Nefertiti (49 page)

THEBES

fourteenth of Phamenoth

MY HUSBAND WAS at the quay as soon as the ship sailed into port. He took me into the house and laid me down on our bed. I looked up at the walls that had shone white and lusterless when we’d arrived. Now they were bright with river scenes and faience tiles. “Who did all of this?” I asked him.

“I hired a painter from the city. He did it all in three days.”

I appraised the painter’s work. It was pretty. Not anything as grand as Thutmose would have produced, but beautiful all the same. The colors he had chosen for the river were deep and varied.

“So tell me,” he said.

I sighed, telling him the story of Ankhesenpaaten’s birth, then of Kiya, and of my banishment from Amarna. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. “What is it about you,
miw-sher
, that makes people so obsessed? I thought about you every day and wondered if your sister would hatch some plan to send assassins, then marry you off to someone else when I was dead.”

I gasped.
“Nakhtmin.”

“You are everything to her,” he said soberly.

“And you are everything to me. Nefertiti understands that. And if she so much as heard a whisper against your name, she would stop the hand of Pharaoh—”

“She has become that powerful?”

“You should see the people at the Arena and in the streets. They would do anything for her.”

“And for him?”

“I don’t know.”

He caressed my cheek with his hand. “Let’s think of other things now.”

We made love that afternoon. Later, Ipu brought us lunch, figs and almonds with slices of fish and fresh barley bread. We ate and talked, and Nakhtmin told me about our tomb in the hills of Thebes, how solidly it was built and how beautiful the workers had already made it. “I found the workers Pharaoh fired before moving to Amarna. Now they are hiring out their services to any nobleman who is willing to pay. Pharaoh was foolish not to take them.”

“Pharaoh is foolish about many things,” I said. The door creaked open and Nakhtmin’s hand flew to his knife. I looked down and laughed. “It’s only Bastet! Come here, you big
miw
.”

Nakhtmin frowned.

“And look how big he’s grown!” I lifted Bastet onto my lap and he purred, pleased with my attention. “I’m surprised he’s not angry with me for leaving.”

Nakhtmin raised his brows. “Oh…He did his share of moping while you were gone.”

I looked down at Bastet. “Were you a naughty
miw?
”

“Ask your favorite linen sheath.”

I paused. “The one—”

Nakhtmin nodded.

“You tore my good sheath?” I cried, and Bastet’s ears flattened against his head, as if he knew exactly what I was talking about.

Nakhtmin said, “I doubt he understands you.”

“Of course
he does. He ruined my favorite sheath!”

“Maybe that will teach you to leave home,” Nakhtmin added playfully. We wrapped ourselves in our light linen covers and Bastet curled up at the foot of our bed. Then Nakhtmin listened while I described Amarna to him, the Northern Palace and the Arena that had taken thousands of men to build. Eventually, when evening fell, we opened the doors and sat on the balcony, watching the moon rise over the river. Across the water, large houses glittered with a hundred winking lamps.

“How could he think Amarna would ever compare to this?” I asked, and I was so thankful to Amun to be alive and sitting with the man I loved on a balcony overlooking the greatest city in Egypt.

The next morning when I returned to my garden, I complimented my husband on the job he had done to keep the mandrakes watered and the hibiscus fed. Even Ipu was impressed with his skill while we’d been gone.

“I thought for certain we’d return to dirt and weeds,” she confided.

We both laughed, and Nakhtmin demanded to know what we were laughing about.

“Only your prowess in the garden!” I said.

It was not difficult to return to my life in Thebes. The Nile rushed, the birds sang, the herons mated, and Bastet stalked through the house like the Master of Egypt.

Ipu and I went to the market to buy fish for Bastet, and I was reminded yet again what a magnificent city Thebes was. The blush of the hills and deep gold of the rocks was bright and fresh in the early morning light. Between the stalls old women were arranging their wares, chewing on betel nuts as they gossiped to one another. The winter’s sun glinted gold off the river, where men with heavy nets carried cargo from merchant ships. We walked through the crowds and the men looked first at me, attracted by my gold and silver cartouches, but their eyes lingered longest on Ipu, who swayed through the stalls, smiling at all the men’s jokes.

Paser, the carpenter, wanted to know whether Pharaoh was satisfied with the box he had made him seventeen years ago.

“It’s still in his chamber, accorded the most prominent place,” Ipu told him.

The old seller reeled back, clapping his hands. “You hear that? Paser the Carpenter’s work in the Riverside Palace.”

I glanced at Ipu, who gleamed at her lie. Paser leaned forward. “I could have worked on the tombs. I bet they would have taken me if I had gone to Amarna, and I could have carved
ushabti
for Pharaoh’s journey into the afterlife.”

“But what would your daughter have done without you?” she asked.

“She could have come, too,” he said excitedly, and then he gave a heavy sigh. “Ah, but these are just an old man’s dreams.”

“Not so old,” Ipu flattered, and the carpenter grinned.

We moved on, and I reminded Ipu of the fish for Bastet.

“We’ll go to Rensi’s stall,” she promised. “He always has the best.”

