The Crook and Flail Read online

  “What do you know of the time my father proclaimed Thutmose his heir?”

  “It happened here in Waset, at the Temple of Amun, seven years ago.”

  “And records exist?”

  “<рspan>Oh, yes, Lady. Many. I could bring them to you, if you wish to read them.”

  She pursed her lips, an expression that pinched her already rather unrefined face. He knew the look well. The prospect of reading the scrolls did not please her.

  “Bring me everything you can find.”

  “Great Lady? Did I say something wrong?”

  “No,” she said, smoothing her face and her short kilt. She even put on a little smile for him. “I was only lost in thought.”

  “What sort of thought, if I may ask?”

  She shrugged and toyed again with the thick drape of beads. Just as she drew a slow breath to make an answer, a clamor erupted at the far end of the garden. Hatshepsut leaped to her feet. Startled out of all self-possession, Senenmut sprang in front of her, shielding her with an out-thrust arm, from what he did not know. In a heartbeat they both realized that the dreadful noise was only two cats battling. Senenmut laughed, and this time he did not mind when the heat of embarrassment rose to his face.

  “Oh, bother those beasts!” Ita shuffled off toward the racket, waving her hands fiercely to scatter the cats apart. She disappeared into a flower bed, and on the instant shrieked like a bird in a net. Tem and Sitre-In went laughing into the dusk to remove the clawing cat from Ita's skirt.

  “Senenmut,” Hatshepsut said, commanding.

  He turned to look at her. And she stepped forward, laid her hands on his chest, pressed her lips to his. The kiss lasted only a moment. He jerked back.

  “Hush,” she said, to forestall his protests.

  Alone with my charge, he thought in a panic, glancing around for the nurse, the handmaids. They were still preoccupied, giggling and squealing in the bushes. Hatshepsut's little game made a queasy sort of sense to him now. She had been testing him, probing at his feelings for her, an oarsman finding the depth of muddied water. And she had misread his flustered responses as...love?

  The women came struggling from the flower bed, Ita wailing over her shredded skirt. Hatshepsut turned triumphant eyes on him.

  “That's enough tutoring for today,” he said.

  “You may go then.”

  Senenmut fled the garden as quickly as propriety would allow.

  It was a testament to Hatshepsut’s stubbornness that she was able to kiss him once more, when rare privacy presented itself. Tutor and princess were seldom alone for more than a moment; Senenmut made sure of it, calling a woman to fetch him water for his dry throat or a fan to keep the flies away, though in thetchough in is season flies were scarce and seldom a bother. He drew Hatshepsut's servants toward him constantly as he worked, like a fisherman drawing in one net, then casting it out only to draw immediately upon another. But Hatshepsut was more practiced than he at managing servants. Smoothly attending to her history lesson with bright, keen eyes and pertinent questions, she sent her servants on a series of urgent errands in a display of juggling that would have made a court acrobat sick with envy, and soon Senenmut found himself without a witness. For the briefest moment there was no one to observe them, and in the middle of a somber question about the defeat of the Heqa-Khasewet, Hatshepsut stopped speaking and leaned forward to press her lips to Senenmut’s. Gently, he laid his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away.

  “Great Lady, I am your humblest servant and it is not for me to deny you. However, this is highly improper and should not continue.”

  “Why?”

  “You are still a girl, and I am a grown man. Beyond even that consideration, you are the king's daughter. I am a common man, and your servant. Kissing games between two children may be natural enough, but this is not maat.”

  Hatshepsut narrowed her black eyes.

  “Do not be angry with me, Great Lady, I beg you. It is my place as your tutor and priest to advise you, to guide you toward wiser actions. Aside from all that, it could be dangerous for me. What if one of your maids sees? Do you suppose Ahmose will believe it was all your idea? Certainly not; she will assume that this man who was trusted to educate you has taken advantage of his station to impose himself upon an innocent girl. I would be punished, and quite harshly, I imagine.”

  She slumped. “All right. You have made your point, Senenmut. I see that you are correct.”

