The Sekhmet Bed (8 page)

"Yes," Wahibra said. "I can see that."

"We have called you here to cut the child out."

Wahibra nodded and gestured toward the birthing stool. A servant leapt to obey him, positioning it near Aiya's limp body. Wahibra unrolled his leather kit and stretched it across the hole in the seat. Ahmose watched, horrified, as he selected a long copper blade from among the kit’s strange instruments. Her mind screamed at her to look away, to run away, but she was powerless to do anything but stand, numbly, detached, and watch Wahibra bend toward Aiya.

The knife in Wahibra’s hand caught the light of a brazier, sending a red flash into Ahmose’s eyes. The spell of powerlessness was broken.

“
Wait,” she called out.

Wahibra looked around at her. His hesitation gave her just enough time. She was at Aiya’s side in two heartbeats, kneeling at her shoulder. She took the girl’s face in her hands.

Aiya opened her eyes. “Ahmose.” Her voice was thick and low with pain, rasped from hours of crying.

“
Aiya, I’m sorry. If I could change this, if I could stop it….”

“
Take care of my son. Make him a good man. Tell him of Aiya, his mother who loved him best. He is best of all the great men.”

“
Hatshepsu,” Ahmose said, grieving, regretting. “I will, Aiya, my sweet one, the best of my friends.” She bent to kiss Aiya’s forehead, pressed her lips to the girl’s sweat-beaded brow and held them there, tasting the salt of her skin, as Wahibra raised his knife.

The pain of the blade roused the last strength in Aiya's body. She jerked, her pale limbs convulsing, her eyes opening wide in shock. "No," she cried in a feeble voice. "No!" The midwives bent to hold her down. They pinioned all her limbs against the cushions, while Ahmose stroked her hair, murmuring apologies.

"You will be with Hathor soon, little mother," the old midwife said. Aiya’s cries were an agony in Ahmose's belly, an accusation in her heart.

At last they faded. Aiya lay limp and still. Ahmose looked up at the midwife. The old woman shook her head. Slowly, the women removed their hands from Aiya's limbs. From one corner of the pavilion, a harem woman began to sing a prayer of supplication to Anupu, the taker of the dead; and Renenet, fists pressed to her mouth, moaned.

Wahibra made a horror of Aiya's proud, round belly. Layer after layer of flesh split. Ahmose stared at the bands of red and yellow, exposed in the dim light of the oil lamps. Something a sick shade of blue was lying within the slit in Aiya's middle. Two of the midwives grasped it and pulled it free of the surrounding flesh, tore at its outer skin. Ahmose lurched to her feet and staggered against a lotus pillar, held it hard, willing down the bubble of nausea rising in her throat.
They are like scavengers at a carcass.

And then she understood. It was the baby's caul they ripped away. One midwife inserted a slender reed into its throat, sucking and spitting the fluid from its lungs. The child’s skin was a terrible color, the blue-grey of death. Wet, red-gold hair clung to its scalp. Its little eyes were closed. The midwives rubbed and patted the child, turned it upside down by its feet and watched as cloudy water dripped from its nostrils, but still the baby did not cry, did not move. One by one they stopped their work, until finally the baby was laid at its mother's cold breast.

The song of Anupu rose again, begging mercy for this unnamed boychild who had never lived at all.

“
Hatshepsu,” Ahmose whispered. “His name is Hatshepsu.”

No one heard her.

Wahibra rose slowly from the ground. Aiya's blood had spread around the hem of his kilt. "I am sorry, my ladies," he said to the midwives. "Even had you called me sooner, I doubt this child could have been saved. The mother was just too small, too young. It is a great sadness that both were lost."

Too young
, Ahmose thought. Panic seized her. She took two steps toward Aiya and her baby, then the ground slid sideways beneath her feet. She fell in a heap, head spinning, dimly aware that the harem women were leaping to her side, crowding around her.

"Let me take her," she heard Renenet say. "She knows me well."

