Warrior King, page 30
“All the nomes believe the same?” Ahhotep took in Baufre, who stood like a child in the middle of the throne room, shoulders shrank back, eyes darting. And Metjen, who stood with ax low, hanging near the throne room door as if he were about to run away. “Or just you who stand here today with our enemies in the divine’s throne room?” Ahhotep said, glancing at the Kushites through the hall’s pillars.
Tetian scoffed. “Enemies?” He shook his head. “They are our neighbors.”
“They killed King Kamose, my son,” she said through her teeth and pointed to one of the Kushites. “And you said you built your army to protect your nome from them, but it seems you were dealing with them all this time. Your army was built for this moment, was it not? All these years, you were planning to attack the palace.”
Tetian chuckled. “Very good, queen. I was preparing in case you demanded what I feared. If I were to give up my power and authority, it would not be to any family of Waset. Only Ta-Seti wields enough power to claim divine appointment.”
He leaned in to whisper in her ear, his nose brushing past her wig’s perfumed braids. “I shall let you live in return for the throne. I will know what it means to be king and allow the nomes’ princes to keep their sovereignty. It is my last offer of peace, or you can depart in your falsehoods.”
His body heat warmed the powder on her face before he leaned back.
“Tetian, do you not realize?” Sorrow and hate accompanied her words. “You were never sovereign under the Hekka Khasut. You were never meant to be sovereign in the land of the gods of Kemet.” She leaned back to put more distance between them, however small.
“The natural order?” He spat, understanding her meaning, and rolled his eyes. “No, I will not be giving up anything and am willing to die for my right to rule Ta-Seti and for these spineless nomarchs and their right to rule their nomes.”
The Great Wife Tetisheri appeared in the throne room doorway. The tension in Ahhotep’s shoulders relaxed. Her mother could talk some sense into this man filled with a false reality. There was only one king, divinely appointed by the gods, Ahmose, and all had to submit to him.
A Kushite and a Ta-Setian soldier escorted the Great Wife down the long hall to the dais. Tetisheri narrowed her eyes at Ahhotep as if what had transpired was Ahhotep’s fault.
Tetian said, unaware of Tetisheri, “It seems you are willing to die for your beliefs then too?”
“It seems so, Tetian. There will only be more blood you will have to answer for when your heart is weighed on the scales of Ma’at,” Ahhotep said and glanced to her mother.
Tetian ignored Ahhotep, taking note of Tetisheri, who stepped upon the dais. The Great Wife’s presence did not seem to faze him. He snapped at a few soldiers. “Find the nomarchs and bring them here. I want them to see what I am doing for them.”
The soldiers left to carry out Tetian’s command before he turned to pat Ahhotep on the cheek. “Do not worry about the throne in the afterlife, Ahhotep. My family is strong and rich. My sons have sons, and their sons have sons. Strong, healthy, and wise, unlike yours. We are worthy of every divine appointment, while your great-grandfather’s claim wavers and ultimately is proven false.”
Tetian gestured to the throne room under duress to prove his point before maneuvering around Ahhotep and sitting on the King’s empty throne.
“You have been proven unworthy,” he said, glancing up at Ahhotep. “Isn’t that correct, Aunt Tetisheri?” His gaze shifted to the older regal woman on the dais.
The roil in Ahhotep’s stomach gurgled up to the back of her throat, not registering his words. Her brow furrowed. “She is God’s Mother and Great Wife. You will address her correctly. And you will remove yourself from the King’s—”
Tetian laughed and leaned his head back upon the throne’s chair. “You are right, Aunt. Her mind is quite empty sometimes, just as you said it was.”
Ahhotep’s jaw fell ajar. Time froze. What had he said? She blinked, repeating his words in her mind. She stared at Tetian, studying him more than she had before. Familiar cold, grey eyes stared back at her. Tetisheri’s wide nose, the pout of her lip, and darker skin were also Tetian’s.
Her breath hitched as she spun to face her mother.
No, it couldn’t be. Could it?
Taking a few steps toward her, Ahhotep asked in a whisper, “Great Wife, he is your nephew? Why have you never mentioned this?”
