Daughter of the Gods (29 page)

“Where’s Tutmose?”

“I hid him at the Temple of Hathor. He’s safe for now.” Aset glanced around, her face falling. “Where’s Senenmut?”

Hatshepsut shook her head. “Probably in his chambers. Why?”

Aset bit her lip. “Mensah wanted Senenmut brought down, too.”

No. Not Senenmut.

Hatshepsut shoved past Nomti and flew down the torch-lit corridors, ignoring the shouts and pounding footsteps behind her. She shoved open the doors to Senenmut’s apartments, terrified of what she might find.

A broken chair lay overturned near the open window, the carved cedar shutters thudding against the whitewashed walls. The wind was dying and the moon gleamed dully through the black clouds of Nut’s belly. Sheets of pale papyrus rustled about the room. The one at her feet was dotted with a delicate spray of blood, as bright as pomegranate juice.

Senenmut stood beside his desk cradling his left arm, and blood dripped through his fingers to the floor. At his feet lay a man’s crumpled body, still breathing.

Mensah.

“How bad is it?” She grabbed linen from the bed to staunch the flow from Senenmut’s arm.

“It’s nothing.” He prodded Mensah with his foot, none too gently. “I managed to get him down, but he’s still alive.”

“I’ll make him talk before he joins his friend,” Nomti said. “They can greet Ammit together.”

“His friend?” Senenmut asked.

“The High Priest of Amun,” Hatshepsut said. “He tried to kill me.”

“Son of a jackal!” Red-faced, Senenmut winced as Hatshepsut peeled his hand back from the gaping wound on his arm. She pushed from her mind the image of another injury long ago, her sister’s
ka
seeping through her fingers. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine. Aset warned Nomti in time.”

Senenmut caressed Hatshepsut’s cheek, and she turned into his hand, wishing they were alone so she could tell him how terrified she’d been. Not for herself, but him—she needed Senenmut here in this world, not lost forever in the Field of Reeds. But then he turned to Aset, and the moment was gone. “Thank you, Aset,” he said. “I can never repay you for all you’ve done tonight.”

She gave a tight nod and dropped her gaze to the floor. Senenmut turned to Nomti and gestured to Mensah on the ground. “Take your time with this one.”

“I intend to.” Nomti’s lips twisted into a dangerous smile.

Senenmut swayed on his feet, his hand tight on Hatshepsut’s arm and his face pale.

“You’ve lost too much blood. Sit down.” Her hand was already sticky with all the blood that had seeped through the linen on his arm. “Aset, can you send for Gua?”

She nodded. “And then I’m going to check on Tutmose.” She was almost out the door when Hatshepsut stopped her.

“Aset, thank you.”

“Of course.” Aset gave a strange smile, then slipped out the door.

Nomti and another
medjay
dragged Mensah from Senenmut’s rooms in the time it took to summon the Royal Physician from his bed. Crimson flotsam spattered the tiles, leaving the engraved lotuses bedecked with drops of bloody dew. The physician sewed up Senenmut’s wound and packed it with a honey poultice.

Hatshepsut kissed Senenmut as soon as Gua left. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I never planned for anyone else to get hurt.”

Senenmut sat in a cushioned long chair and patted the space next to him, maneuvering her into his arms as best he could with the sling he now wore. The metallic smell of copper and honey filled her nose as she laid her head on his chest, relishing the feel of his arm around her.

“This wasn’t your fault.” Senenmut tilted her chin up and kissed her nose. “Although it might be a perfect excuse for you to spend less time in the throne room and more time in my chambers. I might need someone to help nurse me back to health.”

She laughed, glad to hear the Senenmut she knew and loved, despite his ashen face. She nestled her head against his chest, simply enjoying listening to the steady beat of his heart. She hesitated on her next words, knowing that nothing would be the same once they left her lips.

“And now I’m going to be pharaoh.”

Senenmut leaned back to look her in the eyes. “You still plan to go through with it?”

