Read Online The Twelfth Transforming by Pauline Gedge - Free Book Online Page A

of his mother, Isis, for rich patrons who wanted to share vicariously in their ruler’s return to youth. Jewelers sold hundreds of amulets to women who hoped that their own fertility might be stimulated.
    Hearing the reports of these doings from her spies, who riddled the harem and the offices of administration, Tiye was disgusted though amused. Yet she could not deny her husband’s improving health, his new interest in affairs of state, or her own feeling of well-being. Optimism reigned. The air was full of the smell of the crops ripening rapidly toward the harvest and the luxuriant blooming of the flowers of summer, whose heady perfume hung night and day in the warm draughts of the palace. Only in the chill hours before dawn, when sleep ceased to be rest and became a drug, did Tiye’s earlier misgivings return, and she found herself waking suddenly, the baby restless in her. Then she would lie watching the pattern of red light and deep shadow the brazier cast on her ceiling, listening to the howl of the jackals out on the desert, the occasional frenetic braying of a donkey, and once the voice of an anonymous woman screaming and sobbing, the sound carried fitfully on the wind like the echo of another Egypt, dark and brimming with a mysterious sadness. In those moments, as slow-moving and borderless as eternity itself, the mood of cheerfulness prevailing at court seemed a flimsy, artificial thing, ready to be blown away in an instant. Firmly Tiye tried to battle the despair that would creep over her as she huddled beneath the blankets, but it had no discernible source and clung to her until she dropped once more into a sodden slumber.
    Tiye gave birth to a boy on a hot, late afternoon. Her labor was short, the delivery easy. It was as though the fragrant explosion of fruitfulness of the Egyptian harvest had overflowed into the palace, sharing its abundance with her. At the child’s first lusty cry a murmur of approbation and relief filled the bedchamber, and Tiye, exhausted and satisfied, waited to be told the baby’s sex. From the back of the small crowd Ay pushed his way past her physician, whispering, “You have a boy. Well done,” and she felt his lips brush her wet cheeks. Feeling for his hand, she pulled him down onto the couch, clinging to him as one by one the privileged came to pay their respects. He sat impassively, watching the line of bodies bend and straighten, his hand curled around hers, though long before the last courtier had bowed himself out, she had fallen asleep.
    After much fussy deliberation the oracles decreed that the royal son should bear the name Smenkhara. Pharaoh approved and came in person to tell Tiye so. He sat in the chair beside her couch, gingerly sucking on green figs and washing them down with wine. “It is fitting that this child, this symbol of a new beginning, should bear a name never held before by my house,” he said. “And, of course, highly appropriate that he should be dedicated to Ra, seeing that the sun is worshipped universally. I wonder what the next child will be called.” He glanced teasingly at her, picking out a fig seed from between gray teeth with one long, red nail.
    “Horus, you amaze me!” She laughed, caught up in his enthusiasm, relieved of her fears, ready to believe the unbelievable. “Either the presence of Ishtar or your new son has given you back your youth.”
    He smiled happily. “Both, I think. I have decided to move the court to Memphis next month for the worst of the summer, as I used to do. Leave the baby to the ministrations of the nurses, Tiye, and come with me.”
    “Memphis.” She lay back and closed her eyes. “How I love it. You and I on cushions under the date palms, watching the bees and playing Dogs and Jackals. I wonder if the ambassadors will want to move also.”
    “Give them all messages to carry to their little kings and get rid of them for a while. Dictate messages that will require much deliberation, so that they stay away