The Twelfth Transforming (26 page)

The party had reached the bisecting path that was traveled by an increasing stream of supplicants on their way to the temple of the Son of Hapu. Where the temple itself cast a deep shade across the road, she suddenly heard curses being shouted, and the grunts of angry men. Curious, she raised the curtain of the litter and ordered the bearers to halt. She was about to send a Follower to investigate when there was an abrupt silence, followed by an agonized scream, and a man burst upon the cavalcade. He stopped, terror leaping into his eyes as he saw royalty on the otherwise deserted road, hesitated, and then turned to run. Tiye nodded at her captain, and he and several other soldiers raced after the man, disappearing around the corner of the temple. Sun beat up from the dust of the road, and Tiye heard her bearers passing the water jug between them. The soldiers left behind shuffled uneasily until the captain and his men reappeared, the fugitive held firmly in their midst. Two of them were carrying a second man, and even from a distance Tiye could tell from the limp limbs, the lolling head, that this man was dead. Her soldiers moved to surround her as she stepped from the litter, and servants unfolded her canopy. From its shade she watched as the body was laid on the road.

“He is not long dead, Majesty,” the captain said. “The blood still flows.”

Tiye glanced at the battered head, the shaven skull smeared with dark blood, the smashed lips, the bruises on the neck. She looked away. The other man, panting and perspiring, was also badly bruised. His white linen hung in tatters, but the blood splashed on his arms and smearing one cheek was not his. As he saw her gaze swivel to him, he gave an inarticulate cry and tried to prostrate himself, struggling to free his arms from the burly Followers on either side. It was then that Tiye noticed his armbands, emblazoned with the Aten’s glyph. Startled, she looked at the corpse. Its armbands were etched with Amun’s double plumes.

“It is not possible!” she almost shouted. “Stand straight, priest. What is this?”

He struggled to speak, his eyes on the blood pooling on the road, already sinking into the dust. Flies had begun to gather, buzzing greedily around the battered head, and a soldier pulled his fly whisk from his belt and beat them away.

“Pity, Majesty,” the man croaked, swallowing convulsively. “I did not mean to kill him. We met on the road, and I was hot and thirsty. He had water and bread. We stopped to talk. He shared his food with me, and when we had finished, we should have parted but…” He closed his eyes. Tiye waited impassively. “We began to talk and then to argue. He flung the water carrier at me, and rage coursed through me. I hit him. We fought. I had him on the ground, but he struggled and cursed me. I picked up a rock and…”

Contemptuously Tiye waved him to silence and turned to her captain. “Take him to the palace cells and guard him. Pharaoh must judge this. Deliver the corpse to Ptahhotep. Priests fighting. I cannot believe it!” She swung to the litter. Before she twitched the curtains shut, she caught a trace of the odor of new blood, and from nowhere a vulture had appeared, circling clumsily but with chilling tenacity.

Once returned to the palace, she went straight to her son. He was stepping from his bathing slab, arms outstretched so that his body servant could dry him, and he welcomed her with his usual winsome smile.

“It will be a good feast tonight, Tiye. Pupri and Puzzi will be relieved to be returning to Mitanni after so long.”

For once she had no interest in the machinations that had kept the Mitanni ambassadors in Egypt since Osiris Amunhotep’s funeral. Quickly and tersely she told him what had happened on the road, watching his face for any reaction, but he only listened with mild warmth in his large brown eyes. When she had finished, he ushered her into his bedchamber, standing while red linen was draped around him, fingering the thin cloth admiringly. He sat to have the soles of his feet painted red, and finally sighed gently.

“I will speak with the Aten priest,” he said. “They still have so much to learn. The Aten does not need a violent defense. It is a life-giver. Do you like these bracelets, dear mother? Kenofer presented them to me.”

She ignored the outstretched, painted palms from which gold spilled. Going to his chair, she squatted, looking up into his face. “Amunhotep, a man has died, and not just any man. A priest of Amun has been carried to the House of the Dead, slain by the sun men. If his murderer is not executed, you will be condoning a violent resolution to all the silly squabbling that is going on, as well as showing favoritism to the Aten.”

