The Twelfth Transforming (60 page)

But he did not dare to leave the city until Smenkhara had been crowned, for in spite of his words to Ay regarding the trust and friendship between them, their relationship was rapidly cooling. Ay did not believe that Egypt’s salvation lay with the military. Indeed, he viewed the possible rise of a powerful officer elite with suspicion. Accustomed all his life to dealing with crises through diplomacy and indirect control, he saw the decline of the empire and the threat from Suppiluliumas as a failure on the part of Akhenaten to maintain proper diplomatic relations with the rest of the world and the solution as a return to communication through envoys and ambassadors. Horemheb fervently disagreed and knew that he must remain close to the new pharaoh to press his arguments for an escalating war in the event that Ay managed to ingratiate himself with Smenkhara. There was no indication that the prince cared for either of them, but Horemheb wanted to take no chances.

As he walked his gardens with Mutnodjme, sat beside her as they ate the evening meal together on the quiet terrace to watch the moon rise, talked to her easily of the day-to-day concerns of the state, he thought over his audience with Smenkhara and his later conversation with Ay, anxiously asking himself time and again whether what he had done was truly in the interest of his country or the result of a purely personal frustration. Either way, there was no going back.

He was sitting under the shade of the sycamores that surrounded his small lake one afternoon, watching his wife swim effortlessly back and forth, when the daily dispatch was brought to him. Thanking the herald and dismissing him, he broke the seal. The scroll was unusually long, and when he had read it, he began it again, perusing it slowly. Then he dropped it into his white lap and stared at it thoughtfully. He was unaware that Mutnodjme had swum up to him until he felt a cool touch and came to himself with a start. She was leaning on the marble rim that surrounded the water, her chin resting on her folded hands, squinting up at him.

“You look pensive,” she said. “Or are you merely stupefied with the heat? It is becoming difficult for me to tell these days. Perhaps you are in love.”

He smiled. “I am sorry, Mutnodjme. I have been very preoccupied since I have been at home.”

“So I have noticed.” With one lithe movement she pulled herself onto the stone. A servant came running, towel held out, and with arms raised Mutnodjme allowed herself to be dried and then sank to the mat beside Horemheb’s chair and began to unpin her youth lock. “If I had known just how preoccupied you were going to be lately, I would not have canceled two boating parties and a trip north just to be with you.” She combed through the long tress of waving hair with her fingers and lay back on one elbow. “I see that another dispatch has arrived. Is anything wrong?”

With a sigh he laid the scroll in the grass and lowered himself beside her. Her brown hip was cool against his arm. “Many of the soldiers are sick with fever at Urusalim,” he said, “but that is not the worst problem the officers are facing. According to our scouts, not only are the Khatti advancing south but the Assyrians are halfway to northern Syria. If I order the army to continue north, it may have to fight them first, before the Khatti. If I order it to wait, and the Khatti and the Assyrians fight, Egypt will have to meet whatever army is victorious.”

Mutnodjme nodded. “I suppose the Assyrians are trying to invade Amki again. Every time there has been a dispute between the great powers, they have taken advantage of the confusion to try and wrest Amki from us. But now that the Khatti have taken our little dependency, the Assyrians may well intend to fight them. Poor Amki. What will you do, Horemheb? Order your officers to wait where they are and let the Khatti and the Assyrians batter at one another?”

“If the army keeps moving, it will first have to retake Amki, before Suppiluliumas can arrive to defend it.” He began to stroke her leg, but his thoughts were far away. “Frankly, Mutnodjme, I am afraid that Ay was right. The army is sluggish and untried and would not be capable of the swift maneuvering that would be necessary to retake Amki and then turn to face the Khatti or Assyria. I think I will order the men to proceed a little way, into Rethennu, and then wait.”

She sat up, swiveling to face him. “Horemheb, what will you do if Egypt suffers a defeat?” she asked quietly. “The blow to your credibility at court would be so great that any chance you might have had to advise Smenkhara would be gone.”

