by N. L. Holmes
“I don’t think she knows yet. She’ll come down with us for now.”
Arm in arm, they headed through the silent house to bed, the tiny orange light of the lamp flickering before them.
CHAPTER 9
The family arrived at the farm like a tribe of nomads, loaded with baggage and even with some of the more comfortable furnishings from the house in Waset. Hani held his breath until the servants, grunting and sweating, had carried Baket-iset down the gangplank of the ferry. They all trooped up the bank by the fig trees, through the gardens, past the cow pasture and the silos, and into the house, which the resident steward and his underlings had prepared. Hani, Maya, and Mery-ra were along to help, but the men would all return to the city as soon as their womenfolk were settled. Hani let his wife quietly into the bedchamber to see Amen-em-hut before the others became aware of his presence. He was due to leave for his new hiding place in Waset that evening.
“My brother!” cried Nub-nefer in a tremulous high-pitched voice as she threw herself in his arms. She clung to him as if she could safeguard him from all the dangers that hung over his head, just as he had once defended her. His eyes were wet, and he caught his lip in his teeth, hanging onto his sister.
“You’re so thin,” she said at last, holding him at arm’s length.
“Hani’s accommodations aren’t the best.” He laughed, with an apologetic glance at his brother-in-law. “But I’m grateful nonetheless.” His eyes grew pleading. “How are Anuia and the children?”
“Distressed but well. They’re coming in a day or two, just to get out of sight. How I wish she could know you’re safe.”
Amen-em-hut’s face darkened with anguished regret. “Don’t tell her, Nubet. It’s better she knows nothing if the medjay should question her.”
Hani sank to a seat on the edge of the bed. “I just wish I understood what has happened to the Two Lands in the last few years. It’s not a place I recognize anymore.”
“It’s easy, Hani,” Amen-em-hut said in a hard voice. His handsome features were suffused once more with that brittle anger that had marked him in the last four years. “This all started under the late king. At his first jubilee, he made known that he was himself the revelation of the sun god—the dazzling Aten, the Visible One, the disk of the sun.”
“All right.” Hani nodded. “But he revered the Hidden One. He even suggested that he was Amen-Ra, right?”
“Right—the revelation of the Hidden One, in fact. Among others. The implication was that all the gods were essentially one.” Amen-em-hut sat beside Hani. “All fairly orthodox. Just pushing the traditional theology of kingship a little. You’ll notice that the first temples to the Aten were here in Waset, next to the Ipet-isut.”
Hani recalled the disorienting images at the Gem-pa-aten, with their androgynous portraits of the then-coregent and the statues of the queen with the regalia of kingship. “Explain to me those carvings, brother. I still have nightmares about them.”
“Remember how Neb-ma’at-ra already played up all the fertility images around him and his family? Queen Tiyi was everywhere with him, at a comparable scale. She was him, the female half of the king.”
Hani thought he was beginning to see a path of continuity, but it was a little vertiginous. “So, if taken together, the coregent and his wife were he- and she-king?”
Nub-nefer made a disgusted noise. “And those other statues—something in between?”
“He- and she-king in one body,” Amen-em-hut said sourly. “Still not altogether outside of orthodoxy. We have hermaphroditic gods. And they’re fertility gods. The fullness of fertility.”
Hani groaned. “So where does it all go astray?”
The priest snarled, “When the young king decided that only the revelation of the sun god was to be worshiped.” He struck an outraged fist upon his knee. “The Visibility. The Hidden Essence was to be abandoned, dishonored. That the whole revelation from henceforth was to be the king and his wife. They are the Aten, Hani. It’s them we are expected to worship, and them alone.”
Hani heard the door click open behind him, and he wheeled, his heart in his mouth, but it was only Mery-ra, who was already in on the secret of the priest’s presence. “Oops,” the old man said. “Just wanted to ask where I was sleeping tonight.”
“Here, Father. Let’s leave them. You and I will talk elsewhere.” Hani shut the door carefully behind him, and the two men descended the stairs. At the bottom, having checked that none of the children were nearby, Hani said under his breath, “I’m taking him back to Waset this evening, right after we eat. I’d like to disguise him somehow, but we shaved off his beard, so he can’t be an Amurrite. Nub-nefer assures me he can’t be a woman.”
