Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,11
slaves. No one glared, but they all stared, some with curiosity, some with a determination to make sure that I did not keep my position while there was poison in the world. I could read them all. Meryt the Nubian had been right.
I was now required to stand and reply, and I did so. I was, for some reason, no longer afraid.
‘Life! Health! Strength to the Pharaoh Akhnamen!’ I cried, and the whole hall screamed the salutation, mostly with their mouths full.
‘Life! Health! Strength!’
I hoped that it would be so for me, too. But I would not have given high odds on my surviving until the next month.
Chapter Three
Mutnodjme
The problem with my mother Tey and myself was that we were too much alike.
She was sharp, intelligent, determined and curious, and so was I, though she called me insolent, too clever for my own good, stubborn and a spy. All her own attributes, and she didn’t like them in me.
Therefore she was all for sending me away, to my father Ay’s estates near Memphis. I think she was worried about what I might say, given the extremely delicate nature of my sister’s marriage. But Nefertiti would not allow this. Tey’s opposition faded away. Nefertiti always got what she wanted. She would persist and persist, never forgetting and never losing her temper, and eventually it became easier to allow her whatever she wanted; rather than to continue, churlishly, to oppose her will. My sister was gentle, but she was neither stupid or anyone’s dupe.
And she was determined to love her husband.
Marriages being dynastic or family matters, it was rare for the parties to have known each other before the woman came to live in her new husband’s house. Women had lovers, of course, and men had favourites, and we had no bans on youth enjoying itself.
After marriage, naturally, women and men were expected to be devoted to each other because the family was the unit established by the Gods for the comfort and protection of children and the feeding and clothing of the members. Husbands cared for wives, wives for husbands. Did not Hathor the Goddess of Beauty and Music go every year to Edfu to spend two weeks with her husband Horus in feasting and lovemaking? The world was designed for pleasure, and pleasure extended beyond the death of the body. In the Field of Reeds, the dead feasted every day on the offerings which were made in their tombs.
Despite my mother’s misgivings, therefore, I went with my sister Nefertiti when she went to lie for the first time with her husband the Divine Akhnamen.
She dismissed the other women at the door, thinking that her husband might be shy, and took only me with her, to undress her before she lay down in Pharaoh’s bed. We entered his apartments to the music of sistra and women’s voices, and the most beautiful woman sat down on a saddle-strung chair next to the bed on which the strange young man was lying.
He had retired early from the marriage feast, saying that he felt fevered, and there was an unhealthy slick of sweat on his face and his torso.
By rights, Nefertiti should have been in her own apartments, which were certainly grand enough, and he should have come to her. But it was her nature to understand fear, and she knew that he was afraid.
‘Is it you?’ he asked, reaching out a languid hand, which she took in both of her own.
‘It is I,’ she said gently. ‘Your wife.’
He twitched a little at that.
‘Is it your will that I should stay with you tonight?’ she asked, stroking the hand, which was long-fingered and elegant, unlike the rest of him.
‘It is,’ he whispered.
At her signal, I loosed the heavy pectoral and lifted it off my sister’s shoulders. I laid away all her jewellery, the rings and bracelets and the heavy gem-encrusted girdle. I loosed her sandals so that she could step out of them and laved her face and hands with cool water in which jasmine blossoms had been steeped. On impulse, I lifted King Akhnamen’s soft hands and sluiced and dried them, and then laid the wet cloth across his brow. His strange almond-shaped eyes considered me with some interest.
‘Who are you, dark lady?’ he asked, and I stifled a laugh.
‘I am Mutnodjme, lord, sister of your wife,’ I replied. He twitched again. That word definitely worried him. ‘Sister of Nefertiti, Lord. We are here to serve you,’ I added.