in the face of my agitation.
I retraced my steps home, sunk in despair. I found Father singing as he washed, blithe and excitable as a child on the morning of a festival. I told him what had happened, and he was delighted. âAha! The queen bee carries the poison back to the hive and poisons all her drones! Excellent! Excellent!â
I crammed my anger away like a sail into a basket. Anger would not achieve anything. Instead, I took myself over to the Temple of Aten and asked the priests to perform a ritual prayer for me. â
O Aten, let her not die! Reach down your sunny hand and protect the divine family
!â
But I could not sit idly by and wait. If there was to be a boat trip to the reed marshes, the palace would be largely empty of people. I might just be able to get inside the royal quarters and find the cat. I went down to the quayside to watch the royal family embark â to make certain of them being out of the way.
The great cedarwood barge threw the shadow of its long, bowed shape across the waterfront, the river bubbling and hissing past the hull, the oarsmaster shouting orders to the crew. Under a canopy near the prow, I caught sight of Ibrim seated on a woollen cushion, with his hand lyre. I threw up my arms to catch his attention â forgetting his blindness. There was absolutely no chance of reaching him.
A crowd had gathered, as crowds always did, to see the king and queen. By the time I had pushed my way through to the front, Akhenaten, Nefertiti and the six princesses had come gliding down to the wharf and were climbing aboard, while the crowd called out blessings and praises, and bowed down reverentially.
I forgot to bow. My eyes were fixed on Queen Nefertiti, glorious in her blue crown banded with gold, her white linen wrapper, her golden sandals. In the crook of her arm, its eyes still plugged with clay, sat the little Nile-blue faience cat. She had brought her daughterâs present with her from the palace!
Among the crowd, I saw my fatherâs face, gloating, utterly delighted with himself. The royal barge pulled out from the quay, and around it a flotilla of little papyrus boats and coracles bobbed like lambs around a ewe. The faithful were always eager for a glimpse of the pharaoh, the living god.
An empty skiff bumped against the quayside at my feet. That was it! That was what I had to do â go after the royal barge! Father had to come, too.
Somehow, I plucked him out of the crowd and got him into the boat before he could refuse. He did not understand what he was doing there, and clung to the sides chanting the prayer against crocodiles and bleating dismally about my rowing.
Soon, most of the flotilla of little boats peeled off one by one, and turned back toel-Amarna, but I kept on plying the single oar at the stern, riding the current, riding the glossy wake which marked out the path taken by the royal barge.
Downstream, the reedbeds make a dark cage of stems against which everything is in silhouette, and colours merge into a single shadowy green haze. Widgeon and teal break cover and dart into the sky. There is a continuous singing throb of frogs, and the occasional bubbling up of gas from rotting vegetation below water. Bulrushes form, for mile upon mile, a guard of honour to the little boats which nose and butt among them. Mosquitoes drone, and fish nibbling at the reed stems set the brown velvet rush-tips swaying. There are water snakes, too.
Amidst this lovely turquoise world, Queen Nefertiti, the great queen, the beautiful one, cradled on her knees a faience cat that was aswarm inside with asps. A single bite from any one, and she would be dead within hours.
My papyrus skiff chafed and bumped against the moored barge. Some of the kingâs guests, mayors and Syrians, were disembarking into skiffs and starting tohunt for birds deep among the reedbeds. One man would stand in the prow with a handful of throwing sticks, knocking down birds scared out of hiding
Pattie Mallette, with A. J. Gregory