The Bull of Min (12 page)

“Ah, Great Lady.”

The moment her litter arrived at Waset, Meryet exchanged it for another – a curtained one, so she might hide from public view. She and Batiret rode at once to the House of Women. The wailing, panicked shrieks of Amenemhat’s nurse greeted Meryet in the courtyard; they sped to the boy’s small room. The stricken nurse was at the center of a knot of frantic women. Her face was an ugly mess of red flush and wet black kohl.

“Here now,” Meryet said, pushing into the crowd.
Dimly, she was aware that Satiah might be in that crowd, Satiah and her knife, with Nehesi nowhere to be found. But she could not spare a worry for that now. She must find out what had happened to the boy. “Here now, Lady. Listen – listen to me! The Great Royal Wife stands before you. Take hold of yourself!”

The
nurse did take hold of herself with visible effort, gulping back her tears, twisting the edge of her shawl between shaking hands.

“Tell me what happened,” Meryet demanded.

The nurse could enlighten her no more than Batiret had. It seemed one moment the boy was there, and the next he was gone, and nowhere to be found.

“It must have been one of the priests.”
The sudden deep, masculine voice turned every woman’s head, and in a moment the harem women were falling away in deep bows, murmuring
Lord Horus
and
King
. Meryet stared up into Thutmose’s face, desperate, absurdly grateful to see him here, a rock in the midst of this chaotic, helpless current.

Thutmose nodded
a tense greeting. “I figured somebody would bring the poor nurse back here to Amenemhat’s room, though it probably does her no good to see it. Meritamun,” he called into the crowd, and a tall, slender woman bowed at his shoulder. “Take this poor mawat to the kitchen and give her some strong wine. It will be all right,” he added to the nurse as she went stumbling by, tucked under Meritamun’s arm. “We will find your boy.”

He sent the rest of the women away – all but Batiret, who remained stoically at Meryet’s shoulder, grim and silent.

“You think it was a priest?” Meryet asked when they were alone.

“Or a priestess.
Who else could move unnoticed at the edge of a festival crowd, and who else knows the temple well enough to whisk a child away unseen? Whoever took Amenemhat is hiding with him in some passage, some storeroom….”

“Nehesi’s men are searching the temple now.”

“Nehesi should not have left you,” Thutmose said.

“I’ve survived.
Let us worry about Amenemhat. Are you sure…” Meryet gave Batiret an apologetic glance, “…that Satiah herself didn’t take the boy?”

“I am certain Satiah is still
at her estate. I receive reports daily. The usual messenger arrived just as my litter returned to Waset, before I came here. She is…at her home.”

“It’s where they’ll take the bo
y – whoever abducted him. They will bring him directly to Satiah.”

“I know.”

“You must go to her, too, Thutmose. You must get him back.” Meryet’s voice dropped to a whisper. “She is making her move. Now. She is reaching out for your throne.”

“She will not take it,” Thutmose vowed.

He turned on hi
s heel and strode from the room. Meryet was left alone, clutching both of Batiret’s hands in her own, the two of them standing wordless and frightened among the discarded playthings of Satiah’s boy.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
HUTMOSE’S FASTEST SHIP LANDED AT the estate’s moorings less than an hour later. He had traveled under sail and oar both, moving at all speed, the prow churning the water, the oars slapping the Iteru with a furious rhythm that sent white spray flying. A stiff wind had blown steadily, hurrying him south as if the gods themselves understood his urgency. And yet his progress still felt too slow. He glanced nervously at the sun’s position in the pale winter sky as he leapt from the ship’s deck to the crumbling stone quay.

He had no guard with him now – none but the guards who waited
at the estate itself. Thutmose ran up the long roadway, past fields long since harvested, their earth dry and bare, shot with the dun tufts of winter weeds. He sprinted through the olive orchard where last season’s leaves clung to tired branches. When he reached the hill that rose to the house, he slowed, mindful of his strength. It would not do to arrive in Satiah’s presence winded and trembling. As he climbed, his hand stayed firmly on the hilt of his sword.

