Ay took the stone from his wife’s rough, blunt fingers. “I was not serious, Tey,” he said, rolling it between forefinger and thumb.
“Oh.” She snatched the jasper back good-naturedly and tossed it into the leather bag in her rumpled lap. “I must press some grape flowers when we get to Djarukha. I was thinking of a circlet done in gold and carnelian, or perhaps even ivory, for Nefertiti. But she seems to want nothing but lapis lazuli these days.”
Tiye glanced across at her sharply, but as usual Tey had spoken out of an absentminded innocence. The little head in its straight, stark, old-fashioned wig was bent over the restless hands. Tiye’s eyes sought her brother’s, but Ay was watching his wife with an indulgent smile. There is no point in trying to discuss Nefertiti with Tey, Tiye mused. I will put them all out of my mind. Besides, where is the harm in Nefertiti’s decking herself with the precious stone from which the hair of deities is fashioned? It is only a matter of time before she herself is deified, and she knows it. The crowns that adorn the likenesses of myself are rimmed in lapis lazuli.
At Djarukha the three of them swam, ate immoderately, and spent the evenings in wine and reminiscences. While Tey laid her collection of flowers under papyrus sheets and wandered the riverbank with her young bodyguard, Tiye and Ay sat in the coolness of the reception hall, sometimes talking, more often than not simply lost in their own thoughts. Ay was anxious to return to his responsibilities in Thebes, Tiye knew, but she herself was content to explore the illusion that she was again a young goddess for whom a pharaoh in the flower of an arrogant maturity waited in the new palace on the west bank. She slept long and deeply in the room that looked out over her own verdant acres, her own orchards and grapevines, and none of her pretty copper mirrors left their cases.
They returned to Thebes a month later, leaving Tey at Akhmin on the way home. Once back at Malkatta, Ay vanished into his offices, and Tiye entered the harem in search of Tia-Ha to hear the latest news. The distance she had just placed between the court and herself, however briefly, had served to heighten her awareness of change, and as she paced the gleaming, echoing corridors, she knew that a new wind was blowing. White-kilted priests bowed to her as she swept by them. Strange, youthful faces bearing the arm bands of the royal scribes and temple overseers turned to her in respectful awe. Rounding a corner, she found herself face to face with a burly soldier, who swiftly covered his face and knelt, his own surprise evident in his clumsy obeisance. He was dressed in a short linen kilt and an unadorned white helmet, and his broad chest was bare but for a gold pectoral of Ra-Harakhti, falcon-headed sun god. From his belt there hung a small scimitar, and in one hand he clutched a spear. What is a temple soldier from On doing here? she wondered, passing him with barely a glance, and the guards on the harem doors opened for her. Kheruef came hurrying to meet her, his staff of office held negligently under one arm, his headcloth wound loosely around his shaved scalp. Enquiring for Tia-Ha, she also ordered him to have Ay in her audience hall at sundown.
Inside the cells of the women it was cool and murmurous with whispers and soft footfalls. The door to Tia-Ha’s apartment stood open, and a gush of perfumed air funneled out to greet Tiye as she entered. Bent over a low ebony table covered with tiny, unsealed alabaster pots was Tia-Ha’s cosmetician, a spoon in each hand. He and his mistress went to the floor, and Tiye waved them to their feet. The stench of myrrh, lotus, and unnameable essences was overpowering.
“What are you doing,” Tiye asked curiously, coming forward. “The smell is making me quite dizzy.”
“I am trying to select a suitable perfume, Majesty,” Tia-Ha replied, stirring in a pot with one hennaed finger and holding it up to her nose. “I am tired of myrrh and aloes and persea. I am hoping also to sell some of these. My cosmeticians say it is a good year for rich oils. Some of these come from a cargo of goods I have had shipped to me from the Great Green Sea in exchange for linen. You can go,” she said, nodding to the man, who laid down his tools and bowed himself out.
“Send some to my own cosmeticians,” Tiye said, “but not the myrrh. The palace is already too full of the whiff of religion.”
Tia-Ha raised both carefully plucked eyebrows, clapped her hands for refreshments, and sank onto the cushions littering the floor as Tiye herself went down.
