Free The Twelfth Transforming by Pauline Gedge

growing between her and her husband.
    The month of Mesore passed, pitilessly hot. New Year’s Day approached, signaling the beginning of the month of Thoth, god of wisdom, when Amun left his sanctuary at Karnak and traveled in his golden barque to his southern temple at Luxor, which Amunhotep had been building for the last thirty years. It was customary for Pharaoh to accompany the god to Luxor and during the fourteen days of festival to assume Amun’s identity and beget another incarnation.
    With the feast two weeks away Tiye summoned Ptahhotep and Surero.
    “Surero, the Feast of Opet comes. You are Pharaoh’s steward, with him every day. Will he be able to travel to Luxor?”
    Surero hesitated. “He sits by his couch and takes nourishment. Yesterday he walked a little in his garden.”
    “That is not an answer. Ptahhotep, I know you spent a long time with him this morning. What do you think?” She did not trouble to hide her disdain. The high priest did not like her, she knew. He was a dour, practical man who jealously guarded the fortunes of his god, and all his life he had suspected the levity with which Amunhotep had regarded Amun behind the solemn rites and masks of tradition. A devout consort would have been able to change that, but Tiye recognized that he considered her a commoner, no matter how rich and influential her family, and a foreign commoner at that, and so did not expect her to understand the ties that bound Amun to Pharaoh. Worse, she had supported Pharaoh in his bid to raise Ra and his physical manifestation on earth, the Aten, to a position of greater prominence. Tiye had tried to explain to Ptahhotep that the policy would mean nothing to the majority of the Egyptian people, for the worshipers of Ra as the Visible Disk consisted only of a small cult of sophisticated priests and a few courtiers. It was intended, rather, as a shrewd political move, designed to promote a feeling of unity among the empire’s vassal states and subject nations. All men, whatever their allegiance, worshipped the sun. To promote the Aten would ensure warmer relations between Egypt and the independent foreign kings and make them more amenable to talk of trade and treaty. While the threat to Amun that Ptahhotep had so clearly dreaded had not come about, the general loosening of religious morals and the frivolous irreverence of a bored court had deepened his disapproval. More peasants than nobility came to Karnak now, and the offerings were correspondingly vulgar. She watched icily as the high priest drew himself up to answer her question.
    “The Divine Incarnation was cheerful this morning, Majesty. He is talking of his jubilee.”
    He had taken her off guard. Tiye’s hands, lying along the arms of the throne, tightened over the huge sphinxes’ grinning mouths. “The plans for yet another celebration of his successful reign were discarded when my husband became ill some months ago. He has already blessed Egypt with two jubilees. That is surely enough.”
    Ptahhotep was obviously enjoying his queen’s surprise. “Pharaoh ordered me to find the correct rites that were gathered for his first jubilee and placed in the library,” he answered with solemn glee. “He wishes to celebrate it at the Feast of Opet.”
    If my brother Anen had lived, I would have known of this long ago , Tiye thought, annoyed. I would have been prepared . “Surero, is this true? Tell me honestly, will it tax his strength too far?”
    “He has set his heart on it, Majesty. He is sure that this time he will fully recover. He wishes to make a public show to his subjects, and his foreign dominions.”
    Ah , Tiye thought again. He is ahead of me . “Ptahhotep, you are dismissed,” she said shortly, and the man prostrated himself glumly and backed away. When he had gone, Tiye relaxed and sat back. “Does Amunhotep believe that his prolonged illness has made his royal brothers in other parts of the empire nervous, or perhaps greedy, Surero? Is that