As we came through a doorway there was a terrifying rumble—as if the entire labyrinth was collapsing. It echoed through the passageways. I clutched Tuthmosis’s arm. “What’s that? Are we trapped?”
He shook his head and held up the lamp to show me some ropes. “It’s a trick to scare thieves. I’d forgotten about it. The sound is made by rocks rolling in a stone jar that falls from a pulley. We triggered the pulley as we passed through the doorway.”
As we groped our way along, the air in the passageway suddenly seemed fresher. I knew we were near the end when a scent of papyrus mixed with the smell of sun-baked earth suddenly came wafting toward me. A glimmer of light ahead drew me on. I stumbled ahead of Tuthmosis and began running toward the brightness. It had to be our escape. We were free at last.
I stopped short. There was the opening that would lead us out of the labyrinth, but a metal grid barred the way. I rushed forward and gripped the shiny rods and shook as hard as I could. It felt as if someone were throttling me.
“It’s useless!” I shouted over my shoulder. Useless . . . useless . . . I heard my voice echo back into the darkness. I sank to the ground. “We’re locked in . . . locked in! We’re here forever . . . forever!”
6
THE FESTIVAL
OF SOPHET
Tuthmosis came up behind me.
“Shh!” he hissed. “Are you trying to get us caught? Someone will hear you!” He felt along a hidden ledge and brought out a key in the shape of an ankh. “Only my father’s vizier and I know about this.”
I spun around to face him. “But you couldn’t have been sure it was there, could you? You took a risk! A curse of locusts on you, Tuthmosis! Why didn’t you warn me?” My voice was coming out in gasps. I wanted to shake him.
“I said we had to trust each other.” He fitted the key into a lock and turned. The grid swung open. “Now listen! This leads into the grounds of the palace near my father’s mortuary temple. We can’t stay in Thebes. If what you say about Wosret is true, it’s too dangerous. We need a boat to travel upstream toward Nubia, beyond the borders of Egypt.”
I shot a look at him. “Nubia? That far?” Suddenly I was fearful. The passageway had been a link to my father. I’d listened for his footsteps, but I hadn’t given a thought to what we would do afterward when we escaped. I glanced back into the darkness behind us. I was truly leaving him behind. He’d never find me in Nubia. “Do we have to go that far?”
Tuthmosis nodded. “It’s the only way to escape Wosret.”
I looked him over. “You’ll be easily recognized. You’ll have to disguise yourself as a girl.”
“A girl? Never!”
“A boy with a limp and blue eyes is a giveaway. They’ll know it’s you. You’ll need a girl’s tunic and a wig as well as a boat. Can you get that?”
“I know someone who’ll help. She’s not Egyptian. She came from Mitanni in an entourage of Tadukhepa, the daughter of the prince of Naharin Satirna, who was sent to be my father’s wife. We’re friends. I trust her. Stay hidden here while I find her.”
I shook my head. “I’m coming with you.”
“It’ll be quicker if I go alone. There are guards and guard dogs.”
“I’m not afraid.”
After the darkness of the labyrinth, it was like stepping into a strange dream. The sunlight seemed too bright, the air too perfumed with mimosa, and the drone of bees too heavy and loud. In the distance below us was the mortuary temple, its gold walls and silver paving glinting in the sunlight. A phalanx of glistening black granite lionesses led to its silver doors. These were guarded by two colossal stone statues of King Amenhotep. Even from this distance the statues seemed huge.
With a quick sweeping glance, I took in the poppies and cornflowers making splashes of red and blue in the fields, the gardens laid out with date palms, the row upon row of green arbors heavy with grapes, the orchards lush with apricots and pomegranates, the fields of lilies with each bud staked so it wouldn’t droop, the roses in every hue from soft cream to flaming orange to a red darker than blood.
Suddenly I realized what I was searching for. People. There weren’t any. The entire landscape lay silent. There was no one at the mortuary temple, nor any laborers hoeing or leading irrigation water in the orchards and fields.
