Daughter of Egypt

Eve

Chapter One

July 19, 1919
Hampshire, England

The Saloon glows in the flicker of the candelabras and the low light of ornate wall sconces. Colorful heraldic shields dotting the base of the peaked gallery above enliven the honey-colored limestone walls and columns. The crimson, sapphire, and emerald of the shields are echoed in the ladies’ gowns and the jewels on their necks, ears, and wrists. If I allow it to work its magic, the Highclere Castle ball casts a glorious spell on me, banishing the pall of the Great War that lingers in this otherwise jubilant space, and that is precisely what has happened to the other revelers. But I would never allow that alchemy to blind me to the all-important past. History has always been my chosen companion.

The orchestra strikes up a Chopin waltz, and I permit the next gentleman on my dance card to sweep me up in its three-quarter-time rhythm. The hem of the fussy tulle ultramarine gown Mama insisted upon because, she claimed, it brought out the blue in my eyes, twirls as I spin around the dance floor under the expert hands of Lord Stockton. Surrendering to his lead, I swoop across the floor like the high-flying stone-curlew birds that nest on the estate. Lord Stockton may be in his fifties, but he’s still nimble and energetic, and there aren’t many young men here tonight in any event. Most of the boys I’d dreamed about as a girl didn’t come home from the war, and I won’t forget about those men and their sacrifice tonight—even if everyone else seems determined to do so.

The heels of my blue silk T-strap shoes skim across a floor upon which generations of my family have danced. The first Earl of Carnarvon in 1793, whose investiture was made by King George III him-self. The third earl, who worked hand in hand with Sir Charles Barry and Capability Brown in the mid-1800s to fashion the current castle and gardens out of its earlier iterations. The fourth earl, who helped create the Dominion of Canada in 1867 within the castle walls, by drafting countless letters about constitutional provisions as part of his presentation of the British North America Act to Parliament. Oh yes, this was all widely known, but what about the women? The ladies Carnarvon, their daughters, and their guests—not to mention the governesses, maids, and cooks? Growing up amidst the unspoken legacy of all these women—past and present—I’ve wondered about them since childhood. But theirs aren’t the stories that my family usually tells. It’s as if the women never walked these corridors or inhabited the rooms, or as if they’ve simply been erased. Like so many others.

Did my companion say something? It might be the first or the hundredth time he’s spoken for all I’ve paid attention to him. But for my momentary surrender to the orchestra and the rhythm of the waltz, my thoughts have been elsewhere.

“Lady Evelyn?”

This time I know I can’t ignore conversation in the face of such a plaintive query. Not to mention the politesse of the ball requires these small exchanges. The world may have been upended by the war and the ink has barely dried on the Treaty of Versailles, but the society doyennes are doing their darnedest to return to the rituals and rites that used to govern our days. It seems a pointless, even disrespectful, folly to me.

“Pardon me, Lord Stockton,” I reply. “My head seems to be in the clouds.”

“No surprise—this is a heady affair.” He smiles at his little quip, but when I don’t return the grin, he clears his throat and repeats himself: “I said only that Highclere is in fine fettle.”

“The staff has outdone themselves putting Highclere back in order,” I answer politely.

“No Humpty-Dumptys there; Highclere is together again. One would never know it had served as a hospital until just recently,” he says, his untrained eye unable to see the residual traces of the hospital beds and screen stands and nursing stations that are obvious to me. Time can only be turned back so far, even here, where history abounds.

He leads me counterclockwise back across the Saloon dance floor, and when I don’t banter back, he adds, “It does lift one’s spirits to see a great house restored and wiped clean of the suffering that took place here. Especially when so many estates will not outlast the war.” I almost stop dancing. Why should we erase the past? The collective forgetting of the war is being foisted upon us all, and I, for one, do not wish to participate in the forced joyful abandon I see around me. Too many boys are gone for that. History should not be relegated to a dusty corner. We should pick it up, examine it, and allow it to inform our current days.

