Ancient Evenings (80 page)

Usermare shouted in a voice to bring the walls of His temples down on my ears, and Rama-Nefru looked at me for the first time. Although I had been in His bedchamber twice before when She was there, I had seen no more of the Hittite than the back of Her head. Neither time had They moved while I spoke, and when I had no more to say, I left, so, now, it was in pride, I think, at the boldness of my Queen’s words that I repeated them, and could have sworn I acted properly.

Certainly, Rama-Nefru sat up in bed, and showed the wickedness of Her little breasts (which were wide apart) and cried aloud, “She is evil, Her eye is evil,” words I could barely understand, so strong was Her emotion, and strange words to come from a young face as open as a flower, but I knew by the pain of Her voice that She was wiser than Her own anger. She knew Usermare would not think of Her for the rest of the morning. By the fury of His desire to lay hands upon this insolence (but could not—They were not speaking!) so would He be living with Nefertiri this day rather than with His young bride.

It was then He ordered me to take the Golden Bowl by His bed and empty it in His garden, and the command was uttered with such contempt that Rama-Nefru smiled at me as if to draw half of the insult back upon Herself, a kindness I would not have expected from a Queen. I bowed to Her, and to my King, picked up the Bowl, and stepped backward from the room to be met immediately by a priest who waited in the vestibule. He was the Overseer of the Golden Bowl, and offered this title before I could even turn around. My duties were concluded, he told me.

I did not argue. The tips of my fingers still burned in shame from the manner in which I had been dismissed. Though no tears were in my eyes, I knew the terrible rage, so full of its own weakness, that children suffer, for I hated my Pharaoh, but such hatred was worthless since I wished to be able to love Him. Indeed, I knew I did love Him, and it was hopeless. He would only love me less. How I wished to destroy Him.

I had such thoughts. Walking beside the priest while he carried the Golden Bowl, I wondered that the earth did not tremble from all that was awesome in my head, but the light of morning remained as golden as the surface of the Bowl even if my hands still shook from the intimate warmth of the metal where I had touched it. My palm burned like the sun.

“There is,” said the priest, seeing I still accompanied him, “no lack of respect for your own high office, but it is His command to perform these duties in solitude.”

“That is true for all other days,” I said, “but this morning, I was told to stay with you. Ask the One.”

I knew he would not dare. Beneath his shaven head, was a weak and selfish face. He nodded as if his first pride was that few matters could surprise him. Still, I could see he was worried. Were his duties to be reduced?

We went by a path through a garden. I may say that he walked with his arms thrust out like one who carries an offering to the altar. Wherever we passed a soldier or a maid or a gardener, so did they bow low before this Golden Bowl, and I noticed that the priest inclined his head like the Pharaoh Himself, just so stately was the gesture.

Before a green wooden door on which I could see the outline of a wild pig painted in black, we stopped, and the priest drew forth a wooden key from his skirts, opened the door, and looked at me once more. He was still in doubt that the One had truly told me to come so far. But I inquired with confidence, “What is the name of this wild pig?”

“Sha-ah,” said the priest, and proceeded to become most learned. “That is the name of Set when He fought with Horus and became a wild boar.”

“Yes,” I said, “this is the same name of the door that the One told me to enter.” I did not know why I wished to go in, yet I did, and with all the certainty one knows when close to the orders of the Gods. Which is to say, close to those Gods Who are awake within you. Who can be so fortunate as to know Their names?