The guards had seen him coming, of course, and the gate stood open to him, flanked
by bowing men. The small, tidy garden was empty, silent and breathless, crouched as if waiting for him to strike a great and terrible blow.

Thutmose marched toward the dark arch of Satiah’s doorway.
The scent of fresh myrrh smoke reached him before the darkness of her chambers closed across his vision.

“Satiah,” Thutmose called harshly.

She made no answer, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, a small, pale form asserted itself against the blackness. Satiah was perched like a tiny, delicate bird on an ebony chair. Its back was high, ornately carved. Her hands lay on arm rests very like those on Thutmose’s own throne. In the dimness of her chamber, half-lit by the offering bowl burning at her small Hathor shrine, she looked as grim and powerful as any Great Royal Wife who had ever ruled from the dais in the Hall of Audiences.

Thutmose advanced on her.
“Where is the boy?”

She held up a hand
imperiously, and without thinking, Thutmose stalled. He cursed himself for capitulating like a subject.

“Tell me where he is, Satiah, and I’ll spare your life.”

“Spare my life? You did not come to kill me, Thutmose.”

“Where?”

“Amenemhat is not here.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She shrugged.

“How did you contrive to take him?
And at a ceremony, Satiah! I never would have thought
you
would defile a holy day.”

“It defiles nothing, for a child to be with his mother.
It is you who offends the gods – you who cast me off unjustly and put a false Great Royal Wife in my place.”

“Unjustly?
You murdered Senenmut and crushed your own mother’s heart.”

Satiah’s eyes narrowed.
“My mother,” she said. Her voice, weighted with equal stones of loathing and calculation, sank into the pit of Thutmose’s stomach.

“
It must have been somebody in the temple who took him,” Thutmose growled. “It certainly was not you. You hadn’t the time to return here before I arrived. Tell me who did it, and how it was done.”

“Or what?” said Satiah lightly.
“Or you’ll kill me?”

“Do not try me.
You have long since gone beyond your boundaries,
Satiah
. You forget that I am the Pharaoh.”

“Pharaohs do not live forever.”

Thutmose reached out in the darkness, seized her by the front of her gown. He jerked her to her feet, and light and small as she was, she stumbled in his grip. He pulled her face close to his; the dark daggers of her eyes stabbed into his own. “Tell me where.”

“The boy is not here,” Satiah said calmly.
“Disbelieve me if you must; it will not change the truth.”

Thutmose released her gown as if it had burned him.
She dropped back onto her ungilded throne. He shouted through the courtyard for Djedkare; in moments the soldier arrived, saluting with his palms outstretched.

“Summon half your men.
They are to search every crack and corner of this property. Not even the smallest box is to be left unopened. If anyone comes from the quay – or from any direction – tell me at once.”

“Ah, Mighty Horus.”

“Search all you please,” Satiah hissed. “You will not find my son. He is not yours to control. He belongs to the gods, as do I.”

Thutmose ignored her.
He joined in the efforts of his men, kicking open doors to tiny side rooms, upending baskets of dried fruit, tearing clothing from cedar chests.

He knew he would not find the boy
. It was his rage he served. As he ravaged each corner of her home, the fire in his ka was both quenched and fed. He hated himself for his own weakness, his fear of Satiah’s power. He loathed his own inaction against the Retjenu as Hatshepsut lay dying, the months he had spent on campaign as his son grew without him, as his wife ruled without him. Most of all, he despised himself for being human – for having no power to halt the gods’ plots. Even as Pharaoh, he could do nothing to ease Hatshepsut’s suffering. Even as Pharaoh, he could not erase his own past. He knew it was the action of a child, to lash out impotently at objects and take a thrill in their destruction, to feel power over the ruin he made. But Thutmose did not care.

