King and Goddess (51 page)

“Ask rather,” Thutmose said swiftly, “what you will do when
she dies as she inevitably must, and you find yourselves in the service of a
younger king.”

“She’s not as old as that,” said another of the priests.
“She could live another thirty years. What if she decides to dispose of you
before she dies—or to make another man her heir? Or even,” he added with the
suggestion of a shudder, “a woman.”

“There is no one,” Thutmose said. “And she will not harm me.
She’s both too arrogant and too afraid of the gods’ wrath.”

“As you are, who have suffered her regency these past
one-and-twenty years?”

Thutmose did not rise up in rage, which rather surprised
Nehsi. “Perhaps,” he said with studied calm. “And perhaps I needed so long to
gather my strength.”

“What have you, then? A few generals; a pack of soldiers.
All the rest is hers.”

“Not necessarily,” Thutmose said. “Those generals and that
rabble of fighting men, reckoned together, make a mighty number.”

“Well then,” said a man who had not spoken before, a soft
and deceptively lazy voice, a face that Nehsi, from this angle, could not see.
“Are we to understand that you’ll stage a rising of the army in Egypt?”

Thutmose shook his head impatiently. “Of course not! I want
a pair of solid realms to rule once her so gracious majesty is dead. I can’t
have that if I’m fighting a civil war.”

“So?” said the lazy one, and Nehsi imagined a lift of brow.
“You’ll sit quietly, then, and wait for the gods to take her.”

“The gods will do as they will,” Thutmose said. “I’ll rule
alone in the end, king and god as she is king and goddess now.”

“Certainly,” said the languid voice. “Are you threatening us
with terrors that may be decades distant? Or is there something that you want
of us?”

“Something that I want, yes,” Thutmose said, “and something
that I can promise you.” He paused. They waited, trained to patience as
courtiers were. He said, “I want alliance. Your aid and your support of my
cause and my kingship. Your First Prophet is dying and will soon be dead. The
king will tell you whom you may choose to follow him, but the right of decision
is given to you. Choose one who is pleasing to her, but who will serve me when
and as I ask.”

“And if we do that? What do you promise us in return?”

He hesitated for the space of a breath. Nehsi did not think
that it was fear. Caution, rather, and care in choosing his words. “When I am
king,” he said, “I have no intention of sitting at home mourning a dead scribe,
dwelling on the glories of a single expedition sent to Punt, a temple built, a
pair of obelisks raised. These are the least of the things that I shall do.

“I shall go forth,” he said, “I, Menkheperre Thutmose; I
shall gather the greatest army that ever was, and lead it into Asia. My
grandfather conquered Nubia and Syria. Since his time they have both slid away
from us. Their people mock at ours when we walk in the streets of their cities.
Their kings speak of setting themselves free of us, of casting us back into the
deserts from which we came.”

“Is that all you will do?” the languid one asked. “Ramp
about with bow and sword, and spend the treasuries on empty bloodshed?”

Thutmose’s eyes glittered with passion that Nehsi had never
seen in them, not even in mock battles among the soldiers. “You echo her words
as if they were inviolable truth. And yet I tell you, priest; I tell you all.
What is it that war brings into the Two Lands?”

“Death,” said one of the priests.

“Death for some, but that is the price the gods exact. For
many more, it brings wealth: gold, jewels, captives, all the booty of a
conquered nation. When a nation pays tribute it pays as little as it can—and
less of late, since our elder king has been so indulgent with the whinings of its
embassies. The spoils of war are greater than anything that a nation might
offer of its own accord.”

“You can strip a country bare,” the languid one said, “and
leave nothing for the next year’s tribute.”

“That’s not wise warfare,” Thutmose said, “or good
husbandry. Neither is it wise to leave a nation alone, to let it grow strong
until it casts off the yoke. Do you let the ox run wild in the field, or do you
keep it hitched to the plow, tilling the land for the harvest of Egypt?”

“What are you saying?” the languid one asked; not so languid
any longer, beginning to grow interested.

“Amon has great estates in Asia,” Thutmose said, “and wealth
unimaginable in every part of the world. That wealth can hardly be safe if Asia
succeeds in revolt. If Amon stands behind me while I go to war, Amon will not
only defend its interests; it will share in the spoil.”

“How great a share?”

