Reflections in the Nile (10 page)

“My Majesty?” Cheftu inquired.

“Nay. I shall not give them the power of being named,” she said in dismissal of her fears. “Keep me informed of all that transpires. I am sad to see a friend attacked to this magnitude. Should she be taken back to the chamber of the goddess? See if she regains her voice?”

Cheftu frowned. “She has tried that herself. Basha observed her go into the Silver Chamber and pray. She moved many times, but not in any ritual recognizable to Basha. Of course, they could be rites from deeper initiations into the priesthood. Since there are no priestesses outside of the Sisterhood more powerful, it would be hard to know what she was doing.”

“Agreed.” Hat rose to her feet, accepting her cloak and symbols of office from Senmut. “We will dine tonight at
atmu.
Join us,
Hemu neter.
” Cheftu bowed, and she turned back, a wide smile on her lovely face. “Cheftu?”

“Aye, Majesty?”

“Bring a woman!” She walked out laughing, and Cheftu stared at the floor. He didn't recall anything in his horoscope today about nagging friends, but that seemed to be his lot. He left the room, lighthearted. It was good to be home.

The night was beautiful, the stars spangling on the goddess Nuit's body above them, shining brilliant whiteness on the world below. Cheftu extended his arm to his companion as they walked under the shadowed portico and into the grand hall leading to Hat's feast. The sounds of laughter reached out to them, and his companion's steps hastened into the gilded room. Columns reached high, garlanded with flowers from the royal gardens, while slave girls dressed only in beads and flowers placed perfume cones on their heads. He noted his companion's long black eyes taking in every jeweled noble in the room.

He sighed. So avaricious. Was there a woman alive who did not covet gold? She extended her hand, heavy with rings, to him, and he helped her into a seat on the opposite side of a small table. Pharaoh had not yet appeared, so he took a cup of honeyed, spiced wine and sipped as he looked over those assembled. After years in foreign courts on missions for Hatshepsut, he was startled to see the racial homogeneity of the group. Just the home crowd tonight.

An impressive crowd—the gold-hung sons of the many nomes of Egypt and the Flowers of Egypt, those beautiful young women who would inherit their mother's wealth and take husbands as suited them—mingled around him. A touch at his elbow gained his attention, and he turned to see a slave girl. From her tattooed upper arm he knew she was a sworn body servant of Pharaoh. “Come with me, my lord.”

He rose, kissing his lovely companion's wrist and saw her gazing across the room. Smiling wryly, he left, going through one of Pharaoh's private passages. The darkness was illuminated only by the soldiers standing guard, halting them each time. At every stop Cheftu showed the scarab ring of his house, and the slave girl showed her tattoo. They followed the twisting and turning passageway until they stood at a side entrance to Hat's apartments. The girl opened the gold-plated door, and he stepped inside.

The party was small, no more than twenty, but all men whom Cheftu knew—the most powerful nobles in the land. Those who were most loyal to the golden woman on the throne. Hat herself approached him, and he bowed, waiting for her to speak.

“I am glad you obey my commands,
Hemu neter,
” she said, extending her hand to him. He kissed the unlined back of it and looked into her black eyes, filled with laughter.

He smiled. “I live only to serve you, My Majesty. Health! Life! Prosperity!” She laughed, a low throaty sound, and linked her arm in his. He accepted a cup of wine from one of the attendants and allowed her to lead him into the garden. The growing season was yet upon them, and it was chill outside, yet the trembling he felt in Pharaoh was more of a suppressed excitement.

They stood together, Pharaoh staring up at the sky, Cheftu admiring the strength in her body and spirit—a strength he had not seen in another woman. She could be fierce, possessive, and single-minded, but she had a passion that drew men to her and an intelligence that was unheard of in a female.

“How goes the work on your tomb, Cheftu?”

He stared at her for a moment, mind racing. “I assume it is going well; I have not been there since before I left for Retenu.”

“Two Inundations, Cheftu?”

“Aye, My Majesty.”

“You did not return when your father died?”

“Nay, My Majesty. He was buried before I even heard of his passing.”

“Where is his tomb?”

Now Cheftu turned to her, openly. “Your father invited his nobles to join him in the same valley where Thutmosis-Osiris the First is buried. The Valley of the Kings. I do not presume, I trust, but why the questions?”