“I swore to do whatever was necessary to protect Egypt when I assumed the regency,” she said. “Mensah’s plot to seize the throne is a stark example of how vulnerable Egypt is without a single capable ruler wearing the double crown.”

“And Tutmose is still far too young to rule.”

She nodded. “It will be at least six more years before he can truly assume the throne.” Hatshepsut waited for the gods to show their disapproval, for the storm outside to scream again, yet there was nothing. It was as if the gods held their breath to see what she might do next.

“A lot could happen in six years.” Senenmut grimaced at his arm and stretched his legs before him. “After your victory in Nubia, the military will support anything you decide, and the
rekhyt
believe both you and the Two Lands are blessed by the gods.”

The Nile’s floods had gifted the Black Land with especially fertile soil since Thutmosis had died, filling Egypt’s grain houses along with the Royal Treasury. Even the cattle and goats in the fields seemed fatter, the catfish in the markets bigger. Countless celebrations in Hatshepsut’s honor had been held up and down the Nile over the past year as the
nomarchs
she’d met while on procession sang her praises to their people.

“And the position of High Priest of Amun recently became vacant,” Senenmut said. “You’ll have to appoint someone new, perhaps a distant relative who is inclined to support your wearing the double crown?”

Hatshepsut nodded slowly, awed and overwhelmed at the way events were falling together, as if the gods had blessed her decision and bent everything to her will. Perhaps her becoming pharaoh would actually fulfill the gods’ wishes.

Still, there was one thing the gods had overlooked.

“Not everyone will be happy at my assuming the throne,” she said. “One person in particular.”

“Aset,” Senenmut said.

Hatshepsut nodded. Aset had saved her life tonight, had taken Neferubity’s place as her sister over the years, and now Hatshepsut would reward her with betrayal. “But I love ruling Egypt,” she said, tears blurring her vision. “I can’t give it up.”

Senenmut gathered Hatshepsut into his arms. “Perhaps Aset will forgive you, even support you.”

She snorted, swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “You don’t know Aset very well.”

“It’s not as if you’re casting Tutmose aside, as Mensah planned to. You’re only delaying his turn to wear the double crown.”

She closed her eyes and nodded into his chest. “I’ll ensure he has the best education and military training, everything he needs to succeed me after I pass to the West.”

Senenmut’s arms tightened around her. “Let’s not talk about your dying while you’re still covered in the blood of would-be assassins.”

They held each other like that for some time, the events of the day and the enormity of their discussion settling like the silence of a tomb. Finally Hatshepsut tipped her head to look at him.

“Do you really think I can do it?”

“I know you can. And you’ll see—Aset will come around eventually.”

“I hope you’re right.”

He smiled. “I usually am.”

They moved over to Senenmut’s bed, his good arm wrapped around Hatshepsut, and almost everything right in the world. Senenmut settled into sleep, his chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm, but Hatshepsut stared at the ceiling, her thoughts whirling like the winds of the
khamsin
.

Aset might one day forgive her, but nothing would ever be the same when Hatshepsut took Tutmose’s crown. There was a good chance her bond with Aset would become her first true sacrifice in Egypt’s name.

She only wondered what other sacrifices the gods might demand of her.

B
ound by copper manacles on his neck and wrists, Mensah cowered on the flowered tiles before the empty Isis Throne, squinting through swollen eyes at Hatshepsut sitting in the glittering golden alcove. An angry purple bruise clamped his left eye shut and a dried crust of blood caked his forehead and chin. She wrinkled her nose at the stench of filth and feces. He must have soiled himself over the course of Nomti’s torture. He was lucky to still have his hands and ears.

“Mensah, son of Imhotep.” Hatshepsut looked down her nose into his bloodshot eye. “We find you and your fellow conspirators guilty of attempted regicide and murder. The penalty for such treason is death.” The cross-legged scribe at her feet struggled to keep up with her words, his brush flicking frantically over the papyrus. The recordings would be kept for a short time and then burned so no trace of Mensah’s name would remain to keep his
ka
alive. “You will be taken immediately to the Great Double Gate, where you shall be thrown onto a wooden spike.” Mensah winced at the sentence, but she wasn’t finished. “Once you are dead, your body shall be burned and the ashes flung into the Nile. You shall cease to exist in the afterlife, just as in this life. This is Ma’at’s wish.”

