The Sekhmet Bed (38 page)

He shook his head and sniffed.

“
Tell me what happened. How did you find the hare?”

The boy, struggling to marshal his voice, said nothing for a long time. He tugged at his sidelock, kicked his toes in the dust of the fig grove. At last he said, “Amunmose saw a hawk fly by. He said it looked like it had something big, but it couldn’t fly with it. We went after it – you know, the way it flew – to see if we could catch it.” He paused, wiping his tears. “We saw it drop the hare. Then the hawk flew away. Some of the children wanted to go get the hare so we could say we caught it, but I didn’t think it was safe. I said no.” He looked at naked Hatshepsut. As if she could feel her brother-cousin’s eyes on her, the girl turned back from the path and held his gaze with her own bright black eyes. “Hatshepsut ran for it, and I couldn’t keep Ramose back. You know he always follows her everywhere. Then…then…”

“
It’s all right. This is not your fault, sweet boy. Now I need to change out of this dress, and then we can go visit Ramose. I suppose the physician is sewing up his arm right now.”

“
Sewing him?”

“
Just like a rag doll,” she said, and though she tried to make her voice cheery for the sake of the children, she thought of Opet’s torn doll –
She’s dead!
– and shivered.

THIRTY-NINE

“
How is he today?” Ahmose asked.

Twosre shook her head and looked away. “Not well, Great Lady. The fever has grown worse. I was there this afternoon when they changed the bandage on his arm, and the smell…”

Numb, Ahmose nodded. It was no more than she expected. Yet it still tore at her to know that innocent Ramose, soft little Ramose, suffered. She allowed herself to hope, though. Perhaps he would not be taken by Anupu. Perhaps a warning to the Pharaoh was enough for the gods. Perhaps the boy’s life would be spared. “How is my sister?”

“
She’s frightened, of course, but she’s bearing up.” Twosre paused, watching Ahmose’s face for a long moment, and then said, “I don’t think she blames the princess, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It
was
what she was asking. And Ahmose was comforted to know that Hatshepsut would not be blamed. This wasn’t the girl’s fault, after all. If blame lay anywhere, it was with the king. He had tempted the gods by disobeying their wishes. And now she feared Ramose would pay the price.

“
Has the Pharaoh been to see Ramose?”

“
Ah, Great Lady. He’s hardly left the boy’s side, the whole two days since Ramose was bitten.”

Ahmose knew she should go to the boy’s bedside, but she felt too angry, too frightened, to look her husband in the eye. “Is there any hope he’ll recover, Twosre?”

Twosre was quiet, looking out over Ahmose’s garden. Darkness was falling over Waset. Bats piped from the branches of the trees and insects murmured among the flowers. At length she said, “I think it’s unlikely, Great Lady. I’m sorry.”

The words unseated Ahmose’s fear. “I’ll go to him tonight, then.”

It was a long and daunting walk across the courtyard, lit now by the first touches of starlight from a deep purple sky. The door to Mutnofret’s chamber was open slightly to allow the breeze inside. She pushed it wide and went in.

The antechamber of the second queen’s apartments had been converted into a sickroom. A small bed was set up in the center, and Ramose was sprawled atop it, his linen-wrapped arm held stiffly out across the mattress, his small body bent and shining with sweat. He seemed to be asleep, though his head tossed restlessly. Thutmose and Mutnofret sat on stools beside the bed, their backs to the door. Two serving girls worked palm fans up and down, up and down, stirring and cooling the air over the prince’s body. A musician played soft temple hymns on a harp in one corner.

Ahmose came to Tut’s side and rested a hand on his shoulder. He jerked, as if he’d been dozing, and looked up at her. “Ahmoset.”

“
How is he?” she asked, although she knew the answer already.

“
Not well,” Mutnofret said, and her voice was thick with exhaustion. “The wound has festered, though they packed it with a poultice.”

Tut shook his head slowly, side to side like a hound searching for a scent. “I don’t know what to do.”

“
Have you been to the temple?”

Tut didn’t reply for a long time. His eyes wandered over Ramose’s body, the small chest, the thin legs. “No,” he said at last. “I haven’t left this room, except to see to my own needs.”

“
I’ll go,” she said. “I’ll bring any offerings you wish me to take. Mutnofret?”

She’d meant to ask whether Mutnofret wanted anything in particular left at a shrine, but the second queen stood, slowly and carefully, as if she were an old, old woman. “I’ll come with you. I need to pray.”

***

They waited in the palace courtyard under the night sky for a chariot to take them to the temple. There were guards nearby, standing at a respectful distance, voices low so as not to disturb Egypt’s grieving queens.

Mutnofret breathed the fresh air deeply and pulled off her wig. There was no one to see but the guards. Ahmose supposed she was beyond caring about propriety, anyway.

Mutnofret ran a hand over days-old stubble and sighed. “I needed to get out of that room, the gods forgive me.”

“
I imagine you did. I think the gods will understand.”

“
I’m a terrible mother, for leaving my child. He could die at any time, but I had to do something other than sit and stare.”

It chilled Ahmose, to hear how matter-of-factly Mutnofret talked of her son’s death. If Hatshepsut lay in a fever, Ahmose didn’t think she could face it so calmly. But Mutnofret had hardly slept for two days – Twosre said so – and lack of sleep could do strange things to any person’s mind.

