Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,144
judge by the way a cat was staring fixedly at one corner, contained grain and a few attendant rats. Sitting composedly in the middle of the hold was a soldier, the golden feathers of his headdress marking him as one of the Widow-Queen’s personal guard.
‘Good morning,’ I said to him.
‘Good morning, lord,’ he replied. ‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Better than the lady,’ I replied. ‘Where am I, where am I going, and what is happening?’ I asked, three good questions.
‘Lord, you are on the boat Thousand Fishes In A Net. You are safe, you are going to a place owned by one of the Widow-Queen Tiye’s daughters, and you have been saved from certain death,’ he replied. Three good answers.
‘Have we anything to drink?’ I asked. I was coated with ash from head to foot and some of it had dried out my throat. The young man gave me a flask of mixed wine and water and I swilled, spat, and then drank thirstily.
‘Can I go up on deck?’
‘No, lord, I have orders to make sure that you are not seen by anyone. We will put ashore as soon as it gets dark. Then you may go up and breathe the air,’ he responded.
‘This seems to have been a very well-conducted rescue.’
‘Lord, the Widow-Queen planned it, and there is no better strategist. I am her chief of the guard, Lord Ptah-hotep. My name is Aapahte.’ He bowed slightly from where he sat and I nodded.
Then he went on in a worried tone, despite his crisp military delivery, ‘I have been with her for years, the red-headed woman. I and my men are the Sekmet guard. I have never known her to make a major tactical error. Though I am worried about her now. If the king or his two slimy ministers saw her in the courtyard of the Phoenix, she may be in danger. She never agreed to initiation into that cult.’
‘But what about the body of the queen? I saw it myself, it was definitely Nefertiti may she live.’
‘No, lord, it was…’
‘Yes, what was it?’ asked the queen, her nausea abated. ‘He meant to kill me, to burn me to death, my husband meant to kill me! I have done all he wished, comforted him and soothed him, given him children, even watched over dreadful things done in his name and the name of his god. And then he tried to kill me; he really meant to kill me!’ Her voice rose to a tearful wail.
I did not know if it was in the least proper, but I accepted her as she flung herself into my arms and held her close.
She wept for some minutes, racked with pain, then demanded of Aapahte, ‘Who went into the flame instead of me? Not Mutnodjme, not my sister—tell me that it was not her!’
‘No, lady, it was a model, a huge puppet such as the dancers for Osiris used to make and carry around the streets,’ said Aapahte. ‘The best sculptor in Amarna made it. He has the measurements of your face, lady, and he made a carving, a mask which fitted over the puppet’s head. It wore your jewellery and your wig, lady. It looked just like you.
‘Meanwhile you had been drugged and smuggled out of the palace. I myself had the honour of carrying you. The Widow-Queen did not know whether you might be consenting to that sacrifice, lady, perhaps out of love for your husband. She could not afford to chance asking you.’
‘I see that,’ said Nefertiti slowly. ‘Yes, if my lord Akhnaten had put it to me that I would rise again as myself, I might have consented; but he did not. He just sent Huy to tell me to ready myself for death, because I was old and no longer fertile and he was marrying my daughter Mekhetaten that night. I suppose he must have married her by now. No, the Lady Tiye acted rightly, though not in accord with my royal dignity,’ decided Nefertiti.
I began to think that perhaps she was not very intelligent.
‘Lady, why did you ask Aapahte here to tell you that it was not Mutnodjme who died in your place?’ I asked.
‘Oh, that odious Huy told me that if I would not die, then Mutnodjme would have to die in my place. I told him that it could not be her. She was initiated, of course, but I was the avatar of the Phoenix so it would have to be me. The very idea!’