The Twelfth Transforming

by Pauline Gedge

  The scribe reached down beside him. “There is another dispatch from the Fanbearer on the Right Hand.”

  “Good. Read it.” Perhaps Ay would now explain his master’s letter. Tiye leaned back, preparing as always to defend herself against the wave of homesickness Ay’s words brought.

  Her scribe skimmed the formal opening. “As far as I can determine, there has been a revolt in Nukhashshe against that people’s chieftain, Ugarit. He has appealed to Suppiluliumas for help. It is very difficult for me to ascertain the truth. Tutu’s office is always in chaos, and the man himself an ignorant ditherer who is nevertheless very zealous in his religious observances. I have tried to obtain other opinions from his staff, but Tutu jealously guards his prerogatives as Scribe of Foreign Correspondence. If the news is true, there can be no doubt that Suppiluliumas will respond to Ugarit’s plea.”

  Tiye clenched her jaw. Nukhashshe was so close to Egypt that its rulers had always been allies, and many treaties had been signed and cemented with marriages over the years. The fact that Ugarit had not appealed to Pharaoh to quell his people’s unrest spoke more eloquently than anything else could have done of Akhenaten and Egypt’s spreading impotence. Suppiluliumas would send soldiers, and when the dust had cleared, he would be closer than ever to Egypt’s immediate borders. It had been a long time since Tiye had thought in terms of the empire. Now it was Egypt herself that was threatened.

  “Take a letter to Prince Suppiluliumas,” Tiye said wearily. It would do little good, she realized, for Suppiluliumas certainly knew how little power she still had, but at least it would serve to remind him that someone in Egypt was watching his movements with eyes unclouded by his deceit.

  She wrote also to Pharaoh, her words harsh, demanding to know why, when communications to her were so clear from her own men stationed in Egypt, he did not take immediate action against his enemies. She accused Tutu of misrepresentation, but resisted denouncing his behavior as treasonous. A voice of caution warned her that unless she was physically present to justify her charges, Tutu would turn his attention to discrediting her, and she would lose what little credibility she still had. She did not mention Ay, unwilling to give his enemies an opportunity to twist his dispatches to her into disloyalty to Pharaoh. The letter took her a day to compose, deleting and correcting until she was satisfied. When she had finished and was lying on her couch, she ached for her son, knowing that, in spite of her railing against poor Tutu, it would have taken a man with the genius of the Son of Hapu to unravel the tangled threads of the country’s diplomatic situation. Egypt no longer possessed such men. Ay, trained and raised under the old administration, would have suited, but he was now chained and muzzled by men who no longer moved in the real world, whose inferior judgments had been warped by the atmosphere Pharaoh’s fantasies and dreams had generated. It is perhaps a passing storm, a desert khamsin under whose power we hide our faces and huddle in whatever shelter we can find, Tiye thought. May the gods grant that it may blow itself out! Then we will dig and sweep, wash off the sand and grit, anoint our eyes, and stand again. If we can only endure, Smenkhara will take the throne, and the empire can be rebuilt. It is not yet too late. Oh, Akhenaten, my son, my son! Hapu was right. You should have died. You did not murder your father, but you are destroying everything he held together in his august person. Perhaps I should give Smenkhara his heart’s desire, send him to Akhetaten with the other two children, and then retire to Djarukha. I have always been happy there. I shall not miss the children. They, too, are part of the magic I tried to conjure and failed, and they belong to the discarded spells. Such thoughts invited the numbing blessing of wine, and the wine brought sleep, yet sunrise and a new awakening did not dispel her feeling of fatality.

  As time passed, the urge to relinquish all semblances of authority grew, until finally she began to make plans to leave Malkatta to the jackals in the new year and be settled at Djarukha just before the crops were sown. She could have left immediately, thus avoiding the worst of the summer heat, but deep in her mind was the dim idea of a last suffering, a day-to-day enduring of an almost unendurable fire as expiation for the last ten years of her life. The gods did not demand such an action. Sacrifices were never made out of guilt, only for petition and thanksgiving, but Tiye knew it was herself, not the gods, she wished to appease.

