Ay folded his arms and began to pace, eyes hooded and suddenly sleepy, broad brow furrowed under the rim of his yellow helmet. “If you had not been so preoccupied with Pharaoh’s condition, you would be able to answer those questions yourself. Pharaoh has always feared death at the hands of his son, and you have pondered the matter like a dog worrying a piece of meat from a bone. But you forget that the prince has also gone in daily terror of his life, and until his father dies, he will not be safe from the caprices of an old man who has lived his whole life under the sway of the most powerful soothsayer the world has known, and who may still turn and accuse his son of causing his illness with spells. Amunhotep’s mad journey through Thebes was a way of making Egypt aware of his existence, of insisting on his right to live, the right to vengeance if he dies.”
“Pah! You speak in silly riddles! I think it is the taste of impending power, sweet in his mouth, that has prompted it. He will become as arrogant as his uncle.”
Ay stopped pacing, and his arms loosened. The wide mouth parted in a smile of complicity. “It is unfortunate that you have no royal blood in your veins, Tiye. You and I should have been man and wife.”
“A fully royal woman legitimizing the claim of her brother, as in the old days? You fancy yourself in the Double Crown?”
He grimaced, still smiling. “Only in moments of extreme boredom.”
“What of Horemheb?” Tiye turned from her brother’s warm gaze. “He did not handle himself well.”
“On the contrary, he behaved with the instinctive good sense of the born soldier when he dismissed the impossible solution and concentrated on the possible. And I think you ought to take note of his reasons for admitting Mutnodjme so freely into the prince’s presence. In any event, she has already returned home. Her cousin has failed to hold her interest. My daughter has no ambitions, unless they are to keep her life as full of variety and comfort as possible.”
Tiye’s hand went to the ankhs hanging from her bracelet. “Words, words,” she said softly. “And under them all is a great happiness that my son has come home. You and I have become too much like mice immobilized by fear of hawks circling above that we cannot see. It is time to relax and fix our gaze on the abundance of the fields around us.”
“A pretty speech,” he murmured dryly, and she laughed at her own pomposity and dismissed him.
In the evening she took her attendants and went in search of her son. His sumptuous apartments were still in chaos as his servants hurried to unpack the chests and boxes that had accompanied him from Memphis and the palace craftsmen delivered the furniture Tiye had ordered. After one glance inside the silver doors opening to his reception hall, she went out into the garden and finally found him sitting in the grass by the edge of the lake, just as she had always seen him in the harem, his legs tucked under him, a crowd sitting or lying with him. She scanned them quickly as her herald ordered them to make their obeisances. Nefertiti had had her arm linked with his before she knelt to bow to her aunt, and Sitamun had been reclining very prettily on one elbow, her scarlet linen pulled tight over the suggestive mounding of one hip. Amunhotep rose and came forward smiling, arms outstretched, taking her hands and kissing her gently on the mouth.
“Tell me who these men are with their faces in the dirt,” she said good-humoredly as Piha unfolded her chair. “Sitamun, you should not be publicly lolling among the flowers like some little concubine. Piha, send for another chair.”
Sitamun gave her a look of mortification as she came to her feet and pulled the gossamer-thin blue cloak across her breasts with both nervous hands.
“But the grass has just been watered,” Amunhotep said in his high, lilting voice. “Sitamun was enjoying it.” He waved an arm over the company. “Majesty Mother, these are my friends. Pentu, priest of the temple of Ra-Harakhti at On. Panhesy, also priest of the sun, whom I have made my chief steward. Tutu, who has so diligently written down my words and whose hand you saw in my letters to you. Kenofer, Ranefer…” One by one the men left the ground and kissed her feet, looking up at her with a mixture of reverence and challenge. With few exceptions they were distinctive for the shaven skulls and long white kilts of their priesthood. Around their necks or emblazoned on their forearms were the emblems of the God of the Horizon, the hawk with the disk.
“Mahu,” she said as one man raised kohled eyes to hers. “What are you doing here? Have you lost your headship of the Mazoi?” So this is my son’s spy, she thought. Chief of the Memphis city police.
