6
As day followed day, the courtiers grew accustomed to the presence of the Ra priests drifting quietly around them. Changes in religious fashion were frequent at court, and while the omnipotence of Amun, his consort, Mut, and their son, Khonsu, was taken for granted, the lesser deities, and sometimes foreign ones as well, enjoyed brief vogues before falling out of favor before new gods to be wooed and importuned.
It relieved Tiye to see that Amunhotep, having made his gesture of childish rebellion, was now accepting his place. He seldom went into the harem any longer, and when he did, it was merely to visit those of his father’s older women who had been kind to him. If his glance strayed to Tadukhipa or Pharaoh’s other young wives, he quickly allowed himself to be diverted to safer pursuits. He was politely loving to Tiye, and she often wondered if the imperceptible distance that had developed between them dated from their odd conversation, if indeed he had been trying to tell her something she had missed and that had put him on his guard. Often in the dark quiet hours before dawn when she would come awake suddenly and lie unable to fall asleep again, she would feel his soft mouth pressed against the backs of her hands with an urgency that, try as she might, she could not decipher.
Through the anxious months of harvest and the hot, dead days of the season of Shemu, Tiye saw the administration settle into a rhythm of government that differed little from the current that had flowed under her since the days of her youth. Pharaoh lingered in the twilight world of the chronic invalid, no longer emerging to feast or enjoy his garden, dealing only halfheartedly with the few official documents that could not be sealed by his wife, and returning tiredly to his boy, his sorcerers, and his naked dancers. He was drinking steadily, with the determination of the fatalist to muffle all but the present, and on her more and more infrequent visits Tiye almost always found him bloated, feverish, and lazily incoherent.
She herself was spending much of her time in the Office of Foreign Correspondence, wrestling with matters of diplomacy, for Eriba-Adad, king of Assyria, had died, and both the Khatti and Mitanni were eyeing the Assyrians with feral greed and Egypt with wary flattery. She and Ay spent long hours discussing the letters she dictated to Suppiluliumas and Tushratta, blending veiled threats with bribery and allusions to Egypt’s military supremacy, a pursuit Tiye had always enjoyed. She also made her annual state pilgrimage upriver to Soleb in Nubia, beyond the second cataract, and stood arrayed in the disk and double plumes, cobra, and horns of her divinity in the temple her husband had built for her there. Her own colossal image stared coldly back at her through the thin blue fog of incense, and her priests lay supine around her like a flock of wingless white birds.
The journey south had always delighted her, and until now the solemn yearly repetition of ritual had not blunted the pleasure she took in watching her superiority confirmed. But this year the listlessness of yet another blistering summer smothered her every nerve in fatigue, and she returned uninspired to Malkatta to endure the remainder of the season.
One welcome break in its tedium was an announcement from the princess’s herald that Nefertiti was pregnant. Amunhotep received the formal congratulations of the court and the delighted bows of his family with grace, and Nefertiti preened before her excited women and spent much time fingering the little gifts showered on her by the inhabitants of the harem. Pharaoh lent her the services of his personal magician so that the spells of protection could be prepared properly, and Tiye gave her a lucky amulet she herself had worn while carrying Amunhotep.
But the excitement soon paled for Tiye, and she withdrew from the happy furor. It was too hot to remain in a state of delight. Sometimes she sent for Smenkhara and his cooing nurses, smiling at him as he lazily batted at her necklaces. But she was not a woman who gloried in her motherhood and instead found herself speculating on him as a grown man, a prince of Egypt. Would he become a threat to his brother, Amunhotep? Perhaps Nefertiti’s child would be female, a suitable wife for him if no royal son appeared. But if her child was male, Smenkhara would stay a prince forever.
Yet whether pacing the halls of Malkatta, sitting on her throne to hear the dispatches and reports, or presiding over the endless feasting where below her on the floor of the banqueting chamber a dozen strange languages filled the air, Tiye was increasingly coming to view the country, the empire, even herself, poised on the brink between a judgment and its results, as though Anubis had lowered all hearts onto the holy scales in the dark hall where the spirits of the dead were scrutinized. She could discern no outward reason for this recurring impression, but with the experience of twenty years of active rule she did not dismiss it.
