The Twelfth Transforming (31 page)

“One thing at a time, my divine husband,” Nefertiti teased him, wet linen clinging to her skin and grains of sand lodged in the crevices of her neck. “I am going to swim before I eat, and drink before I swim. Nurse!” She surrendered the children hastily and disappeared into her tent, but before he went to his own anxiously waiting slaves, Akhenaten spent a moment inhaling the dry night.

Once the official ceremonies had been performed, Ay had little to do. He spent some time making sure that the horses were well watered and had sufficient shade, and then supervised the workmen under him while they performed a few minor repairs to the chariots. He could have ordered the charioteers to use their spare time practicing battle maneuvers, but he decided that it was simply too hot for much exertion. One afternoon he accompanied Pharaoh on a rigorous climb to the top of the cliffs surrounding the site, and while the litter bearers panted and struggled to make the ascent and the guards tried to maintain the correct formation on the slope, Akhenaten talked continuously of his dreams for the bleak vista they all surveyed when they reached the summit. Dizzy with heat and thirst, Ay had scarcely absorbed most of what Akhenaten had said, but over the next three days, as he visited the tents of friends to talk or gamble, or sat by the glittering river, idling away the hours under his sunshade, some of Pharaoh’s excited words came back to him, and he began to ponder his future. The king had made it plain that he expected the Master of the King’s Horse to take up residence in the new city, and for the first time in his life Ay felt his loyalties violently divided. As Amunhotep III’s brother-in-law he had occasionally been called upon to choose, in matters of ministerial policy, between the directives of his ruler and the well-being of his family, but those choices had been small compared to the decision he now had to make. He had told his sister that, though it would be all too easy for him to remain with her in the backwater Malkatta would inevitably become, he would accompany Pharaoh, and he had meant it. He was rich, he was powerful, and he enjoyed the favor of his lord. Could Tiye blame him for being unwilling to relinquish these things in order to gamble on the chance that Pharaoh’s enterprise might fail and she might be seen to be the better ruler after all? And if the breach between mother and son continued to widen, was his place not with his daughter and grandchildren? Surely their claims on him were stronger than Tiye’s.
If the choice were hers
, he thought as he sat with eyes half-shut against the blinding sparkle of sun on bright water,
she would not hesitate to stand with the winning side. She knows that I am as much a realist as she. She hopes that the choice for either of us need never be made. She does not believe anything will come of this plan, but she is not here, watching the priests mark the boundaries and listening to her son’s enthusiasm. Forgive me, Tiye, but I must be where Pharaoh is. I am not yet old enough to risk the possibility that his plan might fail. I will never betray you or be disloyal, but I think the balance of power has just shifted, and unless you compromise, you will never get it back
.

On the fourth evening, he was walking thoughtfully beside the river with two of his charioteers when he saw a small imperial craft approaching from the north. Turning back to the dock, he waited for it to tie up. A challenge rang out from Pharaoh’s guard and was immediately answered. A ramp appeared, and a tall, blue-helmeted man bounded onto the bank, soon followed by a woman and a stream of servants. Ay ran forward to greet them. “Horemheb! What are you doing here? And Mutnodjme!”

“I could ask you the same question,” Horemheb said, coming up to him. “I received an urgent summons to Malkatta and am on my way upriver. Somehow I seldom manage to escape having to berth in this accursed place when I travel. What is all this?” His braceleted arms swept over the huddle of tents, horses feeding, bursts of music, and the welcome smell of the evening’s roast goose.

“You had better not refer to this sacred ground as accursed in Pharaoh’s hearing,” Ay retorted and quickly told him what had been happening since the last routine dispatch had been sent to him.

“I daresay you missed a messenger on the river, or you would have known. Mutnodjme, how are you?”

The girl dutifully pressed her lips to his cheek. “I survive,” she drawled. “This looks like a very large party, so perhaps I shall do more than survive until I reach Thebes. Is Depet here? Give me gold, Horemheb. If she is, she will want to dice.”

Her husband good-naturedly handed her a pouch.

She has not changed much
, Ay thought fondly,
other than that her face is thinning, and her eyes are lazier
. “Where are your dwarfs?” he asked.

