Chapter Twenty-One
THEBES, EGYPT
I scream, and it is not the first time.
How could a day for which I’ve longed and prayed for six seasons cause such agony?
A day for which I’ve suffered countless nights of indignity with my mother, priests, Nedjem, and a dozen handmaidens as witnesses to my union with Thutmose II?
More than anything in the world, I wish this pain undone by whatever means.
Like the tide, it recedes, only to return multifold. In the space between the waves of anguish, I pant and swear and pray. I call for my mother, then push her away. I receive the ministrations of the high priest, then beg for him to leave. I pace and squat and sweat and bleed.
Most of all, I curse Thutmose II.
How could that pale, lackluster, bowlegged boy be the source of such monumental pain?
Even worse, how could he be king? He’d just managed to endure the coronation rituals, which took place a few days after my father’s funerary procession.
He was hardly impressive in the feats of endurance and strength or chanting of long, sacred, memorized texts.
Thutmose II had never received the years of training that my brothers, Amenmose and Wadjmose, had undertaken, and the lack had been apparent to all.
But he did indeed complete the rituals and had just enough energy remaining to enter into the marital contract my father requested.
To my shame and the embarrassment of the women assembled for the occasion, however, he did not have enough vigor to perform on the day of our union.
That particular act took him nearly a full season, nightly sacrifices to the gods, and several consultations with the high priest of the Goddess Taweret, the protector of mothers and children during pregnancy and childbirth.
The pain surges, and a howl echoes throughout the birthing pavilion, an open-air gazebo with a roof made of matting and whitewashed plaster walls painted with hopeful images of mothers and children and the gods who guard them.
The sound is so guttural, almost animalistic, I think it could not possibly have come from me.
But all eyes are upon me and all hands support me, so I must be the source.
The sound of gentle lapping water ebbs away at the anguish, and I push myself to standing, much to the dismay of my mother and the handmaidens and priestess.
Protective amulets sliding off my huge belly, I stagger to the edge of the birthing pavilion which was built at the edge of a pool.
How refreshing the water appears, I think as I dip my toes in.
The coolness invigorates me, and when I turn back toward the women, I feel ready.
“Get the birthing bricks aligned,” I order Nedjem, the only one I trust to do it properly.
Leaning on Mother and the handmaidens, I squat upon the bricks. The pain and pressure haven’t returned but they will momentarily, and I want to be prepared. I want this waiting and agony to be over, and my father’s true heir to arrive.
The women begin their chant, “Come, come,” to urge the baby into this world.
The high priest waves incense and murmurs prayers to Taweret to fend off the demons that could take my life and that of the child.
His assistants make entreaties to other gods and goddesses—Isis, Nephthys, Hathor, Bes, and Tefnut—to keep me and the baby safe today and in the precarious days to come.
Others encircle me in objects of great power, figurines, statues, wands, and amulets.
Much, much depends on a safe birth and my survival.
I think about how easily my father’s legacy might have come unraveled during the past six seasons of Thutmose II’s ostensible rule, without my guidance and that of my mother.
While queen regent Ahmes met with advisers and stewards, building administrators and priests, viziers and farmers—occasionally with Thutmose II at her side—I advised my husband.
Daily, I gave him secret instructions on the structure of the government, the factions that were trustworthy and those to be avoided, the vagaries of familial connections, the machinations of the economy, the private status of the military, and the nature of diplomacy and intercountry dynamics—all the knowledge my father entrusted to me.
The extent of Thutmose II’s lack of knowledge could never be revealed.
If it was, the Thutmoside dynasty could be lost in one coup and, quite possibly, all the progress that my ancestors have made along with it.
I will never let that happen.
I push with all my might, as if the world could be riven in two by my effort.
Instead, I feel my body cleave. A warm liquid pools between my legs, and I see myself as if from above.
I observe the women press in closer to my naked body.
I watch as they rub the huge mountain of my belly and my sweaty brow.
I see my mother’s panic when she realizes that I am no longer on her side of the River Nile, and I stare as the glistening crimson sea underneath my body turns into an ocean.
Then I hear a cry. The mewling of a babe. My babe. And I feel myself being sucked back into my body and on to the side of life.
I gasp for air and sit up. Mother squeals with joy and wraps her arms around my drenched and bloody body. “I thought you’d already made your journey to Aaru,” she cries.
“The baby. I heard the baby,” I croak.
She turns toward the red, angry creature being pulled from me. I reach for it, but the high priest, who is incanting a blessing over the child, shakes his head. “Not yet.”
“Yes, now,” I insist. A primal urge has taken hold of me to see this new life for myself, to clutch it in my own arms and protect it from everyone and everything.
“But it isn’t protocol—” My mother sides with the high priest. But I am familiar with the elaborate rituals about to be performed upon my child, and I will not allow them to stand in the way of me holding it this very instant.
“I am the queen, and I make the protocol,” I roar back, and the others recoil at my vehemence, including my mother. She is ostensibly regent, but more and more, her power wanes and I step into the breach. “Bring the baby to me.”
Only loyal Nedjem has the courage to step toward the high priest with her hands outstretched for the baby. As she cradles it in her arms, Mother stands and looks over her shoulder at the bundle. “It’s a girl, Hatshepsut,” she whispers, as if to brace me before I can see the gender for myself.
The others cluck in sympathy, but I will have none of it. After all, our sex has not stopped my mother and me from wielding our own share of power.
I reach for my daughter, with a command to all. “You will cease that noise. We shall only have celebration for my daughter. She will be called Neferure, because she has all the beauty of Re.”