The Forgotten: Aten's Last Queen (64 page)

I should have run. Tutankhamun could have chosen another wife, someone able to bear him children, and he would have been happy. Instead I gave him a broken body, a child who would not live, and he had been distant from me since.

Now that I had the opportunity to run, I found I could not. Why even try? It seemed that everything I put my heart into, I destroyed.

I looked down at the pendant, the name that had been split apart, the ka that had been cut away from my sister like the head of an enemy. I could fix this. I could have the name restored. So why was I hesitating?

I sighed and lay back down on my bed. I opened myself to the nightmares, allowing them to swallow me whole as I no longer cared what they foretold. After staring at the ceiling, listening to the waters drop endlessly as they counted away the time to Ra’s return, my ka finally drifted away…

Black smoke was curling around me. I coughed and opened my soul’s eyes. As I looked around, I realized I was lying on the embalmer’s table. From the corners of my eyes, I could make out the blood-stained slab I laid upon, which chilled my skin to the bone. The black head of Anubis was staring down at me. I tried to speak, to tell Him I was not dead, but my lips would not move. A priest stepped into view, positioning himself on Anubis’s right. It was one I had never seen before. He tightly held a long knife that glinted in the candlelight. As I looked closer, the knife was glinting not because its blade was sharp, but because it was wet with blood. Its droplets fell onto my bare stomach as the priest looked up and down my naked body.

I tried reaching for a robe but found that my arms were tied in place. I could feel the coarse binding material scratching my wrists. I thrashed my head around, attempted to scream, something, but it was no good. While it felt like my lips finally tore apart from each other so I could open my mouth, no sound would come from my lips.

The priest began to heat the knife with a candle’s flame. The candle sat upon a side table made from dark ebony. On the table sat my canopic jars, their tops opened and waiting hungrily, greedily, for me to be placed inside so it could devour all that I had left. My flesh
was going
to be cut and my life pulled out of this world.

My eyes focused beyond the table, beyond the jars and the candle’s flame, which sizzled as it licked the knife’s bloody edge. There was another person on the table next to mine. His eyes were open, his tongue hung slack out the side of his mouth, and his head was turned toward me. One arm was outstretched as if reaching toward me. I closed my eyes and tried to blot out the sight, but its image slowly ripped across my heart with a jagged edge… the heart that would be all that was left inside of me. There was no jar for this dark blot in my chest. Eternally, I would remember this even when my eyes of flesh closed on the world.

I opened my eyes again and saw him staring at me. His chest had been ripped open, and I could see jackals eating away at what was left. I could hear their jaws snap and their tongues lap up his insides. I tried to scream and kick at them, but the effort was useless. Nothing would remain. His body was being eaten away. Tutankhamun was no more! How could the other priests allow this to happen?

I looked up to see that Anubis was still looking down at me. His gaze had not wavered. Did he realize I was still alive? Why did the rise and fall of my chest go unnoticed? Was he enjoying this? His pelt was so black that I could only make out his features that reflected the candle’s light, smooth and slick. It actually looked like he was melting before me. As I stared at his hide, I realized that he was melting! An ear fell off like wax from a long-used candle. Next was the other ear, layers of fur, his snout, finally his eyes dropped away. They slid down his wrinkled old flesh. I expected it to be Ay, but it was not.

It was Horemheb, and he had aged 50 years.

He grabbed the knife from the priest’s hand and raised it high. His eyes grew wide. I could see only hatred in them.

“You killed him!” he whispered.

The words grew louder and rattled in the space between my ears. It made my teeth chatter as I realized what he was saying. This was my fault! I looked to Tutankhamun again.

He began to plunge the knife downward toward me. I could see it coming, a rainbow of colors left behind in its wake as it moved. It moved to kill me. Horemheb would kill me.

Then the blade abruptly stopped. It hovered over my belly that I had sucked inward in a once-futile attempt to avoid the fatal stab. But now I could see those whispers of air helped to avoid the blade’s tip.

There was a hand encircling Horemheb’s wrist. I followed the arm up and saw the impossible. Djhutmose was standing there staying Horemheb’s arm. Sweat was beaded up on Horemheb’s skin, but he was not moving. His muscles were now too aged and could not overcome a thin, meek man’s strength.