She shrugged. “One of them fell off the barge while we were having a boating party some months ago, and in the noise and laughter I did not notice,” she said. “He drowned. The other one ran away. I have ordered two more from Nubia, but they are very rare. Pitch and cook over there!” she shouted at the servants. “I will be back in three hours!” She began to wander away.

“Will I be a grandfather again soon?” Ay called after her, and she yelled over her shoulder, “Certainly not!”

Horemheb grimaced, smiling. “I think she is happy, Commander, and loves me in her way. Is Pharaoh disposed to see me, do you think?”

“I am certain he is.” They began to stroll along the river. “I hear you have had some trouble with the border troops.”

Horemheb nodded. “Without a clear policy from Pharaoh on military matters, discipline has been difficult to maintain,” he admitted. “My captains found some soldiers looting boats and cattle and terrorizing small villages. The men were bored, but that is no excuse. I had the noses of the ringleaders removed, and banished the others to Tjel. Osiris Amunhotep’s lover was one of them.”

Ay digested the information silently, shocked that anyone from the old ad ministration still survived, as though it had all belonged to a time many hentis ago, in another age. So much had happened since then.

“I am surprised he has survived this long.”

Horemheb laughed. “He surprised us all. He was a tough little bad-tempered peasant with a constitution hardier than I would have believed possible. But Tjel will make a man of him. It is the grimmest fortress in the empire.”

Ay thought briefly of the feral face and rebellious black eyes of the child, and then he turned his attention to the larger concern. It was true that Pharaoh had shown no interest in the state of his army or the protection of his borders.
I must obtain his permission to regulate things myself
, Ay decided, stilling a brief pang of worry.
I have tried to avoid antagonizing him, but surely he will see that we cannot have unrest so close to home, for foreigners will take it as a sign of weakness
.

“Does Pharaoh know you had to discipline troops?”

“I sent a scroll to the Scribe of Recruits, and if he reads the dispatches, he must know.” Horemheb gave Ay a sidelong glance. “But I worded it carefully. Pharaoh would doubtless have preferred that I strike my men with a lotus bloom and banish them to the back of the schoolroom.”

Ay did not laugh, and Horemheb’s tone was not light. They made their way carefully through the groups of feasting revelers and came upon Akhenaten sitting with Nefertiti.

Pharaoh was overjoyed to see his friend, putting his arms around Horemheb’s neck and kissing him fervently. “When I move my august person to my new city, you must come and live here,” he insisted eagerly. “The command of the border is a small position. I will bestow some other title upon you so that I can see you every day.”

“Your Majesty is gracious,” Horemheb replied, bowing several times to hide the embarrassment Amunhotep’s embrace had caused him, the imprint of the king’s enthusiastic kiss staining his own mouth red. “But I am a serving soldier and would not be happy living in idleness.”

“You always did tell me the truth without fear,” Pharaoh applauded. “But my need of you is greater than your desire for happiness. It is not far from here to the Delta, if you insist on keeping your post, and I am certain that Mutnodjme would be pleased to return to court.”

“There is much time in which to make such decisions, beloved,” Nefertiti interposed swiftly, her arm sliding around his waist. “Your mother may wish to dispose of Horemheb’s services in some other way.” She smiled into Horemheb’s eyes, and the commander recognized malice in her glance.

“You are right.” Akhenaten nodded, kissing her. “I am too eager to reward those who love me.”

“Is the breach between the god and his mother so wide, then?” Horemheb asked Ay later that night under the screech and wail of pipes and singers. “It is preposterous to think that loyal Egyptians will have to make some kind of a choice between the two.”

Ay looked around at the noisy, drunken company. Servants were gliding between the flaring torches planted in the sand, removing the ruins of the feast. Dancers were swaying, yellow light sliding lazily over their naked, oiled skin. Splashes and shrieks of mirth came from the bank of the river, hidden in darkness. In the middle of the uproar a servant stood trembling, holding up a tray piled with trinkets while Mutnodjme’s whip cracked perilously close to his defenseless head, deftly picking up the neck-lets and bracelets one by one and flicking them through the air to send them rattling into waiting laps. Her youth lock was coiled against one ear and secured by a spray of golden papyrus fronds, and she had powdered herself with gold dust. Applause and roars of approval greeted each nonchalant flick of her jewel-laden wrist.

