Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,90

called me her good daughter.

Then she dismissed me. I went out with my stole over my dry face, and reflected that luxury and position had not improved the character of my mother.

It had also not done wonders for mine. I had just lied to my mother; or rather evaded the truth to deceive her. I would have to confess that at the end of my life. Assuming that Osiris and Isis still judged the dead and weighed their hearts against the feather of Maat.

I walked through the painted palace to the apartments of the Widow-Queens Tiye and Merope, and arrived in time for the noon meal.

‘The arrangements for the sed-festival are far advanced,’ commented Tiye. ‘I would have forbidden them if I had known. A sed festival—for a king who has reigned for such a short time? Ridiculous! But now it is too late.

‘Have some of this pheasant, child, it is delicious. My son has excellent cooks, it is plain. Do you know how much bread and beer the palace is providing for the residents of Amarna? Thousands of loaves, oceans of beer. My own lord Amenhotep-Osiris, may his soul be joyful forever in the Field of Reeds, gave lavish feasts and no one left without being fed properly, but this is beyond belief. He distributes this much food every decan, for the festival of the Aten on the tenth day. How can Egypt afford it?’

‘And the river is low,’ I agreed, taking some of the perfectly cooked flesh. It was very tasty and I took some more.

‘How was the lady your mother?’ asked Merope.

‘Much as ever, and she has forbidden me to marry the Great Royal Scribe.’

‘Why?’ asked Merope.

‘She is demonstrating her power over me.’

‘I see. Would you like me to speak to my son about this marriage?’ asked Tiye the Queen, eying me keenly.

‘No, Lady, I have agreed. I am too old to marry, anyway, I am almost nineteen. But she did not forbid me to see him,’ I added, and Merope chuckled.

‘We played that trick on her when we were children,’ she said. ‘She still hasn’t learned it!’

‘No, Tey has always been straightforward. Unpleasant, but straightforward,’ said Tiye. ‘She was a good midwife, but she no longer attends births. In fact, I believe that she does nothing but intrigue for more land and more power for the Divine Father Ay, who has, in my view, enough gold and power already. Tey was a better woman when she had tasks to perform. What is that noise?’

‘People are gathering in the square,’ said Merope, looking out of the window.

The windows of the palace of Amarna had deep embrasures. I could lean my elbows on the sill. I did so, next to Merope’s uncovered head.

The sun was bright even though it was only Khoiak, the season of the birth of Osiris, once the festival of the breaching of the sluices into the inland plain. The next month, Tybi, would bring the sed festival, and the time which had been the mystic marriage of Isis and Osiris. Khoiak was not usually terribly warm but midday in any season was hot in the full glare of the sun.

‘What are they all doing out in the open without any canopy?’ asked Merope. ‘Midday is the time to avoid the gaze of Amen-Re, I mean the Aten. They’ll be burned.’

‘So they will,’ I agreed. The crowd outside began to chant, all at once, the Hymn to the Aten, a poem which I had seen many years ago as a child. The scribe Ptah-hotep had shown it to me. Akhnaten may he live had written it. At intervals the crowd, courtiers and bricklayers alike, raised their arms to the disc of the sun. I could see them squinting and blinking as sweat ran into their eyes.

‘There are the Pharaoh and the Queen, at that window over there,’ Merope pointed. Safely out of the full glare of the sun, Akhnaten raised his hands in homage to the sun-disc, and Nefertiti my sister held out handfuls of arm rings and necklets which glittered so brightly that I could not look at them.

The service concluded. There was my father Ay, dressed as I had imagined in the leopard skin of a full priest, and as he held out his hands Nefertiti dropped a golden necklace into his grasp. His fingers snapped shut, as they always did on gold, and the crowd scrambled for the golden beads and bracelets which were sown broadcast through the mob by the King.