“Let him be a workman. Dress him in one of the servants’ clothes, and put a sack over his shoulder.”
Hani nodded in agreement. “Excellent plan. He’s a little pale after being in the boat shed for nearly two months—”
“Say he’s a northerner. No one will think twice about it,” Mery-ra assured him. “Can I go back up with you?”
“Of course. I’ll ask Maya if he wants to as well. Although he’s become maniacally solicitous of Sat-hut-haru.”
“Good for him,” Mery-ra said firmly. “I want all my granddaughters to be married to solicitous men.”
As if summoned by their reference, Maya appeared from the salon. “Can I go back to Waset with you, my lord?”
“We were just wondering if you’d want to. We’ll leave the ladies to their retreat, then. I arranged for the ferry to return at sundown. Father, would you go collect some old clothes and a cheap wig from one of the smaller servants? I can find a sack in the famous boat shed, no doubt.”
Maya gave Hani a questioning look.
“For our guest,” Hani informed him. “A manner of disguising his identity a bit.”
“He’s small. You could dress him like a woman,” Maya suggested.
But Hani held up a hand. “Can’t be done, I’m told. A workman is better. Hidden in plain sight.”
He pushed past and made for the door, calling over his shoulder, “I’m heading for the boat shed.”
Neferet galloped after him as he passed through the salon. “Can I go, too, Papa?”
“Of course, my duckling.” They strode along together through the farmyard and down the path between the gardens toward the River. The colors of the season of Inundation were as bright as wall paintings—gold and intense green and silvery green and deep enamel blue, cut through by the white loincloths of the workmen bent over in the black fields beyond. Hani drew a deep, satisfied breath. He’d been trying for months to get into the marshes, but it hadn’t happened yet. Still, just breathing the air of the countryside was restorative.
At his side, Neferet gazed around as she stalked along, squinting against the sun. “I guess I’ll go back to Akhet-aten, Papa.”
“You think you’re willing to encounter suffering, my love?”
“I’m afraid it’ll be there no matter where I go,” she said philosophically. “Might as well meet it head-on, eh?”
Hani suppressed a laugh and wrapped an affectionate arm around the girl. She sounds like a grown-up, he thought fondly. My little girl is almost an adult.
“Do you want to come back to the city with me and Grandfather this evening? I can take you to the capital tomorrow.”
“I’d like that, yes.” She peeled off and skipped back up the slope toward the house, throwing her head and pawing the air like a horse full of spirit—a child again.
⸎
They ate an early supper all together, except for Amen-em-hut, who—as one who wasn’t officially present—ate in the bedroom. Then the three men and Neferet bade the others goodbye and headed for the riverbank while the priest, disguised as a workman, slipped out and went around through the fields, approaching as if from the village. In his worn kilt and cheap straw-soled sandals, with a goat-hair wig and a sack over his shoulder, even the fastidious Amen-em-hut could pass
for a laborer of the less muscular sort, thought Maya. He’s thin enough at the moment to look genuinely underfed.
“Can I carry your bags, my lord?” the priest said meekly to Hani when they met at the waterside.
Lord Hani laughed. “Well done, man. We should rub a little dirt on your face, and you’d fool anyone.”
“Walk more bent over, though, my boy. Try to look weary. Don’t look people in the eye.” Mery-ra twitched the priest’s wig so it covered more of his forehead. “There you go. Be sure to bow when you speak to us.”
Neferet could hardly contain her laughter. She stooped her own back and put an exaggeratedly humble look on her face. “I’ll pretend to be his poor downtrodden daughter.” She turned her long, pitiful face to each of the men in turn and extended a hand. “Alms! Alms for a poor downtrodden girl?”
“Easy, Neferet,” Maya said sternly. “This is serious business. You don’t want to expose his disguise.” The girl has to draw attention to herself somehow, he thought in annoyance. It’s a game for her, but it’s life or death for Lord Amen-em-hut.
