Chapter Six
THEBES, EGYPT
“Enough!” my father bellows, and the crowded audience hall reverberates with the sound of his voice.
The courtiers and palace officials and servants are stunned into silence.
As Lord of the Two Lands of Egypt who has conquered the Levant and Nubia in his military campaigns, my father, Pharaoh Thutmose, wields unfathomable might, and this power does not even account for his authority as representative of the gods of earth.
His orders are sacred commands that must be obeyed instantaneously and with exactitude.
The two tax officials who have been debating differences in the charges levied on the Upper and Lower regions of Egypt have been rendered immobile by my father’s edict.
Every single person in this vast chamber is motionless and must await permission to reanimate, even me, the pharaoh’s eldest daughter by his esteemed Great Wife.
This call for stillness is one of my father’s favorite tactics and one at which I excel.
Since I can remember, I’ve practiced the statue-like regality of the gods; it is expected of me.
I can almost hear Mother encouraging me during the long periods of rehearsing regnal immobility, whispering, “Your father would shine with pride at your stillness.”
But the people here today have not had my years of training. They believe they have heeded the instruction of Thutmose, but I can see them flinch and twitch. The embroidered fabric of their robes quivers as they desperately try to calm their bodies. And my father sees it too.
Father rises from his throne, appearing impossibly tall with the double crown upon his head.
He steps down from the dais and paces in front of the supplicants, pausing as he nears visibly quaking administrators and stopping to face the two tax collectors.
Both are dressed in the finest robes, and yet how paltry their garb seems in comparison to the resplendence of Thutmose.
“Do I not stand before you wearing the double crown?” he bellows to the tax collectors.
“Yes, my lord,” the two men reply in unison, their voices shaking.
Neither man raises his eyes to my father, and for that, I am thankful. Others have forgotten that my father is not a man but a god and taken the natural, but very forbidden in this formal setting, step of meeting his gaze. I do not want to witness the aftermath of such disrespect ever again.
“What does it signify?” he roars. For a moment, I can envision him as he was before he became pharaoh of all Egypt: a feared and triumphant military commander under the previous pharaoh, Amenhotep.
Unlike most divine rulers, Father wasn’t born to the role, and he has confided in me that he’s the stronger for it.
Holding a secret this momentous—it is heresy to suggest kingship should originate outside a royal bloodline—makes me feel closer to my father.
Hands on hips, he towers over the men, perfectly balancing the heavy gold crown on his head.
The outer portion, inlaid with carnelian, fits tightly over his head and ears, but even with that sturdy base, it can be difficult to stabilize the tall, conical centerpiece decorated with mother-of-pearl out of which a curled spire projects.
One evening, Papa made me hold the double crown, wanting me to understand the weight of leadership.
One of the men chokes out, “The red deshret-crown symbolizes Lower Egypt, while the white hedjet-crown embodies Upper Egypt, my lord.”
“And together, what do they mean?”
“Together, they are the sekhemti”—the other man speaks—“the united Egypt over which you rule, my lord.”
“Yes.” My father claps. Maintaining the strong unification of Upper and Lower Egypt is one of the most important tasks of a pharaoh.
Not long ago, Egypt had been fractured and the crucial maat destroyed along with it.
But my father has solidified the hard-won unification wrought by Pharaoh Ahmose I, fifty years ago.
The tax collectors’ shoulders slump, and their faces appear relieved. They think they’ve pleased Thutmose, an unreachable goal according to reports. But they don’t know him.
He takes two steps closer to the men, whose heads remain bowed. I imagine that they are staring at his sandals, made with the softest leather edged in gold. Are they envisioning a word of praise? A gift from the living god? Poor souls.
My father hisses. “Then if, as my crown makes plain, we are all one Egypt, why would I want to listen to your squabbling about whether Lower or Upper Egypt should pay more in taxes? Why would the gods care for that bickering?” He gestures to the panoply of gods depicted on the walls.
Even though the men haven’t been given leave to withdraw from the presence of Thutmose, they both recoil the tiniest bit at the vehemence in his words.
