Queen of the Heavens (17 page)

“You are correct,” Isis said. “The child will arrive sooner than expected.”

I’m excited about being a mother, Isis.

“It is an exciting time, but don’t anticipate the future, or how you will feel.”

Don’t all women feel joy when they hold their first child?

“Birth carries great pain.”

The act of love carried great pain the first time I was with Sety. I had to know pain to feel pleasure.

“That is so. Life brings both. Do not question the pain, or the pleasure, for they are one. Whatever happens, Tuya, never doubt the love of the divine, or that all is as it should be.”

I drifted into an uneasy sleep and awoke the next morning confused and troubled.
What was Isis talking about?
I asked myself.
I have all the material things I need. I’m loved by my husband, my parents, and even by the Pharaoh. I carry a child who will receive my love, and Isis would never allow tragedy to befall my family or me. All is perfect. All is bliss.

For the next few days, I spent much time meditating as I directed my energies inward to help nourish my child’s body and spirit. Twice daily, in the morning and evening, I lit frankincense before Thoth and Sekhmet, and prayed to the god and goddess that the child develop with intelligence and strength. I had no doubt the child would carry with him the love of Isis. How could he not, since Isis was within me?

Then one morning, while performing the ritual to Thoth and Sekhmet, my water broke quite unexpectedly and I began to feel the contractions and pain that was an unavoidable part of the arrival of a new being to the earthly realm. A servant rushed to the palace to summon the court midwife. Another ran to fetch my mother. A soldier left by chariot to notify Sety, but my husband was a day’s ride away, inspecting a small fort in the desert past the Giza Pyramids. Lord Harenhab and Ramesses, who had just returned from Thebes, also were informed of the impending birth.

“The pain is unbearable,” I said to Mother as she sat at my bedside holding my hand.

“Breathe deeply, my child. You’ll endure this and know joy, just as I did when you were born.”

I squeezed Mother’s hand so hard I must have hurt her.
Isis, help me,
I said to the Queen of the Heavens without speaking the words, but there was no reply, and no remittance in the pain.

Perspiration poured from me, and under my breath I cursed Sety for sharing the joy of conceiving the child, but not the pain of delivering it.

My head servant Nebet dampened my forehead with a wet cloth. Two other servants fanned me with ostrich feathers and a third stood by with a switch to shoo away flies. In a corner of the room, three priestesses who served the goddess Hathor sat against a wall, chanting incantations to keep away the demons.

The midwife sat down next to me, pulled up my linen gown, applied a sandalwood oil to my abdomen and began massaging the opening from which my child would emerge. As the opening grew larger, the pain increased.

“Mother,” I cried, writhing in agony, “I can’t go through with this.”

“You must,” Mother said. “You have no choice.”

“No, no, no!” I shouted in panic as the pain intensified and the child began to stir.

“Settle down,” the midwife shouted at me as if I were a commoner. “Stay as calm as you can or you’ll hurt your child.”

The harsh words shocked the panic out of me. The last thing I wanted was to hurt my son, so I used all of my willpower to subdue my violent movements.

“Good, My Lady. You’re doing fine,” the midwife said, “but now it’s time for you to do even more.”

At her signal, Mother and Nebet helped me to the nearby birthing stool built from bricks. They supported me, one on each side, as I sat down on the lamb’s skin covering the hard seat, carved out in a crescent so the child could drop from my sacred place directly into the midwife’s hands.

“Push with your belly,” the midwife ordered.

I did as commanded, though I felt like I was being torn in two.

“The head has come out,” the midwife said at last. “Now push with all your might.”

I gritted my teeth, and pushed again and again and again, until the infant’s whole body finally emerged from darkness into the light of earthly existence.

“It’s a boy,” the midwife announced in a loud voice, which caused a gleeful titter among those in the room.

My grimace quickly turned into a labored smile.
All is well. All is as it should be,
I said to myself as my imagination produced fleeting images of my son.

