Sovereign of Stars (27 page)

But they had been good to him. A few in particular,
young and gently spoken with smooth faces and soft breasts, had led
him into the great inner chamber of the House of Women. Servants
had gone before them, scattering flower petals and singing, and the
women's hands had been both coaxing and instructive. He passed
nearly a whole day there, and when he returned two days later his
legs did not quiver so badly. In two days more, he strode into the
chamber on his own, and called his favorite women by name.

This business, though – Neferure – this was a
different matter. How could he explain to Hesyre the strange
potency that pulsed within his frail, pretty wife? How could he
admit that lust for her and fear of her unknown power pulled at him
equally, drawing him like a beast to water, so that he could not
turn away from her, even if he had wished to?

“I would implore my lord to recall that the Great
Royal Wife is very young, and lacks the experience of the women of
the harem. It would be wise to treat her gently.”

Thutmose snorted. “Hesyre, how little you know
her.”

“My lord, you are pale. Please, sit. I will fetch
wine.”

“I don't need any wine,” Thutmose said, but he sank
onto his couch all the same.

How many years had passed since Thutmose had seen
his sister tame the bull of Min? He counted backward. Five, it must
be. Five years, and all that time he found himself unable to look
upon her without a tremble of awe, a shiver of foreboding. Even
these past months since Hatshepsut had been away, each night when
he held Neferure locked in his arms, their bodies moving in
concert, somewhere through the fog of lust his ka quailed at her
nearness. At festivals he watched her make offerings to Amun, her
eyes burning with an intensity he could not understand, and he
remembered the white bull. At court he watched her sit still as a
seshep upon her small golden throne, the vulture crown of the Great
Royal Wife gleaming on her brow, her mouth and hands revealing none
of her thoughts. He remembered the white bull.

He remembered the thunder of its passing, the rage
in its breath. And the slender paleness of Neferure halting that
terrible beast in its tracks, taming its wild heart with the touch
of her hand. Never could he forget the way she had looked up at him
as she stroked the bull between its horns. Her eyes were like
offering fires.

For all the power he wielded, for all the divine
might his seat granted him, Thutmose knew he could not understand
the haunting combination of darkness and light that moved in
Neferure's ka. He could only sense that it was a power all its own
– a power of a sort he could never grasp. Its starkness and
strangeness filled him with fear.

And yet her body filled him with desire. She was
undeniably beautiful. Her solemn face was as finely made as the
greatest artist's carving, with full lips and dark eyes that seemed
to place her very ka on delicate display. Her body now had the
shape of a woman, with high breasts unmarked by the smallest
freckle, with a backside as round and swaying as any harem girl's.
Recollecting the way she moved when she walked, his mouth went dry.
He wished suddenly for Hesyre's wine.

A clap sounded outside his door. Thutmose leapt to
his feet.

Hesyre opened the door a crack, peered into the
darkness of the hall.

“The Great Royal Wife,” said a familiar voice:
Takhat, Neferure's peevish old wet-nurse.

Hesyre raised his meticulously painted brows,
waiting.

“Let her come in,” Thutmose said. “Hesyre, accompany
the lady Takhat to the garden until I send for you.”

Neferure appeared in his chamber with a supernatural
speed. It seemed he blinked, and she materialized like a goddess
stepping from the river mist. More likely, his agitated nerves
altered his perception of time, so he did not see her stepping
across the threshold in her tiny golden sandals, did not hear her
words as she dismissed Takhat. But she was suddenly there, standing
in the center of a fine carpet of felted wool, pulsing with a
radiance he could scarce look upon, and could scarce look away
from. Thutmose did not know whether the glow about Neferure's face
was from the lamplight or from her own being, but with wonder and
trepidation, he saw that she was in fact glowing. A palpable
longing seemed to travel down her skin, from her bare shoulders
over her thin arms to her clasped hands. It was a desire more akin
to religious rapture than physical longing.

She shivered.

“Are you cold?” Thutmose asked foolishly.

“No.” Her voice was high and bright, a chime in a
temple.

“Please, sit with me.”

As if his invitation had snapped some tethering
cord, Neferure swept to the couch, nearly running. She settled upon
a silk cushion and stared at him, the usual wild expectation
evident in the blackness of her eyes. Thutmose’s heart told him
desperately that he did not know how to meet her tacit demand. But
his body said otherwise, and as always, he responded to her
presence, and the mist of his desire for her enveloped him,
silencing the worries of his heart.

