Free King and Goddess by Judith Tarr Page B

his own fits of restlessness: a likeness she would not have been
pleased to acknowledge. “He is older than I,” she said. “But I am the daughter
of the royal wife. He is the child of a concubine. He holds kingship only
through me. And does he thank me for it? Does he even notice that I exist?” She
tossed her head in scorn. “Oh, certainly! When I get in the way of his
pleasure—then he remembers me.”
    Nehsi considered for some time before venturing to speak.
She paced, prowling around the garden. She plucked a blossom, drew in its
scent, let it fall into the lotus pool.
    “Lady,” he said, “the gods have made him king. There must be
gentler ways to remind him of it.”
    She rounded upon him. “What? Do you mean that girl, that
Isis? As if she could be anything more than a goddess’ plaything. Would you
have her flatter him into doing his duty?”
    “She might beguile his nights sufficiently that he can
endure the days of drudgery.”
    “It is not drudgery. It is the price the gods exact for
making him one of them. It’s a great thing, a noble thing, a thing of beauty
and splendor, to wear the Two Crowns; to be king of Egypt. And he,” she said,
“has no faintest conception of the honor. Only of the burden—which he far too often
evades.”
    “It’s no burden to you, either?” asked Nehsi. He honestly
wanted to know.
    “Of course it is a burden,” she said impatiently. “I won’t
run away from it for that.”
    “Do you want to be king?”
    She stared at him as if she had never seen him before. He
wondered briefly if she ever had. High ones, he had noticed, often treated
their servants as they did their animals and their furnishings: took them for
granted, and never truly looked at them, nor cared to know what thoughts lay
behind the familiar faces.
    True enough, most servants were content with that. But Nehsi
was a fool. Nehsi wanted to be seen for himself.
    It was a surprising discomfort to be visible. He worried
suddenly that his kilt was crooked, his belt ill fastened, his cheeks too
roughly shaven.
    He was impeccable as he always strove to be. She could not
see the flush on his cheeks, either, or—he hoped—read his expression.
    At much too long last she answered the question he had
asked. “What does it matter whether I want to be king? I never can be. The
least of the laborers in the fields is more likely than I to wear the Two
Crowns. He has only to marry me and to claim the throne, and it is his. I who
am a woman—I can never be more than the king’s wife.”
    “That is not so little,” Nehsi said.
    “But is it enough?” she demanded. “Is it, Nehsi? Is it?” He
could not answer her. She did it for him.
    “It must be, mustn’t it? Since the gods have ordained that
he be king, and I be his queen.”
    The words hinted at resignation, but her voice was sharp
still with rebellion. She went on pacing, silent now, ignoring him. He was
invisible again: a chair she had no mind to sit in, an image in ebony of a
forgotten king.
    It was better than being seen, pierced to the heart by those
big dark eyes.
    Oh, yes. He was in love with his headstrong young queen. It
would never be more than it was now, nor did he wish it to be. She trusted him.
She told him things that no one else could know. Even this: that she could have
worn the Two Crowns with far more grace than her husband ever had.
    The gods would never allow it. Pity; but gods were gods.
Once they had fixed upon a thing, there was no changing it.

9
    One morning not long after the queen sailed away
undismissed from the king’s hunt, a messenger found Senenmut among the queen’s
scribes. It was a woman, one of the royal maids: the one with the perpetual
sniff of scorn, as if the world were beneath her notice. “She wants you,” she
said, inelegant to rudeness.
    Senenmut was tempted to keep her waiting. But he had
finished the letter he was given to copy into the archives, and the next was
both long and difficult, as well as