One morning just before the month of Thoth began, Tiye was pondering the difficulties of celebrating a new Feast of Opet without a pharaoh competent enough to perform the ceremonies when the Second Prophet of Amun was announced. Piha draped a scarlet sheath around her, and Tiye, surprised by the visit, indicated that the prophet should be admitted. Si-Mut entered bent almost double, his shaved skull gleaming with beads of sweat, his priestly ribbons stuck to his forehead.
“Stand and speak,” she said, going to sit at her cosmetic table. “But I remind you, Si-Mut, that I do not customarily give audience in my bedchamber.” The cosmetician opened his box and began to brush the yellow paint over her cheeks.
“I apologize, Goddess, and realize that my news is perhaps known to you already, but seeing you have not been to Karnak for many months, I humbly take the chance that it is not.”
Tiye closed her eyes while the manservant smoothed the green eye paint over her lids. “If I had wanted to go to Karnak, I would not have hired a priest to perform my duties there. What is the matter?”
“Prince Amunhotep yesterday stretched the white cords for his new temple to the Aten within the sacred precincts.”
Tiye felt the kohl brush against her temples. “I know that. He and his architects have been fussing over the plans to extend the Aten shrine at Karnak for months. It is a harmless building project and makes him happy.” She opened her eyes and picked up the mirror as the cosmetician dabbed a fresh brush into the red henna. Behind her own bronze reflection she could see the face of the young priest, hunched and anxious.
“This morning, Majesty, Princess Nefertiti is performing the same ceremony.”
“What of it? I presume you mean in preparation for the new palace my son has commissioned on the east bank.”
Si-Mut took a deep breath. “No, Majesty, I do not.”
With difficulty Tiye controlled her lips while the brush moved softly over them, her eyes narrowed as she watched Si-Mut struggle to hide his own anxiety. She set the mirror down, and the cosmetician began to tidy away his pots. Her hairdresser stood waiting nearby, the black-ringleted wig held in both hands. Tiye swung around. “Do you mean to say that Nefertiti is laying the foundations for another Aten temple?”
“Yes, Holy One.”
“Leave me. And send Nen immediately.”
Si-Mut immediately bowed and, arms outstretched, backed out the door. The hairdresser settled the heavy wig carefully onto the thick reddish curls and began to touch the tresses with perfumed oil. Tiye sat very still, her mind working furiously. When Nen was announced, she rose and spoke before he had finished his obeisance.
“You are responsible for keeping me informed on matters relating to Karnak. It seems you have used your time to swill wine at my table and lie in your boat on the river.”
At her soft tone he whitened. His glance flew fearfully to her hands, lying deceptively loose at her sides.
“Majesty, if I am accused of negligence, I wish to know my accuser.”
“I am your accuser! You brought me no word of the princess’s plans for Karnak.”
He kept his eyes on her hands and said in a puzzled voice, “I made a report to you of the plans both the prince and the princess had for building a temple.”
“You did not indicate that the princess was building her own temple. Her architects must have wan
dered the sacred precincts, there must have been rumors. I do not like to be uninformed. You are dismissed from my service, and my patronage is withdrawn. Go home to Memphis.”
The moment when she might have struck him had passed, and with obvious relief he raised his head. “Majesty, Princess Nefertiti allows no one near her but those servants chosen for her by the prince. The ones you hired for her have been relegated to the second circle. It is very difficult to get word of her doings. It is true that her architects have been busy at Karnak, but always in the company of the prince’s men. They have all been using the project offices of Queen Sitamun.”
Sitamun knows my men, Tiye thought. It would not be hard for her to keep knowledge from them. She is begging to be disciplined, but then, Sitamun has always been a gambler, and her timing has always been bad. Can she not see that it is too soon to be so obvious? How could Pharaoh and I have bred such a fool?
“Leave me. And Malkatta. Immediately.” When he had slunk away, Tiye turned to Piha.
“The onyx earrings and the royal coronet today. Hang an Eye of Horus and an ankh beside the sphinx on my pectoral, and I will wear the new clay rings around my neck also. When you have finished dressing me, order the royal barge, fanbearers, and my herald. I am going across the river.”
