Of more immediate concern were the two attempts on her life. One of her food tasters died in agony, and a steward was violently ill after surreptitiously sampling the beer that stood waiting to be carried to her bedchamber. Despite a diligent search Tiye could not track down the culprits, so that while she was fond of beer, she reluctantly kept to wine that she insisted be unsealed in her presence.
She was not afraid to die, and increasingly found herself thinking of death with longing. It was becoming harder to swing her feet to the floor each morning, to hold herself straight during the interminable days of solemn protocol, to find time simply to lie by the water and let her mind wander where it would. She knew that she was old, that rightfully she should be enjoying an increasingly eventless slide into infirmity and death, accorded the respect and rewards due to a goddess, empress, and mother of a pharaoh. But it was necessary to endure the ministrations of the man who came regularly to dye her hair, the cosmeticians who skillfully hid the ravages of her face, the dressmakers who did their best to disguise a used-up body. Appearances no longer mattered within Egypt herself, but the foreigners, knowing that Tiye still sat on the ebony throne, might pause and think twice before plunging deeper into war. They could not know, or could surmise only from garbled and suspect accounts, that she no longer wielded useful power, that she served only to hold up before the world the reminder of a happier Egypt. I will hold on until Smenkhara’s future is assured, she told herself. Ay is too old to depend on, but Horemheb will guide Smenkhara back to Thebes. She began to pray, almost self-consciously, to Hathor, goddess of youth and beauty, with a fervor she had never before brought to her religious observances, asking only that she might keep her strength until she was no longer needed.
20
Smenkhara waited in the daily expectation of a summons from his mother or Pharaoh to tell him that a contract of betrothal between himself and Meritaten had been approved, but time passed, and no herald came to him with the words he wanted above all else to hear. Sometimes he wondered if the shock of Meketaten’s death and the queen’s subsequent banishment had driven the matter of the betrothal from Tiye’s mind, but knowing her as he did, he doubted it. He willed himself to believe that she was biding her time until a favorable moment to approach Pharaoh presented itself, but in his impatience he resolved a hundred times to cast all caution to the winds and go to his brother himself. He and Meritaten talked of nothing else each afternoon when they met in her private quarters, and Meritaten characteristically calmed his restlessness by pointing out that they had waited so long it would be foolish to jeopardize their happiness by a premature move. Reluctantly Smenkhara poured his energies into his lessons with Horemheb and tried to be content with seeing the princess as often as possible.
But one day, as he went to make his usual visit, her guards turned him away from her doors. Astounded, he tried to argue with them. They listened deferentially and silently, but each time he attempted to push past them, he was held back.
“You are all mad!” he shouted at them finally as he walked away. “I come here almost every day. I will demand that the princess have you replaced!”
An hour later he had found an unguarded section of the wall that sheltered her small garden, and within minutes he was walking up to where she sat listlessly beside her pond, rubbing his knees and glowering. “What is the matter with your guards, Princess?” he demanded. “They refused me admittance, and I had to climb over your wall. See how I have scraped myself.” He sank onto the mat beside her, and his hand found a circlet. “This is the queen’s crown,” he exclaimed. “Is your mother here?” He glanced swiftly around the garden. “Has the banishment been lifted?”
Deftly she took it from him. “No,” she said shortly. “My father had it brought to me early this morning. Go away, Smenkhara.”
He edged closer, pulling her hair so that she had to look at him. “What a foul mood you are in! I thought we might go fishing in the sunset. The fish will be biting well, and the breezes on the river will be pleasant. I deserve a little time to myself. I have been drawing bow all day with Horemheb. Why, Meritaten, what is the matter?”
She jerked her head viciously so that he had to release her hair. “You may no longer call me by my name,” she said coldly, though her mouth quivered. “To you I am Majesty, Great Royal Wife. But you are still only a prince, Smenkhara.”
For a moment he did not understand. Then with a curse he pulled her to him roughly, speaking into her mouth. “Pharaoh has made you queen, hasn’t he? I do not believe it. My mother promised! Tell me it is in name only!”