Hani just smiled benevolently. In the distance, Maya could see the ferry, with its broad sail taut, turn out of the current and approach the bank, a burnished silhouette against the setting sun. Lord Hani had engaged a big boat because he had needed to load and unload Baket-iset’s litter as safely as possible that afternoon.
The sailors lassoed the lines to the pilings along the shore and drew the vessel in close. They threw down the gangplank, and Hani settled the landward end. The four of them marched up, Neferet between her father and grandfather. Amen-em-hut trailed behind, charged with their bags. It gave Maya a certain bitter pleasure to see the pampered priest dragging the baskets and sacks. Maya had always found him a little sharp and dismissive, secure in his family wealth and prestigious position. And he was so absurdly good-looking.
The party took a place on the deck toward the stern, sitting cross-legged in a circle, their “servant” behind them, his eyes modestly averted.
“Neferet has decided to go back to Lady Djefat-nebty,” Lord Hani announced.
Neferet nodded and held up a hand as if accepting applause.
“How’s Aha’s wife’s cooking?” Maya asked a little maliciously.
“Oh, Khentet-ka doesn’t cook,” the girl informed them in a snooty voice. “She has servants. Everything’s very fawncy. I never know what I can pick up with my fingers and what I have to use a knife for.”
“Good training for court banquets,” said Mery-ra acidly. “Maybe we know now who’s spoiling the boy.”
“What boy? Aha?” asked Neferet.
“Has Aha shown you his shebyu collar yet?” Maya couldn’t resist asking, even knowing that Lord Hani would reprove him.
“Does he have one?” Neferet cried excitedly.
“No, my dear. Maya is teasing.” Lord Hani was distracted, gazing out over the darkening river where occasional lights twinkled along the bank, doubled in the water. “It’s going to be completely dark when we get home. Did anyone think to bring a lamp?”
No one had. Maya cursed himself. This was one way he could have made himself useful to his father-in-law.
Hani turned to the false servant. “Amen—er, -mes, please get yourself to your destination as soon as you can. I don’t want any of us to be on the streets much after dark. Maya, why don’t you stay at our house?”
Did he have to give the priest my name? Maya thought, a little put out. Amen-mes was his formal name, although he was always known as Maya. Aloud, he said only, “With pleasure, my lord.”
The journey wasn’t long. The last of the twilight was just fading as they tied up at the quay in Waset. Two sailors jumped out first with torches to guide the passengers down the plank, and once on dry land, they parted company with Amen-em-hut, who melted into the dark streets at a quick pace.
“Goodbye!” Neferet called, but her father hushed her. He seemed quite nervous now that they were back in the City of the Scepter.
Through the unpaved lanes, they passed in a knot, their footsteps getting faster and faster. The pale whitewashed walls still held a twilit glow, but it was more the memory of light than light itself. Their white clothing seemed to be unoccupied now and moved, ghostly, through the darkening back streets.
Maya started at a bang somewhere not too distant. He could see that Lord Hani and Mery-ra were equally tense—no one had forgotten the frightening riots of the Feast of Drunkenness. Maya noticed that her father and grandfather had bracketed Neferet protectively. Maya was deeply relieved that Sat-hut-haru was safe in the country with her mother to tend her. He hoped his own mother was equally secure, but the apprentice workmen lived around the courtyard, and they and the Nubian doorman would protect the workshop with their lives.
At last, the gate of Lord Hani’s property appeared before them. At a knock, A’a opened it, a lamp in his hand, and welcomed them in. Golden light streamed from the clerestory of the house through the trees. Safe at last.
Lord Hani set down, with a bang, the baskets he’d taken from Amen-em-hut when they parted. He turned to his daughter. “Tomorrow we set off for the capital, my girl.” Then he grinned at Maya. “You and me too. No womenfolk to occupy us at home.”
“You’re going to leave me here by myself?” Mery-ra objected.
Loosening his shoulders with a painful shrug, Hani said, “You’re welcome to come if you want. But don’t you have some sort of duties at the barracks here?”
“Only from time to time. But maybe your friend won’t have room for a third person.”
“I don’t think he’d mind,” Hani said.
