King and Goddess (31 page)

~~~

As difficult as Senenmut’s mourning was, it was a feeble
thing beside Hatshepsut’s. Perhaps she too had not known how much she loved her
daughter, nor wished to acknowledge it, for love so great could be a weakness.

She continued as she always had, being queen regent, ruling
the Two Kingdoms, ignoring the king. He preserved his silence, played with his
soldiers, refrained from attracting her notice. It was all as it had been since
Thutmose took the throne.

But her heart had conceived a thing, a great thing, a thing
of which she would speak to no one, not even Senenmut. He knew only because she
took him often to her bed just then, loved him with an urgency that was rare in
her, and when he fell asleep was still awake; and when he woke to return to his
own house, her eyes were open and staring into the dark.

He did not ask. With Hatshepsut, one did not. She spoke as
she chose, and not as any man would compel her.

It was long days, weeks, months before she spoke, except
once. “I dream,” she said then. “Every night, I dream.”

~~~

One day not long after the queen spoke, if briefly, of her
dream, Senenmut visited Hapuseneb in the house that he had acquired recently
near the temple of Amon. It was a noble house, the house of a man who had won
both wealth and high standing in the service of god and queen.

Hapuseneb met his guest in a grand reception hall, with a
wry fillip of the hand at its many gauds and flummeries. “The prince who lived
here before me had rather elaborate taste in decor,” he said. “There never
seems to be time to get rid of it all.”

Senenmut nodded. “One wonders whether to gape or to gag.” He
inspected a particularly ornate piece of carving on what was, for lack of a
better description, a chair. “This looks like Asiatic work.”

“Indeed,” said Hapuseneb. “Mitanni, I suppose. Or somewhere
farther afield. I speak the language, but I never did understand their
predilection for adding insult to injury.”

“You’ve seen how they dress,” Senenmut pointed out.

Hapuseneb sighed and shook his head. “Here, come with me.
This is doing neither of us any good.”

The room to which he led Senenmut was simpler in its
furnishings, nearly bare in fact, with new plaster laid over the walls, but
nothing as yet painted on them. The artist had begun in a corner: a red-limned
sketch of a fan of papyrus.

The scent of new-laid plaster was remarkably pleasant. Hapuseneb
sat in a chair that was rather the worse for wear, and gestured Senenmut to
another. A small servant, with ears like jar-handles on either side of a round
shaven skull, brought bread and cheese and barley beer.

“After your predecessor,” Senenmut said, “you must be a
profound shock to the servants.”

Hapuseneb grinned, as wicked as ever though he had lost most
of his teeth. He was aging well except for that, neither gaining nor losing
flesh, simply continuing as he always had. His fondness for beer had not gone
to the belly as it too often did, nor did it weaken his will.

“I am going to shake the servants up,” he said. “And while
I’m at it, and with the high priest’s blessing—or at least his lack of
interference—I’m going to show the temple a thing or two, too. Amon’s grown so
powerful that he’s gone soft. He’s lost the edge that a man gets, or a god,
when he has to struggle for what is his. It’s time he tightened his belt again,
and remembered where he left his sword.”

“You talk like the king,” Senenmut said. “All war and
weapons.”

“Do I?” Hapuseneb sounded surprised, but Senenmut was not
deceived. “Dear me. It must be catching.” He sighed. The mockery faded. “That
is a charming child, old friend. When he chooses to be.”

“He often doesn’t,” said Senenmut. “And never before the
queen regent.”

“So I noticed,” Hapuseneb said. “It’s as if there’s a curse
on them. She can abide no one who is called Thutmose, except for the first of
that name, with whom she never ceases to compare the others. This youngest of
the line is terrified of her, and knows it. He hates her for it. Hatred makes
him stammer; stammering makes him seem a fool. And when he goes silent, he
simply proves to her that he has precious little store of wit. Whereas she—”

“Whereas she,” said Senenmut, “who has all the patience in
the world with recalcitrant princes and truculent embassies, has no patience
left for a half-stammering, half-mute fool of a boy.”

“He’s not a fool,” said Hapuseneb. “Not even at his worst.
Not ever.”

