Nefertiti (35 page)

Dinner in the Great Pavilion lasted forever and I wasn’t in the mood for Thutmose, with his talk of henna and hair and the unfashionable beards on the emissaries from Ugarit. All I could think was how, in a few days, Nakhtmin wouldn’t be able to visit my pavilion. He would have to sneak into the palace, if that was even possible, and who knew how long that would last before he was caught?

I looked across the table at Nefertiti; her child would be a prince. Without my father’s consent or the king’s, mine would be the fatherless heir to nothing. A bastard child. I watched as the servants catered to Nefertiti, and a deep longing welled up inside me when Akhenaten put his arms around her shoulders and whispered softly, “My little Pharaoh,” staring down at her round stomach.

I stood up and asked to be excused.

“Now?” Nefertiti snapped. “This early? What if I have pains? What if—” She saw my expression and changed tactics. “Just stay for a game of Senet.”

“No.”

My sister pleaded. “Not even one game?”

The courtiers in the pavilion turned to look at me.

I stayed only for a single game in Nefertiti’s pavilion, which my sister won and not because I let her.

“You should try,” she complained. “It’s not fun to win all the time.”

“I do,” I said flatly.

She laughed, getting up and stretching her back. “Only Father and I are a real match,” she said, moving to the brazier. The firelight cast her shadow across the walls of the pavilion. “He’s coming soon,” she said lightly.

“You’ve had word?”

Nefertiti heard the eagerness in my voice and shrugged. “He will be here in six days. Of course, he won’t see us move into the palace…”

But I wasn’t listening to her. In six days, I would be able to tell him about his grandchild.

“A child, my little cat.
Our
child!” Nakhtmin was beside himself with joy. He drew me into the folds of his arms and pressed me tightly to his chest, but not so tightly as to crush the baby. “Have you told the queen?” he asked, and when he saw the ashen look on my face he frowned. “But she must be happy for you?”

“That I will be pregnant at the same time she is, sharing in my father’s attention?” I shook my head. “You don’t know Nefertiti.”

“But she will accept it. We will marry, and if Pharaoh is still angry, we will leave the city and buy a farm in the hills.”

I looked at him doubtfully.

“Don’t worry,
miw-sher
.” He pressed me close to him. “It’s a child. Who can resent a child?”

The next morning, I went to Nefertiti. She would be angry, but she would be furious if I told our father before her. She was in the Royal Pavilion, the morning light filtering through the walls and illuminating the chaos all around her: servants moving baskets, men packing heavy chests, and women gathering armfuls of cosmetics and linens.

“I need to speak with you,” I said.

“Not there!” she cried. Every person in the pavilion froze. She pointed wildly at a servant with linens in his arms. “Over there!”

“Where’s Akhenaten?” I asked.

“Already at the palace. We are moving tonight. You should be ready,” she said, which made my need more urgent. Once we moved, Nakhtmin couldn’t wander into my tent. The palace would be guarded. There would be gates and Akhenaten’s Nubian men, who were jealous of the army.

“Nefertiti.”

“What?” She didn’t take her eyes off the commotion. “What is it?”

I looked around to see who was listening, but the servants were making too much noise to hear us, so I said it. “I am pregnant.”

She was very still for a moment, so still I thought she hadn’t heard me. Then she dug her nails into my arm and pulled me painfully to the side. “You are
what?
” The cobra on her crown glittered at me with its red eyes. “It is not the general’s child,” her voice was threatening. “Tell me it’s not the general’s child!”

I said nothing and she pulled me farther away into her chamber, separated from the antechamber by hanging cloth. “Does Father know about this?” she whispered savagely.

“No.” I shook my head. “I came to you first.”

Her eyes filled with venom. “Pharaoh will be outraged.”

“We are no threat to him. All we want to do is live together and be married—”

“You have bedded a common soldier!” she shouted. “You take a man to your bed without my
permission?
Do you think to insult me?” She moved threateningly close. “What you do is for
this family
, and now you have put this family in danger.”

“This is only a child.
My
child.”

“Who will come to be a threat to the throne. A royal baby. The son of a general!”

I stared at her in shock. “Our grandfather was a general, and he kept the army readied and loyal to Pharaoh. Only your husband could see it as a threat. Generals have always married into the royal court!”

“Not in
Amarna
,” Nefertiti seethed. “Akhenaten will
never
have it.”

“Please, Nefertiti, you have to convince him. This child is no threat—”

She cut her hand through the air. “No. You got yourself pregnant and you will get yourself out of it. You of all people know perfectly well how to do it.”

I stared at her with wide-eyed horror. My hands flew protectively to my stomach. “You would make me do that?” I whispered.

“You are the one who made the problem with your eyes wide open. And your legs,” she added spitefully. “I should have known to keep you closer.”

I drew myself up to my fullest height. “You have a husband, a daughter, and a second child on the way, and you deny me one?
One
child?”