The day was like a giant crucible, feeding heat through the curtains of her litter as she was carried to her barge, and it intensified as Tiye disembarked at the Karnak water steps. Ptahhotep and Si-Mut waited to kiss the burning pavement before her. It had always seemed to her that Thebes was hotter in summer than the west bank, more fetid in the time of humidity, noisier during the tumultuous weeks of Opet. She had made no effort to conquer her distaste for the city and no longer felt uneasy that Malkatta had been built in such close proximity to the houses of the dead. Over the welcoming chants of Amun’s priests and the rattle of the systra held in their immaculate hands, she could hear the grind of Theban daily life. Peddlers screamed raucously in the streets. Donkeys brayed, carts rumbled, street musicians set up a harsh jangle, men and women argued, and children shrieked. The odor of the city drifted over Karnak’s sheltering walls and through the sacred gardens, a mixture of rotting offal and cooking spices that caused Tiye to lift a lock of her lotus-drenched wig to her nose. Behind her Aten Gleams rocked invitingly on the low tide of the river, which added its own stench of mud and wet vegetation. She sighed inwardly and stepped onto her litter, ignoring the clustered priests. “Take me to Princess Nefertiti,” she commanded before letting the damask curtains fall closed. Sweat welled from under the tight band of her wig, trickled down her scarlet-covered spine, and prickled uncomfortably beneath her arms.
She lay still as the litter swayed along the paved paths crisscrossing the city within a city that was the home of every powerful deity Egypt wooed. At length the bearers lowered her gently to the ground. Tiye raised the curtain onto a group of startled men and women, who watched her step forth in a hushed silence. Her fanbearers sprang to cover her. The assembly went down onto the churned earth. In one sweeping glance Tiye took in the silver dish full of white paint held in the arms of an Aten priest, the pile of thin cords at his feet, the bull standing stolid and uncomplaining as it waited for the knife, and the dry, black soil turned over when the trenches for the foundations had been dug. Beyond, the bulk of the temple of Mut cast a thin shade, and to right and left colonnades, pylons, and avenues lined with statues shimmered in the heat. Let them lie, Tiye thought grimly, looking down on the group from under the wide-tasseled canopy. “The princess,” she said tersely to her herald and watched him walk to Nefertiti, who was crouched but not resting on the fiery ground. In the moment of quiet, the whisks made a pleasing susurration, and the flies hung like black dust in the air. Nefertiti rose and glided toward Tiye with a grace unaltered by her distended belly, her eyes squinting against the glare. Tiye dismissed her fanbearers and motioned the girl in under her own sunshade.
“This is Karnak, Nefertiti,” she said without preamble. “Why are you building a new temple to the Aten here when your husband is enlarging the shrine that already exists?”
Nefertiti looked at her coolly. “Because it is right that I make a ben-ben of my own where I can worship the god by myself.”
“Tradition forbids the erection of a temple for a mere woman.”
“But I will soon be a goddess, Majesty Aunt. Amunhotep is eager to see me performing my own obeisances in a temple my zeal has caused me to build.” She paused, then added, caustically, “Remember, you have a temple all to yourself at Soleb.”
“I am worshipped at Soleb as the divinity Pharaoh commanded that I should be! You are still only a princess and may never achieve that degree of immortality. Not only are the Amun priests made anxious by this show of preference for the Aten, they are offended by your lack of discrimination.”
“Do not lecture me on matters of religious taste, Majesty Aunt,” Nefertiti said quietly. “You hardly ever set foot inside Karnak except for the unavoidable observances. You have a predilection for being worshipped rather than worshipping.”
“But this”—Tiye waved contemptuously at the rough site—“could ultimately affect the stability of Ma’at in Egypt.”
“I do not think so. Amunhotep is also building for Amun, in a small way.”
“A placatory gesture?”
“Perhaps. But at least my husband shows more reverence for the gods than his father did when he built Malkatta on the west bank and removed his divine person from all that is holy. Amunhotep’s new palace on the outskirts of Karnak grows every day.”
