The Twelfth Transforming (62 page)

Curiously Ay watched the color rise quickly in the long face, the shallow chest heave with emotion. He did not dare to meet Horemheb’s eye, but he knew the commander was also keenly aware of the faint echo of Akhenaten. For the first time in many months a moment of mutual understanding passed between the two men, and as though the prince had sensed it, he ran a hand quickly and almost defensively over his shaven skull.

“I suppose it does not matter,” he went on more calmly. “In a short time Akhenaten will be buried, and I will be Pharaoh, with Meritaten as my queen. What can my cousin do then?” He leaned forward slightly and stared coldly at the two men. “You both realize that if you ambush the foreigner, you must be sure to kill every member of his entourage, including any of Nefertiti’s messengers. Otherwise word will get back to Suppiluliumas.”

Horemheb nodded. “Your Highness can leave the details to me.”

Smenkhara shot a shrewd glance at his uncle. “Does the fanbearer have any objections?”

Ay bowed. “None, Fledgling.”

Smenkhara uncurled, stood, and without another look at them strode into the shadows. Ay let out a long breath. Horemheb was smiling at him quizzically. “It is like stepping back ten years, is it not?” he remarked.

“Use the cavalry, Commander,” Ay said, ignoring Horemheb’s comment, “and disguise the men as desert Apiru. The Khatti prince’s escort will doubtless be mounted, and we want no mistakes. Everyone knows how dangerous the desert road has become. We may just succeed with it.”

“A good idea.” Horemheb’s eyes cleared in a flash. “Do you want copies of my directives to May?”

“No. Only send me word when it is all over.” Ay managed a sketchy, polite bow before turning and walking slowly away. He had never been so weary.

The period of mourning for Akhenaten was drawing to a close. Day after day Nefertiti sat by the window in silence, searching the hot silver surface of the river flowing below, watching the flicker of the torches she had ordered to be set along the banks at night. She woke each dawn after brief and troubled sleeps with bloodshot, itching eyes and hands already shaking with an anxiety she could no longer control. She could not bear to be addressed and would answer with sharp words or tears that inflamed her eyes even more. Her physician prescribed an ointment that gummed her lashes together and caused her to sit hour upon hour whisking at the flies attracted by its strong odor, but at least it cooled her eyes and afforded her some relief. She at last forced herself away from the damning window, lying instead on her couch in a darkened room. No one came near her. Even Tutankhaten, a placid and biddable boy, had grown weary of her screams and the sting of her fist and kept to his own apartments and the peace of the empty gardens. Nefertiti tasted her own loneliness and found it bitter.

On the morning of her husband’s funeral she found the strength to sit at her cosmetics table to be painted. With vanity she laid aside the ointment in order to wear kohl, but her face had to be washed and washed again, so badly did her eyes water. There was still time for the Khatti prince to arrive. Anything could have happened to him, to Hani: lame horses, a detour to avoid discovery, illness, perhaps. They might even now be approaching Akhetaten. At the thought she opened her eyes, and her cosmetician stifled an exclamation of annoyance and reached for a damp cloth. Smenkhara would not become divine until tomorrow. There were still hours, and any hour could bring deliverance. The heavy wig was lowered onto her head. The gold net set with lapis lazuli followed, attached carefully onto the coronet to which a hooded cobra, which she was allowed to wear, having once been a queen, was hooked. Behind her stood her tiring women, waiting to dress her in the blue sheath of mourning, the golden sandals, the diaphanous short blue cloak. Outside under the blazing sun her barge nudged the water steps whose every fleck of color, every angle, was now as familiar to her as her own face. “I must have wine if I am to get through this day,” she gasped, feeling her eyes begin to run again, and immediately a servant knelt with a silver goblet. She drank quickly, without pleasure.
I began this torment
, she thought,
but I cannot end it
. Turning her face to the cosmetician, she waited for the man to wipe away the streaks of kohl from her cheeks. When it was time to depart, she found she could not walk without the unobtrusive support of her attendants.

