King and Goddess by Judith Tarr Page B

their
free will, with no expectation of return.
    “What am I supposed to do, to pay for this?” he asked her.
    She was angry: he saw the flush on her cheek, that was
almost alarmingly close. When the chariot swayed, she swayed against him,
inevitably. She did not seem to notice how often their bodies touched.
    Nor would he, nor should he, if he had not been a fool.
Another woman would have meant to seduce him, if she had done as this one did.
But Hatshepsut was hardly aware yet that she was a woman.
    “There is a price,” he persisted. “There must be.”
    “Yes,” she said. “That you take pleasure in it. That you be
as glad of it as I am of the words you teach me.”
    He felt his brow climbing. “Gratitude? From a queen?”
    “Even from a queen,” she said.
    “But,” he said. “Why this?”
    That shrug again. “It seemed like nothing you’d tried
before. And,” she added after a moment, “any number of fine young princes would
give their hope of an afterlife to ride where you ride now. Though none of them
would suffer me to teach them.”
    “So that’s why,” he said. “Because I’ve never done it. You
need to master me.”
    “I can master any man,” said the queen with a lift of the
chin. “I saw your face when you looked at the horses. I wanted you to have
them. You want them, you see. So many of the rest . . . they
don’t care. You do.”
    What, a hint of softness? Senenmut was astonished.
    It dawned on him that perhaps she liked him. He did not see
why. He was sharp-tongued, waspish for a fact; he had no patience to speak of;
and he had never been pretty to look at.
    Strange was the mind of a woman.
    “You should,” she said, “exercise your body as well as your
mind and hand. I’ll not have you squatting like a toad in the scribes’ house
whenever you aren’t instructing me. You may consider yourself commanded to learn
the art of chariotry. The bow, too, I think; and perhaps the spear, for
hunting.”
    “I thought you hated to hunt,” Senenmut broke in on her.
    “Oh, no,” she said. “Why would you think that?”
    He opened his mouth, closed it again.
    She laughed. “Ah! You saw me in my husband’s hunt. But that,
O scribe of mine, was folly, time wasted, a kingdom left dangling while its
king indulged his whim. The kingdom must come first in the heart of a king.
When he’s attended to it—then let him hunt, let him race his chariots, let him
do whatever he pleases.”
    Somewhere in their colloquy she had taken back the reins and
slowed the horses to a walk. They had nearly circled the palace round. Just as
they would have turned and passed through the gate that led to the court of the
chariots, she straightened their heads, bidding them circle the palace again.
    They rode for a while in silence. Senenmut understood at
last: or well enough. It was not a simple thing that she was doing. At its
heart it was a message to her husband, a lesson that he should learn.
    Senenmut doubted that the king would even notice. He had not
seemed an observant man. And with this queen, one must watch every movement,
measure every moment. She was headstrong, and she could be reckless, but in her
way she was subtle. Too subtle for such a man as the king seemed to be.
    He had never thought that he could pity a queen. Poor child:
yoked to a man whom she understood no better than he understood her. If they
had been a chariot team, the master of horse would have separated them long
since.

10
    All the queen’s plotting seemed like to shatter on the
rock of her own obstinacy. She would not oblige her husband. She would not
indulge his escapes from kingship. She was not even slightly grateful to the
concubine Isis, who kept him sufficiently distracted that he showed no sign of
riding off to war.
    Nehsi had learned not to fret himself into a fever when his
lady flew in the face of all common sense. That was well; for on an evening
when she had not spoken to the king, nor he to her, in three full days,