‘Master Mahu.’ I certainly recognised the voice.
‘Why, it’s Api! What brings you here?’
‘Your Aunt Isithia has died.’
‘How unfortunate!’
‘I thought I should come to inform you. She fell one night …’ Api’s mouth opened and closed. ‘She fell. She was on the roof terrace,’ he gabbled on, ‘and we heard a scream. She must have slipped.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘she must have slipped.’
‘But she hadn’t drunk much. She must have leaned over.’
I recalled the roof with its couches and its tables, the trelliswork fence. Isithia cradling her wine cup. Sobeck’s dark shadow creeping up the outside staircase. He always could move like a cat.
‘Death swoops like a falcon,’ I murmured.
Api was staring at me. ‘It’s a pity you never saw her before …’
‘It’s a pity I ever met her,’ I snarled.
Api recoiled. He fell to his knees, shuffling back, the toes of his sandals scraping the paving stones. ‘I meant to give no …’
‘None taken. Who inherits the old bitch’s house and goods?’
‘The priests of Amun: the house, the chattels, the land. They all go to the House of Silver at Karnak.’
‘And you?’ I asked.
‘Nothing! After years of service, nothing!’
I walked round him. Servants crossed the courtyard staring curiously at us.
‘And neither do I have anything to give you.’
‘Master, I thought you could help. You are soon to be Chief of Police in Thebes.’
‘What?’ I clutched the man by the front of his robe and dragged him to his feet. He was nothing more than a bag of bones. ‘What did you say? How do you know?’
‘Your aunt was talking about it just before she died. She was laughing. “Fancy Mahu,” she declared, “Baboon of the South becoming Chief of Police.” Master, I have nothing!’ he wailed again. I recalled Api trailing round after Aunt Isithia, no better than a dog.
‘I was never cruel to you,’ he moaned.
‘Did she kill my mother?’
Api stared at the ground.
‘Did she kill my mother?’ I insisted, loosening my grip.
‘In a way, yes. When your father was absent, it was one cruelty heaped upon another. After you were born,’ he hurried on, ‘your mother had a fever.’
‘Aunt Isithia’s potions!’ I stared up at the sky. I could have howled like a dog. ‘Because of that bitch I am what I am. Where’s her corpse?’
‘In the Necropolis, the House of Death belonging to the Guild of Falcons. The priests of Amun sent it there.’
‘I am sure they did. They’ll take her money and put her corpse into the nearest hole in the ground. She’s not to be buried with my parents. As for you …’
Api fell to his knees, hands outstretched. As Snefru came through the doorway, cudgel raised, I waved him back. I returned to my own quarters and brought back five small ingots, an ounou of silver and three precious stones. I pushed these into Api’s hands.
‘Goodbye, Api. You are a fortunate man.’
He drew his brows together.
‘I thought of killing you as well,’ I whispered.
His jaw dropped in horror and awe.
‘What did I say?’ I smiled. ‘I have forgotten already — so have you, haven’t you Api?’
I watched him go stumbling across the courtyard and immediately sent a message to Sobeck that I wished to meet him. In the days following I received no reply whilst I was soon taken up with the arrangements for the arrival of Princess Tadukhiya at the Palace of the Aten. She arrived on the appropriate day with a small retinue of giggling maids, carts full of treasure and a group of Hittite slaves. Akhenaten met her in the courtyard. The Princess herself sat hidden behind a veiled canopy. Akhenaten exchanged pleasantries with the notables who had escorted his new wife then dismissed them. Nefertiti, standing in cloth of gold, shimmering with gorgeous diamonds and precious stones, stood like a statue under the shade of a parasol held by Ay. Akhenaten inspected the gifts then turned to the Hittites, strange-looking men with the front part of their heads completely shaved, parrot-like faces and bizarre tattoos in dark blues and reds across their chests and arms. Akhenaten was fascinated by them even though they looked a sorry lot. He ordered them to sing a song of their own country and, whilst they did so, joined his wife under the parasol, tapping his foot on the ground, head slightly turned. The song was the most mournful dirge, more like the cackling of birds than the song of a choir. Nefertiti giggled. Akhenaten, however, acted as if something petty had distracted him. Once the song had ended, he asked them what they did in their own country. They replied that they were musicians captured in a raid.