Nefertiti kept her litter curtains closed during the walk to the place on the eastern edge of the city where the funeral procession was forming. Though she could hear the cries of her heralds and guards clearing a way for her through the crowds gathered on either side of the Royal Road in the hope of catching a glimpse of her, she had no wish to satisfy their curiosity or see the acres of buildings and gardens that had once represented so much happiness to her. Once away from the center of the city, however, the noise of the populace died away, and she looped back the hangings, shielding her eyes against the glare of sun on the sand. The Overseer of Protocol approached her, bowing and indicating to her bearers the position behind the coffin that she was to occupy. As she was carried forward, Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten detached themselves from their retinue. The litter halted. Nefertiti leaned out hesitantly, and her daughters knelt, both in tears, to embrace her. Briefly she held them close, and then, signaling her steward that she was ready to proceed, she withdrew, once more pulling the curtains closed. She had no wish to watch her husband’s body being dragged across the sand toward the barren, rocky gully he had selected for his tomb. Behind her she could hear Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten sobbing and farther back the formal ululations of the mourners, but her own eyes were dry. She would find no more tears for Akhenaten. They had all been shed long ago.

Akhenaten had composed the burial rite himself, with all the joy in his god and appreciation for beauty of which he had been capable. The words Meryra intoned, the steps prescribed for the dancers, the music floating in the still air, all combined to impress upon those present both the grandeur and the pathos of the era that was now ended. Even the many enemies of Akhenaten among the courtiers forgot for a while that they were entombing a pharaoh who had led them all along the path of his delusion, and remembered only that he had been a man of honesty.

During the ceremonies Nefertiti sat under a canopy, turning occasionally to the surreptitious ministrations of her cosmetician, trying to hide the agitation of her hands. In spite of her determination to be still, she could not prevent herself from glancing often to the place where the gully opened out into desert, and beyond that, unseen, the river. But the sand shimmered in the heat, the rock shook, and there was no sign of any messenger.

Smenkhara stepped forward to Open the Mouth. It was the most solemn moment of any funeral, and all eyes ought to have been fixed on the heir, but Nefertiti became increasingly aware that the stares of the company were directed at her.
It is not so, it is my imagination
, she tried to tell herself. But glancing over the crowd from under lowered lids, she found her father gazing at her with the sleepy regard that had always indicated speculative thought, and beside him, Horemheb’s eyes met hers coldly and steadily. Panic rose in her throat, acrid and dry, and she became frantic for wine. Tearing her gaze away, she looked to the ceremony just as Smenkhara handed the sacred knife to Meryra and turned, and he, too, seemed to fix her with an accusatory stare. Suddenly she felt as though every eye was on her, piercing her, hostile and condemning. Sweat began to stream down her face. Casting her eyes downward, she strove to ignore them. Pain struck under her breastbone, and she clutched at herself, suppressing a groan.
I must show nothing
, she told herself dimly through the panic.
If I flee I will give them an excuse to despise me all the more
. But even as the thought entered her mind, she found herself swaying to her feet. “What are you staring at, you sacrilegious peasants?” she shouted. “I am a queen! Avert your eyes!”

Meryra stopped singing, and the rite faltered. Now, indeed, she saw, every eye had turned to her in blank astonishment. Tears blurred her vision. Nefertiti felt a hand close firmly over her arm.

“Be quiet, Majesty,” her half sister’s voice breathed close to her ear. “Do you want them to think you are mad? Is this grief or illness?”

Nefertiti shrank from Mutnodjme’s touch, but then another hand gently touched her shoulder, and without opening her eyes Nefertiti knew it was Tey. “I want to go home,” she whispered into the shocked silence. Mutnodjme glanced at her husband. Horemheb nodded once and then curtly bade Meryra continue. Quickly Mutnodjme and Tey helped Nefertiti to her litter through the whispering throng. Out of the corner of her eye Nefertiti glimpsed Tutankhaten, resplendent in glinting jaspers and snowy linen, his black youth lock plaited and wound with blue ribbons, watching her with curiosity. Ankhesenpaaten took a step toward her mother, but Ay restrained her. Meritaten, face puckered with worry, remained at Smenkhara’s side.

“Take a massage and lie down,” Tey said soothingly to Nefertiti as she held open the curtains of the litter for her. “I will go into the tomb with your flowers. Your isolation is foolish, Majesty. Come to your father’s house this evening. The mourning is over. We will have music and dancing, and then you will feel better.”

