The Golden Queen

Twenty Nine

Twenty Nine

Over the next few weeks, Egypt prepared for the most eminent wedding in the ancient world. We would be married in Hatshepsut's mortuary temple, a splendid granite structure housing a great garden that flourished on the outskirts of Thebes. The entire city had erupted into a mood of celebration as the date approached. I had gone into the city with Ahmose just days before to oversee the preparation of the ceremony. The Priests of Amun blessed the temple with perfumed oils and incense while humming sacred chants, and Ahmose and I had to bathe in the sacred fountain in the heart of the temple. We did this for seven consecutive days before the wedding. I did not understand the significance of the number seven until Ahmose explained it to me. According to Egyptian lore, seven was the number of pieces the god Osiris had been cut into when his wicked brother Seth had dismembered him before being reassembled by his sister-wife, Isis. "Like Isis, you have reassembled my broken soul," he had said to me.

As we rode back to the palace in a golden chariot led by two magnificent black stallions, the people showered us with flower petals and sang to us as they lined the streets to watch the royal procession.

When the day finally came, it was late spring, in the middle of May. It would forever be the happiest day of my life. The gray overcast that suddenly came into the sky forecast a storm. The storm couldn't have come on a more perfect day. Summer was only a month away, and the desert heat became unbearable in the late afternoon. The rain would cool the air, making the festivities much more enjoyable.

Across my bed lay the wedding gown that had been custom made for me, a royal bride. I ran my hands over the cool silk, and felt my stomach lunge when a servant finally came by to help me dress. I didn't really need help with dressing, I mainly sent for her because I wanted someone to keep me company as I battled the nausea that churned anxiously in my stomach.

The girl entered the room and bowed. Her dark curls reminded me of Menefer, and my heart ached at the memory of my lost friend. The girl was young, hardly more than a child, and I wondered if she had even reached adolescence.

"What is your name?" I asked gently.

"Lotus, My Lady," she replied quietly. "I was instructed to help you dress for the wedding."

We went to my privy chamber and I climbed into the porcelain tub as she filled it with warm water. "Lotus, will you be accompanying me to the temple?"

Once the tub was full, Lotus pulled the bottles of perfumed oils from a woven basket. "If My Lady will permit it, I would be honored." She washed my skin with the sacred perfumed oils, giving my skin the fragrance of sweet jasmine.

The nausea in my belly felt like a sea of turbulent tides, crashing and battering my insides with the fury of a tropical storm. I clutched my stomach and bit back the hot bile that stung my neck.

"I am ill," I whimpered.

My nerves weren't the only cause for my nausea. For the past few weeks, I had been experiencing morning sickness. I sensed I was pregnant the day my cycle was late, and when the first wave of morning sickness followed, I didn't think I would survive. The nausea that churned away inside me made it difficult for me to stand for long periods of time, causing my head to swim along with my belly. I prayed I would be steady enough to last through the ceremony.

But Ahmose didn't know this. I was planning to tell him after the wedding. I wanted to tell him the night I found out myself, but I was afraid of his reaction. This should have been a wonderful thing, to conceive a child so early in our relationship, but neither of us was really prepared for it.

I grabbed my gut as I felt the next wave come over me, and Lotus quickly pushed her basket in my lap as I doubled over and heaved into it. "Better in the basket than in the tub," she murmured, rubbing my back as I shivered. "You do not want to go to bed with His Majesty smelling of vomit!"