The Twelfth Transforming (18 page)

“I am not surprised. The boats of private individuals can only be seized by officials of Pharaoh on vital business and are supposed to be paid for later, you know.”

“I know, but everyone does it. The poor little wretch was paid, never fear.”

“With gold?”

Mutnodjme grinned engagingly. “No.”

Tiye indicated the jumble of scrolls on the table. “I have just been reading two years of reports on your behavior, Mutnodjme. My spies tell me that you have been selling yourself in the brothels in Thebes.”

“Then you are paying them for the wrong information. I have not been selling myself. I have been giving my services for nothing. What would I do with more money? Besides, to take payment would reflect badly on the family.”

Tiye pretended a gravity she did not feel, mastering the desire to laugh while Mutnodjme’s elegantly sandaled foot began to swing back and forth. “It is a serious matter, for your behavior now reflects on Pharaoh. You are the sister of a queen. I have decided to give you in marriage to Horemheb.”

Mutnodjme shrugged. “I daresay he is a wise choice. He does his best to keep me out of the barracks. He is a very good soldier, Majesty Aunt, a respected commander. I respect him also. As long as he does not demand instant obedience from me, I suppose we shall learn to like one another. I shall devote myself to handling the servants and buying fashionable clothes.”

Now Tiye did laugh. She had expected no other response from her niece. “Then I will have the contract drawn up and will approach Horemheb. Tell me, Mutnodjme,” she said, changing the subject on impulse. “How is Thebes speaking of its new pharaoh?”

Mutnodjme uncurled and leaned back in her chair. “The people are relieved, I think. The rumors of the boy my uncle took into his bed shocked and angered them. They live by the old laws, the peasants. They worship the old gods—Osiris, Isis, Horus—and the Declaration of Innocence is more to them than a piece of parchment to be waved self-righteously under the noses of the gods when they die. A pharaoh who breaks a law of the gods brings down a curse upon his subjects.”

“They believe that such a curse has been averted by my husband’s death?”

“I don’t know. But they do expect a return to piety with my cousin’s accession. Besides, since when has a pharaoh had to fear the opinions of an ignorant rabble?” Mutnodjme stifled a yawn, and Tiye saw that the turn the conversation had taken was boring her. Good-naturedly she dismissed her, regretting as Mutnodjme glided out that in giving her to Horemheb she was losing what might have been the best spy available in Thebes.

The entire court gathered to greet Amunhotep when he disembarked at the Malkatta water steps some weeks later, looking wan but excited. Speeches were made and incense burned, but Tiye’s attention was drawn to Nefertiti and Sitamun. The former was pale and silent, the latter more vivacious than ever, her loud, musical voice commanding attention, her gestures charmingly pretty. Amunhotep smiled fondly upon her, often patting her arm and once even kissing her unexpectedly on the lips, but no murmur of surprise arose from a court already growing accustomed to Pharaoh’s inexplicable public displays of affection. Tiye caught her brother’s eye, and he raised his dark eyebrows knowingly.

The formal welcome soon broke into smaller groups of people who drifted toward the feast that had been prepared by the fountains in the forecourt. Tiye, walking to the tables behind Amunhotep, heard the voices of her niece and her daughter raised above the level of conversations going on around them. Their servants were standing with faces averted in embarrassment, and several courtiers had stopped to hear what was being said. Tiye halted.

“Majesty, you shriek and gibber like one of the palace monkeys, but your silly posturings will be in vain,” Nefertiti was hissing. “You have not only reached the end of your youth, but you are barren.”

Sitamun was smiling complacently. “And you, Majesty, are an arrogant upstart. The disk and plumes are mine. Accept your place and try and produce a few more girls to keep you busy. Or take up weaving to help pass the hours you will be spending in the harem.” It was a deliberate insult, for only men wove cloth, just as only men baked bread. An audible gasp went up from those listening. Sitamun came to herself, glared at them all, and swept past the fountains to take her place beside an oblivious Amunhotep. Nefertiti stood biting her lip, her gray eyes glinting. When she became aware of Tiye’s thoughtful gaze, she managed a polite smile, turned, and glided to her cushions on Pharaoh’s left with as much dignity as she could muster. The interested assembly quickly scattered, darting apprehensive looks at Tiye, but she kept her shock to herself as Amunhotep beckoned her, and the musicians began to play.