Her lips moved, cold against his own. “No. It is not.” She moved back. “Yesterday my father took me to Maru-Aten. We walked in the gardens there. He offered me the queen’s crown, and when I refused it, because of you, he said I had no choice.” Her voice was even, her gaze steady on his face. “He said that unlike my mother, I am a fully royal sun child, worthier than she to wear the cobra. I am to move into my mother’s apartments tomorrow. I obey the will of the Disk.”
For answer he kissed her, rage stiffening his mouth and blinding him to all but the surge of hurt and betrayal he felt. She struggled against him and, freeing herself, exclaimed, “Don’t! You have bruised me!” He pushed her away. Gingerly she felt her lips. “If you do that again, you can be executed,” she said. “I ordered my soldiers to keep you away from me. Do not come to me again.”
“How calm you are!” he sneered. “I did not realize what ambitions you hid beneath that winning smile. I hope the glory of being omnipotent will compensate you for your father’s flabby touch. But perhaps you enjoyed it. Queen of Egypt! Queen either way, as your father’s wife, or later as mine, if all had gone well. In my innocence I misjudged you, Majesty.” He threw as much scorn and sarcasm into the last word as he could.
Meritaten flinched, head down, and as he rose and turned to leave, she screamed, “Smenkhara!” He turned back contemptuously, but seeing her face, he knelt and flung wide his arms. She fell into them, and for a long time they held each other fiercely, rocking back and forth until her tears ceased. Then they sat hand in hand, not looking at each other.
“Egypt would bless me for killing him,” Smenkhara whispered, and she squeezed his hand, shaking her head.
“He is my father, and I love him,” she replied. “You had better go. The Aten tells him things. The god might tell him about you and me, here today. Good-bye, Smenkhara.” She fumbled for the coronet and set it on her brow. The cobra’s crystal eyes glittered dangerously at him. He bowed to it respectfully and fled.
Passing that same evening behind the banqueting hall with a slave who was carrying a jar of sealed wine for the empress, Huya saw the prince slip through the back entrance into a passage that allowed kitchen slaves to take food to Pharaoh’s private rooms. Once having delivered the wine safely into his mistress’s presence, he retraced his steps, calling several of Tiye’s guards to him on the way, and found Smenkhara standing in the shadows just out of sight of the guards at Pharaoh’s door. He bowed.
“I am happy to have found you, Highness,” he said smoothly. “Your mother wishes you to wait upon her in her quarters.”
Smenkhara sighed. “Very well. But she will be feasting for hours yet. I will come later.”
“Your pardon, Prince, but she will not want to be kept waiting. I have asked these Followers to escort you to her apartments.”
A resigned understanding spread over Smenkhara’s face. “You are a meddlesome old woman, Huya. Here. Take it.” He drew a small scimitar from his belt and tossed it to the steward. Huya caught it impassively, and it disappeared into the voluminous folds of his linen.
“I suggest that Your Highness pass the time with these men in discussing the current state of defense in Akhetaten,” he said. “The empress will be with you presently.”
Huya needed no more than a few tactful words with Tiye as she left the hall and wearily made her way to her own sanctum. Once her wig and jewels had been removed
and she had been draped in her sleeping robe, she ordered Smenkhara’s admittance and Piha and her women out. Her son entered and bowed and then stood sheepishly with his hands behind his back. Tiye looked at him resignedly. “It is a good thing Huya has sharp eyes, or you would be dead by now,” she snapped. “Such behavior is incredibly childish. Why is it that you have never been able to see beyond the moment?”
“You told me I could have Meritaten!” he flashed back at her. “You said I was to be patient! I have been as patient as anyone could wish, and what use was it? I left my future in your hands, where it crumbled away.”
“I did not tell you that you could have Meritaten,” she reminded him coldly. “I said that one day you would probably be pharaoh and as such could then marry her. Think, Smenkhara! Your uncle and Horemheb and myself are daily singing your praises to Pharaoh. Time will smile on you yet. Then you will have the princess, and everything else you desire.”
