“They’re coming! They’re coming!”
The child’s voice rang out sharp and clear, carried by some whim of the gods all across the landscape in front of
Ipet-isut. Every eye turned westward, every man and woman stretched to his or her tallest, eager to see the first pair of towboats enter the canal. What had been a soft murmur of voices rose to an expectant clamor.
So many people had come to see the lord Amon return to his northern mansion that the crowd standing on the raised paths pressed against the row of royal guards lining the arti ficial lake in front of Ipet-isut and the canal to the river.
Humble men and women unwilling or afraid to push them selves forward, people without means and accustomed to no better, stood among the trees and brush to either side in the standing water left by the retreating flood. Children perched in the trees, looking out over the multitude of heads.
Bak, having received a summons while donning clean clothing at his Medjays’ quarters, had hastened to join
Amonked on the raised limestone platform that overlooked the lake. Known to have the ear of his royal cousin, the
Storekeeper of Amon had been given a place of distinction from which to view the approaching procession of boats.
Crowded onto the platform with them were ranking priests and dignitaries from throughout the land of Kemet.
Officiating priests stood at the edge of the lake in front of the platform, some holding lustration vessels, the rest filling the air with incense that rose in a cloud, making Bak’s nose itch. Four royal servants holding ostrich feather fans waited nearby. Standard-bearers stood at the lower end of the shal low stairs that led up to the processional way connecting the lake to the sacred precinct.
“He’s dead?” Amonked had to shout to be heard.
Bak did not have to ask to whom he referred. “I dove down after him without delay, but even if I’d caught him be fore he entered the water, it would’ve made no difference.
The rock struck him hard enough to’ve slain an ox.”
The strident blare of a trumpet, close enough to destroy a man’s hearing, rent the air. The first two towboats swung into the far end of the canal, each carrying on its bow an en shrined gilded image of the sovereign of Kemet in a sym bolic pose of victory. The second pair carried similar shrines and images, as did the following vessels.
Behind the towboats, guided into the canal by men stand ing on the riverbank, came the long, slender royal barge on which Maatkare Hatshepsut and Menkheperre Thutmose had journeyed from Ipet-resyt. Enthroned side by side within a shrine, they were swathed in long, tight, white ju bilee robes. While the barge made its slow, deliberate pas sage down the canal, voices rose in adoration, muting the beat of the drums marking time for the towboat oarsmen and muffling the sounds of sistra and clappers.
“What in the name of the lord Amon did he intend?”
Amonked shouted.
Bak could but shrug. The question was not new. Everyone who had watched Pahure’s last desperate attempt to leave the water had asked it of him. “I can only believe he thought the men on shore would be easier to evade than me. Or per haps he hoped to die there, a quick and painless death at the hands of a soldier.”
“A coward’s way,” Amonked said, scowling.
“Would you want to face impalement or burning?”
The golden barge of the lord Amon slipped into view.
Voices swelled in a fresh round of acclaim as the long, sleek vessel was maneuvered around the tight turn into the canal.
Though it was linked by rope to the royal barge, a company of soldiers stationed along the paths to either side towed the vessel in the wake of its predecessor. The task was not diffi cult, an honor bestowed by the royal pair.
In the lull of voices while all who watched practically held their breaths, waiting for their sovereigns’ barge to touch land, Amonked said, “We know what prompted him to take Woserhet’s life and Meryamon’s, but did he ever say why he believed, after more than three years had passed, that
Maruwa would reveal mistress Meret as a traitor?”
“He had no chance. I fear that’s one question which will never be answered.”
“His death was far quicker and easier than it should’ve been.” Amonked, his expression severe, wiped the sweat from his face and neck with a square of linen. “I trust the other men involved in his foul scheme will suffer appropri ate punishment.”
“The chief priest will no doubt press the vizier to see jus tice done.”
The royal barge bumped against the landing stage. Crew men scrambled out to span the narrow gap with a gangplank, while others held the vessel steady. The dual sovereigns stepped out of the shrine and, with the dignity born of their office, removed the robes that had enshrouded them, passed them and the associated regalia to a priest and, with the help of aides, donned more appropriate attire for the final pro cession into Ipet-isut.
The trumpet blared again and Maatkare Hatshepsut, dressed much as she had been eleven days earlier, strode across the gangplank, head held high, the very image of grandeur. The moment her feet touched earth, the crowd roared. At the same time, Menkheperre Thutmose bounded onto the shore in two long strides. How much of the acclaim was directed toward him was impossible to tell. Bak wanted to believe the young king shared in equal measure with
Maatkare Hatshepsut the adoration of his people.
The instant the barge was empty of its illustrious passen gers, the crewmen jumped back on board and withdrew the gangplank so the craft could be towed out of the way, mak ing room for the barge of the lord Amon. The priests on the landing stage stepped forward to purify with water the earth upon which their sovereigns trod and to cleanse the air around them with a scent so pungent it made Bak sneeze.
The servants moved up to wave the ostrich feather fans over the heads of the royal pair.
Amonked shouted something Bak could not hear, took his arm, and ushered him off the crowded platform. The broad, open area, delineated by low walls, between the platform and Ipet-isut, hummed with the voices of priests, ranking bureaucrats, and nobility. All along both walls stood tables heaped high with offerings of food and drink and flowers, the finest produced in the land of Kemet. Sacrificial cattle, four prime black steers, stood near the northern tower of the pylon gate through which royalty and god would enter the sacred precinct. Facing the cattle across the processional route, priests held squawking geese and ducks by their wings, these also destined for sacrifice.