Tetisheri scanned the room with an uplift of her chin and inclination of her head. She clasped her hands behind her back and straightened her shoulders. “I did not want to marry your father. I wanted to stay in Ta-Seti and live a life there. My older brother, whom I loved, had a son, Tetian, before he journeyed west. I raised the child as my own. But to avoid conflict with Waset, I became your father’s wife and left my nephew, my adopted son, in Ta-Seti in the care of my father’s house.”
Ahhotep gritted her teeth, and her body grew tense. She heard her mother’s words, but the response she wanted to say twisted and turned on her tongue, her lips refusing to release them.
“Do not stand there mute, Great Wife. You look a fool,” Tetisheri said with a blank expression on her face.
“I am the fool?” she yelled in desperation, her voice cracking. Tears seared her eyes as the words ran out of her mouth. “You are the fool! All this time, this is why you never thought I was worthy: because your loyalty lies with your Ta-Seti family. You resented us because you were forced to marry my father; that was why we were never your family when you spoke of us.”
Every harsh word, every disappointing glance, it was all for naught. Ahhotep and her children would never rise to her expectation. Tetisheri would never accept her as a daughter. Ahhotep was just a woman born out of forced marriage.
Silence came from the Great Wife as Ahhotep shook with a tremor in her voice. “Now your nephew—by your words, an adopted son, your blood—comes to lay claim to the throne. Have you in all this time been vying for him?” She pointed a finger at Tetian. “Wanting him to take the crown? Did you know of this? Did you know he gave orders to kill my son and grandsons?”
Tetisheri strolled to face Tetian on the throne as Ahhotep spoke, seemingly ignoring her. Ahmose-Nefertari’s eyes grew wide, and she stepped backward when Tetisheri approached the throne. Her eyes pleaded with her grandmother, but Tetisheri never looked at her.
The breath in Ahhotep’s chest needed to burst out; it begged release as Tetisheri stopped and faced the throne. Was she going to bow to him? Declare him King and sentence them all to the arrow and ax?
Ahhotep’s gaze fell as tears brimmed her eyes. After all, in Tetisheri’s eyes, they were never her family. She had never said “my family” when referring to Ahhotep’s line. What loyalty did she have to them? Tetian was her blood from the land she loved. Ahhotep recalled grabbing her mother’s shoulder and yelling in her face. All the times her mother had told her she was unworthy—the family was undeserving—passed in memory. The times her mother said nothing, not wanting to waste words and breath on her, followed behind in rapid succession. Tetisheri had shown them the utter disownment after Ahhotep’s dance with death by sneaking out of the palace and her children’s disagreement with her command to arrest Baba. The last words her mother had spoken to her that day rushed upon her: “Ta-Seti rule would have never allowed this to stand.”
Ahhotep stared at the throne as she stood off to its side and glanced at Ahmose-Nefertari and the guards in the room being held by spear and arrow points. She was helpless to do anything. If her mother agreed with Tetian, even the royal family would be divided. Would the guards side with her or her mother? Did it even matter?
In the next moment, they could all be slain to make way for Tetian, the nephew of Tetisheri, her blood, the son from her brother whom she loved, the son she raised and thought worthy of being king.
What were Ahmose-Nefertari and Ahmose and Amenhotep and the rest to her?
Nothing.
They were never anything to her. She was never anything to her mother. Her mouth was dry; her tongue, thick. She swallowed down the vomit that had come to the top of her throat. Had she told her to lead the forces against the siege as Royal Commander in mockery? She had known they were going to fail. She only said those words in vain.
“Stand up, Tetian,” Tetisheri said in muted tones as the nomarchs filled the throne room under spear point.
“Mother?” Ahhotep choked, watching her cousin stand in pride before the woman who bore her. She shut her eyes, and her chin touched her collar. She had failed. After all the pain and sacrifice and hurt, she had lost the crown and now the lives of her family.
Her mother’s words filled the throne room. “I want what is best for Kemet,” she began. “And Tetian, I raised you to be better than this. You sorely disappoint me.” She shook her head at him.
