Nefertiti Read Online Free

like to engage in the amateur drama of an assumed identity in these circumstances.
    'I am an official in the Office of Accounts,' I replied.
    'So we should make friends with you, as otherwise we shall never be paid!' He looked around the table for approval of his little quip.
    'Indeed, our Lord's finances are a great mystery, but the greatest is that they are never-ending, and ever bountiful.'
    He appraised me and the conformity of my reply with a cool eye. Before he could get further into this, I quickly asked, 'And what are your own affairs in Akhetaten?'
    'I am director of the court orchestra and dancers. It is a position enjoying considerable status, an d I believe there was great com petition for it. I shall be directing the opening drama for the city's inauguration. Did you know, all the members of the court orchestra are women?'
    'Do you mean, sir, that women are less capable than men in the expertise of dance and music?'
    A handsome, intelligent woman had spoken from the opposite side of the table. Her husband, a smaller and somehow diminished middle-aged man with the appearance of a born bureaucrat, glanced at her as if to say: it is not your place to speak of this. But she gazed calmly on the Great White Moon.
    He sniffed and said, 'Dancing will always be the woman's art. But music makes great technical and spiritual demands. I am not speaking of mere decoration but of the deep soul.' He picked out the morsel of a prawn from its pink sheath and popped it between his fastidious and ambitious lips.
    'I see. And is our Queen Nefertiti decoration? Or is she of deep soul?' She smiled at me, an invitation to share her amusement. 'We know too little of her,' he said.
    'Oh no, sir,' she responded. 'We know she is beautiful. We know she is clever. And we know she is the most powerful woman alive today. She drives her own chariot, and she wears her hair as she wishes, not as tradition would dictate. She smites her enemies as a King. And no-one tells her what to do. She is, in fact, the epitome of the modern woman.'
    A small silence ensued around the table. Finally, the Moon spoke: 'Indeed, and that may very well be why we find ourselves in a world which is changing faster than perhaps everyone would like.'
    The conversation was becoming more charged; the stakes of the game increased. She answered him with a counter-play.
    'Do you not, then, approve of the new religion?'
    This was a subject not to be carelessly discussed among strangers. Moon Man squirmed with discomfort and uncertainty, caught between speaking his mind and fearing for his future. 'I approve it with all my heart. Of course I do. I am merely a music-maker. It is not my business to ask questions, merely to do what is asked of me and make it sound as tuneful as possible. I only wonder, privately, and I am not alone in this, whether our Lord and his Lady, she-who-will-not-be-told-what-to-do, have not bitten off more than they can chew.' And with that, he placed a fried sprat between his lips and teased off the flesh from the bones as if he were playing a tune on a small reed pipe.
    The handsome woman's eyes were alive with amusement at the absurdity of his turn of phrase, which she seemed to want to share with me.
    'We live in a time of great turbulence,' said her husband. 'Can we know whether we are blessed or cursed? Will the people miss their old gods, and the Priests their easy riches? Or are we moving forward, together, as a society, towards a higher and greater truth, however challenging?'
    Moon Man spoke again: 'Higher truths need proper financing. Enlightenment is expensive. So I am pleased to hear you' - here he pointed a greasy finger at me - 'can confirm the finances of our Lord are drawn from so perpetual a spring of plenty. I hear the harvest is poor again this year. And I hear salaries are in arrears, sometimes by several years. Indeed, it is the guarantee of regular gifts from Akhenaten that has persuaded me to uproot my life and cast my fortune on