She had smiled enigmatically, as she often did when she was in that particular mood. “I cannot translate it,” she had said. “My father taught it to me.” When she said “my father” in that way, he knew she meant the god Amun-Ra and not Aa-kheper-ka-Ra, the Pharaoh, her earthly father.
Hatshepsut could not be with him here in the god’s land, Punt, but Senmut could bring her a grove of living incense trees so that she might walk amongst them in her own land in the precincts of Amun’s most holy temple.
Beyond the myrrh terraces the terrain was steeper, rougher, more challenging. The heat, even for an Egyptian, was excessive. Sweat poured from him and once or twice even he wondered if he was being wise to follow the shaman so unquestioningly. The man scarcely looked back, but climbed like a mo