“That,” said Thutmose, “is a matter for discussion.”

Glances flickered round the circle. The one who had been
speaking shifted until Nehsi could see his face. It was vaguely familiar, as
belonging to someone whom he had seen among Hapuseneb’s attendants.

For all Nehsi knew, this was the one who had betrayed the
gathering to Hapuseneb, and caused the elder king’s Nubian to be brought where he
could hear and see it. If so, the man played the game extraordinarily well.
“All of this is purely speculative,” he said, “in the absence of any real power
on your part.”

“With Amon behind me,” Thutmose said, “I have all the power
in the world.”

The priest reflected on that. His brows went up. “Indeed,”
he said. “If Amon’s daughter finds herself at odds with Amon’s priesthood . . .
what a difficulty that will be.”

“I too am descended from the god,” Thutmose reminded him.

“But she is his own daughter,” the priest said. “That would
weigh heavily with the more devout among us.”

“She will not always be the living Horus,” Thutmose said.
“When she becomes Osiris, will you stand with me?”

“When she becomes Osiris,” said the priest, “Amon’s temple
will bow before Amon’s son as it has done from the beginning of the Two Lands.”

“That will suffice,” Thutmose said.

“None of that proves anything,” Nehsi said to Hapuseneb,
“except that the younger king makes sure of his position once the elder king is
gone.”

“Did it occur to you to wonder,” Hapuseneb asked, “why he
should be doing it now of all times, with Asia on the edge of revolt? He knows
he’ll never get his way while he remains subservient to the King Maatkare.”

“You think,” Nehsi said, “that he may not be intending such
subservience for much longer. But he’ll never break free unless she dies.”

“Yes,” said Hapuseneb.

Nehsi frowned. “You think he’ll try something.”

“I think,” said Hapuseneb, “that once I’m safely dead, he’ll
reckon himself strong enough in his alliance with Amon that he can do whatever
he judges necessary.”

“Even that?”

“Do you doubt that he’s capable of it?”

Nehsi shook his head. “I’ve seen the way he walks. Stallions
walk so when they’re bitted too strongly, just before they break free and
bolt.”

“Trampling whoever held them, and killing that one if they
can.” Hapuseneb drew a breath that rattled, and closed his eyes. He looked dead
then, a grey-faced corpse. “Watch her carefully, old friend. It won’t be
something obvious—don’t expect that of him, warrior though he may be. He’s a
dark and secret creature. He’ll do it in such a way that no one can ever charge
him with it, or be certain that she died of anything but the gods’ will and her
own mortality.”

“All kings die and become Osiris,” Nehsi said, reciting the
ancient words as if their meaning had only now come clear. “And she, as he
said, is no longer young.”

He flexed his hands. They ached sometimes of late: he was
not a young man, either—in fact he was older than she. The stubble that grew on
his shaven skull glinted more silver than black, these days.

He was still strong, and so was she—in the body at least.
“Gods,” he said. “When did we begin to grow old?”

“Yesterday,” said Hapuseneb. “Youth will always conquer,
unless it’s disposed of by wary age.”

“And that, she will never do. I could curse her honor, and
her reverence for the sanctity of the king. I fear very much that he has no
such scruples.”

“He doesn’t need them,” Hapuseneb said. “He can call her
usurper and dispose of her as Ahmose did with the foreign kings.”

“You think he will,” said Nehsi.

“I think,” said Hapuseneb, “that a man with a strong stomach
and no dread of the gods’ wrath might well choose to remove this threat to our
lady.”

“I am not that man,” Nehsi said with deep regret. “I can’t
do it, no more than she can. Even to protect her. I’ve failed her, Hapuseneb.
At the last, when she needs me most, I can’t act as I know I should act.”

“I don’t know about that,” Hapuseneb said. “You can’t kill
him, no more than I could: I’m godbound too, and constrained by the sanctity of
kingship. But you can guard her, protect her against him, see that she lives as
long as the gods have willed for her.”

“And then?” Nehsi asked. “What then?’

