The Sleeper in the Sands (31 page)

She had to wait for several days. The delay did not surprise her, for Ay, she knew, had grown to be King Amen-hetep’s closest friend and the two of them were often abroad on their pleasures, leaving the tedious affairs of state far behind. Almost a week passed before Ay finally appeared, carrying the pelt of a lion on his back, and accompanied by King Amen-hetep who bore a second lion’s head. Tyi immediately prostrated herself; for although the King had once been her playmate, she had not seen him now for almost a year, and she remembered how capable he had been of strange humours and rages. But at once he bent down and raised her by her hand, kissing it very lingeringly, so that she blushed and turned away. Ay, watching this, winked and laughed loudly, then gestured down at the corpses of the lions.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘we have brought you some presents.’

Tyi gazed at the bodies, then wrinkled her nose. ‘I would rather have live ones.’

King Amen-hetep shrugged and smiled. ‘That can easily be arranged.’ He glanced at Ay. ‘For we are mighty hunters, are we not? Only just sixteen, and already there is no one in Egypt who can rival me.’

Ay nodded and smiled but Tyi, watching them together, doubted that the King could be the equal of her brother. Though still almost boys, they were both very large; whereas Ay, however, seemed carved from the hardest marble, King Amen-hetep’s belly and limbs appeared far more soft. Nevertheless, Tyi kept her opinion to herself, for the King seemed determined to impress her with wild tales of his prowess, and he would pause every so often to fondle the lion’s severed head. At one point, he dabbled his hands in the still sticky gore and sucked on each finger; then, just before leaving, he daubed Tyi’s mouth red with another smear of blood. He began to lick his own lips extravagantly, and Ay promptly laughed; but Tyi, although she smiled, did not understand the joke. She was relieved when King Amen-hetep departed at last, and she could ask Ay what he might have heard of their elder brother. Ay frowned and shrugged his shoulders, for he knew nothing; but he promised her faithfully to find out all he could.

It was not Ay who called upon her in the following days, however, but King Amen-hetep, who kissed her hand as before and then suddenly, to her astonishment, seized her in his arms. The effort made him pant, but his fat lips were parted all the same in a hungry smile, and Tyi tensed as she felt them soft and damp against her own. With a sudden effort she wriggled from his grasp, but her assailant’s smile only broadened all the more. ‘It is fitting,’ he wheezed, ‘that I am such a mighty hunter -- for I see you are not only beautiful but spirited as well. A pretty thing to chase!’

Tyi met his gaze with bare contempt. ‘I would have hoped I was worthy of being something more than that.’

For a moment, King Amen-hetep’s smile was frozen on his lips. ‘You are indeed,’ he whispered suddenly. He crossed to her, and as he did so his smile seemed to fade into a pout of half-regret. ‘You are indeed,’ he whispered again, taking her arm and leading her across to the balcony. ‘For why else would I have brought you a gift so worthy of a queen?’

He gestured to the courtyard below where three black-maned lions, blood-streaked and covered in dust, lay slumped in a cage. King Amen-hetep beamed at Tyi with pride. ‘I caught them myself, just myself and Ay’

Tyi gazed at them in silence.

The King reached out to touch her on her arm. ‘Why do you not thank me,’ he whispered, ‘for your gift?’

Tyi shrugged. ‘I would rather have them free.’ She glanced behind her at the Harim walls. Wild creatures should not be kept in cages.’

King Amen-hetep tensed, then nodded violently and clapped his plump, soft hands. ‘And so it shall be done!’ He took Tyi by the arm and led her down into the courtyard below, where she pressed her face closely against the bars of the cage. Despite the lions’ wounds and evident exhaustion, their eyes were still agleam with a menacing dignity, and one of them, meeting Tyi’s gaze, stirred and half-rose to sit on its haunches. It yawned very slowly, and the tails of all three began to beat to and fro.

Tyi was just thinking to herself that she had never before seen such beauty and power in living creatures, when a train of servants began to pull upon the cage and roll it across the courtyard. Tyi turned to the King, to ask him what his plans for the animals were, and he smiled and pointed towards a tiny metal gate, framed on one side by a high white wall and on the other by the highest portion of the Harim. Tyi frowned as she watched the metal gate being opened and the cage led inside. ‘But those are the gardens of the Great Queen!’ she exclaimed.