We entered a modest garden in which many herbs were growing, and this priest knelt by one small furrow, set down the Bowl, removed the lid, and began to knead little pellets which he tamped into place around the base of each plant until the Bowl was empty. I also knelt beside him, and must have looked as if I would touch one of the leaves, for he said, “These are herbs of wisdom, and may be plucked only by me as His Overseer.” I nodded. This would agree, my manner said, with all I had been told, and I stood up. Of course, he had been looking so suspiciously at the hand close to the leaves that he had not watched the one near the roots. In my fingers I now held a pellet, and it was as warm as the blood of Usermare, but then it came from the seat of the Two-Lands. I bowed, and the priest knelt by a small altar and prayed. Then he washed his hands in holy water, and withdrew from this small garden, myself a pace in front of him, only to quit the fellow on the walks outside and proceed at my own quick gait from the grounds of the Little Palace, around the Lake of Maat to the Wide Palace, and from there I walked even faster through other gardens and by many a shrine and temple until I stood before the gates of the Chambers of the Royal Wife, and was welcomed into the Throne Room of Nefertiri, and from there, so soon as Her morning audience with Her Officials was complete, went into the bedchamber where we had sat last night by Her mirror, and all the while my hand throbbed as if I held the heart of Usermare in His leavings.

When I showed it to my Queen, She was grave and quick, and more deft than Ma-Khrut. She did not wait for darkness, nor proceed through any invocation, but merely took the pellet in Her palm, closed Her eyes, spoke some words to Herself, and handed it back. “Go,” She said, “to the Lake of Maat and drop His gift in there.”

I did as She said. Later that afternoon while the eight bearers of the Golden Belly were carrying the One from the Wide Palace to His Little Palace, so, by the right bearing-pole, even as they passed the Lake, not one man, but two, collapsed at the same instant, and the Golden Belly tipped over. Usermare fell out of His Seat from a height higher than the saddle of a horse, and His head struck the marble. He did not move, and some thought He was dead. All knew He was near to dead. Nothing stirred but the wind in His throat.

He was carried to the House of Adoration by the Guard of the Adored who were nearer than the Guard of the Wide Palace. Once brought to His bed in the Chamber of the Blessed Fields, He was attended by four royal doctors, priests from the School of Sekhmet. Fomentations of dried herbs from the Garden of Sha-ah were put to boil, and their steam entered His nostrils. The half-chewed meat of Nubian lions was pulled from their jaws to be mixed with fourteen vegetables for His Ka, all Fourteen, and His head was anointed where He struck the ground. The priests sang prayers, and Rama-Nefru entered and began to wail in Her own language of the Hittites, after which, Nefertiri, so soon as the other was gone, paid a visit with Amen-khep-shu-ef and They sat in silence by His bed, myself behind Them in the second rank next to the doctors from the Goddess Sekhmet. Usermare never stirred.

It was then, looking at His silent body, that I realized the Good and Great God might die, and I prayed as well. For if He did not live, I would have to kill Nefertiri, or meet His wrath in years to come when I went to Khert-Neter.

Now, whenever I looked at Her, I would see myself with a dagger in my hand. She was there on Her golden seat, sitting in silence on the third morning. Outside, across all the patios and gardens, the King lay unmoving in the Little Palace, and the vigil of the doctors did not cease. No man moved across all of that paving of marble around the Lake of Maat, and beyond our walls, the city of Thebes was near to silent. So in the silence that lay upon Nefertiri, did I sit and stare at Her and wonder if I could obey the secret command of my King.

While I thought of no orders but my own, I knew that throughout the Horizon-of-Ra, great nobles and Viziers were plotting with priests as to who should become the “well-beloved friend” of the next King. Amen-khep-shu-ef was with His Mother often, but rarely without His guard, and they, as I expected, were in the state of all good soldiers when a battle is near, and death, wounds, or treasure are close. They had the happiness of the best warriors and suffered that they had to walk about with unhappy faces. They were feeling, I knew, as cheerful as great beasts and wanted to smash each other’s heads on the marble floor for all the impatience of waiting.

In these days, I never saw Amen-khep-shu-ef when He did not show the wild eye of a falcon. He glared at me often, until at last I chose not to look away but let our glances meet. We stared at one another until all decorum was lost. My eyes could not have been more oppressed if His fingers had been squeezing them. But I was weary of humiliation. Besides, I had fought beside His Father in the greatest battle ever fought, and this Amen-khep-shu-ef had been in the wrong place that day. Yes, I stared back with all the power of the Gods Who passed through me at Kadesh, and dwelt in the invocations of Ma-Khrut, and so, when our eyes locked, mine may have been as fierce as His. The contest remained equal. I think we would have gone blind staring at one another if Nefertiri had not come between, and said quietly, “If Your Father dies, I will need both of you.”

