The Forgotten: Aten's Last Queen (19 page)

Pounding back down the streets, I watched the chariot horses’ blue- and red-dyed feathered headgear wave in the breeze stirred up by their movement. The horses were tall and had strong legs. There were two for each chariot. They wore a sun disk ornament on the yoke between them signifying the chariot as one of royalty. On their backs were corresponding blue and red beaded skins from a leopard. Their reins were made from gold chains. There was so much gold and decoration in my life. I wish I could offer it all to Aten so He would spare my sister this pain.

When I returned to Meketaten’s room, she was still sleeping. I decided to wait to give her the necklace, so I went back to my room. Exhausted both emotionally and physically, I lay down on my bed. I could still feel dirt in my mouth from the ride, but I did not care. If I did not move, maybe Aten would take me instead.

I closed my eyes and, more out of habit than anything else, prayed.

*****

I woke up shaking. I opened my eyes and saw Tia above me, her hands on my shoulders.

“Your sister is in the birthing chair. She asks for you.” She said.

Suddenly all the energy in the world was in me. I followed her to where Meketaten was giving birth.

She was in a pavilion made of papyrus-stalk columns and decorated with vines. Slaves stood just inside and fanned Meketaten. She sat in a chair with a hole in the bottom where the baby would emerge. There was an angled back to it with pillows for her to rest on. Below the chair, there was a bowl of hot water to help loosen the skin with its warm mist.

A swarm of women were present. Some were massaging Meketaten’s legs. Others were wiping her with a cool cloth. The doctor was feeling her stretched belly, the skin on it cracked and thin. Somehow in the mass of people, my sister spotted me and reached out her hand. As I walked over to her, I felt instantly cooler, yet my sister was covered in heat sweat.

“An, I am so glad you are here.” Her speech was slightly garbled. Her tongue was still swollen from when she had bit into it.

I held her right hand within both of mine and tried to find a way to lighten her worries at the moment. “Well, you are the Great Wife, and you could have just ordered me. You’ve always dreamed of ordering me around.”

She smiled a little through a birth pain. “You’re always one to talk back, aren’t you? Nothing scares you.”

“You are wrong, Meket, and I won’t lie to you. I’m scared right now.”

She looked up into my eyes. “I am too.”

Holding onto her gaze, I tried to give her any strength I had within me. “Give me your fear, and I will hold onto it for you until your baby is here.”

Meketaten squeezed her eyes shut as her breathing became labored. “It is too great for one person to hold.”

“Now who’s talking back?” I stroked the damp hair out off of her face. “Give me your burden. You have had enough.”

Meketaten cried out in pain. Pentu checked between her legs and then looked up. “The baby is ready, Queen. When you feel the pain,
push
.” He scooted the bowl of water away with his foot.

Meketaten started to bear down, her body shaking from the effort, her face red. All too soon, she collapsed backwards crying. The back of the chair shook under her weight.

“I can’t do it. I can’t do it!”

“Meket, just push out the
pain
. Get it out of your body. Push it away from you. The baby will come and erase all the sadness and hurt,” I encouraged.

“An, where is Mayati?” She sounded like a child asking for her mother, but Mother was not here.

“I don’t know. She must be coming.”

A woman came over by us, her face covered, and she gave Meketaten something to drink. Then she stroked her cheek with a wet cloth before disappearing back into the group.

Meketaten licked her lips weakly. “Will you give the baby to her?”

“Give the baby…” My mind began to spin as I tried to sort out what she just said; the room seemed to twist around me as a whirlpool would. I felt sweat on my brow. What was she saying? “I will give the baby to you!” I replied sharply.

“No, she is ready for a child. She told me that she wished she could take my place.” Meketaten was breathless now. I could see in her eyes that the pain was coming on again. “She said her husband cannot create children. She said she would help me raise my son, but you should give him to her instead.”

Then she bore down again and pushed with every cubit of her body. Still the baby did not come. Meketaten lay back again and cried loudly.

“Meket, the baby could be a girl,” I said softly, rubbing a cool cloth across her forehead.