“But it wafts without bringing pleasure, My Goddess,” she retorted. “A puff of great seriousness and no frivolity. Is Djarukha so far away that your spies have not reached you?”
“I did not wish to see them. Tell me the gossip, Princess.”
Tia-Ha rolled her sooty eyes. “The harem gossip is always dripping with juices but not much fruit. And the body servants of royalty are very close-mouthed.”
“But we are old friends”—Tiye smiled—“and you will tell me all.”
Tia-Ha sighed. Her slave came quietly offering dates and wine. “We see almost as much of the prince as we did in the days when he lived in the apart ment next to this. He and the princess, the priests, and the queen.”
“Sitamun?” Tiye came alert. “Tia-Ha, are there any whispers about Amunhotep and his sister? She will end up dead by royal decree if she is not cautious.”
“There are whispers, of course, but Her Majesty is never alone with the prince. She is too clever for that.”
“Have you seen Pharaoh while I was away? Does he know there is gossip about her?”
“Majesty,” Tia-Ha said gently, pulling a sticky black date from the dish and staring at it thoughtfully, “these are the questions of a novice, a child. Even little Tadukhipa, who walks the passage with one shoulder against the wall and will converse with no one but her aunt, knows the answers. Are you well?”
No, Tiye thought despairingly. I am suddenly old and tired and do not wish to summon the strength to face a new administration. She rose. “Perhaps I wish to be a novice and a child again,” she snapped brusquely. “Your perfumes have given me a headache, Princess.”
“If you want me to spy for you, I will,” Tia-Ha responded equably, “but Kheruef’s women do it better. I prefer to evaluate that which is already known.” She nibbled at the date and then reached for her goblet. “Princess Henut, she of the daunting dignity, came to blows a few days ago with one of the Babylonians. Henut belongs to a fading breed, Majesty. She has always clung to a proper reverence for Amun-Ra, and the incense in her apartment would choke a priest. The Babylonian had been putting on airs. It seems that the prince visited her and burned some incense of his own to the Babylonian’s god. The woman was boasting in front of Henut. Henut struck her with a fly whisk. The Babylonian was foolish enough to slap the princess’s solemn face. Kheruef had her whipped.”
Tiye stared at the beautiful, plump mouth against which a few strands of Tia-Ha’s long black hair had become caught with date juice. “Are you saying that a harem fight was precipitated by…by religion?”
“I am. It seems that Amun still has his champions.”
“I cannot believe it!”
“I must say one more thing.” Tia-Ha rose and met the empress’s eye. “The prince sent a pair of gold earrings to the Babylonian when he heard of her punishment.”
Tiye groaned. “Oh, gods.” The hierarchy within the harem was rigid, and by tradition it was Pharaoh’s Keeper of the Harem Door who meted out punishments and rewards. To flout the custom was not only unwise, it was dangerous. If the women thought they could woo anyone other than the one man set over them, there would be a scramble to bribe, cajole, or threaten, and the harem would become an undisciplined rabble. Amunhotep has lived in it all his life, Tiye thought, incredulous. He must know the unwritten rules. Did he feel that the Babylonian woman was part of his family and must be protected? She turned on her heel and left without another word.
The prince was sitting at an open window, one elbow resting on the sill, his eyes on the bright garden bathed in late afternoon sun below him. At his feet a scribe sat cross-legged, a scroll unrolled under his hands, reading aloud. Tiye had been able to hear the soporif
ic drone long before she made out any words. The gloom in the chamber was cool but for small splashes of white light pouring from the slits beneath the roof. Three or four tiny monkeys in jeweled collars loped and grinned at each other as they eluded the grasp of their keepers, their shrieks echoing against the lines of wooden pillars that fluted up to the dusky blue ceiling. Half-woven lotus wreaths, negligently piled on the prince’s stepped throne, lay quivering and wilting under the lazy batting of a large mottled cat. At Tiye’s herald’s call, Amunhotep swung from the window, and the scribe ceased to read and bowed.
“Majesty Mother! So you have returned! Was Djarukha beautiful? Is all well there?”
