The Egyptian Royals Collection (50 page)

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.”

Akhenaten’s look was unforgiving. “Of course you are loyal. To be anything else would be foolish.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

AMARNA

ninth of Pachons

DESPITE OUR FATHER’S
triumph over Panahesi, by the Season of Harvest Kiya was pregnant. Even after the disaster in the Audience Chamber, Panahesi swept through the halls barking orders as if he could already feel the heavy crown of Egypt in his hands.

One son might be ignored, but a nation could not ignore two princes, two heirs to the throne. If Kiya could do it, the ascension would be final.

Akhenaten found Merit in the Great Hall and instructed her to give Nefertiti the news. He was too much of a coward to do it himself. “Be sure to tell her that no child will ever take Meritaten’s place in my affection. She is our golden child, our child of Aten.”

I watched him as he led his girls away. His adoring princesses. The daughters he believed would never turn on him the way a son might, the way he had turned on his brother and father.
He doesn’t understand girls if he thinks they can’t be cunning
, I thought.

Merit looked at me with rising desperation. “How should I tell her?”

We reached the doors of the Audience Chamber. “Just tell her. She predicted it herself; it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

Inside, Nakhtmin was playing Senet with my mother. On the dais, my father’s head was bent close to Nefertiti’s; for once, my sister wasn’t surrounded by ladies. They had all gone to see Akhenaten ride.

“You’re not outside?” I asked her.

“I don’t have time for the Arena,” she snapped.
“He
can go riding around whenever he chooses, but I have to oversee plans for the walls. If there is an invasion, we’ll have no defense against the Hittites, but Akhenaten isn’t interested—” She interrupted herself, staring sharply between me and Merit. “What do you want?”

I nodded to Merit, and my father lowered the architectural plans to his lap.

“Your Highness,” Merit began, “I have news that is not going to make you happy.” She added as quickly as possible to get it over with, “There is word that Kiya is pregnant.”

Nefertiti remained very still. When the silence stretched on, Merit continued uncertainly. “It is only Kiya’s second child, Your Highness. You have six princesses, and Akhenaten wished me to tell you—”

Nefertiti sent scrolls rolling across the tiles as she stood. “My husband sent
you
to tell me?” she shrieked.

My father rose quickly to be at her side. “We must move now,” he suggested. “Make him show all of Egypt that Meritaten is the one he intends to have reign over Nebnefer.”

Something unspoken passed between them and I asked, “But how?” No one answered my question. “How can you do that?”

There was a strange glint in Nefertiti’s eyes. “In the only way that’s never been done,” she said.

Akhenaten declared a Durbar in Nefertiti’s honor. It was a festival to celebrate their reign together, and the change from jealous wife to victorious queen was immediate. Nefertiti said nothing more about Kiya, and Nakhtmin wondered how deep Amarna’s coffers would be drained to create the largest Durbar in history.

“Mutny, come,” my sister called brightly to me. I entered her Robing Room with its dozens of chests packed with bright linen. There were bronze-handled razors strewn about, and pots of kohl carelessly tipped over. “Which wig should I wear?” She was surrounded by hairpieces.

“The one that cost least,” I said immediately.

She continued to wait for an answer that pleased her.

“The short one,” I replied.

She swept the other wigs into a pile for Merit to clean up later. “Father has sent invitations to every king in the East,” she boasted. “When the princes of the greatest nations in the world are assembled here, an announcement will be made that will write our family’s name in eternity.”

I glanced sideways at her. “What do you mean?”

Nefertiti looked out over her city. “It’s a surprise.”