The Sekhmet Bed (2 page)

She stood still, fists clenched, and prayed as she watched the chariot come on: “Khonsu, who protects night travelers, see me! Cast evil from my path!”

The chariot was close enough now that she could see moonlight sparking in the horses’ eyes. “Slow, slow,” the driver said, and drew his reins. The horses stopped, blowing, beside Ahmose.

“
Well,” said the driver, leaning a forearm on the rail of his chariot. “The Second Princess.”

Ahmose blushed.

“
Not dressed like a princess tonight.”

“
What business is it of yours how I choose to dress?” She stared at the impudent man, hoping her look was regal and intimidating, painfully aware that she was thirteen years old and barely a woman, for all her royal blood.

The driver smirked at her like a boy, though he was at least twice her age. The corners of his eyes creased, and his kohl was smeared where he’d carelessly rubbed at his face. Nose and chin were both sharply pointed; his cheeks were lean and flat. His face was all long angles. He brought the image of Anupu instantly to Ahmose’s mind. Anupu, jackal-god of the underworld, who could condemn or reward. Would this man be her friend, or her enemy? She did not know, and not knowing intrigued her.

“
I’m more concerned with the safety of Amunhotep’s daughter than with her clothing, to be sure,” the man said. “What are you doing out here, alone in the darkness?”

“
You
are not to question the
Pharaoh’s
daughter – or to use the king’s name so lightly.”

The driver laughed. Not just a chuckle; he laughed hard, a string of loud, high barks like the call of a lapwing. His amusement revealed a prominent jut of upper teeth. Ahmose frowned at him. Was he mad, to laugh at a daughter of the king? Then a prickle of fear ran up her spine. If he was mad, she was alone with him, and no one to see or hear what he might do to her. She took a step back.

“
Oh, I am sorry, Princess,” he said at once. “I’ve frightened you. Fear is the last thing you need tonight, poor girl.”

What did he know of tonight’s sad news? The harem had only just found out. The Pharaoh’s women and children should have been the first to know of his departure for the Field of Reeds, save for his stewards and closest advisors. And
girl
? She wore a wig, even if it was a rather shabby one, not a child’s braid. It should be obvious to even the stupidest rekhet, the most ignorant peasant, that she was a woman now.

“
I’m not afraid of you or anyone else,” she said. “You have an appalling lack of respect, that’s all.”

“
Where are you headed?”

“
Nowhere. I’m just taking the air.”

The driver snorted. “Princesses do not wander about aimlessly on the road. You have palace courtyards for
taking the air
, yes? Would you like a ride to wherever you’re going, Great Lady?”

“
I’d have to be simple to get into a chariot with a strange man who laughs at the Pharaoh’s own blood. And who can’t even keep his kohl around his eyes.”

Incredibly, he laughed again. He stretched a hand down from the back of his chariot as if to help her up. She looked at it, then at his face, and did not move.

“
I’m General Thutmose,” he said, “your father’s best soldier and his closest friend. I have reason to be out taking the air tonight, too. The same reason as you, Princess. The Pharaoh is dead. I have heard.”

“
Already?”

He nodded, his face solemn but his eyes still bright. “It wasn’t a joke, that I am your father’s closest friend.
Was
his closest friend. I am…grieved.” Thutmose looked away, out through the cold night toward the river. “And confused,” he said, quietly, to Ahmose or to the night; she was not sure.

“
Then you lost a friend, and I’m sorry for you.” Ahmose had never known the death of a loved one. Even her father’s death didn’t truly grieve her. She knew Amunhotep only as a king, the figure on the throne, the hands that held the crook and flail. She wondered – what would it be like to lose her closest friend, the pretty Northern girl Aiya with her unshaven, golden hair? Or Mutnofret, who was haughty, but always kind to Ahmose? She should be happy for the dead, she knew. They were the privileged ones, who lived in glory forever with the gods. But to never again see the ones she loved with her eyes…. Sympathy for Thutmose welled up inside her. A familiar voice spoke in her heart.
Trust this man. Trust him
. There could be no mistake: It was Mut speaking, the mother of the gods. Her voice was soothing and direct, a calming contrast to the uncertainty she felt just moments before, begging the gods for clarity.

Ahmose had never defied Mut before. She would not begin now. She stepped to the edge of the chariot’s platform and reached up a hand.

Thutmose smiled at her – a gentle, pleasant smile – and took her hand in his own. She felt its calluses and hard strength, allowed him to pull her up to stand beside him. Before she let his hand go she heard the gods murmur their approval, a whisper in her heart like water among reeds.

Thutmose clucked to his horses. “So where were you headed, Princess?”

“
To Ipet-Isut.” She hesitated. “I’m not sure I want to go there now, though.” She still felt the gods leaning their weight on her, watching her. The feeling made her skin itch. Perhaps, after all, the Holy House was the last place Ahmose should go tonight. “Do you have a destination in mind, General?”

“
I was going nowhere in particular. I just do my best thinking while standing in a chariot.”

“
And has it helped you? Tonight?” Ahmose looked behind her as she spoke, at the House of Women receding into the night, growing smaller, darker, and colder.

Thutmose’s breath made a sharp sound. She wondered if her words pained him somehow, but when she glanced at his face he was smiling, showing his big front teeth. “I’m not sure there’s any help for me, Princess. Tonight or any night.”

“
What do you mean?”

The General shook his head. “It’s nothing for a pretty girl to worry over. Tell me, have you ridden in a chariot before?”

“
A time or two. Never very fast, though,” she admitted.

