Drinker Of Blood Read Free Page A

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,