  The slow moments of a sweltering Mesore went sluggishly by, and she panted in the thin shade of the trees or dipped often in the lake, her mind as faint and beaten by Ra’s ferocity as her body. She was lying on her couch one noon, trying to sleep, her swollen eyes on the bars of white light between the slats of her window hangings, when Huya was admitted. Listlessly she watched him approach, a naked, portly, once-handsome man now frequently short of breath and troubled by pains in his joints. He stopped, bowed, and she bade him speak.

  “Majesty, I apologize for interrupting your rest,” he said, “but your niece has arrived from Akhetaten and wishes to be admitted at once.”

  Tiye’s heart turned over, and she sat up. “My niece? Which one, you fool!”

  “Princess Mutnodjme. I have shown her into your reception hall and ordered cool water for her.”

  “Tell her I am coming. Piha! A loose gown, and my hair needs combing.” It was loneliness that brought Tiye to her feet with a rush of gladness at the thought of seeing the girl again, and not until she was walking along the passage under the waving white ostrich fans of her attendants did she wonder what had brought Mutnodjme to Malkatta in person.

  Guards opened the door to the hall, and Tiye walked through. At the far end of the room, where pillars divided the stream of white hot light that poured like molten metal onto the floor, Mutnodjme stood, leaning against the wall, her dwarfs dicing noisily at her feet, her outline black against the blinding dazzle of the early afternoon. Hearing the herald call Tiye’s titles, she turned, and cracking her whip over the heads of the dwarfs, so that they howled and scuttled out into the garden, she strolled toward her aunt.

  The tantalizing assurance of a pampered maturity was in every movement of the long legs, the loose swing of the heavily braceleted arms. The familiar face glowed with a lazy sensuousness. Mutnodjme’s full eyelids had been oiled and then sprinkled with gold dust. Thick kohl gleamed black around the eyes that always held a hint of amusement in their dark depths. The mouth that mirrored Tiye’s own was slickly red. Gold with the mauve tinge characteristic of Mitanni smiths hung from both ears to her tanned shoulder blades, and a thin gold chain passing around her shaven skull and under the youth lock held a gold disk against her forehead. She wore no necklace, but anklets tinkled on both legs. Her many-pleated sheath was scarlet, belted in gold studs and caught across one shoulder, leaving the other and one breast bare, its nipple circled in gold paint. Glancing beyond the pillars as Mutnodjme knelt to kiss her feet, Tiye caught a glimpse of her niece’s retinue, a flitting, glittering group of young men and women in drifting linens and bright jewels, themselves thickly painted against the sun. Mutnodjme had risen and was waiting.

  “I see you have a new whip,” Tiye offered, suddenly at a loss for words, wanting to embrace Mutnodjme in a moment of affectionate relief but instead merely touching her yellow cheek.

  Mutnodjme nodded. “White bull leather with a silver handle,” she drawled. “Not taken from a white bull, of course, but stained later. I miss my old one, but it wore out. It is good to see you, Majesty Aunt.”

  Something impelled Tiye to ask, “Do I look well?” and she immediately regretted the weakness of the desire.

  Mutnodjme considered, her head on one side. “Better than I had expected after such a difficult birth. I know it was ages ago, but everyone at Akhetaten has been anxious for your recovery, greedy for any word from Malkatta.”

  “I do not believe it!” It had always seemed that those who left the palace to go to the new city had also abandoned their memories, but Mutnodjme was telling her it was not so.

  “It is true. When word came that you had given birth but wou
ld probably die, Pharaoh turned us all out to stand for hours in the forecourt of the Aten temple while he prayed within, and he was then ill for days afterward.”

  “But he did not come. For all his solicitude, he did not come.”

  “No.” Mutnodjme met her eye. “He did not. The queen’s atmosphere fills the city like perfume. It is heavy in our nostrils, day and night. When we are not prostrate before the Aten, we pray to her.”

  Tiye searched her niece’s face for the sarcasm that was carefully absent from the voice, and found it. “My brother. Is he well?”

  “He has aged, but his health is as good as it has always been.”

  “And your husband?”

  Mutnodjme hesitated. “Horemheb is strong and high in favor. In the way in which you enquire, my goddess, he is well.”

  “So. We will have time to discuss the family later. How starved for news I have been! Your mother?”

  “I do not see Tey very often. She is never at court. But she is content on the estate Ay built for her.”