Involuntarily, I attempted to touch my skin where the blade was hovering shakily above, and I found my bonds were gone. I could move again! I scrambled off the table, careful to avoid Horemheb’s blade.

But it… it was no longer Horemheb. The face had only been a mask, and Djhutmose lifted it up. It
was
the face I had suspected all along. There stood Ay. But this Ay was young. His face was unlined. His eyes were bright. He met my eyes and began to cry.

There was movement behind us. Focusing past Ay, there was Horemheb, still old, picking up the shell that once housed Tutankhamun’s ka. The jackals were lying dead all around him. They had all been beheaded. Horemheb picked up the body, he kissed its forehead, and he carried my husband away. The darkness beyond the tables began to suck in their forms. The blackness was like a door closing behind them.

Ay tripped backward and fell onto the now-unoccupied stone bed. I heard the blade slip from his grasp and clatter onto the floor.

Not a blade… it was a cup, an alabaster cup.

An alabaster cup… I shook my head. The nightmare floated away from me as my ka returned. I opened my eyes and found myself in my room. A frightened servant was hurriedly trying to clean up spilled wine that she had intended to set on my bedside table. I heard mumblings of apology as she picked up the once-filled alabaster cup.

My hands were shaking. I noticed my niece’s pendant resting beside my pillow, but I decided to leave it. I got out of bed and rushed to my bath. I didn’t care the temperature of the water as I dropped my body into it. I just wanted to feel life. I wanted to feel the beating of my heart and the rhythm of it in my neck and chest. The lukewarm water made my flesh hairs prickle up.

I was alive!

This was no dream or nightmare. This was something more. Djhutmose had been there. He had stayed the hand of my countrymen who intended my death, who always had. This time, my uncle had rescued me.

Someone else had been there… I could not remember anymore. Someone whose life could not be saved… I desperately fought to remember, but my heart kept this secret from me.

An urgent feeling bombarded me. I needed my family. I needed some piece of them. Not just a pendant but an image. It was like their faces were dissolving. I tried to call them back, but everything was a blur all of a sudden.

I hastily put a robe over me and rushed back to my dresser without a care about the water marking out a trail behind me. I was sure I had something from the city … there must have been something hidden away. I had had plenty of thoughts about saving something before we left Akhenaten.

I pulled out the first drawer so sharply that the entire thing fell out. I dug through my cosmetics, my scarves, my perfumes. Nothing. I pushed it aside and checked the next drawer. There were some scrolls, some statues of minor gods, some jewelry. I checked my bottom drawer. Just linens. I pulled the clothing out in frustration. Nothing! How could I have not brought anything? Was I so stupid that --

As the last piece of clothing hit the floor, I realized that it landed with a muted clatter. Sharply, I turned toward the sound and crawled over to it. The ball of fabric was beginning to unroll itself. I grabbed onto the roll and gently unraveled the rest in my hands. As the last piece of flax fell away, a gold statue tumbled into my lap.

It was my mother! Her face was strong and flawless, just as I remembered it. The headdress of Pharaoh rested atop her image.

I clutched it close to my breast and closed my eyes, letting the tears come down. This was all I had. This was a figure people had once prayed to, and it was believed that Nefertiti would then take their prayers to the God’s ear. It was an idol. It was something Amyntas had scorned. But it was the only connection to my mother and sisters that was left. I would pray to this figure and hope they could hear me. I clutched it as tight as I could, my hands beginning to warm the gold outerlay.

It was not Aten, Himself, it was my mother, but it represented Aten as well. I felt peaceful again. My family had been returned to me with this piece of happier times. A time when things made sense.

Aten, I’m sorry to have left You… and here You still wait for me. I had been looking in the wrong places before. Here You are
.

I looked into the eyes of the statue. Here she was. I could be reassured that she was not forgotten. She never had been. Her ka was safe.

Breathing deeply and easily, I focused on the linen that this golden form had been ensnared in. It was a robe that I had seen one person wear before. Tutankhamun. He must have packed this for me. How could I have never discovered it before?