Glancing up, I see my mother staring down from the gallery on the Saloon’s second floor, where she has a bird’s-eye view of the dancing and me. She is small in stature but fierce in temperament, and the intensity of her dark-eyed gaze gives me a start. I can almost hear her think, Concentrate, Eve, this ball is for you, the capstone of your successful debutante year. Lady Almina Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon, is the last person who should want to delete the past few years from our memory; her nursing work and creation of hospitals for wounded soldiers is the stuff of legend, after all. Yet she was first in line to reinstate the trappings of the Season and the presentation of debutantes to King George, even though the Treaty of Versailles hadn’t been negotiated when she began. Mama explains it away by saying that I came of age just as the Great War ended, and so needs must.

But must I?

With Mama’s eyes upon me, I return to the waltz. I chat as expected and perform the requisite dance steps. I smile and play the part assigned to me. But no matter how tightly Mama tries to wrap me in duty, my mind drifts, as do my eyes, over Lord Stockton’s shoulders and around the room.

Suddenly, I see Streatfield, our ever-proper house steward, appear on the periphery. His presence is a silent signal to me, as he needn’t be here otherwise. The mutton-chopped, white-tie-wearing steward is here to deliver a message of which he doesn’t approve. But as my reluctant champion since childhood, Streatfield will do as I’ve asked and share the news. The man for whom I’ve been waiting all night has finally arrived.

Chapter Two

July 19, 1919
Hampshire, England

As soon as the final chord of the waltz sounds, I take my leave of Lord Stockton. The summer evening is warm, even though a pleasant breeze drifts in from the estate grounds through open windows. Pulling out my fan, I feign being overheated and retreat to the periphery of the Saloon.

Passing behind the dozens of guests consulting their dance cards and seeking out their next partners, I do my best to avoid Mama’s line of vision as I head toward Streatfield. As I duck and weave behind our taller guests, I hope that, for once, my diminutive height is a boon.

Gathering up the hem of my skirts for easier movement, I dodge the guests pouring out of the adjoining rooms where they have gathered to enjoy the lavish buffet, cigars, glasses of bubbly Pol Roger, and subtle rounds of flirting, and emerging now for another round of dancing. If I hadn’t, I’d be stopped by any number of people, including my tipsy older brother, Porchey, home from the war and ready to carouse.

Once clear, I traverse the remainder of the Saloon until I reach Streatfield. In a wonderfully strategic decision, he stands directly under Mama’s position on the second floor. This renders me effectively invisible to her, as this is the one place in the Saloon where she cannot see me.

In one deft, seamless movement, he moves in front of me. Thus blocked from sight, I reach for the handle to the towering wood door situated within a wall covered in embossed leather and gilt wallpaper commissioned in Spain in the 1600s. This is one of very few doors closed to tonight’s revelers, and for good reason. No one wants tipsy revelers in proximity to its treasures, least of all Papa.

I turn the handle and pause on the threshold as the Library materializes before me. Never does this room fail to delight and soothe, even amidst the cacophony and expectations of the Highclere Ball. But, for the first time, I also find it perplexing. Because, when I glance around the room, I am alone. Had I not been clear with Streatfield that I was to be brought here only when he got to Highclere Castle? Mama will be on the hunt for me if I’m out of her sight for too long.

“Lady Evelyn,” Streatfield gently prompts me along. I cannot be found near this room on tonight of all nights.

Passing into the Library, I hear the click of the door closing behind me. I glance around the vast space again. With its gilded book-cases and ceiling, thousands of leather-bound volumes, sumptuous cerise velvet sofas, and a roaring fire within a chocolate brown marble hearth regardless of the warm night, the Library has always felt like the inside of a book to me. It is an exquisite invitation to curl up and be ferried to other times and places. But it is not a place to be during my very own ball.

Just then, a muffled sound emanates from the adjoining room, the Small Library that faces north. Is it the sound of a throat clearing? Is it the person I’ve been waiting for? Dare I investigate? Or should I scurry back to the ball and hope my absence wasn’t noticed? Praying that it is not my father—how furious he’d be to find me here, I think—I tiptoe past the columns into the second library chamber, the one housing my father’s desk. One of the great treasures of Highclere, the desk came from Napoleon’s suite at the Château de Fontainebleau. How many times have I seen Papa proudly peek at the letter C under the arm of the chair, a sign that Napoleon himself owned it when he was consul and not yet emperor.