Satiah sat imperturbable on her dark throne, staring straight ahead as Thutmose and his soldiers turned her neat home to a refuse heap.
Her face was an emotionless mask. She did not deign to notice the fury of the king until he stood over her Hathor shrine, staring down at the seven little statues of the goddess arranged around their smoking bowl of myrrh. He eyed the shrine with the current of rage rising beneath his heart.

“Don’t dare
touch it,” Satiah said. Her voice grated harshly in her throat.

Thutmose dismissed his men from his presence.
They made their way briskly past the piles of torn linen, the strewn cushions, the upended wicker couch. When they had gone, he met her hard, dark eyes. The depth of hatred in her stare sent a tremble of loathing through his body. To think that he had once lusted after her, had once hungered for her body as a starving man hungers for bread. A bitter foulness rose on his tongue. He would have spat it out onto her polished floor, had his mouth not been so dry.

“Don’t presume to tell the Pharaoh what he may and may not touch.”

“The Pharaoh,” Satiah said, mockery ringing in her high voice. “Should I fear your title? The title of a mere man?”

Thutmose clenched his jaw and his fists.
Her words struck too near the doubts of his own heart. “I do not need to remind you, of all people, of my divinity.”

“Perhaps you need reminding of
my
divinity, dear brother. I have been consecrated by my union with the gods. Egypt is mine to give to my son. I cannot fail; the gods will not allow me to fail. Amenemhat will have the throne, as is right for one born of divinity. I will serve the gods beside him. You and yours will be cast aside like the weak, human-bred flotsam you are. It will come to pass. It cannot be halted.”

“I should kill you for such treasonous speech.”

“And yet you will not. My son’s inheritance has been promised me by a power far greater than your own. You saw for yourself how the gods’ own servants do the work I set before them, and with glad hearts. They are eager to serve me. Even at Ipet-Isut, the priests know I am divine, and turn their hands to my holy tasks.”

“You’re mad.”

“I am blessed. Doubly blessed – not only by my union with the gods, but by my birth. You, Mighty Horus, are the son of a dancing girl and a weak boy, for all the royal trappings you wear. I am of the blood of Amun.”

“
Neferure
was of the blood of Amun. You are Satiah, as you have insisted before.”

“There are tho
se who know who I was before – before I was consecrated. There are those who remember.”

“Like the priest who stole Amenemhat away?”

She smiled coldly. “And more.”

If she was prepared to shed her disguise and marshal an army of priests against him, then Satiah’s madness had grown far greater than Thutmose had feared.
She had made her living, in those long months after her escape, working her way through temples. And not only the temples of Amun, but of Min, Iset, Sobek, Hapi…her influence, for all Thutmose knew, could be vast. He had made no serious missteps as Pharaoh; his subjects had no reason to rejoice in his deposition. But if the priests of the Two Lands believed her claim stronger than his own – if they believed her claim more divine than his own…. She had already worked sufficient influence on at least one member of the priesthood, had convinced at least one man or woman to risk life and station by abducting Amenemhat from under the Pharaoh’s holy nose, and in the midst of a ceremony, no less. Thutmose realized with a chill that these reins had slid far out of his grasp long ago. He was riding a careening chariot pulled by a mad horse, with no way to stop it or to influence its frantic, wild-eyed path.

In his desperate rage, in his helplessness, Thutmose did the only thing that made sense.
He lifted his foot and placed it against the low tabletop of Satiah’s shrine. Her eyes widened in sudden panic. Thutmose kicked out with all the force of his fury. The seven aspects of Hathor went tumbling across the floor; burning myrrh spilled across the tiles. Satiah shrieked, threw herself to her knees among the smoldering embers. She seized one of the toppled statues and clutched it to her chest, gasping, rocking it as if it was a child she had snatched from the jaws of a crocodile. She turned her blazing eyes on Thutmose, rendered mute by her hatred.

“You will not win, Neferure.
The throne will never be yours, no matter what I must do to keep you in your place.”