Mahu smiled ruefully. “No, indeed, Majesty, but the prince has seen fit to include me, a humble soldier, in his circle of friends.”
A humble soldier with a not-so-humble liking for the secrets of your queen, Tiye thought again. “And you, Apy? Are you neglecting Pharaoh’s interests in order to sit in the grass at Thebes?”
“Certainly not, Divine One,” the man replied swiftly, bent double before her. “I simply accompanied the prince on his journey and will take this opportunity to report to the Overseer of the Royal Estates directly on the condition of Pharaoh’s holdings in Memphis before returning home.”
Tiye sat, and the company relaxed. Amunhotep sank to the grass, pulling his feet in under him, and immediately Nefertiti went down with him, knee to knee. Tiye wondered what she had interrupted, having noticed several scrolls scattered in the grass, together with dishes containing the remains of pastries and cups half full of wine. She became aware of her son’s placid yet steady gaze on her and turned to him. “What did you think of Thebes, Amunhotep?”
He considered the question with a seriousness it did not deserve. “The streets are filthy,” he said at last, “and the common people smell.”
The little crowd burst out laughing, and Tiye heard the familiar note of a fawning sycophancy in the sound. Amunhotep did not even smile but continued to hold his gaze on her. She was suddenly aware that he was assessing her, weighing her against the balance on some scale whose meaning was a mystery to her. It made her embarrassed and suddenly aware of her age among this gathering of the young.
“Did you feel that you had to see it, after Mutnodjme’s tales?” she asked politely.
He dropped his eyes. “Perhaps.”
“I prefer Memphis also”—she smiled—”but I try to remember that without the princes of Thebes in the ancient days, our country would still be under the yoke of foreigners. Besides, Thebes is Amun’s home. Under all that filth and decay is a noble, proud city.” Several of the young men glanced at each other. Amunhotep studied his hands.
“What you say is true, Majesty Aunt,” Nefertiti responded, “but let us all appreciate Thebes with the river flowing between us and the city.” Tiye could not fail to note the girl’s animation, the sparkle in the gray eyes, the exaggeratedly graceful gestures. “Tell me, Great One, what do you think of the new Khatti ambassador and his train? What wildmen!”
At the new subject of conversation the little group loosened and began to chatter. For a while longer Tiye sat and talked with them of inconsequential things. Sitamun was still sulking. Her responses were monosyllabic but polite. In the end Tiye left them, feeling as she did so that directly her back was turned, they would continue with the discussion that she had interrupted. Putting them out of her mind, she went to Pharaoh’s bedchamber. For once the painted mats that covered the windows had been raised, and as the lamps had not yet been lit, the evening shadows lay gently across the tiled floor. Apuia was serving the king his meal, and Surero stood ready to assist. Servants crossed and recrossed the room with silent purpose, and in a corner a single harp player fingered a plaintive melody. There was no sign of the boy, but as she approached the couch and bowed, Tiye heard laughter outside in the garden and glanced out the window in time to see him go racing by, Pharaoh’s greyhounds in pursuit.
“See, I am eating,” Amunhotep said good-naturedly. “The fever is down, and my teeth have stopped trembling in my gums. Come and sit on the couch. Tia-Ha was here last night, bearing me quinces and plenty o
f gossip. So the eunuch has returned.”
Tiye settled herself beside his feet, shaking her head at the dishes immediately offered but accepting wine from Surero. “The measure of a man should not be taken only when he draws a bow or throws a spear, as you have told me often enough,” she retorted, sipping the cool red liquid with relish. “Your son has no love of military arts, though he can drive a chariot well enough. I presume when you call him eunuch, you are not denigrating his religious or musical pursuits.”
“Well, he looks like a eunuch,” Pharaoh grumbled, swallowing delicately. “With that thick mouth and the stooped shoulders. I suppose you want my seal on the marriage contract.”
“It is time, Amunhotep.”
“Then we shall see what kind of a eunuch your eunuch is.” He raised his cup to her, and his eyes twinkled mischievously over the rim as he drank. “I have read the scroll.”
“It is a perfectly ordinary contract.”
“Return it to me tomorrow. I will affix my seal. Have you given any thought to a contract for little Smenkhara?”