Tetian scoffed in a snigger, clearly not expecting that response. “What? How?”
Ahhotep lifted her head, her eyes darting between mother and nephew. Disappointed? She waited for Tetisheri’s answer. Perhaps, all hope was not lost.
Tetian did not allow her mother to answer and instead yelled, “I am your blood. Ta-Seti is your home. The crown is mine. It does not belong to these Waset fools who want to take what was never theirs!”
Tetisheri was quick to strike back. “Yet these ‘Waset fools’ have achieved victory without the riches of Ta-Seti to support them. And even more so, they have never given orders to slay any princes of Kemet nor brought the enemy into our throne room. You will never see the crown and cursed be Kemet if you take it.”
Ahhotep’s chest hitched, and a breath of relief escaped through her teeth. Tetian’s actions had been his undoing. Now how to win this battle?
“You said there should be someone of Ta-Seti blood on the throne!” Tetian yelled and stepped into her space.
The mace hooked on the back of the throne grabbed Ahhotep’s attention. She had to take the chance, and while the aunt-nephew debate took the attention of those in the throne room, she quietly moved closer to it.
“There is already Ta-Seti blood on the throne,” Tetisheri said. “They came from my loins. Are you as dim as Baufre not to see that? And ordering the slayings of my grandson and great-grandsons? Are you mad, my child?”
Ahhotep’s fingers gripped the mace handle. I must be quick. Without Tetian, perhaps this can end now. She eyed the back of Tetian’s head. Now is my chance. She slowly lifted the mace from its hook, the weapon still hidden by the throne’s chair back.
Tetian growled at Tetisheri. “I am not mad, old woman. I am the only sane one here. And if you do not agree, then step aside or be slain.”
Ahhotep prayed her heart would not weigh heavy on the scale of Ma’at for her next actions, but before she could send the mace sailing toward Tetian, he stepped to the edge of the dais, shoving Tetisheri aside.
She halted—her mace still hidden behind the throne as Tetian spoke. “Who is with me? Former princes, do you see what I am doing, what I have done for you?”
Paser shook his head, and Setka stepped forward to speak. “Tetian, if the bloodline of Seqenenre Tao is divine and the Waset family is appointed by the gods, what you have done is an act of treason. If they are not divinely appointed, then you have ordered the slaying of the children of the prince of Waset, an unjustifiable act to the human and divine order either way. We are not with you.”
Tetian threw his mace against the mud brick wall, shattering the carved reliefs into powder. The mace fell to the floor with a clang amid the mud brick pieces. “You ungrateful donkeys! Can’t you see? This false family is doing to you what the Hekka Khasut did to us. We all descend from royalty before the foreign kings demoted us to princes over the nomes, and now your so-called divine king uses you, takes your wealth, and now usurps everything you have, demoting you to nomarchs?! Can’t you see? Or are you all blind?”
Ahhotep settled her breath and adjusted her grip on the mace. She realized she had never trained with the mace in her non-dominant hand and prayed to Sekhmet and Pakhet her aim be true. It was then or never, so she sent the mace’s golden-decorated club toward the back of Tetian’s head.
But he heard the swoosh of air and shifted to the side. The crack of bone reverberated through the throne room. She yanked the mace back, and the sharp tang of blood leached into the air. The tall, greedy man hunched over with his hand gripping his bleeding and broken shoulder. He gritted, “Kill them all.”
Ahhotep’s ragged breath was all that was heard for the slight moment between peace and chaos. A spear and a few arrows sailed toward her, but Meret had already jumped in front of her Queen, taking the fatal projectiles upon herself. The guards rose up with their hidden weapons, taking the intruders by surprise. Baufre’s large frame bolted for the door; Metjen had already slipped away, his soldiers leaving with them.
“Baufre, Metjen, you cowards,” Ahhotep yelled and swung her mace toward a Kushite’s head. Its golden glimmer shimmered in the sunlight as enemy blood dripped from the club.
Baufre turned to look at her with wide-vacant eyes—the pitiful fool had been led like prey into the lion’s den.