Maya thought of Lord Ptah-mes’s magnificent “modest place” overlooking the River in Akhet-aten. The grandee would never notice another guest.
Hani asked slyly, “But won’t Meryet-amen miss you?”
“She’s at her country house.” Mery-ra put his hands on his hips, looking pleased with the turn of events. “I’ll go. I’ll say hello to Aha. And I want to meet this Djefat-nebty my granddaughter is studying with.”
⸎
Hani let his father accompany Neferet to her teacher’s mansion in his place. By the time Mery-ra joined them at Ptah-mes’s house, Hani and Maya were sitting in the vine-shaded courtyard, although the ripening grapes that had begun to drop threatened to drive them elsewhere.
“What did you think, Father?” Hani asked once the old man had taken a seat beside them.
“I was favorably impressed. She obviously thinks well of the girl, and Neferet has the greatest respect for her. They’re going to the House of the Royal Ornaments today, from what I understood.”
Hani’s good humor chilled. He said uneasily, “I should have known this would happen. I just hope no one asks who the little apprentice’s family is. I don’t want to remind anyone close to the king that I exist.”
“And Djefat-nebty’s husband is God’s Father of the Aten, you know,” Maya said.
Hani nodded, displeased. Then he brightened. “Well, I need to report to our host at his office. I finally caught up on Aziru’s mail the last night before we left.”
“What’s new in the north?” Mery-ra asked, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms.
“Kheta is swallowing up Naharin. We’re going to lose all our northernmost vassals,” Hani said somberly then lowered his voice. “And Kiya is losing whatever clout her father’s position earned for her. She’s becoming politically dispensable. If our king doesn’t intend to grant Tushratta our help when Naharin is literally under attack by our worst enemy, it’s clear the treaty has no more meaning.”
The three men sat in gloomy silence for a moment. Then Mery-ra leaned forward eagerly. “I know who could talk to the queen for you, Hani.”
Hani and Maya turned to him simultaneously. Hani’s heart stepped up a beat. “Who, Father?”
“Why, Djefat-nebty, of course. She obviously has Nefert-iti’s confidence.”
“But would she do it? She may care
nothing at all for Kiya. Or there may be professional objections to getting involved in court politics.” Or both, he thought, caught between optimism and fear of getting his hopes up.
Mery-ra shrugged.
Maya said glumly, “We still don’t have a plan for her to present anyway.”
Ammit take this, Hani thought. Why am I even occupying my head with such ponderings? I told Mane I wanted out. It’s none of my business anymore. The foolish girl has gotten herself into trouble that can’t be healed. “I’m off,” he said, rising to his feet.
AT THE HALL OF THE Royal Correspondence, Hani was admitted to Lord Ptah-mes’s office without delay while Maya waited in the reception room. Hani made his report on the latest correspondence of the Amurrites, vaguely aware of a coolness or tension in his superior’s manner.
When he’d concluded, Ptah-mes said thinly, “Do you know where your brother-in-law is, Hani?”
Hani beamed in satisfaction. “No, my lord. I can honestly say I don’t. He quitted my premises several days ago and is hidden somewhere else now.”
Ptah-mes let out a breath through his nose and stood up to his full height. He stared at Hani expressionlessly, leaving the latter strangely uneasy. Then the high commissioner walked to his window and stared out at the sky. At last, he turned back, fixed Hani with his dark eyes, and said in a quiet voice, “He’s at my house, Hani.”
Hani, who had risen as well out of respect, felt his stomach catch in his throat as if he’d been thrown from a height. “Your... your house?” He didn’t know how to react. Is Ptah-mes angry about it? Does he hold me responsible? “How did this happen?”
“He asked my wife if she would hide him, and she said yes.”
“All you gods! She was the reliable colleague?” Hani slapped himself on the forehead in disbelief.
“So it seems.” Ptah-mes sat heavily and rubbed his face with a long, ringed hand. “As if it weren’t sufficiently scandalous for one’s wife to hide a man under one’s roof, it’s a man with a price on his head. A man calling for the assassination of the king.” He laughed a little wildly.