I glanced toward the Great River and saw the reason. Even from this distance I could see it was covered with sails wafting back and forth like hundreds of pale butterflies. On the opposite bank, a mass of people was moving along the sphinx-lined avenue that led from the river to the Temple of Karnak. On either side of its gateway, huge pennants of the sun god Amun fluttered from the massive cedar flag posts.
A thrum of music and voices came floating up to us on the breeze.
I frowned at Tuthmosis. Then suddenly I remembered. “Sophet! The Dog Star must’ve risen! It’s the Festival of Sophet! Thebes is celebrating the rising of Sophet and the rising of the floodwaters. Amun has to be thanked for saving the country from famine.”
“Even better! Let’s hurry! The palace will be empty. Everyone will have joined the procession.”
Along the river I saw the red sails of the royal barge. I curled my fingers to my eyes to cut the glare and focused on the figures on deck, scanning them for any sign of my father.
“Do you think he’s there?”
“Who?”
“My father.”
Tuthmosis shielded his eyes as well. I saw him stiffen. “My brother’s on that boat! Curse him! He’s already wearing my crown—the royal ceremonial Atef crown of ostrich feathers topped by gold Atum disks. Kept only for special ceremonies. All you said is true. Wosret has lost no time!”
The swish of sistrums came to us like reeds brushing in the breeze. But above their music, I heard another sound that sent a shiver through me—an eerie wail of wind as it whistled among the stone cracks of the two statues of Amenhotep. The plaintive sound added its voice to the celebration. Even after death, Tuthmosis’s father could still be heard!
We ran between tall papyrus reeds and ducked into the shadows along the walls of the garden. For the first time I saw how scarred Tuthmosis’s left leg was, but the rest of his body was well muscled and his limp didn’t slow him down.
There was nobody about. Not even guard dogs. I caught glimpses of a menagerie—wild antelope and strange, tall giraffe creatures and lions with huge dark manes in separate enclosures. But there was no time to stop as Tuthmosis hurried me through an elaborate maze of cages. Around us the air rustled and rang with curious animal sounds and eccentric squawks. Brilliant-feathered birds flashed against foliage and monkeys jumped from branch to branch in shafts of sunlight.
Tuthmosis gave a sharp whistle. The creatures fell silent, and from behind a high stone wall came an answering call.
“Who is it?” I whispered.
“It’s her. The girl.”
“Why isn’t she at the procession?”
But Tuthmosis had already disappeared through a gate. I followed him into a courtyard filled with flowers and trees and paintings on the walls of still more flowers and trees. At my feet, rills of water alive with small fish trickled among paving stones painted with even more fish. The courtyard seemed filled with every kind of tree, flower, and creature. There was no way of knowing what was real and what was truly decoration.
But the girl was real. She was quite the most exotic creature I’d ever laid eyes on.
Her linen robe was woven with dyed red threads and tasseled along the edge, different from anything worn in Thebes. And her sandals, made from plaited papyrus, were drawn up sharply in the front in the shape of a boat’s prow. I imagined them plowing through the sands of some faraway desert.
Her lips were touched with red ocher and her dark, mysterious eyes were rimmed with kohl, made darker still by the brilliant color she wore beneath her eyelids. Not the usual green malachite eye paste worn at important rituals to symbolize new life, her eye paint was bright turquoise, as brilliant as the flash
of a kingfisher. It made her eyes appear even darker—like deep reflecting pools.
In her hand she held a broken sistrum handle in the image of Hathor. Metal disks from the sistrum lay scattered at her feet.
She turned pale at the sight of us. “Can it be? They said you were dead!”
She rushed forward and bowed low over Tuthmosis’s feet so that the plaited strands of her wig swept into a rill and dragged wet marks across the paving.
He helped her up.
“It’s truly you! I can’t believe it. People are wearing white headbands of mourning for both you and Queen Tiy! Wosret has announced your death.”
“He lost no time!”
The girl nodded. “So much has happened since the sun rose yesterday. The rooms of the Middle Palace are already prepared for your brother even though he still wears the side lock of youth. He’s been given the leopard-skin robe of office and today he wears the royal ceremonial Atef crown. The girl Queen Tiy chose before she died will be given the Scepter of the Lily to carry in her left hand today at the ceremony. They plan a royal wedding.”