He clenched his fists and glared at her mutinously. “I don’t want to wait!” he shouted. “I don’t want to listen to you anymore when you prate of patience! I have lost her, and it is your fault!”
Tiye stepped forward and, taking him by the shoulders, shook him violently. “Well then, see if you can get close enough to Pharaoh to kill him!” she shouted back. “You are a whining, spoiled brat, and your royal father would turn his back on you if he could hear you now. I do not talk to you for the sake of hearing my own voice. I am sick of you. Egypt deserves better than a sulky child who cannot wait to be thrown a sweetmeat. Go, and see how quickly Pharaoh’s guards can slit open your belly, and good riddance to you!”
He shrugged her off. “I hate you because you are always right,” he spat back. “You are right, and you are cold. Does my pain mean nothing to you?”
“Of course it means something to me.” She turned from him exhausted and slumped onto the couch. “But you will not have achieved manhood until you are able to hide every hurt, master every disappointment, and continue to walk the path that was chosen. The gods do not trust a slave.”
“You should have been a priest.” His lip curled. “Dismiss me.”
“Go, you fool.”
She did not wait until the doors closed behind him but with a sigh lowered her aching body directly onto the couch and felt her muscles slowly loosen. The blow had been hers, too. The news of Akhenaten’s decision to marry his daughter had come as a bitter shock, but she, unlike Smenkhara, understood that, in the long run, it meant nothing. Of far greater importance was the naming of an heir, and Tiye knew that she must concentrate her waning powers on that task and no other.
Meritaten quickly accommodated herself to the cobra coronet and the new responsibilities and privileges that went with it. More mature than the young man she loved, she buried her feelings for him deep under the pleasure she was learning to take in ruling. Now it was father and daughter who kissed and caressed, clung to each other and whispered into each other’s ears while standing in the chariot or sitting under the canopy of the double palanquin. Meritaten stood beside him at the Window of Appearances, a slighter, more youthful version of Nefertiti, smiling and waving at the city crowds while Akhenaten made his pronouncements, expressed his love for his people, and showered the Gold of Favors onto whatever minister had recently praised him. The possession of Meritaten seemed to bring to him a precarious peace. His health improved, and in the temple he publicly thanked the Aten for a returning zest.
No such change was apparent in Meritaten. Outwardly she remained a beautiful, cheerful girl, attentive to her father-husband, imperious to her staff, and gracious to the members of the court, and only her closest servants knew that she babbled in her sleep and often woke weeping. Tiye was told by a spy that the deposed queen in the northern palace had laughed hysterically at the news that she had been supplanted by her daughter, and had given thanks that the empress was not having everything her own way. Tiye kept that precious piece of gossip to herself. She looked upon the situation as temporary. Like so many others, she believed that eventually Akhenaten would relent and release the queen, relegating Meritaten to the place in the harem that her sister Meketaten had suffered.
Yet one day as she was crossing the Royal Road on her litter, being carried to her sunshade in the temple with Beketaten beside her, she heard the thud of hammer on stone. Her bearers slowed, and impatiently she lifted the curtains to shout at them to hurry, only to see that they and the escorting soldiers were trying to force their way through a large press of city dwellers. White stone dust rose over them in a choking cloud. Beketaten sneezed and covered her mouth daintily, but Tiye was too curious to care about the discomfort.
“Captain, turn this rabble away so that I can see what is happening,” she ordered and, letting the curtain fall, waited in the privacy of her daughter’s company, listening to the shouts and blows of the soldiers. By the time Huya raised the litter’s curtains, the road was clear. The dust hung like pale mist, and through it the stonemasons could be seen, oblivious of her presence, their great hammers rising and falling, their naked backs white with dust that clung to their sweat. Beside them several men were working more delicately with chisels and small hammers, pausing now and then to cough. With a wave Tiye stopped her herald from ordering them all onto their faces. “Go and ask the overseer what they are doing,” she commanded. She watched as her spotlessly clad servant picked his way unwillingly through the stone chips, a corner of his kilt held against his face. The overseer bowed profoundly several times, words were exchanged, and the herald minced back and knelt before her. “Pharaoh issued a directive this morning,” he explained, “that every image of Queen Nefertiti in Akhetaten is to be removed, and her name is to be effaced from every inscription. When this has been carried out, Queen Meritaten’s name and titles are to be incised in their place.”
