Little Hatshepsut Like a miracle, a light rain had drifted in from the sea. The sea was a long, long way off and Ahmes looked at it as if it was strange emissary from Hapi . Rain was rare in her world. Little pock marks on the river below her. It looked pretty but she still thought the rain was sad. It was also a little cold, and Ahmes retreated beneath the roof of the shrine… Still she could see the water below her. The river did not mind the rain at all; it simply took those pock marks and swallowed them up. The river is, it just is, she thought… I should not be sad either. But she was. She sat in her family’s shrine on the low cliff above the river, a favourite spot of hers. From here you could watch the fishing boats with their nets or spearmen in the bow, or you saw a full moon ride the river and thought of sesame cakes and feasts when no work was done, or you could watch the river race and froth across the lowlands on the other side. It was Hapi’s gift; the flood with its rich silts and water. It grew the barley her family made into beer, the beer had made her family well to do and so they had a shrine to Hapi on the low cliff above the water near where they’d build their new house...