The Twelfth Transforming (17 page)

The temple of the Son of Hapu loomed on Tiye’s left, the vast granite statue of her old enemy staring serenely and, Tiye thought, smugly over her head to the river beyond. This day he was unattended, for his priests walked in the procession. She averted her eyes and briefly toyed with the idea of having the temple razed. Some excuse could be found, perhaps that the stone was needed elsewhere. She herself would smash the nose from the statue so that Hapu could no longer smell, and pick at the eyes so that he could not see. But she quickly discarded the idea, for the common people had already taken to gathering in his forecourt, their arms full of flowers or bread or cheap blue beads, bringing their blind children to be healed. How ironic, she thought, that a misguided seer should cure the blind.

To her right her husband’s own mighty temple was drawing slowly closer, its columns towering against the blue of the sky, and beyond it, well into the strip of fertile land that was flooded each year, the two sentinels that the Son of Hapu himself had designed. Each was a likeness of Amunhotep over ten times taller than a man, and both gazed with omnipotence across the Nile to teeming Thebes and Karnak. The Son of Hapu had selected red quartzite for their sculpting, answering those who dared to ask him why he should concern himself with an engineer’s business with a secretive smile. When the monuments had been erected and dedicated, the reason became clear, for the statues sang at dawn, a clear, ringing note of purest quality. None knew what magic the Son of Hapu had performed to make the rock live, but even Tiye had been awed. Her own masons and engineers could give no answers to her irritated questions. Members of the court who could drag themselves from their couches before Ra to this day stood in the grass at their feet to hear the magic.

The litter swayed on. Beneath the keening of the women conversations had started. Sitamun was eating a quince, holding the fruit away from her spotless linen so that the juice should not dribble onto it. Tiye allowed her thoughts to run on of their own accord until the procession halted for refreshment. When the canopies were folded away, those unfortunate enough to continue on foot began to sweat as Ra neared his zenith.

Tiye looked once again to the left, where a broad avenue of sphinxes led to a fine mortuary temple whose white terraces mounted gracefully to three shrines hewn out of the cliff itself. It had been built by Thothmes III, who had also erected another, smaller version that lacked this breathtaking symmetry. Few worshipers paced the avenue any longer, and the forest of myrrh trees that had been brought from some mysterious place and planted there were often neglected. It was sometimes said that Osiris Thothmes had not built the temple at all, that a woman pharaoh had raised it before her reign ended in confusion, but Tiye gave no credence to the legend.

The procession swung right, into the shade of the cliffs, and emerged again into blazing sunlight, where the priests were already waiting. Incense spiraled into the limpid air. The painted coffin stood prepared. Tiye stepped from her litter, and together with Sitamun and Amunhotep approached it. The ceremonies began.

For several days the courtiers camped in varying degrees of comfort in whatever shade they could find, whiling away the time. Some went hunting out on the desert. Some dictated letters, sampled foreign wines, or made love while the Amun priests chanted on. Interest was stirred when it came time to Open the Mouth, for all knew of their new pharaoh’s antipathy toward his father. The more superstitious among them waited for some manifestation from the dead god as his son approached with the knife in his hand, performing the rite as heir with a polite indifference. A surge of sympathy went out to Tiye, who swung open the coffin and was the first to kiss the bandaged feet. Pharaoh’s other wives followed suit, tears watering the sem-priests’ careful handiwork, but Amunhotep remained standing under his canopy, arms folded across his scrawny chest, eyes vacantly staring at the surrounding rocks.

It was with a feeling of universal relief that the coffin was at last carried into the damp hole to be swallowed by the darkness. Tiye and Sitamun followed it bearing flowers and watched as it was nestled into its five sarcophagi. The golden nails were driven in, and the flowers laid. All around, the torchlight gleamed on Pharaoh’s belongings, the gold and silver, jewels and precious woods.

Evening came, violet and dark blue, and Pharaoh’s last feast was set on blue cloths that carpeted the ground. Cushions were strewn, torches lit, and while the guardians of the dead sealed the tomb and pressed the jackal over the nine captives into the wet mud, the company fell upon the food and wine.

