Nefertiti (22 page)

The next day, the Audience Chamber was crowded with petitioners waiting to see Pharaoh. The building of the greatest temple ever raised had already begun and messengers arrived bearing scrolls from the construction site. While Kiya waddled through the palace halls, heaving herself from chair to chair like a heifer—as Nefertiti described it—servants came and went with details and measurements from the builder Maya. Then the doors to the Audience Chamber burst open and Amunhotep tensed. The guards closed around him and Horemheb laughed.

“I fought against the Nubians when I was nothing more than a boy,” he sneered. “You think fifteen guards can stop me?” He advanced on the throne. “You
swore
to me that there would be war. I gave you the temples of Amun!”

Amunhotep smiled. “And I am very grateful.”

If I were king, I wouldn’t taunt this general
, I thought.

At the base of the dais, Horemheb stiffened. “How long do you plan on using the soldiers of Egypt as workers?”

“Three seasons,” Nefertiti replied from her throne.

Horemheb’s gaze slid from Amunhotep to my sister. I shuddered, but she didn’t shrink from his glare.

“Egypt must have its borders fully defended. That means every soldier,” Horemheb cautioned. “The Hittites—”

“I don’t care about Hittites!” Amunhotep walked down the dais to stand in front of Horemheb, knowing that in a room full of guards he was safe.

Horemheb inhaled, the leather of his pectoral straining against his chest. “You have lied to me.”

“I gave your soldiers better, less-dangerous jobs.”

“To build a temple to Aten? You defile Amun!”

“No.” Amunhotep smiled dangerously.
“You
defiled Amun.”

Horemheb’s rage brought out the veins in his arms and neck. “We will be attacked,” he warned. “The Hittites will come for Egypt, and when your men are better builders than soldiers you will be sorry.”

Amunhotep moved closer to Horemheb so that only I, sitting on the lowest tier of the dais, could hear what passed between them. “The men follow you the way they followed my brother. I don’t know why. But you will follow Aten. You will serve him, you will serve Pharaoh, or you will be stripped of your position and find yourself without a friend in Egypt. Horemheb the Friendless, they will call you. And anyone caught associating with you will be killed.” He straightened. “Do you understand?”

Horemheb said nothing.

“Do you understand?” Amunhotep shouted, and his voice rang in my ears.

Horemheb clenched his jaw. “I understand you well,
Your Majesty
.”

“Then go.”

We watched the general leave the chamber, and I thought,
It is a very foolish thing he’s done today
.

Amunhotep surveyed the chaotic scene in the Audience Chamber and declared, “I’m finished!” He looked sharply at the group of viziers clustered at the bottom of the dais. “Where is Panahesi?” he demanded.

“At the site of the new temple,” my father said, hiding his pleasure.

“Good.” Amunhotep turned to my sister and smiled indulgently. “Come. Let’s walk in the gardens. Your father can deal with all of this.” He waved a bangled arm to indicate the long line of petitioners outside the chamber.

Nefertiti looked at me, and it went without saying that I would be going, too.

We walked through the courtyard to the wide sycamore trees whose figs were ready to be harvested. “Did you know that Mutny can pick out any herb in the garden and name it?” Nefertiti asked.

Amunhotep regarded me suspiciously. “Are you a healer?”

“I learned a bit in Akhmim, Your Majesty.”

Nefertiti laughed. “More than a bit. She’s a little physician. Remember the boat?” Amunhotep stiffened, and I wondered why Nefertiti was reminding him about such a thing. “When I have a child, she will be one of my healers,” Nefertiti said, and there was something in her voice that made the Pharaoh and me both turn.

“Are you with child?” Amunhotep whispered.

Nefertiti’s smile widened. “The first son of Egypt.”

I gasped, covering my mouth, and Amunhotep let out a great shout and hugged Nefertiti to his chest. “A
family
, and no child shall ever be adored as much as ours,” he swore. He put his hand gently on my sister’s belly. I thought with incredulity that at seventeen, Nefertiti would be a mother to a Pharaoh of Egypt.

She beamed at me. “Well?”

I didn’t know what to say. “The gods have blessed you,” I gushed, but I also felt fear. She would have a family now, a husband and children to pay attention to. “Have you told Father?” I asked.

“No.” She was still smiling. “But I want my child blessed in Aten’s temple,” she said eagerly, and I stared at her in shock.

Amunhotep’s face grew serious. “Then the temple must be finished within nine months,” he said. “They must finish by Pachons.”

Inside the palace, there had already been whispers among the servants. There had been no blood found on Nefertiti’s sheets and no stains on her sheaths. Of course, I didn’t know. I was a courtyard away from her now, but Ipu wasn’t surprised.

“You knew and you didn’t even tell me?” I cried. Ipu lifted my robe over my head and put on another one for the night’s celebration.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to pass on gossip, my lady.”

“Of course I do!”

Ipu smiled so widely her dimples showed. “Then all my lady had to do was ask.”