Slipping behind the row of royal guards who lined both sides of the processional way joining the landing stage to the sacred precinct, Bak and Amonked wove a path through the spectators to a spot not far from the live food offerings.
No sooner had they positioned themselves behind a pair of guards than Amonked went on with their conversation as if it had not been interrupted. “Pahure’s thoughts were bent and twisted, his goals far out of reach.”
“We all know Menkheperre Thutmose is raising men above their stations when they’ve proven themselves to be competent,” Bak said. “I suspect the steward was extremely capable.”
“In the regiments Thutmose commands, he can do what he wishes, but my cousin is more traditional in her selection of men who rise to lofty positions.”
Bak noted Amonked’s use of the familiar name Thutmose rather than the full, more formal Menkheperre Thutmose.
He knew the Storekeeper of Amon held a special place of trust in Maatkare Hatshepsut’s heart. What place, he won dered, did he hold in the heart of her youthful co-ruler? The thought was torn asunder by the approach of the standard bearers.
Bak thanked the lord Amon for the swift progress of the procession. The faintest of breezes sporadically stirred the pennants rising above the pylons, but could not compete with the hot breath of the lord Re reaching down upon the earth, turning the crowded area in front of the sacred precinct into a kiln.
The standard-bearers came close, each holding high the golden symbol of a god or location significant to Maatkare
Hatshepsut and her domain. Bak was surprised to see Neter mose walking among them, representing Tjeny, the city from which had originated, according to tradition, the first sovereign of Kemet. The aide’s eyes flitted toward Bak and
Amonked, he tilted his head slightly in recognition, and strode on.
“I’m amazed Pentu remembered to send someone with the standard,” Bak said. “The last I saw of him, he was so upset with Taharet’s betrayal, her decision to help her sister at his expense, that he was thinking of nothing but the loss of his happy marriage.”
“He didn’t remember.” Amonked tucked the square of linen under his belt. “I told Netermose to join the pro cession. I didn’t wish to make public the dissension within the governor’s household.” He looked about to speak further, hesitated, then said, “I sorrow for mistress Meret, as you must.”
“I do. I can’t help but think her a good woman, one who closed her eyes to the lady Maat and chose a wrong path to aid the dream of another.”
“The vizier will judge her guilty.”
“Yes.”
Neither man wanted to voice the punishment she would no doubt face: death by her own hand. Poison.
“What of mistress Taharet?” Bak asked.
“If Pentu speaks for her, she’ll probably be allowed her freedom, but I doubt she’ll ever again be welcome in Waset.
Certainly not in the royal house.”
“Will he speak for her?”
“He’s very angry now. How he’ll feel in a day or two, I can’t begin to guess.”
As the standard-bearers passed through the pylon gate into the sacred precinct, the priests followed them across the court, shaking water onto the pathway and filling the air with a strong, musky smell. Before they could get too far ahead, a trumpeter blasted a long, shrill note. Maatkare Hatshepsut and Menkheperre Thutmose, flanked by their fan bearers, strode up the stairs and onto the processional way.
The spectators in front of Ipet-isut roared their approbation.
As the priests passed on by and the royal pair walked closer, Bak could see them clearly. He spoke without think ing. “Each time I see Maatkare Hatshepsut, she looks more like her brother, her deceased husband Ahkheperenre Thut mose.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” Amonked said, eyeing her with a fond smile. “She’s never been beautiful-the family nose and protruding teeth have prevented that-and now she’s al most as plump as he was. Too much rich food, too much comfort and ease.”
She could not have heard them speaking but, almost as if she had, her eyes came to rest on Amonked. Her cousin bowed his head in obeisance. Her eyes shifted briefly to
Bak, and with no change of expression whatsoever, she strode on. He understood her well enough. As long as she failed to acknowledge his presence he did not exist, and no matter how great his accomplishment she did not have to re ward him with the gold of honor.
Menkheperre Thutmose, his bearing as regal as that of his aunt, looked their way. If Bak had not known better, he would have said the young man was trying hard not to laugh.
Focusing again on the path ahead, he walked with his co ruler through the towered gate and into the sacred precinct.
“Do our sovereigns know of the flock that came close to disrupting the procession?”
“I was among the spectators when the last animal, the ram, was led away. The standard-bearers were not ten paces away. They and all who walked behind them had to have seen the chaos ahead and the haste with which the guards and spectators re-formed along the processional way.”
“Maatkare Hatshepsut must’ve been furious.”
Amonked gave him a bland smile. “A rumor has begun to circulate through Waset. The lord Amon, her heavenly fa ther, took the form of a ram and joined the procession to help bring to justice the man who stole ritual items from the sacred precinct and slew two men within its walls.”
Bak forbade himself to laugh. Maatkare Hatshepsut was most adept at turning all that occurred, good and bad, to her advantage.
Saying no more, they watched the lord Amon, invisible within his covered shrine, carried high on the shoulders of the priests bearing the sacred barque. In a cloud of incense, they strode across the court and vanished behind their sover eigns through the pylon gate that rose before Ipet-isut.
The deity had returned to his earthly home, marking the end of the Beautiful Feast of Opet.