“Fight for Kemet,” she yelled. “Fight for the true divine King!”
She thought he would continue running, but he ordered his soldiers to fight against the Kushites: “Fight for Ahmose, Given Life!” he commanded.
The battle ensued, and a great clash of bronze against bronze rose before the midday sun.
A Kushite’s arrow landed in her thigh, and she went down, screaming in agony. Tetisheri stood with head bowed, no weapon to wield. But no one touched the Great Wife. Ahmose-Nefertari sliced her dagger across the neck of a Ta-Setian soldier before a Kushite thrust a spear into her shoulder. She yelled out but cut him back before a guard did away with him. She, too, fell to the floor amid her slain maidservants, gasping for air and wrenching the spear stuck in her shoulder.
Ahhotep scanned the fighting that fell away from the dais. Nena kneeled beside her, tending to her leg. But Ahhotep pushed her away, whispering in a haze, “Help my daughter.” Nena broke the arrow in Ahhotep’s leg before tending to the Chief Wife.
Baufre’s men, the guards, and the nomarchs were pushing the Ta-Setians and Kushites from the throne room. Tetian slipped from the doors with trickles of blood staining his perfect white tunic and golden collar.
Horns from Sha and Ma-Hedj blew in the distance, signaling reinforcements had come.
“Finally,” Setka yelled out and swung a khopesh at the last of the soldiers in the throne room. Baufre and his men chased after the intruders.
As the guards closed the doors and a numbing haze overtook Ahhotep’s senses, she stared at the stone visage of Kamose’s statue in the courtyard while Tetian’s order to kill her son and grandsons haunted her mind.
37
A TIME OF REPRIEVE | AHHOTEP
SEDJEFATAWY, 1551 BC
Ahhotep stroked Ahmose-Nefertari’s forehead as Re’s sun barge again dipped low to enter the realm of Apep. She pushed her daughter’s braids away and dabbed the sweat beads on her brow with torn linen from her slain maidservant.
Ahmose-Nefertari’s eyelashes fluttered as she tried to keep her eyes open while Ahhotep pressed the spear wound to keep the blood from coming out too fast.
Tetisheri sat in her usual chair in the back of the dais, staring out at the closed doors.
“You must remain awake,” Ahhotep crooned before kissing her daughter’s forehead.
“I am afraid, Mother,” she whispered.
“You have nothing to fear,” Ahhotep said. “I am with you. The doors have been closed. No one will hurt you again.”
Nena stooped down. “God’s Mother, let me care for the Chief Wife. Take your place on the throne. The men, they need you,” she stuttered but glanced to the guards and the nomarchs standing aimlessly around the throne room after separating the dead and tending to wounds. The servants that remained alive stood back, having cleaned the throne of blood spatter. Paser and a few others went out the back exit after securing the throne room to ensure the princes were safe, but they had not returned. Worry lived on the faces that glanced back at her.
“I see,” Ahhotep muttered. Nena placed her hand over Ahmose-Nefertari’s shoulder wound, causing the Chief Wife to wince. “Be good to her, Nena.”
“As Meret gave her life to save you, I will give mine to save your daughter’s.”
Ahhotep nodded at Nena’s oath and released her daughter into her care. She limped to the throne and sat upon it. She rubbed her thigh where the arrow had been pulled and her leg tightly wrapped. They all needed the services of a physician-priest. They would not last long without honey, stitches, and castor oil applied to their wounds. Blood from her leg soaked through the bandages and stained her royal dress. The pain permeated through her hip and leg.
“Are we all that is left? Or have we regained the palace? Has anyone come with the status of Sedjefatawy?” she asked in her daze.
“None.” Setka looked at the dead with linen cloths draped over their faces and shook his head. “None,” he repeated in a whisper and clutched the handle of his khopesh in his hand.
She looked at the back exit, guarded by half of the soldiers, to the small corridor that led to the king’s apartment.
“It is useless,” she began, causing everyone’s heads to turn. “It is useless if there is no crown prince. We can hide in here, or we can go out there and be of service to the palace. We must find the crown prince and his siblings and keep them safe.”
