“It does matter!” Tiye snapped back. “There is trouble brewing in northern Syria. Our vassals are making overtures to a nation that might become an enemy. Any fool but Pharaoh can see it. Egypt may need every soldier she has.”
“Pharaoh is aware of it.”
“Oh, yes.” Her tone was sarcastic. “He reads the dispatches. For him, every word glows with truth. He calls those brigands Aziru and Suppiluliumas his brothers.”
“Why do you take it all to heart? Aziru and Suppiluliumas are arguing as much as agreeing with each other. If they ultimately fight one another, it is good for us. If they make war together on us, we will defeat them. Perhaps a little war will bring Akhenaten to his senses.”
“You are so calm, Ay.” She smiled coldly. “So clever. When I listen to you, I begin to believe that my judgment has deserted me. But I tell you that the jackals smell a weakness in my son, and their appetites are whetted.”
“Then let them try to feed. Egypt is more than powerful enough to ram dry bones down their throats. You used to be able to laugh, Empress, to leave matters of state behind you when you left the ministers’ offices. What is wrong?”
The soft shoulders slumped. “I do not know. You, perhaps. Fanbearer—quite an honor. I am too tired to spy on you, outthink you, brood upon my every suspicion that you are edging me toward my death. I could join my voice to Nefertiti’s and whisper to Pharaoh that you curry his favor only to hold your place as first noble of the kingdom, but I do not want to hurt him, even if it is the truth.”
“There is nothing wrong with following a policy of personal gain in such circumstances, as you would be the first to admit if you were in my position,” Ay pointed out. There was a pause. Tiye’s head was down, her eyes and fingers on the scrolls the Scribe of Assemblage had left. Then Ay said quietly, “You miss him in your bed, don’t you?”
The proud chin rose, but Tiye’s smile was grimly self-deprecatory. “Yes, I do. But it is Osiris Amunhotep Glorified whom I miss most of all.”
“Then find someone to replace him. Your nights need not be cold.”
“It is not that. It is…” She cast about for words, then shrugged. “It is not important. But I have decided finally that when Akhenaten moves the court, I will stay here.”
He nodded. “You realize, then, that you must keep Smenkhara and Beketaten with you.”
Their eyes met. “Of course,” Tiye answered dryly.
In the pause that followed, her gaze dropped to the cluttered desk, and she began to move the scrolls about pensively. After a while Ay said, “Can it be that the empress of Egypt has succumbed to self-pity?” He expected a tart reply, but she raised her head and smiled at him humorlessly.
“It could. The space between us has already grown, Fanbearer. I freely admit that if our positions were reversed, I would behave no differently than you have, but I mourn the loss of your presence already. Allow me the luxury of a purely human weakness.”
She came out from behind the desk, holding her arms toward him, and wordlessly they embraced. Ay knew that in the generosity of her spirit, he was forgiven.
Three months later, in the middle of the harvest, word came to Malkatta that Suppiluliumas’ maneuvers had become a full-scale military campaign, and that the Khatti had indeed waged battle against Aziru in northern Syria. Tiye stood in the Office of Foreign Correspondence surrounded by scribes. Tutu, Scribe of Foreign Correspondence, hovered anxiously in the background, and her son stood pale and sullen before her, his monkeys gibbering around him.
“But we have a peace treaty with Suppiluliumas,” Akhenaten protested, looking uncertainly to the embarrassed Tutu. “Tutu showed it to me. How can we march against him?”
“Majesty, I am not suggesting that we make war on the Khatti,” Tiye said carefully, trying to remain calmly persuasive. “But while they bicker with Mitanni as well as the Amurru, we must visit the border states that are becoming unstable. Our native viceroys there are beginning to wonder at Egypt’s inaction in the face of so much unrest and are beginning to question the advantages of continued allegiance to us. Ribbadi of Gebel in particular is frantic for word from you, and the wandering Apiru tribes are once more raiding and looting the border towns. My first husband faced a situation like this and acted promptly.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” Akhenaten asked plaintively. “I’m sick of listening to Ribbadi’s letters, begging for assistance. He writes all the time. I told Tutu to send him a scroll forbidding him to bother me so often. I have written to all the viceroys reminding them of their earlier blessings at Egypt’s hand.”