  “And yourself, Mutnodjme? You are as beautiful as ever!”

  “I know.” Mutnodjme laughed. “I have become the object of every young courtier’s desire. Isn’t that boring? Horemheb laughs, but I do not. I am tired of hot whispers and groping fingers at Pharaoh’s feasts. I tend to cling to my old friends, the men I have slept with before, the women who have shared my secrets in the past. I am twenty-eight, Majesty Aunt. The young are beginning to annoy me.”

  “A sober Mutnodjme? Impossible!”

  Mutnodjme barked a laugh. “Certainly not. But I do not want to begin all over again. You see this gown? One bare breast, a coy titillation. It is all the rage at Akhetaten. Simpering and eyelids fluttering, silly flirting. My uncle’s court here at Malkatta may have been in some measure depraved, but it was an open, robust depravity. The dissipations of Akhetaten have a paler, sick cast to them.”

  You always were astute, Tiye thought, but you were never this articulate. “Are you here out of boredom?” she enquired gently.

  Mutnodjme shook her head. Clapping her hands sharply, she shouted “Hoi!” and one of her menservants came running, a small chest in his hands. At Mutnodjme’s signal he placed it on the throne step and withdrew, bowing. “Be pleased to dismiss all your train, Majesty Aunt,” Mutnodjme asked. “This is for your eyes alone at present.”

  Tiye immediately complied, and the two women stood looking at each other as the servants departed. At last the door was closed, and they were alone. Mutnodjme hesitated, one hand on the lid of the chest.

  “This has no interest for me, you must understand that,” she said quietly. “But it may trouble you. If it does not, I will return to Akhetaten and consider our arrangement at an end. Although I have done very well by you, Empress! If it does, my husband has instructed me to tell you that he is at your disposal.”

  “I understand.” Curiously Tiye watched as her niece pulled back the lid and drew out what appeared to be a small carved group of monkeys. There seemed to be nothing unusual about it. Egypt worshipped many lesser monkey gods, and baboons were considered sacred. Mutnodjme placed it in her hands.

  “This is a particularly expensive example, done in alabaster and carefully painted, but reproductions are available all over Akhetaten, smaller and larger, in wood or stone or, for the poorer people, in clay. They are for sale at stalls in every market.” Without waiting for permission, Mutnodjme turned and sat on the throne step.

  Tiye bent over the carving. There were four monkeys, graded in size. The largest half-stood, half-squatted behind the others, its pendulous breasts sagging, its fat thighs spread wide. Yet it was not female, for a disproportionately large penis jutted from beneath its swollen belly. Its tail curled up between its legs and nestled between the legs of the female monkey that knelt before it, both hands around its penis. The thick lips of the largest one were puckered toward the smaller monkey standing at its left, and its hand circled the neck and rested on a tiny breast. The other hand was thrust between the legs of the small monkey on the right. The genitals of all the animals were painted bright red; the ears, huge eyes, tails and hair, gray. The whole piece suggested flagrantly obscene sexuality, but it was not the impression it conveyed that caused Tiye to give a low cry and thrust it away. The largest monkey wore a double crown canted between its pricked ears, and the next in size a tall, cone-shaped helmet. Mutnodjme leaned over and swiftly removed it, dropping it back into the chest and flipping the lid shut.

  “No one knows who began it,” she said. “But even before the carvings appeared, there were rumors. Of Pharaoh copulating with his monkeys, of nights spent with the queen and both the older girls together. Lusty jokes have always abounded at court, but this is different. There is malice in it. Pharaoh has completely lost the respect of the citizens of Akhetaten, and before long those things”—she indicated the chest—“will begin to be found all over Egypt. The Thebans will love them.”

  Tiye swallowed and, feeling dazed, went to sit beside Mutnodjme. Her hands shook. “What does Pharaoh say? His anger, his shame…”

  “Pharaoh feels neither,” Mutnodjme said calmly. “He smiles. He says his people are only beginning to understand true affection, and when they do, the carvings will vanish. The queen is beside herself with rage, though. She has forbidden ownership of them, but of course the common people take no notice. She should have ignored them altogether.”

