The Twelfth Transforming (3 page)

After being bathed and dressed in fresh linen, Tiye sent for a herald. “Summon my guard. We are going into the harem.”

They emerged under the high roof of the palace terrace, Tiye with soldiers before and behind, her fanbearers and whisk carrier to either side. Although noon was hours away, the forecourt was already crowded with children leaping in and out of the fountains. Slaves and attendants, seeing her pass, went down on their faces. The wide paved square leading to Amunhotep’s public audience hall was likewise crowded with the staff of the foreign embassies whose quarters dotted the palace compound and who waited until such time as Pharaoh or his ministers might receive them. They, too, hearing the herald’s warning cry, bent in reverence as Tiye paced through their midst. Once the heavily guarded door between the public domain and the harem water steps was closed, the noise faded. As the little group turned left under the pillared entrance to the women’s quarters, Tiye’s chief steward and Keeper of the Harem Door, Kheruef, came forward, his short linens fluttering in the draught that blew through the open doors of the gardens at the rear of the buildings. Tiye held out a hand.

“You will have another apartment to furnish and slaves to buy,” she told him as he kissed the tips of her fingers. “The foreign princess Tadukhipa arrives within days.”

Kheruef smiled politely. “Princess Gilupkhipa will be overjoyed, Majesty. Since the murder of her father and the rise of her brother to power, she has been frantic for news from Mitanni. Tadukhipa is her niece and will bring a breath of familiarity into Gilupkhipa’s rooms.”

“Considering that Gilupkhipa has been a royal wife for almost as long as I have, I find it hard to understand why she still pines for the discomforts and dangers of an uncivilized country,” Tiye remarked dryly. “But I do not want to discuss Pharaoh’s Mitanni women. I have come to see the prince.”

“He has just risen and is in the garden by the lake, Majesty.”

“Good. See that we are not disturbed.”

Alone, Tiye walked through the precious breezes of the corridor. To right and left, doors stood open. She passed the little reception halls, where the women received their stewards and members of their family, and the smaller, more intimate rooms where on winter evenings they gathered around the braziers to gossip. Leading from the main passage were other corridors lined with granite statues of the goddesses Mut, Hathor, Sekhmet, Ta-Urt, the deities before whom the women would stand and burn incense, muttering prayers for beauty, fertility, the continuance of their youth, the health of their children. These led to the apartments of Pharaoh’s wives, who lived in the same wing deep within the palace complex. The concubines had their quarters throughout the sprawling harem, and as Tiye passed, she was gradually embraced by its peculiarly stifling atmosphere. Laughter and shrill chatter echoed all around. There was the clatter of bronze anklets, the tinkle of silver ornaments, the flash of yellow, scarlet, and blue linen vanishing around a corner. Somewhere, at the end of the passage leading to the nurseries, a sick child was wailing. Incense billowed suddenly into her face from a half-closed door, and the musical cadence of foreign prayers, Syrian perhaps, or Babylonian, came with it. Through another door she saw a naked body, arms extended, and heard the wail of a pipe.

I hate the harem
, Tiye thought for the thousandth time as she broke out into dazzling sunlight and began to cross to the women’s lake.
The months I spent here as a frightened, determined child of twelve, a wife like all the other wives, were the most frustrating of my life. Having my mother here as a Royal Ornament did not help, either. She ruled the other women as a divisional commander does his troops, with a whip and a curse, and she hated to see me run across these lawns in the early mornings naked, without paint, when the other women were still deep in their perfumed dreams. If Amunhotep had not fallen in love with me, I should have taken poison
.

She pushed aside her thoughts for she now saw him, her last living son, sitting cross-legged on a papyrus mat at the verge of the lake, shaded by a small canopy. He was alone and motionless, both hands lying in the lap of his white kilt, his eyes fixed on the constant white flicker and dance of the light on the little waves. Not far from him a group of trees cast a dappled shade, but he had chosen to have his canopy erected in the glare of the full sunlight. Tiye approached him steadily, but only at the last moment did he look up and see her. Rising, he prostrated himself in the grass, and then he resumed his position.

