Daughter of the Gods (36 page)

“There are other games over the next few days you’re supposed to participate in as well.” Senenmut rubbed the stallion’s forehead. “You can’t compete if your neck is broken.”

“You don’t have to worry about me breaking anything.” She waved Nomti out of her chariot. “Except my opponents.”

Nomti looked like he wanted to use the whip on her. “I scoured your chariot myself—it’s oiled and as safe as can be.”

Hatshepsut rolled her eyes. “Nothing is going to happen to me.”

“Promise you’ll be careful,” Senenmut said.

“I promise to be careful,” she gave him a wicked grin, “to win.”

“Hatshepsut!”

She turned to see Aset running toward them, waving her arms. She stopped before the chariot, bracing her hands on her knees and struggling to draw deep breaths. “Tutmose informed me that you plan to drive yourself today.”

“You’re too late.” Hatshepsut gestured to Nomti and Senenmut. “They already tried to stop me.”

Aset straightened. “You didn’t listen to them, did you?”

“Never.”

“Good.” Aset grinned and slapped the horse’s rump. “Don’t kill yourself. But don’t let those boys beat you either!”

At least someone understood her.

The stallion leapt forward at the crack of her whip, trotting toward the makeshift arena that had been constructed for the
sed
festival outside the city. Anemone petals littered the path; the fragrant confetti blew in the breeze as the crowd cheered. It didn’t take long to reach the track seething with its mass of spectators. Hatshepsut counted eight other chariots waiting to start as she pulled into line, and Ti was the only other person remotely close to her age. He smiled and bowed before fiddling with his horse’s girths. Tutmose joined them, navigating his chariot between her and Sennedjem, rounding out the number to an even ten.

“Are you sure you want to race today?” Tutmose asked her, his usual somber expression out of place today amongst the cheering and bets being placed. There would be plenty of prizes for the winner—a necklace of golden bees, a tract of fertile land in the Delta, and a clutch of fresh slaves from Nubia—but Hatshepsut wished only to prove that she still possessed the vitality to win a race like this one, symbolic as it was of her ability to rule.

“Of course I want to race. Don’t you?”

“I suppose.”

“Is everything all right?” Hatshepsut had to holler over the growing din as she checked her reins.

“Yes.” Tutmose pursed his lips together, then sighed. “Actually, no. But I didn’t want to mention it until after the
sed
festival.”

Clouds passed over his face, and he avoided her eyes. Whatever it was, Tutmose wasn’t happy about it.

Neshi was scheduled to start the race, but he was engrossed in conversation with one of the scribes who would record the order of the finishers. “We have a moment,” she said. “You can tell me now.”

Tutmose stared at his horse’s rump. “Satiah is pregnant.”

“Satiah?”

“One of the kitchen slaves. Her mother is Ipu, one of Neferure’s old
menats
.”

Hatshepsut recalled the name then and the girl-slave with heavy breasts that bounced as she kneaded bread. Her fingers tightened on the reins. “And I presume the child is yours?”

Tutmose nodded.

“You’re sure?”

His eyes finally met hers. “Quite sure. The child is due in a few months. I haven’t told anyone else, just my mother.”

Too late for any herbs to take care of the pregnancy. Hatshepsut forced herself to relax her grip on the reins, yet her nails had already cut angry purple grooves into her palms. Tutmose was young, and as was often the case with the young, stupid. Thank the gods she sat on the Isis Throne, and not a youth still driven by what he carried between his legs. “You must marry Neferure immediately. A kitchen slave can be a concubine, but only Neferure can be your Great Royal Wife. This child is a threat to the succession.”

“I know. I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you.”

How could he have been so utterly careless?

She wanted to rail at Tutmose, but his hangdog expression told her he’d already done an ample job of tormenting himself. Now it was left to her to clean up his mess. Still, she recalled a time when she was young and brash and had done more than her share of stupid things. Tutmose would learn from his mistakes as she had, and become a better man for it.

The race seemed suddenly inconsequential, but Neshi stepped onto the track, passing from hand to hand a rock the size of his fist and painted with red ochre. Representative of the hearts laid upon Anubis’ scale, the red stone would be flung in the air by Neshi to signal the start of the race. When it hit the ground the drivers would attempt to drive their chariots around the track four times, and try not to usher themselves, or any of the other drivers, to meet the jackal god prematurely.

“Let the race begin!” Neshi’s arms tensed and the stone flew into the air in a blur of red, only to be trampled underfoot moments later. Hatshepsut’s stallion bolted forward in a cloud of dust. Only Ti, Tutmose, and Sennedjem ran ahead of the pharaoh’s electrum chariot. She leaned as far forward as she could, shouting wildly and flicking the reins.

She felt like Horus hurtling to earth in pursuit of her prey with the wind slicing her skin. Despite Tutmose’s news, the race was exhilarating, the wheels grinding under her, the sheen of her horse’s flanks flashing.

