I recalled that blood-stained napkin but remained silent.
‘And what will happen to his younger brother,’ she asked, ‘when I am gone? Kept here,’ she stared around, ‘well away from the public gaze and prying eyes, will he demand to be treated as Pharaoh’s blood brother? Go into the temples, Mahu, walk the streets of Thebes? You know the song as well as I do. “Pharaoh is Egypt, Egypt is Pharaoh, the beloved son of Ra.” How can the gods love Egypt if the Divine One has a disabled son, distasteful to the public eye? A cripple, malformed?’
‘He is none of those things, Your Excellency.’
‘No he isn’t, Mahu. In my eyes he is the Beautiful One.’ She blinked away her tears. ‘But it’s his heart not his body the temple priests fear. He has no time either for them or their gods. Oh, I know about his dinner parties here and the way he mocks the shaven heads, the soft pates.’ She turned her face sideways, studying me out of the corner of her eye. ‘He has good reason to hate them. As a child he was moved from the nursery to the House of Life in the Temple of Isis. He was there two years before I discovered the cruelty and abuse to which he was subjected. They knew about his father’s disapproval and they mocked him. I took him out but, even at court, I could not protect him all the time. This place was Hotep’s idea.’ She gestured around. ‘I suppose he’s happiest here. He asks for very little.’
‘And Tuthmosis?’
‘His brother feels guilty. I am not too sure if it’s love or guilt.’
‘Could there be a reconciliation?’ I asked. Here was a Great Queen of Egypt confiding in a commoner, chatting about her son like some washerwoman down at the Nile.
‘Never,’ she replied. ‘My husband believes his second son is accursed. When he heard about this place he issued a decree. No one was to serve my son but grotesques.’ She smiled thinly. ‘Except you and, as for that,’ she sniffed, ‘well, never mind!’
She rose to her feet and walked down the hall. Whoever was lurking there stepped out of the shadows. I heard a soft footfall but I dared not turn round. She came back arms wrapped across her chest.
‘And the future?’ She sat down on the cushions. ‘And the future?’ she repeated as if talking to herself. ‘What will happen to my son when the Divine One goes into the Far West and I follow him? Will his brother protect him?’ She shivered and rubbed her arms. ‘And what happens,’ she continued in a whisper, ‘if Tuthmosis begets no heir but also goes into the Far West? Will the priests, the generals accept what they call a grotesque Pharaoh? Well, my Baboon, what do you think?’
‘Excellency, I think nothing.’ I was determined not to mention that I had seen the red-flecked napkin Tuthmosis had coughed into.
‘Go on, clever Baboon,’ she urged. ‘You are thinking something.’
‘May the Crown Prince Tuthmosis,’ I declared, reciting the conventional phrase, ‘live for a million years. May he enjoy jubilee after jubilee. May he see his children’s children and may his power and glory be felt by the people of the Nine Bows.’
‘So be it. So be it,’ Tiye responded.
‘But, if you have thought about the future,’ I chose my words carefully, ‘so has your husband, the Divine One.’
Tiye’s mouth opened and closed.
‘And?’
‘Is there somewhere a papyrus document, sealed with the Divine One’s cartouche, which gives instructions on what is to happen?’
Tiye closed her eyes. I had expected a blow, even an objection but we were past that. Tiye was chatting to me because, in truth, I was nothing: in the eyes of the Divine One, a mere fleck of dust, a few heartbeats away from total silence. But now I was voicing her own fear, like a priest in a chapel listening to the confessions of some devout pilgrims.
‘Is there, Your Excellency?’ I repeated.
‘What do you think, Mother?’
This time I heard the footstep and turned. The Veiled One, dressed in a long white robe gathered at the waist, stood a few yards away, an arrow notched to the powerful Syrian bow. He was standing slightly sideways, a calculating look on that long face. He was watching his mother, waiting for a signal.
‘Should we kill the Baboon, Mother?’
‘If you kill the Baboon, master,’ I replied, staring at Queen Tiye, ‘then you have lost a true friend and a lifelong ally.’
I heard the bow being pulled back but I couldn’t move. I sat frozen. Queen Tiye was no longer staring at her son but at me. I heard a sharp intake of breath, the twang of the cord and the arrow whistled past over our heads to smack into the wall. Tiye’s face creased into a smile.
‘Baboon can be trusted. Come, my son.’
I heard the bow and quiver clatter to the ground. The Veiled One joined us on the daïs, plumping up the cushions, sitting down breathing quickly, eyes gleeful and bright.
‘Did you really think, Mahu, I’d put an arrow into your back? Do you know what you are, Mahu? You are my baboon. When the Medjay go through the marketplace at Thebes their trained baboons go with them to catch felons and thieves. I am surrounded by felons and thieves, at least beyond these walls. You must have many questions but you never ask them.’ He leaned forward. ‘Where do my mother and I go at the dead of night? Who are those strange visitors? One day you’ll know. In the meantime you are to catch the thieves and felons who want to take my life and send my soul into the darkness. He who ordains all things has ordained this.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I listened to what my mother has told you, it is the truth. I do not intend to die, Mahu, but to live for my true Father Aten, the Beautiful One, who rides on the Far Horizon.’ His hand curled out. ‘In whose eyes, a million years are as yesterday, a brief watch in the night. Oh by the way, your friend Sobeck …’ He glanced sideways at his mother. ‘I am sure he was betrayed. My mother used her influence to ensure that Sobeck does not die in the Red Lands.’ He stretched across and tugged my hair playfully. ‘You have won great favour, Mahu. Never forget that.’ He leaned back and rubbed his hands together. ‘In the meantime, let’s have a party. We’ll invite your friends from the Kap — it would be good to see them all again, wouldn’t it, Mahu?’
His mouth smiled but his eyes were cold, devoid of any feeling. Bowing my head, I realised that for better, for worse, in this deadly game of plot and counter-plot, I could not escape.
The hieroglyph for ‘The Beloved’ — mri/merry — combines the hoe and two flowering reeds.
Chapter 6
The harpist plucked at the strings, sending out the bittersweet sound. His shaven head went down, even as we clapped and cheered at the beauty of his song about the glory of love. The Veiled One’s hall had been transformed for this feast, lit by scented candles and oil glowing in precious alabaster jars. We sat at our ebony-inlaid table which groaned under a splendid banquet: fish, fried and grilled in a sauce of olive oil, onions, hazelnuts, salt and freshly ground black pepper; white fish, their firm flesh coated with the sauce of pine nuts, almonds and garlic cloves; beef and lamb covered with chick peas and cumin; tajeens of beef and lamb in artichoke. Our goblets had been constantly filled with the finest wines.