Their eyes met, and Tiye thought she caught the glint of sarcasm in Nefertiti’s limpid gaze. I understand my son’s desire to remove himself completely from memories that are bitter to him, she mused as she scanned the oval purity of Nefertiti’s painted face, and it is true that he builds for both Amun and Ra-Harakhti. Then why am I cold with unease?
“Your devotion to the things of the gods does you credit, Nefertiti,” she said aloud, “but never forget that matters of state come first. You would be better occupied with the concerns of diplomacy.”
“I am.”
For the first time Nefertiti smiled, and a wave of anger flushed along Tiye’s veins. “If you cannot love my son, the least you can do is have respect for his kindness and innocence,” she said icily. “You are a child playing silly games with him. See that you do not use him.”
“You insult me, Majesty,” Nefertiti replied, and Tiye struggled to hold her anger in check.
It will not do for me to lose my temper with Nefertiti in public, Tiye thought. However unwise I consider her behavior, I must not provide the court with material for gossip about dissension in my family. “I think this temple is foolish and possibly dangerous,” she said after a moment, “but if Amunhotep desires it, I will let you proceed. Ptahhotep and the other priests will accept it eventually if you are tactful. Don’t stand out in the heat too long, child. You need rest and quiet.” She signaled to her litter bearers and walked stiffly toward them, moving to recline on the cushions and pull the curtains closed with deliberate dignity. “Back to my barge!” she shouted and then closed her eyes as she felt herself lifted. Everything infuriates me these days, she thought. I must try to be reasonable with Sitamun.
Tiye found her daughter lying on the cool marble slab of her private bathhouse, taking a massage. The room was dim, the floor pleasingly damp underfoot, and the tinkle and splash of running water gave an illusion of winter coolness. Sitamun rested on her stomach, chin propped against her folded hands while her body servant pressed and kneaded her firm flesh. She greeted her mother sleepily. “I am honored, Majesty.”
Tiye nodded but made no reply. She watched the respectful hands work the oils into skin that gleamed dully like satin under moonlight. Sitamun often annoyed her, sometimes amused her, sometimes brought a flood of love rising like a pure spring, but only occasionally shook Tiye with jealousy. Today the jealousy was there unbidden, an emotion fully formed a
s she saw the slave brush aside the wealth of dark hair to massage the long neck, the graceful spine, the pleasing curve of the naked buttocks. Sitamun murmured in contentment, turning her head to one side with Tiye’s own slow gesture, smiling slightly with Tiye’s own generous mouth, a woman of dewy freshness.
“I know why you are here, Mother,” Sitamun said, eyes half-closed, “so you need not repeat your warnings. I was happy to lend my architects to my brother and Nefertiti while their new palace was being built. I daresay I shall move into it myself.”
“I could not care less whether you supplied Amunhotep with architects,” Tiye retorted, stepping closer. “Did you know about Nefertiti’s temple?”
Sitamun lifted her head. “Yes, of course. My men were ordered to keep me informed on every aspect of the building projects.”
“Why did you not tell me about it?”
Sitamun looked up lazily. “I presumed everyone knew. Nefertiti’s pomposity is a good subject for gossip. Did you expect me to rush to you outraged at the news and then to protest to her? That would hardly be the way to stay in Amunhotep’s good graces.”
Tiye clenched her jaw. “Is that more important to you than my displeasure?” she said coldly.
“Yes, it is. I am trying to make myself indispensable to him.” She turned onto her back, and Tiye averted her eyes from the hollow belly, the sliding breasts. Sitamun’s hair fell almost to Tiye’s gold-sandaled feet. “I have been a Royal Wife, a queen, for nine years, learning to please a capricious, insatiable man. Oh, I know that Pharaoh took me to his bed because I reminded him of you, but it has been my own skill that has kept me there. Put yourself in my place, Majesty. When Pharaoh dies, I will be relegated to the harem for the rest of my life. You would not accept such a fate, and neither will I. There is no great harm in what I am doing. I quite like my brother.” She flexed one long leg as the masseuse’s fingers dug into her thigh. “He will declare me a queen. Perhaps even empress.”
The Twelfth Transforming Page 10