

“His last letter spoke of pushing even further north. He thinks to rout them from Ugarit, and set up an outpost there. He believes he can bring the local people to him, and expand the borders of the empire. I’ve seen maps. Ugarit is so far to the north. I don’t see how he’ll hold it, but he has a way with soldiers, I know. If anyone can do it, the Pharaoh can.

“That’s all he tells me, though. I don’t know whether the heirship is even on his mind. I don’t want to push the issue too hard, you see.”

“Of course not,” Twosre said.

Ahmose was about to say more, but hands clapped lightly outside the chamber door.

“
Come,” Ahmose said.

An old priest bowed in the doorway. “Holy Lady, your chariot is ready. I am to drive you to the palace.”

“
Court calls,” Ahmose said, taking Twosre by the hand. “Come. Ride back with me. We have little time for gossip anymore. You can tell me all the latest stories on the way to the palace.”

Twosre came along happily enough, chattering about the harem women and the servants. Ahmose listened with half her heart. The other half recalled the look on Mutnofret’s face when she’d dismissed her from the throne room, and she still didn’t know whether she was pleased or ashamed.

***

Ahmose had borrowed a plain frock from an apprentice girl. Unbleached linen, coarse and scratchy, loose-fitting. A plain wig, too. She lined her eyes thinly with kohl but left the rest of her face untouched. The simplest of leather sandals were tied onto her feet. Looking for all the world like a rekhet woman paying a visit to the Holy House, she walked out from her chamber, through Amun’s courtyard, out along the pillared avenue as the sun set. No one glanced at her twice as she left the complex, pacing out onto the wide road, eyes down, her sandals slapping in the dust. Waset shimmered on the horizon, seeming to float above the earth where the heat rippled the sky into the land. The growing season was nearly at its end. The desperate, thin harvest would begin soon. It was Shemu-hot, even as evening drew on.

She walked for a long time, her eyes on Waset. To the left and right of the roadway fields of flax stretched away, bright and alive, waiting for the reaping. She stopped over a culvert to watch men at work on a canal, setting new bricks into place, shoveling debris from the bed. Was the tension in their faces from their work, or from worry? Their fields were marked with cairns, but the crop did not stretch all the way to the rock piles. Growth ended a good three spans short, the intervening space between crop and boundaries sere and lifeless. She shuddered and walked on.

Chariots passed her, coming and going. None was the one she wanted, though. She reached the crossroads and sat down on the cairn that marked it, waiting, watching the people going about their lives. It was strange to be out among them, unrecognized. At court they were formal. In the temple, they were reverent. Here, where no royalty and no gods watched them, they joked and quarreled, they held hands, they picked their noses and spat on the ground. Children being herded by tired mothers screamed and caught beetles in the roadside weeds. Men driving fine ladies in chariots shouted at the rekhet to clear the way. Goatherds drove their flocks by, whistling. A string of cattle plodded past, led by a tall boy, his little brother perched on the withers of the lead beast.