CHAPTER 3When Hatshepsut’s husband Aa-kheper-en-Ra, died after an undistinguished rule, she — sole living representative of the pure royal bloodline through Aah-mes, her mother — was made Regent for her husband’s son by a lesser wife.
At first she had not disputed the role, though it irked her that she who had been behind almost every decision her husband had made, and was now openly making decisions for the Two Lands, should always stand behind the small and arrogant figure of her stepson-nephew, Men-kheper-Ra, and suffer the smirks of his mother, named Ast, most inappropriately, after the goddess Isis.
It was not long before certain shrewd and ambitious men, noting her impatience at the subordinate role she was forced to play and aware of the proud blood that flowed in her veins from t