“No, but I daresay you have. By the time he is of marriageable age, Sit amun will be too old to produce heirs with fully divine blood in their veins.”
“But not too old to give Smenkhara as strong a claim to the throne as our present heir if he marries her.” He waved away the ruins of his meal and leaned back. In spite of his forced cheerfulness Tiye saw that one side of his face was swollen, and that a thin film of sweat had broken out across his upper lip.
“In that case there could be civil war if Smenkhara pressed a claim, and there would certainly be no children,” she said crossly. “Your son and Nefertiti will produce dozens of royal children. The game palls, Amunhotep.”
“Yes,” he agreed unexpectedly, his eyes closed. “It does. Surero, bring in the Syrian acrobats and have the lamps lit. Are you going, Tiye?”
The question was petulant, and she stood and looked down on him with sympathy, for he was seldom a whiner. “I must feast tonight with the Alashian delegation,” she explained. “The contract will be before you tomorrow, Horus. May your name live forever.”
He opened his eyes, surprised at the formal farewell. “Yours also. Give my condolences to Nefertiti.”
He always manages to have the last word, she thought with inward laughter as she swept out.
5
As Pharaoh had promised, the contract was sealed and delivered into the palace archives, and Nefertiti became a princess and his son’s wife with the pressing of his ring into the warm wax. Amunhotep listened to Surero’s minute account of the celebratory feasting that would be held for the pair with a lack of attention, finally ordering Smenkhara to be brought to him and playing with the baby throughout the rest of Surero’s report.
Pharaoh did not attend the simple rite of royal marriage that took place a few days later at Karnak, but Tiye was not concerned. She knew that it was the ratifying of the contract that had been important. Commoners did not regard marriage as a religious undertaking, and it was only royal gods who sought the blessing of Amun on the unions that would produce more divine beings. Nevertheless, Tiye took a delight in seeing her son and Nefertiti, resplendent in silver and dressed in blue and white, the imperial colors, standing solemnly with hands joined before Amun’s mighty sanctuary. When it was over, there was a feast that was open to all, but Tiye, suddenly exhausted, left it as soon as she could. I have accomplished a great deal in a short time, she thought as Piha slipped the yellow gown from her shoulders and bowed her into her sleeping robe. Now I am tired. I need time in which to do absolutely nothing.
She decided to visit her private estates at Djarukha, a journey she had not made in years. The season was making her restless in a way she understood only too well. The river had risen, turning the country into a vast, calm lake. Idle peasants flocked to Pharaoh’s building projects at Luxor, Soleb, and the Delta, and work went on in his tomb, its gaping entrance now lapped by the waters of the Inundation. The sowing had begun and soon new crops would thrust against the wet, black soil, while persea and date palms spread tender green leaves to a Ra become beneficent and forgiving. Fish teemed in the river and the canals, eggs hatched in the nests along the banks, and Tiye’s own body made her feverish with the vitality of spring.
“Come with me, Ay,” she urged him as they sat side by side on the roof of her audience hall. Shaded by her canopy, they were enjoying the scented breezes and the glitter of sun on the water beyond the lushly waving crops that spread between the dun cliffs at their back and the snaking Nile. “We will stop at Akhmin for a few days and persuade Tey to come, too. I have nothing to do. No foreign crises, no policies to determine, and Pharaoh’s health is stable. I am beginning to fancy that I can smell Thebes, and I can certainly hear it. I want the quiet of the little house Amunhotep built for me all those years ago.”
Ay glanced at her and then away, knowing as well as she what had prompted the sudden urge to travel. “If you like, Majesty,” he offered noncommittally. “But are you sure that you do not also need to get away from them?” He indicated the little group gathered in the shade of the prince’s apartment wall. From where he and Tiye sat, the prince himself could be clearly seen, cross-legged on the grass as usual, short white kilt rumpled above thin knees, white helmet bobbing as he gesticulated at the listening crowd. His words did not reach Ay and Tiye, but there was no mistaking the authority in the abrupt movements of the hands, the confidence in the uplifted face.
