Nefertiti (55 page)

I nodded, laughing. “By Mesore.”

“A harvest child,” he said wonderingly. There was nothing more auspicious than a child at harvest. We stood with our hands clasped, gazing into the pond, and the air didn’t seem so bitter.

“Will you tell your sister?”

“I will tell my mother first.”

“We should tell her before we leave for Thebes. She will want to make arrangements to be there for you.”

“If my sister doesn’t demand I have the child here,” I said. It would be just like Nefertiti to do such a thing. Nakhtmin glanced at me. “I will tell her no, of course. But we should stay another few months; the extra time will pacify Nefertiti, especially if it’s a son.”

“Must everything pacify Nefertiti?” he asked.

I looked down at the hungry fish and told him the truth, the way it had always been in my family. “Yes.”

Nakhtmin came with me to tell my mother the news. She was with my father in the Per Medjat, warming herself by the brazier as he drafted a proclamation to the kings of foreign nations that the Pharaoh of Egypt had been blessed with two more heirs.

Guards opened the heavy doors, and when my mother saw the look on Nakhtmin’s face she knew at once.

“Ay,” she said warningly, standing up.

My father lowered his reed pen in alarm. “What? What is it?”

“I knew it!” My mother clapped loudly and came to embrace me. “I knew there would be!”

Nakhtmin grinned at my father. “There is going to be an heir for this family, too.”

My father looked at me. “Pregnant?”

“Three months.”

My father laughed, such a rare, precious sound, then he stood up and came over to embrace me as well. “My youngest daughter,” he said, holding my chin in his hands. “About to be a mother. I will be a grandfather seven times over!” For a few golden moments, I was the daughter that had achieved something worthwhile. I was going to bring a child into the world. A legacy of their flesh and blood, and part of us that would last until the sands ran out. We stood as one happy, laughing family, then the door swung open and Meritaten was there, watching us.

“What’s happening?”

“You are going to have a cousin,” I told her, and with a knowledge well beyond her years she asked wisely,
“You
are pregnant?”

I beamed. “Yes, Meritaten.”

“But aren’t you too old?”

Everyone laughed and Meritaten flushed.

My mother tutted softly, “She is only twenty.
Your
mother is twenty-two.”

“But this was her
fifth
pregnancy,” Meritaten explained, as if we were all very foolish not to understand.

“Well, for some it takes longer than others to have a child.”

“Is that because Nakhtmin went away?” she asked us.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the Hall of Books.

“Yes,” my father said at last. “It is because Nakhtmin went away.”

Meritaten saw she had said something she should not have, and came to embrace me. “Twenty isn’t so old,” she said seriously, giving me her permission. “Are you going to tell my mother now?”

I took a heavy breath. “Yes, I think I will tell her now.”

Nefertiti was still in the birthing pavilion. I was prepared for rage or weeping or drama. A child would take me away from her. I wasn’t prepared for her joy.

“Now you will have to stay in Amarna!” she cried happily. But it was a calculated happiness. The ladies in the birthing chamber watched me with interest. Over the soft music of the lyre, they could hear what we were saying.

“Nefertiti,” I cut in sharply, “in the end I will go home to have my child.”

My sister turned toward me with a look of deep betrayal, perfectly executed so that I would look like the one being unreasonable.
“This
is your home.”

I gave her a long look. “And if I had a son, do you think he would be safe in Amarna?”

She sat straighter in her bed. “Of course he would be.
If
it’s a son.”

“I will stay for another two months,” I promised.

“Then what? You will leave and take Mother with you?”

“Don’t worry. Mother won’t leave you alone,” I snapped. “Not even to see me give birth to my first child.”

She laughed, embarrassed by the truth in front of so many women. “Mutny! That’s not what I’m saying.” She moved over on the cushions, which loomed large and heavy around her tiny frame. “Come. Sit.”

She wants to make up to me now
, I thought.

“Did you know there will be a feast tomorrow?” she asked. “For three nights. And Thutmose will sculpt a new family portrait to go in the temple. To remind Panahesi.”

He would have to endure it every time he walked past the altar of Aten. Nefertiti wearing the asp and crown. Nefertiti and her six beautiful children.

She lowered her voice. “Panahesi thinks just because I’ve birthed two daughters that there will never be a son now. He thinks that Egypt’s crown will go to Nebnefer. But I’m going to change that,” she swore.

I looked behind me. “How?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I will find a way.”

On the third day of celebration, Nefertiti slammed the door to her chamber, blinded with an uncontrollable rage. Before I could calm her, she threw her brush against the wall and the tiles shattered. “I deliver him two daughters and now he’s with
Kiya?”

My father ordered a servant to pick up the pieces and added sharply, “Sweep it up, and then close the doors behind you.”

We waited for the girl to do as instructed while Nefertiti fumed. When the girl shut the doors, my father stood.

“Have some control,” he demanded.

“I have just birthed
two
children and that’s not enough?”

“You have given him six
girls.”