Nefertiti dabbed at her cheeks and looked away. “I do not feel well enough,” she said stiffly, furious with herself for her lapse and bitter with embarrassment at her loss of dignity. “Perhaps later, Tey.”

Tey bowed good-naturedly and let the curtains fall. The litter started off. Nefertiti heard the chanting resume and then gradually fade as her bearers left the cliff and veered toward the city. Full of shame, she curled on the cushions with her face in her hands. The Khatti prince had not come. Akhenaten was buried. She had failed in her bid to salvage something of her life, and hot tears flowed through her fingers.

Just after sunset Nefertiti’s steward announced her father. She had returned to the north palace and had gone immediately to her couch, having it moved so that she could lie bolstered with pillows and look out of the window, even though a reason for vigilance no longer existed. She was listlessly playing with her rings in the soft pink light of evening when Ay greeted her, coming to stand beside the bed. He bowed, breathing heavily, and she indicated that he might sit.

“I used to run up those steps to the terrace,” he wheezed, “but today I had them carry me in my litter. Time is cruel, Majesty.”

She glanced at him sharply, but his scarlet, perspiring face was bland. “If you have come to enquire after my welfare, I am better,” she said. “It was the heat, and my grief.”

“Ah.” He nodded understandingly. “That is unfortunate, but do not fret over it, Nefertiti. Everyone knows how devoted you were to Osiris Akhenaten, even though he did not treat you well.”

Again she gave him a keen look, and this time saw his half-smile. “He would be wounded to hear you call him an Osiris one,” she smiled back. “I am generous enough, Father, to hope that the Aten gives him the rewards he deserved.”

“Perhaps the Aten will try, but perhaps the other gods will be enraged at the fate your husband brought upon Egypt and will not allow Akhenaten’s divinity to bring him blessedness.”

She leaned back and closed her eyes, resisting the desire to rub them. “Can I have them bring you anything?” she murmured. “It is so good to have grapes again, and pomegranates, and the melons are huge this year. My granaries are full. So strange, a funeral at the time of harvest.”

“No food, thank you, Majesty.”

She heard a hesitation in his voice and, opening her eyes, rolled her head towards him on the pillow. “You did not come to enquire after my health or discuss the harvest,” she said. “What is it, Father?”

Ay leaned into the last shaft of red light that lay across the couch. “May I dismiss your women?”

“Of course.”

He gave a command, and the servants gathered up the games and trinkets that had been amusing them and filed out. When they had gone, Ay sat quietly for a moment, fingers pyramided under his chin, and Nefertiti, watching his eyes half-close in thought, was suddenly tense. Then his hands loosened.

“I am going to take Tutankhaten away from the north palace,” he said. “As the only male left of Amunhotep’s line he should be receiving the education and training proper to his station.”

“I see,” she replied slowly, still watching his face. “But is it not too early yet to assume that Smenkhara and my daughter will not produce a son? They are young. They could have many children. Any son of theirs would inherit the throne.”

Ay sighed. “I cannot wait to see what the future will bring. I must prepare now for any eventuality. If Smenkhara had come to power in a different age, when Egypt was strong and her administration sure, his character would not matter. But he is spoiled, angry, and weak. He will do nothing to bring order out of the governmental chaos your husband left. He is fawned upon by young men who want wealth but no responsibility.” He paused, and Nefertiti realized that twilight now filled the room, and her father’s features were becoming indistinct. “The hope of salvation for Egypt that was kindled when your husband died will not last long when this country sees that Smenkhara is not able to rule and has no ministers left who could form an effective administration. In times like these the jackals gather, the assassins, the power-hungry, the ambitious without scruples. If Smenkhara dies or is murdered, there must be a clear successor.”

Nefertiti began to sift the rings that lay scattered on her sheets. “I see that you have given this much thought,” she said dryly. “What makes you think that Tutankhaten will be acceptable to Egypt? He is, after all, a living reminder of the curse my aunt brought about by her marriage to her son.” She peered at him, wanting to read his expression but seeing nothing now but the gray oval of his face.

“I will make sure that he is raised in the traditional manner, as a servant of Amun, a lover of the true gods of Egypt, a respecter of Amun’s servants at Karnak. If anything happens to Smenkhara, Tutankhaten will represent Ma’at, the ancient rightness of things, a return to a healthy and prosperous Egypt.”