The Sekhmet Bed Read Online Free PDF

on you as something of a good-luck charm. Having one’s fortune told by the Second Princess has become quite fashionable in the court of Amunhotep.”
     
    Ahmose blushed, folded her hands in her lap. It was true that some noble women visited the House of Women every fifth day to share their dreams and hear Ahmose’s interpretations. But noble women all over Waset had friends and relations in the harem. Ahmose was not famed for her dream-reading. Surely not. She kept her words humble. “It’s the power of the gods. It’s none of my doing. I only speak the words they give me, when I hear the women’s dreams.”
     
    Meritamun tapped the table with a dark hennaed fingernail, rap-rap, a sound of great finality. “Well, there you are, then. You are a channel through which the gods speak. Everybody who has seen you believes it to be true. You believe it to be true. And it is true, surely. And you are the daughter of the king. With you standing behind the Horus Throne, Nefertari and I could put any man we pleased on the seat itself and no one would question the arrangement.”
     
    “ But Mutnofret! She is the elder daughter. This is improper , to say nothing of being unfair to my sister.”
     
    “ Nothing about this is proper. Nothing about this is fair.” The queen’s face was suddenly grave. Meritamun rose from her seat and walked to her dressing table. With some difficulty she pulled the giant wig from her head and rested it atop a tall, carved stand.
     
    Ahmose stared. She had never seen the queen without one of her great, wide wigs. Now, knuckling her back, freed of her trappings, Meritamun lost her royal grace. She was still poised, still powerful, but the image of a strong queen was marred by the crookedness of her body. The line of Meritamun’s spine from her skull to the top of her gown was kinked like an olive branch. The wig hid all but the slightest slant of her shoulders, and masked completely the terrible deformity of the queen’s back.
     
    Relieved of the weight, Meritamun sighed and shook her head wearily. “And now you know my secret, child. My bones are bent. Every year it grows harder to breathe, harder to move about. All the physicians have told me I should have died years ago.” Her voice twisted like her backbone. “It’s only by the gods’ grace that I’ve lived to see such days. I wanted to try for a son, but the physicians made me stop after you were born. They were afraid another pregnancy would kill me. I feared my daughters would have the same affliction. You have no idea how closely I watched you both when you were little girls, waiting to see whether your backs would begin to twist. Thank all the gods your bodies are sound. You’re all I have to give Egypt.”
     
    “ I don’t know what to say. I had no idea.”
     
    “ No, indeed. Only your father and grandmother knew. And my body servants and the physicians, of course. They’ve been well paid to keep quiet. The court would not look favorably on a crippled queen.”
     
    “ So this is why you said…in the throne room….”
     
    Meritamun nodded, her face calm. “I can feel my body weakening. It won’t be much longer for me. Soon I will go to the Field of Reeds.”
     
    The weight of misery fell over Ahmose. She barely knew Meritamun, but already she could sense the difficult times ahead. She only realized now, when all hope of a guiding hand had died, that she’d been hopeful of her mother’s shepherding. How comforting it would be to have Meritamun’s advice and support, even if they had been strangers to one another until this day. It would be as the gods willed, though, Ahmose knew. She of all people knew.
     
    “ But why this General Thutmose, of all people? Is there even a drop of royal blood in his veins?” She’d ridden with him just last night. She knew he was a good man, trustworthy and kind. Yet Ahmose couldn’t help but feel a flush of indignation. She was the daughter of a king, after all. She’d