“I have denied you
nothing!
” She was wild with rage, and now there was only the faintest sound of moving and packing coming from beyond the cloth. “I married Akhenaten to give you
everything
, and you throw it all away on a
commoner
. You are the most selfish sister in Egypt!”

“Because I dared to love someone other than you?”

The truth was too much. She stalked across the room toward the curtains, then said over her shoulder, “You will be at the banquet tonight in the palace.”

I bit back my pride. “Will you tell him we want to get married?”

She stopped, making me ask her again.

“Will you?”

“Tonight you may have your answer,” she said. The curtain twitched closed behind her, and I was alone in the king’s inner chamber.

I went back to my pavilion and was sick to my stomach, wondering if I should find Nakhtmin at the building site and warn him.

“Of what, my lady?” Ipu asked sensibly. “And how will you get there?” She put her hands over mine. “Wait for the queen’s decision. She will ask for you. You are her sister and you’ve served her well.” Ipu handed me my clothes for the night’s celebration. “Come,” she encouraged. “Then I will see that your things are brought to the palace.”

“I want to see my mother first,” I told her. “I want you to bring her here.”

Ipu stood for a moment to measure my resolve, then nodded quietly and left.

I put on the long tunic and golden belt, then fastened a beaded necklace around my neck, rehearsing what I would say when my mother came. Her only daughter. The one child Tawaret had seen fit to give her. I studied my reflection in the mirror, a young girl with dark hair and wide green eyes. Who was she, this girl who would allow herself to become pregnant with a general’s child? I exhaled slowly and saw that my hands were shaking.

“Mutnodjmet?” My mother cast her eyes across my pavilion with disapproval. “Mutnodjmet, why haven’t you packed? We are moving tonight.”

“Ipu said she will do it while we’re gone.” I moved over on the leather bench so that she could sit next to me. “But first I want you to sit here.” I hesitated. “Because…because I have something I must tell you right now.”

She knew what I was going to say before I spoke. Her eyes traveled down to my midriff, and she covered her mouth. “You are with child.”

I nodded, and my eyes filled with tears. “Yes,
mawat
.”

My mother was very still, the way Nefertiti had been, and I wondered if she was going to strike me for the first time in my life. “You have slept with the general.” Her voice was flat.

My eyes pooled with tears. “We want to be married,” I said, but my mother wasn’t listening.

“Every night I watched him come into the camp and I thought that Akhenaten had beckoned him. I should have known. When has Pharaoh ever been interested in the army?” My mother searched my face. “So the guards looked the other way for you?”

Shame colored my cheeks. “It would have happened without them. We love each other—”

“Love? Commoners
marry for love. And they divorce just as quickly! You are the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife! We would have married you to a prince. A
prince
, Mutnodjmet. You could have been a princess in the land of Egypt.”

“But I don’t want to be a princess.” My tears flooded over. “That’s Nefertiti’s dream. I’m pregnant,
mawat
. I’m pregnant with your grandchild and the man I love wants to carry me across the threshold of a new house to marry me.” I looked up at her. “Isn’t there any part of you that is happy?”

She pressed her lips together. Then her resolve crumbled and she took me in her arms. “Oh, Mutnodjmet, my little Mutnodjmet. A mother.” She wept tenderly. “But to what kind of a child?”

“A beloved one.”

“One that will frighten Pharaoh and outrage your sister. Nefertiti will never accept it.”

“She must,” I said firmly, pulling away. “I’m a woman. I have the right to choose my husband. This is still Egypt—”

“But it’s Akhenaten’s Egypt. Maybe if you were in Akhmim…” My mother spread her palms. “But this is the king’s city. The choices are his.”

“And Nefertiti’s,” I stressed. “By the time Father arrives, the villas will be finished. Nefertiti can convince Akhenaten to let us live there.”

“She will be angry.”

“Then she will have to learn to accept it.”

My mother picked up my hand and squeezed it. “Your father will be shocked when he returns. Two daughters, both carrying children.”

“He will be happy. Both of his daughters are fertile.”

My mother’s smile was bitter. “He would be happier if you had married a prince.”

That night there was feasting throughout the new city of Amarna. Everywhere was the sound of laughter, and as I helped my mother into a chariot I thought,
Nefertiti has done this on purpose. She’s told me she will give me an answer tonight hoping I won’t reach her among all these people
.

The courtyards outside the palace were filled with servants bearing platters of honeyed nuts, plump figs, and pomegranates. Thousands of men from the army drank in the streets with total abandon, singing about war and sex and love. I looked for Nakhtmin as we entered the palace, scanning the crowds for his broad shoulders and bright hair.

“He won’t be here,” my mother said. “He will be with his men.”

I flushed to realize that my thoughts were so transparent. A servant took us to the Great Hall, where table after table was filled with feasting viziers and the flirting daughters of wealthy men, all imitating my sister in the way they dressed in the sheerest of linens, hennaing their hands and feet and breasts. But the two Horus thrones on the dais were empty.