He reached forward and, lifting back the lid of the chest, drew forth the empress’s crown. The great polished disk gleamed darkly, and the silver horns of Hathor curving round it glittered in the starlight. Its two plumes quivered under his nervous hands as he positioned it on his bare knees. “I knew I should have offered it to you, not Sitamun,” he went on, “but I mistrusted the will of the god. I shall not do so again. The crown is yours.”
Tiye felt herself go rigid in the chair. Her hands gripped the armrests. “My son,” she managed when she felt she could trust her voice, “Sitamun died because of the rivalry for the crown that existed between her and Nefertiti. You bear no responsibility. You chose one woman over another, exercising your right as Pharaoh.”
“I have heard the rumors,” he cut in simply. “Human hands destroyed Sitamun, but it was the god who decreed that she should suffer. I must have you, Tiye.”
Tiye began to tremble and clung more tightly to the chair. “Let me try to understand you,” she said. “You wish a marriage contract drawn up between us? You wish me to be chief wife and empress in Egypt?”
“I do. The document can be written and sealed here, before we return to Malkatta.”
“Nefertiti should hold the titles.” She could not breathe, for her throat had swelled, and her words came almost as a croak.
“No. I love my cousin, but she is not of my blood.” Gently he placed the crown on the table between them. Tiye kept her eyes on the dusky garden below, but all her inner attention was fixed on the heavy thing. It was a challenge, a prize, a doom-bringer.
“You are, of course, proposing a marriage of formality only.” She forced her hands away from the arms of the chair, folding them in her lap, and turned to look at him.
“No.” He swung to face her, encircling the crown with his arms. The lamp set on the table illuminated only one side of his face, leaving the other plunged in shadow like a half-carved monolith. “So much has puzzled me since I became old enough to take command of my thoughts,” he said quietly. “I did not know why I had been born, why the Son of Hapu prophesied against me, why I was left to the ministrations of the harem women. When I was a child, I cried often. I had strange dreams. I grew older and sat in the harem garden watching the flowers open like butterflies’ wings, the butterflies flicking over the grass like untethered flowers.” He passed both hands over his face, and though Tiye had never before heard him speak with such calm deliberation, his pale fingers shook. “I walked the passages of the women’s quarters, listening to the prayers of the foreign wives, watching their prostrations to the gods they had brought with them from every corner of the empire. I began to realize that under every name—Savriti, Reshep, Baal—they were worshipping one god. I asked for scrolls from the palace and temple and began to read, but not until Pharaoh’s first jubilee did I understand.” His voice cracked suddenly, and he paused, swallowing and searching for words. “Many thousands of hentis ago, the kings of Egypt were not the incarnations of Amun. They came from the sun. They ruled as Ra on earth. After the princes of Thebes drove the Hyksos rulers from Egypt, they took their local god Amun for their totem, and as Thebes grew in power and riches, so did Amun. But the pharaohs have since forgotten that only Ra gives life to all the world, and that Amun’s power is bounded by Thebes. Your husband glimpsed the truth, but it was as a flash of weak light in a dark room. He tried to give the Aten greater prominence, but only for a show.” He leaned closer, meeting her gaze. “Mother, I am the incarnation of Ra. I was born to restore power to the sun in Egypt. My father is Ra-Harakhti, God of the Horizon in His Dawning. In choosing your body to bear me, he has brought a new age, a glorious age, to Egypt.”
“Your father was Osiris Amunhotep, Amun’s incarnation on earth!” Tiye almost shouted the words.
He smiled kindly, almost condescendingly at her. “No, he was only a man, like my brother Thothmes. It was necessary that Thothmes should die. My destiny was to become pharaoh against all odds so that the sun might be glorified.”
Tiye could not think. A tangle of emotions struggled within her: shock, fear, fascination, dread. The fluttering of her heart was paining her, and she placed one stiff hand under her breast. “I do not see the necessity for making me your wife,” she choked.