“No, it is a boy. I will not have suffered so much only to give Pharaoh another girl. It is a boy. He will be perfect and strong. He will be Pharaoh one day and praise my name. Maybe one day, he will carve out my likeness in stone just as tall as Mother’s. Be sure I look as beautiful as she.”

Shouting out in pain, she began to push again. Pentu kept snapping with his fingers and shouting at her to push harder,
harder
, but her strength was not great enough. When she collapsed again, he pulled out a knife and made a swift cut.

Meketaten’s cry of pain was one I had never heard before. It chilled my body so much that I shivered. It sounded like misery, misery so powerful that every other feeling was extinguished in its wake. Only agony remained.

Just then, Merytaten walked in. Her elaborate wig announced her arrival as the tiny shells strung in it slapped against each other loudly.

“Look, Meket, Mayati is here!” I said. Merytaten walked over to Meketaten’s left side. She touched her shoulder, and Meketaten smiled.

“You made it,” Meketaten whispered.

“I was praying for you,” Merytaten replied, “I put down offerings of silver.”

“Aten cannot ignore that. Thank you, sister.”

I remembered my gift. “I have something for you. I got it from the market. It’s the most beautiful necklace I have ever seen, and it will bring you luck.”

“From that handsome blond boy’s table?”

Merytaten looked up sharply at me. For a moment, I was speechless.

“You remember?” I asked dumbly.

“Of course. I knew you’d find him again. Why do you think I always asked you to get fruit from the market?”

“Then let me get it for you.”

“No, please, stay. Keep it. I give it to you. Wear it and remember him, not me.” Her face contorted in pain for a moment. “I just thought of when I used to chase you and pull your lock. I think you were 4. Remember?”

“Why would I want to remember
that
? Get up and chase me now if you feel like bragging!”

For one second, Meketaten found her laughter. Then she grimaced in pain.

“You are so much taller now,” she replied. “I just wanted to say that I owe you one. So take the necklace as
that one
.”

“How about I remember when we rode the royal barge the first time, and we tried to catch fish. You held onto my feet as I jumped in the water head first. It was all your idea, of course, just to throw me into the river.” I answered her back. “I remember you suddenly had slippery fingers when I jumped!”

Again, a light laugh was heard, “I thought Father was going to kill me.” Her laugh contorted into a sad cry. “Why was I so mean to you?”

“Because you were the older sister. It’s your duty to be that way.” I smiled down at her and wiped the tears streaming from her eyes.

“I shouldn’t have been that way. I’m sorry, An.”

“Meket, I don’t care about those things. I care about you, always. You are my best friend. I’m lucky, you see? Lucky you are here. Remember that poem that made us all cry when it was sung in class? How many years ago was that? You have changed me by your love. It’s true,
you
have changed
me
for the better.”

“Sing it to me again,” she whimpered as pain overtook her again. So I sang as best I could the melody from what felt like so long ago…

“
You have changed me by your love
.

Thus I say in my heart…”

Another body-shuddering wave came over her as I sang, and she pushed. I could tell her strength was ebbing away. Her breath came in sharp bursts. I did not stop singing for her; I did not stop singing for me. I was so frightened for her.

“In my soul, at my prayers, I say
:

“I lack my commander tonight,”

So much pain. So much blood was on the floor pouring freely from her body.

“I am as one dwelling in a tomb
.

Together we rest side by side everlasting.”

Her arms and legs shook so hard I feared another violent convulsion as the night before. The doctor’s blade caught the light again as the he deftly cut further, and Meketaten fainted in the chair.

“Meket!” Merytaten cried.

“I can reach the baby now.” Pentu yelled over top of my sister’s fear. But it could not push it down. Merytaten and I stood staring at our sister. She did not move. Her breath came shallowly in and out.

“Meket, please. Where are you?” I took her face in between my hands.

When she spoke again, her voice was clear, and her lips barely moved. It almost sounded like an echo of her voice. Like an echo in a tomb, her voice reverberated around us. “It’s so bright, and there are stars trailing behind me.”

“Meket, please, not again.”

