He had retired early from the marriage feast, saying that he felt fevered, and there was an unhealthy slick of sweat on his face and his torso.
By rights, Nefertiti should have been in her own apartments, which were certainly grand enough, and he should have come to her. But it was her nature to understand fear, and she knew that he was afraid.
'Is it you?' he asked, reaching out a languid hand, which she took in both of her own.
'It is I,' she said gently. 'Your wife.'
He twitched a little at that.
'Is it your will that I should stay with you tonight?' she asked, stroking the hand, which was long-fingered and elegant, unlike the rest of him.
'It is,' he whispered.
At her signal, I loosed the heavy pectoral and lifted it off my sister's shoulders. I laid away all her jewellery, the rings and bracelets and the heavy gem-encrusted girdle. I loosed her sandals so that she could step out of them and laved her face and hands with cool water in which jasmine blossoms had been steeped. On impulse, I lifted King Akhnamen's soft hands and sluiced and dried them, and then laid the wet cloth across his brow. His strange almond-shaped eyes considered me with some interest.
'Who are you, dark lady?' he asked, and I stifled a laugh.
'I am Mutnodjme, lord, sister of your wife,' I replied. He twitched again. That word definitely worried him. 'Sister of Nefertiti, Lord. We are here to serve you,' I added.
Naked, I could see that his body was like a child's, not the bold genitalia which I had seen on the men bathing in the river. I glanced at my sister and could see no expression on her face but gentle concern.
I helped her lie down on the bed next to the Pharaoh, adjusted the neck rest so that they lay together like statues, then took myself to the threshold, where I would lie for the rest of the night, as was my duty as attendant on the Great Royal Wife.
The sky was black. Little glints of moonlight sparked off the gold leaf of the great bed, which had leopard's heads at one end and leopard's tails at the other. A fine curtain hung from the uprights to exclude mosquitoes. I could only see them as shadows.
They had not moved to touch each other. Finally, his hand shifted and lay heavily on her thigh, and she bared her body. There was no doubt that she was willing to mate with him. She lay over him, her mouth finding his mouth, rubbing her soft cheek across his face, her hands moving to cup and stroke, seeking a phallus.
Evidently these caresses had no effect, because after perhaps half of an hour I heard her say softly,' Are you not pleased with your handmaiden, lord?' and I heard the Pharaoh begin to sob and scream.
Words tumbled from him, but I could not understand them. He was speaking in some hieratic dialect, some priestly tongue. Nefertiti turned on one elbow and gathered him into her arms, so that his face rested on her peerless breasts, and she soothed him as she had soothed me when I skinned my knees.
'There, my lord, my love, there,' she said in her honey-voice.
'It is the will of the God,' he said, finally, into her shoulder.
'Which God, my lord?' asked my sister. 'Tell me, and I will have sacrifices made tomorrow, temples built. Which God requires your potency?'
'There is only one God,' he said flatly.
Nefertiti said nothing in reply; for it was absurd, only one God? Everyone knew 'the Ennead' - the Nine of Thebes: Isis, sister-wife of Osiris; Nut the Sky, Geb the Earth, and Shu the Air their father, who comes between the mating of sky and earth and makes Day; Amen-Re who is the Sun; Set the Adversary; Anubis, God of the dead; and Thoth, God of Learning. Then of course comes Horus the Avenger, child of Isis. There are also the Twelve Gods of the Night and the Twelve Gods of the Day, and the countless other little Gods of house and village all up and down the Nile - who is himself a God, Hapi. One God? Which one?
I leaned back against the door, which was uncomfortably studded with copper nails, and listened in scorn.
'Aten,' whispered Akhnamen. 'My father and I believe that there is one God, only one, who rules all the Heavens.'
'But, my Lord,' protested my sister. 'What of Hathor and Horus? What of the others whom our fathers worshipped?'
'They are nothing,' he said fiercely, this King who lay on my sister's breast. 'They are delusions, fantasies of men who did not know the truth. There is only one. Unknowable, invisible, uncreated.'
'Khnum the potter, who made men on his wheel?' hazarded my sister, who had never been very interested in religion.
'No! Your mind is corrupted, like all the others.' He sat up abruptly. 'Go, leave my presence.'
'Lord, do not distress yourself,' said Nefertiti. 'I spoke only from ignorance, and did not the Divine Amenhotep your father say that Ignorance is the one disease which has an easy cure'
He did. I had read that maxim of Amenhotep to my sister only the week before. The agitation of anger had tired the young King, and he sagged down into my sister's arms again.
'Ah, my lady, ' he said softly. 'Thy breast is a pillow for my aching head.'
'That is as it should be, lord,' she said softly. 'Let me sing to you, and then you will sleep.'
He must have nodded, for she began to sing very softly a lullaby sung by all mothers on the banks of the great River, from mud huts to palaces.
Sleep little child, Thy mother is here. Sleep is on the water Sleep is in the reeds. Birds rest with wings folded Winds sleep in the sky. The Gods guard the night The Gods guard the Nile. Khons counts the hours The moon wanes. Sleep, Mother's breast bears you, Little child, sleep.'
The Pharaoh sighed and snuggled closer, and soon I too slept.
In the morning my sister went to my mother and reported, 'It is as you feared.'
Tey shot me a hard glance and I nodded, not venturing to speak. 'You are sure that no stimulation can rouse him?' asked Tey, and Nefertiti blushed. 'Is it perhaps that he prefers men?'
'No, I do not believe that he is potent at all,' said my sister.
'Then we shall appeal to the Lord Amenhotep, the Divine One,' said Tey, who always made fast decisions.
'Mother, wait,' Nefertiti put her hand on my mother's arm. 'I would not shame him. He is possessed of a God, I am sure. A new God, one God, he says, Ruler of All. He says that this God requires his seed, that He took it all away from him when he was just grown, and he sickened but did not die. He is gentle, Mother Tey, and I love him. I will not leave him.'
Tey considered. She always put her head on one side when she was thinking, like a predatory bird. I could see what she was thinking. We had position - my mother was now Divine Nurse to the Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt. My father would not abandon this, even though he had married his daughter to a eunuch. And when Nefertiti said that she loved him and would not leave him, she meant it. Was not the household of Tey overloaded with people whom Nefertiti loved, who could not be dismissed and who did no work because they were old,