“It is no longer enough,” Tiye said gently. “Call Aziru to Egypt to explain why he tried to treaty with the Khatti in the first place. Gather your Nubian Shock Troops, your archers and charioteers, and ride north. To crush the desert tribes who harry the border would be a neutral diplomatic move, favoring no one and yet reasserting Egypt’s power. It is also advisable to visit your vassals, replace the viceroys that can no longer be trusted, perhaps execute a few whose loyalties have shifted. Shower the rest with gold in person, Horus. Then choose to go hunting in the area with all your might displayed. Letters cannot replace a sight of Pharaoh in all his might.”
“But what of all the treaties?” He was clearly distressed, his brow furrowed under the golden cobra, his tongue darting over his hennaed lips. One of his monkeys ran up the arm of his chair and leaped onto his shoulder. Gratefully he began to fondle it. “You speak of killing, Mother. How can I kill men whose letters are friendly, who assure me of their trust, who call me the greatest king in all the world? I will think about sending to May and asking him to quell the bandits. The Apiru never write to me.”
“Well, that is a start. Tutu is here. Will you dictate right now?”
“No, not now. I promised the children that I would play with them in the nursery.”
Tiye was about to beg, then thought better of it. “Would you like me to write the letter for you?”
“All right.” His face brightened, and kissing the monkey’s ear, he set it down and rose. Instantly the people in the room began to prostrate themselves. “But it is to be nothing more than a discipline against the Apiru. I will think about the viceroys later.” He walked out, the room emptying after him.
If I cannot persuade him of the seriousness of the situation, perhaps Nefertiti can, Tiye thought. He must be made to understand. She grasped Nefertiti’s braceleted arm. “Majesty,” she said in a low voice, “you do not like me, but surely you love Egypt. Do your best to keep these affairs before his eyes.”
“I think he is right, Empress,” Nefertiti hissed back. “The longer the delays, the more likely it is that our enemies will make war on each other and become weaker because of it.”
“You are wrong.” Tiye’s nails bit into the young woman’s flesh. “Suppiluliumas still cannot quite believe that the greatest power in the world chooses to remain impotent. He will work subtly, making alliances where he sees the potential for future gains.”
Nefertiti smiled tightly at her aunt. “This is all you have left, dear empress, the dubious ability to interpret foreign affairs in order to try to regain some influence over the god. It will not work. Your star is falling.” She pursed her lips and sucked soothingly at the two monkeys clinging to her gown. “I must go. Take your fingers from my arm, Majesty. Already you have bruised me, and I will need a massage to remove the marks.”
“You need a good whipping, Nefertiti. Your father was always too lenient with you.” Tiye stepped back disgustedly, and Nefertiti glided out. Tutu stood waiting, eyes downcast. “And you, you venal toe-licker,” Tiye spat at him, “if it was in my power, I would have you replaced. A Scribe of Foreign Correspondence is supposed to think for himself and offer bold advice, but all you do is parrot my niece’s words.” Frustration made her want to cry. Tutu was flinching, but his lower lip stuck out mutinously, and Tiye knew he realized that he had nothing to fear from her. She was tempted to push the scrolls to
the floor and walk away from the office, the sly minister, the responsibility that had become such a desperate burden. There would be fresh dusty grapes from her vineyards at Djarukha set out beside her couch, and beer from this year’s barley, dark and cool. “I want a copy of this for my own scribes,” she said, “and you had better have it translated into Akkadian and sent to Urusalim and Gebel. It will do those cities good to know that Egypt is at least chasing the desert bowmen. ‘To the commander of the fortress troops of His Majesty, May, greetings. It has been brought to our wise attention that…’” Tutu wrote quickly and as silently as he could, and when Tiye had finished, she left without another glance at him.