  She was a lioness of a girl, fierce and arrogant. But he had known her all these years. Beneath her poise there was, he knew, the same tender heart all girls possessed. For its sake, he did not allow his relief to show on his face. He smiled tenuously and took up the lesson where he had left off. When he had finished his day's duty he begged her leave to go. She hesitated, more distracted than she had been for days, with a sorrow in her eyes that cut Senenmut's throat and belly with guilty knives. But at last she nodded and waved him away.

  He said, “Until tomorrow, Great Lady,” and bowed at her door.

  Hatshepsut made no reply. She turned away from him, a curt dismissal, and Senenmut was arrested by the flash of an unfamiliar expression: eyes gazing inward at some raw, tender truth, mouth pale and quivering. It was the first time he had ever seen doubt on his young mistress's face.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The season of Akhefona Tt, the inundation, drew near. The morning air was close and damp, opulent with the scent of the flood. Frogs, anticipating the great stretches of still water that would rise along the banks of the Iteru, woke from their underground chambers to rattle the evenings with song. To their choruses, the flood itself arrived, first turning the harvested fields black with dampness, then seeping up to break furrows with lines of reflected sky, at last ascending until every house and road on hillock or causeway stood clear of a vast, sparkling plane of green water. Rekhet opened the sluices in irrigation ditches; their farmland slumbered beneath the water while farmers traveled to construction sites in city and hills to build the tombs of noble men until the season of Peret arrived. When the flood receded they would resume the farming life, planting their fields, tending their crops and cattle, and Egypt would burgeon with its green and growing riches.

  Hatshepsut waited for her blood to arrive, hopeful and anxious. But as the flood brought fertility to the land, she remained a girl.

  She told no one of her failed attempt to make Senenmut her lover. His refusal had humiliated her. As much as the rejection shamed her, though, she was far more ashamed that she had not seen the situation clearly, that her thinking had been clouded by desire. How unlike her. Senenmut was right, of course. Such an involvement with the king's daughter could be dangerous for him, possibly fatal, and however like a woman she may feel, her bloodless months proclaimed her a child. Senenmut would be unnatural if he desired a child. She burned with mortification whenever she thought of her attempts to seduce him. Childish, she told herself. How could you have been so childish?

  In her lessons she was all focus and composure, applying herself to Senenmut’s teachings even more completely than before. He never mentioned the slip of her graces. Hatshepsut still felt a surge of desire whenever she looked at him, though, still cried sometimes at night when her maids had retired. She may weep alone, but a fact was a fact: his heart did not burn as hers did.

  For his part, Senenmut remained dutiful as always. He worked eagerly at Hatshepsut's request for her family's histories. He had found more than a dozen scrolls on Thutmose's heirship, and brought every one to his pupil’s chambers. When lessons and feasts did not occupy her, Hatshepsut combed through the scrolls, searching for some answer to the puzzle. Why had her father named her the heir at Annu, and three years later also named Thutmose heir in Waset? For all the scrolls agreed on one point: he had proclaimed Thutmose during the season of the emergence seven years ago, in a gathering of high priests and other powerful men at the Temple of Amun.

  Sitre-In noticed Hatshepsut’s pensive mood. She did all
she could to bring Hatshepsut around: soothing music during meals, a dance instructor to teach her all the most popular steps. But Hatshepsut was rather coarse and graceless despite her age, and she gave up dance quickly, too discouraged by her lack of natural talent to apply herself. Finally, at her wits’ end, Sitre-In alerted the regent that her daughter was caught up in a black mood, and Ahmose herself visited the House of Women to see to the king's daughter on her own terms.

  Hatshepsut dressspaepsut dreed in her finest blue gown to greet her mother, angrily aware of how blocky her body was, how unfeminine. The fine fabric slumped about her shoulders and hips rather than falling like water, the way it did over the supple bodies of the harem women. If only she were a woman herself, she might have won Senenmut’s heart. But even the most beautiful clothing could not make her look the part. When Ahmose arrived, Hatshepsut bowed in greeting and tried to conceal her unhappiness behind an emotionless face. It did not work.