There, with an open book in one hand and an object in the other, stands the brilliant Mr. Howard Carter. I race toward him. “Mr. Carter! I thought you’d never get here!”

As I draw as close as I dare to the formidable man, I see a pleased half smile peeking out from under his thick mustache and a gleam in his dark, hooded eyes. I consider this reaction from the usually stoical Mr. Carter to be quite the victory, and I beam back at him.
Even though a smile is fixed in place on his lips, he grumbles, “Well, it was no easy matter to extricate myself from the British Museum.”

“Even for me?” I give him a coy glance.

“Especially for you.” He half snorts in laughter. “You might be my most discerning colleague. The list of questions you wanted me to ask Mr. Wallis Budge was positively daunting.”

I thrill to the name “colleague.” The fact that the esteemed archaeologist Mr. Howard Carter would even consider me “discerning” is compliment enough. He’s been quietly tutoring me in the history and archaeology of ancient Egypt every summer since I was a child—save for a stint during the war—and it’s exhilarating that he thinks of me as more than a student. Even if he’s only indulging me, he never says anything without at least a kernel of truth.

“So, what did Mr. Budge have to say about the artifact?” I ask about the British Museum Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, pointing to the object in Mr. Carter’s hand. “Is it what we think it is?” My heart is racing with the possibility.

“Mr. Budge thinks we may have hit the mark. He’s notoriously cagey and noncommittal, though.”

I have to restrain a squeal. “Can you tell me what he said? I’ve been waiting and waiting for your return from London to hear.”

“I’ve got all night. It’s not as if I plan on attending your ball,” he says, only half in jest. Of course, Mr. Carter has been invited to the Highclere ball; he’s our guest for the entire summer, as he has been for many summers before. My father, whose full, rather long, and unwieldy title is George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, has been Mr. Carter’s archaeological patron for thirteen years. Every winter Papa decamps with Mr. Carter to Luxor, where he spends his days in the Egyptian desert, overseeing excavations with Mr. Carter, a small army of locals, and occasionally my mother. Never me or Porchey, much to my chagrin.

We all know better than to insist Mr. Carter attend the ball, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he was raised in a distinctly middle-class home with an artist father. The real truth is that he loathes hobnobbing almost as much as I do. The primary difference between us is that he has the option to refuse attendance, while I do not. The merry-go-round of dinners and dances and house parties with the constant change of dresses isn’t the life I want. It isn’t the life of purpose I seek.

Mr. Carter places the tiny object in my white-gloved palm with a mix of reverence and care. Bringing the one-inch, blue-glazed scarab close, I study the soapstone figurine of a beetle, its surface still amazingly shiny after three thousand years. He and my father unearthed it just before the war during an excavation at my father’s archaeological concession at the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, before all digs were suspended. This object, like many of the smaller artifacts discovered during that time, sat in storage while Highclere became a hospital during the war. It only resurfaced when Papa and I sorted through the boxes and placed his favorite objects in his specially constructed cases in the Music Room, built explicitly to show off his Egyptian treasures. This little beetle did not make the cut—gold necklaces and bracelets, bronze and electrum statues, a rare gaming board, and larger alabaster beauties outshone it—but it certainly caught my attention.

This summer, Mr. Carter and I are scrutinizing the ignored and rejected objects from those boxes, the ones deemed unworthy of Papa’s shelves. To us, the finely etched blue images on the scarab’s surface seem a clue to a crucial mystery, one we’ve contemplated, together and apart, for years. Consulting the British Museum Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities was necessary to ensure we aren’t on a fool’s errand.

“Well, Mr. Budge agrees with your theory that the scarab may have belonged to Hatshepsut,” Mr. Carter announces.

The news is as I’ve hoped. While I am overjoyed that this object is connected with one of the most successful rulers of ancient Egypt and one of the only female pharaohs, it still seems unbelievable. I almost pinch myself.

“Hatshepsut? Really?” I whisper, staring down at the scarab. My hand shakes at the thought it actually belonged to her.