“Her skill is remarkable,” Ay said and then sighed and turned to Horemheb. “I still hope that there is no true breach, only a misunderstanding, and that it will be healed. The bonds that join my sister and Pharaoh have always been strong. But if, the gods forbid, the wedge driven between them should swell, there will be no question of divided loyalty, Horemheb. Pharaoh is Egypt.”

“I know,” Horemheb answered. “It is not just a matter of old and new loyalties but a question of survival.” He turned on his chair to meet Ay’s glance, and they regarded each other in perfect understanding. “My father was able to afford to send me to the School for Scribes at Karnak,” Horemheb went on, “but he did not have the influence necessary to secure me a good position when my training was over. I might even now be sitting cross-legged on the docks at Thebes tallying shipments of grain if it had not been for the empress, who heard of my skill and made me a royal scribe.” He smiled faintly, his gaze still on the loud feasting. “Yet now I really have no choice, Ay. If I wish to retain power in the army and move toward an even higher rank, I must be where Pharaoh is. He has the ultimate disposition of all troops, and that authority will, of course, move with him here. Besides, he will be rewarding those who are faithful to him, and one has to live.”

It was a realistic assessment of his own position as well as Horemheb’s, Ay knew. Many of the younger men who had got their start under Tiye’s patronage and who still had far to climb would be brooding over similar arguments.

“It is the way of life,” he muttered, absently fingering the scar on his chin. “I only wish Pharaoh had chosen a different site for his new city. I do not like this place. I am not surprised that it has remained virgin until now. I think it wants only to be left alone.”

“There speaks a sorcerer, not a soldier,” Ay chided, and Horemheb suddenly laughed.

“At dawn tomorrow we leave for Malkatta, and I become a soldier again. Mutnodjme wants to make offerings to Min at the shrine at Akhmin on the way, so we will carry your salutations to Tey.”

“Tonight I wish I were lying with her on her couch, listening to the owls hunt in the garden,” Ay said half to himself, but Horemheb had not heard, having stood to catch the blue necklet his wife had sent flying toward him.

Ay rose an hour before dawn to bid farewell to Horemheb and Mutnodjme. He watched their craft angle silently away from the beach, feeling all at once lonely, and while he waited for the rest of the camp to stir, he returned to his tent. Opening the doors of his traveling shrine, he performed his morning devotions to Amun. Later Pharaoh performed his last formal act before quitting the site, most reluctantly, himself. He and Nefertiti, a child on each lap, sat on thrones before a portable altar while the prophet burned offerings and the courtiers kissed their feet and lay in adoration on the sand. While they murmured, “Eternal life! Great is thy lifetime, O Unique One of Ra, Lord of Crowns,” Akhenaten reiterated his desires. “See,” he called. “This city was desired by the Aten. It shall be built as a memorial to his name in all eternity. It was the Aten, my father, who showed this site to me. I shall erect a great Aten temple here for my father. I shall erect a stone sunshade for the Great Royal Wife Nefer-neferu-Aten Nefertiti. I shall lay out estates for Pharaoh, for the Royal Wife; my tomb shall be made in the eastern mountains, and there my funeral shall be made. If I die elsewhere, let me be buried here. If the Great Royal Wife or the Princess Meritaten dies elsewhere, let them be buried here. For as the god liveth, I shall not leave this place.” Longing and anticipation filled the formal, repetitive words. Meketaten had fallen asleep against her father’s breast, but Meritaten listened intently.

“Mother,” she hissed into Nefertiti’s ear. “He did not say Smenkhara. Can Smenkhara be buried here, too?”

But Nefertiti hushed her, for the priest had begun a hymn to the Aten and her husband. Ay, having made his obeisance and being told he could rise, now stood to one side. He saw his daughter’s black-kohled eyes slowly travel the prostrate forms of Pharaoh’s worshipers covering the sand and wondered uneasily what she was thinking.

It was a surfeited, tired court that returned to Malkatta and scattered to scented baths and the welcoming softness of waiting couches. Tiye, dressed in cloth of gold, the disk and plumes glittering on her ringleted head, had waited with a sinking heart at the water steps to make the formal welcome. The days of peaceful self-indulgence into which she had slid had been shattered by Horemheb, to whom she had given audience only hours before. He had listened to her urgings in a respectful silence but had then resisted any suggestion that he might try to dissuade Pharaoh from his course.