The royal guards march closer to the men at this infraction.
They are the only people in the audience hall who have had the audacity to move.
Even I don’t soften my stance or my gaze.
I can do nothing to mar my worthiness to sit on this dais alongside my father.
Too much resistance already exists. When Father began inviting me to join him for these public forums, my mother balked at the impropriety of a girl being present on the dais.
In his most imperious tone, he reminded her that I’m no mere girl, but a pharaoh’s daughter and powerful in my own right as the God’s Wife.
Her overt objections ceased at that, but I still saw the judgment in her gaze every time my servants readied me for the audience hall.
I cannot harbor resentment against her, though, for I saw the grief in her eyes alongside the judgment; my eldest brother, Wadjmose, did not survive a recent plague that took many from Thebes village and the palace alike. I am sitting in his stead.
My father’s voice returns me to the moment. “How should we resolve this issue of just tax payment, as you called it?”
The soldiers now flank the tax collectors.
The men do not dare raise their eyes, but I see them glance at each other in fear and desperation.
They seem to reach an accord, because, in unison, they reply, using my father’s most formal name, “Son of Ra, Upper and Lower Egypt will bear the costs equally.”
“Ah, excellent,” my father says, and I can almost feel the entire room exhale in relief. “You were inspired to a just resolution.”
“Your divinity inspires all,” the older of the tax collectors says, a refrain every Egyptian knows from childhood.
With that, my father proceeds out of the hall, nodding at me slightly as he does.
This is my signal to rise and follow him into the royal antechamber.
I enter behind him, and our servants scurry to our sides, relieving each of us of the weighty crowns and heavy gold girdles we wear in our royal roles.
As the servants work, my father says, “I hope you learned lessons about ruling today. You must use a firm and even hand, and bring your subjects around to the just conclusion by the means at your disposal.”
My father refers specifically to the thorny issue of this afternoon—the tricky apportionment of taxes between Lower Egypt with its lush delta and the vaster Upper Egypt with its hot desert swaths relieved only by the fertile Nile valley.
But I know he means for his words to have broader implications.
“Maat,” I say, referring to the concept for truth and justice that permeates the gods’ teachings and is the goal of kingly rule, “requires that the two halves of our land share the financial burden equally, because we are indeed one country under your rule. You brought the administrators to see the importance of that tradition—by referencing our sacred symbols and teaching and your might.”
I think, but do not say, how my father keeps with traditional perspectives only when they match his own.
For example, even though every Egyptian ruler, who preceded him for a thousand years, built public, pyramidal tombs, he is constructing a highly secret tomb within a mountain in western Thebes.
It is a bold effort to thwart the tomb thieves.
“Exactly. As the God’s Wife of Amun, you have your own lands, estates, palaces, treasury, and your own subjects. You are the highest-ranking woman in the land, and you must know how to command and make decisions. There will come a time when I’m not here to guide and advise you.”
“No,” I insist with a vehement shake of my head.
Rather than becoming irritated with my contrariness, he offers me a sad smile. “It is the gods’ will that all of us should leave this life and journey to the underworld.”
Nedjem pauses, her eyebrows lifted in a silent question as to whether she should remove my bracelets, necklaces, and rings amidst this moving exchange between me and my father. I nod. I long to feel light and free after so many hours of formal duties and this somber conversation.
As our servants finish and back out of the chamber one by one, my father calls to me.
I rush to his side, staring up at his dark, powerful features.
How different he looks without the gleam of the double crown.
Standing before me in a simple pleated kilt, without his gem-encrusted girdle affixed with a bull’s tail and his crook and flail, he is no longer the Son of Ra, he is only Father.
He stretches out his arms, and I curl into his embrace. Although many times a day I receive the cautious ministrations of servants, I am so rarely touched with human affection that I nearly cry.
“You carried yourself with a god’s grace today, Hatshepsut,” he says, and I relish being called by my given name—which means “foremost of noble ladies”—rather than a title. For a brief moment, I am no longer the pharaoh’s child or the God’s Wife, I am only a daughter.