Her arm was pulled upward painfully, laid around a plump shoulder, her wrist gripped in a firm hand. Renenet lifted her to her feet and pulled her out of the pavilion. Ahmose's legs would not work properly. She stumbled and swayed, leaning heavily against her cousin.

"That's right, my lady," Renenet said soothingly, dragging her along the path. The heat of the sun beat down, and Ahmose retched, emptying her stomach. Renenet clucked in sympathy.

After several minutes Ahmose was walking more steadily, although she made no move to take her arm from her cousin’s shoulders. Round a bend in the path, they came across Mutnofret. Her arms were folded, her head high, her face a blank stone, like Meritamun’s on the throne, like a queen’s.

As they passed, Ahmose’s eyes locked with her sister’s. She stopped, forcing Renenet to halt as well. For a long moment she stood staring into Mutnofret’s deep black eyes. The First Princess didn’t blink, just looked fearlessly at Ahmose.

Chilled, afraid, wounded, Ahmose choked on her words and staggered away.

seven

“
She could have spared me,” Ahmose said. “She didn’t have to bring me to the birthing pavilion.”

“
Calm, calm. If you upset yourself you’ll only cry, and smear your eyes.” Renenet shook out Ahmose’s plain green gown. She said doubtfully, “Perhaps Mutnofret thought you would want to be with your friend when she went to the gods.”

Ahmose shook her head, at once denying her cousin’s words and trying to push the image of Aiya bleeding, Aiya dying, from her mind. All through the morning’s marriage, making offerings at the Temple of Amun, receiving the blessings from the High Priest, she had seen Aiya. While she stood back to watch Thutmose place the salt of marriage on Mutnofret’s tongue, tasting the salt on her own, she had heard Aiya’s dying words. As their litter carried them back to the palace through a throng of cheering rekhet, Ahmose had a mind only for planning Aiya’s tomb, Aiya’s funerary rites. Her wedding day had been one long blur of sadness, with Mutnofret’s radiant smile and coy laugh the only things of real clarity.

“
She did it on purpose, Reni, to throw me. She planned to break my spirit so Thutmose would only love her today.”

Reni sighed. “I know Mutnofret is jealous and angry. But you cannot let her win. Don’t let her ruin your wedding feast for you, Ahmose.”

With shaking fingers, Ahmose managed to untie the knot of the simple white linen dress she had worn to the temple. She let it fall to the floor. She felt the need to spin flax, to center herself, lose herself in the rhythm of the spindle and distaff. But there was no time. In less than an hour she was expected at the feast, where she would sit with Thutmose and Mutnofret while drunken nobles fell all over each other and bad poets caterwauled for her approval. There was nothing she felt less like doing than feasting. Aiya’s tomb needed planning, and Ahmose should check with the embalmers to be sure the preparation of the bodies was going as planned.

But duty called. It always did.

Resigned to the feast, she held out her arms so Renenet could dress her. It was kind of her cousin to see to her today, when her heart was broken. It was kind of Renenet to advise her, to care. She would do her best to make Reni happy. Thutmose, too. Though her heart was with Aiya and the baby boy, she would do her duty.

***

Ahmose left her apartment at the House of Women reluctantly, trailing her hand along one of the beautiful painted walls all the way to the door. She glanced back only once, looking through her open chamber doorway out to the garden. After the feast, she would be shown to her new rooms in Waset’s royal palace.
Who will have this room now? Will it stand empty until I have a daughter to fill it?
Have a daughter – no, not that. Nor a son. The thought of her home remaining quiet and unloved through all the years to come filled her with regret. Before she could cry she left her old apartment, closing the door behind her resolutely.

Renenet waited for her in the hall. “Are you sure you won’t wear more jewels, Ahmose?” The woman had been trying to force rings onto Ahmose’s fingers and chains about her neck all afternoon. Ahmose had given in on only a few pieces: simple turquoise studs for her ears and nose, a wide bracelet of unadorned gold, and a bloodstone ring carved with the face of Iset.

