The Egyptian Royals Collection (32 page)

“I don’t know. I think. So much has happened.”

Ipu gasped. “Your father will be furious.”

My lip trembled and I buried my head in my hands, for, instinctively, I knew it was true. I had missed my blood. “And I’m my mother’s only daughter,” I explained. “She will be so upset, so lonely if—” I began to cry and Ipu took me in her arms, stroking my long hair.

“It may not be so bad,” she comforted. “No one knows better than you that there are ways to be rid of it.”

I looked up sharply. “No!” I clasped my hands across my stomach.
Kill Nakhtmin’s child?
“Never.”

“Then what else? If you have this child, your father will never make you a marriage!”

“Good,” I said wildly. “Then the only man who will want me is the general.”

But Ipu’s voice grew desperate. “And what about Pharaoh?”

“I have done enough for Nefertiti. It’s her turn now. She will have to convince him.”

Ipu’s look was incredulous, as if she didn’t believe it would happen.

“She
has
to,” I said.

I paced the tent all afternoon. Two women came for acacia and honey, and my insides turned as I handed the mixture to them, thinking of how careless I had been. Then Merit appeared; the queen was asking for me.

“She wants to know if you will be coming for dinner?”

“No,” I said, too ill with regret to face my sister. “Go and tell her that I am sick.”

Merit disappeared, and several minutes later Nefertiti parted the curtains without announcing her arrival.

“You are always sick lately.” She strode to a chair and sat down, studying me. I was sorting my herbs, and my hands trembled when they came to the acacia. “Especially at night,” she added suspiciously.

“I haven’t been well for several days.” I didn’t lie.

She watched me closely. “I hope you haven’t been taken with that general.” The color must have drained from my face because she added harshly, “This family cannot trust anyone in the army.”

“So you’ve said.”

Nefertiti studied me. “He has not come to visit you?” she demanded.

I lowered my gaze.

“He has come to visit you?” she shrieked. “In the camp?”

“What does it matter?” I snapped shut my herb box. “You have a husband, a family, a child—”

“Two
children.”

“And what do I have?”

She sat back as if I had slapped her. “You have me.”

I looked around my lonely pavilion, as if she could understand. “That’s it?”

“I am Queen of Egypt.” She stood swiftly. “And you are the Sister to the King’s Chief Wife! It is your destiny to serve.”

“Says who?”

“It is Ma’at!” she exclaimed.

“Is it Ma’at to tear down the temples of Amun?”

“You will not say that,” she hissed.

“Why? Because you’re afraid the gods will be angry?”

“There is no greater god than Aten! And you had better learn to accept that. In a month, the Temple of Aten will be finished and the people will worship Aten the way they worshipped Amun—”

“And who will collect the money they give as offerings?”

“Father,” she replied.

“And who will he give the money to?”

Nefertiti’s face grew dark. “We built this city for the glory of our reign. It is our right.”

“But the people don’t want to move to Amarna. They have homes in Thebes.”

“They have
hovels
in Thebes! Here, we will do what no Pharaoh has ever done before! Every family that moves to Amarna will be given a home—”

I laughed meanly. “And have you seen those homes?” Nefertiti fell silent. “Have you
seen
the homes? You visited your palace, but you didn’t see that the homes of the workers are made of mud brick and
talatat
. Come Inundation, they will crumble to the ground.”

“How do you know?”

I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t tell her it was because Father said they would, or that Nakhtmin had said the same when we’d lain in bed together.

“You don’t know that,” she triumphed. “Come. We are eating.”

A command. Not a request.

Then, before she left, she said over her shoulder, “And we will not discuss the general again. You will remain single and in my service until Father or I choose a husband for you.”

I bit my tongue against a sharp retort.

“And when is the last time you visited the princess?” she demanded.

“Yesterday.”

“You are her aunt,” she pronounced. “It goes without saying that she wants to see more of you.”

You mean you want to see more of me
. She disappeared, and I sat down and looked at my little belly. “Oh, what in this world will your father say when he hears about you, little one? And how will Nefertiti convince Akhenaten that you are no threat to his reign?”

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?”