She took the outstretched hands, cold and moist to her touch, and then realized with a shock that he was wearing a priest’s pleated kilt slung low under his softly swelling belly, and that his full lips had been stained with henna like a girl’s. She stepped back, tossing her head at the scribe who hurriedly rolled up his scroll and scurried away.
“Djarukha was indeed beautiful, but I return with many questions for you, my son.” As always when she was with him she did not want to make polite conversation. She recoiled from the things she knew she must hear, yet the sincere, defenseless eyes precluded the empty chatter of the courtier.
“I have missed you, Majesty. The palace is not the same without the chance of meeting you around some corner or in the gardens.”
She smiled noncommittally. “Amunhotep, I met a strange soldier today, a guard from On if I am not mistaken. There are no religious ceremonies to bring him from the temple there. Any changes in palace servants should be discussed with Pharaoh or myself, or with the overseer in my absence. I presume this soldier is your man.”
“A contingent arrived a while ago, to guard the priests who are my friends,” he replied without embarrassment.
“Why do the priests need protection here, in a god’s own domain?”
He took her arm and drew her to the window. “Such a lovely day,” he said dreamily. “See the ducks fluffing their feathers and dipping their beaks into the lake. And the way the water cascades from the buckets of the gardeners like melted silver. My priests sometimes make the priests of Karnak angry, Mother, because we have been teaching the supremacy of Ra. They wanted their own guards beside them.”
Tiye felt her spine loosen in relief. She draped both braceleted arms over the sill. “So that is what you have been discussing, huddled together! The supremacy of Ra. Foolish one! The priests of Amun are not going to give such playing with words a second thought. It is commendable that you are seriously trying to continue your father’s policy of encouraging a universal religion in Egypt. It has worked rather well in dealing with foreigners. Amun’s servants are used to the politics of religion, and the great God himself is not threatened by such expediency.”
Amunhotep moved closer to her until his thin shoulder brushed hers. “Amun is of a new order,” he said quickly. “He has risen to great power in Egypt, but he is not the first power. When Thebes was nothing but a collection of mud huts and Amun only the Great Cackler, a nothing, a local deity chained to a village, the sun in his visible glory as Aten ruled all Egypt. The Aten must rule all Egypt again.” The childlike voice had acquired purpose and strength. Tiye did not dare turn her head for the confusion churning in her. “Where did you learn all this?” she managed.
“I know. I have known since I was born. But even if I had begun my life in error, the scrolls drawn up from ancient writings for Pharaoh’s first jubilee would have enlightened me. Ma’at has become perverted. I am delegated to restore it to its former fullness.”
“And of course the priests of Ra are most eager to see Ma’at restored.”
He did not hear, or pretended not to hear, the sarcasm in her voice. “Of course,” he pressed earnestly.
“Amunhotep,” she said, turning at last to face him, “your father is Ma’at, in his body, in his person, as pharaoh of the empire. Wherever he is, there is truth, the rightness of things, custom and tradition and law.”
“So you say.” His full lips suddenly twisted into the semblance of a smile, and anger flooded her for a moment.
“Don’t patronize me, Amunhotep! Be careful how you encourage the sun priests! You are the Horus-in-the Nest and will soon be the incarnation of Amun in Egypt. Karnak is as much your home as Malkatta, and the priests of On must realize this sooner or later. Pursue this religious hobby if you wish, but re member that when Pharaoh dies, the priests must go home!”
“You have not understood.” Suddenly he gripped her hands and, bending his head, began to kiss them with such fervor that she was taken aback. “But you will. Great Mother, Divine Woman, one day your eyes will be opened.” As quickly as the odd fit took him, it was gone. He placed her hands back on the sill, straightening her rings one by one and smiling sweetly at her. She was so dumbfounded that she could only stare at him, trying to gather her wits.
“Amunhotep, I want you to stay out of your father’s harem,” Tiye managed. “You are free; you can begin to acquire women of your own. You need no longer feel drawn to what was both home and prison for you. I have been told what happened between Henut and the Babylonian.”
He sighed. “Majesty, you do not yet understand why I prayed with the Babylonian, do you?”
