Horizon of the Aten, the independent reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten
Nefertiti woke before sunrise. She turned onto her side and beheld a servant creeping about, lighting lamps. Her eye caught a scene from a wall mural of her and the children in a reed skiff. The boat floated in a marsh brimming with wildfowl. In the image heron and ducks fluttered above her head as she drew back a throw stick and took aim. Akhenaten had offered to have the scene repainted to omit Meketaten, but she'd refused. Her little girl was gone, and all she had left were things-clothing, toys, and paintings of the child like this one.
Meketaten had been her second-born, a little bundle of endearing glee who'd found gravity and decorum almost beyond her nature. After she died, Nefertiti hadn't wanted to live. Only the thought of leaving her five remaining daughters had kept her tethered to this world. Sometimes she went to the playroom in the queen's palace, where the girls were allowed to draw, and studied the dabs and streaks of red, yellow, and green that Meketaten had splashed on the floor and walls. No one had approved of her allowing the children such freedom. Royal princesses should be brought up mannered and well groomed and not given the freedom to spatter paint around an entire room. Nefertiti had ignored such advice, and Akhenaten, who had suffered from a royal upbringing, had sided with her.
This mural of the girls was her favorite. Nefertiti loved the cool blues, greens, and blue grays of the feathers and water. It was disappointing that the girls' bodies had been drawn with sagging middles like Akhenaten's. She wished everyone didn't have to look like a potter's discard simply because Akhenaten didn't have wide shoulders and a muscled torso.
Nefertiti rose from the bed and clapped her hands. Attendants appeared with toiletries. Even after so many months, it took all her considerable will to face a new day. There was a blackness about her heart that tinged the world with gloom. Desolation reigned her ka, and she knew she would never recover from losing that little being who had come from her body to bless her life with laughter. And even if she hadn't wanted to live for her children's sake, there was Egypt. Egypt was troubled, for pharaoh was troubled.
Akhenaten's hatred of the old order increased daily, fed by defiant priests and subjects. The people obeyed Akhenaten's edicts in form but believed as they always had in their hearts. And now pharaoh's frustration and hatred had impelled him to do violence against his enemies-but she didn't want to sail down that stream of thought.
Despite her desolation, Nefertiti dressed and proceeded with her morning activities. She ate the morning meal with her girls, settled their quarrels, and reviewed their lessons with their tutors. She had interviews with a few of the countless officials of the queen's household-her steward, the overseer of the cabinet, the chief of hairdressers, the queen's herald, the traders of the queen's household, the overseer of the seal.
She listened to complaints from the bearer of floral offerings for the queen, the chief of musicians of the queen's household, and the merchant who'd provided horses for her chariot. Of them all, only Sebek, captain of the troops of the queen, had no laments. Much of the routine was tedious, but it gave Nefertiti a sense of continuity and security she badly needed.
The sun was above the eastern cliffs by the time she finished and was ready to join Akhenaten in the morning worship. As was her custom of late, she was to meet her husband at the great Aten temple in the southern city. The drive down the main road that spanned the city from north to south was filled with the din of construction. They'd moved to Horizon of the Aten so quickly that many buildings were still being constructed. Akhenaten simply hadn't the patience to wait. Even the great Aten temple was constructed primarily of mud brick, so great had been pharaoh's haste.
She had discussed the plan of Horizon of the Aten with her husband, and they'd agreed that, if they were to have any privacy, the royal palaces should be placed away from the rest of the city. So the enormous riverside palace was far north of the city, with her smaller palace a little farther south. Below these lay the city itself, with its vast Aten temple, ceremonial palace, and the King's House, which they used when in the city. Interspersed among the government buildings and in enclaves to the north and south were the rest of the city's inhabitants-the ministers, officials, servants, and artisans. Horizon of the Aten was like no other city in Egypt. It had been planned. All of it was new. And no other god had a temple there. Akhenaten was confronted with no reminders of opposition, of the old ways, of the old king of the gods- Amun.