He raised both plucked eyebrows and smiled. “You are skilled in matters of state, my Tiye, and I seldom argue with your decisions. But since I commune directly with the god, I am better equipped to deal with matters of religion than any man.” The body servant juggled the gold bracelets over his long fingers. “The priest was misguided in his zeal, that is all. I will warn him and release him.”

“If you do so, the Amun priests will go in fear of their lives! They will be bitter and resentful.”

“But their god will protect them.”

She could not tell whether under his benign tone she heard a true naiveté or sarcasm.

“If you let him go, will you at least appear at Karnak for several days afterward to perform the morning rites in person?”

“I do not think so.” Politely he turned away to face his mirror, and she rose to her feet. His cosmetician dabbled a brush into the blue eye paint. “I have no quarrel with Amun; and it is only a matter of time before the Aten priests see that there is no real threat in his insignificance. Then both factions will withdraw, and there will be peace.”

She argued no further. Kissing him on his smooth brow as though he were a prattling child, she left him, taking a litter to her brother’s house through the warm twilight.

Ay was drinking wine in his garden with a few of his officers. Behind them the first lamplight gleamed out through the little frontal pillars, and the laughter and movement of his servants and concubines mingled with the rich odors of hot food. Ay’s baboons lay in the dark grass, clustered together and grunting softly. Night already hung thick in the trees that sheltered the garden from the river, but between their trunks the serrated gray line of the little water steps could still be glimpsed. Conversation died away as Tiye’s herald called her titles, and the men prostrated themselves. Bidding them rise, she motioned for Ay to accompany her, and together they strolled past the placid animals along the path that led to the quiet water.

“Pharaoh is to release a priest held in the palace cells,” she told him. “I want him killed. See that it is done quietly but make certain that the body can be easily found and that the badges of his priestly rank are left on him.”

Ay nodded. “Very well. Do you wish to tell me why?”

When she had finished speaking, he drew her in under the rustling sycamores. Now the river was visible, a silver ribbon with the new stars pricked out on its surface. Ay’s barge was a dark bulk tethered to the steps, and the footfalls of the servants who patrolled the perimeters of his home grew and faded. It was a peaceful night. Thebes was no more than a fitful mutter on the other bank.

“If this religious fanaticism spills over into the palace, we could be facing a very serious situation,” he said. “I can’t believe that Pharaoh is blind to the possibility. Is he hoping for this to happen?”

“I do not know. Sometimes it seems a small matter to me, a game we allow him to play to keep him occupied, but then I look back and see just how much things have changed, how turbulent life at court has become. I did not ever think that I would have to try to influence him in matters other than those of government, and I fear my influence is not enough.”

“What would happen if you simply told those responsible for this priest’s fate to disregard Pharaoh’s order, and issued one of your own?” His face hovered, pale and indistinct, opposite her own. His wine-scented breath was warm.

“I am afraid to consider. Pharaoh’s word is law. Often his word is really that of his advisors or myself, though it comes from his mouth, but either way it is just as sacred. If he then reversed
my
order, my power would be diminished.”

Ay laughed, a short, harsh bark. “It is as foolishly intriguing as a Dogs and Jackals game. He is Pharaoh, but you are still ruler of Egypt, and Nefertiti keeps the family’s fortunes high. Our blood becomes less foreign and more royal. If Amunhotep’s reign continues to be one religious crisis after another, the Amun oracle will be only too happy to appoint an heir that we suggest to him. We still occupy a position of great strength, Tiye.”

“What you say is true, but under the rock is sand. And it is shifting. At the moment the balance between Amun’s and Aten’s adherents at court is even, but what if Amun’s worshipers dwindle?”

“What worshipers? Only the priests are true worshipers. I will do as you ask, Empress. Stop fretting.”

But power rests in continual fretting
, she thought as she felt his reassuring hand descend on her shoulder,
in worrying about the past intruding on the present, present decisions stretching into an unknown future
. “Your officers will be ready to dine, and I am already late for Pharaoh’s feast,” she said, laying her cheek briefly against his hand and stepping away. “Bring me word when it is carried out. Have you received any word from Tey lately?”

