Drinker Of Blood Read online

  “We’ve chosen Nefertiti.”

  “You know I don’t want my daughter given to Akhenaten.”

  Tiye rolled her eyes. “Of course I know, brother. Haven’t you shouted it at me for months? But Nefertiti is the only girl who possesses all the qualities needed in a great queen. She has composure, a clever heart, and that amazing beauty.” Tiye put her hand on his arm. “And above all, she has a strong will. Egypt is going to need her, Ay. There is no one so well suited to guide Akhenaten without allowing him to suspect he’s being guided.”

  “Has pharaoh said this himself?”

  Tiye nodded and slipped her arm through his. She began to describe her plans for Nefertiti’s training as they walked in the shade. Miserable, certain that pharaoh’s decision was final, Ay hardly listened.

  There had been another heir, an older boy who had been killed in a hunting accident. Ay had liked Prince Thutmose. Full of humor, clever like his mother, Queen Tiye, he had been a fitting choice to fulfill pharaoh’s role as the warrior king of Egypt’s far-flung empire. Nefertiti would have been suitable for Thutmose.

  No one had ever paid much attention to Thutmose’s weakling younger brother. Since birth, the boy named Amunhotep—who now insisted upon being called Akhenaten—had been afflicted with infirmity. It seemed that father and son conceived a mutual dislike from birth, perhaps stemming from the strength of one and the feebleness of the other.

  Certainly the pharaoh Amunhotep never hid his distaste for Akhenaten’s almost effeminate appearance. The lad had an oblong skull from which his fleshy lips and tilted, slanting eyes protruded. Ay pitied him, for every body part that should be large was small, and what should have been small was large. His ears were too big, as was his projecting jaw. His hollow shoulders were eclipsed in size by his protruding stomach, wide hips, and bulging thighs, all of which were balanced precariously on top of sticklike legs.

  Alternately ignored and scorned by his father, Akhenaten had taken refuge behind his mother. Tiye, with a mothers great heart, had sheltered him from pharaohs intolerance. The lad had also taken refuge in learning and religion, devoting himself to study and avoiding the arts of hunting and warfare so prized by his father. Ay suspected that it was during his years of sheltered study that Akhenaten conceived the bizarre notion that the sun disk, called the Aten, was the sole god. The Aten was the vehicle through which light entered the world, and that light, Akhenaten believed, was the true creator, the source of all life, the one god.

  He’d listened once to the young man’s beliefs, for Akhenaten thought about matters usually left to learned priests. According to the priests of Amun, the source of all creation was a mysterious and unknowable force, which they called the Hidden One, Amun. Akhenaten scoffed at this mystery.

  “The sun’s rays are the source,” he said. “It’s obvious. The sun causes crops to grow and cattle to multiply so that people may live. How absurd to overlook so plain an explanation for existence. The answer is the Aten—the source of heat and light.”

  Lately court rumor whispered that the young man denied the existence of all the other ancient gods of Egypt—Amun, king of the gods; Osiris, who rose from the dead to give hope of rebirth in the afterlife to all Egyptians; Isis, his sister, who had been responsible for bringing Osiris back to life. For century after century the towns of Egypt had worshiped their own gods, including Set, Montu, Hapi, the great Ra who was the sun. Aten had always been the god of the physical heat of the sun’s rays, not a very special god at all. What was so unique about the Aten to pharaoh’s strange son?

  No matter. The problem pharaoh faced—that Ay and Tiye faced—was how best to train Akhenaten to rule Egypt well. He was a young man, set in his ideas, unschooled in diplomacy or governance of any kind. Tiye had suggested, and pharaoh had agreed, that making Akhenaten coregent was the best solution. So now father and son were to share the throne of Egypt and rule jointly. And his daughter was to be queen.

  “Do you understand, brother? I’ll be at her side, teaching, counseling, guiding. She will be safe.”

  Ay looked away from Tiye, over the high walls and gently swaying branches of the trees that sheltered the palace from the dangerous heat of the sun. “If she is married to Akhenaten, Nefertiti will never be entirely safe.”

  “Come,” Tiye said. “Pharaoh is with the physicians and priests. He suffers from an ache in a tooth today.”

  They went into the palace, to the enormous golden doors that guarded pharaoh’s apartments. The portals swung open under the strong hands of the king’s Nubian guards. Taking shallow breaths, Ay walked with his sister toward the group of physicians and priests kneeling on the raised platform that held the royal bed.