“You mean Nefertiti? My brother is to marry Nefertiti? She was chosen for me.”
The girl nodded and went on quickly. “Today your brother will be presented to Amun at Karnak. He will be named King Amenhotep the Younger. Everyone has joined the procession. I was late. My sistrum broke—”
“What?” Tuthmosis interrupted. “The priests are going to the innermost sanctuary of Amun, the Most Secret of Places, with my brother?”
I knew how binding this was. His brother would be led away from the eyes of the common people through the dazzling painted halls with mammoth columns reflected in the silvered floors, into the sanctuary of the supreme god Amun. A mysterious secret ritual would confirm his new powers. Afterward the statue of Amun would be carried by the priests to the royal barge and taken upstream to the Temple of Luxor. In the darkest recess of Luxor the new pharaoh would meet his royal ka—the spirit of his inner being that ordinary mortals meet only after death.
But a king is privileged. In this secret place Tuthmosis’s brother would meet his ka face-to-face and then emerge a god-king blessed by Amun—the sun god’s living image on earth. To be obeyed by everyone.
“You can’t allow this!” The words slipped out before I had time to think.
I saw the flare of anger in Tuthmosis’s eyes. “Do you think I won’t fight to win my kingdom back?”
The girl shook her head. “You won’t win it back. The priests will never let you return. They’ve told everyone you’re dead. They’ll make sure you die so their plan remains in place.”
“I’ll gather an army against them.” His eyes were as cold and flinty as river pebbles as he caught my look.
I shook my head. “An Egyptian army against Wosret? The Most Powerful One? Never. Everyone is terrified of him.”
“There are armies beyond Egypt’s borders. If I can’t get the support of Egypt, I’ll get the support of Egypt’s enemies.” He turned to the girl. “I need your silence and your help urgently.”
“You have both!” Her eyes darted toward me.
He saw her look. “Isikara is coming with me. I owe her father my life. Are there servants about?”
She shook her head. “None. They’re all at the procession. The only guards left have raided the storehouse and are already in sodden stupors from palace beer. They wouldn’t know the difference between an ox and their grandfathers right now. Without your mother to keep order, everything is upside down. And with the news of your death as well, everything is in turmoil.”
“The dogs?”
“Chained up. The guards wanted to be free of bother.”
“Quick, then, Ta-Miu! We’ll go to my mother’s quarters. We’re least likely to be disturbed there. Isikara needs a wig. Nothing fancy. Something for protection against the sun, as well as a disguise. I need one, too. One that makes me look like a peasant girl.”
I saw the girl try to hide a smile. Ta-Miu? So that was her name. Ta-Miu was the word for “little cat.”
“And we need a boat,” Tuthmosis said as he turned abruptly and led the way through a massive doorway.
7
TA-MIU, THE GIRL
FROM MITANNI
Each room seemed more vividly painted, more glistening with glazed tiles, and more brilliant with inlays of painted plaster than the last. There was too much to take in with a single hurried glance.
I ran breathlessly through the passages lined with decorated boxes, each with a plate naming the papyrus they contained. Many more than in my father’s temple library. My eyes swept over the names as I ran. The Book of Dreams. The Book of the Black-Maned Lion. The Book of Plagues. They were all there. Too many for one man to have ever read in a lifetime.
At the very heart of the palace was an audience room so vast that I was scared to look up. The entire length of its ceiling was painted with the huge wings of the vulture goddess, Nekhbet, and the vault was supported by mammoth columns adorned with lotus flowers unfurling their great petals against the ceiling. Under our sandaled feet, portraits of Egypt’s enemies flashed by—trodden on daily by the pharaoh as he passed through this room to his canopied throne.
Beyond this were the royal bedchambers. The girl disappeared down a passageway. Tuthmosis drew me quickly on.