She plied the whip and urged her horse to pass Sennedjem as she completed her first lap. The second lap continued at the same fierce pace, with Ti and Tutmose neck and neck and Hatshepsut a chariot’s breadth behind them. She could hear Sennedjem behind her, cursing at his horse, and she laughed at the sound.

By the third lap, her stallion discovered some untapped well of energy and sprang forward to overtake Ti on a straight stretch. Surely the crowd was yelling, but she could hear only the panting of her horse, her own ragged breathing, and the tinkle of golden bells.

Tutmose was the last left to beat, pushing his mare as if a demon chased them. Hatshepsut’s single chance at overcoming him would come on the final lap. She jerked the reins to force her horse to the left, and planned to push to Tutmose’s side and overtake him on the next curve. There was no way she was going to let Tutmose beat her, not after the disaster he’d just created.

The stallion was creeping forward on the curve, his nose past Tutmose’s flank, when the world came apart. There was a crack and the stallion bolted ahead as the chariot shaft fell to the sand. The chariot shuddered beneath Hatshepsut and tipped forward, upended like a child’s toy. She careened into the air, carried as if by the gods’ arms, watching the sand of the track pass slowly under her. Something hard stopped her flight and yanked the breath from her lungs.

A sound like the snap of a twig.

A blinding flash of pain in her arm.

Then a horse whinnied in the distance and the perfect stillness of unconsciousness overtook her.

S
he was being crushed, pulverized by the teeth of Ammit’s fury. Or tormented by demons, her arm twisted and pinned to a wooden stake while she was forced to float in the darkness of her own blood.

She tried to move, but every limb cried out in agony and each labored breath threatened to smother her. There was a terrible moan of some creature in misery.

The sound was coming from the back of her throat.

“The pharaoh is waking up.” A solid voice waded through the haze of pain.

“Thank Amun.” Senenmut’s voice traveled to her from far away. “Hatshepsut, can you hear me?”

Someone squeezed her hand. She returned the squeeze, or at least she thought she did. Her mouth refused to move.

“You’ve been badly hurt.” A cauldron of relief and anguish boiled in Senenmut’s voice. “Your arm is broken, but Gua set it while you were unconscious. He believes that’s the worst of your injuries. Your chariot overturned and you went flying. We thought we might lose you.” He cleared his throat, his voice thick. “You hit your head, probably when you slammed into Ti’s chariot. Tutmose got to you first—he had to pull the chariot off you.”

Her mind sifted through all she had been told, but it was like wading through quicksand.

“I’m sorry.” She managed to open her eyes a crack as she mouthed the words. How could she have been so reckless?

“Don’t worry.” Senenmut kissed her forehead, his eyes watery with relief. “Now that I know you’re not going to die, I plan to burn your chariot.”

But something didn’t make sense. There was the shudder of her chariot, the horse bolting away with the yoke still attached.

“How?” She was glad the word was only one syllable.

Senenmut pursed his lips together, his gaze flickering toward someone she couldn’t see. “The girth had been cut.”

Gua cleared his throat somewhere in the background. “I think the pharaoh would benefit from some rest now.” And before she could protest, a sweet syrup was poured down her throat.

“Physician’s orders.” Senenmut tucked the linen sheets tighter around her. “I’ll be right here if you need anything. Just rest.”

She couldn’t fight the potent herbs pulling her toward sleep. One final thought followed her into the bleak nightmares of Ammit’s fearsome snarl.

Someone had tried to kill her.

•   •   •

A thick haze still clouded her mind when she woke, but she could make out Senenmut sitting next to her bed, chin drooping to his chest in the flickering torchlight. The dark stubble on his cheeks told her she had slept for more than a few hours. She watched him for some time before deciding that he was real and not part of her constant nightmares, which were filled with rearing horses, flashing knives, and demon mouths packed with sharp teeth. She couldn’t afford the luxury of that medicine again if all her dreams consisted of such tortures that not even the gods could concoct.

“Who did it?”

Her voice sounded rusty, but Senenmut’s head jerked up and he took her hand. He felt warm, alive. “You’re awake.”

She swallowed, her throat getting used to the motion again. “You said one of my girths had been cut. Who did it?”

He rubbed his cheeks, dropped both hands into his lap. His shoulders sagged. “Nomti.”

She drew in a sharp hiss of air. “Are you sure?”

“The leather had been sliced under the harness, and Nomti was the last one to check your chariot. You heard the words from his mouth as well as I.”

“I can’t believe Nomti would try to kill me.” She shook her head, closed her eyes to block out the truth. “That’s too blatant.”

Senenmut shrugged. “That wouldn’t have mattered if—”

“If I’d died.” She rubbed her temples, a drum starting to pound behind her eyes. “Where is he now?”