“Then, my friend,” said Hapuseneb, “the gods must provide.”

~~~

Nehsi pondered long on what he had heard and seen. He increased
the guard on the elder king, not so much as to be obvious, but she was watched
always.

She gave him no thanks for it. She had withdrawn into
herself, become a cold husk of kingship. Even the affection with which she had
regarded her people was gone. Friends she had none. Her allies and her
ministers loved her as they always had, as they always would; but she had shut
them away. She received their worship as if she had been the image of a goddess
wrought in ivory and gems and gold: upright and still, with beautiful blind
eyes, and no living warmth.

There was nothing that Nehsi could do to make her human
again. The one who could have done it was years dead. When he tried regardless,
she ignored him or sent him away.

He came to her at last in a passion of frustration, faced
her of an evening as she prepared to sleep. Her gowns and her jewels were laid
aside, and she was clothed in a linen shift. Her maids had just finished
cleansing the paint from her face and were anointing it for the night with
sweet oils.

Nehsi was admitted because he had command of the guard. She
saw him: her eyes flickered as he passed the door. She did not greet him, but
neither, he noticed, did she dismiss him. He took heart from that.

It came to him with a small shock that he had never seen her
beauty bare. Always since she was a child she had presented herself to him with
her face painted, her eyes drawn long with kohl and malachite. Tonight the mask
was taken away. Beneath it he saw the aging woman, tired and faintly haggard,
the corners of her mouth drawn down by the weight of years and cares and
kingship. The cap of curls that she had allowed to grow beneath wig and crowns
was shot with grey.

And yet she was still beautiful. The face that in Thutmose
was too odd for handsomeness, in her was drawn fine, its royal arch of nose
imperious rather than overwhelming.

Her maids finished the last of her toilet, bowed, glanced
uncertainly at the man who stood by the door. He must have bulked huge,
shadowed and silent. Perhaps his anger showed on his face.

“Go,” she said to them.

They wavered, hesitating, but in the end they went.

And Nehsi had what he wanted, what he had not dared to hope
for. He was alone with his king.

He had been going to shout at her if he must, shake her,
dare her wrath and even the shame of the lash if he could only catch and hold
her attention. Instead he stood mute, as Thutmose so often did, unable to
explain why he was in such awe of this lone small woman with her tired eyes.

Then she lifted those eyes, and he knew. Because she was
Hatshepsut.

That, strangely, strengthened him. He said without pause or
preliminary, “Thutmose will kill you if he can.”

She raised her brows. Stripped of paint, they were strong
still, plucked into a perfect arch. “Have you proof of this?” she asked, remote
as she always was now; distant and cool.

“I have seen him in Amon’s temple,” Nehsi said, “driving
bargains with the priests who will rule when Hapuseneb is dead. He offers them
the spoils of Asia in return for alliance, and for a blind eye turned upon him
if you die untimely.”

“Indeed?” She seemed neither surprised nor alarmed. “What
would you have me do about it? Put him to death for sedition?”

“That,” said Nehsi, “you would never do. Nor could I; and
believe me, majesty, I thought of it. An arrow in the dark, a poison in the
cup, and you would be safe forever.”

“Safe, and without an heir.”

“And condemned by the gods for allowing a king to be
destroyed.” He shook his head. “Lady, you know me better than that; or you did
once. I would ask you to ponder the danger, and to consider what to do about
this young king who begins at last to strain the bonds you set on him.”

“Bonds that he never resisted, nor saw fit to question.” In
that he heard her old, almost welcome exasperation. “If he had ever proved that
he was worthy to take up the burdens of a king, I would have laid them upon
him.”

“Would you?” Nehsi asked her. “Truly, lady: would you? How
do you reconcile this contempt for him with the truth, that when you die he
will rule in your stead? Do you care so little for the welfare of Egypt?”

In her eyes he saw no love for him, not any longer; but she
had not driven him out. In that he took what comfort he could. “Every breath I
draw is drawn for Egypt,” she said. “It troubles me, yes, that I leave no
better heir. I shall see him married, I think: find him a woman who is strong
enough to rule as I ruled when his father was king—and who can bear him the
heir that he requires. Would that content you, O great lord?”

She mocked him, addressing him as if he had been as royal as
she. He refused to bristle at it. “That would be useful,” he conceded. “It has
also come to my mind that while you find and train the lady, he might be well
distracted if he were given what he yearns for. A command in the army, lady.
Nothing of great moment—not the command of Asia, lest he make himself strong
there, then come back and destroy you; but something sufficient, a garrison in
Nubia perhaps, or one of the outposts of Libya.”