“This was a good idea,” Sitamun said to Nefertiti. “Oh, look! There are the men placing stones on the fire for the Nubian walkers.”
Nefertiti motioned to a slave, and Sitamun’s cup was quietly refilled. “Do you like the wine, Majesty?” she enquired softly.
Sitamun nodded and drank. “It is magnificent. Where on earth did you find it?”
“It comes from your father’s estate in the Delta. An excellent vintage. Rames, his steward, had it shipped to me especially for tonight.”
“You have gone to much trouble.”
Nefertiti smiled gently, noting the flush the wine had brought to Sitamun’s cheeks, the slight, drunken hesitation in the words. “Nothing is too much trouble for my friends,” she said. “Besides, we all need some compensation for having to languish here through Shemu. This helps to pass the time.”
Her chief steward, Meryra, came and bowed. “The food is ready, Majesty.”
“Then serve us. I trust you are hungry, Empress.”
While Nefertiti picked at the food on her plate, Sitamun ate with relish. Out on the lake the fishermen had now drawn silver knives and, making a show of gutting the pliant female fish they had caught, danced to the clashing harmonies of pipe and drums.
“It will be some time before the stones are hot enough for the walkers,” Nefertiti said. “Come for another swim with me, Majesty.”
Sitamun looked to the lake, where many of the women had returned and were screaming with drunken mirth. Those still on the bank were occupied in eating and talking. The surface of the dark water riffled suddenly as a stray breeze stirred it. Sitamun, flushed and sweating, agreed. They shed their light robes and walked hand in hand to the lily-clogged bank, picking their way through revelers too intoxicated to reverence them. Twice Sitamun stumbled, but Nefertiti caught her elbow, guiding her. Once in the water, Sitamun revived.
“Let us swim out toward the raft,” Nefertiti called, pushing wet hair away from her face. “But stop when you leave your depth, Sitamun. You have had a lot of wine.”
Instant defiance curled Sitamun’s full mouth. “You only caution me because I am the better swimmer and will show you up!” she taunted. “Oh, how cool this is. Come!” She spun in the water and began to swim, cutting skillfully across the reflection of the torches. Nefertiti followed more slowly. As they moved farther away from the verge, the torchlight became fainter until they finally reached the blackness between the light on the bank and the torches illuminating the entertainment far out on the lake. Nefertiti slowed her stroke, stopped, and began to tread water. Sitamun swam on, but her own stroke had by now become feeble, her movements looser. Nefertiti watched her disappear into the band of darkness, turned quietly, and began to swim leisurely back to the shore.
I will not be the one to call a halt, Sitamun thought, her arms flailing, her legs tiring. I have bested Nefertiti in every other way, and if she thinks to prove her superiority in the water, she will lose again. My heart is pounding. I drank too much wine. Taking a shuddering breath, she glanced over her shoulder but did not see Nefertiti’s silhouette against the flaring torches. Fighting for more air, Sitamun looked ahead. Nefertiti was not there, either. The raft had emptied, its torches burning low and beginning to gutter. In the little boats circling it, the women, fishnets artfully slit by the knives of the men, were gracefully dying. The men themselves were diving into the water one by one, and vigorous applause reached Sitamun’s ringing ears from the bank. She let her legs drift down through the water, and though her feet groped for the bottom, they could not find it. Panic stabbed her, but she quickly mastered it. Very well, she thought. I will float here and get my breath and then paddle back. What game is Nefertiti playing? She must have seen that I would win, or simply run out of strength and turned back. Gasping, one hand against her laboring heart, she began to tread water, looking around her.
She was in a circle of darkness bounded by torches that seemed infinitely far away. Black water lapped against her, much colder at this depth than the sun warmed shallows. Above her, the moon swayed in the night as she tried to focus on it. She closed her eyes as nausea gripped her stomach. Too much wine, she thought again. I wonder what is below my feet, hidden in the cold slime, the darkness. Cramp lanced her calf, and she drew in her knees, reaching to massage her leg. She again became aware of the distance between herself and the warm gaiety of the women, a vista of rippling black water that fed a chill into her veins. All at once she vomited, a stream of sour wine and undigested food, and immediately felt better but began to shiver. I must get back, she thought dully, digging at the cramp with stiff fingers as it attacked again. Then I will have to take a hot bath and a massage, or I shall become ill.