He kissed her neck below her ear, and felt a hot
thrill run through him when she arched her back, encouraging him
with a moan. He liked to draw her out, to push her longing further
until she was frantic for him, and fell upon him scratching like
Pakhet, and so he fondled her breast for a time until she was
panting, clutching his shoulders. Then he made himself pull
away.

“Are you hungry? Would you like beer, or melon
water?”

She steadied herself with a few breaths, warming to
his game as she always did. “Melon water,” she said.

“I will have beer, myself.”

He realized with a sudden clutch of embarrassment
that he had sent all his servants away. There was no one to pour.
He wondered, was it more seemly for a Pharaoh to serve the God's
Wife of Amun, or for the wife to serve the king? In his indecision
he stared helplessly at the jugs on his table, then, unnerved by
his own stillness, lurched forward and seized the jug of melon
water. It sloshed over the rim and splashed on the table, but he
managed to offer Neferure her bowl at last.

She took one small sip and set it aside. As he
raised his bowl to his lips, she lowered it for him with a hand on
his wrist. Her fingers were cool; a shiver traveled up his skin
from the place where she touched him.

“I come to you eagerly,” she said.

“I can see that.”

“I am ready.”

Thutmose gaped at her. She was always ready, it
seemed, always desperate for him – a fact that flattered him as
much as it frightened him. But she did not speak now of merely
lying together. He caught in the dark fire of her eyes some deeper
meaning.

“I have waited, Lord. I have opened myself to you,
so many times. I have lain before you as a holy offering.”

Thutmose drained his bowl of beer in one long draft.
When he returned it to the table, Neferure was suddenly upon him,
pressing herself against his chest, her back arching, her mouth
tickling the sensitive skin of his neck with a soft moan.

“Oh!” said Thutmose. He could think of no other
response for his mouth to make, though his body had no such
trouble. He tore fiercely at her gown, seeking to raise it to her
waist, to take her now, there on the supper couch, and to Set with
drawing her out. He hurt everywhere from the need to be inside her,
now
, to hear her cries, to feel her hot breath on his neck,
to spend himself within. But her gown had twisted about her legs,
and he only succeeded in tangling it more. He stroked her
shoulders, which were as smooth as new leaves, trying to calm her
enough that he might sort out her linen. Neferure's breath hissed,
a sound that lit all his veins afire. Even the soles of his feet
throbbed with the feel of her, and he kicked his legs helplessly.
The movement shook her, for she was half in his lap, and she
dropped one hand to steady herself. It landed on Thutmose's thigh
beside his aching manhood.

Neferure sat back suddenly, staring at where her
hand lay, at the shape of Thutmose's member beneath his kilt. In an
instant her eyes raised to his, and it was as though a different
girl sat in her place, as though a different ka inhabited her body.
She looked at her brother with mild confusion. A slow frown creased
her brow, pinched her features. It was a look of
disappointment.

“I...I...” Thutmose squirmed away from her, tripping
over his tongue.

They drew apart, sat for some long time in heavy
silence while Neferure jerked at the accursed skirt of her gown.
Neither dared to look at the other. The despondent fizzling of a
lamp's wick burning out echoed in the vastness of Thutmose's
chamber. It made a sound far too large for itself. At last,
Neferure turned to face him.

“Well, after all, I am the Great Royal Wife,” she
said.

Thutmose could not discern her meaning. He thought
it wisest to make no reply.

“Do you wish to use me for your pleasure? Very
well.”

“I...what?”

“It is my duty.”

“After so many times, after the way you’ve behaved
toward me, I should think, Neferure, that it is more than duty to
you.” The sudden shift in her demeanor stung him, and he scowled at
her, offended.

“I make no complaints.”

“You come to me wet as an eel every night, and yet
you sit there and say ‘I make no complaints!’”

“Is my lord angry?”

“No. Yes! I don't understand this. I don't
understand you!”

Neferure shrugged.

“You came into my chambers looking like you greeted
a god.”

She flinched, looked quickly away from his face.