He pushed the torrent of damp hair out of the way and kissed her. “I will face one anxiety at a time,” he replied. “Now I must go into the house and dictate a letter to my second-in-command.” He retrieved the scroll and got to his feet. “Perhaps you should visit friends tonight or go across the river and spend the evening with your parents. I know I am not very good company, Mutnodjme.”

She laughed. “I do not think I could be bothered to get dressed and painted. I will order a picnic for us here, by the lake. Go away, Horemheb. I want to swim again.”

As he walked away, he heard a splash behind him as she dove into the water.
What will I do if Egypt is defeated?
he asked himself as he gained the coolness of the entrance hall. He did not want to consider an answer.

Akhetaten observed the period of mourning for Pharaoh quietly. The harvest was gathered, and all settled to endure the barren heat of high summer. Small crowds still gathered in the blazing forecourt of the Aten temple while Meryra performed the rites in the sanctuary, but the stately gestures and chants lacked animation. The man who had stood between the Aten and the people, who had ordered that every prayer must be directed to him for interpretation to the god, was dead. The city, too, seemed bereft of its essence. It had been built for one purpose, as a vast shrine to contain the living embodiment of the god, its existence the result of Akhenaten’s struggle to give his visions reality. His presence had validated it; its unity rested in the worship its citizens gave to him and the Aten. But now that presence had gone, and already the small Aten altars on almost every street corner were joined by shrines to the deities beloved by the commoners so that they would be worshipped equally with the dead pharaoh’s god. The feeling of sudden rootlessness in the city was more than the usual hiatus between administrations. The invisible foundations of Akhetaten were trembling.

Within the confines of the palace, however, most courtiers performed their morning and evening devotions to the Aten as usual. Their continuation of prayers to the god was not only a matter of familiarity, but also of expediency: the heir had not yet indicated whether his divinity would spring from Amun or the Aten.

Smenkhara seemed to care for neither. He and Meritaten spent the breathless days constantly together, striving to recapture their first joy in each other, but it came only fleetingly. They wooed it with a sometimes embarrassed deliberation by recalling all the bright memories of childhood they had shared, but the love that had bound them belonged to the innocence of that youth, a fragile emotion that had not withstood the depredations they had both suffered at Akhenaten’s hands. The strength of their past had made deep bonds between them that nothing could break, but not the fully realized union of a mature love.

The air of aimless dislocation that hung over city and palace did not infect Nefertiti. In spite of her determination to fill the intervening days with diversions, she found herself waking each morning from a plague of nightmares, with muscles already stiff from apprehension and body bathed in sweat. Many times she cursed herself for an act she imagined as dangerously precipitate, but more often she gazed into a future that would otherwise be as predictable as the sun rise and was glad she had carried out her plan. During the long, searing days she sat drinking and looking out over the drooping vegetation of the terraces, her eyes eventually aching as they scanned the river for her captain’s craft, for any new activity down on her docks. At night she watched Tutankhaten prepare for bed, walked in the gardens, lay on her couch while her male dancers wove their stately steps with finger cymbals clashing and flowers around their naked waists, but under the flush of sexual titillation the young servants caused her there was always the cold fear. Her captain had been intercepted, and her father and Horemheb were playing with her before she was arrested. Suppiluliumas had casually had him put to death and forgotten about her. He had become lost in the desert and died of thirst. The steady drip of the water clock was a continual irritation. She carried the pain of anxiety under her breastbone and could eat only sparingly, without pleasure.

Her father visited her twice, spending several hours with Tutankhaten before settling himself in her company and taking the wine and pastries she brusquely offered. She tried to treat him with politeness but could not conceal her preoccupation. Though she enquired after the health of her daughters and listened patiently to him talk of Horemheb’s increasing brusqueness, she knew she had not concealed her anxiety, for he left with a puzzled air. She did not care and turned to her station at the window with relief.

Six weeks almost to the day after the captain had left, Nefertiti was woken from a light sleep by her steward Meryra and started up, already fully awake.

“He is back,” Meryra whispered. “Shall I have him wait in the audience hall?”