He leaned over the crown, his eyes changing from brown to yellow as they neared the lamp and took its light. “Amun has grown rich and strong,” he whispered. “My magic must be even stronger. They are all around me, the evil ones, the devils, thronging me in the night, buffeting me in the day. I learned much from the women who opened shrines to foreign gods. Incantations, spells I can use to protect myself. But the greatest protection of all is the joining of a son’s body to that of his mother. Such a union is considered holy by the sun people beyond the Great Bend of Naharin, in Khatti, in Karduniash. I have spoken to the foreign women. I know. It is not only holy, but for me, the sun’s incarnation, it is imperative. From your body I came. It is your body that I must possess.”
A moth had fluttered into the glowing lamp. Tiye could hear it struggling, its wings singed, its soft black eyes blinded, beating against the alabaster, consumed by a deadly intoxication. The moon was rising, a cold silver disk whose light irradiated the terrace. Tiye saw it lying colorless across her feet, a weightless shroud. Think! she berated herself fiercely. Think. Ay, what have we done? This is the child for whose survival I fought grimly and secretly, for whose birthright I risked the wrath of Pharaoh, this fanatic, this man who is now confirmed in a position of power. Can such madness be controlled, contained? But something far back in her mind whispered, What if the Son of Hapu foresaw this, but its enormity was too great to be understood by a pharaoh who cared nothing for religious matters? The Son of Hapu wanted my son destroyed. He was the oracle of Amun. Is that why he predicted that the boy would grow up to murder his father? Did he mean his father Amun? What must I do?
She attempted to speak, but her voice would not obey her. Waiting a mo ment, she tried again, struggling for a soothing tone. “Amunhotep,” she said, “for a royal prince to wed his sister is proper and right, for the seed of a god must not pass to commoners. It is acceptable for a pharaoh to wed his daughters for the same reason. Such unions were once considered necessary when royal women held the right of succession in their blood. But now the succession is a matter for the oracles, and Amun bestows divinity according to their pronouncements. Marriages between brother and sister or father and daughter are now arranged only for dynastic reasons or for the purifying of royal blood.” Her voice had risen and thinned. “Under the law of Ma’at there are two couplings that bring down curses and punishments and are not allowed. One is between two men, and the other is between a man and his mother. What you are proposing to me would shake the foundations of Ma’at in Egypt and incur the disapproval of everyone from courtiers and priests to the fellahin in the fields.”
“Ra is omnipotent,” he reminded her, “and overshadows not only Amun but Ma’at as well. Ma’at must be restored to its ancient simplicity. Ra’s family is small, and his power must be preserved and shared within it, must be made to grow stronger to provide a spell that neither man nor greedy god can break. As Ra’s incarnation I look to his laws, which override the laws of a Ma’at that has become perverted. Your husband bedded with a boy, and your courtiers break the laws of Ma’at every day. But those who obey me, the sun’s chosen emissary, cannot err, and the family of the holy can only enhance Ma’at.” Eagerly he pushed the crown toward her. “You are already a chosen one. I need you.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You will not. How can you? The circle of power around me is not yet closed, and the darkness seeps through to me. You can close it, Tiye. You and I will make children of the sun.”
She rose, cramped and drained, and had to hold to the arm of the chair with both hands to prevent herself from falling. “I will think about all you have said,” she murmured, “but now I must sleep.”
“You are shivering. Piha! Brin
g the goddess a cloak!” He rose also, and coming around the table, he kissed her on the neck with his customary gentleness. “Sleep then, Empress. Ra will chase all doubts away with his dawning.” He was exultant, feverish with relief and anticipation, and he walked buoyantly across the moon-splashed terrace as though a great weight had rolled from him.
