Nefertiti (60 page)

The people watched her with wide, frightened eyes.

Akhenaten stopped in front of one of the priests, who fell to the floor in obeisance.
“Anyone
who opens a window or slips a message under a door to the outside will be sent to the kitchens to die. Guards!” he commanded. “Kill every cook and baker’s apprentice. Keep no one in the kitchens alive. Not even the cats.” He looked for the man who’d delivered the news of plague and pointed. “Begin with him.”

The guards were swift. The man was taken screaming through the doors of the Audience Chamber before he could even beg for his life. Our family looked as one to Nefertiti.

“Everyone return to their chamber,” she said. “Anyone with sign of the plague is instructed to take charcoal from their brazier and mark the Eye of Horus upon their door. Meals will come once a day.” She saw my father’s approving nod, and her voice grew louder and more confident. “The servants will take food from the cellars, not the kitchens. And no one is to venture beyond their chambers until the palace is free from plague for a fortnight.”

Panahesi stepped forward, eager to put himself in the center of things. “We should make a sacrifice,” he announced.

Akhenaten agreed. “A platter of meat and a bowl of Amarna’s best wine outside of every door,” he declared.

“No!” I moved quickly forward to the dais. “We should hang garlands of mint and rue outside of every door. But that is all.”

Akhenaten turned on me. “The Sister of Pharaoh thinks she knows more than the High Priest of Aten?”

Nefertiti’s look was fierce. “She is wise with herbs and she suggests rue, not rotting meat.”

Akhenaten’s voice grew suspicious. “And how do you know she isn’t trying to rid herself of a sister and brother-in-law? She could take the throne for herself and her son.”

“Every door will have a garland of mint and rue,” Nefertiti commanded.

“And the sacrifice?” Panahesi pressed the two Pharaohs of Egypt.

Akhenaten straightened. “For every chamber that wants protection from Aten,” he said loudly. “Those who wish the great god’s wrath”—his eyes found mine—“will go without.”

The exit from the Audience Chamber was subdued. As the crowd broke up, Nefertiti touched my hand. “What will you do?”

“Go back to Baraka, then seal the door and let no one inside.”

“Because we can’t all be together, can we?” she asked. “To put all of our family in one chamber would be to risk everything.” There was fear in her voice, and it occurred to me that this was the first time she would have only Akhenaten and no one else. Our parents would go to their chambers while Tiye watched over the children.

I reached out and touched her hand. “We may all survive this separately,” I said.

“But how do you know? You could be dead of plague and I wouldn’t discover it until a servant reported the Eye of Horus. And my daughters—” Her slight body seemed to grow even smaller. “I will be all alone.”

It was her greatest fear, and I took her hand and placed it on my heart. “We will all be well,” I promised, “and I shall see you in a fortnight.”

It was the only time I ever lied to her.

While Black Death swept through the palace, Panahesi placed offerings of salted meat at the doors of those who wished for Aten’s blessing. In his leopard robes and heaviest golden rings, he moved through the halls, followed by young priests singing praises in their high, sweet voices to Aten. And while the young boys sang, Anubis ravaged.

When Panahesi came to our door, Heqet ordered him away.

“Wait!” I flung the door open to confront him. Both Nakhtmin and the milk nurse cried out. “I will hold a sprig of rue before me,” I promised, then faced Panahesi. “Are you placing an offering at the nursery?” I asked.

He tossed aside his leopard cloak and moved to the next door.

“Are you placing an offering at the nursery?” I demanded.

He looked at me with condescension. “Of course I am.”

“Don’t do it. Don’t place an offering there. I will give you whatever you want,” I said desperately.

Panahesi looked me up and down. “And what would I want from the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife?”

“The sister of
Pharaoh
,” I replied.

His lips curled. “My own grandson sleeps in the nursery. Do you think I would poison Egypt’s hope for the throne to kill six meaningless girls? Then you are as foolish as I thought you were.”

“Close the door!” Heqet cried from behind me. “Close the door,” she begged, holding my son with hers. I watched Panahesi disappear down the hall with his bowls full of meat, then I closed us back inside, shoving springs of rue and mint beneath the door and sealing up the crack.

Two days passed, and there was no sign of the Black Death in the halls of the palace, no charcoal eyes of death on any door. Then, on the third night, just as we had begun to believe that the palace would be protected, Anubis paused to eat at every chamber that had an offering to Aten.

A servant girl’s screams pierced the silent halls at dawn. She ran by the royal chambers, shouting about the Eye of Horus. “A boy next to the kitchens,” she screamed, terrified. “And the Master of the Horse. Everyone who placed an offering to Aten! Two ambassadors from Abydos. And one from Rhodes. We can smell it from their chambers!”