“This is not an illusion.” Her eyes refused to open, but somehow she had sight. It could only mean…

Merytaten spoke with desperation in her voice, “Meket, the baby is almost here. Wake up.”

“
May you stay eternal in health and in strength.”
Meketaten’s lips stretched into a smile. “Look to the East, and you will see me again.”

We heard a long breath leave her lips, and her head drooped in my hands, heavy as gold deben weights.

Pentu stood up with a baby in his arms. “It’s a girl!”

My tears were a river as endless as the Nile. My voice was choked with them. “No, it can’t be. She gave her life for a boy.”

“It
is
a girl, and I will regrettably have to inform Pharaoh right away,” Pentu replied curtly. I wanted to slap him. Couldn’t he see my sister’s breath had stopped? Didn’t that matter? Our lives were important too, not just that of Pharaoh.

“Give the baby here. Please, my sister will not wake up,” Merytaten said with assuredness.

The doctor came and handed the baby over. Looking down at Meketaten, he felt for her breath. He listened to her chest.

“Everybody out!” He yelled. Everyone scrambled except for me and a servant. But Merytaten grabbed my arm and pulled me out. I would not have left Meket’s side otherwise.

Outside, my flow of tears continued. I dropped to my knees and screamed at the sun above me. I heard my wail echo along the palace walls, and I yelled harder. My chest burned, but I could not stop. My face colored red with heat, but I did not stop. I felt my body shaking, but I wanted this pain to be known by everyone.

Why did someone so dear have to suffer so much pain? She was innocent! And I knew from her last breath that Meketaten had left the world. Her laughter would not echo in my ears anymore. Her high voice, so soft and delicate and excitable, was lost from me. And for what? For someone’s selfishness. Because of Father’s selfishness and Grandmother’s influence… Her devotion to an old way that no longer made sense. Selfishness was such a greedy emotion; it had now murdered my sister as it grasped to get its way. Could it ever be satisfied? I felt so much hate within me.

When my voice was spent, I sat back on the ground. I looked up at Merytaten, who stood calmly. Her body moved in a light rhythm as she rocked the baby girl.

“I’m glad her pain is over,” she said. “She gave her life for her people.”

“Why isn’t it a boy?” I sounded like an infant, but I did not care. My voice scratched at my throat when I spoke.

“I wished for a girl,” Mayati softly said.

All sound seemed to evaporate in the sun, baked away by the heat, as my anger climbed higher up from my gut and into my throat at her words. I heard nothing but the echo of my sister’s voice in my thoughts. Was this her fault that Meketaten’s final wish did not come true?

“What do you mean?” I asked, getting back up on my feet. My voice was rising into a shrill.

“I never prayed for one, but I wished for one. A girl as beautiful as our mother. After all, if Pharaoh has no boy, then this girl will become Pharaoh. And he will learn he cannot force Ma’at to his will.” There was venom now in her voice. I knew that she too resented Father for what he had done to our sister. Though she did not cry in anguish as I did, she saw the future. She saw that Father would not win from this.

I had never thought much of Merytaten during all the changes. She had been bred for the crown as long as I could remember. She was promised the role. It was the definition of her life. Then Father had pushed Mother out and snatched the dream from her. Not only that, he gave her a husband unable to sire children on purpose, deceived her. She had lost the throne and the opportunity to create children of her own. I could tell now what all those things had meant to her. She had never expressed much emotion before, but there was something in her eyes that said she felt things just as deeply as I did. I expressed things too easily. My sister truly knew what it took to look out for our people, just as Mother had. As a ruler, she could have led our people into greatness. I knew that now.

My eyes caught movement, and I saw Father emerge in the courtyard. He walked tentatively towards us. His face was pained, as if he heard all that Meketaten had gone through from her screams. I realized it sounded much like when Tutankhaten was born. The smells and sounds were here again permeating the palace walls. Or perhaps my screams of anger had clouded his expression, made him fear his own doings. Aten forgive me for finding joy in that thought…

Merytaten turned to him, her chin raised, and spoke clearly, “Pharaoh, welcome your new daughter into the family.”

I expected him to look enraged, but the only emotion he carried was worry.