The Twelfth Transforming (14 page)

“Do you not fear me, Sitamun?” The question was almost inaudible.

“Yes, I do,” Sitamun replied drowsily, “but while my father lives, you dare not touch me, and when he dies, I will have a new pharaoh’s protection. In any case, I do not think you will harm me. You are not that insecure. If you were going to murder me, you would have done it a long time ago, when you and I were rivals.”

Tiye laughed harshly. “We were rivals only in your conceited mind, Sitamun. At least use your influence over the prince to keep these sun priests in their place. I do not like his religious direction. You can care nothing for this Aten nonsense.”

Sitamun slowly closed her eyes and smiled. “No, but Amunhotep does. Oh, Mother, you have been Egypt’s first minister for too long. You see dark problems where there are none. He is amusing himself, that is all. We are all amusing ourselves.” She sat up, signaling her attendant for a towel, and Tiye knew there was no point in arguing further. With a frigid nod she took her leave.

I suppose there is some truth in what she says
, Tiye thought as she walked back to her own apartments.
It is all too easy to forget how to laugh, to dally, to be foolish for the sake of being foolish. And she is certainly speaking more than a suspicion when she accuses me of jealousy. I do wish to control my son, to be admitted to his circle of friends, to have him defer to me. And I will. She is wrong in imagining otherwise
.

In the weeks that followed, Tiye kept careful watch over the frenetic building going on at Karnak, observing that her son paid full reverence to Amun while his temple to the Aten rose pink and new amid the awesome towers of an older order. Sometimes it seemed to her that Amunhotep was laughing under the rituals that he made deliberately ornate, not in the way his father laughed, with the good-humored scorn of the sophisticate, but with the cold secrecy of an initiate into deeper mysteries.

She endeavored to spend more time with him, walking with him and Nefertiti, Sitamun, and his hangers-on while they fed the ducks that thronged the royal lakes or picked flowers to weave into necklaces or ate an evening meal in pretty simplicity on the grass while watching Ra sink into the mouth of Nut. Amunhotep spoke seldom then of religious matters, but she could not tell if it was because he was inhibited by her presence or not. He talked a great deal, with charming hesitancy, of the glories and attractions of nature, and it was obvious that animals trusted him. He was followed by monkeys, cats, and his father’s greyhounds, and when he inspected his division of charioteers, the horses in the stables came up to him without fear and nuzzled him gently. Tiye was at once repelled and fascinated by a guilelessness that seemed too studied to be authentic, a frankness that seemed to ridicule mere honesty. Yet she was touched by the deference he showed her. He wrote songs for her that he sang himself, playing the lute he had mastered with such skill. He drew her arm through his own as they strolled the gardens or held her hand like a little boy.

The court began to affect a simpering naturalness. Artificial flowers of amethyst, jasper, and turquoise set in gold appeared on necklaces and belts and in red-painted earlobes or were woven into the hair of wigs that hung to the waists of both men and women. No courtier with social aspirations paraded in the gardens without a monkey perched on one shoulder, a dog or goose at his heels, and a servant or two carrying kittens in baskets. Their women congregated on the lawns to share dainty sips of local beer and discuss the relative abilities of their respective gardeners. The harem acres, usually deserted until midmorning, were suddenly full of sleepy-eyed concubines who stumbled from their silken couches at dawn to breathe and exclaim over the new air. The trade in unperfumed oil began to soar.

Tiye watched the courtiers transform Malkatta into an expensive imitation of a wealthy townsman’s summer retreat while her son moved oblivious at the center of the new diversion. She hoped it would not last long. Her eyes followed Amunhotep as he nuzzled his cats, rolled on the grass with his monkeys, and ran laughing after the tame ducks that waddled out of his way, and for the first time seriously tried to imagine the Double Crown on his strangely malformed head. It alarmed her that she could not.
But this is part of childhood
, she told herself,
the freedom to be gay and artless with one’s friends. When did Amunhotep ever have that opportunity before? He will tire of it soon. He must
.

Nefertiti was finally brought to bed in Tiye’s own quarters and gave birth to a girl with an ease and speed her slimness had belied. After the furore that had broken out among the privileged spectators died away and they had left to continue their rejoicing with wine, Amunhotep took his daughter in his arms.