Tiye clicked her tongue. “Look at him!” she said. “He drifts about his apartments with Nefertiti on one arm and that gaggle of priests all around him, arguing, arguing while the sun pours down outside. His nights are spent plucking on his lute and dictating songs. What is the matter with him? He should be splashing in the water with her, running naked under the sycamores, lying with her under the stars. What is he saying to them with such passion?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
She turned her head to look at him. “I am not sure I want to know,” she replied simply. “His presence here has already changed the mood of the palace, but I cannot say how. I wait for word of Nefertiti’s first pregnancy, but that word does not come. Only silly servants’ rumors that I ignore.”
“You have never ignored a rumor in your life,” he objected. “Nor have you shrunk from the truth, however painful that may be. Why do you want to run away?”
“Because I am beginning to wonder if the game I have played with Pharaoh has gone too far and I am unable to undo a mistake. It is not a game anymore. There sits the future lord of the greatest empire in the world, with more power latent in his hands than the gods themselves have. What kind of a pharaoh am I forcing on Egypt in order to vindicate my hatred of a dead man and show my hold over a living one?”
“You are being too complicated,” he chided her gently. “The throne is his by right. It is the prospect of letting go that terrifies you, the rumors of his impotence that titillate you with a vision of Egypt remaining in your hands forever. Summon him and ask him what he teaches these hangers-on of his. Summon my daughter and ask her if she is still a virgin. Why do you shrink?”
“I shall go to Djarukha with all my musicians and friends,” she snapped. “There I shall bathe alone and take long sleeps in the heat of the day and think about what you have said. I shall get drunk at sunset and laugh immoderately over nothing. Oh, smell the wind, Ay, so full of flowers!” She stretched luxuriously. “The season of Peret always wakens memories in me, good memories. I find myself dreaming of how it was when Father and Mother were alive and we were all at Akhmin, or the many summers Pharaoh and I spent at the palace in Memphis, drunk with each other.”
“I know,” he responded quietly. “This is the only time of the year that I fancy I hear Nefertiti’s mother laughing among the women. I love Tey dearly and do not want to relive the past, but it lies in waiting every spring.”
They went on talking desultorily of the past, but their eyes were drawn to the gr
oup on the grass, and finally their conversation died away.
Tiye sailed to Djarukha on a river that had regained its banks, stopping at Akhmin to sweep Tey and her servants into the royal entourage. As Thebes receded and they left the green, landscaped estates of the nobles behind, Tiye allowed herself to surrender to the atmosphere of rural Egypt. She, Ay, and Tey sat under awnings on the deck watching the tiny mud-brick villages slip by, set in the hectic green of the new crops. The river itself was busy with native and foreign craft plying between Memphis and Thebes, but Tiye, dozing with eyes half-closed as her slave whisked at the flies around her, let her thoughts meander across the palm-delineated fields to the sheltering cliffs and the desert beyond, to an Egypt redolent with Ma’at, unchanging and peaceful, under the superficial shouts and cries of commerce.
“Already I feel calmer,” she remarked to her brother and Tey one violet evening as they sat replete after the last meal, listening to the soft wailing of pipes from the stern and turning their faces to the pungent night breeze. “Malkatta is the heart of Egypt, but it is all too easy to forget that the country is the body. When we do leave the palace, it is to scurry to Memphis with curtains drawn against the eyes of the fellahin. Our idea of beauty becomes the formality of royal lakes and flower beds ranked like a military division on display.”
“Perhaps Your Majesty would like to call a scribe and dictate a poem,” Ay murmured dryly. “Something extolling the virtues of a simple life. The fellahin would be gratified to know that the soil they water with their sweat is beautiful.”
“Oh, I don’t think they would,” Tey said, her hands moving nervously in the chaos of cosmetics, bits of jewelry, small tools, and uncut stones that traveled with her everywhere. “They have no conception of beauty, and it would only upset them to try and teach them anything. Look at this piece of jasper, Ay.” She held up a red stone against whose surface the sunset was sullenly etched. “I polished it myself for days. Artificial flowers are coming into vogue, and I thought I would try my hand at reproducing the red karkadeh, but there’s a small brown flaw in the upper corner. It didn’t show at first. I was desolate.”
The Twelfth Transforming Page 8