Sovereign of Stars (14 page)

“It's beautiful,” she whispered.

“What is it, by Amun?” Hapuseneb's hand trembled as
it clutched the strands of his amulets.

Senenmut allowed himself a thrill of pride – a rare
pleasure, for he tried to remain humble. It was not always easily
done. Hatshepsut had made him a great lord, and to retain proper
humility sometimes felt as much a chore as any of his other duties.
“Plans,” he said, pleased that his voice did not carry too sharp a
note of pride, “for the mortuary temple of Maatkare Hatshepsut, the
Good God.”

Kynebu had done his work well. Senenmut was an
excellent hand when it came to writing, but he had only ever
possessed average skill at drawing. The boy had taken Senenmut's
detailed notes and calculations, turned them into a stunning
depiction of the temple that would soon stand tall above the great,
dry valley folded within the yellow cliffs on the west bank of the
Iteru. Senenmut recognized it at once, the dimensions, the lines,
the terraces rising one above the other, the porticoes both
welcoming and enigmatic, intoxicating and inscrutable, like the
face of the woman he loved. He recognized it, and yet Kynebu's
sketch was more beautiful than Senenmut had imagined the temple to
be. He flushed, looking down on the symmetry of it, its boldness
and pomp. Its ramps rose like two crescendos from the harmony of
pillar and courtyard, lifting the eye and the ka to the sanctuary
that rested at the temple's crown. Senenmut knew, with a hot wash
of justifiable pride, that Egypt had never seen its like before. A
fitting tribute to the woman who was king.

“It's like a song,” Hatshepsut said, tracing the
course of the upper ramp with a finger. “It sings.” She stared up
at him, and her eyes were wide with gratitude and wonder.

“It is beautiful,” Ineni said. “The pyramids in the
north stand higher, but are not half so artful or entrancing. My
congratulations to the architect.”

Senenmut bowed in thanks.

“This could do it, all right,” Hatshepsut said.
“Here is a treasure even a man as snake-hearted as Ankhhor will
understand.”

“Then my king instructs me to build it?”

She raised her eyes to his, and they were bright
with gratitude, with love. “Build it, Senenmut. Your king
commands.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The men rose to return to their various duties.
Amidst the farewell bowing and murmuring of her praises, Hatshepsut
laid a hand on Senenmut's forearm as he rolled up his miraculous
scroll. Their eyes met; he gave a minute nod, and she watched with
quiet approval as he found enough small, insignificant tasks to
occupy him about her chambers until the men depated and she and her
steward were left alone with Batiret. At length the fan-bearer
withdrew as well, taking the emptied wine jugs with her. They
clattered as she gathered them up and shoved aside the door to the
servants' quarters with her hip. Then the door closed, and
Hatshepsut was alone with the Great Steward.

She sighed and pressed herself against Senenmut,
fitting her forehead against his neck, her palms against his back.
Her hands knew just where to go. The territory of his flesh was so
familiar to her now, the borders of his ribs and shoulders, the
valley of his spine, the well-trammeled front of him, soft and
warm, where she pressed herself as she had uncountable times
before. He was her home, as the palace, as these very chambers,
never could be.

“And so Her Majesty approves of her temple?”

“You know I do. How not?”

“Pharaohs are often fickle.”

She drew away from him, laughing. Beads of sweat
cooled on her skin where it had touched his. “It is a house fit for
a god. Egypt has never seen its like before.”

“So you were wise to send me packing off to
Ankh-Tawy all those years ago, to learn architecture. I have become
the greatest builder in the land – is that the way of it?”

“Your pride is appalling.” She kissed his cheek, and
felt him smile beneath her lips. “One would almost believe you the
Pharaoh, and I your servant. The temple still must be built. Now it
is only a few pretty lines of ink on papyrus.”

“Only?” He clutched at his heart. “My lady wounds my
very ka.”

“Perhaps it will not stand. Perhaps the walls will
fall over. I shall call you the greatest in the land only when I
see it standing.”

He pulled her onto the couch; she tumbled down
beside him eagerly, stretching her body along the length of his
own, buoyed by the twin pleasures of the temple and Senenmut's
hands. She could have purred, had she been a cat. She raised up to
kiss him, but worry tightened his face, and she froze, staring.

