“The vizier—” I began, but Nefertiti cut me off.
“Nothing.”
My father looked long at Nefertiti.
“Nothing,” she repeated.
“I warned you to be careful. The Vizier Panahesi has Amunhotep’s ear.”
Nefertiti set her jaw, and I could see that she wanted to reply,
“While you were charming the vizier, he left the hall.”
Nefertiti faltered. “I won’t meet him tonight?”
“Not unless he returns,” my father said, and I had never heard his voice so deep or stern. This wasn’t Akhmim. This was the court of Egypt, where mistakes couldn’t be tolerated.
“Maybe he’ll come back,” I suggested hopefully, and both Nefertiti and my father ignored me. The musky scent of wine filled the hall. Kiya remained surrounded by her women, court ladies who were dressed, as Ipu had told us, in the fashion she dictated: long hair, sleeveless sheaths, and hennaed feet. They hovered around her like moths, her little belly evidence that she, and not my sister, was the future of Egypt.
“It’s too hot in here,” Nefertiti said, taking my arm. “Come with me.”
Our father warned sharply, “Do not go far.”
I followed Nefertiti’s angry footfalls through the hall. “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere but here.” She stalked through the palace. “He left, Mutnodjmet. He actually left without meeting me. His future queen. The future of Egypt!”
We went outside and found ourselves at the fountain. We put our hands beneath its flow, letting the water drip from our fingers to our breasts. The rippling water carried the scents of honeysuckle and jasmine. As Nefertiti took off her wig, a familiar voice pierced the darkness.
“So you are my mother’s choice of wife.”
Nefertiti looked up and the prince was standing there, clad in his golden pectoral. She wiped any trace of surprise from her face, and at once she was Nefertiti, flirtatious and charming. “Why? Are you shocked?” she asked him.
“Yes.” But there was nothing airy in Amunhotep’s response. He sat and studied Nefertiti in the moonlight.
“Is Egypt’s prince tired of the dancing then?” She did it perfectly, hiding her nervousness by sounding coquettish.
“I am tired of seeing my mother bow to the High Priest of Amun.” When Nefertiti smiled, Amunhotep looked at her sharply. “Is that funny?”
“Yes. I had thought you had come out here to court your new wife. But if you want to talk politics, I will listen.”
Amunhotep narrowed his eyes. “Listen the way my father listens? Or the way you listened to your tutor when he professed love in Akhmim?”
Even in the darkness I could see my sister blanch, and I realized immediately what Kiya had done. I thought I would be ill, but Nefertiti was quick.
“They say you are a great believer of Aten,” she recovered. “That you plan to build temples when you are made Pharaoh.”
Amunhotep sat back. “Your father keeps you well informed,” he remarked.
“I keep myself well informed,” she replied.
She was smart and she was charming, and even he couldn’t resist the earnestness of her stare in the light of the oil lamps. He moved closer to her. “I want to be known as the People’s Pharaoh,” he admitted. “I want to build the greatest monuments in Egypt to show the people what a leader with vision can do. The Amun priests should never have been allowed to achieve such power. That power was meant for the Pharaohs of Egypt.”
There was the crunch of gravel and the three of us turned.
“Amunhotep.” Kiya stepped into the light. “Everyone is wondering where the Prince of Egypt has been.” She smiled lovingly at him, as if his disappearing was both quaint and wonderful. She held out her arm. “Shall we return?”
Nefertiti nodded. “Until tomorrow then,” she promised, and her voice was low and sultry, as if there was a great secret between them.
Kiya’s arm tightened around Amunhotep’s. “I felt our child move tonight. A son,” she swore, loud enough for Nefertiti to hear as she steered him away. “I can already feel him.”
We watched them walk into the darkness, and I noticed how tightly Kiya was holding on to Amunhotep, as if he might disappear at any moment.
Nefertiti seethed, her sandals slapping across the tiles to our chamber. “What will he do in two days when we are united before Amun? Will he bring Kiya along and ignore me then, too?”
My father stood and closed the door. “You must lower your voice. There are spies throughout the palace.”
Nefertiti sank onto a leather cushion and put her head against my mother’s shoulder. “I was humiliated,
My mother caressed my sister’s dark hair. “He will come around.”
“When?” Nefertiti sat up.
“Tomorrow,” my father said with certainty. “And if not tomorrow, then we will make him see that you are more than just his mother’s choice of wife.”
THE CORONATION OF Egypt’s new Pharaoh and his queen was to take place on the twenty-first of Pharmuthi, and my father did everything in his power to put Nefertiti before Amunhotep’s eye.
In the morning we entered the wide, bronze gates into the towering Arena that Amunhotep III had built for Amun. Nefertiti squeezed my hand, for neither of us had ever seen anything so high or magnificent. A forest of columns encircled a sandy pit and the painted walls stretched to the sky. On the lowest tier of seats, the nobility assembled while their servants held drinks and honeyed cakes. This was where Amunhotep liked to ride in the morning, so we were there, watching the prince sweep around the tracks in his golden chariot. But Kiya was there as well, and the Vizier Panahesi, so that when the prince was finished playing warrior an hour later it was Kiya he kissed, and Kiya he laughed with, while Nefertiti had to smile and look pleased before her rival.
At noon, we were in the Great Hall again, sitting below the dais, eating and chatting as happily as if everything was going our family’s way. Nefertiti laughed and flirted, and I noticed that the more Amunhotep saw of his future wife, the less he could stop watching her. Kiya had none of Nefertiti’s sleek charm. She couldn’t turn a room the way Nefertiti did. But when the afternoon meal was finished, no further words had passed between the prince and Nefertiti, and when we returned to our chamber, my sister was silent. Ipu and Merit rushed around us, and I watched Nefertiti with a growing unease. Amunhotep still saw her as his mother’s choice of wife, and I couldn’t see how my father planned to change that.
“What will you do?” I finally asked.
“Repeat to me what he said in the tombs.”
Merit stiffened, poised to apply gold across Nefertiti’s chest. It was bad luck to speak of what happened below the earth.
I hesitated. “He said he would never bow to his brother. Never bow to Amun.”
“And by the fountain he said he wanted to be loved by the people,” Nefertiti stressed. “That he wanted to be
