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for this one, here.” Hatshepsut jerked her head toward Batiret. “She should have a baby of her own.”
    Having finally convinced the troublesome flies to try their luck elsewhere, Batiret leaned casually on the shaft of her fan. “My steward Kynebu is sturdy enough for me. The last thing I need in my bed is a soldier, all muscle and no brains, stinking like horse piss.”
    Hatshepsut’s eyelids fluttered in feigned shock. “What appalling language.”
    “And as for babies….” Batiret caught Meryet’s eye, made a pinching motion with her fingers. Meryet covered her mouth with her hand. She had heard enough of the servants’ gossip to know it was the sign they made at apothecaries’ stalls in the marketplace, the silent request for the sticky acacia-gum suppositories that would stop a baby from growing.
    “You have no idea how to behave yourself in the presence of royalty,” Hatshepsut said, her mouth twisting wryly.
    “The Good God would not have me any other way.”
    “It is good to laugh. You know, I haven’t done it in ages.”
    “So I have noticed,” Meryet said.
    A clap sounded from the periphery of the garden, near the door that led into Hatshepsut’s bed chamber.
    “Come,” the Pharaoh called.
    One of her ladies approached, a young, inexperienced thing with the wide-set eyes and flat nose of the southern houses: the daughter of some minor noble working her family’s way into the Pharaoh’s good graces. The girl bowed awkwardly and held out a scroll. It was tied with a red thread, its knot sealed with a hard bead of wax. “A messenger arrived, Mighty Horus…Great Lady. He said this scroll was to be delivered into the hands of the Good God Menkheperre.”
    “The Good God Menkheperre is out drilling his soldiers,” Hatshepsut said. There was a distinct note of annoyance in her voice. Meryet knew it must needle her, that Thutmose had become the one to whom stewards and ambassadors turned, to whom messages were delivered. And yet what else was Egypt to do? The country could not sink with her into grief. Life went on. Soldiers required drilling. Messages needed delivering.
    Hatshepsut held out her hand. “Under the circumstances, I believe Maatkare may read the scroll. She is more than qualified.”
    Hatshepsut crushed the knob of wax between her fingers and waved the girl away. The scroll unrolled in her hands with a dry rustle. Her eyes passed over the contents, then narrowed. Her mouth pinched into an angry purse. She read the words again.
    “Mistress?” Batiret said, her voice tense with worry.
    “Kadesh.” Hatshepsut spat the word.
    “Ah,” Meryet breathed. “I might have known. Another scroll about Kadesh.”
    “Another? How many have there been?”
    Meryet and the fan-bearer shared a pained, helpless glance.
    “Well?”
    “Many,” she finally admitted. “Thutmose has been working on…”
    “Indeed! And I’ve been told nothing.”
    “As grieved as you’ve been, he thought it best to handle it himself.”
    Hatshepsut lapsed into a sulky silence. Amunhotep crawled to her lap, and she wrapped her arms around him. But her eyes remained distant and dark. “How long has this been going on?”
    Meryet was un certain whether Hatshepsut referred to the threat in Kadesh or her own disassociation. Either way, the answer was the same. “Months, Mighty Horus.” She bowed in a semblance of apology, though the gods knew Meryet was not to blame.
    “Then it is time something was done.” Hatshepsut’s voice snapped with command. Her eyes glimmered like dark points of fire on a high hill, alive with a keen glint that Meryet had missed for far too long.

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    T HE SMALL ESTATE STOOD ON the bluffs above a long-dry ravine, an hour south of Waset by boat. A dusty footpath wended through a scrubby orchard of olives and apricots, rising sharply up the flank of a yellow bluff to the small but well-appointed home at its pinnacle. The roof of the estate was barely visible,