At the great Aten temple, when pharaoh shuffled into the colonnaded courtyard, Nefertiti and her attendants were waiting. She gave her youngest lady's wig a surreptitious jerk so that it sat straight on the girl's head and joined her husband for the adoration. In front of her and to either side stretched altar after altar. Not for Akhenaten the mysterious, secluded ritual of old. No, he worshiped in the heat of the sun, his god, offering simultaneously with his priests at hundreds of altars. Often, when she'd been standing in the sun too long, Nefertiti longed for the practical structure of the old temples. The thick stone walls and darkness of the sanctuaries meant shelter from the dangerous heat of the sun-a blessing from the old gods of which Akhenaten seemed oblivious.
After the ceremony Nefertiti accompanied pharaoh to the great audience hall of the ceremonial palace, where the king barely listened to reports from ministers and petitions from citizens, and received foreign delegations. Once she'd been proud that the ministers were carefully respectful of any advice she gave. When Akhenaten first allowed her to attend such governmental audiences, the ministers had assumed she knew little of the difficulties of expeditions to the gold mines of Nubia or the problems encountered in surveying crops for taxation. It hadn't taken long for them to learn otherwise. By contrast, Akhenaten seemed to think that any question would be solved by delegating it to a minister or by referring it to the divine wisdom of the Aten.
What was worse, pharaoh spent less than half the time his father had given to the task of governing. Long afternoons went by in the royal gardens, where Akhenaten would lounge under a tree watching his daughters play. Every day was a feast day, each night an occasion for dancing, juggling, love songs, and games. If Nefertiti hadn't taken an interest, government in the Two Lands would have floundered while pharaoh and his court diligently practiced sloth.
In the years since they'd come to Horizon of the Aten, Nefertiti had grown sick of afternoons spent prone on a couch with Akhenaten shoving food at her. She was fortunate that the solution to her problem had occurred to her. Invariably the heat, beer, and food lulled pharaoh into a nap each afternoon. She left as soon as Akhenaten fell asleep.
During these afternoons Nefertiti served as an unofficial vizier. What Akhenaten ignored and vizier Nakht mismanaged, she tried to salvage with her father's advice and help. Often Nefertiti joined Ay in the House of Correspondence of pharaoh, the office of works, or the police barracks.
One day she had discovered her father in the House of Correspondence, talking with the king's chamberlain, Tutu. The conversation centered around inventories of some kind, and Nefertiti grew tired of listening to them. She wandered through a hall where scribes sat in rows and scribbled notes on limestone flakes or wrote letters on expensive papyrus. She passed walls with shelves filled with docketed letters. Walking past five such archives, she finally reached a room where young apprentice scribes ground pigments for ink and burnished sheets of papyrus with smoothing stones. Remembering how cramped her fingers had become when she performed such tasks for Tati, Nefertiti watched several lads ply mortar and pestle. Across the room, through a door, she could see clerks taking delivery on a shipment of papyrus.
Drawing closer to the door, she watched slaves unloading bales from donkeys. She heard Ay calling to her and started back to the main hall. On her way she passed a room filled with clay tablets. The kingdoms of the Asiatics, Babylon, the cities of Palestine and Syria, all used the heavy cakes of earth as writing material instead of papyrus. A scribe would impress wedge-shaped symbols on moist clay and allow the inscription to dry. In Egypt, when the correspondence arrived, pharaoh's secretaries transcribed the clay tablets onto papyrus and then stored the clumsy originals.
Nefertiti picked up a sample. Someone had written the regnal year of Akhenaten and the date the letter was received on the side of the tablet. The edges of the brown cake were crumbling from being tossed about carelessly. Nefertiti ran her hand over the smooth surface of the tablet. Ay's voice came to her, and she hurried to join her father, the letter still in her hand.
She caught up with Ay and Tutu in the main hall. "I found one of the storage rooms. Imagine having to write on wet lumps like this all day."
"Cursed things," Tutu said. "There's a mountain of them in the courtyard out back. They took up so much room that the scribes shoveled them outside."
Ay took the tablet from Nefertiti. He held it to the light coming from a window.
