Tey my mother and Nefertiti the Queen and I went to see the Great Royal Wife Tiye, our relative, and nearest way to the Pharaoh Amenhotep's private ear. We found her bathing. Her hair was loose, uncovered by her usual Nubian wig, and it was indeed red and long enough to reach to her waist. She lay back in a pool of water in which leaves had been strewed, and I smelt a sharp herbal scent; mint, perhaps, and wormwood. Her body was swelled with pregnancy. She was pale, as pale as marble, as pale as milk. I had never seen such skin before. The colour of her hair - Set the murderer's colour - would have caused her early death in some parts of the Kingdom. Even in the enlightened and civilised city, she usually kept her head covered in public. But the hair was not red, I realised, it was like copper wire; a fine, fiery tint, a fox colour. She looked tired and the herbs she was bathing in were selected to refresh an exhausted woman.
But her eyes, when she opened them, were slate-coloured and bright. She saw us come in, motioned us to sit down, and dismissed her attendants, three young women and one old woman who drew away beyond the door-curtain, block printed with indigo lotuses. The maidens seemed reluctant to leave Tiye, eying us suspiciously. The Lady of the Two Lands, the Queen of all Egypt, sat up unaffectedly, flicked her hair over her milk white shoulder, and smiled.
'You have come to tell me about my son,' she said, reaching out both hands so that we could help her out of the pool. I rushed to help. She was not like my beautiful sister, slim and delicate; but was wide hipped and her breasts were big and slightly sagging as she left the buoyancy of the warm water. She wrapped herself in a wide length of linen and motioned us to chairs.
Tey sat down and I sat, as I always did, at her feet. Nefertiti, a little nervous at being in the presence of this powerful woman, examined her sandals and did not venture to speak.
'Hmm.' The Queen exchanged a long look with my mother. 'The lady has lain with my son?'
Tey nodded.
'And it is as I feared?'
'If you feared that he would be impotent, Lady of the Two Lands, then it is so,' said Tey bluntly. Nefertiti blushed purple.
'She is very young; she can not have had many lovers. Can it be that she does not know...' Tiye smiled at Nefertiti, who was still too miserable to return it.
Tey shook her head so decisively that her earrings rang like bells.
'I have examined her account of what happened and my other daughter agrees. Nefertiti is fresh and beautiful and skilled, and entirely willing. She tried in all ways to please the son of the lord may he live but to no avail. She doubts that he is capable of producing an erect phallus, and without that there is no seed, and with no seed....'
Tiye wrapped the rope of her hair meditatively around her hand. 'Does she wish then to return to her mother's house?'
'No, Lady,' Nefertiti came to life and threw herself to her knees at the Queen's feet. Tiye, surprised, embraced her in the curtain of her coppery hair.
'Daughter, can it be that you love this weakling who cannot even lie with you as a man does with a woman?' she asked in an astonished tone.
'Yes, yes,' whispered Nefertiti into the linen towel. 'It is not his fault, it is the will of the Gods, who made him so. He is crippled, but he is so gentle. He did not hurt me, as another man might have done, disgusted by his failure. He did not blame me.'
'What, then, did you do all night?' asked Tiye, a little amused.
'We talked, Lady, and then we slept.'
'What did you talk about? There, daughter, be comforted, I will not tear you from your heart's longing, I wished merely to be sure that you were not discontented. Egypt does not need an unhappy Queen.'
'We talked about the Aten, Lady.'
'The Aten? Ah, religion,' said the Great Royal Wife, her mouth twisting as though she had bitten a persimmon. 'Sometimes one questions the wisdom of attempting to penetrate such mysteries. In any case, I am no guide, daughter. My son is philosophical, even whimsical, and perfectly unreasonable on that subject. I have always found it best not to argue with him.'
'What happens if you do argue with him?' I asked. Three sets of eyes turned on me. My mother's glare was as hot as a silversmith's furnace.
Tiye, however, was looking at me with great interest. She tipped up my chin with a strong forefinger and looked into my face.
'A good question, little daughter, and one that not many would dare to ask, Mutnodjme. I wonder what your father means to make of you, questioner?'
'She will be a wife,' snarled my mother. 'To an old man who will beat her.'
'There are worse fates than to be loved by an old man,' said the Queen gently, who was herself so married, and Tey bit her lip. I had made it possible for her to make a mistake in speaking with the Great Royal Wife, and she was going to beat me until I bled when she got me home, I could tell. But the question had not been answered and I looked at the Queen again. She laughed.
'What does my son do when he is crossed? He argues, and then if he is further opposed, he screams, and if anyone persists with their opposition, he throws himself on the ground. I recall that his nurse would not allow him to play with one of the guard dog's puppies, because she was afraid it would bite him. He shrieked until he turned blue and she was afraid and sent for me. I agreed that the prohibition was wise. My son found that he could not move us, and seemed to surrender. But the next day the puppy was found dead, its head beaten in by a stone. If he could not have it, no one could. It is not wise to persist in opposition to his desires.'
I stared at the Queen while my heart slowly chilled. Into what blood-stained hands had my Father delivered my beautiful and innocent sister?
'If he is...thwarted,' said my mother carefully, 'what remedies do you suggest?'
'Instant compliance,' said the Queen, still with her bitten- persimmon mouth. 'And if he is foaming and screaming, an infusion of valerian and reed-heads will calm him. I never expected to raise him,' she said slowly. 'When he was thirteen he was struck with a fever which raged for three days. He was as hot as a smith's brand and no medicine could quench it. All the physicians said that he would die. But then, quite suddenly, he fell into a sweat and then into a sleep, and when he awoke he was...distant. His ka had travelled, he said, to the Field of Reeds and found it empty but for the god Aten, the sun-disc.
'And then he did not develop like other boys. I thought it was just laziness - he has never liked to run or fight - when he fattened like a heifer, growing breasts and belly. I told myself, he is young and his father is solid and stocky, may he live forever. I thought nothing of it. By the time I knew that it was not so with my son, he was changed into what he is now. You are gentle and beautiful, Nefertiti, and he likes beautiful things. Love him as best you may. I can only hope that this child,' she caressed the mound of her belly, resting heavily on her thighs 'is a boy, for if my son Akhnamen becomes sole ruler, I do not know what will become of the Land of the River.'
She clapped her hands and her four suspicious maidservants came through the curtain. They did not look on us any more kindly, and I wondered if they disliked us on principle, or if they were defending their mistress, whom they evidently loved, from exertion. The old one knelt for her orders.
'The presents for the Great Royal Wife and her mother and sister, Sahte,' said Tiye gently, and the old woman blushed, muttered something, and gestured to the others, who brought a large basket. According to custom this could not be opened until we were back in our own apartments, so we bowed and kissed her sandal and were going away with a lot to think about, when the Queen Tiye said to my mother, 'I will send a scribe to your daughter Mutnodjme, Lady, if it please you. I think that she should be literate.'
'She can write and read as much as any princess,' said Tey, displeased at this slur on our household.
'I think she should be able to do more than that,' said the Queen, and now there was no doubt that it was a command. 'I will send a scribe tomorrow for the lady Mutnodjme, and a companion. She is a stranger