CHAPTER 13The inundation came, but tardily. The great river rose and swelled at last and overflowed its banks. The life-giving black silt was on the move.
Hatshepsut thanked her father Amun-Ra by giving vast donations of land to his temples, land that supported crops and people and villages, goats and cattle and geese. The priests of Amun-Ra could draw on more resources of manpower and produce than any other in the Two Lands, with the exception of the Pharaoh herself.
Until the waters came, Hatshepsut had been morose and tetchy. Every day she went from Amun’s temple on the east bank to her own, rapidly growing, personal mortuary temple on the west bank. Supplicants to the throne were barely listened to. Most of them were dealt with by Hapuseneb.
He did not know what was bothering her, b
