The Woman Who Would Be King Read Free

of that loss were highly political. There would have been precious little time to grieve.
    Hatshepsut was probably just twelve years old as she negotiated this formative moment, watching the machinations of a palace lost to uncertainty, witnessing the disquiet and bitterness of her father, the fretting and pain of her mother. She knew that she was now more important than ever to her father, as the single remaining issue of the pure and holy union of Thutmose I and Ahmes, because at some point in her early years, her sister Neferubity had also died. In her own funerary chapel at Deir el-Bahri, Hatshepsut would later memorialize the profound and lastinggrief she felt over this loss: a carving in one of her most sacred sanctuaries shows Neferubity worshipping the barque of Amen.
    Hatshepsut’s bloodline and position were the highest of the remaining royal children, and she must have sensed the sudden weight of power and responsibility spiraling inexorably toward
her
. She was now peerless, the highest-born daughter, destined to serve the next king and save her father’s dynasty with a son. But there was more to it than that, and one wonders if twelve-year-old Hatshepsut was aware of her new status: as the most mature and educated surviving child, if she were to marry one of her younger brothers, she would serve as his guide, as a decision maker, perhaps even as the power behind the throne.
    King Aakheperkare Thutmose must have had doubts regarding the eldest and most wellborn of his princes left in the royal nursery, one who shared his name but apparently not his strength. If the identification of the mummy of Thutmose II is to be believed, the boy was never in good health. His skin was covered with lesions and raised pustules. He had an enlarged heart, which meant he probably suffered with arrhythmias and shortness of breath. 3 It’s fair to say that Thutmose II was no athlete. And yet everyone at court depended on this boy king to continue the Thutmoside line and thus defend their own jobs and livelihoods. This prince lacked Thutmose I’s endurance and vitality; he was possibly cursed with a poor constitution after surviving one of the many scourges that afflicted the royal nursery. We are not sure if there ever was a formal designation of the boy’s new position, or if his mother, Mutnofret, was stunned or smug when she was singled out as the mother of the new crown prince.
    The prince was so very young, a mere fledgling in the nest. Given life’s hard realities, Thutmose I must have worried that a wan and unhealthy nine- or ten-year-old could hardly take the reins of Upper and Lower Egypt, let alone keep and enlarge its borders. When word spread of the king’s choice of crown prince, the palace was probably filled with apprehension that everything the king had spent the last dozen years building would unravel in the blink of an eye, and Egypt might once again descend into anarchy, misfortune, and disgrace. Wrapped up in such anxieties, Thutmose I may have looked askance at Hatshepsut and wished fervently that she had been a son. Or perhaps he saw in her a solution to these problems. His eldest eligible sons had just died. At fifty years of age, he would have known that he himself was nearing the end of his time on earth. Itis possible that he looked to the brightest and most capable member of his family as a salvation against political shame and ignominy before the gods, perhaps even keeping his clever daughter close, allowing her to train at his side—not to assume the throne, of course, but to provide wisdom and balance to an unready king.
    And then tragedy struck the palace again, even before all the pieces of the game could be set for the next move. The great king Thutmose I, a man who had never been bred to rule, who was not the son of a king himself, died, leaving behind a boy too young to understand any of the complex political realities facing him.
    Aakheperenre Thutmose (Thutmose II) indeed took the throne,