The Twelfth Transforming (2 page)

“The Son of Hapu has been dead for a long time,” she said.

He drank, grimaced, and then began to laugh. “The only death that ever shocked me. He was already so old when I came to the throne that I believed he had compelled the gods to give him immortality. Their magic had preserved him through two reigns before mine. No seer since the dawn of Egypt had such visions, such dreams.”

“He was a peasant from a hovel in the Delta. He had no right to control such weighty matters as the succession.”

“Why not? As sphinx oracle and mouthpiece of Amun he was as qualified as anyone else. And his predictions came true for nearly eighty years.”

“All but one, Amunhotep.”

Pharaoh’s mouth set in a thin line, and he moved restlessly against the withered leaves, the rotting flowers. “While I still live I continue to be in danger; therefore, no, before you ask, I will not release that boy.”

“Why can you not call him your son?”

“My son is dead,” he snapped. “Thothmes the hunter, the handsome wielder of the scimitar. Nine years ago the chariot wheel that broke and flung him to his death destroyed direct succession in Egypt.”

“You are a stubborn man, still worshipping what might have been,” she forced herself to retort, knowing that he would react with contempt to any hint of agitation in her voice. “It is not like you to hold a grudge against fate. Or is it a grudge against the Son of Hapu for failing to predict Thothmes’ end?” She leaned toward him. “Amunhotep, why has your grief not abated? Why can you not admit that the young man in the harem is your son and mine, the last male of our line, and thus entitled to the throne of Egypt when you die?”

Amunhotep cradled the mandrake cup in both hands, not looking at her. “I wanted to kill him when the oracle told me what he saw in the Anubis cup. That day is burned into my memory, Tiye. I can still smell the wet lotus that had been gathered and laid under my throne, and see the Son of Hapu standing there at my feet, the Eye of Horus glittering on his chest. I was afraid. The Son of Hapu himself advised me to have the child strangled, and indeed I had al ready given the order when something stayed my hand. Perhaps I did not feel threatened enough.
How can this son, this three-day-old tiny worm, possibly do me harm?
I thought. ‘I have twice looked into the cup and read the omens,’ Hapu objected. ‘There is no doubt. He will grow up to murder you, O Mighty Bull.’” Amunhotep gingerly fingered his swollen cheeks and winced. “But I relented. I locked him in the harem instead.”

“Where he was kept safely, but only until Thothmes was killed.”

Amunhotep’s eyebrows rose. He put the cup back on the table and swung his legs over the edge of the couch. Tiye felt his soft thigh settle against hers. “I knew it was you who foiled that attempt,” he whispered, eyes suddenly alight. “But try as they might, my spies could never be entirely sure. Just as I could not discover for certain that it was you who poisoned Nebet-nuhe.”

Tiye did not flinch. “I understood your panic when Thothmes died,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could. “You allowed the Son of Hapu to convince you that it was a deliberate plot on the part of a ten-year-old boy who had never stepped outside the harem, whose guards were changed every week, and who had never been allowed a single male friend. But there was no conspiracy. Hapu was simply asserting his power over you.”

“No. He was trying once again to persuade me to do what I had been too weak to do before.”

Tiye laid her head against his arm. “If you had seriously wanted to kill your son, you would have gone on trying until you had succeeded. But deep in your heart, O God of Egypt, no matter how you despise the boy, you recognize your own flesh. He will be king when your end comes, and I would rather see you proclaim him crown prince now and send him to serve his time in Memphis than face the battle that will come to me if you die without an official heir. If he had been married to his sister as soon as Thothmes had been beautified, the transition upon your death would be smooth and my mind would now be at rest.”

He sat perfectly still. Only his heavy, labored breathing disturbed the thick stillness of the room. Somewhere in the dimness a lamp crackled and went out, and the cloying stench of perfumed oil intensified. “But I wanted Sitamun. And I took her. Thothmes had trained his sister well, and at sixteen she was a prize too glorious to resist.”

“But there is now no unmarried royal daughter left, and only one son. And your days are numbered.”

He reached over and stroked her face. “I taught you to lie with ease to everyone but me,” he murmured. “Now I find your honesty a terror. Yet I do not delude myself. Supposing I do order the release of that…that effeminate eunuch I spawned, and the Son of Hapu was right, and he uses his freedom to kill me?”