They walked back toward the torches which now flared over the garden, talking of small family matters, and Tiye left Ay to his guests. A burst of hearty masculine laughter followed her through the gate, warming the empty reaches of the moonlit path that crunched under her litter bearers’ feet, and a fit of loneliness swept over her. She would rather be sharing food in the informality of Ay’s garden than be sitting beside Pharaoh under the gilded baldachin, with the heavy disk and plumes on her head.

The priest’s body was discovered out on the desert behind the western cliffs, close to a winding path used by nomad caravans. The man had been stabbed cleanly, through the heart, but the weapon had been removed. By the time he was found, he had already begun to wither, his juices sucked up by the sand and the moisture-hungry air, and the Aten armbands rested loosely on his upper arms. Relief and a new reverence for the empress swept through Karnak. The story of the two priests’ quarrel and the murder of the Amun man had spread rapidly. Karnak seethed with indignation and apprehension, not only in Amun’s temple complex but also in the cells of those who served Amun’s consort, Mut and his son, Khonsu. Murder was a frightening escalation in the rivalry between the Aten and the gods of Thebes. Some priests angrily demanded weapons from Ptahhotep, arguing that they had a right to defend themselves, but the majority limited their anxiety to long discussions in their cells and would no longer go about Karnak and the city alone. Ptahhotep knew that any violent response from the priests under him would lift the feud into a far more serious arena, where the consequences for Egypt could be disastrous. He strictly forbade retaliation of any kind, while wondering what course to follow. He saw Pharaoh’s hand in the releasing of the Aten priest from prison without an interrogation and was en raged, but when the man’s body was discovered the next day, his rage turned to gratitude, for he recognized the empress’s summary justice in the act.

The courtiers likewise saw the hand of their empress in choosing a simple solution to a problem that was becoming more complex every day. They ad mired her facility for acting in such a way that Pharaoh suffered no loss of face. They had viewed the animosity between both gods’ factions with alarm because it threatened to disrupt their otherwise comfortable lives, and they knew that Tiye had given them a reprieve. They waited to see what Pharaoh would do and, when he did nothing, forgot the incident.

But in the privacy of his bedchamber Nefertiti raged to her husband. “Who is Pharaoh, she or you?” she demanded, pacing the room as he lay on his couch and watched her. “I told you, Horus, that her interest in the Aten was a sham, and now she has proved it. She has killed a priest. How often have you said that the god is kind and gentle and needs no weapons? She uses you!”

“That may be,” he responded mildly, “but she is my empress. I am indulgent toward her lack of understanding.”

“Your indulgence is seen as weakness in the palace! Discipline her, Mighty Bull! Call her to public reprimand.”

“It cannot be proved that she was responsible for the priest’s death. It could have been brought about by Amun’s men.”

Nefertiti’s delicate red lip curled, and she strode to the couch. “Even if she is not guilty, she goes about the palace as though an invisible Double Crown sat upon her head. Surely it is time to take the government from her hands. There is no longer any need for a regent. You appointed her as such because you were ignorant of the workings of power. That was nearly four years ago. I have worked with her. I can help you.”

“And what would you have me do with Tiye?”

It was on the tip of Nefertiti’s tongue to say “Kill her,” but she restrained herself. “Retire her to Akhmin, or if that is too close, to her estates at Djarukha. She is too old to learn of new things, and in her heart Amun will always reign supreme. As long as she is seen at court, there will be trouble between the old and the new.” She had perched beside him and was interspersing her words with light kisses on his eyes, his cheeks, the softness of his full mouth, but he drew away unmoved.

“I love her,” he said simply.

The anger that had been dying in Nefertiti revived. “Do you not love me also?”

He placed a fraternal arm around her stiff shoulders. “You know that I do.”

“But not the way you are thralled by Tiye,” she said bitterly. Words were ready to tumble into the dusky stillness of the room.
She is aging, she is not as beautiful as I and her ripeness is fading, she is your own mother and Egypt is still unquiet with the fear that the gods will punish, she is ugly and wily
… With difficulty she forced them back. “I am your humble servant,” she said huskily. “But, Amunhotep, the time will come when you wish to rule actively, and it will be too late.”