“Please,
Per A’a
,” Mensah shrieked as two
medjay
hauled him away by his copper chains. “Not my
ka
. Let my body rest in my tomb, I beg of you.”

He was a fool to think she would allow that. She already had plans to seize his tomb and reallocate it to another noble, perhaps Neshi or Ti. No one would meet Mensah or his fellow conspirators in the Field of Reeds. They wouldn’t even make it to Ma’at’s scales before their ashes fed the Nile’s crocodiles.

Hatshepsut signed the bottom of the scribe’s papyrus, listening to Mensah’s wails fade down the corridor. In a few days’ time, the hieroglyphs of her name would be wrapped with the sacred cartouche that only pharaohs were allowed. Ma’at’s justice was sweet.

She traded the papyrus for the golden crook and flail, carried them with her as she strode to the lapis audience window above the Walls of the Prince to watch as Mensah’s sentence was carried out. The occasional russet smear of Mensah’s blood on the tiles marked the path for her to follow. A narrow set of stairs climbed to a small balcony with a view of the main gates—a window used only for formal appearances by the pharaoh to the populace, the same window where she’d once watched Enheduanna parade to the palace and her too-early death. A thick layer of sand left over from the
khamsin
covered the balcony. Carved ankh
symbols formed a painted vine of life around the window, framing the hastily arranged execution ground waiting below.

A
medjay
shoved Mensah up a small wooden platform situated next to a cedar stake half the height of a man. The top of the pike was stained black, a remnant of other traitors’ blood from generations past.

At the sound of the drums a crowd, consisting of a few curious
rekhyt
but mostly courtiers ordered to attend by royal decree, gathered. This was a public execution, witnessed by enough people to ensure that the traitor’s death would soon be on the lips of every priest, farmer, and fisherman in Egypt. Everyone would know the price exacted from traitors, something to remember as Hatshepsut took the throne.

She caught Nomti’s eye from where he was on the platform with Mensah and nodded for him to secure the linen bag over Mensah’s head. The former vizier bucked against his ropes like a bull about to be sacrificed, but he finally succumbed, although his shoulders still shook. There were only two possibilities open to Mensah as he left this life: a very quick death if the wood pierced his miserable heart, or a slow and agonizing demise if the spike missed its target. It was in his best interest to be still and allow the executioner to do his deed properly.

Hatshepsut held up her hands and the drums stopped. “Citizens of Egypt,” she called out. “We banish this traitor’s body and name from this world to ensure he shall never rise in Amenti. Let this be a warning to all those who might wish to incite chaos against Ma’at’s perfect order.”

The drums pounded a steady heartbeat as
medjay
guided Mensah to the edge of the platform. His bare toes hung off the edge. The crowd held its breath in complete silence, and then the
medjay
slammed their shoulders into Mensah’s back. As stiff as a board, he fell forward with a spray of blood and a sickening squelch. The spike missed his heart, piercing his stomach and exiting out his back. He screamed—the high screech of a falcon—and scarlet blood trickled down the stake to stain the earth. A woman keened as Mensah writhed upon the shaft, his head still in the sack and arms and legs bound.

Re reached his pinnacle before all the life seeped from Mensah; perhaps Anubis was less than pleased at the prospect of claiming a traitor. Sweat gathered under Hatshepsut’s arms, trickled like blood down her back. Still she stayed and watched.

Finally, he stopped moving and his chest stilled. Slaves poured oil on a nearby pile of imported cedar and pine, then tossed a burning light onto the logs. The bonfire roared to life as four
medjay
lifted Mensah’s body from the pike. All his guts poured forth, entrails dangling from his stomach as his corpse was heaved onto the pyre. He wasn’t the final obstacle in Hatshepsut’s path to the throne, but she vowed that he would be the last blood sacrifice she would make.

