The Twelfth Transforming (66 page)

Only Meritaten disregarded their presence. Huddled by the couch, she clung to her husband’s feet with both hands, her face buried against them, while the men from the House of the Dead stood away awkwardly from her. Horemheb nodded at her attendants. Reverently they lifted her to her feet. “Servants of Ma’at,” Horemheb said suddenly to the sem-priests, “the god you are about to touch appears to be male, and thus you would beautify him with both arms lying at his sides. But this Horus was in fact female, lover of Osiris Akhenaten. Therefore he would wish to be laid in his coffin in the pose of a woman, with right arm extended but with the left folded across the breast, so that he may be recognized as a woman in the next world. Do you understand?”

The men nodded, not daring to defile the room with their breath. Ay glanced at Meritaten. Though she was no longer weeping, sobs continued to shake her, and her large gray eyes were fixed on Horemheb in horror. Before she could speak, he again nodded, and her women led her away.

“I do not think it is necessary to hold the corpse for five days before releasing it to the House of the Dead, do you?” Horemheb asked, turning to Ay. “Even though Smenkhara was more woman than man, I cannot imagine any lustful sem-priest wanting to defile him before he begins to rot.”

Ay barely managed to answer. “I must go immediately and cleanse myself,” he muttered, turning to the door. He did not know whether it was the taint of the sem-priests’ presence he frantically wished to purify himself of, or Horemheb’s inexplicable ferocity.

The court at Akhetaten was prepared to accept Smenkhara’s death at the hands of the gods and so did not urge that the matter be investigated further. However, Horemheb found himself threatened, not by the revelations of the assassin or by his general Nakht-Min, but by the agony of a queen. Accusations tumbled from Meritaten as though the words might ease her bereavement, yet the words themselves only made her feel it all the more keenly. She allowed no one to comfort her. Ay was denied admittance to her apartments. Ankhesenpaaten, still grieving for her daughter, would go to her sister and sit dumbly for hours while Meritaten drank and wept, calling down every curse she knew on Horemheb and his household.

Horemheb waited for the storm to abate, but Pakhons went by, the harvest began, and Meritaten became even more unstable. Her tears had stopped, but the recriminations went on, increasingly voiced in public. Horemheb saw the doubts in the eyes of those around him and realized that Meritaten must be silenced. Nothing could be proved against him, but the constant flow of the queen’s vicious words inevitably shook the confidence of those who were sympathetic to him. Above all, Tutankhaten, though he encountered Horemheb only on formal occasions, was beginning to look at the Supreme Commander of All the Forces of His Majesty with speculative eyes.

For weeks Horemheb hesitated to take any action against Meritaten, torn between pity for her and an instinct for his own preservation. He began to avoid most formal feasts which Tutankhaten attended but could not absent himself from them entirely for fear of drawing too much attention to his behavior. Therefore one evening toward the end of the period of mourning he was present when Tutankhaten and his entourage were dining in Akhenaten’s vast banqueting hall. The little heir sat on the dais with Ay at his side, his half sister An khesenpaaten on his left. She had given Tutankhaten a new pet, a gosling whose green fluff had only just been replaced by sleek white feathers.

“You will soon be the incarnation of Amun-Ra, the Great Cackler,” she had told him. “The goose is the symbol of your sacredness.” Tonight the goose held all their attention. The boy had had a thick gold collar made for it, and it squatted on the table between them, snatching the morsels of food they offered and hissing balefully at every servant who came near.
It is good to hear them laughing
, Ay thought.
Malkatta used to be drunk with laughter. How sad and wary we have all become!

His glance strayed to Horemheb, toying with his food, his blue-ribboned head down while Mutnodjme whispered in his ear. Ay found his heart warming as he looked at his younger daughter. In spite of the life of indolent dissipation she led, time had dealt kindly with her, and at thirty-five she was still surrounded by the clusters of admiring young charioteers that had begun to bore her in her late twenties. Tonight the youth lock she still wore was braided, bound up against her skull and hung with silver bells. Her eye paint was silver, and the arm pushed loosely through her husband’s was heavy with silver amulets. She had mixed silver dust with her lip henna, so that her teeth seemed faintly yellow, her skin sallow, her eyes yellow-tinged. As with every fashion she affected, it bordered on the bizarre but somehow fascinated rather than repelled. The sight of her pausing in whatever flow of spicy words she was pouring at Horemheb to take the lobe of his ear between sharp teeth filled Ay with a sudden longing for the days of his vigorous youth, now long past.
What right does she have to remain untouched?
he thought.
Why have the gods spared her when the rest of us were led young and innocent into the dark passages of necessity to emerge maimed and sullied?

