Nefertiti (40 page)

“The Hittite regime is growing in the north. The mayor of Lakisa sent for help this morning.” My father produced a scroll from his belt, and Tiye held out her hand to read it.

My house had become a place of meeting. I was allowed to listen while Tiye and my father debated how to rule the Kingdom of Egypt. And while the Hittite king Suppiluliumas swept through Palestine, creeping closer to Egypt, Akhenaten and Nefertiti commissioned statues and rode through the streets arrayed like gods, tossing copper from their chariots into the crowds.

My aunt lowered the scroll to her lap. “Another of Egypt’s territories in danger.” I knew she was thinking that the Elder would have forfeited his
ka
to Ammit before he saw Hittites on Egyptian land. “Just like Qatna.” She looked at my father. “But we cannot send help.”

“No,” my father said, and took back the scroll. “At some point, Akhenaten will discover that gold is being drawn from the treasury to defend Kadesh and—”

“Gold is being drawn from the treasury to defend Kadesh?” I interrupted.

“To draw more to defend Lakisa would be dangerous,” Tiye agreed, ignoring my outburst.

My father nodded, and I wondered what Akhenaten might do if it was ever discovered that Egypt’s highest vizier was siphoning gold to defend Egypt’s most important stronghold against the Hittites. My father was taking a risk, ruling Egypt the way he believed the Elder would have wanted the world’s most powerful kingdom to be ruled, but it was Akhenaten’s crown, not his, not even Nefertiti’s. When the Elder had built his army, Egypt had extended from the Euphrates into Nubia. Now her land was being eaten away, and Akhenaten was allowing it. My sister was allowing it. And had it not been Nefertiti, had it been Kiya or another harem wife, Tiye and Ay would have struck her down—murder, poison, an unfortunate fall. But Nefertiti was Ay’s daughter. She was Tiye’s niece and she was my only sister, and we were supposed to forgive her anything.

Tiye rearranged her linen. “So what will we do with Kadesh?” she asked.

“Hope the gods are with Horemheb and he will achieve victory,” my father said. “If Kadesh falls, every other city will fall in her wake, and there will nothing to stop the Hittites from marching south.”

The next month when I went to the market, Djedefhor insisted on coming with me through the crowded stalls along the quay. “It’s not safe for the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife to walk by herself,” he said.

“Really?” I smiled slyly. “And yet I have been doing it every other day since Mesore.”

I thought he was flattering me, but then he stepped forward and said seriously, “No. It is not safe for you to be alone right now.”

I glanced about me, at the bustling market with its foreign goods baking in the heavy heat. Everything was as it normally was. Only the children paid me any attention, staring at my sandals and the gold bracelets around my arms. I started to laugh, then was checked by the look on his face. He took my arm and led me through the crowd. “Pharaoh has done a foolish thing today,” he confided.

I looked at him askance. “Is my family in danger?”

He drew me into the shade where two pottery merchants had erected a pavilion. “He’s answered the mayor of Lakisa’s plea for troops with monkeys in soldiers’ garb.”

I studied him to see if he was joking. “You’re not serious.”

“I am very serious, my lady.”

I shook my head. “No! No. My father would never have allowed it.”

“I doubt your father even knows of it yet. But he will, when angry Lakisans begin marching on the palace.”

I looked around me, and now I could see that none of the dark-skinned Lakisans were at their stalls. Suddenly, the heat became overwhelming.

“My lady!” Djedefhor reached out his hand to steady me, then withdrew it quickly.

“Take me to my villa,” I said quickly, and as we rolled through Amarna I realized how many builders there were, on the streets, around Akhenaten’s half-built temples, and all of them were soldiers. All of them were men who, in the Elder’s time, had been defending our vassal states, keeping the Hittites at bay in Qatna, Lakisa, and Kadesh. As soon as we were at the gates to my villa, Ipu came running and my heart leaped into my throat.

“The Vizier Ay was just here!” she cried.

I jumped from the chariot. “What did he say?”

“There is going to be trouble today. He sent soldiers to the market to find you.”

I looked at Djedefhor, feeling rising panic.

“I’ll find them,” he promised. Then he turned around. “Don’t worry, my lady. They will not harm your sister. The soldiers will stop them at the gates!”

I had not been in the palace since the birth of Princess Meketaten eleven months before. Now, the sound of my sandals slapping against the palace stones drew the servants out to stare. There would be gossip all throughout the kitchens tonight. Even the children peered around the columns at me. My mother tightened her hold on my arm, as if she was afraid I might turn and run away. “Your sister has made very foolish decisions. But we are bound to Nefertiti. In life and in death, her actions will speak for all of us.”

Two Nubian guards opened the doors to my father’s rooms and I saw that Nefertiti was already inside, pacing the tiles and clenching the scepter of reign. When she saw me, the guards moved swiftly to shut the doors behind us. She turned an accusing look on our father.

“Ask Mutnodjmet what the people think,” he commanded.

Nefertiti glared at me, and I was surprised at how Meketaten’s birth had changed her. The angles of her face had softened, but there was still a sharp determination in her eyes. “Well,” she said. “Tell us all what the people think.”

