The Twelfth Transforming Read Online Free PDF Page B

among them like a rumor sprung to life. Tiye sat on her ebony throne, jeweled sun canopy over her, fans waving languidly before her. Sitamun was beside her, dressed in yellow, the plumed crown she was entitled to wear as chief wife quivering as she breathed. Ay paced between the gilded barge Aten Gleams and the contingent of soldiers standing sweating in formation, waiting for the prince to board. Mutnodjme, swathed in white linen and heavily painted against the sun, flicked her whip dispiritedly at the date palms above her while her dwarfs panted at her feet, too hot to quarrel.
    A small group of priests from Karnak led by Si-Mut, Amun’s Second Prophet, stood ready with incense and systra to speed the prince on his way with prayers. Tiye, glancing at Si-Mut’s solemn, sweat-streaked face out of the corner of her eye, felt a pang of longing for her brother Anen, who had been Amun’s Second Prophet only a year earlier, before the fever had consumed him. “Give me the whisk,” she snapped at her whisk carrier and began to flick irritably at the flies that crawled over her slick neck and fought to suck up the salt around her mouth and kohled eyes.
    Ay came to her and bowed. “Majesty, I have instructed Horemheb to open his house in Memphis to the prince until every servant and official in the palace there has been investigated. It is not likely, now that Pharaoh has decreed this move officially, but there may still be some who would wish to do him a favor by trying to harm Amunhotep.”
    “Or he himself may regret his decision,” she answered in a low voice. “I shall be anxious until the statutory year is over and he is once more under my eye here at Malkatta. Stand aside, Ay.”
    A buzz of excited talk was followed by deep silence as the soldiers and their charge approached. Horemheb came striding up to the throne, the silver arm bands that proclaimed him Commander of a Hundred flashing as he moved, the blue helmet he was entitled to wear as a charioteer framing a handsome face that, though young, was already marked by the early maturity the career he had chosen had thrust upon him. As Ay’s protégé he was destined to go far in the army and at court, and he knew it, but he had not relied on his mentor’s favor alone. The men under him had learned that although his discipline was swift and harsh, his judgment was fair. He knelt to kiss the queen’s feet.
    “You understand the gravity of this responsibility, Horemheb,” Tiye said as she waved him to his feet. “I expect clearly dictated and regular reports from you.”
    He inclined his head but did not reply.
    She turned to her son, rising and stepping down to embrace him, and realized with surprise that Nefertiti stood beside him, tall and feminine in yellow, the waist-length ringlets of her wig wound with forget-me-nots made of lapis lazuli, the color of the hair of the gods. “Send me word of your doings as often as you can,” Tiye said as her arms went around Amunhotep. He nodded against her cheek and pulled away smiling, and then Tiye saw his gaze lift over her shoulder to the palace behind them. All at once a mask seemed to drop over the long, sallow features, and he turned abruptly. Tiye stole a glance backward. Half-hidden by one of the fluted lotus columns that fronted the reception hall and attended by only his body servant, her husband was watching. A murmur of surprise went through the crowd, and Tiye’s head jerked around again in time to see her son press his lips against Nefertiti’s scarlet mouth. “May your name live forever, Cousin,” he said loudly, playing with one glistening ringlet as she grinned at him, eyes screwed against the sun. “Come and visit me if your father will allow it. I shall miss our conversations.” Outraged at the breach of good manners, Tiye glared at Ay.
    “May the soles of your feet be firm, Prince,” Nefertiti answered Amunhotep boldly, and he turned and walked up the ramp, disappearing into the shade of the