“It’s for Bastet. I doubt he will know the difference.”

Ipu passed me a look. “He knows everything, that
miw
.” She strode purposefully to the last stall in the market, then came up short at the sight of a young man in Rensi’s place. He was tall and well built with hands that didn’t belong to a fish seller.

“What can I get for you, my ladies?”

“Where is Rensi?” Ipu demanded.

“My father has business in Memphis these next two months. Until then, I’ll be tending his stall.”

Ipu put her hands on her hips. “Rensi never told me he had a son.”

“And my father never told me he had such lovely customers.” He looked between us, but I could see that his compliment had been meant for Ipu.

“Well, then, we want perch. Fresh perch. Nothing you caught two days ago and rubbed over with thyme.”

The son looked taken aback. “Do you think I would really sell a days-old fish?”

“I don’t know. Is the son of Rensi as reputable as his father?”

He handed her a wooden bowl with perch already cut. “You take this home and tell me if it’s not the finest fish in Thebes.”

“I’m afraid she won’t be able to tell you that,” I said flatly. “It’s for a
miw
.”

The son looked at Ipu as if she was insane. “Perch for a
cat?
” he rejoined, and reached out to take the fish back.

“You sold it,” Ipu exclaimed. “Too late!”

“That’s the finest fish in Thebes!” He looked to me to try to find some reversal.

“And I’ll be giving it to Thebes’ finest
miw
,” Ipu promised.

“You can’t give perch to a
miw!
”

“What is your name?” she demanded.

The fish-seller frowned. “Djedi.”

“Well, Djedi, when your father returns”—she tucked the wrapped perch neatly under her arm—“my lady here will be sure to commend you to him.”

He stared openmouthed as Ipu marched away, then looked to me. “I’ve seen her before. Is she always so impertinent?”

I smiled. “Always.”

In the unseasonable warmth of Pachons, I began pruning withered leaves and crushing eggshells to enrich the garden soil. Our house became flush with bright canna lilies and flowering hibiscus several months early, but when I reached down to pluck the lotus blossoms I thought of Nefertiti and loss overwhelmed me. In my anger, I had refused to apologize, and now I imagined my mother sitting alone in her chamber while my father shut himself away in the Per Medjat, sending spies and writing scrolls to determine how far the Hittites had advanced in the Kingdom of Mitanni. As I sat on my balcony, Ipu came to me and said, “You wanted it this way, my lady.”

I nodded sadly. “I know.”

“You’ve left them before,” Ipu pointed out, not understanding my distress.

“But never like this. Now we are separated because Nefertiti is angry, and my mother will be worried, and my father will need me if she becomes difficult, only I won’t be there.” I looked over the balcony.
If I had children, it would all be different
, I thought. I would be taking care of a son or teaching a daughter the ways of the soil. I would never find a wet nurse for my child. He would be all mine. He would be everything to me. And I wouldn’t play favorites between my daughters. But I wasn’t the one that had been blessed by Tawaret. The goddess had chosen to smile on Nefertiti.

“Come.” Ipu tried to distract me from my gloom. “We’ll go to the market and watch the fire eaters.”

“In the sun?”

“We can take a shade,” she offered.

We went into the market for the second time in seven days and lost ourselves in the busy sprawl. We had nothing to buy, but somehow Ipu’s fish merchant managed to find us. He held out two packages wrapped in papyrus, blowing the hair from his eyes in the heat.

“For the loveliest ladies in Egypt,” he said.

“That’s very kind.” Ipu glanced at the fish. “But you know the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife can’t accept food from strangers.” She handed the fish back, and he played at being deeply offended.

“And who says I am a stranger, my lady? I’ve seen you here twice. And before you left Thebes I saw you once. You may not have noticed a simple, unmarried man like myself, but I noticed you.”

Ipu stared back at him.

I laughed. “It seems you have left Ipu without words,” I congratulated. “I believe this is a first.”

“Ipu,” the fish merchant repeated her name thoughtfully. “The Friendly One.” He placed the fish back into her hands. “Take it. It isn’t poison.”

“If it is, I will return from the Afterlife to find you.”

Djedi laughed. “There will be no need for that. I will be eating fish from the same catch tonight. Perhaps you will come tomorrow and tell me how it was?”

Ipu tossed her hair coyly over her shoulder and the beads made a hollow music together. “Perhaps.”

When we left the market, I turned to Ipu at the bend in the road. “He is interested!” I exclaimed.

“He’s only a fish merchant,” she said dismissively.

“He’s more than that. Look at the gold on his fingers.”

“Then perhaps he’s a fisherman.”

“With rings like those?” I shook my head. “Haven’t you said you wanted a husband with a little wealth? What if this is him?”

We stopped at the path that led up to my garden and Ipu grew serious. “Please tell no one about this,” she said.

I frowned. “Such as who?”

“Such as any of the women who come to buy your herbs.”

I stepped back, offended. “I never spread gossip.”

“It is only because I want to be cautious, my lady. He could be married.”

“He said—”

“Men say many things.” But there was a gleam in her eyes. “I only want to be careful.”