The funeral feast went on all night, until the valley resounded with the shrieks of the drunken guests, and dawn revealed a welter of bones, crumbs, half-eaten fruit, broken pots, and the sprawled bodies of the unconscious. Tiye had eaten and drunk little, retiring to her tent only to lie sleeplessly listening to the uproar. Just before dawn she ordered out her litter and with relief returned to Malkatta, going straight to the Office of Foreign Correspondence. The business of government would go on, and until her son’s coronation it was her duty to keep her hands on the reins. She could not predict his course, for he had shown little interest in the affairs of state.
Perhaps
, she mused, automatically correcting her scribe while her thoughts ran on,
he will be content merely to wear the crown, and my usefulness will not be at an end. It will be Nefertiti and Sitamun, two fledgling sphinxes, who will press for an active role for my son. I will take each day as it comes
.

A month later Tiye performed her own homage to her dead husband. In Karnak she dedicated an offering table to him, standing barefooted, wine and meat in her hands, while Ptahhotep poured cleansing water over the great stone slab. A fire was lit, and Tiye watched, a lump rising in her throat and her vision blurring, as the sacrificial meat was consumed. Carved on the table’s side were her own cartouches, the insignia of a monarch still reigning, and the words she had chosen to commemorate publicly Amunhotep:
The principal Royal Wife. She made it as her monument for her beloved husband, Nebmaatra
.

“For thy ka, Osiris Nebmaatra,” she whispered as the tears at last ran down her painted cheeks. “Forgive me for this show of weakness, but surely tears are no weaker than love, and I loved you.” She turned to the wooden stela that she had also commissioned, on which she and he were locked in each other’s arms forever, both young and handsome, with life spread out like Egypt herself for their pleasure. The fire spat and crackled, and Ptahhotep sang to the dead god. Tiye allowed herself the luxury of the grief from which she had been guarding her own ka. Now it consumed her, bringing with it the stark promise of loneliness, and she let it feed. She did not cry for him again.

8

A
munhotep’s coronation took place toward the end of the month of Phamenat. As was customary, he first received the homage of the northern gods in the temple of Ptah at Memphis before returning to Thebes to be crowned. Like his ancestors, he sat on the great stepped throne in Amun’s pillared inner court at Karnak, the lotus of the south and papyrus of the north beneath it, to be purified with water and crowned with the red and white crowns of a united country. The ancient jeweled cloak was laid around his frail shoulders, and the crook, flail, and scimitar were placed in his hands. He seemed to submit to it all with the same vague meekness he had exhibited at the funeral, allowing himself to be guided through the ceremonies almost as if he were a sacrificial animal. The only emotion he showed came at the reading of the titles by his herald. They were many, including not only the traditional Mighty Bull of Ma’at and Exalted One of Double Plumes, but also the titles he himself had added: High Priest of Ra-Harakhti the Exalted One in the Horizon in His Name of Shu Who Is in His Disk, and Great in His Duration. At the end of the ceremonies the Keeper of the Royal Regalia placed the cobra coronet on Nefertiti’s head, but the disk and plumes of an empress remained in their satin-lined box.

Nor did Amunhotep show much interest in the presentation of gifts and the feasting that went on the next day at Malkatta. He accepted the costly trinkets and prostrations expressionlessly, while Nefertiti and Sitamun exclaimed over the pile of precious objects that grew higher as evening approached. Immediately following the coronation feast a new pharaoh traditionally appointed new ministers, the young broom sweeping out the dust left by the old, but to Tiye’s surprise no officials were retired, and the devotion of the young men who had taken up residence in the palace with her son when he returned from Memphis went unrewarded. Sitting with Amunhotep on the dais of the hall his father had built for his first jubilee, she asked him, as the feast drew to an end, why he had made no changes.

“Because my palace at Thebes is not yet fit to live in, my Aten temple is not ready for my holy feet, and I am not clear in my mind what to do,” he replied over the loud babble of a thousand conversations and the click of the dancers’ finger cymbals. “Egypt runs perfectly well under your hand.”

Tiye put down her cup and turned to him slowly. “Do I understand that you are asking me to serve you as regent?”