Queen Tiy’s bedroom was painted a brilliant red. As we entered, I was overpowered by the perfume of hundreds of lilies filling urns everywhere. Hovering over us with giant outstretched wings was another painted vulture goddess. And snarling up at me with claws bared and terrifying eyes was a lion. I stood paralyzed until I realized it lay flat on the floor without flesh or muscle.
Queen Tiy’s feathered vulture crown was right there before me on a special stand. My fingers ached to touch it, to lift it up and feel the weight of it on my head, and to sense the sweep of its wings glittering with gold and jewels at either side of my temple.
I glanced at Tuthmosis. How did he feel being so close to his mother’s things? But he was expressionless, as if passing through a stranger’s chamber, and urged me quickly past.
There were cats curled up everywhere. Lying on the drapes that covered a huge lion-clawed bed and sleeping on cushioned chairs. One rubbed itself against Tuthmosis’s legs. I saw a faint smile cross his face. “My mother shaved her eyebrows the day her favorite cat died. She had all her cats embalmed after they died and buried them in sacred receptacles.”
We came to an inner sanctum. My breath caught. Everything any woman could desire lay waiting for the hands of the queen—as if she were about to walk into the room at any moment.
Small chests, intricately inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, held cosmetic spoons, kohl tubes, eyebrow tweezers, curling clips, combs, delicate glass phials of perfume, and turquoise-glazed offering bowls. Ostrich fans and an array of amulets, bracelets, rings, and jeweled broad-collar necklaces spilled out onto tables, like multicolored rainbows.
Tuthmosis moved around restlessly, touching and moving things. Plucking here and there. Mindlessly stroking a cat that had followed us. “What’s taking that girl so long?”
Without being able to stop myself, I dug my fingers into the jewels and brought out a ring with the largest amethyst I’d ever seen. I picked up an ivory comb expecting to feel the warmth of the queen’s hand still on it. A single strand of hennaed hair twirled through its teeth. I traced my fingers over a translucent alabaster cosmetic spoon in the form of a girl carrying a gazelle-shaped container. I lifted the finely carved head that formed the lid. When I held it to my nose, the hollowed belly still smelled of perfumed wax.
Just then the girl returned. She took the jar from my hands and replaced it. She handed me a fresh tunic made of coarse, unbleached linen. She moved with the light, quick hover of an iridescent dragonfly. The plaited side pieces of her wig swung against her cheeks like delicate beaded curtains as she offered me a tray of glazed apricots and some thin slices of smoke-flavored duck.
&nb
sp; “There’s no time to eat,” Tuthmosis snapped. “What about wigs?”
The girl opened the catches on a box. “I’d have brought two of my own wigs but they’re too distinctive. These are from the servants’ quarters. They’ve already been powdered with cinnamon against lice and perfumed with rose oil.”
“Lice?”
“We need sandals,” Tuthmosis interrupted.
“I’ve brought some.” She glanced at me. “Two pairs of mine. Your feet are the same size.” The ones she held were normal flat-woven ones, not the upturned kind she was wearing. She held some toward Tuthmosis. “And two pairs of your own.”
“What about the boat?” Tuthmosis asked.
“There’s a reed boat waiting for you at the causeway closest to the south gate. The causeway will take you directly south to join the Great River farther upstream. With luck you won’t come across anyone returning from either Karnak or Luxor. There are throw-sticks and harpoon spears in the boat to catch waterfowl and fish. I’ve put food in a basket as well, and there are skins to keep you warm.” She glanced across at me. “And a small casket of almond and cinnamon oil to protect you from the sun and wind.”
She’d thought of everything.
“Would you like kohl to protect your eyes from the glare and some of my Syrian eye paste made from ground turquoise powder mixed with almond oil?”
Tuthmosis clicked his tongue. “There’s no time for this! They’ll be returning soon.”
“Wait!” I touched the girl’s arm. “I must ask something. Have you news of my father, the priest at the Temple of Sobek?”
She shook her head. But when I searched her face, her eyes seemed to say something else. She shrugged. “No one is sure of anything. There are rumors. One moment it’s said we’ll be sent back to Mitanni, the next it’s whispered we’ll all be made slaves to the new pharaoh.”
Eye of the Moon Page 5