“Yes, Hatshepsut. And, Mr. Budge said—” Mr. Carter says and then suddenly stops. His face has shut down completely, and I know only one person or thing that can cause that reaction.

I turn around to see a face icy with fury: Mama.

July 21, 1919
Hampshire, England

Everyone remarks on the unexpected perfection of the day. The clear blue skies with nary a threatening cloud on the horizon. The cooling shade of the cedar tree, grown from a seedling given to the first Earl of Carnarvon, under which the group sits on thick cotton blankets. We look out at the stunning beauty of the nearby Highclere Park folly, the Temple of Diana, and the vista of Dunsmere Lake itself beyond.

Everyone seems content but me. Because I would very much like to be somewhere else.

“You know, the parklands were designed by the famous eighteenth-century landscape gardener Capability Brown,” Mama announces to the guests, her chest puffing with pride as it does when she bestows a particularly exultant nugget. She cares for the history of Highclere primarily as it provides excellent fodder for conversation and the occasional comeuppance.

“Was it now?” Lady Milgrove asks, reaching for another lobster tail from the china tray proffered by Matthew, one of the few original servants of Highclere Castle who returned to us after the war. Her tone suggests that she’s dutifully impressed, the price exacted for my parents’ generosity this weekend. But I can see plainly that she’s more interested in pouring butter sauce on the lobster.

Mama glances over at my brother, Porchey, a nickname based on his title, Lord Porchester, to see if he’ll pick up the reins of this conversation. It is the future Lord Carnarvon’s duty, I can almost hear her think. But my brother is home on leave from his regiment, the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars, awaiting his next assignment to India or Mesopotamia, and is agog at the other young ladies here this weekend. As one of the few young men, he has his pick.

“Oh yes,” Mama answers with enthusiasm, when Porchey fails to chime in. Does Lady Milgrove’s lack of real interest not register? Perhaps it does, but Mama doesn’t care. Because she continues: “As I’m certain is evident, Capability Brown delighted in fostering the natural beauty of the landscape. And this folly, of course, helps punctuate that.” In near comic unison, the three dozen or so guests turn to examine the round structure, encircled by columns, topped with an imposing dome, and perched high on the hill overlooking Dunsmere Lake. Although it appears ancient, it is an eighteenth-century confection that was reconstructed a hundred years later. Not that its manufactured quality has ever stopped me from visiting on my own and pretending I was in ancient Greece—anything to tether me to generations gone by. Is it because I feel so unbound to the present?

As the guests return to their champagne and the circulating trays of capons, ham, fruits, and cakes—an abundance not often seen, as rationing continues apace—they babble about “Highclere’s striking loveliness” and “the fetching view.” Securing this praise is, of course, Mama’s precise purpose. If pressed, she would maintain that, in celebrating Highclere, she’s celebrating me by drawing attention to my glorious heritage, thereby making me more attractive in the marriage market. But in these moments, I see a glimpse of Almina Wombwell, the insecure girl she must have been upon her marriage to Papa. Although Mama’s central place in English society is now firm, she’d been a wealthy heiress without a title or a station—the bastard daughter of the fabulously rich bachelor Alfred de Rothschild and his French mistress. When Mama walked down the aisle of St. Margaret’s, I am certain whispers trailed in her wake.

“I say, I thought Sir Charles Barry, architect of the Houses of Parliament, was responsible for Highclere?” Lord Stockton, one of my dance partners from the ball, calls out.

I study Mama as she searches for the right response. Watching her once again become the social creature she’d been before the war has been unsettling—nearly as peculiar as it had been to observe her metamorphosis into a nurse and creator of hospitals for injured soldiers. How I wish she’d never transformed back, I think. If she’d remained the diligent nurse and healer, I might be left to my own devices, instead of pressed into the Season and the hunt for a husband.

Her still-lovely features brighten and her petite frame straightens as the right answer comes to her. “You are not wrong, Lord Stockton. At least not in full.” She bestows on the graying gentleman her famously disarming smile. It nearly makes it impossible to envision her as the Fury she’d been at the ball when she discovered me with Mr. Carter instead of with my next dance partner in the Saloon.