"This is a letter from the prince of Gezer, majesty," Ay said to Nefertiti. "It was received three months ago."
Nefertiti turned slowly to face Tutu and asked quietly, "Why has pharaoh not been given a transcription of this?"
She watched Tutu peer at the tablet with a vague look on his face. The man waved his walking stick.
"Majesty, I'm sure someone probably already did that."
"You know very well the king entrusts all the correspondence from other lands to me," Nefertiti said. "My father and I summarize it for him each day, and neither of us have seen this letter. Come."
Her irritation growing, Nefertiti led the way to her find. Ay knelt beside a pile and held up one brick missive after another. In a few moments his hands were covered with dust, and his face looked as hard as the clay he handled. Nefertiti understood the look he gave her. She snapped at the chamberlain, "Who is chief transcriber?"
Tutu summoned the overseer of the House of Correspondence. The overseer summoned his assistant, who appeared after a slave was sent to find him. He scurried into the room with his mouth full of bread, wiping his hands on his kilt. At the sight of Nefertiti, the man started choking. The overseer pounded his back and thrust a cup of water at him. Nefertiti would have laughed if she hadn't been so furious.
"Speak," Ay said. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the scribe.
"Great lord, the only transcriber we had fell ill and died months ago. We sent for another, but since the temples were closed, it's been hard to find knowledgeable workers."
Nefertiti stared at the overseer of the House of Correspondence. "You only have one transcriber? For all of the writings that come from the monarchs of the Asiatics and across the waters of the Great Green, for all the vassals and petty princes, the tribal chiefs? One?"
"Actually they don't have even one," Ay said. "Haven't had for a long time, I'd say."
Nefertiti and Ay looked at Tutu. The chamberlain studied the carved tip of his walking stick while they waited. The scratch of reed pens on papyrus pierced the silence. Nefertiti could see the resentment in Tutu's eyes.
"The king complained of the amount of reading he had to do, even with thy majesty's help. Pharaoh was annoyed at the constant complaints and bickering of the vassals. His majesty spoke to me, and I suggested that we wait until many of the less important documents had collected. That way we could get rid of many at once instead of a few day after day. Pharaoh was pleased with my suggestion."
Trying to control her boiling temper, Nefertiti asked,
"How long were you going to wait before presenting this correspondence?"
"I await the request of pharaoh."
Ay almost shouted at the minister. "But the king probably thinks you'll come to him when you're ready!"
Tutu straightened his shoulders. He looked down his nose at Ay and sneered. "I understood the words of the good god perfectly. When the divine one wishes to see the writings of the wretched Asiatics, I will bring them before him."
"You'll bring them before me," Nefertiti said.
"But, majesty-"
"Do you question the word of the great royal wife?" Ay asked.
"No! Nonononoo."
Tutu bowed and bobbed and groveled before her. Disgusted, Nefertiti waved him out of the room.
As soon as the man was gone, Ay clasped her arm. "I know you were provoked, daughter, but tread carefully in your dealings with Tutu. He's a man who harbors resentments with the zeal of a miser."
"Don't worry, Father. I'll speak to Akhenaten. He'll be relieved that I've offered to take this burden from him completely. You know Tutu is right. His majesty barely tolerates listening to foreign delegations; he hates reading correspondence. And no matter what I do, Tutu will look upon my interest as an invasion. He's a petty little man." She gave her father a wry smile. "I wouldn't be surprised if he started throwing away tablets just to keep me from violating his boundaries."
"Things would be much easier if you succeed, daughter."
"Pray to the Aten that pharaoh allows me to speak." Nefertiti gave a small sigh. "He still thinks of me as a child. A day doesn't go by that he doesn't recall some embarrassing incident. Yesterday he told Merytaten about the times I used to run away from my lessons and go sailing in my skiff on the Nile."
"I remember, daughter. Queen Tiye was most grieved that you didn't show proper gravity at being trained to be queen of Egypt."
Ignoring her father's amusement, Nefertiti said, "I'll go to pharaoh now, before Tutu has a chance to think of throwing away the tablets."