“We must go to her again—”

“Absolutely not,” my father said. “It’s too dangerous now.”

“This time Mutny can do it!”

My father looked hard at her. “You will not bring your sister into this.”

I tried to convince myself that what they were saying had nothing to do with the loss of Kiya’s second child.

“We leave it to the gods,” my father said.

“But she will be pregnant within the month,” my sister whispered. “And what if it’s another heir to the crown?” Her panic rose. “One son might die, but
two
?”

“Then we will have to find another way to hold the throne. Six girls or no.”

Seven days later, on the first of Phamenoth, two priests arrived in the Audience Chamber and announced to the court, “Your Highness, our priests have had a great vision.”

My father and Nefertiti exchanged glances. This was not a remedy that they had brewed together.

Akhenaten sat forward. “A vision?” he asked. “What kind of vision?”

“A vision for the future of Egypt,” the old priest whispered mystically, and when Panahesi stood eagerly from his chair, we knew at once that this was his doing. He had been waiting for this moment from the time that Nefertiti had used the ruse of a dream to convince Akhenaten that Panahesi should become High Priest and not treasurer. Now he cried dramatically, “How come I haven’t been told of this vision?”

The old priest bowed with a flourish of his hand. “It has only come this morning, Your Holiness. Two priests were blessed by a vision from Aten.”

I looked over at Panahesi and the second priest, who had a round, kind face.
Not one priest, but two
. Panahesi had chosen his puppets beautifully.

“Beware of false prophets,” Nefertiti warned from her throne. The court filled with expectant chatter.

“What was the vision?” Akhenaten pressed.

The younger priest stepped forward. “Your Highness, in the Temple of Aten today, we were given a revelation—”

“Where exactly?” Nefertiti demanded, and Akhenaten frowned at the hardness in her voice.

“In the courtyard beneath the sun, Your Majesty.”

Better and better
.

“We were honoring Aten with incense when a bright light came before us and we saw—”

The old priest cut in. “We saw a vision!”

Akhenaten was taken. “Of what?”

“Of Nebnefer, wearing the pschent crown.”

Panahesi stepped forward eagerly. “Nebnefer? You mean His Highness’s son?”

“Yes.” The old priest nodded.

The entire court tensed, waiting for Akhenaten’s reaction.

“A very interesting vision,” my father said. “Nebnefer”—he arched his brows meaningfully—“wearing the crown of Egypt.”

“Aten’s visions are never wrong,” Panahesi said sharply.

“No,” my father agreed, “Aten never lies. And, of course, there were two.
Two
priests who saw the vision.”

Panahesi shifted in his leopard-skin robes, disliking this new accord.

“A
son
to rule the throne of Egypt,” my father went on. “And wearing the crown that rested once on his father’s head. Didn’t the Elder receive such a vision?”

The court realized what he was doing and Akhenaten paled.

My father added quickly, “But Nebnefer is loyal. I am sure he is a son who will serve His Highness well.”

It was a twist Panahesi had not foreseen. “Of course Nebnefer is loyal,” he stammered.
“Of course
he is.”

Akhenaten looked down at my father, who shrugged cunningly.

“It is a danger that all Pharaohs risk with sons.”

And who knew that better than Akhenaten?
I felt a victorious thrill, the triumphant feeling my father must experience whenever he outwitted an opponent.

Kiya turned red with rage. “No one can prove that the prince is disloyal!” she shrieked.

Akhenaten looked to the priests. “What was the rest of the vision?” he commanded.

“Yes!” Nefertiti stood, watering the seed our father had planted. “Was there bloodshed?”

The entire court looked to the priests and the younger one replied, “No, Your Highness. No bloodshed. No betrayal. Only great golden light.”

Akhenaten glanced at the older priest for confirmation.

“Yes.” The old man was swift to agree. “Nothing of violence.”

Panahesi bowed deeply. “Your Highness, I can bring Prince Nebnefer now. You can test his loyalty.”

“No!”
Akhenaten looked at his princesses, arranged on their little thrones. “Come here, Meritaten.”

Meritaten stood and went to her father’s knee. The court watched with expectation.

“You will always be loyal to your father, won’t you?”

Meritaten nodded.

“And do you teach your sisters to be loyal to their father?” he demanded.

Meritaten nodded again, and Akhenaten smiled the way a doting father might. “Does the court hear this?” he asked forcefully. He stood, displacing Meritaten. “The Princesses of Egypt are loyal,” he swore. “None of my
daughters
would ever reach for my crown.”

Kiya looked to Panahesi with desperation.

Panahesi started to say, “Your Highness, Prince Nebnefer would never—”

“Very well,” Nefertiti announced, cutting off the vizier’s plea. “We have heard Aten’s vision and need nothing more.” She dismissed the priests with her hand, and the court rose with her to adjourn itself.

Kiya moved briskly to Akhenaten’s side. “All the priests saw was a simple vision,” she said quickly. “A glow and the crown on Nebnefer’s head. I have taught our son to be
loyal
. The way I am to you and to Aten.”