Aunt Tiye had little use for any act of defiance, even one as gentle and loving as this. She shoved her way between us and elbowed me away. Turning her back to me, she focused all her anger on her younger son. “If you knew how stupid you sound, you wouldn’t clutter my ears with such babble. Or maybe you would. You were never very bright. A piece of cheese could outwit you. That’s why you have a mother to look out for your best interests and to keep you from making a complete idiot of yourself. Since you haven’t got the good sense that the gods gave to geese, I’ll save you from your own folly. You are forbidden to see or speak to this girl again, from this moment until she has offered her heart to Ma’at!”
“No, Mother,” Amenophis said. His long jawline was tight, and there was a smoldering threat in his eyes. “You haven’t got the power to give me such orders anymore. I won’t leave Nefertiti.”
“Not even if your father commands it?”
“He never gave any such command. It’s yours!”
“It will be his.” Aunt Tiye looked smug. “I can promise you that. Your father knows and respects my good judgment. You little whelps aren’t the first two to be—what was that clever way you put it?—‘two mouths but only one voice’?”
“There is no voice that can keep me from her.”
“Will you defy Pharaoh himself?”
“For her, yes.”
“Very well.” Aunt Tiye shrugged in such an exaggerated way that it was obvious she didn’t mean surrender. “It’s not my job to enforce the will of Pharaoh. That task will fall to other women and men, guards and servants and slaves. They will bear the responsibility for removing you from her influence. Of course, you can always confront them, tell them that you are a prince! You don’t have to listen to the words of underlings. You will walk right past them to be with her. They won’t be able to stop you. They wouldn’t dare.” She smirked.
“And so they will be punished for failing to fulfill their job, and since that job is to enforce a direct order from Pharaoh himself, the punishment will be accordingly severe.” Aunt Tiye showed us her teeth. “But I wouldn’t worry about it too much, if I were you. They’re only little people. Why should you care what becomes of them, as long as you get your own way?”
Amenophis and I looked at one another. There was no need to speak; we knew she’d played a winning game against us.
“Ma’at will triumph,” he said to me. “And on that day, I will be with you again.”
I nodded, then kissed him. I didn’t let him go for a long, long time.
9
VISITS AND SECRETS
Amenophis and I didn’t see one another for the rest of the voyage. He was kept confined in the curtained shelter in the middle of the deck, and I was forbidden to enter it. I didn’t mind too much—it was better to be able to stroll around the ship at liberty and watch the changing sights of the shore slip by—but I felt bad for him, pent up in such close quarters. The chamber held every comfort—the best food and drink, soft cushions, game boards to pass the time—but not freedom.
I saw Thutmose frequently. It was impossible to avoid him. The royal ship was big, but not that big. Whenever I caught sight of him, I held my ground. I’m sure he would have enjoyed our encounters more if the sight of him made me run, shudder, sneer, turn my head away sharply, any kind of reaction, but I refused to let him think he had the least effect on me. I looked at him the way I’d look at a palm tree on the riverbank, my eyes merely acknowledging that, yes, there it was, and that was as much attention as it deserved. At first he wore a nasty grin each time our eyes met, but it quickly withered when I let him understand that he was nothing to me now. Soon he was the one who ran or looked away if we chanced to cross each other’s path.
When the royal vessel docked at Thebes, a suitable welcome awaited us. I think that the priests of Hathor must have sent runners or chariot drivers ahead to the south the instant that Pharaoh’s ship left Dendera. The god-on-earth was greeted by a procession of musicians, dancers, fan-bearers, priests of many gods in all their ceremonial finery, and, of course, his highest-ranking counselors, including the vizier. Pharaoh and his Great Royal Wife walked from the ship to the palace in splendor over a carpet of flower petals. A canopy was held above their heads by four Nubian servants carrying the jeweled and gilded poles. I was still on board the ship, and from the height of the deck, I could see that the top of the canopy was decorated with a brilliant picture of Horus in the form of a hawk with outspread wings of blue, red, and gold. The two princes followed their parents, their heads shielded by painted cloth sunshades. Thutmose was carrying Ta-Miu. The little cat who had caused so much trouble had been restored to her former owner back in Dendera, before we left the temple of Hathor. I was surprised at how much I missed her.
There was no such courtesy as a formal welcome nor such comfort as a sunshade for Nava and me when it was our turn to debark. On Pharaoh’s orders—more likely the orders of Aunt Tiye—the vessel’s master kept us on board until the royal procession was out of sight, then turned us over to the four guardsmen who’d been waiting for his summons. They looked bored and they smelled as if they’d been passing the time with a jug of beer. As we walked up the road to the palace, they traded crude jokes and used language that a child of Nava’s age had no business hearing.
“That will be enough of that,” I told them crisply after the man to my left finished an extremely vulgar story with an even worse gesture. “If you can’t keep your tongue out of the dung heap, don’t speak at all.”
“So you say,” the man replied with a grunt worthy of any pig. “I’ll talk how I like, when I like, where I like. You may look like a fine lady, but we heard all about you. What’s worse, a little rough talk or spewing lies? And in Hathor’s house, too! I’m bringing my kids with me to the Palace of Ma’at when you head there to try blabbing your way around that goddess. Her feather won’t balance out a deceitful heart, no matter how pretty a face goes with it; you wait and see. I want my kids to be there and witness what Ma’at does to you. My wife says fire’ll shoot right out of the earth and burn you alive. I figure it’ll just be the earth splitting open under you and dropping you into a pit of snakes or scorpions or … well, something nasty.”