That incident had taken place years ago. Since then she'd fought similar battles with other ministers and won them all. But with her little girl dead, fighting such battles took more strength of will than she feared she had. Nefertiti spoke the words of the Aten ritual without thinking, her gestures practiced and unhesitating after countless repetitions. She often indulged in reverie while performing the adoration. Since Akhenaten was the means by which the Aten communed with the world, her attention wasn't absolutely necessary anyway.
As the ceremony ended, Akhenaten gave her a kiss and looked into her eyes. "Beautiful one, you aren't sleeping. There are shadows beneath those magnificent eyes."
They stood together, bathed in sunlight. Hundreds of offering tables spread out before them in a consecrated field within the temple. Priests and courtiers alike kept their distance, for it was well known that Akhenaten tolerated no invasion upon his private conversations with the great royal wife. The rays of the Aten touched the cobra headdress of the king and made Nefertiti's electrum broad collar and bracelets gleam.
Akhenaten searched her eyes, his brow furrowed and his long, equine face troubled. "I must receive a delegation from the Assyrian king, my love, but I insist that you go home and try to sleep. It's nearly time for the girls to take a nap. If you rest with them, sleep will come."
"I don't think so."
"At least try, my love."
Sighing, Nefertiti consented and left the Aten temple. To her surprise, Akhenaten was right. Once the girls were asleep, she found that she could close her eyes and drift off to the sound of their breathing. Sometimes she forgot how perceptive her husband could be.
She woke late in the afternoon to find that the nurses had succeeded in getting the girls out of her chamber without waking her. Feeling almost at peace, Nefertiti decided to go to Akhenaten and thank him. She didn't understand how he could be so caring and kind to her and yet so blind to the suffering of those he'd displaced with his heresies.
Her guards formed a barrier between her and the people in the streets as Nefertiti drove to the ceremonial palace again. Her entourage passed a train of donkeys laden with vegetables, groups of scribes hurrying to various government offices, carrying chairs bearing court ladies, and a gaggle of Aten priests.
She reached the palace and couldn't find pharaoh in any of the usual spots where he sheltered from the heat. It wasn't time for worship, so Nefertiti inquired of the steward. She received the unexpected reply that pharaoh was at the police barracks.
She couldn't imagine why he was there. Military surroundings made Akhenaten nervous. Anyway, her husband preferred the tiled and gilded luxury of the palaces. Perplexed, Nefertiti set out with Sebek and an escort for the barracks, which were located to the rear and down the street from the ceremonial palace. The military sector of the central city lay beyond the records office and visitors' quarters.
She found Akhenaten by following the line of royal bodyguards that stretched along the street and into the low, rectangular building that housed the city police. Inside, a sentry directed her through several offices, and outside again past stables and supply rooms to a small, windowless building. As she drew near the structure Nefertiti exchanged uneasy glances with Sebek. She was sure she wasn't going to like what she found inside.
A guard at the door saluted but failed to move aside. Nefertiti was about to send in a request for admittance when a man screamed. It was a mindless scream of agony such as she'd never heard. The sound penetrated to Nefertiti's bones and robbed her of speech. When the scream subsided into short, hoarse cries, Nefertiti shoved past the sentry, her guards at her back.
The blackness of the interior made her pause for her eyes to adjust. The building was split into two large rooms. The first, into which Nefertiti stepped, was lit by a lamp resting in a stand by an inner door. Against the walls she saw crouched bodies. As her vision cleared, Nefertiti saw that the bodies were three men whose arms were bound behind their necks. Five policemen stood near the outer door, armed with spears.
Near the lamp stood a man whose gold bracelets and short wig marked him as an officer.
"Pharaoh?" Nefertiti asked.
The man bowed and opened the door to the next room without comment. Nefertiti was through the entry and into the chamber before the reek of feces and sweat reached her. She heard Sebek gasp. Nefertiti swallowed her own nausea and stared at the scene before her.