“How is that, Lady Carnarvon?” Lord Stockton asks, his eyes narrowing unpleasantly and his voice snapping with barely suppressed ire. This is a man who does not like to be wrong, a man who loathes being corrected, especially by a woman.

“Sir Barry designed the castle, not the grounds,” Mama says, her voice quieter than before.

“Ah,” he says, “so I was right in large part.”

My mother flinches, but she maintains her poise. “Yes, indeed, Lord Stockton,” she says, and I consider this unpleasant exchange a victory. Even Mama would not send me packing into the marital arms of a man such as this, had that been one of her original designs. And marrying me off is indeed her primary purpose and, as she never tires of telling me, my duty. But that “duty” would make it nearly impossible for me to pursue my own passion.

“What sheer delight it must have been to grow up in such magnificent surroundings,” Lady Milgrove exclaims. This remark is intended for me.

While I wouldn’t normally welcome this sort of banal exchange, I’m relieved to turn the conversation away from Lord Stockton. “A childhood spent exploring acres of parkland trails, follies, and the castle’s history around every corner in the castle was magical,” I say, presenting my youth at Highclere Castle in the most favorable light I know.

I dare not speak the more painful truths. The lonely months Porchey and I spent rattling around the castle, while my parents were in London or Egypt or the Continent, with only Nanny Moss and the servants for company. The long, dark afternoons and evenings we languished in the Nursery, listening to the clink of silver and crystal and my parents’ laughter as they entertained in the Dining Room, where we were forbidden to enter. The endless hours my mother dedicated to nursing anonymous soldiers back to health, leaving me alone to reread Porchey’s letters in a constant state of worry. Amazing how maternal she became with the soldiers, a quality that eluded her in parenthood.

My mother shoots me a rare grateful look and then directs the discussion toward the latest gossip. As the guests chuckle at the bountiful contretemps in this first Season after the Great War, I am left to my own thoughts. They automatically drift to the object in the pocket of my green silk calf-length dress.

I glance around the assortment of aristocrats, wealthy merchants, and society scions—young and old—to make certain their focus is elsewhere. I slide the scarab out of my pocket and into the light, and marvel at its intricate design. Could this minute object really be the key to unlocking the mystery of Hatshepsut?

I’ve been a student of Hatshepsut since the day Mr. Carter entered my world. The narrative of her existence is one I’ve been constructing as long as I can remember. The nature of her life and the manner in which her successors were positively determined to erase her from history is a puzzle I’m determined to solve myself.

July 21, 1919
Hampshire, England

The guests make a merry noise as we step out of the vehicles Papa sent to fetch us from our outdoor luncheon, his way of participating from afar in an activity he dislikes. The gravel crunches as we close the doors to the Rolls-Royces, Fords, and Renaults and cross the courtyard. Once inside the cool entrance hall, we wish our guests a tranquil respite before the evening’s activities, and Mama’s eyes fix on me as the hall empties. What offense have I committed now? I think.

“You did yourself no favors at the luncheon, Eve.” She scolds me in a low voice. “Much depends on you making a prosperous match, and I find it disrespectful for you to ignore that responsibility.”

I’ve learned to brace myself for critiques after social occasions, and thus this particular comment comes as no surprise. But I must feign bewilderment, or risk being accused of intentionally thwarting her plans. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Don’t give me those doe eyes of yours. I’ve used that insincere expression far too often myself to be moved by it,” she snaps.

“What I mean should be abundantly clear. By keeping to yourself—instead of maneuvering to sit next to the only two young men in the party besides your brother—you undermined the very purpose of the ball and this weekend: to find you a suitable husband.”

I want to rail against the future she’s orchestrating for me, but I know a row will ensue and I’ll be thwarted in my afternoon plans. She neither cares nor understands that the war has changed me, making plain the fleeting nature of life. I’m determined not to waste mine on a future without meaning, one that’s easily erased like that of my female Carnarvon ancestors.

I let the mask of civility descend upon me, and say, “I’ll do better this evening.”

“You best. Now upstairs with you.”

“I think I’ll relax in the Library with a book.”

Raising her eyebrows, Mama tilts her head in judgment. “I think you’d be better served taking your rest in your bedroom, Eve. The banquet tonight will be long, and I expect you to be in your best form. Especially after the luncheon.”