“In the same cell that once housed Mensah. He claims he’s innocent, but I thought you’d want him questioned.”

She shuddered. Life came in cycles, ever changing yet always the same. Here she was, repeating the same scene of treason, near death, and torture.

“Question him,” she said. “But don’t kill him.”

At least not yet.

•   •   •

The purple bruises on her face and body faded to a murky yellow and then disappeared as her flesh healed, but her mind remained battered, and Gua insisted she continue to wear the stiff wooden splint so that her arm would heal properly. Nomti refused to admit to his treason, regardless of the creative methods being used to extract his confession, and the accident and Tutmose’s news of Satiah’s pregnancy made Hatshepsut painfully aware of the vulnerability of the Isis Throne.

There was only one way to remedy the problem, yet she’d have sold her
ka
to Anubis to avoid it.

She stared at the frescoes dedicated to Thoth on Senenmut’s walls, wishing the god of wisdom might provide a better solution than the only one she could work out, waiting what seemed an eternity for Senenmut’s response. The gods had been cruel these past weeks. From his youngest brother, Senenmut had received word of Nofret-Hor’s unexpected death shortly after the
sed
festival; his sister had flown to the sky after struggling for two days on the birthing blocks to give life to her first child. Instead Anubis had claimed both mother and child. Senenmut had traveled to Iuny for the funeral and returned only today, still smelling of camphor and juniper oil, the scents of embalming and death. Now Hatshepsut had informed him of Tutmose’s talent for impregnating kitchen slaves, a mistake that could lead to future chaos, possibly even civil war.

“Neferure doesn’t want to marry Tutmose,” Senenmut said. Their shared platter of roast pigeon sat between them, virtually untouched. “She’s not going to be happy about being forced before she’s ready.”

“She has to marry him, and now.” Hatshepsut squished a clove of roasted garlic with the thumb of her good hand. “What if Satiah bears a son?”

“A boy could be disastrous—the firstborn son would belong to a servant instead of the Great Royal Wife.” Senenmut rubbed the bridge of his crooked nose. “But it might not be.”

“Don’t lie. It could be chaos even if Satiah has a girl. I’ve thrown open the doors on who can be pharaoh. The best thing for Egypt would be for Satiah to lose the child.” The words were harsh but true.

“What about your promise to Neferure?”

“I wish I’d never made it.” She exhaled and laid her forehead on her hands. The grainy surface of the table filled her eyes even as her temples throbbed. She’d rather face an army of spear-wielding Nubians than force Neferure into a marriage she didn’t want. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an angry army of Nubians handy for her to gamble on. “I don’t want to force her, but I have to.”

“Don’t force her. Persuade her. Neferure isn’t like you.”

“I know that,” she snapped. She stood and walked to an ebony table carved with gazelle’s feet. Atop it sat a gray granite block carved to show Senenmut holding Neferure as a child with a youth lock, his robe wrapped around her for protection and gleaming dully in the lamplight. Neferure remembered so little of Thutmosis; Senenmut was the only father she had ever known.

“Your differences are not a bad thing for either of you.” Senenmut wrapped his arms around Hatshepsut, just as his granite likeness did for Neferure. “Your
ka
is like a giant cedar, shouldering all of Egypt, but Neferure’s is—”

“Like a fragile lotus.”

Senenmut nodded, reaching out to touch Neferure’s stone cheek. “Be gentle with her.”

“I love Neferure,” Hatshepsut said, “but she’s seen eighteen naming days. Even I was married before then.”

“And think of how miserable you were.”

She closed her eyes and thought of Neferure. The only time her daughter’s smiles and laughter rang true was at Amun’s temple when she performed her duties as God’s Wife. Just before the
sed
festival, Hatshepsut had watched her at a ceremony celebrating the anniversary of the victory at Nubia and was awed at Neferure’s calm and the confidence with which she moved while in the god’s presence, so different from her behavior in the palace. She still panicked over formal events and darted about like a startled chickadee when Tutmose was around.

Senenmut stood and rubbed her shoulders. “Would you like me to talk to Neferure instead?”

She leaned into him, shook her head. “I need to do this.”

“If anyone can persuade her, it’s you.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She made her way to Neferure’s chambers, scowling to herself as a nameless
medjay
followed behind, his footsteps echoing loudly down the corridor. She found that she missed the reassurance of Nomti’s quiet presence and his ability to meld into shadows, traits that none of her new string of guards seemed to possess.

It took longer than usual for her to finally reach Neferure’s apartments, both because Hatshepsut got exhausted far too easily now and because she dreaded what she was about to do.

“Mother! I wasn’t expecting you.” Neferure ushered her to a chair before the door opened all the way. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and dark shadows like thumbprints stained the delicate skin underneath. She’d taken the news of Nofret-Hor’s death especially hard. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

Hatshepsut looked at the ceiling and prayed for some intervention from the gods. Perhaps a sudden earthquake or a plague of locusts. Anything.