  The nauseating sweetness of incense combined with medicines burning in a closed room threatened to make Ay empty his stomach. He began to breathe through his mouth. The room was dark and patched with light from alabaster lamps. The dark blue of a water scene painted on the floor absorbed the light. A physician priest muttered charms and burned incense. Two more holy ones huddled over a yellowed papyrus with health amulets clutched in their hands.

  Tiye went to her husband. He was sitting in bed, holding a damp cloth to his cheek. Ay knelt beside him, touched his forehead to the floor, and uttered homage.

  Amunhoteps plump cheek was slightly swollen from his bad tooth, his body thickened from culinary indulgence, but his eyes glinted in the lamplight, and he’d been reading tax reports. Papyri were spread about the bed and littered the floor around it. A flick of pharaoh’s hand caused all the physicians and attendants to vanish.

  “So, old friend, we’ve made a mess of things. I by losing my oldest son, and you by not counseling me to kill Akhenaten years ago.”

  “Husband!” Tiye cried.

  Amunhotep patted her hand. “You’ve lost your appreciation of my humor, little wife.”

  “This is not the time for jests,” Tiye snapped, “and there’s never a time for joking about our son’s life.”

  Ay’s head felt light with fear. There was no reply one could make when the golden one spoke of murdering his heir. It was a wonder the gods didn’t burn him alive for hearing such words. Ay studied the leg of the bed. It was gold and shaped like the paw of a lion. He waited while Tiye and her husband squabbled with the ease of practice.

  “So, Tiye told you of my decision, Ay. Nefertiti will guide my son and temper his strangeness with her wisdom.”

  “She is but a child, majesty.”

  Tiye waved her hand. “Nonsense. Girls are far wiser than boys at her age.”

  “Besides,” pharaoh said as he refolded the damp cloth, “Akhenaten has seen your daughter again, for the first time in months, and is enamored.”

  Startled at the distaste he felt, Ay bowed low to conceal his expression. “I understand, divine one.”

  “Be done with your subservience, Ay. We’ve known each other too long, and I haven’t the strength to suffer through it.”

  Ay bowed and managed a smile. They had always understood each other, pharaoh and he. From the beginning Amunhotep recognized Ay’s gift for statecraft and lack of personal ambition. Ay was well aware that a pharaoh less perceptive, less secure in his own power, would have had him killed long ago.

  “We take another gamble, my pharaoh, and this time with a twelve-year-old girl who has lived in obscurity, even if it has been in the royal household. You say the heir is fond of Nefertiti, but that doesn’t mean he’ll accept her guidance.”

  “By the time I’ve schooled her, he will,” Tiye said as she began gathering the tax documents on the bed.

  “They already deal well with each other,” Amunhotep said through his compress. “Akhenaten is quite protective of her in his strange way.” Amunhotep sat up straighter and leaned toward Ay. “Mark me. I’ll undo the damage I’ve wrought upon the Two Lands by producing such a son. I’ll do it through Nefertiti. Now silence your doubts. The physicians want to give me a potion, and I want to see the girl before I have to swallow that foul mess.”

  Tiye clapped her hands. The golden doors opened, revealing a slim girl standing alone. Light from the robing room beyond framed her in gold. Ay smiled at his daughter. She had her mother’s loveliness as well as his athletic frame. Her delicate head sat upon a long, graceful neck like a heavy bloom upon a stem. Soon her face would lose the last of her child’s plumpness and become startling in its refined and angular beauty. From her birth he had loved her for her unconquerable spirit and her entrancing smile. Now she had an air of sad dignity that caught at Ay’s heart.

  Although her expression was carefully blank, he could read her face like the hieroglyphs on a boundary stone. She had already been told. He would have liked to be the one to do that.

  Ay watched with great pride and even greater fear as the guards pulled the doors shut, trapping his daughter inside pharaoh’s bedchamber. She stood quite still, holding herself erect, arms at her sides, chin high. Ay experienced a thrill of approval. Her upbringing at court served her well; few approached pharaoh with their fear so well hidden. But Ay was her father, and he could see the little vein in her neck throb, saw her dread in the way she clenched her teeth to prevent her jaw from quivering.