“What is it?”

“The temple, Hatshepsut. It will do only half the
work of keeping the noble houses in your hand.”

A groan rose up in her throat, but it escaped as
nothing but a quiet breath, as if even her body had grown too weary
of politicking. “Half the work?”

“Your harem.”

Her brows lifted.

“It is full of well-bred women: your cousins; your
half-sisters, like Opet. Women who carry the blood of kings in
their veins.”

“I care for them well. I treat them as sisters. Some
have even gone to war with me; they are loyal to their
Pharaoh.”

“That is as may be, and yet they are women like all
others. They crave the touch of a man now and then, and why not?
The gods made us all alike.” His hands roamed down her spine, over
her hip, as if to illustrate his point. “A woman in the Pharaoh's
harem craves more than that, too. She is there for a reason: to
give the king a child, if she can, and secure her own fortune, and
the fortune of her family. You cannot give any of your women a
child. Why should they remain in your House of Women, serving you,
if all their service is for naught?”

“Because I am their king,” Hatshepsut replied. To
her dismay she fairly sputtered, so great was her distress at
Senenmut's words.

“By rights, that should be reason enough. And yet it
is not. Most women desire children; you know this is true. The
women of the harem may desire children more than most, for a harem
woman's child is a token of power.”

“I have no wish to mistrust my own cousins and
sisters. And yet…”

“It is not so much the women I mistrust – not yet,
though it is not reasonable to expect them to remain childless and
loyal forever. It is the men of powerful houses who deserve your
suspicion.”

She caught that fish at once. Indeed, it had been
thrashing in her net ever since the Feast of Min. “Such men will
court my women. You are right – I know you are.”

“Ah. And without any reason to stay in your harem –
without the hope for children who may secure them far better
standing than any nobleman may provide – they will petition you for
release, so that they may be free to marry.”

“Then I must allow them to marry. I will not keep
women against their will.”

“And once they marry, and breed a few sons with men
already rich and influential, sons with Pharaohs' blood...?”

“Yes. I see the trouble.”

Loosing her women back into Egyptian society could
reap a harvest of challengers to her throne – would almost
certainly do so. By the time her cousins' sons came of age, she
would be an old woman, easily displaced, and Thutmose may lack sons
of his own to secure their family's legacy. Hatshepsut's own
grandfather had managed to produce only royal daughters, after all.
No, until Thutmose was married and had a son or two of his own, the
women must remain.

“How, then, do we solve this? How do we make them
choose to remain in the House of Women of their own will?”

Senenmut furrowed his brow, deep in thought. But
after a long moment he said nothing, and in despair Hatshepsut
sagged down upon his chest. Tears burned her eyes; she blinked
rapidly, furiously, and they vanished without falling. How had she
inherited such an impossible tangle? Was there any way to put it to
rights without cutting threads?

Amun, there must be.

She bolted upright, elbowing Senenmut in the
stomach; he let out a grunt and clutched himself.

“Amun,” Hatshepsut blurted. “The god is our
solution.”

“The god?”

“No, not the god. The God's Wife.”

“Neferure?” A defensive edge rose up in Senenmut's
voice.

“I will not send her to Iunet after all. She must
remain in the House of Women. She is god-chosen; we will have her
read dreams for the harem, as my mother once did. She will be a
constant presence there. You know how pious she is, how she talks
endlessly of the gods.”

“Hatshepsut...”

“With Neferure always in their midst, preaching to
them as she does, the women will be reminded of my own divinity,
and none will dare to marry away. Is not the favor of a god's
daughter worth much more than a fat old man in a fine kilt?”

“You cannot do this to her.”

“
Do?
What do I do that is so terrible? She
will be given the best rooms – no; build her a little palace
adjacent; her own complex. Yes, that is fitting.”

“She wanted so badly to go to Iunet, to become a
Hathor priestess.”

“We can build Neferure her own Hathor temple if she
wishes it, right there on the grounds of the House of Women.”

“It is not the same.”

