The Twelfth Transforming Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the position of empress, and long after he had ceased to take her alone to his bed, the bond remained. She had not failed him. She came of sturdy stock imbued with a thrust for power and domination that had not abated for generations, so that her family, commoners without a drop of royal blood in their veins, had succeeded in becoming the power behind every throne since the days of Osiris Thothmes III. Each Pharaoh since had been carefully evaluated by the family, his strengths probed, his weaknesses compensated for and exploited. Tiye’s own father had been Lieutenant of Chariotry, Master of the King’s Horse, and chief instructor in the martial arts to the young Amunhotep, a task he used to bind the boy to him. Her mother had been a confidante of Mutemwiya the queen, and Chief Lady of the Harem of Amun. Land, wealth, and prestige had accumulated year after year like deposits of rich Nile silt, but such preferments could be whisked away to leave them all shivering in the cold blast of penury and royal disapproval. Therefore nothing was taken for granted, and each step required a cautious testing.
    “Nefertiti is sulky, restless, and very willful,” Ay said after a while. “But none of her faults is noticed because she is so extraordinarily beautiful, and she has been spoiled by everyone from her nurses and tutors to my own cavalry officers. Whether she is also ambitious remains to be seen. At eighteen she blames me that she is not already married and a mother.”
    “You may tell her that she will soon be both. Surely she strikes out at everyone now because she is bored and anxious. She will quickly learn discipline in the palace.”
    “Do not expect it,” Ay said shortly. “She is my daughter, and I love her, but my love is not blind. Perhaps if her mother had lived, if I had not been so busy…”
    “It is not important,” Tiye broke in. “The faults of a queen are hidden by paint, jewels, and protocol.” She lifted the wet, salty linen away from her skin and began to fan herself. “If Isis does not begin to weep soon, I am going to die of this heat. I am a goddess. Surely I can send a priest to her shrine to threaten her.”
    The soft slap of bare feet on the cool tiling of the terrace interrupted her, and she turned. Mutnodjme, Ay’s younger daughter and Nefertiti’s half sister, emerged from the darkness of her father’s reception hall and came sauntering toward them, naked but for a gold circlet around her throat and a scarlet ribbon trailing from her youth lock. In one hand she held a bunch of black grapes and in the other a small whip. Behind her, her two dwarfs scuttled, also naked, one dragging towels, the other a red ostrich fan. They stopped when they saw the queen and began to mutter agitatedly to each other, both scowling comically. Mutnodjme came up to Tiye and prostrated herself and then rose to plant an offhand kiss on Ay’s cheek.
    “The afternoon is well advanced,” Tiye chided, noting the girl’s swollen lids and flushed face. “Have you been asleep all morning?”
    Mutnodjme lifted the grapes and bit into them, wiping the juice from the corners of her mouth with the back of one hennaed hand. “There was a party last evening at May and Werel’s house, and after that we went boating, and after that we took torches and litters and roamed around Thebes. Before I knew it, it was dawn.” She chewed reflectively. “The whores along the street of brothels have started wearing necklaces of many tiny clay rings painted different colors. I think it will be the next fashion at court. I must get some made. Are you well, Majesty Aunt?”
    “I am,” Tiye said, hiding her amusement.
    “Then Egypt is fortunate. I am going to bathe before my skin turns to leather in this heat. Gods! Ra is pitiless this summer!” She tossed the rest of the grapes onto the table, flicked the whip languidly at the dwarfs, and walked away. Tiye watched her pass from shade into glaring sunlight, the muscles under