“
You’re not a terrible mother,” she said, squeezing Mutnofret’s hand. It was clammy, unresponsive. She let it drop again.

“
He’s going to die,” Mutnofret said flatly. “What am I to do? What will I do without him?”

Ahmose wanted to say,
You don’t know that. He may yet survive.
But
she
knew it. She’d known it the moment the vulture had landed. Anupu had marked Ramose for his own. Amun’s will would be done.

“
There is no mortuary temple for my sons.” Mutnofret’s voice was low and monotonous. “I’ll have to lay him in my own tomb, until one can be built.”

“
If
he dies, we will build him a tomb. The gods will know where to find him.”

Mutnofret nodded, dull and dark. “Yes. They’ll know where to find him.”

“
Mutnofret, I think you need sleep more than you need to go to Ipet-Isut. Look at yourself. You can hardly stand.”

Hooves popped against paving stones. The chariot swung into view. Mutnofret watched it draw close, and said, “I’ll sit in the chariot. It will be easier than standing the whole way. But I need to go to the temple before Ramose dies.” There was an urgency in her voice now.

Ahmose raised no more protests. She helped her sister into the chariot.

Mutnofret sat, her back propped against the side of the vehicle, her head leaning back and bumping whenever the wheels rolled over a rough patch of road. The driver walked the horses, and they rode to the Holy House in silence.

Ahmose held their offerings wrapped in fine red linen and watched her sister’s face. Mutnofret had aged so much in the past three years. The finest net of lines spread out from the corners of the second queen’s eyes, maturing her face but marring her prettiness not one bit. Mutnofret’s beauty was a serene one now, where before, when they were younger and more at odds, it had been a fiery beauty. She was still like a goddess, though, with clear skin and penetrating dark eyes. No passage of years would ever make Mutnofret anything but beautiful. Ahmose wanted to touch her, to embrace her, to forgive her for all the wrongs of the past, now that Mutnofret was so delicate and fine in her sorrow. Instead, she clutched the bundle of meat and bread to her chest and turned her eyes toward Ipet-Isut.

The guards at the Holy House’s gates allowed them to drive the chariot all the way to the two great temples at the heart of the complex. When they arrived at the forecourt, Ahmose helped Mutnofret down from the platform and steadied her while she trembled. Then Mutnofret took the bundle and led the way into the dark heart of Mut’s temple herself.

“
Wait for me, please,” Mutnofret said when they reached the doorway to Hathor’s sanctuary. Hathor, the protector of mothers. “I would be alone with the goddess.” Mutnofret disappeared into the black bosom of the sanctuary.

Ahmose sat on the floor of the temple, her back against a wall alive with painted figures. The temple was quiet, deserted in the night. Ahmose sat very still, feeling the ache of exhaustion in her limbs and heart. She closed her eyes, breathed, quiet, still.

And in a moment or an hour – she could sense no passage of time – she saw again, on the dark side of her closed eyes, Mut walking on the river of light, carrying in her arms the boy Hatshepsut.

Why
? Ahmose asked, bold and challenging. She should be afraid of questioning the goddess, especially here in Ipet-Isut, in Mut’s own home. But grief had taken her beyond fear.

When Mut’s mouth opened, Ahmose’s own voice came out.
The will of the gods shall be done
.

Don’t do this to us. We won’t survive it
.

And now it was Twosre’s voice, figs and earth:
Do you serve weak gods?

Ahmose sagged in the dream-river, bending not under the weight of worship, but of sorrow.

Mut bent forward, forward, until her shining face was a hand’s breadth before Ahmose’s own. She smiled, lovingly. She reached a white wing forward, and it became an arm, a hand that pointed a finger, a finger that touched the surface of the Nile. The water stilled, as smooth and clear as a mirror. Ahmose watched the water. Her own face looked back at her, and now beside her was Thutmose, and Hatshepsut. Just beyond them, Mutnofret and the boys. And beyond them, all of Egypt, faces as innumerable and precious as stars.

It is for these, my beloved children, that I raise up the prince with nine kas
.

Though her eyes were closed, Ahmose
blinked
. And saw again the red veils, the comforting bed, the nine striding boys, smiling at her, knowing her.
Nine kas
. Hatshepsut was more than even Ahmose had suspected. With nine kas, she could be anywhere, everywhere. She would have power unknowable. Ahmose’s heart wavered, unable to fully understand.

Nine kas? My child?

Eight male, one female. And each one pleasing to the gods. As you are pleasing to the gods, God’s Wife.

You cannot call me that,
Ahmose said, never knowing where her boldness came from.
I was never the God’s Wife.

On the contrary, child. You were. And are. Did you not lay with my husband Amun to conceive our child, our bringer of the floods, our soul of maat? Our prince?

My child is a girl,
Ahmose said, weeping.

Mut was amused. Her perfect face shone with her laughter.
Believe that if you must.

I must. The Pharaoh thinks Hatshepsut is a girl. What can I do? I’ve tried to convince him. He will not believe.

Nor will he ever believe. And that is why we do this thing.

Ramose.
The name was blood in her mouth, tears in her eyes.
Please
.