  Nefertiti walked forward and sank to her knees with the controlled movements of a born princess. Great, dark eyes touched the figure on the bed. For a moment the facade slipped, and Ay found himself looking at a frightened child. Young muscles tensed. Hands flexed in a barely visible movement. Then, at pharaoh’s beckoning, Nefertiti came to kneel at his elbow. Ay squelched the urge to offer some word of reassurance to his daughter.

  “You know what is required of you, child?”

  Nefertiti glanced at him, and Ay nodded encouragement.

  “Yes
, majesty.”

  Pharaoh grunted. “I’m going to die one day, you know.”

  “Yes, majesty.”

  Amunhotep smiled at her. “Thank the gods. No sniveling, and no protests that I’m divine and will live forever. Come closer. Are you frightened?”

  “No, majesty.”

  “Don’t lie. You’re scared. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

  Pharaoh called for a hot cloth. Tiye brought one, and the king put it to his swollen cheek. All the while, Nefertiti remained kneeling beside the bed with an easy familiarity that gave Ay some comfort.

  Amunhotep moved the hot cloth so that he could speak unhindered. “Nefertiti, you’re not a fool, so I know you’re frightened. You should be. Akhenaten is intolerant and arrogant in his beliefs. I’m not saying his ideas about creation aren’t sensible, but he goes too far. He’ll cause much havoc if his excesses aren’t controlled. I lay the task of managing him upon you. Tiye and your father will guide you.”

  It was a test of his will, but Ay held his tongue even though his daughter looked as if her ka—her soul—had flown from her body. The color drained from her face, making the lines of paint on her eyes stand out like the colors on a relief.

  The girl wet her lips. “I know nothing of governance, majesty.”

  “Quiet, girl. I haven’t the patience to argue, with this tooth plaguing me. You’ll obey the commands I give you and prepare yourself to become queen of Egypt.”

  Nefertiti inclined her head, then lifted her gaze to stare straight into pharaoh’s eyes. “I will be queen of Egypt.”

  There it was! Ay nearly smiled when he heard that defiant tone, a tone that grasped pharaoh’s scepters—the crook and the flail—and pulled them from his hands. She had always been part goddess, part night fiend, his little Nefertiti. Pharaoh was going to be surprised that his chosen tool was far from the docile innocent he assumed her to be.

  Chapter 1

  Memphis, year five of the reign of the pharaoh Tutankhamun

  His wife had always hated the night, for demons and lost spirits of the dead roamed in the darkness, but Bakht had always liked it. Night was the time of coolness, when Ra’s solar bark vanished into the underworld. Besides, he’d never met a demon or disgruntled dead one while on guard duty in his many years as a royal soldier.

  Bakht hefted his spear on his shoulder and paced slowly beside the perimeter wall of the royal menagerie. Beyond that wall and behind several others, far higher, lay the royal palace. Inside, surrounded by his most trusted bodyguards, the young king slept. He would need his rest, for the feast of Opet approached, a time of ceremony and celebration that would take pharaoh to Thebes. Bakht was looking forward to the days of feasting and merriment. His special place as a favored guard of pharaoh allowed him to be one of those to escort the king to the great city.

  His bare feet slid over the packed earth, kicking aside pebbles. Bakht sniffed a pungent vegetable odor and stepped aside to avoid a dung pile. He glanced across the menagerie, a vast area filled with cages, biers, pens, and stalls and sheltered by palms, sycamores, and acacias. Accompanied by the rhythmic snarls of a male lion, Bakht walked by a giraffe pen. Far away from the peaceful animals lay the heavily reinforced domain of the predators—not just the lions but cheetahs, leopards, and Syrian bears.

  Bakht heard his name called and turned to see the new guard, Khawi, approach. Khawi was young and in awe of his new responsibilities, and even more confounded by Bakhts position as the oldest regularly serving soldier at the palace. Ever since he’d learned that pharaoh often sent for Bakht to hear stories of expeditions to Nubia, raids against Libyan bandits, and other tales, Khawi had treated Bakht with the reverence due a great one.

  Bakht tried not to grin as Khawi marched toward him with meticulous correctness. “Amun’s blessings upon you, young one.”

  “And upon you, Guard Bakht.” Khawi dipped his head and saluted at the same time.

  “Admit it, young one. You thought this old man would forget to relieve you.”