She turned toward the lights on the bank and was gathering her strength when a faint splash off to her right startled her. She saw a white disturbance on the surface of the lake, and in a moment its wake was slapping against her body. Panicking again, she arced forward but had done no more than lean into the water when she felt arms encircle her thighs. She screamed, kicking frantically, fingers scrabbling at the grip. Something pressed against the small of her back, and she realized it was a human head.
Shocked and suddenly sober, Sitamun began to fight, her cries lost in a burst of cheering from the bank where the fire walkers had begun their show. Her desperate hands found hair, and she pulled with all her might. The arms loosened, and she quickly raised her knee, aiming it at her attacker’s chin. But she had been enervated even before she and Nefertiti walked into the water, and her blow merely grazed a cold cheek. She felt her wrists encircled, forcing her fingers away from the floating tangle of hair, and as the head tore free, the surface of the lake was abruptly broken directly in front of her. She glimpsed an open, gasping mouth, two hollow eyes, a battered water lily entwined in the wet, matted hair. She dug both feet into the man’s stomach, pushing as hard as she could. The hands left her wrists, and for one moment she was free, but before she could gather herself to swim away, the fingers closed with a confident force around her neck. Sitamun felt herself being forced under the water. Now she fought with maniacal strength, nails raking the smooth skin, feet kicking out, lungs stretched and bursting, heart racing unevenly. Once she was able to break into the air and had time for one mouthful of the breeze that rustled like silk across her lips, but her spasm of frantic strength was over. The man knelt on her shoulders, his hands splayed on the top of her head, his own breath short but steady as he looked toward the lights along the verge. Sitamun’s last touch was as soft and light as a lover’s. Her fingers strayed downward along his thighs and came to rest trustingly beside his knees. He thrust the body deeper with both feet and quickly swam away.
Tia-Ha smothered a yawn. “A wonderful way to spend a hot summer night,” she said, “but if Your Majesty will dismiss me, I think I will seek my couch.” Tiye nodded, smiling, and the princess rose, stretching luxuriously. Her servants began to roll up her mat and gather her trinkets. The moon had shrunk to a brilliant point in the dry sky. The torches were smoking as they burned themselves out. The women were drifting back to their quarters, some with their arms around each other, some supported by their servants, others moving rapturously but unsteadily on their own. Tiye scanned the lake. At its edge sat Nefertiti, still deep in conversation with Tadukhipa. The raft bobbed, all but one of the torches that had been fastened to it extinguished. The boats had left much earlier. Then Tiye noticed something rising and falling with the lake’s small wash, lit faintly and intermittently from the shore. Tia-Ha had seen it, too. She turned to Tiye as Tiye came to her feet. “l cannot make it out,” she remarked. “I wonder if one of the entertainers dropped something into the water.”
“Kheruef,” Tiye said over her shoulder, “send a boat out and bring in whatever it is.”
Kheruef hurried away, and the two women walked to the place where Nefertiti and Tadukhipa had been hooking water lilies to make the frogs jump away. At Tiye’s approach they rose and bowed. “Majesty
Aunt, why is that boat going out?” Nefertiti frowned. “My dancers have retired, and the raft will be recovered in the morning.”
Premonition swept over Tiye as she watched the boat cut across the lake, the pole rising and falling under the slave’s expert thrust, drawing nearer to the gently moving debris, and she could not answer. A shout came from the boat as one of the slaves reached over, drew back, and pulled his companion to the edge. The two of them lifted something shapeless and obviously heavy and began to return to the shore with the uncoordinated speed of distress.
“It is a body!” Tadukhipa whispered, eyes wide. “One of the dancers has drowned!”
