The Bull of Min by Lavender Ironside Page B

on her face.
    “So a god came to you. Is that it?”
    Neferure said nothing, only stared at him levelly.
    “Which god, Neferure?”
    “I am Satiah.”
    “Which god, Satiah? ”
    Her eyes stared beyond him, beyond the dusty communal courtyard to a vision far away. The solemnity of her face relaxed into a radiance of bliss. “ All of them, brother.”
    Thutmose shook his head. “In a man’s body? Whose?”
    She came back to herself, and her eyes traveled scornfully down his own body to the belt of his kilt. “Yes. In a man’s body.”
    Thutmose shifted under her reproachful stare. “Regardless of what you think of the child’s conception, tell me, Satiah , why I shouldn’t kill you.”
    “I did not say you shouldn’t. I said you will not. You remember, Thutmose. I know you do. You remember the Bull of Min. You know the power I have always held within me. You know I am chosen by the gods. If you strike down a sacred vessel, you will be forever cursed – you know it’s true. And this child – Amenemhat, my son, my gift from the gods, my reward as their consort – he is the proof of my divinity.”
    She turned again, so Thutmose could see the sleeping babe in profile. The little nose was indeed showing signs of the same strong arch that Thutmose himself had. He stared at the boy, and he was not certain that the boy’s blood was not his own. The rays of the rising sun broke free of the temple’s high outer wall. They fell warm upon Thutmose’s back, spilled over his shoulder. A shaft of sunlight, sparkling with drifting motes, fell across Amenemhat’s face. His soft skin lit with a strange translucence. Thutmose staggered backward through the doorway. Neferure – Satiah – stepped out into the light of morning. The sun glowed on her, too, picking out her features in sharp poignancy, glimmering in the strands of her simple wig as though her braids were threaded with gold.
    Thutmose heard again the bellowing of the bull, felt its thunder shake his bones. Before she could see any tremor of fear in his body, he turned on his heel and left Satiah standing there with her child. But the piercing power of her eyes followed him, taunted him, dogging his heels all the way back through the temple gates to the place where his men stood waiting for their king.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    T HE FIVE FESTIVAL DAYS OF the New Year had come and gone, and with them came the Inundation. Egypt turned once more into a vast plain of water, running the length of the Iteru’s long northward track, a lush, lazy wetland lying satisfied in the sun between the hills and cliffs of the eastern and western banks. The days grew redolent with the earthy perfumes of the flood. By night, the stars themselves seemed to chant the loud choruses of frogs. Akhet was a season for replenishment, for healing. It was a time to start life anew.
    Meryet grunted as she lifted Amunhotep to her hip. The boy was over a year old now, and though his height was nothing for the nurses to exclaim over, he was growing stocky and strong just like his father. He was a stout little bull, though his temper was sweet as a gazelle’s. Meryet kissed his fat cheeks until he squealed with laughter, held him close to her chest. She was grateful to the gods for this boy – ah, all mothers were grateful for their babes. But Amunhotep seemed imbued with a special kind of magic. As the flood waters rose, gifting their black silt to make Egypt bloom with life once more, Hatshepsut had begun to return tentatively to the world, and all because of this little boy.
    “You are a golden treasure,” Meryet whispered to her son. Nothing but Amunhotep could coax a smile to his grandmother’s face. Nothing but holding the boy, playing with him, watching him toddle about her garden, could cause Hatshepsut to forget her many sorrows, her bitter regrets, and live instead in the moment the gods laid before her.
    Meryet made her way through the Pharaoh’s great apartments to the garden