Tiye settled gracefully beside him. He did not look at her but seemed wrapped in a quiet self-absorption as his eyes continued to watch the surface of the water. As always when she visited him a feeling of puzzlement and alienation stole over her. She had never seen him behave other than passively, but after his nineteen years of life she still could not decide whether his self-possession was the confidence of a supreme arrogance or a stoic acceptance of his fate or the mark of a guileless man. She knew that the harem women treated him with a mixture of affection and disdain, like an unwanted pet, and had wondered more than once over the years whether her husband knew how slowly corrupting such influences could be on the young man. But of course he knew. The degradation of humanity was a well-charted, familiar course to him.

“Amunhotep?”

Slowly he turned mild, liquid eyes upon her, and his thick lips curved into a smile, relieving for a moment the jutting, downward plunge of the unnaturally long chin. He was an ugly man. Only his thin, aquiline nose saved him from unredeemed homeliness.

“Mother? You are looking tired today. Everyone is looking tired. It is the heat.” His voice was high and light, like a child’s.

She did not want to chatter, but for a moment the news she had brought him overwhelmed her, and she found she could not select the words to present it to him gently. Hesitating only briefly, she said, “For many years I have dreamed of telling you this. I want you to instruct your steward and your servants to pack everything you want to take away with you. You are leaving the harem.”

The smile did not falter, but the long brown fingers resting against the shining linen tightened. “Where am I going?”

“To Memphis. You are to be appointed high priest of Ptah.”

“Is Pharaoh dead?” The tone was enquiring, nothing more.

“No. But he is ill and knows that he must name you as his heir. An heir apparent always serves as high priest in Memphis.”

“Then he is dying.” His eyes left her and fixed themselves on the sky. “Memphis is quite close to On, is it not?”

“Yes, very close. And you will see the mighty tombs of the ancestors and the city of the dead at Saqqara, and Memphis itself is a marvel. You will live at Pharaoh’s summer palace. Does that please you?”

“Of course. May I take my musicians and my pets with me?”

“Anything you like.” She was mildly irritated by his lack of reaction and decided that he did not yet fully understand how complete the change in his circumstances would be. “I’d suggest you empty your apartments here,” she went on crisply. “You will not be returning to them, and besides, as Horus-Fledgling in Egypt you must marry, and you can hardly expect a future queen of Egypt to inhabit less than a palace of her own.”

For the first time, she had moved him. His head whipped around, and for a fleeting second she read a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. “I am to have Sitamun?”

“No. Pharaoh reserves the right to keep her.”

“But she is a fully royal sister.” His mouth was pursed, his brow furrowed.
Is he pleased or disappointed that he cannot have her?
Tiye wondered. “My son, the days when the succession went only to a man who married fully royal blood have passed. Now the choice is made either by Pharaoh himself or by the Amun oracle.”

Amunhotep’s lip curled in a sneer. “I am the last choice the Son of Hapu would have made. I am glad he is dead. I hated him. It is you, Mother, who have forced this upon Pharaoh, is it not?” His hands left his lap and went to the white leather helmet he wore, pulling at its wings reflectively. “I want Nefertiti.”

Tiye was taken aback. “Nefertiti is my choice also. She is your cousin and will make a good consort.”

“She comes to see me sometimes and brings Uncle’s baboons. She visited the library on my behalf and brought me scrolls to study. We talk of the gods.”

So Nefertiti is deeper than I imagined
, Tiye thought. “That was good of her,” she said aloud. “You will serve at Memphis for one year. Afterward you will return to Thebes and be married and set up your own palace. I will help you, Amunhotep. I know it will not be easy for you, after so many years of captivity.”

He reached for her hand and stroked it. “I love you, my mother. I owe this to you.” His gentle fingers caressed her wrist. “Will Pharaoh wish to see me before I go?”

“I do not think so. His health is precarious.”

“But his fear of me is vital enough! So be it. When do I leave?”

“In a few days.” She rose, he with her, and on impulse she leaned forward and kissed his smooth cheek. “Will Prince Amunhotep want to begin a harem of his own?”

“Eventually,” he responded solemnly. “But I shall select my women myself, when I am ready. I shall be busy in Memphis.”

“I will leave you to give your instructions, then. May thy name live forever, Amunhotep.”

He bowed. When she glanced back at him a moment later, he was still standing where she had left him, and she could not read his expression.