But that display of public animosity between two women was not the last. As the days went by, they ceased to be seen together, to dine in each other’s company, and finally even to speak to each other, and soon their growing animosity spread to their household staffs. Although Pharaoh had made no move to put into formal writing his decision to award Sitamun the status of empress, Tiye successfully urged Amunhotep to order the Keeper of the Royal Regalia to deliver the empress’s crown to her. Tiye, long past the stage of caring more for the trappings of power than power itself, saw Sitamun flaunt the glittering, heavy thing with increasing anxiety.

Pharaoh himself seemed to be oblivious to the charged air around him, spending his time drifting from architects’ offices to lake to dining hall, stopping often to feed ducks and other birds from the baskets of dried bread he insisted his servants have ready wherever he was. He did occasionally join Tiye in the Office of Foreign Correspondence, and one morning after a particularly ugly quarrel between the two queens’ stewards, she decided to warn him about the dangerous situation he was fostering. He had taken a seat beside a large desk, and in a patch of sun that pooled into the room through the high windows was feeding nuts to a pair of tiny monkeys that scampered among the scrolls. He still favored a white helmet, leather or linen as the season demanded, but today only the royal uraeus, the king-protecting cobra and vulture, reared golden above his high forehead. He was dressed in the gown of a vizier, a long, unpleated sheath held up by one strip of linen around his neck. His pectoral consisted of rows of carnelian scarabs rolling silver suns across a turquoise sky, and his fingers were heavy with his cartouches. His brown eyes were rimmed with an unusual shade of kohl, a blue so dark that they seemed like the centers of blue-rimmed daisies. A droplet of gold shimmered from one ear, and the other lobe was painted blue. He tutted and clucked at the monkeys, who snatched the food from him until, having become glutted, they began to throw it onto the floor. He smiled at them indulgently.

“Is it true that the pharaoh before me promised to send gold statues to Tushratta?” he asked, referring to the scroll Tiye held, “and that they were never sent?”

“Yes, I think so. I must ask that the files be searched. Tushratta has written me a letter also, reminding me of Pharaoh’s promise, and has sent with it a quantity of very good oil. Relations between Egypt and Mitanni have always been good, Majesty, although over the matter of women there have been some misunderstandings. Mitanni has withheld wives from both your father and grandfather, forcing them to make requests several times and to offer higher payments each time. Your father enjoyed the game. But this matter of the statues should be attended to. It is as well that the goddess Ishtar be returned.”

“I will send Tushratta two statues, but of cedar overlaid with gold,” Amunhotep said, stroking the monkey that had leaped onto his shoulder and was patting his cheek, “because I do not know if statues of solid gold were promised. But I do not like to think that he is a king without truth.”

“He will be insulted.”

“No. He will know that I send them in good faith, and if I err, he will write again.”

“Here is a letter from Alashia announcing shipments of copper to Egypt and asking for silver and papyrus in return. My son”—Tiye tossed the scrolls on the desk—“I can no longer concentrate on the correspondence. Are you ready to end the foolishness that has gripped the palace, and formally name Sitamun your empress? Are you aware that members of the court are now taking sides? Malkatta has become a quarrelsome place.”

He glanced at her in mild surprise. “I told her she could be empress, and I ordered the regalia delivered to her. That is surely enough.”

“You know as well as I that such gestures mean nothing unless they are backed by written proclamation. If I call for scribes and papyrus, will you dictate these things and seal them and give them to your heralds to proclaim? Then perhaps all the fuss will die away. And while we are on the subject of edicts and documents, Kheruef tells me that you have sealed a marriage contract with Tadukhipa. Is that true?”

He smiled. “Little Kia. That is what I call her. Yes, it is true. But I have called none of them to my bed lately.”

“Why?”

He looked away and busied himself with the monkey, scratching its ears, pulling its paws. Tiye had to bend forward to hear his answer. “I do not know,” he whispered. “If you wish, Mother, I will make Sitamun empress.”

Tiye shouted, and a scribe hurried in, sinking to the floor and setting his palette across his knees. “Is it what
you
wish, Amunhotep?”

Again his head sank over the animal’s ruffled fur. “I think so.”

