Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,57

my sister was beginning to swell at the waist.

Her husband was delighted. He would sit with her by the hour, his fingers stroking the curve under which the child lay, naming her Phoenix, self-created, impregnated by the god, Mother of Miracles. He ordered artisans to paint her rooms with the story of the Benben bird, which flew through the sky in a burst of cosmic flame and laid a black stone egg which one day would hatch to produce another firebird. Nefertiti was so delighted that she glowed. She adopted the stance of the pregnant woman long before her burden became heavy, the hand to the small of the back, the slowed movements; she who had been so lithe and quick.

Meanwhile it was Opet, the festival of the New Year and the day when Amen-Re came to his wife Mut and stayed with her a decan. I knew that the Sacred Barge had been refurbished and repainted, that the priests of the god and the goddess were fasting in preparation for the Mystery Play, where the Chief Priest and the Chief Priestess would enact the roles of the gods and ensure that the Nile rose to flood the thirsty land.

The royal family would attend, of course. Nefertiti insisted that she was well, had never been so happy, and would not be denied; and her husband the Lord Akhnamen may he live did not protest, saying that the Phoenix knew what was fitting for her avatar.

I asked Teacher Khons about the Phoenix, and he had no more to tell me than the story I already knew, which seemed curiously pointless, though circular. He did add that the Bennu or Benben bird had been worshipped a long time ago by the ones who built the pyramids, those Houses of Eternity which dotted Desaret, huge, strange, and of mysterious purpose. The capstone of each pyramid, he said, was carved with the Phoenix.

This did not make my sister’s husband’s remarks any clearer. Nor did his endless insistence on the primacy of the Aten, an immortal, unknowable creator whose visible symbol was the disc of the sun.

In the Black Land we knew of the sun, of course, it shone every day, it was the god Amen-Re who appeared in many forms, but sunlight itself was dangerous. The rays of Re could wound and blister, and only field workers and the common people went out into it, and no one could look at Him. But I saw my lord Akhnamen staring into the sun at noon as though the heat and brightness would not blind his eyes, and wondered how long he could do that without sacrificing his sight to his Aten.

In any case it seemed to have nothing to do with the festival of the New Year, and I was going out with my sister Merope and Teacher Khons to enjoy it.

We began our walk before dawn. We could have travelled in a carriage, and Mother Tey had urged my sister to do so, but she said that the motion of the horses made her sick and left her bruised and she was perfectly capable of a gentle pace for a few shoeni along the well made temple road between the rows of ram-headed sphinxes.

I love processions. Ahead were the trumpeters, the drummers, the players upon both the short and the long pipe, and the women shaking sistra—which made a sound like a rattle. Everyone was wearing their best clothes to honour the god; everyone was hungry after the strict fast of the Epact Day of Set, on which no work is done and no food consumed. The early morning was cool, with some condensation still on the trees, and the river was already beginning to rise.

I could smell green things and growing waters, when the gusts of perfume from the nearest people cleared. We smelt lovely. From the lotus and galbanum of my sister and King Akhnamen may he live to the robust male scents of labdanum and cassia and the aromatic Nubian oils from the Chief Royal Scribe who walked next to the King. My lord Ptah-hotep smelt of clove and cinnamon and I walked closer to him and drew in several deep breaths.

They said that he had a fascination for black women, that he was conducting orgies with his Nubians and that he was a commoner, but I did not mind. It was none of my business; though I did wonder what it would be like to lie down with identical twins.