First, I saw him as a healthy and handsome child playing along the Nile with friends. He then appeared as an adolescent learning from a scribe how to read and write. For an instant, he was an adult, dressed in royal regalia, sitting on the throne of Egypt. Finally, I saw my son emerge as Pharaoh from the Great Temple of Amun to the cheers of his countrymen, nobles and peasants alike.

After a short time, my thoughts returned to the present, for I sensed something was wrong. The room was too quiet.

“Why is he not crying?” I asked Mother. She tightened her grip on my hand, which caused me even more concern. “Why is he not crying?” I asked again, frantically.

The midwife lifted the infant by its legs and slapped his bottom but he remained silent and motionless. She slapped him again and again, but the infant did not respond. She breathed with her mouth into the infant’s nose, but his lungs would not fill on their own. The midwife handed my son to a servant, then cut the cord of life that had sustained him inside me for so many months. My life force had flowed through him, but he appeared to have no life force of his own.

“What’s wrong? I want my son,” I said, managing as much of a shout as I could in my weakened condition.

“He won’t breathe,” the midwife said.

“He must breathe. My son must breathe.”

“I’m sorry. Your son is dead.”

My heart would not accept what I just heard.

“No. It’s not so. Isis would not permit it.”

“It is so, Tuya,” Mother told me as she and Nebet helped me back into bed.

“No. I want to hold my son.”

“It’s better that you do not. Rest my daughter. I’ll take care of you.”

I didn’t want to rest. I wanted to rise, take the child and use my power as a healer to make him healthy and well. I tried to get up but found I could barely move. The trials of birth had depleted me, and I soon slipped into delirium. Mother stayed at my bedside for the rest of the day and throughout the night as I thrashed about, wiping my brow and administering a tonic of alcohol and honey as best she could. During one of my calmer moments, when all was dark, the violet hue again appeared and I heard Isis’ voice.

“Rest, Tuya, and regain your strength.”

Isis, you haven’t left me.

“Of course not. Why would you think I had?”

My son is dead. You wouldn’t permit this.

“Death is a part of life, Tuya.”

I can’t stand the anguish, Isis.

“All humans must face times of anguish. The Neters must face them, too, as I did when Seth killed and dismembered my beloved Osiris.”

I don’t want to feel anguish.

“You have no choice. We must all feel it. Anguish is part of the Divine Pageant.”

I don’t want to participate in the Pageant if I must feel this way.

“You must participate, and you must learn always to trust, Tuya. All is divine perfection. All is as it should be.”

I had fallen from the heights of joy to the depths of misery, and it had taken so short a time.

I can’t live with these feelings. Take them away,
I beseeched the Queen of the Heavens.

“It is for you to do that,” Isis replied. “I will be with you, Tuya, but your trials are just beginning. As you face them, always remember that the dark forces are an illusion. They cannot triumph unless you choose to despair.”

XVII

My thrashing and feverish cries subsided by midday, but my grief grew worse. Mother, sitting at my bedside, lifted a bowl of fish broth to my lips. “You must eat and regain your strength.”

I took a small sip then pushed the bowl away. “I don’t want to eat. I want to die, as my son died.”

“You’re being selfish,” Mother said with frustration in her voice. “You’re not the first woman to lose a child, Tuya. You’ll have other children. It’s right to grieve, but you must look forward to the future.”

Mother’s words did not move me. The future had been so bright. Now it looked so bleak. Of course other women had lost children, but other women were not me. I was a Princess whose role in the Divine Pageant was to give birth to an heir, and I had failed in my duty.

Why had I failed? Why did Isis not give me the strength to heal my son? These questions haunted me, and I drifted into a light and fitful sleep, angry at both myself and the Queen of the Heavens.

Later in the day, not long before sunset, a commotion by the doorway awakened me. I looked over to see Mother, and what appeared through my weary eyes to be an apparition, gray from head to toe. The sight of this unearthly being startled me. A demon? I wondered, before realizing it was Sety, his body covered in dust. A servant set down a basin of water and a linen cloth on a table next to him.

“Will Tuya live? She looks terrible,” Sety said to Mother as he dipped his hands in the bowl and washed the dust from his face.

