Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,89

child herself.

Her little monkeyish face screwed up into a grimace, she whispered, ‘Will they kill me, too?’

‘No,’ I said firmly, clutching her as she threw herself into my arms. ‘No, Ankhesenpaaten, they won’t kill you. Your Divine Father loves you, you know he loves you.’ And I was perfectly sure of this.

‘Then why…’ I could not tell her the real reason—that her father was completely mad—so I temporised.

‘People sometimes do things which we cannot understand,’ I said. ‘But you are safe, little royal daughter, of that I am certain.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ she concluded, wriggled to get down, and continued to show me through the palace.

I began to wonder about my sister Nefertiti’s care for her children. Mother Tey would not have liked answering a question about such a happening, but she would have answered. This child’s fears had gone unassuaged and she was obviously choosing her confidant, and her moment, carefully, with a tact not to be expected in one so young. I resolved to look into the state of the others. And what was Tey my mother doing about it?

As it happened, nothing. Tey my mother summoned me later that day to a room decorated with a harvest; the most beautiful, delicate, full-coloured painting I had ever seen. Tey, however, was just as ever, though older and thinner, a spare dark crone in the atmosphere of exotic richness which enfolded the palace of the City of the Sun.

‘Well, daughter,’ she offered her hand for me to kiss, and I sank to my knees to comply.

‘Well, Divine Nurse Tey?’ I asked in return. Her black eyes dissected me, flaying me skin from bones. I held her gaze for some time, until she looked away.

‘You are older, daughter, you are getting fat, which will not do; and you are just as inquisitive and selfish as ever,’ she commented.

‘True, mother, I have not changed, though I have learned a great deal,’ I replied, trying not to lose my temper.

‘False learning in service of a false god,’ she sneered.

‘But learning none the less,’ I returned.

‘Why have you come to Amarna?’ she demanded, and I told her that I had come with Widow-Queen Merope when my temple was closed. She leaned forward and grasped my upper arm in hard fingers.

‘Listen to me, daughter, you have come and I cannot send you away, because there is nowhere to send you now that the false worship you followed has been exposed. But if you have come to break apart your sister’s peace, to annoy her or interfere with her management, or come between her and her husband, I will send you to work as a prostitute in the worst tavern on the waterfront, do you hear?’

‘I hear,’ I said equably. She could certainly send me there, but nothing could make me stay there.

‘Nefertiti is happy, she is content, she has position, she is a priestess of her own cult, and I will not have you meddling, daughter!’

‘Mother,’ I agreed, knowing that the title would annoy her. Having made her point, she decided to push matters further, to demonstrate her control over me. Tey never wanted partners or even co-conspirators. She would never think of trying to persuade me to be nice to my sister and to acquiesce in her husband’s insanity. Tey only ever wanted slaves.

‘And I forbid you to marry Great Royal Scribe Ptah-hotep may he live.’

‘Oh?’ I asked. The temple’s training in self control was beginning to slip. I would have to leave soon, or I would lose my temper. ‘Why is that, Mother?’

‘He is far above you, disgraced daughter of an outmoded religion.’

What to do? If I argued with her I would have to stay in the same room as this tyrannical woman, and I was anxious to leave and breathe free air again. But I would more willingly spend a hundred years in the belly of the serpent Apep than obey Tey’s whim. However, she had given me an escape route. I was not being forbidden to see Ptah-hotep, just to marry him. I threw myself on my face, so that she could not see my lack of tears, and began to sob, clutching at the hem of her garment.

‘Mother, please do not deny me this marriage—it is my last chance!’ I wailed, which was true. I felt her satisfaction, heard it in her voice.

‘I forbid it,’ she purred, and weeping, I concurred.

‘I will not marry the Great Royal Scribe,’ I whispered, and she laid her hand on my head and