Tiye went to her bedchamber, scarcely aware of where she was. She stood mute and withdrawn as Piha and her other body servants undressed her, removed the paint from her face, palms and feet, extinguished all but the night lamp by the couch, and held the sheet back for her. She slid beneath it woodenly, and they bowed themselves out. Piha curled up on her mat in the corner and was soon breathing heavily in sleep. Outside the door, her bodyguard shuffled and coughed once quietly. Tiye sat up and let her forehead droop to her bent knees. Very well, she thought. What alternatives do I have? It seems that Egypt is in no danger from my son, for he speaks only of restoring her to some former pristine grandeur. If he is mad, then it is a madness that does not threaten the military or diplomatic supremacy of the empire. I am regent. I control that supremacy, and if I become his empress, I can go on controlling it. He has little interest in the administration and would be free to pursue his religious insanity quite harmlessly while I keep this country safe. There would be an uproar, of course. Every priest would curse me, every citizen cry out. How long would it last? How long did Thebes and the court remain scandalized by my husband’s boy? Not long. But this would be different. It would not be a royal indiscretion, kept in the dimness of the king’s apartments. I would be flaunting a broken law of Ma’at in the halls of audience, with the crown on my head, every day. The foreign delegations would think nothing of it. It is true what he says, that foreign nobles and royalty often marry their mothers. It is Egypt that would seethe. Better to refuse, to insist that Nefertiti wear the horned disk. But what if he is right? How long has it been since any pharaoh really believed in his heart that he was Amun, god of Thebes? So many times Osiris Amunhotep and I joked about our divinity, believing only in our power to make ourselves gods. My son’s life has been strange, even as he said. Is it possible that Thothmes died by the hand of Ra? That the Son of Hapu was terrified by what he saw in the Anubis cup? Perhaps this is not just a question of grasping at a chance to continue wielding the power my husband gave me, but something more awesome. If I decide wrongly, will Ra’s anger fall upon me?
She drew the sheet around her and, sliding from the couch, crept to the window. Cool air blew into her face. The garden was hushed and dark save for the occasional torch of a soldier or a servant hurrying on some errand. She considered his words over and over again, and as she did so, the pure white flame of his conviction began to touch an answering spark of somber light buried deep within her. She knew she was a jaded woman, with sensitivities blunted by a lifetime of intrigues, decadence, and the corruption attendant upon the practice of absolute power. She had never heard matters of the spirit spoken of with such transparent conviction, and under the layers of cynicism, the corroding armor of questionable decisions made in the interests of political necessity or social stability, Amunhotep’s earnest certainty touched a chord. What if he is truly the harbinger of a jealous god, come to restore the balance of a Ma’at corrupted by centuries of error?
She fell asleep kneeling against the window, her head on the sill. Sometime toward morning she woke with a start, feeling Piha’s solicitous hand on her shoulder, and staggering to her couch, she fell once more into a dreamless slumber.
For three days she wrestled with herself, and Amunhotep did not approach her. He had himself rowed to On, to worship his god in the temple of the sun, and spent much time kneeling before his portable shrine and playing with his monkeys and cats. When he joined Tiye for the formal evening meal, he did so in full regalia, the Double Crown on his head, the crook and flail laid at his feet, the leopard’s tail and pharaonic beard fastened in place. He said little, and Tiye was disinclined to speak either. She watched her son out of the corner of her eye as he ate slowly, lifting the fruit and vegetables delicately to his large mouth, his eyes liquid with his own far thoughts, his shallow chest rising and falling with his breath, the falcon-headed sun god Ra-Harakhti that he always wore around his thin neck shooting glancing rays of reflected light into her face.
She woke on the fourth day with a decision already firm in her mind. Once dressed and painted, she summoned her herald and bodyguard and found her son at the foot of the terrace, throwing bread to the birds that wheeled and piped over his head. Sitting on the step beside him, his scribe was reading a letter aloud, which she soon realized was from Nefertiti. Tiye descended to him alone, and hearing her sandals on the white stone, he turned and smiled.
“I will take the crown,” she said without preamble, “providing the agreement is put into writing and sealed with the pharaonic seal. Do it now, Amunhotep.” Or I shall change my mind, she thought.
He made as if to embrace her, but seeing her stiff face, he faltered, and his arms fell to his sides. “Take fresh papyrus,” he said solemnly to the scribe. “Write what I shall tell you.”