“I know that,” Senenmut said almost impatiently. “Gods! It
hurts to watch them. She loses all good sense in his presence. She sees nothing
but the mooncalf boy, the stumble-tongued half-idiot; if he could bring himself
to be as he is everywhere else—but it’s too late for that, isn’t it? It’s been
too late since she began her regency.”

“It was too late the moment Isis conceived him.” Hapuseneb
met Senenmut’s stare. “Don’t gawp at me like that. You know who’s to blame.
She’s taught him all her own fears and hatreds, and greatest of them all is her
fear and hatred of Hatshepsut.”

“But Hatshepsut will not dispose of her.”

“That’s her stubborn pride,” said Hapuseneb. “She will not
be defeated by a servant whom she herself sent to be concubine to a king.”

“And killing her would be defeat.” Senenmut sighed. “Yes, I
understand. Often I wish I didn’t. I can see ill things coming of this, a king
who hates his regent, a regent who despises her king.”

“If you knew what to do about it, you’d do it,” said
Hapuseneb. “So would I.”

“So too I think would our lady,” Senenmut said, more in hope
than in expectation that it was the truth.

It was Hatshepsut who decided to do something about it.
She made a conscious and publicly acknowledged effort to befriend the king. She
visited him wherever he happened to be: on the training fields, in his
chambers, in court among the princes. She labored to show him patience. She
strove to gentle him as one would a frightened small animal, moving slowly,
speaking soft.

Senenmut admired her for the effort, but in his estimation
it harmed rather than helped her cause. The boy was no fool. He could see
beneath the smiles, the gentleness, the inquiries as to his welfare.

Her attempts to be interested in the arts of war were
particularly unsuccessful. Thutmose did not often show emotion, but Senenmut
saw impatience then, as sharp almost as anger, and wariness that was always in
the king when he stood before Hatshepsut.

More than once he considered speaking to the king himself,
but some god, or simply prudence, restrained him. He did venture to speak to
the king’s tutor.

Nebsen was if anything lazier than ever. Years and good
living had thickened his body and slowed his mind.

Senenmut often wondered how the king endured him, as little
like a soldier as he was. He was easy to listen to, that was true, and amiable
in company. How much he taught his pupil, it was difficult to guess. Rumor had
it that other scribes had taken to instructing the king under Nebsen’s
supervision—meaning that Nebsen snored in a corner with his jar of beer, and
the scribes did as they pleased.

Still he was the king’s tutor, privy to his counsels; and he
had been, if not a friend, then not an enemy, either. Senenmut approached him
of a morning, a day like any other in the courts of Thebes. The palace servants
were hard at work scouring floors, washing garments, preparing a feast.

Today they were celebrating the king’s excellence with the
bow; he had defeated a flock of rivals in a contest, some of them older than
he, almost men. It was like Thutmose not to strut the victory. He was holding
audience in proper form and formality, but his companions had insisted on a
celebration.

Nebsen never attended audiences if he could help it. That he
left to the king’s advisors and the queen regent. When Senenmut avoided royal
functions, it was to pursue some duty that could not wait. With Nebsen that
duty was simply and always a jar of beer.

Senenmut found him in the king’s chambers, well into the jar
but not yet prostrate. That would do well enough.

Nebsen greeted him with apparent gladness, groped about for
a cup despite his objections, filled it sloppily and thrust it toward him
across a table meant to bear fine jars of wine, not simple earthen jugs of
barley beer.

It was a while before Senenmut could come to the point.
Nebsen chattered as always, heedless of attempts to get a word in. “Wasn’t he
just splendid with his bow? So strong an archer for one so young; so gifted in
everything that a king must be.”

“Indeed,” said Senenmut, finding a gap at last in the
thicket of words. “But isn’t it a pity that he can’t get along with the queen
regent?”

“Oh,” said Nebsen with a wave of the hand. “That’s nothing
to fret about. She’s intimidating, you know. Odd. Such a little woman—they’re
all little, these children of Ahmose—and so pretty, but so terrifying when she
looks at you.”

“Well then, and so is the king. He’s of the same blood. He’s
remarkably like her, if either of them could see it.”

“Ah, so,” said Nebsen. “You know how that is. Like to like,
bull to bull in the field of the herds. They’ll never see how they should love
one another.”