Nefertiti shrugged and turned away, but Tiye, her knees suddenly weak, grasped her niece’s arm. Kheruef and two of his underlings waded out and helped to drag the boat onto the grass. Still Tiye could not move. Only when the men laid the body on its stomach and Kheruef began to run toward her did she force her legs to obey her.
“Stay with me,” Tia-Ha snapped at Tadukhipa, her eyes on Tiye’s white face. She sank to the mat, taking the little princess down with her. Tadukhipa’s hand stole into her own. Kheruef came up to Tiye and fell at her feet, his face ashen, his hands closing over his head in a gesture of terrified submission. Tiye walked past him, still holding Nefertiti.
The naked woman was sprawled like an ungainly animal, one knee bent, one arm curving to encircle the head with its ropes of dark, sopping hair. “Bring a torch,” Tiye said in a level voice. One of the male slaves raced to obey and reappeared with lights. “Kheruef. Kheruef! Get up, you old fool. Turn her over.” He left the ground, weeping, and with clumsy, trembling hands grasped a shoulder, the soft hill of a hip. Tiye released Nefertiti. The girl was staring, lower lip between her teeth, every muscle tense. The body rolled sluggishly, and then Sitamun gazed past them at the sky. Water dribbled from one corner of her parted mouth, and her hair lay across her throat like a ragged scarf. Tiye found herself in the grass smoothing the cold cheeks with both frantic, disbelieving hands. A babble of screams and excited, frightened talk broke out. “Bring Commander Ay,” Kheruef ordered tersely, “and then a physician. Notify Pharaoh, but not before Ay.”
Tiye lifted the unresisting head and cradled it in her arms. Nefertiti had begun to wail, her own arms outstretched. Why is she making that foolish noise? Tiye thought irritably. Sitamun is asleep. She has floated on the water and fallen asleep. “Sitamun,” she choked, mouth moving against the white forehead. Then warm hands lifted her, and Ay’s arms went around her. New torches flickered in the hands of the soldiers he had brought. She felt someone settle a cloak over her shoulders and suddenly came to herself. Ay was squatting beside Sitamun, his hands busy lifting, probing, his eyes sharp. A physician crouched beside him, exchanging low words with Ay she could not catch. Tia-Ha appeared be fore her, and wine slipped down her throat. Nefertiti had fallen silent, but Tiye saw her swallowing convulsively. Ay rose. “It is too late to do anything for her,” he said, and something in his voice made Tiye stare at him, sluggish senses alert. “She is dead.”
Out of the corner of her eye Tiye saw a look flash between Nefertiti and her steward Meryra, standing stolidly beside her. It happened so quickly that she wondered if she had imagined it but noticed that Ay had seen it, too, and watched him assimilate and interpret the signal in the second it took him to recover. He turned and barked orders at his men. “Gather all servants, slaves, and dancers who were here tonight. Majesty, may I question the women?”
Tiye nodded faintly. “But it would be better to wait until morning,” she objected, surprised to hear her voice so calm. “Most of them are unfit to speak. Kheruef will help you.”
There was a stir beyond the torches’ harsh flare, and someone whispered, “Horus comes!” Already the crowd was prone in the grass, faces pressed into the earth, and Tiye realized immediately that she could not bear to witness her son’s shock. She took a last look at the waxen face, the glazed eyes that leaped with a semblance of life under the torches’ light, and turned away.
Tiye paced her apartments for most of the night, too distraught to rest. She expected Ay to request an audience, but the day turned into afternoon and the afternoon into the stale breathlessness of a summer night, and he did not come. She made no effort to summon him, knowing that he would appear when he was ready. She choked down some food and allowed Piha to see to her bathing, dressing, and painting, but refused to receive either Tia-Ha, who came to her at noon, or Nefertiti, who asked to be admitted in the evening. She walked from reception hall to bedchamber and back repeatedly, her mind taking refuge in the exercise of the solving of a puzzle. Sitamun was an excellent swimmer. Drunk or sober, the lake represented no threat to a woman who had been a fearless worshiper of river and lake since she had been old enough to walk. Sitamun was empress, and Nefertiti’s swift acceptance of a race lost had been too facile, too eager. Or had it? Am I misreading my niece’s character through the wavering vision of my own grief? Sitamun was very drunk, and so were most of the other women. Was Nefertiti sober? The party was Nefertiti’s idea. A perfect setting. Tiye placed both hands over her burning eyes and groaned aloud. I wish you would come, Ay, she thought as she stopped by her couch and heard Piha moving quietly behind her, lighting the lamps. My daughter lies under the knives of the royal sem-priests. My son has shut himself away in his own chambers, and his sobs can be heard outside those heavy double doors.
