The Twelfth Transforming

by Pauline Gedge

  Akhenaten stepped forward, the Double Crown gleaming, the pharaonic beard of woven gold and lapis lazuli sparkling. Fresh incense billowed upward, and the Aten priests began the prayers of worship and safe voyage. Akhenaten took Tiye’s hands as she rose.

  “You know that I have vowed never to return to Thebes,” he said quietly. “If you wish to see me again, you must come to Akhetaten. A new age begins for our beloved Egypt, O my mother, and ten thousand hentis from now, when the worship of the Aten has spread throughout the world, men will have forgotten that Thebes and its god ever existed. But they will remember that you gave birth to me, and they will speak your name with reverence.”

  She stroked his cheek once, delicately. “Your head pains you again today.”

  He began to nod, squinting against the agony the small movement caused. “Yes. Once more the god’s hand is on me, but I will be able to sleep when Thebes is out of my sight.”

  There was nothing more to say. Tiye sat back on her throne as Akhenaten went to slit the throat of the bull already trussed and waiting quietly on the portable altar, and the wine and purifying milk were poured over the water steps. Bowls of blood were passed among the people thronging before the palace and those already standing in the barges, but there was none of the frantic rush to anoint that had been characteristic of thanksgivings in previous days. Akhenaten’s court had learned sobriety.

  At last Pharaoh raised a bloody hand and walked up the ramp, disappearing into the cabin. Pasi, his captain, shouted, and the ropes were untied. The oars hit the water with a splash, and Kha-em-Ma’at pulled away from Malkatta.

  Tiye did not remain, but signaling to Huya and her women, she made her way into the palace, through the giant reception hall, now cool and empty, through Pharaoh’s private audience hall and throne room, to the garden beyond. Here she mounted the steps set against the outside wall of the palace and stood at last on the roof. Beyond the line of palms waving stiffly, the hundreds of barges were jostling for position behind the royal boat, which had already turned north. Oars dipped and gleamed with water. Banners and flags rippled. The islands that dotted the Nile between Thebes and Malkatta gained definition as one by one the boats separated, and water began to glitter between them. Today there was no haze. The pylons and towers of Karnak stood out knife-sharp against the blue sky, and around it the horizon of the mighty city spread to right and left seemingly without end.

  “There are thousands of people lining the quays and standing in the water,” Tiye said presently to Huya. “They are even on the roofs. Yet I cannot hear them.”

  “That is because they are silent, Majesty,” Huya replied dryly. “It is not a day for rejoicing. I can glimpse no Amun priests at the Karnak water steps either.”

  “It is a sight they do not wish to behold.” Tiye shaded her eyes with one hand. The uneven brown mass of city dwellers was curiously still as well as quiet, and gradually a sense of their hostility stole over Tiye, a premonition of resentment and latent, directionless violence.

  Huya felt it also and, stirring beside her, stepped back from the edge of the roof and wiped his face. “I do not think they yet understand what has happened to them,” he remarked as Tiye also left the low parapet. “There will be no more purchases of food, wine, and luxuries from Thebes, for that trade has, of course, gone north to Akhetaten with the foreign ambassadors. With it has also gone the commerce that brought the majority of foreign goods to Malkatta, not to mention the grain harvests from the private estates of the nobles. And Pharaoh is no longer building in the vicinity of the city. There will be many hungry people without employment.”

  “They still have the priests’ business,” Tiye snapped. “There are upwards of twenty thousand priests at Karnak whose goods still need handling. Thebes will suffer, but it will not die. Listen to the emptiness around us, Huya! I think I will sleep the rest of the day away.”