“Listen to me,” Senenmut said, as impatient suddenly as
Hatshepsut had ever been with the king. “I don’t need you to be wise. I need
you to help. The king isn’t just afraid of my lady. He hates her. I worry about
that, Nebsen. He’s only a child now, but he’s not so very far from becoming a
man. What then? What becomes of my lady? He’ll drive her out if he can. He
might even kill her.”

Nebsen shrugged and drank deep from his cup of beer. “Why do
you fret so much? He’s barely nine years old. It will be years before he’s old
enough to challenge her.”

“And what then?” Senenmut demanded. “What then, Nebsen?”

“Why, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll be lucky. Maybe we’ll all be
dead.”

Senenmut came near to spitting in disgust. No great delicacy
prevented him, but rather a kind of greater repugnance. This cheerful sot was
never worth the trouble.

Nebsen did not seem to care that Senenmut walked out without
a farewell. The last Senenmut saw of him, he had gone for the cup that he had
filled for Senenmut, and proceeded to gulp it down.

They said that men who drowned themselves in beer were
troubled in the heart. Senenmut could not see what Nebsen’s trouble was, aside
from bone-deep laziness. Great wallowing useless man; small wonder the king
dealt so ill with the queen regent, if he had so poor a teacher.

Well; and there was something Senenmut could do to remedy
that. He spoke a word here and a word there, and let this be known and that be
mentioned. Within the month, Nebsen was gone, and in his place an eager young
man from the Temple of Amon.

Perhaps Senenmut had outsmarted himself. This man was young,
hardly more than a boy, and as wild for soldiers as the king was. He was no
friend to Senenmut, nor was he likely to be: he came of a line of princes, and
looked far down his elegantly arched nose at any mere commoner, however high
the rank he might have risen to.

Communications between the queen regent’s household and the
king’s had grown as mannered and distant as those between foreign kings.
Messengers and ambassadors went back and forth. Even when they sat side by side
in audience or in the courts of justice or in receiving embassies, they did not
speak to one another. Their servants spoke for them.

~~~

“And he,” said Hatshepsut at last, “that infant who wears
the crowns and clings so tightly to crook and flail—he has not one word to say
for himself. These kingdoms are not well served, Nehsi. Their king is a fool,
as slow of wit as of speech. Like his father before him, he cares nothing for
the tedium of rule. He lives for war, dreams of it, yearns after it.”

Nehsi did not see that he should answer her. Often of late
she had come in a temper from this function or that, in which she must speak in
the king’s name, yield humbly to his rank and authority, and bow before his
face. It galled her.

“Why in the world he does not simply ape his father,” she
said, “and refuse to come at all, I will never know. That’s his mother, I
suppose. She hides herself well, makes excellent pretense of retirement, but no
one doubts whose counsel he listens to.”

“It seems to me,” Nehsi said after a pause, “that he does
very little except sit in state while you do as it best pleases you. Has he
ever resisted you? Has he ever advised you to do anything against your will?”

“Of course not,” said Hatshepsut. “He’s too much an idiot. I
doubt there’s a thought in his head, except what’s been put there by one of his
soldiers, or by his mother’s nagging.”

“Maybe he’s wise,” said Nehsi, “and maybe he’s more
intelligent than you give him credit for.”

“Not likely,” she said with a toss of her head that nearly
sent her wig flying. “Don’t you think I’ve hoped, hunted, prayed for any sign
of wit in the child? He’s the king. When he’s a man he will rule. Do you
remember how I used to ask him to judge in this matter or that? He stumbled and
stammered. ‘I don’t know,’ was all he could ever say.

“He knows nothing, Nehsi. He’s a fool and a lackwit. And
don’t tell me he only seems so to me! If he were born to be a king, he would at
least be able to answer sensibly when I ask him a question.”

Nehsi did not suppose he could deny that. Pity, rather. The
boy would make a good soldier. He might even make a general: he had a grasp of
strategy that caused the old soldier Ahmose to speak well of him.

Ahmose spoke well of no one; his best estimate of a man was
to growl that he could follow orders if he had a whip to his backside. Yet of
the king he said, “He can keep two things in his head at a time. He might even
amount to something.”