He laughed, a sound as rarely heard as his father’s loud guffaw, but Amunhotep’s mirth was a choked squeak. “Yes, my royal mother, until such time as I wish to govern by myself. That
is
what you were hoping I would do, is it not?”

Tiye’s ringed fingers closed over his, and they smiled into each other’s eyes.

“Of course, dear Amunhotep, but I was quite prepared to do nothing more than retire and offer you advice when you needed it.”

“Were you indeed?”

Tiye had never seen him so happy. She kissed him on his flushed cheek. “Pharaoh Amunhotep IV,” she said admiringly. “The throne was ordained for you after all. We will do great things together, you and I.”

The mood of elation was still with her when she was at last able to lower herself thankfully onto her couch in the small hours of the morning. The palace was now quiet. She lay basking in the triumph and satisfaction of the day while dawn filtered slowly between the slats of the window hangings. She had been ready to keep her hands on the reins of government only indirectly, through subtle pressures and tactful manipulations, but Amunhotep himself had removed that necessity.
I am to go on ruling
, she thought.
What joy that knowledge brings! I had not realized until tonight how daunting the prospect of relinquishing power to my son was
.

Within days Amunhotep embarked on the customary journey down the Nile to visit every accessible shrine and to have his kingship confirmed by each local deity. Remembering his lack of interest in the other rituals of his coronation, Tiye suspected that he was undertaking the trip solely to see On again. He left Malkatta in the barge Sitamun had given him, the barges of his entourage strung out behind like golden beads on a silver thread. Sitamun and Nefertiti accompanied him, and Tiye did not fail to notice that he also took little Tadukhipa and several of his father’s younger wives.
He is wasting no time in appropriating the harem women who appeal to him
, she reflected as she watched him go, and she wondered at the uneasiness that that thought raised.

In Amunhotep’s absence the court relaxed into its comfortable routine of sybaritic indulgence. The ministers and underlings no longer had to flounder on a sea of spiritual double meanings, afraid of giving offense through sheer ignorance. Tiye, too, returned to the routine of many years with peace. Since Amunhotep had refused to move into the pharaonic apartments, preferring to stay in the wing he had occupied as prince until his fine new palace on the east bank was ready, she decided to take them over herself, leaving her old apartments for Nefertiti or Sitamun, whichever woman could inveigle Pharaoh into giving her the sumptuous rooms of empress. Lying on the couch she had moved from her own quarters to her husband’s luxurious bedchamber, she wished for the man she had loved an eternal continuation of such joys in the land the gods inhabited.

Tiye also took advantage of the lull in court affairs to look into family matters she had been neglecting. Now that the continuance of the family’s material well-being and position as first nobility in Egypt was assured with Nefertiti’s marriage and proven fruitfulness, Tiye decided to deal with the nagging problem of Mutnodjme. The girl was now almost seventeen, well past the age of betrothal, and as notorious at court for her familiarity with the young charioteers as she was in Thebes itself. Mutnodjme was not to be found for several days, but when she finally appeared, striding loosely across the blue water tiles of the royal bedchamber, slapping the pillars negligently as she approached, she made her reverence with the customary cool self-possession. Tiye bade her rise and take the chair prepared for her. For a while Tiye assessed her. The brown scalp was still closely shaven but for the defiant youth lock, now grown past the girl’s slim waist and wound with red ribbons. The shapely legs were unusually long, the waist cinched in as tightly as ever with a belt hung with tiny gold bells. Large jasper-studded hoops hung from her ears, and her wrists were circled by snake bracelets with red jasper eyes. Her own huge almond eyes were heavily kohled under dark green lids, while the full lips, a hallmark of the family, were hennaed orange. She was wearing a heavily pleated sheath barely touching her knees and had casually flung a cloak across her breasts.

“You look naked without your whip,” Tiye said.

Mutnodjme smiled. “That fool at the door took it from me,” she drawled. “Majesty Aunt, I am sorry for answering your summons three days late. Depet and I went to a party at Bek’s house. He was commissioned to do part of Pharaoh’s new temple, you know, and had to leave for the quarries at Assuan the next day. Depet and I decided to go, too. We commandeered some junior minister’s fishing boat, as well as his staff and most of the wine from his kitchens. We did not get as far as Assuan.”