King Amen-hetep laughed. ‘No longer,’ he replied. He took Tyi by the arm again, and led her up to the Harim roof. Looking down, she could see the three lions, freed now from their cage, draped amongst the garden’s rare and precious trees, and despite herself, she smiled and cried out with pleasure. Her suitor’s own smile at once grew thicker. He raised her hand and kissed it once again. ‘A gift worthy,’ he murmured, ‘as I said, of a Queen.’

Then he turned and left, and Tyi, watching him go, felt a thrill of ambition and sudden hope, all the sweeter for having risen so unforeseen. She lay an hour, watching her lions, before descending back into the coolness of the Harim, and the gardens appointed to the women who dwelt there, for she felt a strong desire herself to sit by fountains and flowers. But when she arrived there, she saw to her annoyance that someone had already taken her favourite spot; and as she drew nearer, she realised that it was Pharaoh’s eldest sister, the Great Queen herself.

Tyi froze and would have walked away, save that the Queen had observed her and called out her name. Nervously, Tyi approached her and knelt before her feet.

‘Do not wonder,’ the Queen said at last, ‘that I am forced to sit in your garden, Harim-girl. My own, as you will know, has been closed to me.’

Tyi bowed her head, but did not reply. Suddenly, the Queen kicked her and sent her sprawling backwards. ‘What did Pharaoh say?’ the Queen hissed. What did he promise you?’

Tyi blinked back her tears of indignation. Now she could see that there were more of King Amen-hetep’s sisters gathered behind the Queen, their faces all as frozen with hatred as their elder’s. The sight filled Tyi with fury herself and she rose to her feet, drawing herself up to her full height. ‘He told me,’ she announced, ‘that I would be Great Queen.’

To her pleasure, from the circle of the Princesses, she could hear whispers and gasps. But the Great Queen herself only shook her head and laughed. ‘That is what he told you?’ she exclaimed. ‘Then it means he is intending to make you his whore.’

‘You may think that if you please,’ Tyi laughed, ‘yet it is plain he loves even my lions more than he loves you.’

At once all the blood seemed to drain from the Great Queen’s face, but as she rose to her feet she appeared almost strangely, icily calm. ‘You will never be more than his concubine,’ she whispered, reaching out to touch the side of Tyi’s face. ‘For - do you not know, my child? - only a Princess may become Pharaoh’s Queen.’

‘I have been raised as a Princess.’

Again, the Great Queen laughed. ‘Hear her!’ she exclaimed. Then at once the smile faded away from her lips, and she seized Tyi’s chin and jerked her head backwards. ‘You lack the royal blood,’ she spat. ‘Therefore you are nothing. Why!’ -- she laughed even more, but hysterically now - ‘you are not even Egyptian -- and yet you think to be our Queen? Look at this hair!’ She pulled upon it violently. ‘See how it crinkles, how ugly it is! See this skin!’ She tore away the tunic to expose Tyi’s breasts. ‘It is black like pitchest night!’ She reached behind her, and Tyi saw that one of her sisters had handed her a whip. ‘It were better for you,’ the Great Queen whispered, ‘if you truly wish to serve as the concubine of Pharaoh, that we flayed your skin from your flesh, so that you might then appear less of a Nubian.’ And so saying, she tore Tyi’s clothing fully from her body, then began to swing down the whip upon her back. Desperately Tyi sought to rise to her feet, but she was seized by the Princesses and pinned to the ground, and the blows did not stop until the Great Queen was exhausted. She tossed the whip aside and gave Tyi a final, parting kick; then she turned with all her sisters, and Tyi was left alone.

The nurses came to her some time later, nervously, afraid of being glimpsed by the Princesses, and they bore her to a bed which they had prepared for her in her chamber. Tyi did not even speak to thank them, but lay in silence gazing at the wall. Only with the coming of night, when everyone else in the Harim was asleep, did she rise at last and cross to the balcony, to gaze in the direction of her favourite lake; but a wall blocked her view, and so she soon turned away Very carefully she treated her wounds; then she dressed and adorned herself with all the skill that she could muster. For hours she sat in the light of the moon, braiding her hair, until at last dawn rose and she laid her mirror down.

As she did so, she saw behind her the silhouette of a man. ‘Who is that?’ she cried out, alarmed; then she smiled with mingled astonishment and relief. ‘Inen! Is it you? But what are you doing here?’

‘Why, what do you think? I have missed my little sister.’

‘But it is forbidden at this hour,’ she whispered in sudden panic.

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing is forbidden to me any more.’ And so saying he stepped forward, and Tyi saw that his head had been shaven bald and around his neck there now hung the symbol of Amen. He fingered it and smiled. ‘With this I have the power of a hundred Pharaohs.’