Before she began the official acts of the afternoon, Tiye sent a message to her brother Ay, requesting that he leave his own duties to his assistants and wait for her in his house. Then she sat restlessly through two audiences, heard the daily report from the Overseer of the Royal Treasury, and absently refused the fruit Piha offered during a brief lull in the proceedings. Her mind revolved around the changing fortunes of her son and the burden of new responsibility his freedom would lay upon her, and she was impatient to discuss it all with Ay. Before the last minister had bowed himself from her audience chamber, she had left her throne and was brusquely ordering out her litter.

Her brother’s house lay a mile north of the palace, along the river road. He was waiting for her, and as the bearers lowered her litter and she stepped into the thin shade of his garden, he knelt on the grass. “Stay by the gate until I call,” she commanded her servants and then walked forward to receive Ay’s kiss on her feet before seating herself on the chair set ready. Ay resumed his own.

“I know I look tired.” She smiled, seeing his expression. “I had little opportunity for sleep last night. But I will take some of that watered wine and rest here with you. This place never changes, Ay. The house ages gracefully, the same flowers that I loved as a child still bloom, the trees are as willfully ragged as ever. You and I have solved many mysteries together here through the years.”

He motioned, and a servant filled her cup and retreated. “May I assume from Your Majesty’s cheerfulness that you found Pharaoh in good humor?” he enquired, smiling.

Tiye set the cup back on the table and met his eye. “It is done,” she said. “He will release the prince. My final victory over the Son of Hapu, may Sebek grind his bones! I still cannot believe he is really dead. So many courtiers were so sure that he was sustained by the gods themselves and was immortal.”

Ay picked up his jeweled whisk and began to flick at the swarm of flies that hovered over his damp skin. “You and I discussed often enough the possibility of forcibly proving them wrong,” he murmured dryly. “When is Amunhotep to be released?”

“As soon as possible. I want you to be ready with a detachment of your soldiers from the Division of Ptah to escort him to Memphis when I send word. You had better arrange for Horemheb to take charge. He is young but very capable.”

“And he will be overjoyed to return to Memphis. Anyone would. Thebes is a stinking hole full of beggars, peasants, and thieves. At this time of year the stench from across the river wafts past my sycamores and wilts the flowers. Very well, Tiye, I will handpick the men. I am very pleased. The world is waiting to do homage to your son.”

“May the gods grant him recompense for the wasted years,” she said softly. “Pharaoh is also willing to seal the marriage contract between Amunhotep and Nefertiti. He will not give up Sitamun. I did not expect he would, and it does not matter. I have kept my pledge to the family. I have maintained our influence, and your daughter and my son will do the same. We have not done badly for the spawn of a Mitanni Maryannu warrior brought to Egypt as booty by Osiris Thothmes III.”

They sat for a moment in a companionable silence. In the days of her childhood, when she had been promised but not yet delivered to Pharaoh, Ay had been her mentor, teaching her what to wear, what to say, how to keep the interest of the boy who was destined to be her husband. He told her of the king’s likes and dislikes, his foibles, his preferences in women, reminding her night and day that she could not hope to retain her hold on a man with her body alone. The chain must be forged of intelligence and humor, a quick mind and a crafty heart. When at the age of twelve she finally stood before Amunhotep, wigged and painted, she had met his black eyes and found something that had not entered into her brother’s calculations. They had fallen in love. Amunhotep had raised her to the position of empress, and long after he had ceased to take her alone to his bed, the bond remained. She had not failed him. She came of sturdy stock imbued with a thrust for power and domination that had not abated for generations, so that her family, commoners without a drop of royal blood in their veins, had succeeded in becoming the power behind every throne since the days of Osiris Thothmes III. Each Pharaoh since had been carefully evaluated by the family, his strengths probed, his weaknesses compensated for and exploited. Tiye’s own father had been Lieutenant of Chariotry, Master of the King’s Horse, and chief instructor in the martial arts to the young Amunhotep, a task he used to bind the boy to him. Her mother had been a confidante of Mutemwiya the queen, and Chief Lady of the Harem of Amun. Land, wealth, and prestige had accumulated year after year like deposits of rich Nile silt, but such preferments could be whisked away to leave them all shivering in the cold blast of penury and royal disapproval. Therefore nothing was taken for granted, and each step required a cautious testing.