Amen-khep-shu-ef left the room. He could not bear to be cheated of a victory. Since He never believed He could lose, the interruption from His Mother had stolen a prize. So He saw it. But I do not know. If I had blinked my eyes before His, I think I would have drawn my short sword on the next breath, and if I killed Him, She would have been the next, then everybody who came at me until I was done. At that moment, I knew again all the happiness of the brave, and felt equal to Nefertiri. It was Her life She had protected by placing Her hands between us. It was then I believed again as I used to when I was young that I, too, was a true Son of Amon, and the Hidden One had come to my mother. How else had my eye proved equal to the eye of Amen-khep-shu-ef? There could be no other explanation. And I laughed that in His rage He had been such a fool as to leave me alone with Her.

She smiled softly, but said, “Why did Sesusi choose you to be My servant?”

“Do You ask because I am Your friend?”

She did not reply at first, but came nearer to me. “I know the doubts of Amen-khep-shu-ef,” She said.

I bowed. I touched the ground seven times with my forehead. I did not know what I would reply until my words came forth. “I am to be here when Usermare dies,” I said. “That is His order to me.”

She nodded. She knew what I did not say. The nearness of Her death came about Her like a garment held by a servant.

“Why do you tell Me?” She asked. “Is it because you will not obey Him?”

I was about to say, “I will never obey Him. Your heart is of more worth to me than His heart,” but I did not. The wisdom of the most cunning Gods touched my tongue and I said, “I do not think that I will, yet I cannot swear.”

She looked at me in another manner then. I saw an expression in Her eyes that offered more than tenderness, indeed, there was respect in it. She felt admiration that I would dare to kill Her. Such courage must belong to the Gods. But, then, how could a Queen be drawn to any man like myself unless the God spoke through him?

“Yes,” She said, “it must be true. Ma-Khrut cannot keep her hands off you,” and She gave a delightful smile which said clearly that I need only be brave enough, and all could happen.

Of course, She was a Queen. A Monarch’s heart is like the labyrinth of the entrails. Snakes coil at every turn. So did I also know that next to the little love She might feel for me, was the fire of Her marriage. How could She not believe that Usermare still wanted Her if He had ordered Her sent to join Him so soon as He died?

TWELVE

Usermare did not die. By the fourth day, He opened His eyes; by the fifth, He spoke; on the sixth, He raised His head; and on the next, He was standing. Soon He was back in His Chariot, and paid a visit to the Secluded. I still spoke to Pepti and even met him at the gate to the Gardens on many a morning. We would tell each other much, he on his side, I on mine, and so I learned that on His return to the Secluded, Usermare had spent the night with Ma-Khrut, and the sounds of their pleasure had been louder than the lion and the hippopotamus. Next day, she acted like a Consort, and moved in much radiance.

I smiled through every word offered by the damnable Pepti (whose face had that smugness peculiar to eunuchs as if they are the seed itself of the Blessed Fields) but I knew the cold woe of a merchant who is left naked in the moonlight after his caravan is robbed.

Yet, on reflection, I did not know whether I had gained or lost. A few of His best curses might now belong to her. I do know that on my return, Honey-Ball’s eunuch, Castor-Oil, was waiting outside my house, and he handed me a long red feather, then left silently. That was a message on which we had agreed before I left the Gardens. It was word from Honey-Ball to see her as soon as I could, and by any means.

Now, through these days of His recovery, the Palace had been in disarray. Much of the disturbance came from those who had the most ambitious plans on how to act after His death. Such hopes had been lost on His return. And who could begin to measure the disorder among the Gods? So many had been invoked by priests and nobles praying for a particular successor. I know that in the days of His convalescence, much went wrong. Ceremonies in the Temple were improperly conducted, and errors of addition began to be found in many a sum laid before His Officials. There was abominable crowding in the halls outside the Great Chamber. Stewards and scribes, even Governors of nomes had reports to offer that no one had read while He was ill.