  It was good to lie in the quiet, darkened room, to close her eyes and drift into sleep without tension. She did not wake until the following dawn and did not rise until she had eaten in bed and had been entertained by singers. She dressed and was painted with deliberate leisure and, taking Huya, Piha, and a handful of Followers, strolled unimpeded through the palace. Room after room greeted her with echoing aloofness. Doors stood open onto bare tiled floors splashed with sunlight. Patterns she had long failed to notice sprang out at her along walls no longer hidden by furniture, the colors and lines oddly fresh and new now that they dominated the empty rooms. Scoured passages gave back the slap of her sandals, and dust was already gathering in the formal stillness of bedchambers. The huge reception hall with its dais and friezed baldachin seemed to hold the heart of the strangeness, its perpetual gloom and awesome height redolent with memories. Appalled, Tiye ordered the sealing of all empty rooms in the palace.

  In the afternoon she visited the ministers’ offices, only to face the same air of abandonment. The slaves had not yet cleaned them, and it was possible to imagine that the men who had worked there might return at any moment, for scrolls, pens, empty inkpots, and bits of cheap pottery on which architecture apprentices had scribbled half-formed ideas lay piled on desks and across the floors. Tutu’s office was the worst, a shambles of hasty evacuation. Tiye picked a broken tablet out of the wreckage, deciphering the language of official communication with difficulty. “To the god my king, seven times seven I fall at your feet…” The deep Akkadian characters ended in a crumbling break. Sighing, Tiye reiterated her orders for the sealing of doors and sought refuge in the harem with Tia-Ha.

  When she arrived, she found the princess pacing, picking her way with unerring skill through the disorderly welter of cushions, discarded gowns, and half-eaten fruit and sweetmeats.

  “Already the palace distresses me, Majesty,” she told Tiye. “Now that Pharaoh has appropriated the younger women for his new harem and only we old matrons are left, Malkatta is like a friendly tomb.”

  “So you want to retire to the Delta after all.” Tiye sat on the couch, her eyes on the play of sunlight against her shins as Tia-Ha passed back and forth in front of her.

  “If my goddess will be kind enough to let me go.” Tia-Ha blew out a gust of breath and threw up her hands. “I have so little time left. I had thought that it would be intriguing to observe your son’s administration, but its course has been sober, predictable, and without any great scandals. Apart from your own marriage to him, of course.” She cast a sidelong glance full of warmth at Tiye. “I cannot take the heat of Upper Egypt any longer. Have I permission to send my steward north to prepare my house?”

  “Certainly.” Tiye managed a smile. “Years ago I offered you your freedom. Your husband is dead. You are a widow. Perhaps you will marry again.”

  “No,” Tia-Ha replied, coming to a halt and gazing out the window. “Not after Osiris Amunhotep. Diversions there will be, but not love. There is no longer anything but you to hold me here. There is nothing for you, either, Majesty. Go to Djarukha. Do not stay here. These empty apartments will begin to haunt your dreams.”

  “I am still empress,” Tiye reminded her waspishly. “Malkatta is a more fitting home than a private estate.”

  “Of course.” Tia-Ha turned and bowed contritely. “I spoke hastily, out of concern for you. May I dictate letters to Your Majesty, full of all the new gossip I shall uncover among the provincials?”

  “Oh, Tia-Ha! How could I live without word from you! May Hathor prolong your vigor!”

  “A congenial man will do better.” Tia-Ha laughed. “Come, Tiye. Let us while away the evening with the sennet, and perhaps you would do me the honor of feasting with me in the garden once Ra has gone.”

  “I shall miss you,” Tiye said by way of reply.

  Tiye did not visit her friend again, and they said no formal good-byes, but a week later Huya reported that Tia-Ha’s apartments were empty. Tiye went onto the roof with the news and sat through the deepening twilight of the evening, wrestling with the grief the princess’s going had p
rompted. It was more than the loss of an old companion, for they would exchange letters and gifts in the months to come. Tiye knew that the pain welled up from the place where her past existed, where she and Tia-Ha were young, and Amunhotep her husband still lived in the vitality of his manhood. We were so happy then, she thought as the darkness gathered around her, and the stars began to appear. I seldom considered my fate as the years slipped away, and when I did, I imagined that the latter part of my life would be spent surrounded by the fruits of my endeavor, a time of contentment and companionship. No presentiment of the truth ever troubled my young dreams. Now that past is over, gone like a swift glimmer of moonlight on ruffled water, and if I am to have courage, I must not look back. I am alone, the future is barren, my title of empress means nothing anymore. Yet I am still the goddess of Soleb, and there the priests still sing to my immortal likeness, and the incense fills my temple. I must remember that. Even if the years ahead hold only the unwanted peace of encroaching age, I am forever worthy to be worshipped.