  “Whatever has come over you?” Ahmose stood, hand on hip, eying her daughter critically.

  Hatshepsut wilted a little more beneath the stare.

  “Have you nothing at all to say?”

  “Perhaps it is the change of seasons.”

  “Boredom, like a rekhet child? Shall I send you off barefoot to run errands for some tomb builder?”

  The prospect sounded like an improvement over another day of lessons with Senenmut, where she must act as if her foolish attempt at seduction had never happened. But it would never do to admit such a thing to Ahmose. “Please sit with me,” Hatshepsut said, struggling to recall some semblance of courtly manners. She waved toward the cushioned chairs surrounding her senet board. Ahmose took her seat with a natural, casual grace that even Hatshepsut’s simplest gestures lacked.

  “Wine and honey cakes,” Ahmose called to Tem, who bowed low and hurried from the room with an energy she never showed for Hatshepsut’s commands. “Sitre-In certainly had it right. You are moping. No, I don’t want to know why; I can guess the reason. I was a girl once, too, you know. All I will say to you is that you had better come out of it, and quickly, too. Young Thutmose is growing older and more confident all the time, and the nobles of the city have begun to question why I have not yet given him the throne. He is ten years old now, old enough to at least sit upon the Horus Seat, if not to rule from it. Time forces my hand sooner than I would like, but we must make our move. I have sent to Annu to summon the priests who were present when your father declared you the heir. As soon as they reach Waset I will present you to the Temple of Amun as your father’s successor.”

  All thoughts of Senenmut left her in a rush. She gaped at Ahmose, gripping the arms of her chair to steady her body.

  “Well, that brightened your eyes,” Ahmose said. “But don’t leap ahead of yourself. The priests from Annu are not here yet, and even with their support it will be difficult to convince the servants of Amun. They will be the first obstacle in your path, but not the only one. The nobles of the city will need convincing, too. And Mutnofret knows them well. Many are loyal to her and to Thutmose. You will need the priesthood and the wealth of the nobles behind you if you are to claim your birthright. This is not merely a decision between two sons with an equal claim, Hatshepsut. They will see only your physical form, not your kas. To them you are a female, and fit only for the office of Great Royal Wife.”

  ife size="+0“Then what shall I do to help?”

  Tem returned with a tray of cakes and cups of wine. She laid the tray on Hatshepsut’s senet table and backed away, bowing. Ahmose plucked up a cake between thumb and forefinger, nibbled delicately. “Keep up with your studies, for now. The more intelligent and capable you look when set beside your lout of a brother, the more inclined they may be to support you. You must be strong and confident, a woman ready to make decisions and give orders. No more of this moodiness.”

  Hatshepsut nodded. “I will do my best.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Her face softened. “Just as your father always did his best. You are your father’s daughter. You even look like him, while Thutmose favors his mother. Perhaps that, too, will work in your favor.”

  “But will I be as good a king as he was?”

  “Time will tell. For now, you will be wise to listen to what I say, and allow me to make the political decisions for you. Remember that I have been the regent all these years. The court and the priests trust me, for the most part, and will listen to my counsel.”

  There was the faintest whisper of unspoken words in Ahmose’s voice. I hope.

  Hatshepsut’s stomach clenched. “Yes, Mother.”

  “And concentrate on presenting a face of maturity to the court. If they are to believe you are the one to sit the Horus Throne, they must see you as a woman, not as a child.”

  ***

  Late that afternoon, as Hatshepsut bent over her harp in an attempt to play away her eager tension, Ita admitted a strange man into the chamber, flanked by two of Hatshepsut’s guards. The man had the uncovered, shaven scalp and the red sash of an apprentice priest of Amun. He bowed deeply to Hatshepsut, reached into a neat leather pouch hung about his waist, and offered her a thick papyrus scroll. “From Senenmut, Great Lady,” the priest said.

  She dismissed the man with a distracted, wondering wave of the hand. Her guards hustled him away. She let her harp drop to the floor, too keen on the scroll even to set it in its stand. Ita tutted and whisked the instrument away.

