“She’s a fool if she thinks he’s going to forget me. Amunhotep adores me. He writes me poetry.” I thought of the psalms in Amunhotep’s chamber and wondered if they were his. “Pregnant in the first year, and I already know it’s going to be a son,” she gloated. “Amunhotep’s even picked out a name.”
I bit my tongue to keep from asking what it was, but I needn’t have done so.
“Tutankhamun,” she said. “Or maybe Nebnefer. Nebnefer, Prince of Egypt,” she imagined.
“And if it’s a girl?”
Kiya’s black eyes went wide. Rimmed in kohl, they looked three times their size. “A
From the dais, Queen Tiye asked her son sharply, “Shall we dance, now that the night is nearly over?”
Amunhotep looked to Nefertiti.
“Yes, let’s dance,” my sister said, and my aunt did not let her son’s deference go unnoticed.
Many of the guests would stay in their drunken stupor throughout the night and into the next, to be carried off in their litters when the sun rose. In the tiled hall leading to the royal chambers, I stood with my parents and shivered in the cold.
“You are shaking.” My mother frowned.
“Just tired,” I admitted. “We never had such late nights in Akhmim.”
My mother smiled wistfully. “Yes, many things will be different now.” Her eyes searched my face. “What happened then?”
“Amunhotep was with Nefertiti before the feasts. She went to him, and Nefertiti said he asked her to spend the night.”
My mother cupped my chin in her palm, seeing my unhappiness. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Mutnodjmet. Your sister will only be a courtyard away.”
“I know. It’s just that I’ve never spent a night without her before.” My lip quivered, and I tried to steady it with my teeth.
“You can sleep in our chamber,” my mother offered.
I shook my head. I was thirteen years old. Not a child anymore. “No, I shall have to get used to it.”
“So Kiya will be displaced,” my mother remarked. “Panahesi will be angry.”
“Then he may be angry for many nights to come,” I said as Nefertiti and my father joined us.
“Take Nefertiti to your rooms,” my father instructed. “Merit is waiting.” He squeezed my sister’s shoulder to give her courage. “You understand what to do?”
Nefertiti reddened. “Of course.”
My mother embraced her warmly, whispering words of wisdom in her ear that I couldn’t hear. Then we left our parents and walked through the painted corridors of the palace. The servants were dancing at the feast and our footfalls echoed in the empty halls of Malkata. Tonight, our childhood would pass.
“So you are going to Amunhotep’s bed,” I said.
“And I plan to stay until morning,” she confided, striding ahead.
“But no one spends the entire night with a king,” I exclaimed and quickened my pace. “He sleeps by himself.”
“And tonight I shall change that.”
In our room, the oil lamps had been lit. The paintings of papyrus fields swayed in the flickering light. Merit was there, as my father had promised, and she and Nefertiti whispered together. Ipu was in our chamber as well. “We will both bathe your sister and get her ready,” she said to me. “I will not be able to assist you tonight.”
I swallowed. “Of course.”
Merit and Ipu led Nefertiti to the baths. When they returned, they changed her into a simple sheath. It took both of their hands to powder her legs and perfume her hair, making sure every scent Amunhotep encountered was sweet.
“Should I wear a wig?” It was me that Nefertiti was asking when it should have been Merit, who would know about these things.
“Go without it,” I offered. “Let him see you as yourself tonight.”
Next to me, Ipu nodded, and together we watched as Merit applied cream to Nefertiti’s face and sprinkled lavender water over her hair. Then my sister stood and our servants stepped back. All three turned to see my reaction.
“Beautiful.” I smiled.
My sister hugged me, and I inhaled deeply so I would be the first to smell her like this, not Amunhotep. We stood together in the dim light of the room. “I will miss you tonight,” I said, swallowing my fear. “I hope you brushed with mint and myrrh,” I added, offering her the only advice that I could.
Nefertiti rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
I pulled back to look at her. “But aren’t you afraid?”
She shrugged. “Not really.”
“And Ranofer?” I asked quietly.
“We never did anything.”
I gave her a long look.
“Only touching. I never—”
I nodded quickly.
“Not that it would matter. It only matters that I remain faithful to him now.” She tossed her head and her dark hair fell across her shoulders. She caught her reflection in the polished bronze. “I’m ready for this. I’m ready to be the queen my mother swore I would be. She married our father hoping someday it would lead to the throne, and this is it.”
“How do you know that?” I had never thought of my father’s first marriage in that way. I had never thought that a princess of Mitanni might marry a queen’s brother for a chance to place her child on the throne.
Nefertiti met my eyes in the mirror. “Father told me.”
“That she didn’t love him?”
“Certainly, she did. But first and foremost was the future of her child.” She turned to Merit and her look was firm. “I’m ready.”
NEFERTITI CAME TO my bed the next morning. She shook me from a deep, exhausted sleep and I sat up quickly, afraid that something had gone wrong. “What? What happened?”
“I made love to the king.”
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I looked at her side of the bed. It was unmade. “And you spent the night!” I threw off my covers. “So what was it like?”
She sat down and shrugged one of her brown shoulders at me. “Painful. But then you get used to it.”
I gasped. “How many times could you have done it?” I cried.
She smiled wickedly. “Several.” Then she looked around our chamber. “We should move rooms at once. The Queen of Egypt doesn’t sleep in a bed with her sister. I will sleep with Amunhotep from now on.”
I scrambled from my bed. “But we’ve only been in Thebes for four days. And tomorrow Tiye will announce in chambers when we’re leaving; it could be within the month.”
Nefertiti ignored my plea. “Have your servants pack up your herbs. They’ll grow just as well in sunlight a few chambers away.”
Nefertiti told no one about the move, and I wasn’t going to be the one to let our father know. He’d said to
