"Sitamun?" Dhjutmose walked across the balcony, his sister kept her face hidden from him, but he could still see tears falling down her cheeks. "Why are you crying?"
"It's nothing." Her wig covered her face, she kept her head still, turned firmly away from him.
"Alright." He put a hand gently on her shoulder. "You don't have to tell me."
She sniffed quietly. He stood behind her looking out over the palace grounds. The moon was full, the air was warm. There were voices down below. People talking and laughing in the courtyard, the sound of ceramic cups clinked together as friends drank irep long into the night, clustered around the fire.
"Look," whispered Djhutmose, pointing to the sky, "a benu bird."
"Mut used to tell me stories about the ancient benu bird, when she had more time, before the others were born." Sitamun sighed. "I miss those days."
"Me too." He smiled. "She used to say the benu of old were taller than men, its wings wider than a date palm. If you see the Benu it is a sign that a traveller will come home, a sign that what was lost may still be found. The Benu is the ba soul in physical form who flies into the moon."
"Do you think that benu could be the soul of my child, flying back to the Neterworld to be reborn?"
Djhutmose looked at her again, she looked back at him, her eyes an endless darkness, swallowing the light of the moon. "Oh." He shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what to say, "You were...?"
"I was." She broke eye contact, cutting him off from the weight of her grief, and looked back up to the sky. "Not anymore."
He wasn't used to this kind of talk, none of his sisters really spoke to him about their feelings, especially not Sitamun. They had never been close, and she had always been calm; composed; self controlled. Djhutmose tried to remember any time he had caught her crying before, but he couldn't think of any, not even as children. He felt almost honoured to have seen her at such a vulnerable moment, and he dealt with it the way he dealt with the rest of his life, by telling stories, and with good humour.
"Look at that sky, Sita. Isn't it beautiful?"
She looked up. It was. The sky was full of stars, the air was fragrant. It was the Season of Emergence, and everything was ripe and fruitful, you could smell it in the sweetness of the air. Yet it only filled Sitamun with bitterness, that she could not grow life, that she could not bear fruit.
"You see all the stars up there, Sita? They are all held up by goddess Nut. She holds them all within. She stretches herself above us, her fingers and toes planted on the earth, she watches over us, her children curled up under her belly. And all the stars in the sky are lanterns lit up by our ancestors, who guide us with their light. Your child is up there, too. A pure neverending light, a bird in flight, the breath in your body and the North Wind that blows. Your child has simply become all things again, pure energy that changes form, and so they will return to you again, and be reborn as new love."
Sitamun looked at him, and she smiled. "Dua ek, Djhuti." Then she looked sadly again up at the night sky. "Do you think I'll have another child?"
"Of course. You just need to relax. Aunt Petepihu says that the worst thing a woman can do, if she wants children, is to worry. She didn't have children for years and years. When she got married everyone started asking her, when will the child come? When will it come? Is it not time yet? Pharaoh asked her, Mutemwiya asked her, her husband's parents asked her. All they ever asked her was when will the baby come. It went on and on like that, at every festival, and every dinner. As soon as she went to Suten-henen for five months with Uncle Metjen, escaped the relentless questioning of the family, and actually relaxed, she got pregnant."
She frowned and faced him, "What makes you think I'm not relaxed?"
He met her eyes and raised a brow. "Sitamun, do you know yourself?"
A laugh escaped her lips. "You're right." She hummed to herself, leaned over the cool stone of the balcony and rested her head in one hand. "Maybe I can be a little serious sometimes. But someone has to be, you never were."
"Yeah," Djhutmose ran a hand through his hair, "I guess--I guess it's a lot of responsibility to be Pharaoh, and I knew that one day that part of me would die. The part of me that can be careless, and make jokes and tell stories. I'd have to be serious, I'd be responsible for everyone. For the family. For the Two Lands. That's a lot."
"It is." Sitamun's fingers grazed her wrist, fiddling with her gold bracelets. "I didn't realise."
"What? That I think about the future?"
"That you think." She laughed again, a full, musical laugh. "I'm only joking."
"This isn't like you, Sita. You never joke." He wasn't offended. He liked this version of her. More vulnerable. More real. "You should be like this more often."
She turned towards him, the moon shone down on them and she smiled slightly. "It's not easy, you know, being the serious one. It's not like I mean to be, it's just--well, one of us has to be. Don't be offended, I like that you make us laugh, all of us."