  16

  During the following months, Tiye had cause to remember Tia-Ha’s warning that the empty rooms at Malkatta would haunt her. The closed and sealed doors began to prey on her mind. She would lie awake at night thinking of the dark passages fronted by door after red-waxed door, and if she dared to imagine herself going through them, it was to see other stately rooms opening one after another, all filled with a forbidding secrecy. During the day she found herself less and less able to pass the unguarded portals leading to Pharaoh’s rooms, the queen’s suite, or the places of public audience. She began to hold modest feasts of her own in the dining hall, inviting her own engineers, architects, stewards, and personal ministers to eat and enjoy her musicians and dancers, but the few hundred attending could not dispel the larger shadows, and their merriment rang shrill and false. Tiye soon transferred her meals to her own rooms, taking over a large portion of Nefertiti’s former apartment to accommodate her guests, so that she would no longer see unfilled places or tall pillars casting unbroken shadows in the yellow lamplight.

  Before long messages arrived from her brother and Mutnodjme. She did not trust her scribe to read Ay’s scroll to her, so it was Huya who sank cross-legged before her. Ay had written in his own hand, not with the hieroglyphs expected but in the clear-flowing hieratic script used by tradesmen. “To my dearest sister and eternal empress, greetings. May Min favor you with youth, strength, and every blessing. Know first that my wife, your subject Tey, is well and kisses your feet. Know second that the Vizier of the South, Ramose, has died and has been replaced by Nakht-pa-Aten, he that was once a priest of Amun but who has since seen the truth of the Aten.” Tiye smiled grimly to herself as Huya paused to cough discreetly. Nakht-pa-Aten was a pleasant enough young man but more than ignorant of the duties of vizier. “Pharaoh immediately made him a Person of Gold. Indeed, the Gold of Favors has been distributed with great prodigality since Pharaoh took up residence here. I myself have been fortunate enough to be showered with the Gold of Favors, and I am now the King’s Own Scribe.” A little warning, Tiye thought. As Pharaoh’s most trusted scribe, Ay will be constantly spied upon by those jealous of him and by those who are suspicious of his relationship to me and who fear for Akhenaten’s safety. “Know third that Aziru himself is once more negotiating for peace and alliance with Suppiluliumas. Suppiluliumas’s campaign against northern Syria and our dependencies there is coming to a halt, because he has been victorious. I kiss your beautiful feet and pray before your divine image, O Goddess of Soleb. May your name live forever.” Huya allowed the scroll to close with a rustle.

  Tiye was silent. It is pointless for me to worry afresh about the erosion of the empire, she thought. I can do no more; therefore I would be well advised to put it out of my mind. Certainly my son would never allow things to go so far that Egypt would have to fight on our own soil! Even now it is not too late to recapture some of our might and prestige. A small show of arms, a few executions… She came to herself with a burst of quick laughter. “Burn the scroll in the brazier on your way out, Huya, and send the dumb servant to me.” He bowed and left, pausing to thrust Ay’s neat, strong handwriting into the orange flames.