She remained until the embers grew cold and the greasy smear of smoke cleared from the air. Slaves lit torches as dusk spread; then they gathered the ashes and doused the bloodied earth with buckets of water.

Hatshepsut hoped never to see another execution as long as she lived.

•   •   •

Hatshepsut’s hair was still damp after her visit to the bath pavilion, her skin pink where Mouse had scoured her with natron until she thought she might bleed. Nomti fell into step behind her as she left her chamber, his hand on the hilt of his curved sword. Her skin prickled with fear at each stray sound and her neck was still tender, the black bruises from the night before hidden under a wide pectoral collar of lapis and a turquoise winged scarab.

Mensah lurked in the darkness every time she closed her eyes, impaled and slowly bleeding to death on the stake. Her body was clean, but her
ka
would carry the stain of his execution forever.

The greatest gifts in life came with the greatest costs.

She gathered her thoughts for what she was going to say when she reached the Hall of Women, the words she’d focused on during Mensah’s drawn-out demise. Her feet slowed as she approached the massive gilded gate, wishing she could forestall what she was about to do.

A small price to pay. That’s what she kept repeating to herself, yet this was another stain about to find its home on her
ka
.

She almost turned around, but the golden gate swung open. The one person she wished to avoid—yet desperately wanted to see—raised her hand in greeting.

Aset walked toward her and enveloped her in a warm hug. “I’d guess you can’t wait for this day to be over.”

Hatshepsut nodded. Her day of triumph didn’t feel as victorious as she’d imagined. And she had a feeling it was about to get much worse.

Aset squeezed her shoulders. “You did the right thing, Hatshepsut. I know it doesn’t make it any easier, but Mensah deserved to die.”

“I know.”

Aset rubbed her arm with one hand, then glanced at the ground. “How is Senenmut?”

Hatshepsut started. She hadn’t expected Aset to show concern for the man she openly disliked. “He is well. Gua says his arm will heal so long as he rests.”

“You might have to barricade him in his chambers, then.” Aset smiled and Hatshepsut managed to return the gesture. “Speaking of rest,” Aset said, “I seem to recall the Royal Physician saying the same thing about you.”

“I’m fine.” Hatshepsut took a deep breath. “I was coming to see you, actually.”

“Me? Don’t be silly. Go to bed.”

“By the gods,” Hatshepsut said, her voice low. This was so much harder than she had imagined. “Aset, there’s something else, something important I have to tell you.”

“Sekhmet’s breath,” Aset said. “You’d best get it out quick—you look like you’re about to be ill.”

“Egypt is vulnerable with Tutmose on the throne. Someone stronger than a ten-year-old boy needs to wear the double crown in order to avoid another rebellion like Mensah’s.”

“What?” Aset blinked, struggling to comprehend Hatshepsut’s words. “But Tutmose is the pharaoh, the only heir to Thutmosis and your father. There’s no one else who shares their blood—” She stopped and shook her head, the bells at the ends of her wig tinkling like a flurry of angry bees. “No—”

“Aset.” Hatshepsut wanted to touch her, to stop her friend’s trembling. “I’m going to be pharaoh. It’s the only way.”

Aset clenched her hands into fists at her sides and stepped toward Hatshepsut. Nomti moved closer, but Aset slowly raised her hands, palms open. “I must have misheard you,” she said to Hatshepsut, the sharpness in her voice echoing down the corridor. “For a moment, it sounded like you were planning to steal my son’s throne.”

“Tutmose will still become pharaoh, but not until after my reign.”

“So you’ll keep the throne warm until my son is older and then step aside?”

“No. A pharaoh never abdicates.”

Aset slapped her—hard—but Nomti pinned Aset’s arms behind her back before she could do further harm. She struggled against him, and if the glint in her eyes was any indication, she wanted to do much more damage.

Hatshepsut touched the fire in her cheek, then dropped her hand and stepped close enough to feel Aset’s breath. “Please,” she said. “Try to understand—”

“I understand perfectly well.” Aset spat at her feet. “I wish I’d let you die. You may as well be dead, at least to me.”