Outside in the passage Huya was waiting patiently. “Have my litter and canopy brought,” Tiye ordered. “I want to go to the parade ground today and watch the Division of Splendor of the Aten go through their paces.” Huya looked into her face and did not demur. Tiye was carried out onto the blinding sand of the parade ground, where the captains shouted their orders and the soldiers wheeled and marched, scimitars flashing in the sun, their bare feet churning white dust. The sight did not cheer her. The army of Egypt was like a chariot without an axle, beautiful but useless. She began to long passionately for the day when Pharaoh and his minions would sail away and not come back, and Malkatta with its quiet gardens and echoing corridors would belong to her and her memories, alone.
15
In the following year Tiye persuaded Pharaoh to dispatch another punitive expedition north, grimly aware that Egypt was merely holding up a splayed hand against the fury of a khamsin. Ribbadi’s letters, reproachful, puzzled, loving, and finally panic-stricken, cut her to the quick, but she could do nothing. Abimilki of Tyre begged for troops. Other petty kings and viceroys begged for understanding, and Tiye knew that their letters required the patience and cunning of a man with the seasoned wisdom of Osiris Amunhotep to decipher. The passive simplicity of her son was no match for the wily protestations of men who had already secretly allied themselves with the greatest force ever pitted against the stability of the Egyptian empire, but whose words of wounded loyalty brought a pleased flush to Akhenaten’s long face. Aziru, taking advantage of the confusing situation and carefully avoiding antagonizing Suppiluliumas, began murdering Egyptian officials in Syria and blaming his old enemies. He responded to Akhenaten’s request for his presence at Malkatta, apologizing that since he was busy defending Syrian cities against the Khatti, he could not appear for at least a year. Tiye, furious, demanded that a division march into Amurru territory and execute Aziru, but Akhenaten, after vacillating between the evidence of Akkadian cipher pressed into clay that he could hold in his hands and the less physical and more uncomfortable interpretation his mother gave him, decided to believe Aziru. He granted him a year’s grace. Ribbadi fled from his city of Byblos, and the Khatti flowed slowly after him. Megiddo, Lachish, Askalon, and Gezer sent letter after letter to Malkatta, screaming for money, troops and food, and while Akhenaten agonized over the truth, the vassal cities fell to marauding Apiru, now in the pay of Suppiluliumas. Many of the Canaanite vassals were forced to sue for peace to the Khatti, trading Egypt’s over lordship in return for their lives.
During the following year, the eighth of Akhenaten’s reign and the fourth since he had decreed the building of his city, Aziru marched against Sumer and took it with much bloodshed. His letters to Egypt remained full of protestations of loyalty, and the difficulties he was having evading Suppiluliumas. Ever the gambler, he sent similar letters to the Khatti prince himself against the day when, as he believed, Egypt and the Khatti would fight. He wrote to the defeated and harried Ribbadi, offering his asylum, and Ribbadi, his good judgment failing him, fled to the Amurru with little but his family and a few household possessions. Akhenaten did not hear from him again. Aziru once more began convoluted negotiations with Suppiluliumas.
In Malkatta day-long processions of slaves laden with boxes and chests began to move between palace and river, for after four years of construction Pharaoh’s city was finally ready for occupation. He had named it Akhetaten, Horizon of the Aten. Barges slipped downstream, bright with torches at night, bearing the last possessions of the men who wandered through the empty rooms of their apartments and houses before ordering their servants to seal the doors. In the Office of Foreign Correspondence, chaos reigned as scribes covered the floor knee to knee, rapidly transcribing the more important missives from clay tablets to lighter and more portable papyrus scrolls that could be taken to Tutu’s new headquarters at Akhetaten while the tablets themselves were carried into storage. The daily dispatches were often lost amid the disorderly pile of older correspondence. Pharaoh, who was overwrought with excitement and anticipation, retreated to his unfinished Karnak temple, where he was soothed by the worship of his priests and the incense mingling with the prayers of Meryra, while Nefertiti snapped at the servants struggling to pack her thousands of gowns, her jewels and sandals and heavy wigs.
The only place in the palace that was free from all activity was the nursery, where Smenkhara and Beketaten, taking advantage of their tutor’s frequent absences and their mother’s self-imposed seclusion, went to play with Nefertiti’s three daughters.