“I shall call her Meritaten,” he said, holding her closely while she flailed her tiny arms and began to cry. “Beloved of the Aten is a good name. She is my flesh.”

“Do you not wish to consult an oracle before naming her?” Tiye asked.

“I am the chief servitor of the Aten and know the god’s mind,” he replied solemnly. “Meritaten is a name that pleases him very much.”

“Will you send an official message to your father?”

Ignoring her, he handed Meritaten to the wet nurse and sat beside Nefertiti. “I told you it would be easy,” he said to her, running a finger down her damp cheek, “and before long you will have your beautiful body back. That will please you.”

Nefertiti pulled away politely from his hand. “If it will please you also, Amunhotep,” she said. “May I sleep now? I am weary.”

He stood immediately. “Sleep then, fortunate one.” He turned to Tiye. “Majesty, share a cup with me.”

Tiye nodded, and they went through to the little private reception hall beyond. As servants hurried to light the lamps and Kheruef poured wine for them both, Tiye slipped into her chair, and Amunhotep took the stool at her side.

“Pharaoh should hear this news from one of your heralds,” she said mildly. “Can you not put aside your hatred on this occasion?”

He picked up his cup and began running a finger around the rim. His silver rings shone. “Mother the sphinx,” he said slowly. “Mother the unknowable, the all powerful.”

“Your talk is foolish. Your father is a sick man, and this news is great.”

Amunhotep’s thick lips curled. Suddenly he drank, draining the cup, and held it out to Kheruef to be refilled. His brown eyes were full of merriment. “Your husband is indeed sick. He is a man, nothing but a man. He will die. Go to him yourself with my news.”

“You are cruel and pitiless! Is there no forgiveness in you?” she cried out, shocked.

He gazed into his wine without replying. Presently she said more calmly, “A daughter is good, Amunhotep. She will be queen for Smenkhara.”

“Unless I have a son.” He came to life and eyed her kindly. “Are sons harder to deliver than daughters, Majesty?”

Tiye laughed. “It makes no difference to a woman.”

“But Smenkhara gave you pain.”

“That is because I am no longer young.”

For a long time he regarded her, his eyes moving from her face to the sphinx hanging from her neck and back again. Then he said, “You are wrong. You are immortal.”

Does he somehow truly believe that because I am a goddess I will live forever?
Tiye wondered.
Does the thought please him, or is he wishing instead that I would tie so that the last of the old administration could be swept away?
She watched as he emptied his second cup and set it on the table. “I am of course immortal in my godhead,” she agreed conversationally, “but my body is all too mortal!” He did not smile and seemed all at once to sink into a dark trance, his eyes steady on her face.

“I remember Thothmes,” he burst out suddenly.

The name shocked her. “Your brother?”

“You brought him to visit me. He came once, with reluctance. He stood in my room with his arm around your shoulders, smiling, not meeting my eye. He was very brown and smelled of horses and sunlight, and he had the dust of the training ground on his sandals. He said…”

“I know what he said.” Tiye swallowed, unprepared for the vividness of the memory. Her elder son, so tall, the touch of his firm hand on her shoulders in a protective gesture, his breath warm on her cheek, white teeth… Thothmes was always laughing, like his father. Always striding, shooting, thundering by in his chariot, a prince full of the magic of godship and command. Life had been simpler then. Thothmes was a mighty Hawk-in-the-Nest, and Sitamun was his princess.
I should have known
, Tiye thought passionately,
that it would not last
. “He said, ‘Little brother, when you grow up, I will take you lion hunting.’”

“I dreamed of it for days,” Amunhotep said, and as always the only evidence of his distress was the cracking of his childish voice. “I would wake every morning excited before my eyes had even opened, thinking,
Today he will come. Today I will ride in his chariot and see the desert and really look at a lion
. But he never came.”

“He was not a reflective young man,” Tiye objected gently. “He knew you were a prisoner and thought it ridiculous and simply said whatever came into his mind because he was embarrassed.”

“And then he died.” Amunhotep slid from the stool and stood swaying, the wine he had drunk so quickly going to his head. “It was my destiny to live in spite of everything, to become pharaoh. I am as indestructible as you.”