‘Were you really?’ Akhenaten snapped his fingers.
I hurried across with another parasol and he walked round the slaves, touching their skin.
‘What do you think, Mahu?’
‘If they had to sing for their living,’ I replied, ‘they’d soon starve.’
Akhenaten grimaced. He continued his inspection. I noticed at the back of the group were two Medjay, scouts who accompanied the procession to make sure light fingers went nowhere near the treasure wagon. Whilst Akhenaten hummed a song under his breath and perused the carts full of treasure, I recalled what Api had told me. Was I to be made Chief of Police of Thebes? How had my aunt known? Why hadn’t Akhenaten discussed the matter with me?
‘I know what we’ll do.’ Akhenaten stood on top of the cart, his fine robes spilling out about him. ‘Mahu, I want these Hittites to wear women’s wigs and dress in female attire. I am going to call them my Orchestra of the Sun. I will educate them myself.’
‘Why women’s attire?’
‘Their days as warriors are finished.’ Akhenaten clambered out of the cart. ‘They will be a symbol of the everlasting peace which my reign will bring, when swords are hammered into ploughshares and the chariots of war become carriages of pleasure.’
I could see the Princess’s arrival had interrupted Akhenaten’s thinking so I kept silent. I was always nervous about talking to my master in public lest the name Akhenaten might slip from my lips. The Prince had made me swear a great oath, my hand over the Sun Disc, that his sacred name would remain hidden until his Father gave him a sign to publish it, as Akhenaten said, to the ends of the earth and beyond.
The retinue was becoming restless. Akhenaten had not been discourteous. It was customary for such a period of waiting to be observed before a prince met his new wife. The poor Hittites looked totally bemused, shuffling their feet and muttering to each other in their clicking tongue. Akhenaten went and stood by Nefertiti. At last the sweating palanquin-holders were ordered to release their precious burden. They did so gently, the curtains were pulled back and Tadukhiya emerged. She was small and dark, no more than fourteen summers old, her black hair bound up under a rather exotic head-dress. She was garbed in gaudy but costly robes. She tripped gracefully toward Akhenaten, who grasped her hands and kissed her on each cheek, staring down at her affectionately. The contrast between the two women was startling. The Mitanni was perfectly formed but rather small, with slanted eyes in a dark-skinned face, a pouting mouth, pointed ears, and her plump cheeks glistening with oil. Nefertiti visibly relaxed; this new wife would be no rival.
‘She looks like a monkey,’ she whispered to me. ‘That’s what we will call her.’
And so her name became Khiya. No cruelty was intended. Khiya was a term of endearment, no more insulting than Akhenaten’s greeting in which he described Nefertiti as ‘Ta-Shepses, the Favourite’. He welcomed her to the palace, staring down at her, grasping her hands whilst she gazed shyly back, raising a hand to her mouth to hide a smile, a gesture she repeated when taken across to meet Nefertiti. At the time I thought Khiya was stupid. I was wrong: she learned quickly and wanted to survive. I noticed how she did not need further introduction to my master’s retinue: Ay she knew by name and reputation, the same for other members of the household, myself included. Horemheb and Rameses were praised as great warriors and I realised, as she was taken through the group, that someone had explained to her in great detail her new husband’s household as well as the power and status of his notables. Khiya was given her own quarters in new chambers Ay had ordered to be built and soon came to be accepted more as Nefertiti’s principal lady-in-waiting than a wife in her own right. Indeed, Khiya trailed Nefertiti like a pet monkey, giggling and chattering a stream of innocent questions. Nefertiti was more than content.