Tiye swiftly decided to gamble. “Then you would have the satisfaction of knowing that the oracle was right, though how such a gentle and inoffensive young man as your son could ever conceive of murder, let alone the murder of his own father, is beyond me. Besides, my husband, if by some desperate chance the prince did succeed in killing you, what then? The gods would merely welcome you into the Barque of Ra a little sooner. Your son will be pharaoh what ever you do.”

“Unless I have him executed immediately and put an end to this wrangling once and for all.”

He spoke coldly. His face had fallen into an expression of polite repose, and Tiye could not tell whether he was angry or simply taunting her with a reminder of his omnipotence.

“Very well,” she said cheerfully, aware that her hands were suddenly icy. “Speak the pharaonic word, Majesty. I will see that the order is carried out myself. I am a loyal subject. I know how to obey. Then, when you die in your turn, I will retire to my private estates with a clear conscience, having done my duty. What will it matter that the settling of the succession will be left to lesser men who will shower Egypt with each other’s blood in their scramble for the Horus Throne? I shall certainly not care that the Mighty Bull left no kingly seed behind!”

He stared at her for a long time before nodding slowly. “The crowning argument,” he muttered, “and behold, my arrogant Tiye, at last I listen. Do not press my face against the bitter mingling of my pride and loss any longer. In Thothmes’ death the gods exacted a harsh payment for the wealth and power I have possessed all my life.” He smiled faintly. “They should be laboring for me in the Royal Treasury. I now concede. Have him released. I have done it all, had it all, and whether I am extinguished by sickness or an assassin’s knife, I must pass. I can at least spare you the annoyance of a ring of jackals barking in your face if I die without an official heir. But do not think that you can give him Sitamun. I need her.”

Weak with a relief she dared not show, Tiye blurted, “I was thinking of Nefertiti.”

Once again, startlingly, he laughed aloud. Turning, he reached for her throat, kneading and squeezing her. The gold chain holding up the sphinx pectoral pressed painfully into her skin, but she knew better than either to show fear or to resist. “A family tradition,” he wheezed, shaking her, his grip tight. “Once again you secure the throne on behalf of a bunch of Mitanni adventurers. For that is what you are, all of you. Loyal servants of the crown, earners of every reward, but may the gods have pity on any pharaoh who gets in your way.”

“For three generations my family has served Egypt selflessly. Horus, you are unjust,” she choked. “My father did not force you to make me empress. He did not have that kind of power. You raised me to divinity yourself.”

Suddenly he released her, and she tried to catch her breath quietly. “I loved Yuya. I trusted him. I love and trust you also, Tiye. It is the pain. Sometimes I cannot bear it. Cassia, oil of cloves, the mandrake, nothing really helps.”

“I know,” she said, rising to stand between his legs. “There is only this.” Placing her hands on his shoulders, she bent and kissed him. He sighed gently, drawing her down onto his knee, his mouth soon leaving hers to seek her painted nipple.
So much has changed, Amunhotep, but not this
, she thought, passive with pleasure for a moment.
In spite of everything I still adore and worship you
. “Nefertiti?” she whispered, then cried out as he bit her. “If you will,” he replied, a quiver of amusement in his voice. He pulled the wig from her head and plunged both hands into her own long tresses.

Just before dawn she left him sleeping peacefully, free of pain for a few hours. She wanted to stay and sing to him softly, cradle and rock him, but instead she gathered up her wig, fastened the sphinx once more about her bruised neck, and went out, closing the doors slowly behind her. Surero and her herald slept, the one bowed on the stool, the other huddled against the wall. The torches lining the long passage had gone out, and the guards had changed, the new faces heavy with the need for rest but with eyes alert. Into the ephemeral cool of a summer night a faint gray light was pooling. Tiye had raised a sandaled foot to stir her herald when she heard a movement and turned.

Sitamun had stepped into the corridor and was standing uncertainly, white linen floating around her, a gossamer-thin pleated short cloak around her slim shoulders. She was wigless, her own brown hair frothing about her face, one silver circlet resting on her forehead. Amulets of silver clasped her arms, and silver scarabs and sphinxes hung across her breasts. Tiye, exhausted and satiated, had the chilling impression that she was gazing back through the years at a vision of herself, and for a second was frozen with fear and an aching longing for what had been, what could never come again. Then she began to walk toward her daughter. “He does not need your presence tonight, Sitamun,” she called, and at the sound of her voice her herald scrambled to his feet. “He is asleep now.”