The room had been bare until pharaoh came. It was a chamber of blank walls, a dirt floor, and no other openings except the door. The ceiling was low and added to the atmosphere of oppression and tightness. Toward the back of the room, suspended from ropes attached to beams in the roof, hung the naked body of a man, the man who screamed. More ropes stretched from his feet to a stake in the ground. Lit by alabaster lamps, the man's body glistened like a freshly butchered carcass. Hundreds of precise, thin cuts ran from his neck, down the man's chest, all the way to his thighs. Beside the victim a Nubian soldier wiped blood and flesh from a bronze razor much as a barber tends his instrument. Nearby on a stool was Mery-Re. In another corner a scribe sat with pen and papyrus.
To one side, ensconced in a cushioned chair of ebony and gold, sat pharaoh. The chair rested on a woven mat. Pharaoh's fan-bearer plied a fan over Akhenaten's head. Another courtier held a tray with wine flagon and goblet. Akhenaten held a vial of perfume to his nose. When Nefertiti entered, he turned and peered at her over the lip of the vessel. In a languid motion pharaoh held out his hand to Nefertiti. Nefertiti knelt before her husband and fixed her gaze on the gold roundels that decorated the king's robe. Fingers decked with heavy electrum rings lifted her chin. Nefertiti looked into the king's eyes. They questioned in a mild, distracted manner.
"My beautiful one has come. Have you rested well?"
"Yes, majesty."
"I am pleased. And it pleases me also that you've tired of dry bureaucrats and harvest taxation and come to see the more important work that takes my time."
Nefertiti kept her gaze on Akhenaten and away from the man on the ropes. "What work is this, majesty?" She signaled for Sebek and her guards to remain near the door.
"The work of my father the Aten." Pharaoh nodded his head toward the victim. "Lately it has been necessary to chastise those who seek to hide the wealth of the false gods from me."
Nefertiti understood immediately. Akhenaten had recently discovered that, under increasingly violent persecution, the Amun priests had hidden their valuables rather than have them sequestered for the use of the Aten. The man whose skin hung in thin, bloody strips was a priest.
Pharaoh sniffed at his perfume bottle and called for a stool for Nefertiti. From a dark corner stepped a man Nefertiti had never seen before. He was tall, as tall as the Nubian torturer, and as lean. Dressed in a kilt and pleated overrobe, he wore a broad collar of gold and turquoise beads and wide arm bands with insets of lapis lazuli. His rich trappings set off skin of a tone darker than Nefertiti's, yet lighter than the Nubians. Pharaoh beckoned to the nobleman, calling him Kenro.
Kenro placed a stool beside Nefertiti and bowed. Nefertiti noticed his cool perfection. Every pleat in his robe hung straight. His linen gleamed white and spotless under the lamps. His feet in their red and gold sandals were free of dust. The flail in his hand was a work of art in black and gold enamel.
Even Kenro's face bore the flawless artistry of an expert at cosmetics, though the features were perfect to the point of almost feminine beauty. Long, slanting eyes regarded her steadily. They were deep-set, brown, and oddly calm.
A moan from the priest attracted pharaoh's attention. "Proceed, Kenro. No mere priest is going to keep me from finding the treasure of Amun."
Kenro moved with quiet grace to stand beside the Nubian. He whispered instructions, and the torturer applied his razor to the man's chest. He drew several horizontal incisions across the vertical cuts he'd already made. The victim screamed and jerked, but the ropes held him taut. His torso was soon a mass of oozing red checks. Kenro raised his hand. The Nubian withdrew his blade.
Kenro cocked his head to one side and looked at pharaoh. Nefertiti went sick at the dreamy expression on the man's face. She'd seen that look on Akhenaten's face when he made love to her.
"Well?" Akhenaten questioned impatiently. "Come, divine father, tell me where the treasure is. If you tell me, I'll have you killed quickly. Otherwise I'll have Kenro apply his more sophisticated instruments to you."
The priest was so weak his head had to be lifted. Through lips cracked and bleeding he whispered the name of a village in the Hare nome. "In the house of the doorkeeper of the chapel of the god Toth." The man's words ended on a sob.