I got to my feet and quickly dressed. Then I began the walk to his chambers. I did not know if he would let me in or not, but I owed him so much. This small gift had warmed my heart as only love could. Pure, innocent, and sweet love.

How had he thought of it? He was so much younger than I back then. Yet somehow he had the presence of mind to preserve something… something for me!

He was not at his room. He was not holding court. He was not in the gardens. Finally I strode over to the temple, and I found him.

He stood before a new wall being built from an unimaginable count of bricks. The stones were being manipulated into a great battle scene. Pharaoh was at the lead, shooting his arrows and bringing down enemies. There were depictions of enemy riders being thrown from their chariots. Meanwhile, the Khemtu stood tall and conquering. Tutankhamun had stationed himself before the wall silently looking up. I walked up, taking a spot beside him.

We said nothing at first. I wanted to burst, my feelings of appreciation overwhelming, but I could see that his heart was troubled. I sadly feared this had to do with me. We had not conversed since the night our child died in my arms.

I broke the forboding silence. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I came to say thank you.”

He looked at me with eyebrows raised. I uncupped my hands to show him the golden figure hiding within. He looked confused at first, but soon a spark of recognition lit up his face. Something within him changed.

He smiled, “I remember seeing that on the ground of the banquet hall after the battle against Smenkhkare. Everyone had run off in such a hurry, I figured it was dropped in the shuffle. When I picked it up, I thought it looked like you. I knew it wasn’t and that Ay would make us leave it behind, so I wrapped it in my tunic to put with your things.”

“It’s exactly what I needed right now. You are my answer to a prayer. Thank you.”

He gave me a small smile and then looked back up at the wall. The Great Temple had changed much since our first visit. First was the work finishing the wall our grandfather had started. It was so close to being a complete piece. Now there was this new monument illustrating Tutankhamun as a triumphant warrior. The painting needed to be done and the wall expanded, but it was a sight to behold nonetheless.

“I was thinking of going back out there,” he said, motioning a hand limply toward the stone pictures.

“To war?”

“It’s the only place that I feel I have a purpose. People follow me without question. They understand that what I do, I do for our country.”

“But it’s not the only place! You are a wonderful pharaoh. And Aten has not abandoned us. He’s still protecting us even if we do not see it. I’ve had a dream --”

“An, that is enough. There is no Aten. I will not hear talk of such things, especially in this temple.”

I bit my tongue, and my cheeks flushed at the reprimand. He had never spoken to me this way, as he would to someone beneath him. I wanted to run away and be angry with him, but then my fingers glided along the gold image. He had sacrificed much for me. My heart begged me to speak further and reach into his. “Don’t give up. We can get through this. A God has spoken to me, or Adonai, or our uncle,
someone
from the heavens! They have not given up on us! I’ve had dreams before. He has been reaching out to us, and I want to listen! We can do so much if we stay together.”

Tutankhamun sighed. “There has been a great debate on our travels back here to start a harem.”

This brought me up short. Sour, hurtful words caught in my throat, and I swallowed them back down.

“Give me a reason to stay, An,” he whispered to me. His eyes tore themselves away from the wall carvings, and he looked at me intensely, “Something… what can I do? Have I not made you happy? Everywhere I look, we are happy together. It’s all around us stamped out in gold. So what is it I’m not doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why won’t you give me a son?” he yelled this time, and his voice was thrown back at me off the wall beside us. I looked up at the tall carving of Tutankhamun leading his chariot as if it too is shouting at me.

“I want a son just like you, Meret.”

Tutankhamun stepped back and brushed me away, “Don’t call me that. How can you expect me to believe in anything else? All I’ve ever believed in was you!”

My heart stopped. I felt my fingers go numb, and I almost dropped the statue of my mother. I looked down at this first gift, the piece of our lives he had saved me. “Please don’t say that. It’s not fair.”

“Do you know what I prayed for when I was out the last time warring against our neighbors? I prayed for you. I did not care so much that
I
made it home, I just prayed you were being taken care of. I left my most trusted man to watch out for you when I could have used him by my side. I gave you everything!”