  Hatshepsut settled onto a stack of bright cushions. Wrapped around the outside of the scroll was a curl of papyrus, penned in Senenmut’s well-formed and angular hand.

  Great Lady,

  I have found one last scroll pertaining to the proclamation of your brother. It was written by the hand of Waser-hat, a priest known for his meticulous attention to detail. We at the Temple consider Waser-hatr hr Waser-h’s recordings to be among the finest and most useful. His reputation for accuracy is unsurpassed.

  I trust I have pleased you in my duties.

  Always your faithful servant,

  Senenmut

  Breathless, Hatshepsut unrolled the scroll. It was several sheets thick, and the papyrus had crinkled with age. She smoothed the pages carefully on the floor in front of her.

  It is the first day of the month of Taab, in the season of the emergence. I, Waser-hat, having been summoned to the Temple of Amun to bear witness to a proclamation of the king, Aah-keper-ka-ra, Thutmose, the Mighty Bull and the Body of Horus, do report faithfully all that came to pass on this day, by my sacred honor as a priest and by my hope for a glorious afterlife.

  An hour after dawn on this day, the king gathered his followers into the forecourt of the Temple of Amun of Waset, the greatest city in the Two Lands. In attendance were Setnakhte, the High Priest; and with him, his priest-attendants, Sikhepre and Meryra…

  She skimmed the next pages – endless accounts of all in attendance and their relation to the throne, the priesthood, and to the noble houses. Dull stuff, of no use to her, but it seemed here at last was the detail she had longed for. Her heart pounded as she scanned the pages.

  The Pharaoh stood before the assemblage in his holy leopard cloak. Beside him stood the child Thutmose the Second, aged about three years, and the child’s mother, the second wife Mutnofret. With the voice of a god the king said, so that all might hear:

  “Behold, let it be known that I have proclaimed my eldest living son as the heir to Egypt, to take the throne upon my death. My son is of the blood of the gods. The throne will be his, may he live!”

  Waser-hat went on to detail the feast that followed, every dish and entertainer. Meticulous indeed. She glanced over the latter portion, but could see nothing there to enlighten her.

  But she read her father’s proclamation once more, and again, and again, keen-eyed, quivering with excitement. Pharaoh Thutmose had indeed made a proclamation about the heirship seven years ago. But if Waser-hat could be trusted – and his obsession with specifics was indeed impressive; exhaustive, tedious, even –
then her father had never spoken young Thutmose’s name. The boy was present, and the party gathered to hear the Pharaoh’s address no doubt believed their king spoke of that same boy. But if Hatshepsut’s many kas were mostly male, then the gods recognized her at the Pharaoh’s eldest son. The Pharaoh had spoken truthfully before the court. For the sake of political harmoh htical harny, he had allowed Waset’s priests to believe what they would. But he had not undone the proclamation at Annu that had named Hatshepsut heir – rather, he had reaffirmed it. Before the eyes of the gods, his address at Annu stood.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hatshepsut left her bodyguards at the door. She walked alone into the small audience chamber of Waset's great palace. The room was small only by comparison with the great hall: a space so vast, so magnificent in its appointments that great seemed an insufficient word to describe it. The small chamber stretched a good seventy paces from end to end. Its high ceiling was held aloft by a row of pillars along either wall. Paintings on the pillars depicted, as one walked the length of the room, the history of the land from the time of Hatshepsut's great-grandfather, the Pharaoh Ahmose, who had driven the Heqa-Khasewet from Egyptian soil and restored the Two Lands to the rightful rule of the gods.

  At the far end of the chamber stood a low red-granite dais, not nearly so grand as the one at the head of the great hall. This one was but a step above the floor, and narrow. It held a single throne, small but gleaming in the morning light that spilled down from the nearest windcatchers. She stepped up beside the throne, ran her hands along its back, its cool, gilded arms. It would be hers soon. She sank slowly upon the seat, holding her breath. The feel of the throne beneath her body set her skin tingling. The tingling increased the longer she sat; soon she was filled with the uncomfortable sensation of being watched from behind. She turned quickly on the throne, and came face to face with the image of her father.