Morning Star
1910
The year is unrecorded, but Egypt's golden throne trembles. Prince Abi, governor of Memphis and lord of the Delta, has moored his ship of state beneath Thebes' walls, not to pay homage to the Pharaoh, but to claim what he believes is rightfully his. Yet Abi carries a dangerous secret: his blood mixes Egyptian royalty with the conquered Hyksos line, and the priests have their own candidate for the throne. She is Neter-Tua, the Morning Star, a princess whose very name is prophecy, born under omens that promise either salvation or ruin for the kingdom. As astrologer Kaku reads the heavens and princes scheme in shadowed halls, love and ambition collide with the weight of ancient gods who have not yet finished speaking. Haggard crafts his Egypt as a world where the divine bleeds into the mortal, a realm of golden barges and ritual murders, where a single woman's birth can threaten a dynasty and a prince's kiss can reshape history. The novel moves with the momentum of forbidden romance and the slow burn of political conspiracy, each chapter tightening the noose around characters we cannot help but root for. For readers who ache for adventure that breathes the dust of tombs and smells of lotus and blood, Morning Star delivers the romance of empire in its most primal form.
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X-Ray
“sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the day of purification, she bade the nurse bring the beautiful babe, and gazed at it long and blessed it, and spoke with the Ka or Double of the child, which she said she saw lying on her arm beside it, bidding that Ka protect it well through the dangers of life and death until the hour of resurrection. Then she said that she heard Amen calling to her to pay the price which she had promised for the gift of the divine child, the price of her own life, and smiled upon Pharaoh her husband, and died happily with a radiant face. Now joy was turned to mourning, and during all the days of embalming Egypt wept for Ahura until, at length, the time came when her body was rowed””
— H. Rider Haggard
“Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the day of purification, she bade the nurse bring the beautiful babe, and gazed at it long and blessed it, and spoke with the Ka or Double of the child, which she said she saw lying on her arm beside it, bidding that Ka protect it well through the dangers of life and death until the””
— H. Rider Haggard
“Thus the husband is buried at Memphis and the wife in Koptos, yet the Ka of the wife goes to live in her husband's tomb””
— H. Rider Haggard
“Although I know no actual precedent for it, in the case of a particularly powerful Double, such as was given in this romance to Queen””
— H. Rider Haggard
