The Twelfth Transforming

by Pauline Gedge

  Tiye had expected the same lopsided jumble of three-storied, flat-topped houses that made up the bulk of Thebes, but no houses were to be seen. The bank of the river was thick with palms and sycamores, and behind them, row upon row of tall white pillars rising from above a wall and marching away out of sight. She thought she glimpsed a wide road running toward Maru-Aten. Horemheb saw her puzzlement. “That is the Great Palace and harem,” he explained. “Farther in and across from the Royal Road is the temple. Beyond that are the ministers’ offices and the homes of lesser nobles. And out on the desert beyond that, of course, are the hovels of the poor and the homes of foreigners. I have no doubt that Pharaoh will show you his city himself.”

  Tiye had time for no more than a cursory glance at the east bank before the barge bumped Ay’s water steps. In front of the house and filling a forecourt entirely shaded by the trees surrounding it, Ay’s servants were already prostrating themselves on the pink stone. The ramp was run out, but before she disembarked, Tiye asked Horemheb to see to the housing of her goods and servants. He bowed. “I will return tonight,” he said. “Ay is having a small feast for you. A family affair. Mutnodjme will come, too, of course. Pharaoh does not want to greet you himself until he can do it with proper formality. Welcome to the Horizon of the Aten, Most Beautiful One.” She acknowledged his obeisance and descended the ramp.

  Tey rose and bowed several times. “Majesty, I am honored,” she said, and Tiye, touched, noticed that the woman was unusually tidily dressed and painted. Tey was wearing a soft blue sheath, many years out of date in its slim line and covered breasts, but flattering in its very decorum. Her wig, neck, arms, and ankles were decorated with her own creations. Tiye had forgotten how lovely she was.

  “I am happy to see you,” she said. “Be pleased to walk with my herald, Tey, and I will follow.” My son has turned a burning waste into a piece of the blessed Delta, Tiye thought as she walked between the prostrate servants. Brilliantly plumaged birds swooped and trilled over her head. In every direction she saw only the green gloom of closely bunched trees whose foliage met above her. Off to the left of the forecourt a lake moved darkly, its surface thick with pink and white lilies. Papyrus fronds waved silkily on its verge, with blue lotuses buried among them. In such a place a pharaoh might indeed forget that there is another world outside, Tiye thought again. By the power of his will Akhenaten has caused his own reality to have life, in spite of everything. For this, I admire him.

  She found herself mounting steps that sparkled white, pink, and black, marble of a color that could only have come from the quarries at Assuan, but before she could pause to appreciate their beauty, she was passing between two rows of pillars that led into Ay’s reception hall. To the right a small Aten shrine stood open, and beside it a shrine to Min. A table laden with fruit, cakes, and wine had been set out, and incense burned in a tall golden holder beside the food. Tey bowed her to a seat, and Tiye smiled.

  “Sit, my dearest Tey. How good this is! I feel as though I have woken from a dream.” But she realized as the words left her mouth that she had left one quiet, self-absorbed dream only to plunge deeply into another more exotic one that had the quality of a drugged state.

  “I have ordered that the children be served by the lake and then taken across the river to visit the zoo,” Tey said. “I hope you approve, Majesty.”

  Huya bent with sweetmeats, but Tiye shook her head. “Are you happy here, Tey? If I had bet on your staying, I would have thought that I would lose a lot of gold, and yet Akhmin seems to tempt you no longer.”

  Tey hesitated. “I do not work as well here,” she said. “It is more beautiful than paradise. I have only to raise my eyes to what I want, and Ay lays it at my feet. But Akhmin is my heart. I stay here for my husband. He needs me.”

  His need must be great, Tiye thought, noting the soft cleanliness of the hands that had always been stained, charred, and roughened by Tey’s craft, the limpid eyes that no longer seemed to hold the confused depth of a jeweler’s dream. “You are fortunate to be needed so much,” Tiye commented more tartly than she had intended, feeling all at once alone, but Tey replied gently, “No man ever needed me as much as Egypt needs you now, Empress. Help Ay, dear Tiye. Akhetaten is a mirage, a vision conjured by the dust devils for our destruction.”

  Shocked, Tiye met her sister-in-law’s eye. So much change while I drifted about Malkatta yearning for a quiet retirement at Djarukha, she thought. Mutnodjme, Horemheb, and now you, a woman I believed incapable of all perception save what you brought to bear on the glowing heart of the gems you worship. “I will judge for myself,” she said, unable to keep her voice from shaking. “Now, tell me what sort of crop you expect at Akhmin this year. Some of the vines are very old and cannot be producing well anymore.”