Watching jealousy and disappointment flit across her daughter’s imperious face, Tiye quelled a spurt of purely feminine triumph.
It is not worthy of me to take pleasure in thwarting Sitamun
, she thought contritely as the young woman hesitated.
Such pettiness belongs to aging concubines in large harems, not to an empress
. She smiled warmly. Sitamun did not respond. After a while she bowed stiffly and disappeared into the somnolent shadows.

Back in her own apartments, Tiye ate to the music of the lute and harp players that woke her every morning and then sent for Neb-Amun. He was waiting for the summons and came quickly, a plump, graceful man in a full-length scribe’s gown, his head shaved bare, his face impeccably painted. He laid down his burden of scrolls and bowed, arms extended.

“Greetings, Neb-Amun,” she said. “It is too hot to receive you on my throne; therefore I shall lie down.” She did so, settling her neck against the cool curve of her ivory headrest as Piha covered her with a sheet and her fan-bearer began to wave the blue feathers over her. “I shall also close my eyes, but my ears shall remain open. Sit.”

He took the chair beside the couch while Piha retired to her corner. “There is not a great deal for Your Majesty’s attention,” Neb-Amun said, shuffling through his papers. “From Arzawa the usual grumbles over encroachments made by the Khatti, and of course a letter from the Khatti protesting an Arzawa raid across the mutual border. I myself can answer that. From Karduniash a demand for more gold, after the usual greetings. I do not advise that Great Horus send them anything. They have received much from us already, and beneath the demands are veiled threats that treaties will be concluded with either the Kassites or the Assyrians if Pharaoh does not continue to show his friendship.”

“Pharaoh will arrange military maneuvers to the east,” Tiye murmured. “That should be enough. Is there anything from Mitanni?”

“Yes. Tushratta is withholding the dowry until the city of Misrianne is officially his, that is, until the scroll of ownership reaches him. He has received the gold and silver. Princess Tadukhipa has arrived at Memphis. Word came this morning.”

Tiye’s eyes flew open, then closed again. “So there really is to be an addition to the harem,” she muttered. “After all the haggling and kidnapping of ambassadors and empty promises and insults, little Tadukhipa is in Egypt.”
I would like to see Mitanni just once
, she thought suddenly.
The home of my ancestors. Who knows but that this new king, Tushratta, might be a distant relative of mine. How strange!
“Is there anything else?”

Neb-Amun paused. “There is no official confirmation yet, Majesty, but it is rumored that a new prince has arisen in the land of the Khatti, who is pulling the people together. It seems that the Khatti will recover from the sacking of Boghaz-keuoi after all.”

“Perhaps, although an enemy that can penetrate to the capital city of a country is not likely to be repulsed quickly. Particularly if it is being secretly armed and victualed.” Tiye turned her head and looked at Neb-Amun, but her gaze was unfocused. She frowned. “We know that Tushratta has been taking advantage of the chaos among the Khatti to strengthen his own position by aiding Khatti’s rebellious vassal states. The balance of power between Mitanni, Egypt, and the Khatti was delicate, and is now upset.”

“Khatti is now very weak.”

“And a weak Khatti means a much stronger Mitanni. We must watch the situation carefully. We cannot have Mitanni become too swollen, but neither can we allow the Khatti to grow too arrogant. We have treaties with the Khatti?”

Neb-Amun nodded. “Yes, but they are old.”

“We can dredge them out of storage if necessary. Is there word on the character of this prince? What is his name?”

“The desert police are saying that he is young and vigorous, and ruthless enough to take the risks necessary to become ruler of the Khatti. He won a palace insurrection, Majesty. His name is Suppiluliumas.”

Tiye laughed. “Barbarian! Egypt will deal with him easily if necessary. Diplomatically, of course. What next?”

There was little else for the day. Cargo from Alashia, new oxen from Asia, gold from the Nubian mines, and a consignment of vases from Keftiu. “Send me one later. I want to see the quality,” Tiye said. “You can go now, Neb-Amun. Pharaoh will see to the sealing of any scroll that is necessary.” He gathered up his papers at once and bowed himself out.