“And now you talk of duty, and look on me
with...with disappointment. No, with
disdain
. What is
happening, Neferure? Was your ka somewhere else?”

She drew a shaky breath, held it a moment, then
said, “Perhaps. When Takhat brought me your summons, I was praying
in my temple.”

Of course.

After their marriage, Neferure had refused to move
from her little palace in the gardens of the House of Women.
Ahmose, before she had fled for her estates, had advised him to let
the matter lie, to allow Neferure her private residence so long as
she maintained her duties. It seemed the Great Royal Wife spent all
her free time in the Hathor shrine on the palace's roof-top,
praying. Nearly every evening that Thutmose had visited the harem,
he had seen the orange glow of an offering brazier moving fitfully
between the pillars of Neferure's temple. Its light cast a feeling
of eerie unwelcome to the night-time garden.

Against his better judgment, Thutmose said slowly,
“What did you pray for?”

“The same thing I pray for every night: for the god
to fill me.”

“Which god?”

“Amun. Or any god. Each day, each night, I make the
same prayers. And why not? It is my birthright, to be the consort
of a god, to be the beloved of a god, as Ahmose was. To bear a son
who is half-god himself, as my mother is. I prayed tonight, as
every night, that the gods would fill me at last. That they would
be unambiguous, that I would know their hearts, and they would know
mine. That I would come into my own powers as a god-chosen woman.
That I would be god-chosen in truth, and consort to divinity.”

These were things Thutmose truly could not grasp.
Hatshepsut had long said that Neferure was god-chosen, as had
Ahmose. He knew being god-chosen must have something to do with her
strange, compelling force, even with the white bull of Min. But he
did not care to understand the matter further. It made him feel
weak and frightened, as though in this realm he had no say, no
control, Pharaoh or not.

“I thought,” Neferure said, “that when I came to you
tonight we would join as Nut and Geb are joined, the earth with the
sky, and at last the gods would fill me. It was my vision in Iunet,
you see.”

She gazed at him expectantly, but Thutmose was
forced to shake his head.
Vision in Iunet?

“When you said you would take me as Great Royal
Wife, I saw my way clear. You have seen the carving on the wall of
Djeser-Djeseru, the story of Hatshepsut’s birth. Don’t you see,
Thutmose? Amun came to our grandmother because she was Great Royal
Wife, and worthy to love Amun.” She panted with exasperation, her
brows pinching at the confusion on his face. “As I am your Great
Royal Wife, I, too, am worthy! Amun is supposed to come to me
through your body! I will join with you, but it will not be you –
it will be Amun!”

In spite of her strange words and the angry fire in
her face, Thutmose’s own body still throbbed with its untended
wants. “We can still join,” he offered sheepishly.

“No! Don't you see?” Neferure scrambled to her feet,
trembling. “I was wrong, this whole time, the whole time we’ve been
married. And I only see the truth now. It’s like I’ve wakened from
a dream. I was not meant for Amun, Thutmose. He does not love
me.”

“...Amun?”

“I serve him, as I serve all the gods. I do my duty
to him, and to the throne, because is Maat herself not a goddess?
How can I serve all the gods, even Maat, if I do not
serve
maat?
If I do not do my duties – all of them?”

Thutmose was well and truly lost now. He sank
against the backrest of his couch and watched as his wife paced the
length of his felted carpet with clenched fists, words spilling
from her mouth faster than Thutmose's ears could catch them.

“I was pledged to Amun from my childhood, and yet he
wants nothing of me! It's another god who longs for me, but I am
kept from her side by maat. Hathor calls to me, Thutmose – Hathor
desires me, for her own purpose. I am hers, her vessel, her tool –
and yet because I am the King's Daughter, and the God's Wife of
Amun, and the Great Royal Wife, I can
never
be hers! I must
serve
Amun
, a god who is cold, who cares nothing for me and
spurns even my body. Why does he turn his back to me? Why? I have
done all my duties, fulfilled all the commands. I have done as my
kings have commanded – the Pharaoh is the body of the gods on the
earth, even of Amun! Especially of Amun! And yet Amun will not love
me!” She stared at him. Her eyes traveled down his body to his lap,
and he folded his arms protectively there, shielding his vulnerable
parts from the fury of her gaze. “You have a man’s body, and always
have. I see that now. You are not a god.”