  Khawi’s eyes widened, and he-shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no, Guard Bakht. Never would I think such a disrespectful thing.”

  Bakht took pity on the boy, who was no more than sixteen and far too naive for his own welfare. “Walk with me awhile, young Khawi. Someone’s got to rid you of this habit of puppylike trust. It’s a bad trait for a soldier, especially a royal guard.” As Khawi fell in step with him, Bakht swept his arm around to indicate the menagerie, the pleasure gardens, the palace itself. “If you want to be like me and serve under many pharaohs—may they live forever—then you listen to me.”

  “They say you have served since the time of the father of Amunhotep the Magnificent,” Khawi said with awe.

  Bakht snorted, disturbing the rest of a red junglefowl. “Donkey-witted, that’s what you are. I wasn’t born until year nine of the Magnificent. But those were days of glorious happenings. I traveled into Nubia to serve the viceroy, and we crushed a mighty gathering of rebel tribes.”

  “Nubia,” Khawi breathed. “Is it truly a savage and dangerous land?”

  “Some of it.”

  Whipping around to face Bakht, Khawi gripped his spear in a stranglehold and danced from one foot to the other. “Tell me about the golden ones, Bakht. Tell me about the kings.”

  They had reached the ostrich pens. Pretending reluctance, Bakht rested his spear against a fence and spread his arms wide, stretching muscles that had grown slack with age.

  “Please,” Khawi said.

  “I suppose I can spare a few moments,” Bakht said as he leaned against the fence. “Of course, the Magnificent was the greatest of all. He built the mighty halls and gates of the Theban temples, and statues.” Bakht pointed at the sky. Great figures of himself as high as that star. Cunning as a crocodile, was the Magnificent. Chose the most brilliant ministers, the wisest and most beautiful of wives.”

  “The great royal wife Tiye.”

  “Ah, she was clever, was Queen Tiye. Played those cursed foreign kings against each other, kept them distrusting one another.”

  “Why?”

  “So they didn’t make trouble for Egypt, boy.”

  “But they did make trouble,” Khawi insisted with the stubborn lack of tact of the young. “My father said that Pharaoh Akhenaten—”

  “Shhhhh.’” Bakht hissed and clapped the young soldier on the side of his head. “I was right. You have the wits of a donkey and the flapping tongue of a green monkey. Be off with you, and try to cultivate a clever heart before you get yourself into trouble.”

  Babbling apologies, Khawi scurried away. Bakht heard the main gate open and shut behind the boy as he resumed his rounds. His many years and his experience allowed him to take a familiar view of the family of living gods whom he served, but such an attitude was improper in a youth.

  Muttering to himself of the carelessness of young ones today, Bakht trudged by the thick mud-brick walls of the rhinoceros enclosure without making his usual stop to admire the beasts. He would not allow the flapping tongue of Khawi to disturb his tranquillity. After all, he had survived three pharaohs—the Magnificent, the heretic Akhenaten, and poor Smenkhare, who had barely ruled before dying and leaving the throne to his brother Tutankhamun, may he have life, health, and prosperity.

  Yes, he had survived, and prospered too, through serving the living gods of Egypt. And of those he’d served, the Magnificent had been the most interesting. He’d been the embodiment of the grandeur of Egypt. The Magnificent had been the first to advance Bakht, rewarding him for saving the life of a royal relative on that Nubian expedition. The Magnificent’s eldest son, Thutmose, had been as gracious as his father. A pity he’d died. And of all his royal masters, Tutankhamun—life, health, prosperity—was the most charming. The golden one was full of curiosity about foreign lands and loved to send for Bakht and listen to tales of Kush, Libya, and cities like Byblos and Ugarit.

  Now that he thought about it, of all the sons of the Magnificent, Thutmose had been the most tragic, and Akhenaten the most irritating and dangerous. Bakht could never reflect upon his service in the heretic’s city without relief that he had lived to look back upon it. Had he not earned a stipend and a prosperous farm from his work in Horizon of the Aten, he would have left royal service. Even guarding the great royal wives hadn’t made up for enduring the great heresy. Sometimes Bakht thought of Akhenaten’s reign as an evil dream—the time when pharaoh cast out all the ancient gods of Egypt and forced the worship of the Aten, the disk of the sun. Certainly at the last he must have been possessed by a netherworld demon to have done what he did then.