She looked up at him, her eyes shining with excitement.
“Haii!
Cheftu! I could never keep a secret from you, my silent one. I suppose the gods already know, so what is the harm in sharing with you?”

Cheftu waited.

“My tomb,” she said excitedly. “I am building my House of Eternity. It is so beautiful, so worthy of My Majesty!”

“I thought that Senmut had built your tomb underneath the mortuary temple he created for you at the-Most-Splendid on the western crescent?”

Hat shrugged. “It is a temple indeed, where I can be worshiped with my father, Amun-Ra, and HatHor for all eternity. This tomb I speak of, however, is private; a home for love.” She bit off the last word.

Cheftu stood, stunned. Pharaoh? Building for love? “I take it you will not be alone?”

She looked at him, and in the shadows Cheftu could not see the fine network of lines around her eyes and mouth, brought on by years of conniving, manipulating, and enduring. Yet in these twilight years she had found the love of her life … Senmut. Now she was building a place where they could be together.

He felt her intent gaze. “I think it wonderful to be united for all time.”

“Wonderful,” she said, “but forbidden.” She darted a quick glance at him. “The priests do not dare say such a thing, for I am Pharaoh, living forever!, but husbands and wives of royalty have always been buried separately.” They stood quietly as she said, “Marriage has been denied us, but eternity shall not be.” With deft fingers she twisted her gold and electrum rings. “Already I have moved my treasure there. It is so secret that there is no temple, nothing except a natural marker.” Cheftu stood in the darkness, watching her mobile lips twist. “I shall have to kill you for what you know, magus,” she said with a laugh.

He waited, smiling at what he knew was a jest.

“Cheftu, you know I will not. There are no secrets between us, and I ask you to swear that this is your most precious secret. Swear it by what you hold dearest. Would that be Ma'at, the Feather of Truth?”

“Always, My Majesty, although you have told me nothing. I could walk through the Valley tomorrow and not know.”

“Not in the Valley—in the desert.” Her words were deliberate. “The eastern desert.” They stood in silence as the knowledge penetrated Cheftu's brain. “Swear, magician. Swear!”

Cheftu fell to his knees, his guts wrenching and stomach burning. Hatshepsut, living forever! pharaoh, had told him the location of her tomb! He would die for this knowledge! “I swear on the Feather of Truth, Pharaoh, living forever! I will not betray your secret!” He could feel Hat's smile in the darkness.

“Very well, my silent one. There are no secrets now between us?”

“Never,” he agreed emphatically.

“Then join the others. I understand your companion has already left on the arm of a younger son. I imagine she felt abandoned.”

Cheftu got to his feet, shrugging. “It is no matter, Majesty. I would rather enjoy your company than any gilded Flower in these gardens.”

“Did the Retenuian women excite you, Cheftu?”

He flushed in the darkness. He hated his private life to be so public. “I confess they are overlarge for my tastes, Majesty. They wear loud clothing and do not often bathe.”

Hat laughed out loud. “So only an Egyptian woman for my Cheftu!
Haii-aii!
Then go into the hall and take whoever pleases you most, my favorite. I will explain. Go now.”

He crossed his chest and backed away into the brightness of the chamber. Hatshepsut had covered the mudbrick walls with life-size depictions of herself embossed on beaten gold. He knew that should he look carefully, he would find a small illustration of himself, his Thoth-headed stick in hand, the Feather of Truth on his head.

The same picture would reveal the graceful figure of a woman wearing the horns and disk of HatHor. He swore quietly as he followed the slave through the winding hallways and back into the feasting hall. Without another thought he walked up to one of the resting performers, her black hair hanging down her back and shoulders, her body damp and warm from dancing, and brought his lips down onto hers in a hard kiss.

T
HE DAYS SETTLED INTO A PATTERN.

Chloe learned that since she was ill, thus imperfect, she could not attend the goddess. However, since she had become ill
while
on attendance, she also could not leave the temple complex.

Cheftu showed up every few days or so, his two priests in attendance as they made Chloe swallow hideous concoctions, tie amulets of shell and bone and hair around her neck, and undergo countless enemas.

She'd never been so regular in her life.

Cheftu hadn't said one more personal thing, and the one time he and Makab had come together they had ignored her thoroughly, making wagers on which of the nobles would come home with a lion carcass from their hunting trip with Pharaoh, bloody living forever.