“You said yourself she shouldn't allow her hopes to
run away with her heart. I made her no vows. I said it depended on
the gods.”

“This is your will, not a god's.”

“I am the Pharaoh. Amun himself sired me. He will
not allow me to choose wrongly. He would stop me, if he did not
approve. The girl will do as I say.”

Senenmut held himself perfectly still, his eyes and
mouth betraying nothing. Hatshepsut knew that blank look, the
silence. He would agree to do her bidding because it was his duty,
but not because he believed she was right. Anger boiled up inside
her; she drew well away from him, sat rigidly apart on the
couch.

He sat, too, his shoulders stooping. “It will be...”
Senenmut began, but she cut him off, rounding on him.

“As the Great Lady commands? Of course it will be. I
am your king; I know what is best.”

Senenmut's eyes were dark, shadowed by sorrow.

“What?” She almost shouted the word.

“It burns me, to think what this will do to
Neferure. She is so young, Hatshepsut. She understands little of
politics. She is just a girl, with a girl's heart.”

“She is the King's Daughter, and God's Wife of Amun.
She has her roles, her duties.”

“She understands little of those, too.”

“You are her tutor; make her understand.”

He huffed, looked away from her sharply, as if he
could not bear to meet her eyes.

“Can you think of any other way? What other means do
I have? Only give me another option, Senenmut – one that will work
half as well – and I will take it. I birthed the girl, and the
women of the harem know that I am more than any Pharaoh before me:
I am the son of Amun. Neferure will be my presence when I cannot be
present. Short of moving into the harem myself, what better choice
have we until Thutmose comes of age and sires his own sons?”

Senenmut hung his head, pressed and smoothed his wig
with trembling hands. At last he raised his eyes to hers, and the
look he gave her was so forceful, so direct, that she drew back in
shock. No one had
glared
at her since Thutmose the Second
was living.

“She is your daughter,” he said, his voice ringing
with a sternness she had never before heard, not even as a child,
as his student. “You are her
mother
. She must be more to you
than a pawn on a senet board. You must be more to one another.”
Suddenly he softened, nearly pleading. “You said yourself, Hatet,
that her joy is maat. I feel that, too. You know I do. I only want
her happiness; her smile makes me live. Why does that girl's heart
matter so little to you?”

Tears shone in his eyes, and blurred her own, too.
She wanted to fall into his arms and weep for his forgiveness,
wanted to retreat to the sanctuary of his body, her home – but she
was surrounded by the king's chambers, by the histories of all the
kings who had come before, graven into the very walls. Their faces
stared down at her with expectation. She could not retreat from her
own duty and rank. Neither, she knew, could her daughter.

“Senenmut, you are cruel.”

“I mean no cruelty. But I cannot be disloyal to her.
She is my....” He choked off the word. It hung in the air between
them, as forceful in the silence as if he had shouted it.

“When I left Kush,” Hatshepsut said quietly, her
voice barely more than a whisper, “I stood at the rail of my ship
with Nehesi, and watched a group of boys sporting on the riverbank.
They were so young, Senenmut, and yet they had come all the long
way from their homes like soldiers, lived amongst the army, seen
the hands of our dead enemies piled up and rotting in the sun. They
were just lads. I remember how they played. I remember what I told
Nehesi: that I wanted my own children to be so carefree, to play
and be...be
children
.”

Senenmut reached for her hand, squeezed it gently.
She laced her fingers with his. Her hand was so cold that her skin
burned against his warmth.

“Do you know what he told me? He said, 'They are the
Pharaoh's children. Can you ever expect them to be carefree?' He
was right, Senenmut. Neferure's blood is royal. Hers is the blood
of a god. Her smile is maat to me – hers and Thutmose's, too. And
yet even I am not free to protect their happiness.”

“You are the Pharaoh. Your word is the command of
all the people.”

Hatshepsut rose, turned away from him so he would
not see the tears break from their dam, streak down her cheeks to
stain her face with kohl.

“Do you truly believe that? Is the greatest
architect in the land such a fool? Tell it to the man who whispered
in Opet's ear. Tell it to Nebseny's ka. Tell it to Ankhhor's
tomb.”