Preparation for a celebration in the Great Hall officially began after Nefertiti told Amunhotep that she was carrying his child, but the dozens of tables and flickering oil lamps looked to have been prearranged. An army of servants must have decorated all afternoon, and every cook in Memphis must have started preparing dishes the same hour the news arrived in the palace. The dais, with its three steps leading to the Horus thrones, was bestrewn with flowers. On each step, servants had placed two chairs, high backed and well cushioned, for the highest members of the royal court. I would be sitting in one of those chairs, as would my mother and father, High Priest Panahesi, and, if she came, Princess Kiya. The last chair would be reserved for a chosen person of honor.

Once it came to eating, we would all ascend to the royal table where, most nights, the royal couple ate alone at the top of the glittering dais. But this night we would join them. This night was a celebration of our family. The royal family of Egypt.

Trumpeters announced our entrance to the room and we swept through the hall, making sure all the viziers could see how many golden bangles I was wearing and how many rings my father had donned. Kiya gave the excuse of pregnancy, but Panahesi walked with us in procession to the dais, and from beneath the Horus thrones my mother couldn’t stop beaming.

“Your sister is carrying the heir to the throne of Egypt,” she said in a voice full of wonder. “He will be Pharaoh someday.”

“If it’s a boy,” I replied.

My father smiled sharply. “It had better be. The midwives say Kiya is carrying a son and this family can’t afford a pretender to the throne.”

The Great Hall was filled with talking, laughing people. Every noble in Memphis had come. Nefertiti descended the dais and held out her arm for me to walk the room with her. She glowed in her triumph.

“You can’t walk alone?” I asked her.

“Of course, I
can
. But I need you.”

She didn’t need me, not really, but I hid my pleasure and gave her my arm. Heads turned as Ay’s daughters made their way across the chamber, and for the first time I felt it: the giddiness of being both beautiful and powerful. The men stared at Nefertiti, but their eyes lingered on me as well.

“Such a beautiful little girl.” Nefertiti chucked a woman’s fat child under the chin. I stared at my sister. She couldn’t possibly think the child was beautiful. But the mother smiled proudly and bowed more deeply than any of the other women at court.

“Thank you, my queen.
Thank you
.”

“Nefertiti,” I protested.

She pinched my arm. “Just keep smiling,” she instructed.

Then I saw that Amunhotep was watching us from his throne. Nefertiti and the sister of Nefertiti, charming and lovely and desirable and wanted. He descended the dais. He’d had enough of watching her bestow her graces on everyone but him.

“The most beautiful woman in Egypt,” he avowed, pulling her away from me. He escorted her back to her ebony throne and she glowed.

The child was all we heard about.

In the baths, at the Arena, inside the Great Hall, Nefertiti reminded everyone that she was carrying the heir to Egypt’s throne. By the middle of Thoth, I believe even Mother was tired of hearing it. “It’s all she ever talks about,” I confided, sitting forward on the stone bench in the garden, watching the cats hunt mice in the tall grass.

“It’s what she came here to do,” my mother said. “To give Egypt a son.”

“And to control the prince,” I said pointedly. We stared into the lake, watching the lotus blossoms dance across the surface, their cupping flowers mirrored in the water.

“Let’s just hope that it’s a son,” was all my mother said. “The people will forgive anything if there’s a prince waiting for the throne and they know there won’t be bloodshed for the crown. They may even forget that while the royal family is building temples in Memphis the Hittites are marching on Egyptian land in Kadesh.”

I glanced across at her, surprised, but she said nothing more on it.

“Get dressed, Mutny. We’re going to the temple.”

I started from my sheets. “The Temple of Amun?”

Nefertiti gave a dismissive sniff. “The Temple of
Aten
. They have finished the courtyard and I want to see it.”

“They finished in fifteen days?”

“Of course. There are thousands of men working. Hurry!”

I rushed to find my kilt and sandals and a belt. “What about Father?”

“He will stay in the Audience Chamber enforcing Egypt’s laws.” My sister added proudly, “The perfect trio. Pharaoh, his queen, and the competent vizier.”

“And Mother?” I slipped on my kilt.

“She’s coming.”

“But what will Tiye think?”

My sister hesitated. I thought there was real regret in her voice when she admitted, “Tiye is angry with me.” Shame colored her cheeks. After all, Queen Tiye had been the one to place the Horus crown on her head. But now Nefertiti owed Amunhotep her loyalty, not Tiye. I knew she saw it this way, but she never discussed with me what the choice had cost her or the sleepless nights she had, her head on her palm, looking out at the moon and wondering how eternity would echo her decisions. She sat on my bed now and watched me dress. She used to make fun of how long my legs were and how dark my skin was. But she didn’t have time for children’s insults now. “She even sent messengers to threaten him. But what can she do? He was crowned. He will be Pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt as soon as the Elder dies.”

“Which could be years,” I warned, hoping the gods didn’t hear the way her voice rose with hope when she spoke about Pharaoh’s death. I followed her through the hall, and when we entered the courtyard I turned to Nefertiti in surprise. “Who are all these armed men?”

Amunhotep strode through the carved sandstone gates and answered me. “I must have protection, and your sister as well. I don’t trust my father’s army.”