Tiye stared at him. “Very well. Move on.” She leaned back onto her cushions as the litter was lifted, oblivious to the jolt as her bearers started forward.
Beketaten pouted. “Lucky Meritaten,” she said. “Do you think that one day Pharaoh may marry me and put my face all over Akhetaten?”
“Don’t be stupid!” Tiye snapped, not really listening. This was not only a mark of great favor to his daughter, she thought swiftly, but a final humiliation for Nefertiti, an attempt not only to express a savage grudge against her but also, in effect, to take away her life. A name had magic! If a name survived death, the gods would grant its bearer life in the next world. Pharaoh must realize that he cannot obliterate every appearance of her name, Tiye thought. It has been sunk into stone too many times in too many different places. It is the act of a disappointed child, or a cowardly and dangerous man.
“I do not want to say my prayers today,” Beketaten complained. “Ankhesenpaaten has a new cat and a whole box of toy crocodiles that she wants to show me. The crocodiles snap their jaws when you pull them along.”
“How very pleasant,” Tiye murmured absently. A new and horrifying possibility had occurred to her. What if, behind the impenetrable wall separating the north palace from the life of the city, Nefertiti was already dead? With the sound of the mighty hammers still ringing in her ears, Tiye suddenly believed that in the name of his god her son would be capable of anything.
She could hardly bear the slow passing of the hours until her brother and Horemheb could be summoned, and it was full night before they made their obeisances to her in the privacy of her garden. Once they were all settled, she voiced her fear.
Immediately Horemheb shook his head vigorously. “No. The queen lives.”
“So you have been in correspondence with her, perhaps have even seen her,” Tiye said sharply. “You have just made a tactical error, Commander.”
“And your spies are doing a bad job, Empress,” he responded. “She summoned me secretly.”
“For what purpose? You must be willing to tell me, or you would not have revealed yourself like this.”
“She wanted assurances of my loyalty to her. S
he asked my opinion of the possibility of a successful palace revolt.”
Startled and angry, Tiye looked at Ay’s face, a pale, unfocused circle in the half-light of the distant torches. “Did you know about this?”
“No, Tiye,” he said calmly. “But I expected it.”
“I suppose I did also. What would her aim be, Horemheb? The Double Crown for Smenkhara? For little Tutankhaten, though that is unlikely? Supreme power for herself, or perhaps even for you? That woman’s nearsighted stupidity has no bounds!”
Horemheb laughed mirthlessly. “Power for her august self, through me. She does not like either of your sons by Osiris Amunhotep, Majesty, and would probably wish to eliminate them both. She would marry either me or Tutankhaten.”
The idea was so preposterous that Tiye was tempted to laugh. “Did you dissuade her?”
“As best I could, using the arguments we aired together many weeks ago. I think she is beginning to see the results of her husband’s disastrous policies, but she will never cooperate with you or her father. She has much time in which to brood. She is a bitter woman.”
“And it is her own fault. Palace revolt, indeed! The time for change will not come until Pharaoh dies. I have become convinced of that. Any new administration concerned with returning Egypt to her former strength will need the trust and cooperation of the Amun priests.”
“I know.” Horemheb’s voice was even. “I have pondered the whole matter most carefully and have come to the same conclusion.”
They talked a little more, without enthusiasm, and then separated. Tiye sat on in the fragrant darkness. I am angry because I should have planned and executed a revolt myself, she thought. Nefertiti does not have the courage to bring it to a successful conclusion. It is that weakness that gives Horemheb pause in allying himself with her. But I cannot harm my son. There are too many memories.
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