“I will dictate a letter to you every day, telling you what lessons I am doing and how many fish I have caught and when I shoot my first lion,” Smenkhara promised Meritaten as they sprawled on mats together, waiting for the fitful draughts blowing down the wind catcher from the roof. “And you must tell me in return what Pharaoh’s new palace is like, and whether the hunting is good in the hills there, and what new women are bought for the harem. Meketaten, you are lying on my foot. Go and play with my sister.”
“But I want to go swimming, and Beketaten only wants to tease the monkeys,” the girl replied sullenly. “Don’t kick me, Smenkhara! I can lie here and listen to you if I want to.”
Meritaten sat up. “You!” she called to one of the slaves standing by the door. “Take these two down to the lake. Where is Ankhesenpaaten?”
“She is being washed before she sleeps, Highness,” the woman said, bowing, as Meketaten jumped up, and Beketaten, across the room, began to wail with indignation.
“I don’t want to swim. I’ll tell Mother!”
“Tell her, then,” Smenkhara said rudely. The slave bowed again and waited while the princesses came to her, Meketaten skipping, Beketaten pushing the monkeys out the window and onto the flower bed with angry reluctance. “Send someone to us with beer,” Smenkhara ordered as they went out. “And hurry. It is hot, and we are thirsty.” The door closed.
“I will ask my father every day to send for you,” Meritaten said in a low voice, her eyes on the remaining servants fanning themselves in a cluster at the farther end of the nursery. “I will throw tantrums and scream and make myself sick until he listens.”
Smenkhara wound her youth lock around his fingers and pulled her face close. “Pharaohs do not listen to eight-year-old girls, particularly your father. He is too frightened of the empress to send for me. Besides, he does not like me. He cannot afford to.”
“Why not?” Meritaten jerked her hair from his grasp. “My mother is pregnant again and says that this time she will have a prince, and he will marry me, and I will be queen one day.”
“Yes, you will, but only when I become pharaoh and marry you. That is why my brother the king does not like me. At least, so my mother says.”
A servant approached and soundlessly knelt, placing a tray with beer and cups before them. Smenkhara emptied his cup in one draught. “I am sick of lying about in here. Put on your kilt, and we will sail on the river. You can watch me fish.”
Meritaten obediently set down her cup, clapped her hands for her kilt, and waited while her slave wound it around her waist. Smenkhara watched with interest until her sandals were put on and the kohl retouched around her eyes, and he grabbed the ribbons of her youth lock and nonchalantly began to tow her toward the door.
Tiye stepped from her litter and,
ordering her retinue to wait by the gate with a wave of her hand, walked toward her brother’s house. The garden where she had sat so often through the years, drinking wine and laughing with him, watching his baboons scratch themselves and lumber from one patch of shade to another or listening to the hum of chatter and the babble of music, was empty and still in the oppressive heat of midafternoon. The sheltered stone quay where his barge used to rock was empty also, the water steps a painful dance of white light, the river at their foot oily and sluggish. I always feel at home here, Tiye thought as she came to the raised yellow- and blue-painted pillars of the shaded portico. There are so many good memories. My father with his hooked nose and white waving hair, smiling quietly as my mother held forth on some nugget of harem gossip in her deep voice, her bracelets sliding up her brown arms and her fingers stabbing the air. Anen cross-legged on the grass, his priestly linens folded neatly in his lap, his head down as he listened, not really taking in the words. Ay himself venturing a comment or correction, always gracious, always the knowing courtier, and in the early days Tey as well, beautiful and flushed, interspersing the conversation with unfinished phrases, disconnected words, spoken flotsam drifting occasionally to her tongue from the confused river of her private thoughts. Osiris Amunhotep never came here, nor Sitamun, Tiye thought as a single servant rose from a stool by the open doors and prostrated himself on the warm stone. Strange that I do not place Ay’s first wife here, though she must have been, or the children Nefertiti and Mutnodjme. How gently the years fall away as I wait. A tiny movement at her feet brought her back to the present, and she bade the man rise.
“Tell my niece that I am here, and bring chairs for us,” she said. She turned her back on the doors while he hurried within, allowing herself to indulge in a moment of pure nostalgia, and when she swung back to the house with a sigh, it was to find Mutnodjme bowing at her back.
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