Tyi gazed at him, appalled. ‘But . . . no . . . how could you?’ She shook her head. ‘Our father . . .’

‘Was afraid to seize the chance which I have taken.’

‘What chance? O my brother, what are you talking about?’

‘Our father knew -- for I once heard him told -- of the mysteries hidden within the temple of Amen. He was afraid, though, to pull back the veil which concealed them. But I, as you can see’ - he touched his shaven scalp -- ‘have not been such a coward. And, O my sister, O my sister -- what mysteries they are!’

Tyi gazed at him wide-eyed. ‘Why,’ she whispered eagerly, ‘what have you found?’

‘You think I would tell you that?’

‘Why not?’

Inen smiled. ‘Because they are secrets which come from before the dawn of time, written within the sacred books of instruction, guarded by only a handful of priests, and revealing the wonders of the very gods themselves - all good reasons not to tell you a thing.’

Tyi turned and sniffed, to disguise her disappointment. ‘Why mention them at all, then?’

‘To impress you, no other reason.’ Inen smiled again, then reached out to take his sister in his arms. As he did so, however, she flinched and shrank away, and Inen looked down in surprise. ‘What is it?’ he asked; and then he saw the marks of the whip across her arms.

Tyi would not tell him what had happened at first, and instead tried to rise and run away, but then suddenly, with heaving, panting sobs, the whole story flooded out. Inen listened in silence, then drew out a tiny flask from his belt. ‘It may be,’ he whispered, cradling Tyi in his arms, ‘that I can show you something at least of my powers.’ And so saying, he reached for a piece of cloth and dampened it with a liquid, thick and black, which he poured from the flask. He applied it to the wounds upon his sister’s arms, and at once she felt the pain fade, and when she looked the scars were gone. ‘O Inen,’ she cried, ‘that is sorcery indeed! What secrets, what magic, could achieve such a wonder?’

But Inen only smiled and raised a finger to his mouth, then unfastened her robes and inspected the wounds upon her back. Again, he applied the liquid to the welts, and again Tyi felt the pain immediately fade away. ‘And the scars,’ she asked him, ‘are the scars all gone as well?’

‘There is not a single marking left.’

Tyi nodded with a fierce satisfaction, and at once reached down for her robes and her finery. Inen frowned, though, as he watched her dress herself again. ‘Would you gild the dawn?’ he muttered. ‘You are already quite beautiful enough for such an hour.’

But Tyi shook her head. ‘Pharaoh,’ she whispered. ‘I must -- I will -- have Pharaoh.’

Inen’s frown deepened. ‘But did you not hear what the Great Queen said? Only a Princess of the blood may marry him.’

‘That was a lie, surely?’

‘No.’ He rose to his feet, to take his sister in his arms. ‘No, it was not.’

‘By whose determining?’

‘By the determining of the ancient wisdom of Amen.’ Tyi gazed at her brother a moment in disbelief, then shook her head wildly. ‘I cannot believe you!’

‘And yet -- I am sorry -- it is the infallible truth.’

‘Infallible?’

‘As it has been since the time of the very first Pharaoh.’

Tyi raised her hand-mirror and adjusted a tress. ‘Then we shall see,’ she said. She pursed her lips, and coloured them again. ‘For an unchanging custom may still be brought to change.’ And then she turned and hurried from the chamber, nor would she stop to hear Inen’s cries of protest. Instead she climbed to the highest roof of the Harim, and she sat there a long while, gazing down at her lions where they lay amidst the early-morning cool of the trees. In due course, it happened that King Amen-hetep emerged into the courtyard below and, glancing upwards, he saw where Tyi sat, and he felt his desire rise up in him again, for he thought he had never seen such beauty before -- not in the stars, nor in the sun, nor in any of the works of the heavens or the earth. So he paused in his business and climbed at once to Tyi, and he took her in his arms and sought to kiss her. But Tyi turned away, and would not meet his lips until he had promised her faithfully that she would be his Great Queen. Then she kissed him very softly, and at once broke away and ran down the steps. And King Amen-hetep was left alone.

The following morning, when he emerged into the courtyard, he looked up again and saw Tyi in all her beauty, and again he felt overwhelmed by his love for her, and by an uncontrollable desire. As before, however, having climbed to the roof and sought to take her in his arms, Tyi would not meet his lips, but instead looked away and reminded him of his promise.