  Tey brightened, and they warmed to a subject of constant appeal. Before Tiye became aware of the passing hours, it was time to bathe and dress, and the sun was hanging orange over the western hills.

  The family meal of welcome had been set in the walled garden opposite the lake. Darkness had fallen by the time Tiye accepted a chair on the grass and received a cup of scented wine from Huya. She sat contentedly inhaling its perfume, watching the flower-girt servants come and go. The new-risen moon was a silver sliver in the dark blue sky, its light almost overwhelmed by the torches set on the wall or held by the men who stood motionless under the trees. Flowers lay piled and quivering on the tables scattered about. At the far end of the garden, discreetly in the shadows, Ay’s musicians tuned their lutes, talking and laughing quietly. The air was cool enough for Tiye to have donned a woolen cloak over the unadorned pleated gown that folded lightly over her knees and brushed the grass beside her. An intermittent breeze lifted the waves of gray-streaked auburn hair from her shoulders and caressed her brow. As Ay’s concubines came one by one to kneel before her and kiss her red-painted feet before finding their own places politely out of the range of the immediate family, she watched Smenkhara and Beketaten. Smenkhara had reverted briefly to an effervescent boyhood on the journey, swimming, running, crowing, and laughing at everything, but tonight the knowledge that Meritaten was just across the river had sobered him. He sat cross-legged on the grass, his ringed hands loose in his lap, his eyes absently following the movements of the servants. Though at thirteen he was not officially a man, he had recently shaved his youth lock, and a red ribbon was now tied around his smooth skull. Tiye’s glance rested on him. He looked more like his father than ever, with his strong features uncluttered by wig or helmet. Beketaten was petting one of Ay’s baboons while its keeper held the leash. Her high voice carried over the garden, full of assurance. Pleased, Tiye noted how compact her ten-year-old body was, how graceful at an age when girls began to be all arms and legs, ungainly as storks. Tiye sipped her wine, lost in the deep contentment of the evening. Delicious odors had begun to waft from the kitchens at the rear of the house, and the musicians were already playing little snatches of various melodies.

  Over the rim of her cup she saw lights moving across the forecourt, and then Ay himself came striding over the grass, his face alight. He kissed her feet fervently, and she melted into his arms.

  “Oh, Ay, I have missed you so! Many times I have longed for your smile! I feel as though we have been separated for an eternity. Let me look at you.”

  Good-humoredly he stepped back to oblige her. Ay had aged a lifetime since she had seen him last. His frame, always heavy, now carried too much flabby weight. His face had sagged, become slack and jowly. Unhealthy dark pouches made his eyes seem smaller.

  Seeing her shock, he smiled ruefully. “I know, dear empress,” he said. “There is no longer time for exercise. My cosmetician lays on the paint and kohl and clucks under his breath, but my deterioration cannot be hidden.”

  “Are you well?” she asked anxiously as he sank down beside her with a sigh.

  “Perfectly well, though tired all the time. My physician has ordered me to keep my body cleansed by fasting twice
a month instead of once, and it seems to be helping.” She could see a swift assessment of her in his smiling glance. “You have aged also.”

  “I know. Sometimes I can hardly bear to look into my mirror. Tutankhaten has taken away what youth I had left.” She spoke without bitterness.

  “But I like what is left in your face,” he said gently. “Flesh changes, but spirit does not. Is that young Smenkhara, plucking up my lawn so thoughtfully? He is almost a man, Tiye.”

  Tiye watched the familiar, somnolent expression steal over her brother’s features as he looked at his nephew, and she knew he was weighing Smenkhara in dynastic scales. “Our future Horus?” she said quietly.

  “May the gods grant it may be so.”

  “Is the situation so bad?”

  “Worse than you can imagine. Be prepared for changes in your son. When we first came here, I was encouraged. Akhenaten seemed to become more his own man than ever before, once the unwholesome memories of Malkatta were left behind. But it did not last. As well as memories, he left behind every restraint. In fact it was one of his indiscretions that kept me from greeting you earlier today. Aziru arrived at dawn.”

  “What?”