She sensed his stare and looked up, smiling, but he did not return the smile, for all at once a hush had fallen. Ay followed the eyes of the crowd to the rear of the hall. Meritaten was stepping out of the shadows where night seeped between the pillars. She swayed forward, leaving the support of the stone. A hot draught caught her white pleated linens and sent them billowing before her, and her black, uncombed hair whipped about her unpainted face. Her feet were bare. In one hand she clutched the queen’s cobra coronet, while the other held a goblet of wine. Uncertainly the assembly went down before her as she picked her way between tables with exaggerated care. When she reached the dais, she bowed to Tutankhaten, and the gesture took her forward. Collapsing onto a step, she sat rocking for a moment, the attendants who had followed her hesitating, their fearful eyes on Ay. Ankhesenpaaten snatched up the goose and cuddled it as if for protection. Tutankhaten leaned toward his uncle. “Shall I order a table brought for her, or have them take her away?” he whispered. “She looks as though she were going to be sick.” Ay hesitated. Meritaten placed the goblet on the step beside her and, taking the coronet in both hands, set it on her brow. The Followers looked to Horemheb, who began to rise, but his small movement brought Meritaten’s head around.

“You courtiers do not seem to care with what demon you dine,” she said thickly, rising. “All of you know what the Supreme Commander did. His presence here sours your wine and poisons your meat, yet you talk and laugh as though it does not matter. O King-to-be,” she addressed Tutankhaten without taking her eyes off Horemheb, “whose hands will curl invisible around your own when you lift the crook, flail, and scimitar? We have become an accursed people!” Her voice had risen, echoing against the dark ceiling, and as she spoke, she lifted her naked arms, the fists clenched.

Horemheb stood and walked calmly to her side. “Majesty, you need to sleep,” he said soothingly. “You are distressed.”

Turning her disfigured face up to his, she began to cry. Her legs were splayed to keep her balance. She smelled of wine, of unwashed skin and undried tears, but the glinting cobra on her forehead gave her dignity. “Distressed?” she said harshly. “My heart has been torn out, and you dare to stand before me and mouth such blasphemy? I wonder what thoughts fill your wife when she lies in the arms of a god-killer? My arms are empty. Empty!” Tears choked her, and Horemheb caught her as she slipped toward the floor. At his sharp order her women supported her and led her away, her sobs growing fainter.

No one in the hall dared to look about, and the only sound was the soft clucking of the goose as it nibbled at Ankhesenpaaten’s jasper earring. Tutankhaten had gone very white. At last he rose, and at the movement the frozen company sprang to life, prostrating themselves before him as he left the dais with his entourage and disappeared through the nearer doors. For appearances’ sake Horemheb stayed a little longer, drinking and talking with Nakht-Min and the other officers whose tables were pulled close to his own, all the while feeling the overt glances of the courtiers. Finally he rose and, bidding his wife and friends good-night, plunged into the dark passages leading to the queen’s apartments.

Meritaten’s bodyguards politely tried to refuse him entrance. As their superior he could have brushed them aside, but he talked to them patiently and sensibly, aware of their irrational fear, and in the end they let him pass. At the doors to her bedchamber her herald and steward again barred his way. Resignedly he waited while the steward went to enquire if he should be admitted. Horemheb expected to be refused but found himself soon ushered into the apartments that had been Nefertiti’s. She still haunted the room. Her image smiled haughtily from the walls, beautiful and regal beneath the sun crown’s height. Her golden hands, heavy with rings, still made offerings to the Aten while her husband held the ankh, symbol of life, to her smiling lips and the Aten itself touched her with its rays. Already those things belonged to an unfathomable past. Horemheb paced slowly to the imposing couch with its golden disk, its sphinx-lined frame, its clawed feet. The small figure dwarfed in its depth watched him advance. He bowed. “Why did you let me in?” he asked.

“You have no respect for me as your queen,” she answered wearily. “If you had, you would have waited for me to speak first. But I am still queen of Egypt until Tutankhaten is crowned. I do not know why I let you in. I do not think I could have prevented you anyway, murderer.”

She sounded stronger, more lucid, and Horemheb thought that she must have vomited the wine. “Majesty, you know that your father destroyed Smenkhara long before I,” he said quietly. “I did not have to come to you tonight. I do not have to justify myself to you. You were his wife. You know better than I how like your father he was becoming. He knew it, too.”