Of course, there was only silence and Neferure’s wide eyes, her lips parted to show slightly crooked teeth. Her beautiful daughter.

Hatshepsut had no choice except to plunge forward. This was for Egypt.

“We need to talk.” She drew a deep breath. “About Tutmose.”

Neferure frowned. “I heard about Satiah.”

Hatshepsut cursed under her breath. Word traveled fast.

“A youthful blunder.” She took her daughter’s hands. “But you and Tutmose must be married before the child is born.”

“I can’t do that.” Neferure’s gaze flitted about the room like a panicked gazelle recognizing its imminent slaughter. She retrieved a small ivory statue of Amun from its golden shrine—the same carving that had once graced Hatshepsut’s own shrine of gods before she gifted it to Neferure along with the title of God’s Wife—and clutched it as if willing the Great Cackler to give her strength.

“Neferure, you have to do this,” Hatshepsut said. “I won’t live forever—the chariot accident made me realize that. When I’m gone you must share the throne with Tutmose and give him sons.”

“I’d rather die than take the throne.” Neferure’s face crumpled and she pressed the statue into Hatshepsut’s palm, then grasped Hatshepsut’s other hand in a vise grip worthy of a woman giving birth. “I’m the God’s Wife. To give myself to a man—even Tutmose—would destroy that.”

Hatshepsut gave an exasperated sigh. “Neferure, all the royal women who have held that title have also been Great Royal Wives. We serve the gods, but we also serve Egypt.”

“But if I marry Tutmose I might end up like Nofret-Hor, dead on the birthing blocks with a babe locked inside me. I don’t want that life or that death. All I want is to serve Amun.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“You are the daughter of not one, but two pharaohs. You have responsibilities!”

“But I’m not good at them.” Tears filled Neferure’s eyes and her chin trembled.

Hatshepsut forced a breath into her lungs and pulled her daughter to her, setting aside the ivory god. Now she knew how her own father had felt so many years ago. It seemed a cruel trick of the gods that youth and wisdom were never joined together.

“You have the blood of kings in your veins.” She stroked Neferure’s hair. “You can do this.”

“I’ll fail—disgrace you, Tutmose, Senenmut, Father, Grandfather.” Neferure’s voice was so quiet Hatshepsut could barely hear her. “Everyone.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” She tapped Neferure’s chin to look in her eyes. “That’s not possible.”

“I’ve tried so hard to make you happy. But it’s not enough, is it?”

“Of course you’ve made me happy. That’s not what this is about.”

Neferure looked at the ground. “I’m not like you, Mother.”

“You don’t have to be like me.” Hatshepsut smoothed the hair of Neferure’s wig, letting her palm linger on her daughter’s damp cheek. “The gods sculpt us all differently. You’re
you
—princess of Egypt and Tutmose’s Great Royal Wife.”

Time slipped past. She could feel Neferure giving up thread by thread, unraveling the tapestry of everything she had planned for her future.

“You promised you would never force me to marry Tutmose—that I would get to choose when I was ready.” Neferure’s lower lip trembled when she spoke. “But I’m not ready.”

“I can’t keep that promise any longer.”

“Please, can’t Tutmose marry someone else?” Neferure’s voice was no more than a whisper. “Anyone but me?”

“You know that’s not possible,
sherit
. Your fully royal blood is Tutmose’s only living link to the double crown. I’d sacrifice my heart to Ammit if it would clear another way to the throne, but there’s no other choice. I can’t risk it.”

“Egypt is too important.” A tremor quavered in Neferure’s voice.

“You are important,” Hatshepsut reassured her. “Never doubt that, Neferure. I treasure you above all else in this world. You’ve made me happier and prouder than you can ever know.”

“I love you,” Neferure whispered, finality weighing down her words.

“I love you, too,” Hatshepsut answered. “Forever and always.”

•   •   •

The following evening the pharaoh’s private garden was awash with hundreds of tiny lamps that illuminated the air even as darkness strode across the sky. Mouse had arranged the lights on every surface that would hold them, and now the miniature flames danced merrily in the night. Five ebony dining couches had been arranged amongst the trees and flowers in the garden’s grassy center. The background chatter of crickets and splashing fountains imbued the air with perfect tranquility. It had rained long and hard earlier in the day—a rare gift from the gods that had scrubbed the air clean—but now the storm had broken, so the full moon and only a few wispy remnants of clouds were reflected in the fountains. Humming to herself, Hatshepsut smelled the aromas of all of Tutmose’s and Neferure’s favorite foods from the kitchens—chilled cucumber soup, roast goose with almond dressing, and plenty of honeyed desserts—as they mingled with the wet-earth scent of her garden.