I wasn’t afraid of her disapproval anymore. “They think Aten is something too distant to be worshipped. They want gods they can see, and touch, and feel.”

“They can’t feel the
sun?
”

“They can’t touch it.”

“No god should be touched,” she retorted.

My father added hastily, “That’s not all the people think.”

“They are afraid of the Hittites,” I added, commanding myself not to think of Nakhtmin. “They hear news from merchants who tell them that the Hittites are sweeping through the north, taking women as slaves and slaughtering men, and they wonder how soon before it happens here.”

“In Egypt?” she cried, and she turned to see if our father agreed. “The people of Amarna think the Hittites will invade?” When his face was hard against her, she looked at me. “We have nothing to fear from the Hittites,” she said smugly. “Akhenaten has made a treaty with them.” My father dropped the scrolls he’d been carrying, and Nefertiti shifted defensively. “I think it is a wise decision.”

“A treaty with
Hittites?
” my father roared.

“Why not? What do we care about Lakisa or Kadesh? Why should we pay to defend them when we could spend—”

“Because the blood of Egyptians bought those territories!” My father was shaking in his rage. “This is the most foolish thing you have ever done! Of all the poor decisions you have let your husband make, this—”

“It was the decision of both of us.” She stood tall, her black eyes proud and defiant. “We did what we thought was right for Egypt.” She reached out her hand. “I thought you of all people would understand this.”

My father looked at me to see my reaction.

“Don’t look at Mutnodjmet!” Nefertiti shrieked.

My father shook his head. “Your sister would never have been foolish enough to bargain with Hittites. Handing them Kadesh!” My father’s eyes blazed. “What next when they have taken Kadesh? Ugarit, Gazru, the Kingdom of Mitanni?”

My sister lost some of her confidence. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“Once Kadesh has fallen, why not? The Kingdom of Mitanni will be theirs for the taking. And when they’ve raided Mitanni’s land, raped her women, and turned her men into slaves, what’s to stop them from marching south to Egypt? Kadesh is the last stronghold saving Mitanni. When Mitanni falls”—my father’s voice rose, and I wondered how many servants could hear him through the door—“then so does Egypt!”

Nefertiti walked to the window and looked out over Amarna, a city of sun and light. How long would it last? How long before the Hittites came to the borders of Egypt and contemplated attacking the most powerful kingdom in the world?

“Build up the army,” my father warned.

“I can’t. To do that would be to stop building Amarna. And this is our home. In these walls, we will achieve immortality.”

“In these walls, we will be
buried
if we do not stop the Hittites.”

Nefertiti opened the window and stepped out onto the balcony. A hot breeze pressed the soft linen of her dress to her body. “We have signed a treaty,” she said with resolution.

The next morning, the markets were calm, but I sensed a tenseness when I walked through the stalls, like the sharp eyes of a crocodile watching just below the surface of placid waters.

“This treaty with the Hittites is all everyone is talking about,” Ipu confided.

And Nefertiti’s belly
, I thought bitterly. Only eleven months after Meketaten and Nefertiti was with her third child.

Ipu stopped walking to glance across the market. “Djedefhor’s not here,” she observed.

I looked around. Djedefhor usually patrolled the quay, but today the soldiers were all strangers. From across the square, the meat seller recognized Ipu and called out to her.

“Good morning, my lady! Has the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife come to buy gazelle?” We made our way over to his crowded stall, where apprentice boys were using palm leaves to keep away the flies.

“No gazelle today.” But Ipu smiled and leaned across the counter, inviting the man into her confidence. “The market is quiet.”

The meat seller raised his thick eyebrows and nodded, cleaning his knife. “There are rumors,” he said. “Rumors of—” He was cut off by the sound of children shouting. Their cries filled the streets. Women began rushing from the stalls, calling to their husbands, and the meat seller dropped his knife in excitement.

“What’s happening?” I exclaimed.

But the meat seller had dropped his linens and begun shutting up his stall, searching for his apprentice. When he found the boy, he shouted excitedly, “Take care of everything. I’m going to see.”

“See what?” Ipu cried. But the meat seller disappeared. Hundreds of people surged around us. She dropped her basket and grabbed my arm, but we were carried away by the swell of the crowd. I had never witnessed anything so wild or chaotic. Sellers abandoned their stalls, leaving their daughters behind to mind them. Women began tearing branches from dwarf palms and running into the street, shouting out praises as if the gods themselves had descended upon Amarna.

“What’s going on?” I shouted above the din.

A woman next to me pointed wildly. “Horemheb and his men are coming! They’ve defeated the Hittites in Kadesh!”

Ipu looked at me, and I felt my eyes go wide as saucers. She took hold of my hand and pushed me toward the front of the crowd. Riding through the streets in chariots of gold, as the woman had said, were Horemheb and his men, still dressed in their armor.

“Is he there?” I cried.

Ipu pushed us farther in front, so close that we could reach out and touch the men’s horses. And then we both saw him. “He is here, my lady!” She was screaming. “He is here!”