“It was no reason to kill him.” She lay very still, pale hands loose on the sheets, her cheeks wet, and Horemheb realized all at once that she was no longer a young woman. In his mind she had remained the girl who had welcomed Smenkhara to Akhetaten, the steady, smiling daughter of the Aten. She looked up at him with contempt. “You may not have to justify yourself to me, Horemheb, but be assured that the Aten has already judged you. Smenkhara would have done anything you told him to, as long as we were left alone.” Her voice quivered. “But you took away the only chance for happiness we had.”

“It was too late,” he cut in brutally. “And you know that, too, Majesty. Smenkhara resisted me. He resisted Ay, as well. He wanted to be left alone in a time when Egypt needs the healing power of a god.” Unbidden he sat on the edge of the couch. “In a few days he will be buried. I give you a choice, Meritaten. I do not want to harm you. You may close your mouth and live here in peace. Men’s memories are short. If you will not be silent, I will have you exiled.”

“Egypt is already wounded beyond all healing when a mere noble may threaten a goddess and go unpunished,” she whispered. “Have you thought of that, Commander? In spite of the power you slowly gather to yourself, the gulf between you and me can never be bridged. You believe that it matters to me whether I go on living or not, but in that respect your threats are meaningless. I do not care. That makes me dangerous, doesn’t it?”

The pathetic challenge moved him. Taking her cold hand, he said, “In the beginning, Majesty, I was your father’s friend. We all were. We longed for change. Osiris Amunhotep had reigned too long. But your father fell under a strange spell and brought us all to ruin. We have become people who do what has to be done and do not question the morality of our acts. That is what your father has done to us. Your god-husband was no different. I wish you could understand.”

She did not withdraw her hand, but it lay in his lifelessly. “You have become evil, and you do not yet know it,” she said brokenly, her face turned away. “I do not even have a child to keep his memory bright before me as the years go by.”

He sighed and rose. “I am sorry. Akhetaten has become the grave of hopes for us all. Only in the next world can all wounds be healed.”

“You hypocrite. May your words burn your throat and sear your lying lips.” She gestured violently, and he bowed and walked quickly to the doors. Her speech, he reflected, was worthy of her mother. Her curse stayed with him, a tiny spot of coldness in his heart.

Mutnodjme was not asleep when at last he wearily closed his doors. She was lying on his couch in her sleeping robe, her face freshly scrubbed, watching the acrobatics of her dwarfs. As Horemheb entered, they bobbed to him and went scuttling out.

“I thought you would be shut in your own apartments tonight,” he said as his body servant held back the sheets and he gratefully slid beside his wife. The man bowed himself out, and the glimmering light he held was gradually replaced by a bar of moonlight, dusky in the darkness. Mutnodjme shifted beside Horemheb, and her voice came warm and close out of the dimness. “Love is a surprising thing,” she said. “Hathor not only looks like a cow, I sometimes think she has the mind of one. We, her devotees, wander blindly after her, moo moo, long after the sharper delights Bast has to offer have begun to pall. Little of the roughly honest young general I married remains, Horemheb. You are still the most handsome man in Egypt, but what I see behind those black eyes of yours is not very attractive. I suppose I do not divorce you because you pay my terrible debts.”

For answer he pulled her against him and kissed her, profoundly grateful for this lazy, infuriating woman the dead empress had forced upon him.
As long as I have Mutnodjme
, he thought,
I know the gods have not yet condemned me
.

27

S
menkhara’s body was taken south to Thebes for burial in the tomb prepared for him there. It rode the sluggish current of the summer river, curtained from profane eyes in the cabin of
Kha-em-Ma’at
and attended by the priest Pwah and a silent, steadily drinking Meritaten. Tutankhaten, Ankhesenpaaten, and Ay followed, and the members of the court were strung out behind in their own boats. The harvest was over. Egypt lay parched under the weight of a fiery sky, and it seemed to those who drifted slowly on the sullen brown breast of the Nile that they had left a haven of lush safety only to journey through the dangers of a hostile land. No mourners stood on the bank to wail with outstretched arms as the funeral procession floated by. The brittle, choked vegetation that formed a narrow barrier between water and fields shimmered, empty of human life in the heat. Villages seemed deserted. Oxen stood motionless under the thin shade of dusty palms, and donkeys cooled themselves, heads down, in the shallows, but no ragged village boys herded them. Crocodiles lay baking on the sandbanks.