The Twelfth Transforming (29 page)

He cupped her cheeks. “My loyal Nefertiti,” he said softly. “The Aten is touched by such devotion. Many courtiers are not yet ready to see in him their only god, but there are no doubts in you, are there? Can you imagine how it would be to spend our time always like this, away from the babble of Thebes, the hostility of Karnak, the judgment of our inferiors?”

“I desire it above all things,” she responded, stepping into his embrace, “but if such happiness is to be, you must ask the oracle to approve a place far re moved from Malkatta or you will have no reason to build a new palace at all.”

They swam together, flung bread to the birds, and laughed at the antics of the monkeys, but under his good humor Nefertiti could sense her husband’s preoccupation, and he soon returned to the theme of their earlier conversation. They had come to the nursery and were playing with Meketaten and Beketaten while Smenkhara sat in a corner helping Meritaten string beads. “Supposing I do set this change in motion,” he said to Nefertiti under the squeals of excitement from the two princesses, to whom he was offering sticky sweetmeats. “It will mean great inconvenience for every foreign embassy quartered at Malkatta, not to mention the ministers, who will have to travel a long way to see me. It would be better…” He hesitated, gathering both little girls onto his knee.

“It would be better to move the whole capital of Egypt,” Nefertiti finished for him. She glanced to where Smenkhara and Meritaten were absorbed in their task. “I agree.”

Amunhotep gently pulled his gold necklace away from Meketaten’s mouth. “I could not do it,” he whispered to Nefertiti over the heads of his daughters. “My mother would refuse to speak to me.”

Nefertiti beckoned to the nursery attendants who waited just out of earshot, and the princesses were lifted from their father’s lap and carried, protesting, away. “You have been in awe of the empress for too long, Amunhotep,” Nefertiti urged in a low voice. “She wants Egypt to stay forever under her hand. But you are the Aten, the Beautiful God. She cannot stand against you.”

Amunhotep smiled wanly. “I feel so strong when I am with you, Nefertiti. Will you accompany me to the oracle?”

Nefertiti rose. “I should be honored. Now come and speak to Meritaten, who has been waiting to receive your attention.”

Nefertiti shared a few pleasantries with her daughter and then stood watching as Pharaoh exclaimed politely over the necklace she and Smenkhara had made and chatted with her.
The oracle must be consulted soon, before Amunhotep’s nerve begins to fail him
, Nefertiti thought,
and I must tell him that I am pregnant again. The news will bind us even closer together. It is a magnificent gamble that we are taking, but if all goes well, I will finally be able to remove him from the empress’s influence. Then we shall see who rules Egypt
.

The announcement was made in the middle of the cool, color-splashed month of Phamenat, when the humming of bees in wet flowers, the armies of fresh crops rippling in the breezes, and the skittishness of newborn animals made even the most jaded courtier into an optimist. Tiye and Amunhotep sat under the gold canopy of the great baldachin at the hour of audience. Nefertiti was on a small silver throne at Pharaoh’s left foot, pink quartz lotuses sewn into her waist-length wig and a vine with tiny silver leaves twining around the cobra hooded on her small forehead. There had been an unusual number of speeches to be heard and delegations to be presented, but the proceedings finally came to a close.

After a glance at Amunhotep that he did not return, Tiye had raised a hand to signal the close of the formalities when her son suddenly came to his feet. A hush fell.

“I have made two decisions that will affect you all,” he said quickly, the crook and flail clutched tight and crossed on his sagging belly. “I speak as Aten the Glorious. The spirit of Ra has instructed me to choose a new name. The old one incorporates the name of a false god, and I repudiate it. From henceforth I am Neferkheperura Wa-en-Ra Akhenaten, the Spirit of the Aten. On my queen I bestow the appellation Nefer-neferu-Aten, Great Is the Beauty of the Aten, as a mark of my love for her and her devotion to our god. Heralds, scribes, and foreigners, take note.” No one moved. A profound stillness had fallen on the princes and nobles assembled, and all eyes were on Pharaoh. Tiye noticed the sidelong glance he stole at her before his gaze returned to the crowd. “My second decision is likewise irrevocable. I am moving the capital of Egypt and the seat of government from Malkatta to a site the god has chosen, four days away downriver. Thebes, Karnak, Malkatta are places full of the odors of deception and false religion. The Aten desires a home that will be his alone. I leave for there tomorrow to lay the sacred cords for the boundaries.” A long sigh of disbelief soughed through the hall, followed by a breathless silence until one of the sun priests began to clap. His fellows took up the gesture, laughing and singing their approval, and soon the courtiers realized the expediency of joining in. Amunhotep stood smiling. He raised the crook and flail. “Those who live in truth are welcome in my new city,” he announced. “It is the dawn of a new and glorious age for Egypt. The night of lies is past.” Hurriedly he stepped from the throne, and taking Nefertiti’s arm, he processed through the supinely worshipping bodies and out the doors.

