Lynda Robinson: Drinker Of Blood

"Has pharaoh said this himself?"

Tiye nodded and slipped her arm through his. She began to describe her plans for Nefertiti's training as they walked in the shade. Miserable, certain that pharaoh's decision was final, Ay hardly listened.

There had been another heir, an older boy who had been killed in a hunting accident. Ay had liked Prince Thutmose. Full of humor, clever like his mother, Queen Tiye, he had been a fitting choice to fulfill pharaoh's role as the warrior king of Egypt's far-flung empire. Nefertiti would have been suitable for Thutmose.

No one had ever paid much attention to Thutmose's weakling younger brother. Since birth, the boy named Amunhotep-who now insisted upon being called Akhenaten-had been afflicted with infirmity. It seemed that father and son conceived a mutual dislike from birth, perhaps stemming from the strength of one and the feebleness of the other.

Certainly the pharaoh Amunhotep never hid his distaste for Akhenaten's almost effeminate appearance. The lad had an oblong skull from which his fleshy lips and tilted, slanting eyes protruded. Ay pitied him, for every body part that should be large was small, and what should have been small was large. His ears were too big, as was his projecting jaw. His hollow shoulders were eclipsed in size by his protruding stomach, wide hips, and bulging thighs, all of which were balanced precariously on top of sticklike legs.

Alternately ignored and scorned by his father, Akhenaten had taken refuge behind his mother. Tiye, with a mothers great heart, had sheltered him from pharaohs intolerance. The lad had also taken refuge in learning and religion, devoting himself to study and avoiding the arts of hunting and warfare so prized by his father. Ay suspected that it was during his years of sheltered study that Akhenaten conceived the bizarre notion that the sun disk, called the Aten, was the sole god. The Aten was the vehicle through which light entered the world, and that light, Akhenaten believed, was the true creator, the source of all life, the one god.

He'd listened once to the young man's beliefs, for Akhenaten thought about matters usually left to learned priests. According to the priests of Amun, the source of all creation was a mysterious and unknowable force, which they called the Hidden One, Amun. Akhenaten scoffed at this mystery.

"The sun's rays are the source," he said. "It's obvious. The sun causes crops to grow and cattle to multiply so that people may live. How absurd to overlook so plain an explanation for existence. The answer is the Aten-the source of heat and light."

Lately court rumor whispered that the young man denied the existence of all the other ancient gods of Egypt-Amun, king of the gods; Osiris, who rose from the dead to give hope of rebirth in the afterlife to all Egyptians; Isis, his sister, who had been responsible for bringing Osiris back to life. For century after century the towns of Egypt had worshiped their own gods, including Set, Montu, Hapi, the great Ra who was the sun. Aten had always been the god of the physical heat of the sun's rays, not a very special god at all. What was so unique about the Aten to pharaoh's strange son?

No matter. The problem pharaoh faced-that Ay and Tiye faced-was how best to train Akhenaten to rule Egypt well. He was a young man, set in his ideas, unschooled in diplomacy or governance of any kind. Tiye had suggested, and pharaoh had agreed, that making Akhenaten coregent was the best solution. So now father and son were to share the throne of Egypt and rule jointly. And his daughter was to be queen.

"Do you understand, brother? I'll be at her side, teaching, counseling, guiding. She will be safe."

Ay looked away from Tiye, over the high walls and gently swaying branches of the trees that sheltered the palace from the dangerous heat of the sun. "If she is married to Akhenaten, Nefertiti will never be entirely safe."

"Come," Tiye said. "Pharaoh is with the physicians and priests. He suffers from an ache in a tooth today."

They went into the palace, to the enormous golden doors that guarded pharaoh's apartments. The portals swung open under the strong hands of the king's Nubian guards. Taking shallow breaths, Ay walked with his sister toward the group of physicians and priests kneeling on the raised platform that held the royal bed.

The nauseating sweetness of incense combined with medicines burning in a closed room threatened to make Ay empty his stomach. He began to breathe through his mouth. The room was dark and patched with light from alabaster lamps. The dark blue of a water scene painted on the floor absorbed the light. A physician priest muttered charms and burned incense. Two more holy ones huddled over a yellowed papyrus with health amulets clutched in their hands.

Tiye went to her husband. He was sitting in bed, holding a damp cloth to his cheek. Ay knelt beside him, touched his forehead to the floor, and uttered homage.

Amunhoteps plump cheek was slightly swollen from his bad tooth, his body thickened from culinary indulgence, but his eyes glinted in the lamplight, and he'd been reading tax reports. Papyri were spread about the bed and littered the floor around it. A flick of pharaoh's hand caused all the physicians and attendants to vanish.

"So, old friend, we've made a mess of things. I by losing my oldest son, and you by not counseling me to kill Akhenaten years ago."

"Husband!" Tiye cried.

Amunhotep patted her hand. "You've lost your appreciation of my humor, little wife."

"This is not the time for jests," Tiye snapped, "and there's never a time for joking about our son's life."

Ay's head felt light with fear. There was no reply one could make when the golden one spoke of murdering his heir. It was a wonder the gods didn't burn him alive for hearing such words. Ay studied the leg of the bed. It was gold and shaped like the paw of a lion. He waited while Tiye and her husband squabbled with the ease of practice.

"So, Tiye told you of my decision, Ay. Nefertiti will guide my son and temper his strangeness with her wisdom."

"She is but a child, majesty."

Tiye waved her hand. "Nonsense. Girls are far wiser than boys at her age."

"Besides," pharaoh said as he refolded the damp cloth, "Akhenaten has seen your daughter again, for the first time in months, and is enamored."

Startled at the distaste he felt, Ay bowed low to conceal his expression. "I understand, divine one."

"Be done with your subservience, Ay. We've known each other too long, and I haven't the strength to suffer through it."

Ay bowed and managed a smile. They had always understood each other, pharaoh and he. From the beginning Amunhotep recognized Ay's gift for statecraft and lack of personal ambition. Ay was well aware that a pharaoh less perceptive, less secure in his own power, would have had him killed long ago.

"We take another gamble, my pharaoh, and this time with a twelve-year-old girl who has lived in obscurity, even if it has been in the royal household. You say the heir is fond of Nefertiti, but that doesn't mean he'll accept her guidance."

"By the time I've schooled her, he will," Tiye said as she began gathering the tax documents on the bed.

"They already deal well with each other," Amunhotep said through his compress. "Akhenaten is quite protective of her in his strange way." Amunhotep sat up straighter and leaned toward Ay. "Mark me. I'll undo the damage I've wrought upon the Two Lands by producing such a son. I'll do it through Nefertiti. Now silence your doubts. The physicians want to give me a potion, and I want to see the girl before I have to swallow that foul mess."

Tiye clapped her hands. The golden doors opened, revealing a slim girl standing alone. Light from the robing room beyond framed her in gold. Ay smiled at his daughter. She had her mother's loveliness as well as his athletic frame. Her delicate head sat upon a long, graceful neck like a heavy bloom upon a stem. Soon her face would lose the last of her child's plumpness and become startling in its refined and angular beauty. From her birth he had loved her for her unconquerable spirit and her entrancing smile. Now she had an air of sad dignity that caught at Ay's heart.