It seemed important to meet this new figure of authority, but first I needed to wash and prepare myself for the coming interview. Parennefer offered us his own house nearby, and I accepted, glad to stay within the protective penumbra of his influence. Mahu had disappeared, but I felt as if he could see through walls. I had no wish to return to my bare little office.
The bathroom alone was worth the visit. A large square room, with grilles for light and beautiful geometric multi-coloured patterns painted on the lower portions of the walls, with marsh and river scenes and semi-naked girls above. The stone floor contained channels and a drainage hole and we stood in basins while servants poured cool, scented water over us.
‘Well, I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d have a shower in a palace like this!’ said Khety.
I didn’t feel like talking. I peered into the mosaic of reflective glass on the wall above the basin, and shaved using a bronze blade whose handle was shaped like a naked, curvaceous woman. All sorts of unguents and potions were set out in little pots together with tiny spoons for their application. Khety experimented, trying out the whole range, until I told him he stank like a girl.
22
Someone’s shadow was standing over me. I jumped up, shaking my head to sort my senses into some order. Lamps had been lit along the walls. I had slept like a village idiot. For a moment I could not remember where I was.
‘It is time.’ Khety looked amused.
Some dates and figs lay in a bowl and I wolfed down a handful hungrily. Sweetness in the late afternoon gives me at least the appearance of energy.
We were prepared as well as possible in our dress. Parennefer drove me slowly and nervously to the royal palace in his own chariot, while Khety followed behind. Parennefer was one of those drivers who seemed to look no further than the horses’ noses. Certainly he did not look up ahead to see what was happening on the crowded way.
He gave me one of his solicitous, tilted looks. ‘Have they told you much about Tiy?’ he said.
‘I hear she’s not in the finest form of beauty these days.’
‘I could not say. But she is here only to attend the Festival. Although the King has constructed for her a palace and a temple, she has not until now wished to visit the new city. I’ve heard she thinks it has all gone too far, this move to the new city, the Great Changes and so on. But she feels compelled to support it, now that everything has happened. Everyone knows, I think, that her words are still powerful with Akhenaten.’
‘Well, that’s how it tends to be between mothers and sons,’ I said, thinking of my own mother and her clever ways.
‘Of course, but not only that!’ he cried, as if I had not learned my lesson well. ‘Firstly she is herself of royal status as the beloved wife of Amenhotep, Akhenaten’s father, the Magnificent, Builder of the Monuments. But also, and not least, because her own family is the most trusted in the service of the royal family. Indeed, her father, Yuya, who began his career as Officer in the Royal Charioteers, rose to become Amenhotep’s most trusted adviser. And her brother, Ay, today holds his father’s offices, and is an extremely close adviser to Akhenaten.’
‘I have heard of this Ay. What do you know about him?’
‘He is known only to a closed circle; apparently he prefers to remain publicly anonymous. His family has grown around the royal family like ivy, until through marriage they have eventually become almost indistinguishable from it. It is a powerful alliance.’
These genealogies were mind-numbingly complicated. Who knew how, in future days, such chains of birthright and power-bargaining would be untangled? How such and such a girl would come to be sold to another foreign power for the price of a little peace or the cost of a small war? Whose names would survive, whose stories would turn to dust and blow away? But I had to get this clear in my mind or I knew I would make some stupid error in front of the woman I was soon to interview.
‘So, Tiy is Queen Mother. Her father was an up-and-coming young man from a well-placed family who became very powerful. Her brother, Ay, is in the inner circle.’
‘Yes,’ said Parennefer. ‘His father, who was a good as well as a powerful man, ensured his son’s position at the heart of things from a young age. I think in fact he was the youngest ever Master of the Horse.’
‘And what is the nature of this man’s relationship with Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife?’ I asked.
‘I do not know.’ And with that he clammed up, his face no more revealing than a sealed tomb.
I thought it through as we continued to drive through the now chaotic streets in the evening light. Here was a man at the heart of the royal family. Everything had been done by his own family to ensure the succession and improvement of that alliance. And it seemed to have succeeded astonishingly well. Yet I did not know anything of this man or his power.
‘Is he here in the city?’ I asked Parennefer.
He looked as if he was surprised I should still be thinking about Ay. ‘Not at this precise moment, I believe. I understand he travels constantly between Thebes, Memphis and here. He has his own ship of state. But few know of his movements. Certainly not me.’
We arrived at the royal palace. Parennefer hurried us through the gateway, waving his hands loftily at the guards, who made themselves invisible. He led us down more long corridors, deeper into the complex. We were turning a corner when suddenly he held me back in the shadows.
‘Be careful what you say in your meeting with the Royal Mother,’ he said. ‘She feasts on fear. She has the tongue of a crocodile. She can turn your life to dust. She will be meeting you with the princesses. Apparently she insists on being present during their interview.’
‘That’s the last thing I want,’ I said, cursing my stupidity in not foreseeing this.
We came to a door, he knocked, and we were admitted. I heard the familiar sound of girls shouting and arguing, punctuated by the apparently pointless instructions of a woman’s voice. Nurses and servants ran about looking tense and tired.
‘It must be bedtime for the princesses,’ said Parennefer. He looked more worried now than before. ‘Marvellous. I must be going. I will leave you in the capable hands of the governess. Ah, here she comes now.’ Then he looked at me again and said quietly, ‘We are early. I thought it best to arrive early.’
I understood him. He hoped to give us a little time alone with the princesses before Tiy arrived. I gripped his hand, communicating my thanks.
A middle-aged woman moved anxiously towards us, alarmed to see us there so soon. She was unprepared. She had just opened her mouth to greet us when she was interrupted by a sharp scream; a small ball of blue and red leather flew through an open door with all the furious inaccuracy of a child in a tantrum, and shattered a plant pot. Soil went flying across the floor. The door slammed shut.
The woman blushed. ‘Come, clear this up, quickly.’
Servants hurried across to sweep away the mess.
‘The princesses have such a wonderful appetite for life that the idea of bedtime is distressing to them,’ she continued, addressing me. ‘They grow tired, and then cannot account for themselves in the way I am sure they would truly wish.’
I interpreted her meaning. I tried to help her out. ‘My girls are the same. Although the promise of a story can quiet them for a little.’
She nodded. ‘But then one must be careful, for the Royal Grandmother believes literature is an unnecessary stimulation and may keep them awake all night.’
‘Could I meet them now, before they sleep?’
‘I was strictly instructed only to begin the interview when the Queen Mother arrived.’
‘Well, I am here now. And they seem ready for bed. Could I perhaps meet them immediately?’
She was shaking her head fearfully when a girl appeared at the doorway. Meretaten. I remembered her from the ceremony.
‘Bring him in now,’ she ordered imperiously, and turned back into the room with a confidence that somehow was unattractive.
