Nefertiti

I threw off my linen covers. “I must see her!” I cried.

“Don’t.” He held my arm. “The damage is…” He hesitated. “Extensive.”

I covered my mouth. “To her face?” I whispered.

He lowered his gaze. “And chest.”

The places where the ka resided. They had tried to obliterate her soul. They had tried to kill her in death as well as life! “But why?” I screamed, stumbling from my bed. “Why?”

“The embalmers will fix her,” he swore.

But I was wild with rage. “How can they fix her? She was beautiful!” I crumpled in his arms. “So beautiful.”

“The embalmers know how, and then they will entomb her secretly tonight. Already a new sarcophagus has been made. Tut can use hers someday. He will be Pharaoh next.”

Our Tut? Only nine years old? “But how will Osiris know her face?” I sobbed.

“They have her statues from Amarna. They’ll carve her name on every wall of the new tomb. Osiris will find her.”

But my tears came harder. I couldn’t stop them. I looked up at Nakhtmin through my pain, realizing for the first time what he had said. “And the funeral?”

“Tonight. No one will go but your father and the High Priest of Amun. It’s too dangerous. They could find her and destroy her a second time.” He gathered me in his arms. “I’m so sorry, Mutnodjmet.”

They wept for her in the streets. She was their queen, their Pharaoh of Egypt. She had restored Thebes to them and had rebuilt the shining temples of Amun. I stood at the window of the Audience Chamber, watching the masses that crushed against the gates, covering them with amulets and flowers. Some were hysterical, others came silently, and I felt as if my heart had turned to stone, it was so heavy inside of me.

Nefertiti was gone.

She had sent our army to victories in Rhodes and Lakisa, but never again would she wear the headdress of Nekhbet and raise her arms to greet the people. I would never hear her laughter or see her sharp eyes narrow with displeasure. I heard my father’s footsteps in the hall. He’s come to look for me. The door to the empty Audience Chamber creaked open and the sharp slap of his sandals disturbed the silence.

“Mutnodjmet.”

I didn’t turn.

“Mutnodjmet, we are meeting in the Per Medjat. You should come now. It is about Tutankhamun.”

I didn’t reply, and he came to stand at my shoulder.

“She was buried with care,” he informed me. “With all the statues of Amarna and the riches of Thebes.” His voice gave away his deep sadness and I turned. The love he’d had for her was wrought in the lines on his face. He looked so much older, but there was still Egypt to rule. There would always be Egypt, with or without Nefertiti.

“It’s not fair.” I choked back a sob. “Why would the Aten priests kill her? Why? ”

“Because she created passionate believers,” he said. “Believers willing to do anything to silence someone who was attacking them.”

“But she was Pharaoh!” I cried. “What does killing her achieve? What does it get them?”

“Fear. They are hoping the next Pharaoh will fear them so much that he will let their temples stand. They don’t see that unless the next Pharaoh returns Aten’s temples to Amun, he is dead anyway.”

“Because the people will rise,” I realized.

My father nodded.

“So it’s either the people or Aten’s priests as enemies.”

“And no Pharaoh would stand against his own people.”

I blinked away my tears. “Time should stand still,” I whispered. “It shouldn’t go on.”

My father watched me silently.

“All of Egypt should have crumbled before she died! And Meritaten…only fifteen years old.” The terror and loneliness of living in a world without Nefertiti overwhelmed me. “What will we all do?” I panicked. “What will our family do?”

“We will prepare for a new reign in Egypt,” my father said. “And we will meet in the Per Medjat when you are ready.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Peret, Season of Growing

KING TUTANKHAMUN ASCENDED the dais to the Horus thrones with the Princess Ankhesenamun by his side, and I watched my father whisper into his ear the way he had done with Nefertiti.

“Your father is the power behind the throne once more,” Nakhtmin observed.

“Only this time it is for our son.” A faint breeze stirred the summer heat, laden with the scents of lotus blossom and myrrh. I grasped my husband’s hand. “I will never escape it, will I?”

“The Horus thrones?” Nakhtmin shook his head. “No, it doesn’t seem that you will. But this time will be different,” he promised. “This time Egypt will prosper, and there will be no rebellion under Pharaoh Tutankhamun.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I am here, and because Horemheb will destroy the Hittites and return victorious for the glory of Amun. In fifteen years, Aten will be forgotten.”

A shiver passed through me as I thought of Nefertiti’s city lying in the sand, swept away by the winds of time. Everything she had worked so hard for had failed. But there was Ankhesenamun. I looked up at the dais and the little girl who looked so much like my sister, and I found it strange that I should be sitting in the same chair I had occupied when Nefertiti had ruled. How much would this child remember of her mother? She turned her gaze in my direction, the same dark eyes and willowy neck, and I wondered what she and my son would write together on the pillars of eternity.

Afterword

NEFERTITI’S STORY IS one that can be pieced together from the hundreds of images excavated at Amarna. Devoted to art, she and Akhenaten covered the city with carvings of themselves and Aten, a minor deity that Akhenaten elevated to supreme status. And so that no one could confuse him with any other Pharaoh, the portraits of Akhenaten and his royal family were created to be distinct. Their long necks, elongated heads, and feminine hips are unique to the Amarna period. In many ways, Nefertiti and Akhenaten revolutionized Egyptian art. But it was their heretical abandonment of Amun for which they were remembered, and for which Horemheb would destroy Amarna block by block upon becoming Pharaoh, with Mutnodjmet as his queen, as is recorded in history.

In the novel, a few names have been changed for the convenience of the reader. For example, the city of Akhet-aten is called by its present name of Amarna, while Waset has been changed to its modern-day equivalent of Thebes. Much of this novel is faithful to history: from such household details as the interest the ancient Egyptians had in aging their wine to the paintings on the dais in Malkata. However, some liberties have been taken with personalities, names, and minor events. For instance, no one can be certain how Mutnodjmet felt about her sister’s vision of an Egypt without the Amun priests. But in an image of her found in Amarna, she is seen standing alone, her arms at her sides, while everyone else enthusiastically embraces Aten. In a period where art attempted to portray reality for the first time, I found this significant. And while Nefertiti did have six daughters with Akhenaten, so far as we know she never produced twins.

Other historical uncertainties also remain: Did Amunhotep the Younger ever have a coregency with his