“
No, Reni. I want to be understated.”

“
Where did you get an idea like
understated
? This is a wedding feast!”

Ahmose felt ill. Another of Mutnofret’s deceptions?

What did it matter? She was resolved to be a good queen – the best queen Egypt had ever had. She didn’t need trappings to make the court see her as Thutmose’s Great Royal Wife. If Mutnofret had tricked her into looking shoddy, then Ahmose would turn the deception around on her sister. She could be as confident and splendid as a goddess, even in her plain green dress. Mutnofret would see.

Ahmose would have preferred a chariot ride to the palace, but it was such a short distance it could hardly be justified. She and Reni climbed into the waiting litter. Renenet drew the curtains, then turned to Ahmose with a look that said words were on their way.

“
Yes?” Ahmose said when her cousin stayed silent.

The plump woman shook her head. “Just…be careful, that’s all.”

The litter bumped and rocked, raised into the air. Men’s voices called out to one another. They were underway. Ahmose breathed deeply to loosen the stiffness of her neck and shoulders.
As confident and splendid as a goddess
, she reminded herself.

“
Be careful of what?”

Renenet sighed. They traveled in silence for some time. At last Reni said, “I’ve known you and Mutnofret all your lives, dear Ahmose. I know what she’s like. Be careful of
her
. She’s not happy with her station, no matter what she may tell you. And when Mutnofret is unhappy, the very gods are unhappy. I know she loves you, but I don’t know how strong her anger may be.”

When they arrived at the palace, Mutnofret’s litter was already in the courtyard, curtains drawn. A servant appeared to help Ahmose to her feet. As she rose, Ahmose caught a flicker of movement from the other litter. A curtain twitched back, and Mutnofret’s eye peeped out. The curtains whipped shut again. A hand emerged to twiddle its fingers in Ahmose’s direction; a greeting, she supposed. Ahmose shrugged. She did not return the wave.

***

She had arrived early, as it turned out. The magnificent expanse of the great feasting hall was lively with servants. They re-arranged tables, laid bundles of flowers and cones of scented wax here and there. Great bronze braziers were alight at the foot of every pillar, sending streamers of fragrant smoke high into the air to pool like river fog against the painted ceiling.

She could not stay here, drifting about the hall while the servants prepared her feast. She was about to ask Renenet to stroll with her in the courtyard when she saw a few of her friends from the House of Women, standing together in a corner. The women were gathered in a tight circle, listening to Iryet, whose smiling mouth was half-hidden behind the conspiratorial cup of her hand. Ahmose headed toward them with Renenet in tow, drawn by their merry laughter. It would be good to laugh today.

Iryet saw her coming and broke off, bowed her head. “Great Lady, you honor us.”

“
Stop that, Iryet! Don’t go treating me like I’m a goddess’s backside.”

Iryet looked genuinely confused. “But you’re the queen now, Great Lady.”

“
And my name is Ahmose. That’s what you’ll all call me. Please. I’m not used to this yet.”

Iryet threw an arm around Ahmose’s shoulders and pulled her into the circle. Ahmose flushed with pleasure and relief, linking arms with the women.

“
We were just talking about your husband, Ahmose. Isn’t he fine! He has teeth like a hare, but that can be forgiven with such muscles to make up for it. Ooh, how I’d like to get my hands on him!”

Tuyu grinned like a cat. “Soldier’s arms. Much better than fat noble’s arms. I hope he likes to visit the House of Women once in a while. I’m first in line.”

“
Oh, but you don’t really want to do
that
, do you? I mean, I
have
to, but you can just…avoid it.” Ahmose looked at each woman’s face in turn. Some of them looked startled. Others were clearly amused. “But doesn’t it hurt?”

Iryet shrugged. “Maybe the first time. It’s not so bad.”

There was an awkward silence. Ahmose blushed, ashamed. She had intended to look like a confident queen, and instead she had revealed her fears and made herself out to be a terrified child.