There was a moment of strained silence. Behind them the monkeys squealed, their claws making little ticking noises against the smooth tile of the floor. The servants chatted among themselves, their eyes on the royal pair, waiting for a summons. The patches of sunlight had shifted position, and the cat, having abandoned the bruised lotus wreaths, lay supple and boneless in sleep.
Tiye shrugged, annoyed. “I understand only what I see, and that is all that can be expected,” she said. “I expect obedience from you as a prince, Amunhotep. Is Nefertiti not pleasing to you? Why have you not begun to buy concubines?”
“I do not want Tehen-Aten,” he replied, and although his long face remained calm, his shrill voice cracked with emotion. “When Pharaoh dies, I will take over his harem.”
“This is Sitamun’s doing!” Tiye felt her legs stiffen and her hands curl in upon themselves with rage. “The queen has been putting ideas into that innocent head of yours. I will not have it!”
“But she is my sister and of royal blood and mine by right.”
Tiye thrust her face close to his. “She is also strong and wily and will try to control you. Don’t you see? She wishes to be chief wife eventually, to supplant Nefertiti.”
“Your eyes are so blue, like a cold sky, like the goddess Nut when she opens her mouth to swallow Ra at evening,” he said gently. “I like them. I like Sitamun, too. She has put all her staff at my disposal. She worships me.”
“Nefertiti worships you also and is beautiful. Get Egypt a son on her, Amunhotep, and if you must have Sitamun when Pharaoh is gone, then take her simply as Royal Wife.” Then see how adoring she is, Tiye thought.
The young man’s gaze fell once more onto the slowly bronzing light filling the garden. He leaned out the window, and Tiye could not tell whether it was a flush of embarrassment spreading under his pale skin or the touch of the westering sun that turned his face dark pink. “A god does not beget children lightly.”
“But you are not yet a god. Let your body play, my son, and your mind lie fallow for a while. Send the priests away.”
He did not answer, and she pressed him no longer. Signaling to her herald, she departed.
Shortly afterward, hungry and unsettled after her odd conversation with her son, Tiye sat on the throne in the middle of her reception hall and told Ay what had passed between herself and the prince. “How many of these soldiers are now in the palace?” she asked him.
“A hundred, Majesty. But the priests outnumber them.”
“A hundred!” The headache that had begun in Tia-Ha’s airless apartment suddenly intensified, making her wince. “Well, we must hope that this foolishness will run its course, and that before long the prince will lose
interest in matters that belong to childhood awe and not to the noon of maturity. I do not want to antagonize him or hurt his feelings by ordering them home. But those priests anger me. They are fawning on a boy who means well, using him. It goes beyond simple bribery.”
“A report from Memphis was waiting for me in my office. It seems that the prince has made a substantial gift to the temple of the sun. But he has also sent grain and honey to Karnak.”
Tiye relaxed. “Then he is simply trying his wings. Poor Horus-Fledgling! Tomorrow I will talk to Nefertiti, but now, dear Ay, I want to sit on the dais among the flowers and eat and watch the entertainments.”
“Pharaoh?” The question was soft, guarded.
“He is apparently no worse. I do not want to face him tonight. I will instruct Kheruef to send him Tia-Ha.”
“Horemheb tells me that Pharaoh has doubled the number of Followers of His Majesty around him.”
“So! Even now the Son of Hapu controls him!”
“He is not foolish. He is aware that the eyes of the courtiers are turning to Amunhotep, and he does not know his son. Besides, royal sons and fathers have murdered each other before now. Amunhotep himself dismissed all Followers appointed to guard him and now uses only the soldiers from On.”
“Has Amunhotep approached any of the army commanders apart from Horemheb?”
“No. He would be foolish to do so, this early. The army clings to what is, not what will be. He will have command of it soon enough.”
“Good.” She got up, reaching for his arm. “Eat with me tonight in Pharaoh’s place. Is little Smenkhara well guarded?”
“Certainly, though I do not think Amunhotep knows enough yet to smell a rival. Everything is under control, Tiye.”
Tiye was not so sure, but tonight she did not care. She felt as empty as a new corpse waiting to be beautified.
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