“No. Get rid of my women.” She pushed back the sheet and rose, both hands against the fluttering of her heart. “Bring him here immediately.” He bowed and retreated into the shadows. Nefertiti lit the night lamp with her own hands, and, groping for her sleeping gown, slipped it over her head. She could hardly control her shaking fingers.
I should be bathed and dressed, put a wig on and be painted
, she thought.
I did not ask Meryra if the captain was alone. Oh, gods, I am afraid!

Tensely she waited through the moments before the captain entered, and then she watched him kneel and prostrate himself, crawling to kiss her bare feet before answering her choked command to rise. “Where is he?” she managed. “Have you brought a prince? What happened?”

“Great One, I am no diplomat,” he said in a low voice. “I did not know with what words to validate the scroll. Suppiluliumas does not believe it is genuine. He thinks that Egypt simply wants a hostage. He has sent his own steward back with me to ascertain the truth. It was not easy, evading Horemheb’s patrols on the border and having to sail past Memphis at night. We are both very tired.”

Bitter anger filled Nefertiti. “Didn’t you impress on the Khatti the urgency of this thing? I must have a prince before Akhenaten’s funeral, or all is lost! Where is this steward?”

The captain bowed himself to the door. Nefertiti watched as a tall shadow detached itself from the night and emerged into the faint lamplight. “I am Khattusaziti, Chamberlain to Suppiluliumas the Mighty,” a soft, deep voice said. “Are you Dahamunzu Nefertiti?”

“I am.”

He bowed slightly, and for a moment they considered each other.
I suppose he is a brave man
, Nefertiti thought, looking up into the leathery face almost hidden by a beard and long, well-oiled black hair.
He does not know that I am not part of some larger conspiracy, or that at any moment he may lose his head. And what a head! Do all the vile Asiatics breed warriors like this?

“My king believed that you were dead,” he said at last. “The seal on the scroll matched imprints on other correspondence, but your ring could have been used by anyone.”

“My husband did his best to kill me without touching my body,” she said acidly. “He obliterated every inscription of my name he could find, but as you can see, I am far from dead.”

She removed her seal ring and handed it to him. He peered at it and laid it back on her extended palm. “In that case, Majesty, why are you negotiating with my lord in this secretive way? You say you have no sons. My king doubts that this is true. But if it is, then who is to be pharaoh, and why do you want to try to set a Khatti on the throne?”

She indicated that he should sit and herself sank onto the couch. “Captain, have refreshments brought,” she called, and then she met the foreigner’s eyes. “My husband’s brother will take the Double Crown if my plan fails. He is useless. If he knew I had opened correspondence with your master, he would arrest me. Egypt will lose a war with your people, with Smenkhara at the helm. But if you give me a Khatti prince there will be no need for the wastage of lives and gold a full-scale confrontation between our nations would mean. Egypt will become a Khatti vassal, responsible for her own internal affairs but paying tribute to Suppiluliumas.”

“What guarantee is there that your enemies will not simply kill him as soon as he arrives? I presume you will want him backed up with Khatti soldiers?”

Nefertiti was glad that the food she had ordered was now being quietly set out before them. She had not anticipated the complications her plan might bring. All at once chilled and wishing she were not sitting here under the sharp scrutiny of an enemy whose sheer vitality overawed her, she forced a smile. “Only Commander Horemheb is capable of resisting. Smenkhara will sulk, but all will be grateful that the Khatti threat to Egypt has been dealt with.” Surprise followed by something she suspected was derision flitted across his eyes. She raised her cup, and immediately he reached for his.

“If my lord entrusts a son to the dubious goodwill of Egypt, he will want to see your pledges backed up by the presence of Khatti soldiers in Akhetaten. A pharaoh is only as powerful as his support.”

“That may be true of the rulers of your country, but not in Egypt. A pharaoh, once crowned, is a god, and his sacredness cannot be lightly threatened.”

He smiled, showing crooked white teeth that gleamed in the dimness, and again an expression resembling mild contempt wrinkled the battered face. “A Khatti as a god? What an exalted prospect! Simply because he was a god your people endured the incompetence of your dead husband?”

She was offended by the familiarity of his tone. “An ignorant foreigner cannot be expected to understand the subtleties of Ma’at,” she said coldly. “That is something I will teach the prince your master must send.”