Lynda Robinson - Drinker Of Blood

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."