to record this expedition, as you commanded….”
“And your duty to shoot as many lying Hittites as you can with that remarkable bow of yours.”
“It’s the arm that draws the bow that’s remarkable, Lord, not the bow itself.”
In spite of his dark mood, Thutmose chuckled. “You are ever the modest one.”
“Personal scribe to the Pharaoh – ought I to be modest?”
“Perhaps not.”
“You forgot about the Retjenu.”
“What?”
“I’ll shoot as many of thos e toads as I will Hittites.”
Thutmose thumped Tjaneni on his wiry shoulder.
“Easy, Lord, or you’ll destroy the magic of the remarkable bow.”
“Tell me, Tjaneni. Do my enemies know we are here?”
He shrugged. “If they don’t know yet, they will soon. We can’t move along the line of their mountain range for long without being sighted.”
“It will take two days to make the southern pass.”
Tjaneni nodded.
“And another day to cross it,” Thutmose went on morosely, “and two more days to double back on Megiddo. Amun’s eyes. We may as well blow on flutes and bang on drums the whole while, for all we’ll take them by surprise.”
The scribe sighed.
Thutmose turned back to his scrutiny of the dark peaks, as if some answer lay there. They looked different by starlight. The sharper, starker glow revealed new contours in the rock, filled the tracks of the ancient rivulets with shadow as black and precise as kohl around an eye. As Thutmose watched, some wisp of vapor moved across the sky, the breath of a cloud forming. Starlight and shadow rippled across the mountain’s surface, and the deep black contour seemed to dip into itself, rolling and bending for the space of one heartbeat to reveal what Thutmose had not seen by the light of day.
A narrow cleft between two peaks, opening onto a flat, stony path.
He recalled, with a pang of loss so sharp it threatened to make him cry out, Hatshepsut tracing a line of charcoal on a map, her eyes ringed in shadow. Thutmose lifted his chin, buoyed with sudden inspiration. That’s it.
There, in that dark cleft, was the place where the jealous, hard-clenched fist of Amun would open. Thutmose would force it open, and cause maat to spill out across his land.
CHAPTER TWELVE
H ATSHEPSUT RESTED FOR SEVENTY DAYS beneath the embalming salts. The season of Shemu dawned as Meryet and her son laid the Pharaoh to rest in the tomb of Thutmose the First. It had been Hatshepsut’s wish to lie eternally beside the father she had loved so well as a child. The tomb’s newly widened walls were painted afresh in preparation for Hatshepsut’s funeral. The brightness of the colors seemed obscene, almost sacrilegious in the light of the priests’ torches when they made their way deep into the darkness, bearing the nested and gilded coffins of the woman who had been king.
Meryet held Amunhotep on her hip in the orange light of the torches, spoke the words for him, guided his tiny hand to rest the sacred rod against the mouth of Hatshepsut’s funeral mask. The boy looked with quiet solemnity into the lapis and ebony eyes of the mask, the precious stones set into a new skin of smooth, eternal gold. Amunhotep acted as the heir in place of his father, for Thutmose had taken the army north within days of Hatshepsut’s death. The bird was freed from its snare.
Duty done, Meryet returned gratefully across the river and shut herself in her chambers, thinking to have an isolated cry with no one but Batiret for witness. The loyal woman had attached herself as fan-bearer to the Great Royal Wife’s retinue, and Meryet was glad of her company. They had shared something of immeasurable import, that sad day when they had lain sobbing on Hatshepsut’s bed, their fingers entwined and their tears mingling. Though she was only a minor daughter of an unimportant house, Batiret was as close now to Meryet’s heart as any sister.
But a quiet moment with her new sister was not to be. When she arrived at her
“And your duty to shoot as many lying Hittites as you can with that remarkable bow of yours.”
“It’s the arm that draws the bow that’s remarkable, Lord, not the bow itself.”
In spite of his dark mood, Thutmose chuckled. “You are ever the modest one.”
“Personal scribe to the Pharaoh – ought I to be modest?”
“Perhaps not.”
“You forgot about the Retjenu.”
“What?”
“I’ll shoot as many of thos e toads as I will Hittites.”
Thutmose thumped Tjaneni on his wiry shoulder.
“Easy, Lord, or you’ll destroy the magic of the remarkable bow.”
“Tell me, Tjaneni. Do my enemies know we are here?”
He shrugged. “If they don’t know yet, they will soon. We can’t move along the line of their mountain range for long without being sighted.”
“It will take two days to make the southern pass.”
Tjaneni nodded.
“And another day to cross it,” Thutmose went on morosely, “and two more days to double back on Megiddo. Amun’s eyes. We may as well blow on flutes and bang on drums the whole while, for all we’ll take them by surprise.”
The scribe sighed.
Thutmose turned back to his scrutiny of the dark peaks, as if some answer lay there. They looked different by starlight. The sharper, starker glow revealed new contours in the rock, filled the tracks of the ancient rivulets with shadow as black and precise as kohl around an eye. As Thutmose watched, some wisp of vapor moved across the sky, the breath of a cloud forming. Starlight and shadow rippled across the mountain’s surface, and the deep black contour seemed to dip into itself, rolling and bending for the space of one heartbeat to reveal what Thutmose had not seen by the light of day.
A narrow cleft between two peaks, opening onto a flat, stony path.
He recalled, with a pang of loss so sharp it threatened to make him cry out, Hatshepsut tracing a line of charcoal on a map, her eyes ringed in shadow. Thutmose lifted his chin, buoyed with sudden inspiration. That’s it.
There, in that dark cleft, was the place where the jealous, hard-clenched fist of Amun would open. Thutmose would force it open, and cause maat to spill out across his land.
CHAPTER TWELVE
H ATSHEPSUT RESTED FOR SEVENTY DAYS beneath the embalming salts. The season of Shemu dawned as Meryet and her son laid the Pharaoh to rest in the tomb of Thutmose the First. It had been Hatshepsut’s wish to lie eternally beside the father she had loved so well as a child. The tomb’s newly widened walls were painted afresh in preparation for Hatshepsut’s funeral. The brightness of the colors seemed obscene, almost sacrilegious in the light of the priests’ torches when they made their way deep into the darkness, bearing the nested and gilded coffins of the woman who had been king.
Meryet held Amunhotep on her hip in the orange light of the torches, spoke the words for him, guided his tiny hand to rest the sacred rod against the mouth of Hatshepsut’s funeral mask. The boy looked with quiet solemnity into the lapis and ebony eyes of the mask, the precious stones set into a new skin of smooth, eternal gold. Amunhotep acted as the heir in place of his father, for Thutmose had taken the army north within days of Hatshepsut’s death. The bird was freed from its snare.
Duty done, Meryet returned gratefully across the river and shut herself in her chambers, thinking to have an isolated cry with no one but Batiret for witness. The loyal woman had attached herself as fan-bearer to the Great Royal Wife’s retinue, and Meryet was glad of her company. They had shared something of immeasurable import, that sad day when they had lain sobbing on Hatshepsut’s bed, their fingers entwined and their tears mingling. Though she was only a minor daughter of an unimportant house, Batiret was as close now to Meryet’s heart as any sister.
But a quiet moment with her new sister was not to be. When she arrived at her
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