While I’m no stranger to defying Mama’s orders, I typically do so quietly. But today, I have no choice other than to stand my ground. “I’ll return there soon enough. An hour with a book in the much cooler Library will do me more good than my stifling bedroom.”

Without waiting for her reply, I enter the Library and settle onto a sofa before an empty hearth. Feeling her eyes still on me, I pick up the volume sitting on the side table and pretend to be reading. It isn’t until I hear the clip of her heels marching up the entrance hall stairs that I place the book back down and scamper toward the secret door to the Music Room.

Pulling out the book that operates as a handle for the private door, I enter the Music Room, then quickly close the door behind me. The space is so bright I nearly shield my eyes. Sunlight pours into the windows offering a view of the Heaven’s Gate folly, and reflects off the gilt molding, the sixteenth-century Italian embroideries from the Malatesta Palace that cover the walls, and the glass cabinets holding my father’s renowned collection of Egyptian antiquities.

But the room’s sole occupant seems unaffected by all this honeyed illumination. In fact, he does not even seem to notice my entrance.

“Mr. Carter,” I say, keeping my voice just above a whisper. Never mind her ostensible trip upstairs to her bedroom, Mama has been known to lurk.

“Ah, Lady Evelyn.” He glances up from a table. He sits with a sheaf of paper and several small artifacts set before him, a magnifying glass in one hand and a fountain pen in the other.

“I was wondering when you’d turn up,” he says, his eyes back down on the object he’s studying.

“It’s no small feat to escape the clutches of the weekend guests and my mother,” I answer with a grimace.

Mr. Carter knows well my mother’s expectations for me, and the ball only reinforced that understanding. But he would never speak ill of her. She and my father are his patrons, after all. And even if he primarily deals with Papa, it is Mama’s Rothschild money that keeps the excavations afloat.

“Well, I am delighted that you plotted your getaway. We have much to discuss.”

“Yes.” I settle in the chair across from him. “I’ve been desperate to hear more about what Mr. Budge said.”

With care, he places the cartouches and pottery fragments down on the desk, then says, “As I mentioned last night, he believes that the scarab may have been made for Hatshepsut, but interestingly—”

“Yes?” I interrupt him. I’m so eager to hear Mr. Budge’s insights about the purpose and time period of this particular scarab that I can’t help myself. Scarabs were usually worn or carried by common folks as protective amulets. But they could also be used by the elite and administrators as an official seal. Could this be one of those rarer sorts?

Anything to shed light on the life of the enigmatic Pharaoh Hatshepsut. She successfully ruled in the late 1400s BC and helped build a country that was unusually peaceful and economically prosperous. Since I was a lonely little girl with a penchant for the past, I’ve been entranced by stories about the singular reign of one of the only fe-male pharaohs ever to rule over the land of the pyramids, especially the manner in which she climbed from princess to queen to regent, then finally becoming pharaoh herself. When Mr. Carter described to me all the various places Hatshepsut’s name has literally been scratched out—on monuments, stelae, temple walls, and statues—I became fixated on solving the conundrum of why attempts were made to eliminate her from the historical record.

“When Mr. Budge and I compared it to the other scarabs in the British Museum collection that are linked to Hatshepsut, they have a similar look and the hieroglyphs do indeed name her. But the name on this scarab isn’t the exact one we typically associate with her as queen or pharaoh, which may be how we missed it at first. As you know, the Egyptians tended to shift titles and names as an individual’s role changed. The name inscribed on the scarab is that of Hatshepsut as a young woman, when she was the daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose the First. Most of her power at that time came from her role as a priest called the God’s Wife of Amun. The scarab is a rare find.”

At this pronouncement, I fall back onto the hard, hand-embroidered, gilt-legged chair. Not only is this scarab—previously ignored by my father and Mr. Carter—associated with Princess Hatshepsut, but it’s a relic of her early years, when she was also the most powerful female priest, the hemet-netjer.