She spent the mild days of winter wandering through the temple in its glory—a glory that made even Hollywood on hallucinogens look like black and white.

Everywhere was the glitter of precious and semiprecious stones. She had learned that each of the eyes represented in the hypostyle hall was inlaid with onyx. Each representation of the god Amun was studded with lapis, carnelian, and feldspar. The ithyphallic god Min sported a gold-plated condom.

To the Egyptians, these were re-creations of the gods and goddesses, each endowed with life through magic. The same magic was wrought on the dead through the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, making it possible for them to see, smell, hear, eat, and move, even make love, just as in life.

One day Chloe wandered down the colonnade leading to Thutmosis I's special temple—still within years of being finished, though he had flown to Osiris almost forty Inundations ago—when she saw a flash of brilliance. Pharaoh Hatshepsut, living forever! was having her obelisks set there and covered in electrum, an expensive blend of gold and precious silver. Because the obelisks had towered above the roof of the temple, the roof had been torn off, letting the metal-covered pyramidions pierce the turquoise sky.

The place was overrun with sweating dark Egyptians whose long eyes flicked away from Hat as she paced up and down like a caged animal. With a combination of ropes, pulleys, and brute strength they straightened the obelisks in their sanded pits. Chloe tried to make herself invisible as she watched, but the black eyes of Senmut, architect and grand vizier, found her, and she was politely asked to leave—for her safety, of course.

For days after, the court gossiped about how the army would receive no new breastplates so Pharaoh could erect more monuments to commemorate her holy conception, birth, and life. From what Chloe overheard, the army had not received anything new in many months because Pharaoh was more interested in beautifying deserted temples than in enlarging Egypt's empire, more than half the reason that Thutmosis III, her nephew, was straining at Hat's leash. He wanted to conquer new lands and bring new tributes into Egypt as pharaoh.

Apparently Hatshepsut had given Egypt a lifetime of peace, but the people wanted war. With every passing day Hatshepsut grew more paranoid about the young man in Avaris who would one day sit on her throne. It was commonly thought that if Thut III had been her son, Hat would have taken her place as consort many years ago. But her hatred for Thut II and her even greater hatred for his lowborn wife, Isis, had forced her to press on, determined to be pharaoh until she died.

Only Basha attended Chloe. She kept to her tasks and spent little time with her mistress. Chloe rested, read, and practiced writing, something her memory did provide for her. As a last resort, she tried embroidery. Apparently only Cammy had a gene for that.

Chloe made a sketch pad to capture some of the wonder around her, but Basha had been so shocked to see Chloe's drawings that she drew only covertly. She was scared they would discover her secret. Not knowing the consequences made it scarier.

Fear nauseated her; usually it was most intense in the morning. Later in the day she could pack away roasted fowl, fish, bread, fresh fruit, and vegetables, whatever was offered her. Time travel had given her quite an appetite—not that it had been delicate before. Cheftu had once watched her eat lunch, his expression one of polite horror. Apparently the “Flowers” of Egypt were supposed to be delicate. What else was there to do? Chloe had no way to exercise, wasn't allowed to pass beyond the
tenemos
walls, was sick of the smell of myrrh, and was bored to distraction.

Still
she could not speak.

When Hatshepsut's royal summons came, she was reclining in the shade of a sycamore, reading some even more ancient poetry, munching from a bowl of figs and dates. She felt exhausted and couldn't imagine why. She certainly hadn't exerted any energy.

Basha rushed ahead of the courier, her brown face alight with excitement. “The Great House calls you, my lady!”

Chloe stood. Pharaoh wanted to see her? After receiving the summons scarab from the guard who would wait to escort her back, she and Basha hurried through the gardens and hallways. What to wear?

CHAPTER 4

GOSHEN

T
he audience chamber in Avaris was filled: red-and-white-clad soldiers, Retenu in long gold-shot robes, Kallistaens and Kefti with their many-layered garments and elaborately curled hair, and Kushites in exotic furs and feathers. It was easier to deal with foreigners at this far northern outpost than to bring them to Waset on the Nile. Everywhere Apiru slaves darted back and forth with drinks, food, and fans as they sought to keep the visitors comfortable.