Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,110

really sinful, and churlish to refuse in the middle of such a lavish feast.’

‘Yes, I ate some of it, it was very good,’ agreed my lady. ‘But I have often eaten fish. Except for the one kind which consumed Osiris’ phallus, it is not forbidden to Isis, just to the palace, and I always thought that that prohibition had something to do with making sure that the palace didn’t eat all the fish and leave nothing for the common people.’

‘To be sure, and many people at the feast would have eaten fish on their country estates. So it eased us into the greater transgression of the laws, do you see? By the time that grisly collation was being carried around, we had already broken one law so why not another? Be exiled for a flock, not one single goat, so says the maxim of the Divine Amenhotep-Osiris, how I wish that he had lived forever.’

‘I, too,’ she sighed.

‘I still think it is Pannefer,’ I stated.

‘Huy. A career selling broken down asses to unwilling buyers teaches that sort of dirty skill,’ she insisted.

‘You may be right, my heart. Now, how do you feel? As though you are doomed to be eaten after death? As though your heart must sink against the feather?’

‘We ate as little as we could,’ she said slowly, curling one strand of night-black hair around her strong finger. ‘We ran away as soon as we could. We coupled like beasts, but that was the night and the feast and the poisoned wine, and our own lust which it magnified, and lust is not a sin if the object is free and consenting.’

‘You flung me to the floor, lady, I didn’t have time to consent,’ I protested.

And she said gravely,’ You were consenting in your heart. I could tell from the way you tore off your clothes.’ Then she grinned and her eyes were much brighter than they had a right to be after the night we had spent and the wine we had consumed. I laughed at her reply and she continued.

‘So therefore, no, although I will confess this to Maat and Thoth, I do not expect that one act to weight against my heart too badly. As long as I don’t do it again.’

‘The mating?’ I objected.

‘The blasphemy,’ she reproved.

‘Ah,’ I was comforted.

‘But what they will do to the author of this abomination,’ she said slowly, ‘Does not bear thinking about.’

We sat together companionably, both considering with vengeful pleasure the centuries it would take the serpent Apep to digest my lord Akhnaten in its boiling belly, and we laughed so much that Meryt released her prisoner, wiped porridge off her face, and asked us what the joke was. And we couldn’t tell her.

Chapter Twenty

Mutnodjme

The decan which followed the abominable feast was very quiet. People avoided each other’s eyes. Husbands and wives were careful of each other and servants walked on tip toe.

Widow-Queen Tiye had heard all about it by the time I came back to her apartments.

‘Blasphemy,’ she snorted. ‘But tame enough, if one thinks about it. I am glad I was not there. I might have said something which even my son could not forgive. For what use has a eunuch for menhep herb? Ah, well, it is with the gods and they are not going to be very happy about this,’ she warned.

It was no use asking Tiye may she live about whether she thought that, by eating the flesh of a sacred beast, Ptah-hotep and I had committed an unforgivable sin. Tiye the Queen had no patience with religion. Her view was that most things could be explained to the Divine Judges, and if they did not exist then they could be explained to the Aten, and she was prepared to berate either or both of them for creating her son Akhnaten.

‘I was strong and loving and so was his father and we birthed and nurtured him as well as we could,’ she argued. ‘If he isn’t the fault of the gods, then whose fault is he?’

It was a good question and I didn’t have the answer.

Nefertiti mourned her dead child fittingly but briefly. Her putative father King Akhnaten cried for a day and then forgot about her. Now there were five royal children of Amarna and I did not like the look of the next little princess, Neferneferure. She was sitting on the floor with Tutankhaten, playing with blocks. The boy was thin but sturdy, taking after his mother like the child Smenkhare.