  “He finally decided to respond to Pharaoh’s summons, though I wish for Egypt’s sake he had decided to flout the order. I have spent the whole day with him, Pharaoh, and Tutu, trying to soften and explain the impressions Akhenaten made. I fear he will leave Egypt laughing up his grubby brocaded sleeve, and his last apprehensions will have been dispelled. Thank Amun you came! But let us not talk of matters of state tonight.” He made a visible effort to calm himself. “Here is Horemheb. I see Mutnodjme has dressed her dwarfs tonight. We will eat and drink and be foolish, will we not?”

  Tiye nodded, waiting for the obeisances of the others, fighting the fatigue that always stole over her at sundown. I must grasp strength from somewhere, she thought as she felt Horemheb’s lips touch her foot. There will be no time for self-indulgence from now on.

  Yet the moment of gloom passed as evening folded into full night. They gossiped and reminisced while the musicians filled the air with sweetness. Before long Beketaten was taken protesting to bed, and soon a yawning Smenkhara followed. The adults sat on, Tiye and Ay in their chairs, Tey at Ay’s feet, her arms wrapped around her knees, Mutnodjme and Horemheb sprawled on cushions in the grass, talking with the informality of the family gatherings that had taken place so often on Ay’s estate at Malkatta. In spite of everything we are still a close family, Tiye thought. Nothing has broken the ties that bind us. We are no longer Maryannu, yet the force that compelled our ancestors to hold tightly to each other against a land in which they found themselves prisoners remains. Tey and Horemheb have been drawn into the family instead of taking its members away. Tonight I am happy and safe.

  When she could no longer keep her eyes from dropping shut, she left them still conversing and went to the sheets invitingly turned down for her. She fell asleep almost at once, lulled by the rustling of leaves outside her window and the occasional hoot of a hunting owl.

  In the morning she stood passively in Tey’s tiring room while her servants dressed her carefully for her reunion with her son. She had chosen a white gown of a thousand tiny pleats that she had ordered altered so that it covered only one breast, conforming to the latest fashion in the city. At least one is hidden, she thought wryly as her body slaves draped the linen around her. It is no longer possible to be proud of my breasts. The gown was heavily bordered at hem and voluminous pleated sleeves with silver sphinxes and belted and hung with the same silver ornaments. She hid her graying hair under a formal wig whose ringlets fell almost to her waist, and satisfied herself as she critically studied her reflection that the dark green eye paint reduced her hooded eyelids as successfully as the kohl hid the lines radiating across her temples. Electrum bracelets, rings of amethyst and lapis lazuli, and her sphinx pectoral completed her garb, and she was ready for the Keeper of the Royal Regalia, who approached on his knees and lifted the empress’s great plumed crown from its chest, setting it reverently on her head. She was already tired. She sat on a stool while her attendants sorted themselves out according to precedence in the passage outside, and did not stir until Huya announced the arrival of Pharaoh’s bodyguards to escort her across the river.

  She was ferried in Akhenaten’s state barge to a point a little south of the city, where she disembarked and was immediately escorted to a sumptuous litter whose gold curtains were tied open, revealing a high-backed throne. Chariots of gold waited before and behind, and the Royal Road was lined with scimitar-girt, helmeted soldiers. Horemheb, arrayed in his best behind his charioteer, bowed in greeting as she mounted the throne and settled herself regally. Smenkhara and Beketaten prepared to follow the litter on foot, but Tutankhaten sat on his nurse’s knee in a litter to the rear. At a nod from Tiye, and Horemheb’s shouted order, the procession moved off. The day was bright. Hawks wheeled high above, spots of black against a deep azure sky, and the trees lining this portion of the road dappled the company in light and shade as they swayed in a refreshing breeze.

  For some minutes the litter rocked gently along, the chariot wheels flashed in the sun, and the two children chattered gaily. Then Horemheb called a warning, and the cavalcade halted. Tiye, looking ahead, saw a company gathered on the road at the point where the trees ceased, standing in front of the first dazzling white, low buildings of Akhetaten. With beating heart she recognized the royal palanquin. Her bearers lowered her but she did not alight, and for a moment the hundreds of courtiers and soldiers stood motionless while she drew in her reserves of dignity. She saw that Nefertiti was staring at her, breathtakingly lovely but expressionless under a stiff cone crown, while the three elder princesses, painted and heavily jeweled and dressed, like their mother, in the filmiest of linens, lounged under the canopy of the palanquin, whispering to each other.