Ay was finally announced an hour later and, ordering her servants out, closed the doors behind them himself. His eyes were filmed and sunken under the protective kohl, and for the first time Tiye saw the sharp military set of his shoulders curved in anguish. They eyed each other over the soft glow of the lamps until Tiye motioned him to sit and herself sank nervously to the edge of her couch. Although he did not often observe the strict protocol surrounding an audience with royalty, he now waited for her to speak first, and she was forced to take a deep breath.
“I do not think I want to know,” she said harshly.
“You know already. So do I. Every slave and servant in the palace has been cajoled, threatened, or beaten. Every one of Osiris Amunhotep’s wives and Tehen-Aten has been questioned. Only Princess Tadukhipa had anything useful to say.”
“And what was that?”
“She saw Nefertiti and Sitamun enter the water together sometime before the fire walking began.” He put out a hand to forestall Tiye’s shocked outburst. “No,” he said grimly. “My daughter did not perform the deed with her own delicate hands. The princess saw her not long afterward, being dried by her body servant.”
“Did you caution Tadukhipa?”
“I told her never to speak of what she had seen because it would embarrass Queen Nefertiti. It was a long time before the little one understood.”
Tiye looked down on the hands that had twisted together painfully in her lap. Carefully she loosened them. “There is always some doubt.”
“Of course. But only the shadow of a shadow. The desert police found a man wandering behind the desert hills this morning. His tongue had been cut out. It was a wonder that he had not drowned in his own blood. Needless to say, he could not read or write. He was a palace slave, that much is certain from the softness of his skin and hands. He was scratched about the arms and stomach. I saw him myself.”
Their eyes met. “She cannot be punished,” Tiye whispered.
“Of course not. Even if her guilt could be proved, which it cannot, she is a queen, and as such her person is above the common law. We cannot even arrest the steward Meryra. That would be tantamount to admitting that we believe Nefertiti is at least implicated.”
“I would like to see both of them flayed until the flesh falls from their bones!” she cried out bitterly. “What can I tell Amunhotep?”
“There is no point in telling him anything, Majesty. Only he can discipline in this matter, and I do not think he will do anything but be distressed. Besides…”
“Besides, we are all guilty of similar acts of jealousy
and fear,” she finished for him hoarsely. “Nefertiti will learn discretion, as we did. Let me rest against you, Ay. I am sick at heart and so tired that I cannot think anymore. I want to grieve like any mother, and with you I can lay my divinity aside.”
He came and sat beside her. Her head slid against his chest with the ease of long familiarity, and he put both arms around her neck, as he had so many times in their childhood. The steady beat of his heart comforted her, and for the first time since she had glanced out over the lake the previous evening, she felt her body relax and her eyes grow heavy. Ay kissed her and, laying her carefully down, drew the sheet over her.
“Sleep now,” he said. “I will send Piha and your fan-bearers. Do not feel guilt, Tiye, over the thought that you might have prevented this by plotting to keep a balance between my daughter and yours. If Sitamun had been more wily and less sure of herself, it might be Nefertiti who was awaiting beautification in the House of the Dead.”
She murmured, eyes closed, and heard him go out and call to her servants. Of all the children born to Amunhotep and me, only Sitamun and my son grew to adulthood, she thought dimly, already half-asleep. Now Sitamun is gone. Oh, my husband, is it possible that all our fruit will wither and fall? So much love over the years, without living trace? I wish you were here in my arms.
The Twelfth Transforming Page 15