Quickly she dictated the document while Amunhotep lowered the monkey to the floor and seemed to withdraw into himself, his body stilled, his hands loose on the desk. When the scribe had finished, she did not wait for him to copy it into hieroglyphs for fear Pharaoh would wander away and forget the matter. She took the papyrus and laid it before him. “Your seal, Amunhotep.” He drew the ring from his finger and pressed it into the wax and then rose and was gone before she could collect herself enough to bow to him. “Give this to the heralds,” she ordered. “They will know what to do with it.” The scribe bowed himself out, and Tiye slumped in the still-warm chair with a sigh of relief. Perhaps now there would be peace.

The formal ratification of Pharaoh’s decision in fact brought a surprising change in Nefertiti. With all the graciousness of which she was capable when it suited her, she made it known that she was now content. She took Meritaten to visit the empress in her apartments, bearing grapes new-picked from her father’s estates at Akhmin and expensive containers of the year’s most sought-after wines. In the flush of conquest Sitamun was magnanimous, and before the afternoon was over, she and Nefertiti were laughing together over the sennet board while Meritaten lay in the grass kicking and gurgling.

Tiye, while pleased to see the hostilities at an end, could not still the small pulse of caution in her mind. “It is a clever act,” Ay said bluntly. “Nefertiti is, after all, a member of our family, and we do not readily accept defeat. Sitamun should not trust her.”

“It is hard not to trust Nefertiti when she exerts all her charm,” Tiye replied, “and my daughter is in many ways a simple woman. She will accept Nefertiti’s peace.”

And I will deal with Sitamun myself if she tries to interfere in government
, Tiye thought.
She will be easier to handle than a Nefertiti eager to assume active power would be. But I am sorry. I would have preferred to leave Egypt to Nefertiti when I am gone
.

The season of Shemu had brought the heat, and Nefertiti and Sitamun had taken to the roof of the empress’s quarters, lying under the pale shade of the great canopy. Their backs were against the curve of the wind catcher that was set to funnel any breeze out of the north into the bedchamber below them, their limbs sprawled on the linen sheets. Pieces of the sennet game they had been playing lay scattered around them, together with dishes of fruit, ribbons, and their sandals and cloaks. Beside them their servants wielded great ostrich fans that barely stirred the stifling air. Sitamun plunged both hands into the bowl of water between her legs and tossed the water up over her unpainted face.

“I wish Pharaoh had decided to go north,” she complained, closing her eyes as the shining droplets trickled down onto her bare breasts. “Half the court has vanished to the Delta, and here we sit, panting. His Aten temple will be built whether he is present or not.”

“I think he will eventually go,” Nefertiti replied, “but he wants to see the expanded sanctuary finished and the forecourt paved before he does. The workmen ought to have had that done by now, but I suppose the heat slows down everything.” She motioned, and a slave wrung out a cloth and gently wiped her face. “If Tiye pressed him, he would take us all to Memphis, but she says she is too busy at the moment. Mutnodjme sent me a letter. She said that even as she was dictating, it was raining. Rain in Memphis. So rare! And we are missing it.”

Sitamun shrugged down until she lay on her back. “Osiris Amunhotep used to move the whole court on the first day of Shemu and did not return to Thebes until New Year’s Day,” she said. “I remember how once a shower began while we were still in the barges, a day from the docks. Everyone crowded to kiss Pharaoh’s feet in thanksgiving, and then, after we all had our sheaths and kilts removed, we stood naked, washed by the rain. It was a good omen. It heralded a happy summer. All we get in Thebes are dust storms and an occasional khamsin to relieve the boredom.”

Nefertiti’s glittering gray eyes flicked over Sitamun’s voluptuous body and off to the heat-hazed cliffs dancing in the distance. “I am arranging a party tonight in the harem gardens,” she said. “For the women only. No one sleeps, anyway. We will bathe in the lake and watch the fire walkers by torchlight. Will you come, Majesty?”

Sitamun turned her head languidly. “If Pharaoh does not require me.”

Nefertiti suppressed the response that had risen to her lips, knowing very well that Pharaoh spent his nights surrounded by hundreds of lamps and a dozen weary servants, poring over his architects’ plans for the Aten temple, praying, or composing songs. The furnace heat of Shemu had seemed to cauterize all sexual desire in him.