  Finally Pharaoh came forward, and servants rushed to offer their shoulders for Tiye’s balance as she stepped onto the road and walked to meet him. Ay paced beside Akhenaten, the scarlet ostrich fan over one shoulder. Preceding them was a priest, chanting solemnly as he carefully backed toward Tiye, sprinkling the ground before Pharaoh’s feet with purifying water. Long before Akhenaten reached her, he had begun smiling. Her hands went out. He grasped and kissed them and then drew her closer, pressing his red lips into her neck, both cheeks, and finally against her mouth. “Majesty Mother. Empress, this is a great day!” he breathed, embracing her. “The whole city waits to honor you. The sun and his mother are reunited!”

  “It is good to touch you again, Akhenaten,” she replied, but beneath the surge of love that rose in her was a chill of apprehension. His voice had not changed but was as high and piercing as ever. Nor had the lines of his face, the beautiful, clean swoop of the nose, the mild almond eyes ringed in gleaming kohl, the long jut of the chin. But through the loose, sheer woman’s gown that trailed around him she could see how stooped and sunken his frail chest had become, how low-slung and protuberant his soft belly, how much whiter and fatter his thighs. She had expected such marks of aging in him. What she had not anticipated was the development of his breasts, now unusually large, the nipples thickly painted a bright orange. Sternly she forced her gaze to leave them. She signaled, and her children came to prostrate themselves before him.

  “Stand!” Akhenaten shrieked delightedly. “This cannot be my brother Smenkhara! So tall, so manly! Come, kiss your pharaoh.” Smenkhara stepped dutifully into the open arms, and as Akhenaten kissed him fervently on the mouth, Tiye saw the boy go red with embarrassment under the yellow paint on his cheeks. Pharaoh turned to Beketaten. Tenderly he stroked her hands. “My own princess,” he said. “You, too, have grown. You still have the sky-blue eyes of my empress. How beautiful you are!” Bending, he kissed her also, and Tiye caught her brother’s eye. Ay’s expression was stiffly unreadable. Tutankhaten stood unsteadily holding his nurse’s hand, his round black eyes on his father. Akhenaten lifted him,
and the chubby arms went around his neck, one hand reaching for Pharaoh’s jasper earring. “So this is my son, the prince of my body. At last! Is he well, Tiye, is his health good? I have been thinking of betrothing him to one of his sisters. All of us, holding hands, an unbreakable circle! Let us continue on our way. It is time to receive the yearly tribute and then to feast together.”

  His priest rushed forward and again began to sprinkle the ground as Pharaoh turned after handing Tutankhaten back to his nurse. Tiye bowed, relieved that Akhenaten had not thought to command Nefertiti and the princesses to greet her, but she did not fail to notice the intense, joyful glance Smenkhara had exchanged with Meritaten. One thing at a time, she thought as she regained the throne and watched the heavy royal palanquin being smoothly hoisted onto the shoulders of Pharaoh’s bearers. Smenkhara began to edge forward as Meritaten loitered behind, but at a sharp word from Tiye he sullenly fell into step with Beketaten.

  On the slow walk to the palace, Tiye had ample time to observe both her son and his queen, and the sights of Akhetaten. Above the glinting gold backs of the chairs on the palanquin, the cone and the blue bag wig almost constantly drew together. She saw Akhenaten and Nefertiti kiss and gaze into each other’s eyes. She saw Nefertiti’s head droop becomingly and briefly onto her husband’s shoulder. The princesses walked, skipped, or danced beside the palanquin, often holding hands or draping braceleted arms around one another, ignoring the tumult around them. Tiye looked about her. The Royal Road was pleasingly broad, lined with soldiers who held back a roaring multitude. She would have liked her curtains untied so that her face might not be displayed to commoners, but evidently such considerations had no place here. The crush of people struggled to lie on the stone of the road as Pharaoh passed but rose and cheered her as she was carried by. The side streets that opened off the main thoroughfare were also choked with people. Glancing over their heads, Tiye saw pleasant squares with trees and the fronts of small houses, which, while no match for estates like Horemheb’s or Ay’s, were still spacious and contained courtyards filled with greenery behind their high, sheltering walls. Only once did she glimpse a jarring ugliness. One street that caught her eye led, unchecked by verdure or marketplace, past several walls and gates and straight out onto the desert. Where it disappeared into the sand there was a jumble of mud shanties and a litter of offal.