  Behind her the doors closed, and the dumb servant came in bowing and then fell to the floor and crawled to kiss her feet. She waved him up, going to the table and dipping a pen in ink. She held it out to him, and for a moment their eyes met. Tiye looked into the face of the man who had murdered Sitamun. She did not regret having put him to work in her kitchens and later having had him taught to write. Dumb servants were few and far between. He took the pen, waited until she had put a suitable distance between them, and then began to write. The message was not long, and Tiye took it from the table where the man had carefully placed it. All Akhetaten is agog with the disclosure that the Great Temple here does indeed have a ben-ben, unlike the unfinished Aten temple at Karnak, Tiye read silently. It is a sacred stela. On it are carved the likenesses of Pharaoh, the queen, and Princess Meritaten. The room seemed suddenly chill. Tiye held the piece of papyrus with distaste and, striding to the brazier, cast it in. There was no doubt who was worshipped in Akhetaten, in the holiest of holiest. Her son was sacrificing to himself, with Nefertiti proudly elevated to a share in his godly omnipotence. The inclusion of Meritaten on the stela disturbed Tiye, but she could not say why. “Tell the sender of this news that the dikes have been dug at Djarukha, and a shipment of slaves can be expected within the month,” she instructed the man. “Now get out.”

  When he had gone, Huya slipped back into the room and stood waiting. Tiye indicated the scribe’s palette on the floor. “Take a dispatch for Pharaoh,” she ordered, “and have it copied and sent to Ay as well. Begin with the usual salutations, and do not forget to add ‘my august and all-seeing husband.’” She waited while he penned the words, gathered her courage, and dictated. “By the power of Your Majesty’s great virility I, your empress, am again with child…”

  The pen clattered to the tiling. “Majesty!” Huya exclaimed.

  Tiye clenched her fists under cover of her cloak. “Steward, you forget yourself,” she said coldly. “Have you blotted the scroll? No? Then continue. ‘I rejoice with you at the prospect of a royal son at Malkatta and wait your word as the parched soil awaits the life-giving wet touch of Hapi.’ Finish with my titles, and I will use my royal seal. Tell my herald to deliver this personally, giving it to no one but my son. Ay’s copy can go with the other dispatches. Say nothing to me!” Huya closed his lips firmly, bowed, and backed out. Tiye opened her hands with conscious effort. The gods do not know the meaning of the word justice. They laugh at me. Very well. I shall hold up my head, and not one of them shall receive the incense of thanksgiving from me. The only satisfaction will be if my child is born alive and is male. Nefertiti’s rage will be worth seeing.

  Pharaoh soon wrote himself, expressing his delight at the prospect of another child. Tiye listened to the words grimly, the baby restless in her womb. She herself could feel nothing for this child, no anticipation and certainly no pleasure, but at least there was also no fear. At an age when she ought to have been enjoying a placid reaping of the rewards of a lifetime as ruler, she regarded her swelling body as grotesque, but not, as she had while she waited for Beketaten’s birth, as an instrument of death. She had so much less to live for now and found herself calmly fatalistic as the weeks sped by. She ate, drank, and slept as much as she wished. Often she sought the company of her children, growing up free and largely undisciplined in the silent palace. Beketaten, at six, was a beautiful but willful girl still given to sulks and peevishness if she did not get her way, which was seldom. Smenkhara was harboring a permanent resentment against his mother for holding him in a place that had become nothing but a backwater. He, too, could be sulky and uncommunicative, and the spoiling he received from his tutors and servants, who took their cue from Tiye’s attitude toward him as an heir apparent and treated him with an unhealthy deference, did not improve his charact
er. Tiye tried to allay his restlessness with bright stories of his future, but he listened with frowns.

  “I know you open my letters to Meritaten and hers to me,” he accused her one day. “You are so suspicious of everyone. What do you think we are doing, plotting against our parents? Meritaten is nearing the age of betrothal. She will soon be nine. We speak to each other of marriage, that is all.”

  “I know,” Tiye replied mildly. “But remember that although Meritaten is almost old enough to bear children, it will be at least five years before you will be capable of fathering any. Pharaoh will not give her to you. He will wait to see if Nefertiti can produce a son, and even then, I think his plans for her immediate future are very different.”

  Smenkhara glanced at her distorted, thinly veiled belly. “Or he will see if you are going to give him a boy. I shall have to grow up to be very powerful and get rid of him and take Meritaten for myself.”

  “You are boring when you snap all the time. It is not natural for a nine-year-old boy to worry and fret about the future. You have everything you could possibly want.”