“
Ha! Then we’ll ride in the fields as fast as you like.” He hissed, and the horses lashed their tails, jounced into a trot so abruptly that Ahmose had to clutch for the rail. The cold air stung her skin, vibrant and sharp with the dun-colored smell of barley.

She smiled. “It’s good! The wind feels good.”

The general laughed like a barking jackal. “Do you like adventure?” He flipped the reins. The horses trotted faster. Pale shapes formed on the road ahead of them, brightened into linen-white. Two men in the short kilts of commoners stood whispering together by the side of the road. Ahmose watched them as the chariot passed. If she’d walked to the Holy House, she would have met these men. Alone.

“
You should have brought more men with you, General. What if we’re robbed?”

“
Bah. Robbers. This is for robbers.” Quick as a cat, he pulled a dagger from his belt, flipped it without so much as glancing down. It spun blade over handle; the hilt smacked back into his thick hand. He laughed at the startled look on Ahmose’s face. Then, as fast as he’d drawn his knife, his laughter died. “Are you the one who reads the women’s dreams?”

She hesitated. “Yes. I am god-chosen. I’m surprised a general in my father’s army would know of anything that goes on in the House of Women.”

Thutmose ignored the implied question. He watched the road, his face still and serious. The light of stars and moon muted the colors of his skin. His profile leaped bright and stark against the black of the night sky. Even smudged, the kohl around his eye made it seem as dark and fierce as the eye of Horus. Suddenly, despite the awful cold, despite the urgency of the night and the unformed threat of the morning, Ahmose was caught up in wild excitement. Whatever her future held, whatever the gods would give her with the rising sun, here she was in a ragged tunic, flying through the night, free as a leaping fish. This was her first time alone with a man, and nobody knew but Ahmose. A reckless surge rose up in her middle. She felt deliciously bad, like a hero-princess from one of her nurse’s stories; she felt secretive and powerful.

She laid a hand lightly atop Thutmose’s. The general looked down at her, his dark eyes wide. “Faster,” she said.

He hissed the horses into a canter, then a gallop. The wind tried to rip the wig from Ahmose’s head. She steadied it, and steadied herself with the other hand, gripping the rail near where Thutmose held the reins.

“
My name is Ahmose,” she shouted into the night.

TWO

They stopped on a little hill; not nearly as high as the great bluffs across the river, on the western bank, but elevated enough that they could look down on the valley. Late fields of wheat shook their pale leaves in the moonlight. To the south, weak lights burned in the miniature House of Women, and beyond it, pale distant points of torches flickered in the great palace above Waset. The palace raised broad shoulders over streets and dwellings, a stern brow frowning at the river. Its lit windows were many eyes, unblinking, staring across miles of field and road to see Ahmose in the chariot. Her skin prickled. In that palace, stretching so great and tense along the flank of the land, the Pharaoh had died. In that palace, beautiful and rich and stifling, the gods tended her fate. They couldn’t have her yet, though. Not until the morning.

She looked away from Waset deliberately, turning her cheek against the gods’ eyes. She would enjoy tonight while it was here. The day would come soon enough. But for now, Ahmose was free, and the sky was mirror-bright with stars. This moment was all that mattered. Tonight was all she cared for.

Smiling, she jumped down from the chariot’s platform, kicked her feet in the spicy-sweet summer grasses. The dark shapes of a few olive trees huddled not far away, leaning together to whisper their secrets. “It’s beautiful here.” The exhilaration of the ride was still in her, and as long as she didn’t look at the palace, her anxiety was gone.

Thutmose hobbled the horses, his face serious. “A good ride, but perhaps I should pray after all. I have a weight on my heart tonight. Will you excuse me, Great Lady?”

“
Of course.” Ahmose watched him move along the crest of the hill to stand looking down at sleeping Waset. He faced the setting moon, a gold half-disc sinking among a scatter of stars, and raised his palms in prayer. She kept her eyes on the general’s silhouette for a long time, allowing her own tangled thoughts to lie untouched.

She sat, watched the river in the moonlight, lay on the ground staring upward so her eyes were full of stars. The earth was cool and hard against her back. Click-beetles popped in the grass. The horses stamped; she felt their weight and life shiver through the ground beneath her. Ahmose closed her eyes, breathed in the scent of horse and hill and night air, and thought of nothing, nothing, nothing at all but Thutmose, praying to the moon. If she held onto this moment with all her strength, perhaps the gods’ strange morning would never come.

***

“
Dawn,” the general said.

She opened her heavy eyes, blinked up at him.

He was standing above her, grinning. “You fell asleep.”

“
How long?”

“
Oh, an hour maybe. I thought it best to let you lie.”

Ahmose sat up. Her wig had slipped off. She shook it, flicked at its braids, plucked stray leaves away. When it was in its proper place again, she stood stiffly. Thutmose was standing apart, gazing down again at Waset. Ahmose leaned against the chariot and eased a pebble from her sandal, watching him. He was strong as a bull, though short for a man. He stood with his legs apart, a stance of natural confidence. There was a deep shadow in the cleft of his bare back like a furrow in a field. Beyond him, the western sky was lightening, the stars shutting their eyes one by one. And still Waset’s palace waited for her, huge and immovable, paler in the morning light but not subdued. Ahmose blinked at the eastern horizon; a pink swell was building there. Soon, the sun would be up. She had to get back to the House of Women, to Mutnofret.

“
General.”

He did not move. Perhaps he hadn’t heard. She slipped to his side, touched his wrist.