“I’m stunned that Mr. Budge agrees with my theory. It was just a guess—” I stammer.
Mr. Carter interrupts me. “Your theory was no mere guess. You know the history, the hieroglyphics, and the way these objects were used. It was an educated proposal.”
I can scarcely move. Mr. Carter is a man of few words and fewer compliments. To be called a “colleague” and have my pet theory described as an “educated proposal” by one of the foremost Egyptologists—a man who served as Inspector of Monuments for Upper Egypt in the Egyptian Antiquities Service—has left me momentarily immobile and speechless. As has the nature of this discovery.

“Now, someone other than Hatshepsut could have owned this scarab,” he posits. “They were sometimes carried as lucky charms, as you know. But it’s not very likely that someone other than Hatshepsut would posses a scarab with this particular name. This title precedes her time as queen or pharaoh, so wouldn’t have been a popular choice as a good-luck talisman.”
“Could it have been in her tomb?” I suggest, thinking about how the pharaohs’ burials included a vast array of objects deemed necessary for the afterlife, including sentimental ones.

“Possibly. It would explain why we found such a unique item in the burial area at the Valley of the Kings as opposed to her temple complex,” he says, referring to the sprawling mortuary temple she constructed for herself near the valley. Mortuary temples were not usually places where pharaohs were buried but rather where they were commemorated.

For nearly seven years, Papa and Mr. Carter had been assigned excavation sites at Hatshepsut’s temple, a huge, resplendent, terraced structure built into the hills on the west side of the Nile opposite the sacred, ancient city of Thebes, modern-day Luxor. Mr. Carter was, in fact, an expert in Hatshepsut’s temple, having helped reassemble it in the 1890s when it was still a pile of rubble and he was just a young man. But as the Valley of the Kings—a dry, rocky gorge just west of Hatshepsut’s temple—was the place where pharaohs and royals of the New Kingdom built rock-cut tombs, Papa and Mr. Carter lobbied for the concession there. They finally received it in 1914 when the American businessman Theodore Davis gave it up.
“Yes, you’d expect to discover Hatshepsut’s scarabs in her tomb.”

We give each other a long glance; we both know that Hatshepsut’s tomb has never been found. To my mind, Mr. Carter’s look contains an invitation. But will he extend it? One never knows with the re-served archaeologist.

I wait, and finally he says, “I think we need to reevaluate all the artifacts related to this scarab in storage here at Highclere. I suspect we might discover that others are tied to Hatshepsut. Would you be willing to examine them with me?”

“Of course,” I answer immediately. Never mind that it will require significant maneuvering to sidestep Mama and her summer schemes for me. For all the years that Mr. Carter has surreptitiously shared his expertise in ancient Egypt and archaeology with me, he’s never invited me to work on a project with him. I’d never believed I could be so fortunate.

“We have much to do if we’re going to pursue this path.” He pauses, then asks, “Do you know where following this trail of artifacts might lead us?”

I take a deep breath and speak aloud the words I never believed I’d be fortunate enough to say: “To the tomb of Hatshepsut.”

1486 BC
Thebes, Egypt

I feel my maid’s hand on my shoulder before I’m even fully awake. Her gentle shaking becomes part of my dream at first, the rhythmic rocking of my barge on the river Nile. But the rocking becomes stronger and quicker, more urgent, and I awaken, realizing that it is not a dream at all. I am being summoned for my duties to the gods.

My lids flutter open, but all I can see is blackness. My eyes might as well be closed. Only when Nedjem brings the lamp closer does the flicker of its flame begin to illuminate my quarters in the Theban palace. And slowly, as its undulating light reflects off the gilded patterns on the walls, the room takes shape and the walls come alive.

Riotous color—crimson, lapis lazuli, obsidian, green, and ocher—emerges, including a favorite image of the goddess Hathor wearing her headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. A pantheon of gods decorates my walls, interspersed with vivid patterns of lilies and lotus flowers. Only the decoration of my parents’ chambers and the chambers of the first high priest of Amun rival my own. But then, those are the only stations in the land that are higher than mine. For I am the Princess Hatshepsut and the God’s Wife of Amun, chief among all the gods.