  “Yes,” Tiye whispered. Nefertiti had always lacked the right instincts so necessary in a ruler. Her loves and hates were too extreme, too public. Yet Tiye had never pitied her more than she did now. Her, and her defenseless, foolhardy husband, Egypt’s god. “Is it because they are shown embracing on the ben-ben in the Aten temple?”

  “Partly. After all, Pharaoh and the queen do not behave like gods to be worshipped. But it is also because they have wished to display themselves as a family drowned in mutual affection, before their subjects. Forgive me, Empress. To speak so of Pharaoh has always been blasphemy, yet I believed you would want to know, and my letter bearer would not have been able to communicate the perversity of it to you. It is not just the carvings. The people cheer him in the streets, but it is the sound of derision, and he cannot hear it. Horemheb begs…”

  Tiye held up a hand. “No more,” she said quietly. “Eat with me tonight when I have rested and pondered. Leave me, Mutnodjme.”

  Obediently the other woman rose, bowed profoundly, and swung down the long hall. I did not ask that an apartment be prepared for her, Tiye thought. But I suppose she will open Ay’s house. The whip was snaking white behind the bare heels, and Tiye, mesmerized, watched it undulate. Long after Mutnodjme had gone, she could not wrench her eyes from the floor. Finally she summoned Piha and went back to her room.

  The sun had lost a little of its fierce heat, but the air remained stifling. Tiye ordered a bath, and then tried to sleep, but Mutnodjme’s voice and the image of the distorted red genitals fought for prominence in her thoughts, and her heart refused to settle to a calming rhythm. But I wanted to go home to Djarukha! she protested silently. I had decided! I can do nothing, I am too old, it is too late. With anguish she remembered how cool the lily-choked lake before the blue pillars of her portico was in the gentleness of the north, how moist the air. I miss my mother, my father, she thought as her control finally gave way and she began to weep quietly. For once it is not you, Osiris Amunhotep, I long for. It is the safety of Yuya’s strong arms and the smile with which Thuyu woke me every morning. Oh, stop! she tried to berate herself. There is nothing so pathetically ridiculous as an aging woman in tears. Let them foul the bed they have made for themselves. Let me go home! But she already knew she would never see Djarukha again.

  In the twilight she sat on the dais in the great reception hall, Mutnodjme beside her, their ministers and servants grouped around the small, flower-laden tables below. Tiye had commanded a room full of light, and hundreds of torches and lamps leaped gold in the draughts that blew between the tall
columns. A procession of tray-bearing slaves came and went from the food tasters to the gilded table, and the stewards bent from time to time to fill the wine cups. Between the dais and the floor of the hall the musicians set up a wall of clamor that screened the women’s conversation from the other diners, and dancers swayed between the tables. Tiye tried to eat, but the very sight of the rich food sickened her, and in the end she sat drinking and watching Mutnodjme demolish every course presented. Between mouthfuls her niece cast blank glances at Prince Smenkhara, eating at the foot of the dais with Beketaten, and Tiye smiled inwardly in spite of the turmoil in her mind. Mutnodjme was not as politically neutral as she pretended to be. Either that, or the situation at Akhetaten was so grave as to make everyone there a budding oracle. When the food had been consumed and such entertainment as Tiye had been able to gather had begun, she beckoned Mutnodjme closer.

  “Did Horemheb or your father send you to me with that abominable thing?”

  Mutnodjme signaled, and a servant lifted the low table away. Sighing with satisfaction, she leaned back on her cushions. “I had forgotten how tasty beef can be when a god is not peering over one’s shoulder disapprovingly. We are not forbidden meat at court, but Pharaoh will not touch it, of course. In answer to your question, Goddess. I came of my own accord. Ay and Horemheb approved, though. They need your help. They could not tell you in dispatches, and indeed, one can scarcely speak of such things there are so many spies in the city, people who work for themselves in the hope of dropping gossip in Pharaoh’s ear and gaining favors. My cousin is easily swayed by ideas clothed in the adoring language of Aten worship.”

  Mutnodjme’s every word pierced Tiye’s heart, and for a moment she hated her brother, Horemheb, all the sycophants trying to worm their way into a simple man’s affections when their own hearts were cold. Mutnodjme’s indifferent honesty was infinitely preferable. “Then tell me now what it is the great fanbearer and the mighty commander want me to do.”