“You have a beautiful daughter, a loving wife, a kingdom waiting to honor you,” Tiye pointed out, mystified and shaken. “The past is embalmed, my son.”

“Yes.” Suddenly his head went down. He put a hand on the table to keep his balance, and then with a short bow he lumbered across the lamplit floor, his step clumsy, his soft hips swaying like a woman’s. The servants sprang to open the doors, their faces impassive. In the dimness beyond, his herald raised his staff of office, and his On bodyguard fell in behind him.

Pity and scorn washed over Tiye, eclipsing for a moment the protective love she had always felt for him.
He is like a witless beggar
, she thought as she ordered an escort and began to make her way to her husband’s quarters.
Why memories of Thothmes now? I saved his life, yet he is not grateful. He wished to be reborn from the harem in triumphant strength like Ra, to be like Thothmes
. But her irritation faded as she glided through the torchlit passages full of the busy slap of servants’ feet and the lazy laughter of courtiers bent on a night of diversion, and only love and puzzlement remained, like the bitter residue of a tart wine on her tongue.

Pharaoh’s quarters were full of yellow light as she was announced, and the great double doors swung ponderously closed behind her. The boy, naked and glistening with warm oil, crouched in the middle of the floor, a Dogs and Jackals board between him and a little Syrian dancer with fresh lotus flowers in her hair. Other dancers sprawled together or sat giggling, heads close. Musicians stood by an unlit brazier, and the din of finger cymbals and lutes wove in and out of the sounds of conversation. At the foot of the couch three physicians were consulting quietly, ignoring the noise. Tiye’s spirits rose at the cheerful babble.
He is better
, she thought as she crossed the room, but as she neared the couch and saw him, her buoyancy left her. Amunhotep lay on his back, breathing harshly. His skin was gray and transparent, giving an illusion of tightness to his flabby cheeks, and Tiye fancied that she could see the large bones lying just beneath the surface of his flesh. His mouth was slightly parted, revealing black teeth punctuated by several gaps. She bent to kiss him, and her nostrils were assailed by a faint, sweetish odor that turned her blood to ice. She had not smelled it often but now recognized it immediately as a harbinger of death.

“Amunhotep?” she whispered.

He opened one eye and tried to smile. “I know,” he managed, the breath whistling through his lips. “Our latest god has become a father. At least, someone has become a father.” His pupil was dilated, unfocused, and Tiye wondered how drugged he was.

“It was a girl,” she said, leaning close to his ear. “Nefertiti is well.”

“Nefertiti has done her duty nobly. Is the eunuch pleased?”

Tiye laughed briefly. “You are a terrible man, Mighty Bull,” she whispered, her lips moving against his temple. “I love you very much. I can see that I must waste no sympathy on you. I think your son is pleased. He has gone to his quarters to get drunk.”

“Lucky Amunhotep. Make them turn me on my side, Tiye, so that I can see you.”

She signaled, and his body servants came running, easing his bulk over, pressing the pillow away from his face. Now he opened both eyes, and Tiye, as always, became dominated by a gaze in whose depths, drug-glazed as they were, a steady glint of vitality still showed.

“Why do you allow all this noise?” she asked. “You need sleep. Send them away.”

“No. These are the things I have lived for. I drink the physicians’ filth and the pain lessens, and I watch the bodies stretch and whirl, and the music rubs against my skin, and I find myself drifting, dreaming of red wine flowing into jeweled cups and blue eyes speaking of endless lust…” The words degenerated into incoherence and then ceased.

Tiye did not take his hand, soothe him, comfort him. She knew he would not have wanted it. She sat looking into his eyes, the cacophony of a banqueting hall all around them, until she became aware that he no longer saw her. She rose and beckoned the physicians. “What is his condition?”

Their spokesman raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “He is ravaged by fevers. His gums are riddled with abscesses. Yesterday he lost two more teeth. For five years, Majesty, I have been coming to you with the same words: His will to live is not human.”

“Of course it is not!” she snapped pettishly. “You speak of Amun himself. Give him everything he wants and continue to report to me.” She left the chamber, hearing the doors swing to behind her with relief, the cheerful noise giving way to the brooding silence of the corridor. She was exhausted, and as she walked, she fancied that she carried the odor of death with her, clinging to the folds of her sheath like pollen from some monstrous flower.