Tiye kept her composure until Pharaoh had gone, and then she slipped out the rear door. Grasping her herald’s arm, she punctuated her words to him with vicious shakes. “Get me Ay immediately. I want him in my quarters within the hour. Send to Horemheb at Memphis. He is to leave his duties to his second-in-command and wait upon me in haste. Tell Pharaoh’s ministers that on pain of death—of death, do you hear?—they are to be in their offices tomorrow morning to speak to me. Why are you standing there?”

The man bowed and ran, the marks of her nails white in his flesh. Behind her the Keeper of the Royal Regalia hovered, the damask-lined box open to receive his holy charge. Tiye tore the crown from her head and flung it at him with such force that he staggered back even as he caught it. Whispering prayers of apology to its magic, he set it lovingly in the box. “I am not ashamed to show my displeasure!” she shouted at the hapless priest. “Put the useless thing away, but remember this. On no account are you to deliver it to Queen Nefertiti until you have consulted with me first. Now take it away, before I toss it into the lake.” With one horrified stare he made a quick obeisance and fled.

Ay caught up with her as she was entering the passage to her apartments. Bowing perfunctorily, he followed her into the seclusion of her reception room and waited for her to speak. For a long while she could not. Fighting to control her breath, she stood with her back to him, fists clenched and gently pounding her white-clad hips. In the end he went up to her, removing the ringleted wig and passing his hands soothingly through her long hair, massaging the rigid muscles of her neck. She pulled away from him and rounded.

“You heard?”

“Yes. I was with the Khatti ambassador at the back.”

“Ingrate! Asp! Worm of Apophis! I have given him everything! Everything, Ay, even my body! Thebes was a sleepy, poverty-stricken mud village until the princes of our dynasty graced it. The people know, they will see the city sink once again into obscurity, there will be riots. Doesn’t he know that he is running into madness…”

“Hush!” he said, halting the tirade. “You have a conveniently selective memory, Majesty, if you think that you gave him your body for any reason other than that of good policy. May I remind you also that our dynasty, as you put it, only began less than two hentis ago with our father’s father arriving in Egypt a warrior prisoner. As for riots, the army is perfectly capable of quelling a few. And you hate Thebes, anyway.”

“He did not tell me!”

“Ah!” He smiled sympathetically. “Of course he did not tell you. How could he? He must have suffered agonies at the thought of facing you with such news. Put your hurt pride away and look at yourself, Tiye, at me. It is time to relinquish a little, a very little, of Egypt to the next generation.”

Her face was still flushed, and a vein stood out angrily on her forehead. “If he has come under the special protection of the gods, we can replace him with Smenkhara.” She spoke euphemistically of the insane, whom all were forbidden to harm.

“I do not believe he is mad, although I do think that from time to time such fits come on him. In any case, it would be a difficult task to prove that claim to the people. He is not a cruel god. He has made no wars, offended no foreign kings, he is fertile, he worships what he calls the truth. Perhaps it is not Ma’at, but neither is it entirely sacrilegious. Let him go, Tiye. Thebes is too well established to wither. There will be peace at Karnak and Malkatta with him out of the way, have you thought of that?”

“I do not want the center of power taken from Malkatta, from the place where I can oversee everything.”

“It does not matter. The empire maintains itself under the system your husband Osiris Amunhotep established.”

“He is grotesque, an affront!” Her tone was biting, cruel. Going to the throne, she picked up the jug always kept filled with wine and poured for them both. By the time Ay had taken his cup from her hand, she had drained hers and was pouring more. “I have two courses of action open to me,” she said. “I can acquiesce to him in everything and hope that this stupidity tires him eventually. Or I can fight him with every resource I have.”