“The ablution awaits, Your Majesty Princess Hatshepsut, I mean, Hemet-netjer,” Nedjem pleads, her voice sounding impossibly young, as she apologizes for not using my priestly name. How old is she? I wonder. I suppose she could have twenty years or fifty. The maid has been with me since I left the royal nursery and moved into my own quarters in the palace, but I’ve never guessed at her age—or anything about her, for that matter. Strange, I think, that these questions should come to me now, unbidden.

I shuffle toward Nedjem, yawning as I approach her. Lamp held high, she leads me down a warren of palace corridors, pitch-black except for the torches intermittently hanging on the walls. Passing by columns and through gateways and doors, the sound of drums and rattles grows louder the closer we get to the Temple of Ipet-Sut, a key structure within the palace compound.

When we finally reach the sacred places of the gods, I follow Nedjem into the chamber containing the sacred pool. Servants in linen shifts and girdles line the walls, but only temple women hand-picked by the priests to ready me for my most important daily ritual step forward.

They slide off my finely woven sleeping shift, and I step into the cool waters of the pool. The familiar scent of rose and frankincense washes over me as I submerge myself deeper and deeper, until my hair and face and body becomes one with the waters. Weightless and momentarily free of my burdens, I am no longer the God’s Wife; I am only Hatshepsut.

When I surface, the women’s eyes are wide with concern. Was I under the water too long? Were they worried about my safety or the time? The latter, I guess, as much depends on the timeliness of the daily ritual. Either way, all they could do is watch and fret, since only the God’s Wife can enter the purifying waters of the sacred pool.

Do I imagine that they rush to dry me with the linen cloth and then lead me to the robing chamber? One does not hurry along the God’s Wife, so perhaps my thoughts and observations are still heavy with sleep. The immersion in the pool has awakened me somewhat, but—no matter how many years I’ve undertaken this daily ritual—my body still struggles with the hours before dawn.

A temple servant slathers my skin with rare oil selected from one of the alabaster jars on the marble dressing table, and then dresses me in a pure white linen gown stitched with countless pleats, cinching it high around my waist. Another maid rings my brown eyes in kohl and places a ceremonial wig, heavy with elaborate braids not to mention an ornate gold diadem, over my very short dark hair. After Ned-jem slides bracelets on my wrists, rings on most of my fingers, and a gold and carnelian usekh collar around my neck, I leave the chamber and begin my procession toward the sanctuary where Amun can be found.

In the outer chamber of the sanctuary, temple laborers and priests bow to me as I enter, then hurriedly return to their tasks. Servants finalize the platters of meats, fruits, breads, and drinks to be used as offerings to Amun, while priests and priestesses continue their chanting. Drums beat and tambourines shake, growing louder and quicker in tempo. The mood becomes expectant, almost frantic, and the servants and priests alike sway as the rhythm crescendos. My heart thrums in time with the instruments as I pause on the threshold of the inner sanctum alongside the high priest. We alone are permitted to see Amun.

“Are you ready, Hemet-netjer?” he turns to me and asks.

“If you are ready, Hem-netjer-tepi,” I answer with nod.

Together, we step inside the sanctuary of Amun. The sound recedes as we go farther inside to light the torches lining the walls with our own. A surprisingly compact, windowless room painted with gleaming symbols of life and death as well as day and night, the sanctuary contains only one object, an enormous statue of Amun. Although the statue is veiled, glimmers of gold and hints of turquoise peek out from under the gossamer fabric covering it.

Together, the high priest and I recite the sacred prayers, beseeching Amun to be reborn. Only through his daily rebirth, we chant, will the sun rise. Otherwise, the citizens of the world will perish. When we finish, the high priest walks backward out of the sanctuary, erasing his footprints with a specially made brush, leaving me alone in the presence of Amun. Only I, the God’s Wife, can undertake the final rites.

I approach the statue, feeling the power of the god grow with each step I take toward him. As I slide off the veil, I face Amun in all his golden glory. Staring into the god’s vivid blue eyes, I feel the air between us vibrate with an urgency that is at once familiar and singular. I pray that, once again, I am worthy to rouse the god to rise and give life to us all by causing the sun to rise and the Nile to flood. Because the fate of my people, of all people really, rests on me.