Nefertiti stood up, steadying herself with a hand on pharaoh's chair. She could barely wait for Akhenaten to leave this room of horror with its blood and gilded furniture. The nobleman with the wine tray left, along with Mery-Re, Nefertiti's guards, and the fan-bearer. Nefertiti followed Akhenaten to the door while the scribe remained to finish his notes. She looked back to see that Kenro lingered beside the priest, his eyes sliding over what had once been the man's skin. Kenro wasn't going to kill his prisoner. Nefertiti knew it. She touched Akhenaten's arm.
"Majesty, the priest has defied you, yet he has suffered for it. Please, send him to the netherworld."
Akhenaten frowned at her. "You have sympathy for Amun and his followers?"
"I have sympathy for a man in pain, my husband. Is this wrong?"
"Yes. He deserves agony without end for defying me." Pharaoh suddenly ripped the dagger from his belt. "Kill him yourself. Show me your devotion, little warrior."
If she hesitated, Akhenaten would leave his victim with Kenro. Nefertiti took the dagger from pharaoh's hand- quickly, before she had time to contemplate what must be done. She sent Kenro and the Nubian backing away from the priest with a sharp command. She wasn't tall enough. She stood on a stool so she could aim at the priest's heart. Turning her back to pharaoh, she gripped the weapon and drew back her arm. The priest lifted his head. His eyes opened as he whispered words of thanks.
Nefertiti whispered, "May Hathor await you. May Osiris receive your ka." She dared not wait. She drove the blade between muscles and ribs into the heart of the priest as he smiled. Her hand met the scored mass that used to be a chest. She jerked the dagger out of the body and hopped back off the stool. The man's bowels released their contents, and the odor of feces and urine mingled with the smell of blood.
Nefertiti turned to Akhenaten, but Kenro was beside her. "If thy majesty will permit thy servant."
Gentle as the touch of a snake's tongue, Kenro's hands bathed hers with a clean, wet cloth. The dagger was wiped and given back to her. Wet fingers touched the back of her hand, and Nefertiti shivered. Not daring to think of what she'd just done, in an agony of spirit, she joined her husband.
"I didn't think you'd do it," Akhenaten said. Pharaoh studied Nefertiti as if she were a stranger. "You are indeed my little warrior."
"What is the name of the priest, majesty?"
"I've forgotten. It doesn't matter. He won't have a grave, and his name will be wiped out. This is one heretic whose ka will die permanently."
Nefertiti resisted when pharaoh attempted to guide her from the room. "I've never killed before."
"Do you want his hand?"
"I want no battle trophy, my pharaoh. That was no barbarian. If you will allow it, I would like to know the name of the first man you ever asked me to kill for you."
"Kenro knows."
Kenro spoke from somewhere behind Nefertiti. "His name was Montemhab, majesty. Superintendent of the god's treasury of Amun in Thebes."
Nefertiti thanked Kenro and Akhenaten. She followed the king out into the sun. The royal bodyguard formed around them. As she walked beside the king, Nefertiti made a great effort to listen to pharaoh's discussion of the hidden wealth he was determined to ferret from the temples. All the while another part of her heart vowed to find some way to help Montemhab's ka survive without a body. Pharaoh was going to have the corpse burned.
She managed to get herself through the next few hours without collapsing. Once she had regained the refuge of her own rooms, Nefertiti sank to the floor and lay there trembling and sobbing. She had killed. For mercy, it was true, but the act itself defiled her.
She lay on the floor for a long time, in darkness no blacker than the misery of her ka. As she lay there in desolation, at long last Nefertiti began to hate her husband. Behind the great vision of one shining god lay intolerance, ignorance, and cruelty. She had failed to banish them from her husband's character with her beauty and guidance. Such a thing had never been possible. Tiye and Amunhotep had been wrong to make her think it possible. Hope of moderation was dead, as dead as that poor priest.
It was a madness of the sun, like when he told you about the Aten coming to him in the desert. It was sun madness. May the gods help you if you ever provoke the demons that possess his ka.
That night, the evil dreams began.