“You would lose. Any command of yours can be overridden by him, and you are well aware of it. Will you poison a pharaoh, Tiye?”

She shrugged and, raising her cup, saluted him mockingly. “Why not? I am better for Egypt than he is.”

“Oh? How I admire your facility for self-justification! You might as well know that if the court is transferred to a new site, I have decided to go with it.”

Tiye coughed and spat out her wine. “What?”

He met her shocked gaze warily. “It is not a question of taking sides. You know that I love you, that you and I have never kept secrets from each other. But, Tiye, I do not want to end my life drooling impotently over past glories in a crumbling palace. I am a man of many talents, and I intend to go on using them until I drop.”

“What a pretty picture of my end you conjure!” she shot back sarcastically. “I suppose you think that I should also pack and follow my mad son to some forsaken rural hole?”

“Yes, I do. You underrate the influence you still have with Amunhotep. You are a steadying force on him.”

“How boring.” She strode up the steps and flung herself onto the throne. “Who would have thought, when my father led me through the harem doors, that one day I would be reduced to being a steadying force. Leave me alone, Ay. Can you not see that I am in pain?”

He bowed immediately and, setting his half-f cup beside the jug, strode away.

Horemheb will support me
, she thought, watching Ay’s straight, bare back vanish and the doors close quietly.
And Amunhotep likes him and will listen to him. He must abandon this silly scheme
. “Huya!” she yelled irritably, and the Keeper of the Harem Door entered. “I want Smenkhara and Beketaten removed from the nursery at once. I do not care where you put them. I will decide that later, and also what new tutors to hire. But they are to have nothing more to do with Nefertiti’s brood.” Not for the first time was she grateful that the ordering of a pharaoh’s harem belonged to the chief wife.

“I understand, Goddess. It will be a blow to Princess Meritaten.”

“I know that. I have no other choice. Do it.”

I think I will go to my bedchamber and get drunk
, she thought when he had gone.
I am not too old for that, Ay. In wine there is often inspiration as well as a sore head
. Wearily she pulled herself to her feet.
Well, why not kill him and stop pretending to a virtue I do not possess? A seat of government trundled to gods know where! Four whole days from Thebes
. Suddenly her breath caught in her throat. She knew where, but had forgotten until now. The desolation of that place where she and Amunhotep had stopped on their way to Memphis, the daunting, echoing heat of it. Oh, Amun, no, she thought as she descended the steps and crossed the floor.
It will drive them mad, my soft, spineless ministers. If he wishes to worship himself in perfect silence, let him give the throne to Smenkhara and dig himself a hole in that cursed burning waste, like the mad old priests dotting the desert outside On
.

Enraged and frightened, she came to her bedchamber. Its atmosphere welcomed her with the faint, musky whiff of her perfume, the drifting sweetness of persea and lotus blossom, a swirl of the odor of wet soil blowing through the undraped window. But it brought a less welcome element with it, and as Tiye crossed, exhausted, to the couch, her mind began to fill with images of her son as lover. “Piha, bring wine,” she ordered, a lump in her throat, “and send a slave to undress me. I am going to spend the rest of the day on my couch.” She knew it was cowardly, but it was also a relief to recline with a full cup in her hand while her thoughts grew vague and her stomach unknotted.

Sometime during the long, darkening evening she awoke and remembered Piha’s solemn face at the door, telling her that Queen Nefertiti requested audience. She also remembered, even through the drunken haze, the satisfaction of her reply. “Tell Nefertiti to plunge into the Duat and stay there. I will not see her.”

13

I
n spite of swollen eyes and a pounding head, Tiye rose just before dawn and submitted to her dressers and cosmeticians, scarcely able to bear their touch. As she sat squinting with difficulty into her copper mirror, she was aware that the court, too, was abroad early. Malkatta was murmurous with low voices, banging doors, an occasionally sleepy curse, and when she left her quarters with her herald and bodyguards, her nostrils were assailed by odors of fresh-baked bread and stewing fruit that nauseated her. The Song of Praise drifted fitfully into the gardens with the sun’s first rays, and with a wave of depression Tiye wondered at the thoughts of Amun’s servants who had to sing for a pharaoh who would always be deaf to the adoration in the time-hallowed chant.