“Of course she’ll live. She’s just sleeping,” Mother answered. “Let her rest. The death of your son was a great shock to her.”

“And to me.”

I wiped away the last vestiges of sleep from my eyes. “Don’t leave, Sety. I’m awake. Come by my side.”

“I want to be with my wife, alone,” Sety insisted.

Mother walked over to me and stroked my forehead. “I’ll be leaving you for now. Sety will take care of you. Be gentle with her,” she said, then left the room.

I managed a slight smile. “Sety, come here and take my hand.”

“I’ve been traveling since yesterday,” he said, drying his face and hands with the cloth. “I drove my chariot as fast as I could with the expectation I’d be holding a handsome child in my arms. Instead, I saw our son at the embalmer’s tent. I could hardly bear to look at him. He would have been a great Pharaoh, but he never had a chance at life.”

My smile vanished. “They wouldn’t let me see him.”

“Why did he die?”

“I have no idea. All seemed well, but our son could not live outside my womb. Please sit next to me and take my hand.”

This time Sety obliged, but holding his hand was like holding a fish just purchased in the market.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

My husband sat silently for a few moments. It seemed as if his soul had ventured into another realm, leaving his body stone-like.

“Sety, what’s wrong?” I asked again. His grip on me began to tighten.

“You’re hurting me,” I protested.

Before the pain became unbearable, Sety dropped my hand and stood up.

“What’s wrong?” he said tersely. “Our son is dead. How dare you let him die?”

“What do you mean?”

Sety turned his back on me and walked away. “You say you’re a healer. You say you converse with the Neters. You claim Isis tells you how to make people well, yet you couldn’t save my son?”

For a moment I was speechless, my tongue frozen in disbelief. I could not comprehend that the man I loved, the man with whom I had shared so many intimate moments, would condemn me for the tragedy that had befallen us. We had had our differences, but any ill feelings toward each other eventually vanished in the embrace of love. Sety could be unpredictable and temperamental, but until now I had never known him to be hateful.

“What demon inside you makes you speak this way?” I asked.

“Demon in me?” Sety shouted. “How dare you ask such a question? It was you who let my son die.”

“You can’t blame me for what happened. I was in no condition to heal anyone,” I protested in as loud a voice as I could manage.

“Why did you not call on Isis to bring life to him, or has she left you?”

“Isis is still with me,” I responded indignantly.

“Was she ever with you,” Sety countered as he turned again toward me, “or did you lie about her in order to become a Princess, or is it you who are possessed by a demon that makes you think you talk with Isis?”

My last bit of strength had vanished. Sety’s blistering words stung my whole body, like a sandstorm in the desert. I turned on my side so I did not have to look at my husband.

“You ask too much of me. You ask too much of Isis,” I said, my voice now barely audible. “I’ll bear you another son, but I can’t be faulted for the death of this one.”

I could feel Sety’s glare piercing the back of my head. “We’ll see about that. In the meantime, I’ll grieve for the son you allowed to die.”

Sety bounded from the room. Within moments, Mother returned, sat on the bed next to me and touched my shoulder.

“Mother, what’s wrong with my husband? He blames me for our child’s death,” I said through tears as I turned toward her.

Mother took me in her arms and stroked my hair. “I know. I heard.”

“Why would he say such things to me?”

Mother was silent for a time, then spoke in a soothing voice. “The tragedy was as much a shock to him as to you. He had such great expectations. Give him time, and give him another child, and all will be well.”

Mother’s words provided no comfort. All would not be well. I had trusted Sety. We had explored the pleasures of love together in the most intimate detail. I had laughed and felt joy with him as we prepared for the birth of our child. Now, as I faced the most trying time of my life when I needed my husband the most, Sety responded not with love and compassion, but with cruelty.

“He doesn’t love me,” I said through my tears. “If Sety loved me he would be with me.”

Mother hugged me tighter. “Your father and I have been angry with each other many times, sometimes with good reason, sometimes not, but our love has endured. People grieve in different ways, Tuya. Let Sety grieve in his. Always know that I love you and will be with you.”