hardened again and we moved now with some confidence, and at the second climax I heard myself cry aloud.
Chapter Nine
Mutnodjme
Nefertiti thought for a long time, and she did not tell me what she thought. But she had cast aside her cloth when she came into her own rooms, and as she lay naked across her bed on the reed mat I saw one hand stray to her nipple and roll it gently, a self-caress full of sorrow. She had never been a ‘woman of a hundred lovers’ even when she had played with our cousin, her first lover, in the stooks of cut hay. She had told me that he had pleased her and that she loved him, but Divine Father Ay had plans for Nefertiti—‘the beautiful one who is come’—most saleable of daughters. Our cousin was sent away to the army and later we heard that he had been killed in a border skirmish somewhere south in Kush.
I wondered suddenly about Horemheb, the captain, who had known his way to her bathing pool and bed-chamber when I had fallen into the Nile and nearly been eaten. Had he lain down in her arms as well? But Horemheb was also away on the borders, and in any case he was young and strong. He was not an old man.
Nefertiti sighed. She rubbed her temples as though her head hurt. Then she moved to the window, where she could catch the last glimpse of Amen-Re sinking over the edge of the world to traverse the Tuat, the twelve hours of night and the battle with the monster Apep of Teacher Khons’ story.
‘Lord Amen, you who know the hearts of all creatures, tell me what to do!’ she exclaimed. ‘I must conceive, my womb is hollow, it aches for a child. To do so I must lie with another man.’
‘He’s a god,’ I said, and she started at the unexpected voice, though she knew that I was there. ‘The Pharaoh is the avatar of the Lord Amen-Re; Teacher Khons said so. You aren’t lying with a man, but with a God.’
I realised, too late, that I had succeeded in arguing my sister into doing what I least wanted her to do, and bit my lip. For Nefertiti was smiling at me. She took me into her scented embrace and kissed me, and then turned me around by the shoulders.
‘Most intelligent little scribe! Go tell the Queen Tiye that I will do as she advises, as long as my lord knows and approves.’
I went, but I still didn’t like it.
I don’t know what the Great Royal Wife Tiye said to her Royal Son that evening, but she did speak to him; I saw him come and go from her apartments. I watched as the Queen’s maids cleared the corridor with a great tumult, screaming that there was a snake and that no one should come near until the snake-catcher could remove it.
Then I saw the King’s door open, and the old man came out into the empty hallway. He moved easily, though it was clear from the drooping of belly over his cloth and the laxity of the flesh at his throat and armpit, not to mention the white hair, that he was very old. His face was all lines, around his mouth, across his brow. He was scented with the rarest of oils and his hands, as he reached down to pat my shoulder, were long fingered and very clean with close cut nails. He wore only one ring, his coronation ring of the beetle Khephri who is Amen-Re at noon. I knew that he had been a soldier in his youth. There was a lateral scar across his chest where a spear had slashed him in the battle in Nubia. A battle which had decided him against any more wars, or so they said. So he must have once been young and strong and brave, like Horemheb.
He saw me and smiled, his understanding, intelligent smile.
‘Well, little maiden, we meet again.’
This was true and I saw no need to comment, but he held out his hand and I took it, kneeling as I was required to do when addressed by a god.
He lifted me to my feet and said, ‘Tell me, Mutnodjme, is this with your will?’
His dark eyes were very kind but exceptionally sharp and I could not lie to him.
‘No, Lord,’ I wriggled with embarrassment.
‘Is it with the lady’s will?’
‘Yes, Lord,’ I replied. His face, which had been troubled, cleared.
‘Then