“What now?” I whispered from behind our closed door.

Nakhtmin replied, “Now we wait and see, and hope death only visits those who placed offerings to Aten.”

But when the people of Amarna saw the death carts rolling toward the palace, fury swept through the city. If Pharaoh’s god wouldn’t protect Amarna’s palace, why would he protect its people? Despite the risk, Egyptians took to the streets, chanting to Amun and shattering Aten’s images. They pressed against the palace gates and demanded to know if the Heretic Pharaoh was still alive. I moved closer to our boarded-up windows and heard the cries. “Do you hear what they’re calling him?” I whispered.

Heqet’s eyes were wide with fear. She replied, “The Heretic King.”

“And do you hear what they are chanting?”

We listened to the sound of shattered stone and hammers. They were defacing Akhenaten’s statues and chanting for the destruction of Amarna itself. “BURN IT DOWN! BURN IT DOWN!”

I took Baraka and held him to my chest.

When food came at noon, Nakhtmin opened the door and stepped back in shock. A different servant was carrying our food, trembling and crying.

“What is it?” Nakhtmin demanded.

“The nursery,” the girl gasped.

I handed my son to Heqet and ran toward the door. “What about it?”

“They’ve all been touched,” she cried, holding a basket out for us. “All the children have been touched!”

“Who?
Who
has been touched?” I shouted.

“The children. The twin princesses are gone. The Princess Meketaten is taken. And Nebnefer, my lady…” She covered her mouth, as if the words that would fall out must be held back in.

Nakhtmin gripped the girl’s arm. “Died?”

The servant’s knees grew weak. “No. But sick with plague.”

“Give us our food and shut the door,” he said quickly.

“Wait!” I pleaded. “Nefertiti and my parents. Do they have the Eye of Horus?”

“No,” the girl whispered, “but our Pharaoh will wish she was dead when she hears that her six princesses are reduced to three.”

I recoiled in horror. “She hasn’t been told?”

The girl pressed her lips together. The tears came harder and she shook her head. “No one has been told but you, my lady. The servants are afraid of him.”

Of Akhenaten
. I steadied myself against the door: three princesses and soon the Prince of Egypt. And if there was plague in the nursery, what of Tiye? Of Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten? Nakhtmin bolted the door and Heqet was on her feet at once.

“We shouldn’t eat the food.”

“It’s not carried by food,” Nakhtmin replied. “If it was, we’d all be dead by now.”

“Someone must rescue the survivors,” I said.

Nakhtmin stared fixedly into the room where our son was lying.

“Someone must rescue the queen and Meritaten,” I repeated. “Ankhesenpaaten—”

“Is lost.” My husband’s eyes were grim.

“But she’s still alive!” I protested.

“And there is nothing we can do for her. For any of them. If three princesses have already died, the nursery must be quarantined.”

“But we can separate the healthy. We can place them in separate chambers and give them a chance.”

Nakhtmin was shaking his head. “Pharaoh damned their chances by inviting the Hittites and listening to Panahesi.”

We all knew when the news arrived that the twin princesses were gone, and the two-year-old Neferuaten and five-year-old Meketaten had also been taken.

Bells tolled in the courtyards and there were screams in the palace. Women were weeping and calling on Aten to lift the curse that had descended over the palace of Amarna. A servant came and told us that Nubian guards had been sent to rescue the remaining princesses and the queen, but that for Nebnefer it had been too late. I shut the door, and we listened to the chanting beyond the walls of palace. It had never been so loud.

“They know there’s plague within the palace,” Nakhtmin said, “and they think that if Pharaoh’s own children have been taken, then it must be because of something he’s done.”

For three days, the chanting never stopped. We could hear angry Egyptians calling for mercy in the name of Amun and cursing the Heretic Pharaoh who had brought them plague. I stood near the window and pressed my face against the wood, closing my eyes and listening to the rhythm of the cries. “He will never be known as Akhenaten the Builder. They will call him the Heretic Pharaoh until eternity.” I thought of Nefertiti alone in her chamber, hearing the news that four of her children had died, and whenever I looked at my son at Heqet’s breast my eyes stung with tears. He was so young. Much too small to fight off something so great, and I held him to me at night and tried to be thankful for the time I had with him.

In the day, we listened to the roll of the death carts outside the palace. We stopped our quiet games of Senet when the wagons went by, wondering whose body was to be stripped and buried anonymously for eternity, without any cartouche to tell Osiris who they had been when he returned to earth. I begged the servants who delivered our food to bring us more rue, but they all said there was none left in the palace.