Hatshepsut stepped back, struggling to keep her face a mask. “I’m sorry, Aset—I truly am. But this is the way it has to be.”

“Only because it’s the way you want it.”

“This is for Egypt. I hope one day you’ll understand.” She turned and walked away, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder even as she heard Nomti fall into step behind her, and feeling as if she was leaving behind something precious and irretrievable with Aset.

“Ammit will eat your heart for this!” Aset screamed at her back. “I loved you like a sister, but you’ve betrayed Tutmose! And Egypt!” There was a splintering crash, and Hatshepsut turned to see shards of alabaster and pink lotus blossoms strewn about the floor, puddles of water on the tiles. “I hate you!”

Hatshepsut forced herself to continue walking, one foot in front of the other, all the way to her chambers. Nomti motioned for the guards outside to fall back and barred the entrance with his arm.

“Aset will be a dangerous foe after this,” he said.

Hatshepsut’s hand fluttered to her temples. She didn’t care to discuss this now, but Nomti wouldn’t be dismissed so easily. “It’s my opinion that Aset should be removed from the palace,” he said, “perhaps sent to your estates in Bubastis, at least until you can be sure she won’t seek revenge against you. Your Keeper of the House there is loyal to you and won’t shirk from the added duty of watching Aset for suspicious activity.”

“Suspicious activity?” Hatshepsut closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, not wanting to think on this new reality. Her friend and sister was now her enemy, all by her own hand. “Aset hates me, but I doubt she’ll try to have me murdered in my bed.”

Nomti clasped his hands behind his back. “Do you know exactly what transpired between her and Mensah before he almost had you killed?”

“He tried to persuade her to join him, but she refused.” Hatshepsut’s voice climbed until the waiting guards gave them a sharp glance. She drew a deep breath, ready to dismiss Nomti so this conversation could reach its end. “Then she fled to hide Tutmose.”

“That was after Mensah spent the evening in her chambers. The possibility remains that she might have initially been tempted to join him.”

Hatshepsut opened her mouth to reply, but the protest died before it could leave her lips. Nomti was right to be concerned, although she doubted Aset was capable of such duplicity, as she’d always worn her emotions plain on her face. But as much as Hatshepsut hated to admit it, Nomti was probably right about Aset being a threat to her safety. Still, she could scarcely stomach the thought of punishing Aset further. “I can’t send away Tutmose’s mother, not as I’m about to be crowned.”

Nomti shrugged. “It might be said that the former concubine of Osiris Thutmosis requested time to recuperate from the recent coup away from the palace. Grant her some rich grazing land or dedicate a monument to her as Tutmose’s revered mother as a public token of your appreciation. She’ll forget soon enough.”

Hatshepsut doubted very much that Aset would be so easily distracted. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’d be banishing her. I can’t send her so far away as Bubastis.”

“It’s not banishment if you plan to recall her in a few years, once she’s had time to realize that Tutmose will still be pharaoh one day.” Nomti crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing like a desert cat’s. “My only concern is for your safety. I stand firm by my warning: Aset cannot remain here,
Per A’a
.”

Per A’a
. Pharaoh.

She had thought the title would sound sweet, but the word seemed impossibly heavy now that it belonged to her. Had her father felt like this when he took the throne? Had Thutmosis?

Finally, she nodded. “Fine. Aset will be sent away, but not to Bubastis. She’ll go to Dendera instead, so she’s not as far away, and perhaps will even serve the Temple of Hathor. Regular reports will be sent to her regarding her son.”

Nomti signaled to the guards to return to their places. “I’ll make the arrangements immediately.”

The doors to Hatshepsut’s chamber shut silently behind her. The walls pushed in on her, the warm air threatening to suffocate her. Seams ripped as she yanked the neck of her sheath, clenched her teeth, and wanted to throw something as Aset had done. Instead, she climbed the ladder to the roof, gulping in deep breaths of the tempered night air.