‘She is pretty and rather empty-headed,’ Nefertiti confided in me when we walked in the orchard to take the breeze wafting in from the river. Nefertiti often insisted on this, walking slowly, holding her stomach whilst discussing the doings of the day. Pregnancy had given her a fullness, a contentment which enhanced her beauty, a gracefulness both alluring and majestic. I had not forgotten that day in the orchard, the strange drink and even stranger dreams which followed. Nefertiti made no reference to this but treated me as a brother, asking my advice or questioning me about my first meeting with her husband. Khiya never joined us on such walks.
‘She can certainly talk,’ Nefertiti confided. ‘She chatters like a monkey, Mahu. Does she ever confide in you?’
I shook my head. I never said what I really knew or felt, at least not until I was certain. I would have loved to have questioned Nefertiti about Api’s strange remark about being appointed Chief of Police at Thebes. The honour intrigued me yet I was wary; such an office could mean my removal from the Royal Household and, above all, from her presence.
‘Do you think Khiya stupid, Mahu?’
‘No one is stupid.’
Nefertiti clapped her hands and laughed. ‘There speaks the bodyguard.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘The Chief of Police.’
‘Chief of police?’ I queried.
‘We’ll, that’s what you are, isn’t it, Mahu? Searching out those who wish to hurt my beloved? Protecting us?’
‘You have Horemheb and Rameses, not to mention your Uncle Nakhtimin.’
‘Put not your trust, Mahu, in the power of Pharaoh nor your confidence in the war-chariots of Egypt.’ She shivered and rubbed her arms. ‘Years ago in Akhmin I visited one of those soothsayers. She said my death would be at the hands of a great friend.’
‘My aunt was a soothsayer. I don’t believe in such things.’
‘You don’t believe in anything, do you, Mahu?’ She came closer. ‘What is Amun to you, or the power of the Aten? Well?’
‘I find it difficult to believe,’ I replied, ‘as my master does, that the gods wander the heavens like the massed priests of Amun. Go down to Thebes, Excellency, watch the seething mass of people. Do you really think the gods are interested in them?’
‘But the Aten?’ she insisted. ‘The One? The Invisible and Undivided?’
‘I wish him well, Excellency. And, when he introduces himself to me, I’ll return the courtesy.’
Nefertiti tweaked my cheek, grasped my arm and walked on down the pebbled path between the trellised fence of the vine groves. ‘We were talking about Khiya, an empty-head, a mere child. But,’ Nefertiti paused. ‘Sometimes, you watch me, Mahu. Why?’
‘You know the reason,’ I replied softly.
Again the laugh, this time self-conscious.
‘Khiya is different. She watches me like a monkey, as if learning my movements, wanting to imitate them.’
‘She’s in awe of you,’ I replied. ‘She wishes to please.’
‘A willing student in the arts of love,’ Nefertiti replied mischievously, ‘very astute, very active and eager. I have watched her closely. I had to tell her that squatting on all fours is not the only pose for a Princess of Egypt. She is also very noisy. Squeals like a cat. Akhenaten is much taken with her.’
In fact Akhenaten treated Khiya with great affection as if she was some newly bought toy. She often joined us at meals and, when he decided to walk in the cool of the evening, she would always be invited along. Nefertiti, of course, watched her like a bird of prey would its next meal.
‘She’ll never breed,’ she confided hotly. ‘No child of hers will wear the Double Crown of Egypt.’
Of course, as the weeks passed, Khiya became accustomed to the routine of the court. Ay was now often absent or closeted in his own chamber, poring over maps as well as reports from his myriad spies in Thebes. But he did not distance himself from me; we met every day for at least an hour. Ay had delineated my duties most carefully.
‘You, Mahu,’ he would sit squatting on a cushion, hands extended, ‘you are to watch and guard the Palace of the Aten. I will take care of affairs beyond its walls.’
And then he would deal with business: describing the affairs of Egypt, the deployment of his regiments, the rumours and gossip from the temples, the quality of the harvest, the bartering in the marketplace. He pursued one aim — to keep everything in order to sustain harmony.
‘Let the days merge into each other,’ he remarked. ‘Let people not realise’ — he gave that crooked smile — ‘at least not now, that there is a new power in Egypt.’
I was tempted to raise the question of the post of Chief of Police in Thebes, but I decided against it. Ay himself was responsible for this. The city had two Police Chiefs, one for the East and one for the West of Thebes; they reported directly to Rahimere, the Mayor. Any change in this would have disturbed the harmony, the peace Ay so zealously pursued.
‘Keep close to Khiya,’ he also advised. ‘She’s new to the palace.’
‘But one day, surely,’ I mused, ‘our master will have his own harem, his House of Love? We can’t watch them all.’
‘One day, some day,’ Ay retorted caustically. ‘That does not matter. For the moment you have your orders.’
I didn’t need to watch Khiya. She watched me. I never really understood the attraction. She had learned about her nickname and accepted it with her usual good-natured charm. Perhaps it was mine, Baboon of the South, or the fact that she had seen Akhenaten and Nefertiti confide in me and thought that whatever was good for the Great Royal Wife was good for her. At table she would always single me out for comment or just sit and stare, those black eyes studying me curiously. As Nefertiti became more confined to her own quarters, surrounded by physicians under Pentju and the ever-chattering midwives, Khiya would search me out. We’d walk hand-in-hand like brother and sister through the palace grounds. Sometimes, when we were well away from public view, she’d sit at my feet like a scholar in the House of Instruction and gaze up at me. In some ways she was like Nefertiti, asking me question after question about her new husband, his early days. On occasion we could hear him training his orchestra, and Khiya would laugh.
‘So strange,’ she mused, ‘how he is interested in so many minor matters. He showed me his House of Paintings. The Prince explained how all art must speak the truth. But what is the truth, Mahu? Why is he attracted to the Aten? In my country we have many gods — they live in the trees and rocks.’
I’d answer like a teacher or an absentminded father would his daughter. On one occasion she looked away, then glanced back. I saw it, just for a moment, a knowing look, eyes a thousand years old in a mere child’s face. Oh, we all underestimated Khiya — and that includes myself. Yes, there was the usual feeling of unease but nothing alarming, just a glance, the pitch of her voice but we constantly misread the signs. If we met a jackal skulking through the narrow streets of the Necropolis, an ibis wading through the Nile or an ape grinning behind some palm fronds, we reckoned it must be the visitation of a god, a sign of things to come. We ignored Khiya at our cost and the price we paid was terrible. Ay confessed she was his real mistake and, if that cobra of a man could be deceived, why not me?