She did not look at him once during the ceremonial greetings, and even avoided his eyes when he was standing right before her.
“It’s because we are in public,” he thought. “She thinks we are still playing the games we played before. When we are alone ... then she will look at me. Then she will not be able to hold herself back.”
But when the day’s duties were done, when the long day of formality and business was finally behind him, and he went to the Queen’s chambers, he was barred from her presence by the guards at the door — the same guards who had admitted him a hundred times before.
On his insistence, one of her women was called and sent in to tell the Queen that it was Senmut who sought admission — and that he had a special and private gift he wanted to deliver to her personally.
T