He began to dictate, and suddenly Tiye could not bear to stand there motionless, listening to the shrill, childlike voice. The sun on her head was already too hot, the stone beneath her feet too chill. With a short bow she left him, shouting as she went for Piha and her canopy bearers. She was almost running by the time she reached the ornamental lake, pulling off her bracelets, tearing the necklaces from her throat, tugging the wig from her head and flinging it aside. With a cry she dove into the water, pulling for the bottom, letting it fill her mouth, her ears, her open eyes. When she could hold her breath no longer, she broke the surface and began to swim. What have I done? she thought. What? She left the lake only when her limbs refused to obey her, and lay spent on the verge under the canopy, rubbing the droplets of water into her skin.
Amunhotep came to her that night, announced by his herald, who then ordered her own servants out of her apartments and withdrew. She slid from the couch, sinking to the floor to kiss the naked feet that came to rest before her. He bade her rise, and for a moment they stared at each other. He was a head taller than she, as tall as his father, she thought. He had been drinking perfumed wine, and she could smell gusts of lotus essence on his breath. His mouth was hennaed, his eyes heavily kohled. The loose folds of his soft white bag wig rested against his neck.
“Are you afraid?” he asked kindly, taking her hand, and as she looked at his long fingers playing against her own, Tiye knew she was not. She shook her head. He removed his wig, placing it carefully on her table and running his other hand over his shaven skull. His long, slanted jaw and almond eyes seemed to leap into prominence, giving him a feral look, but his glance was mild. Under the diaphanous white cloak he now discarded he was naked, pale full hips swelling, round thighs quivering in the lamplight. Tiye was both repelled by his strangeness and drawn to that part of him that was herself. The god I loved is in this man, she thought, as well as my own blood.
She sat on the couch, and he perched beside her. Taking her face in both hands he turned her head, and now in his eyes a feverish light burned, a spark of vitality that left a flush along his high cheekbones. “Sitamun would have had those cruel grooves in her face within a very few years,” he whispered, his breath coming short, “but her eyes would never have acquired the deep steadiness of yours. I love you, my mother. Put your arms around me.”
A sense of unreality began to steal over her as she embraced him. It was as though she were asleep in another place, a different time, dreaming this vision of another self, living vicariously through it while she watched from a vantage of safety. He made love not with his father’s controlled passion, but with a stubborn persistence she recognized as her own. He did not seem to mind that she was passive with foreboding, still asking herself, even as he entered her, what madness she had committed. Her flesh recoiled even before he had ceased to move in her, and with the quick intuition of whic
h he was sometimes capable he withdrew and lay beside her, breathing deeply.
“No harm will come to you, Tiye,” he said as though he had read her thoughts. “No god will presume to judge you. You are under my protection.”
During the following week, their last in Memphis, he came to her each night, making love with the same endearing yet curiously passionless tenderness, and with familiarity a similar response came from Tiye. Her body craved the knowing, expert touch of her dead husband, and often his face rose before her inward eye as she and Amunhotep moved together, but then she had never received from him the solicitous gentleness her son showed to her. Often she would not speak a single word to him, as though speech would confirm her crime, bring into the harsh focus of reality a situation to which a dreamlike quality still clung, and he either understood or preferred her silence.
During the days, they would stroll quietly arm in arm in the gardens or play board games under the trees. Amunhotep paid a final visit to On, but did not ask her to join him, by which she was relieved. The new, silent efficiency of her servants had not escaped her notice as they began to pack her belongings for the return to Malkatta.
Most of the trip back was made under sail, and they arrived at the palace water steps three days before the Feast of Opet was to begin. Word of their coming had been sent ahead, and Tiye, almost fainting in the heat that she had left behind nearly two months earlier, saw from the deck that the whole fore court and both sides of the canal were lined with courtiers. Nefertiti, the two children, and her brother sat in reverent isolation under a canopy. Ptahhotep, Si-Mut, and a small group of Amun priests clustered under their own sunshade. Horemheb stood with his soldiers where the ramp would be run out, but Mutnodjme swaggered impatiently, plucking crisp leaves from the trees with her whip while her dwarfs waded, fat and naked, in the canal.
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