Nefertiti

“Yes.” Nefertiti nodded slowly. “And I’m not foolish enough to think we are invincible. But Tuthmosis would never have had the courage to challenge the priests. Had I married Tuthmosis, we would still be in Thebes, waiting for the Elder to die. Amunhotep sees a new Egypt, a greater Egypt.”

“What is wrong with the Egypt of now?”

“Look around! If the Hittites threatened our kingdom, who would have the money to send us to war?”

“The priests. But if a Pharaoh has all the power,” I countered, “who will tell him which wars should be waged? What if he wants to fight a useless war? There will be no priests to stop him.”

“What war has ever been useless?” my sister asked. “All were for the greatness of Egypt.”

We met in the Audience Chamber the following day at noon. Kiya was there, her round belly showing beneath her sheath. A servant helped her into a chair opposite mine on the first step below the throne, and I could see she had less than five months to wait before the child’s birth. Her wig was new and she had hennaed her hands and heavy breasts. I noticed Amunhotep staring at them and narrowed my eyes, thinking he should only be looking at my sister.

Panahesi and my father seated themselves on the second tier, while minor officials sat in a small circle around the Audience Chamber. Maya, the architect, was at the center of court. I hadn’t spoken with him, but I’d heard that he was clever. There was nothing he couldn’t do, my father once said. When the Elder had wanted a lake in the middle of the desert, he’d done it. When he’d wanted statues of himself larger than any that had been carved, Maya had found a way. Now he would build a Temple to Aten, a god no one had heard of, a protector of Egypt only Amunhotep understood.

“Are you ready?” Amunhotep demanded from his throne.

Maya shifted the papyrus and reed pen in his hand. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“You will take down everything,” Amunhotep said, and the architect nodded. “I want the entrance to the temple flanked by a row of ram-headed sphinxes.”

The architect nodded and wrote it down.

“There should be an open-air court flanked by lotus columns.”

“And ponds stocked with fish,” Nefertiti added. My father scowled, but Nefertiti ignored him. “And a garden. With a lake. Like the one you made for Queen Tiye.”

“Only greater,” Amunhotep pressed, and the builder hesitated.

“If this temple is going to be near the current Temple of Amun,” Maya paused, “there may be no room for a lake.”

“Then we will tear down the Temple of Amun to create space!” Amunhotep vowed.

The court burst into a frenzy of whispering. I looked at my mother, whose face was ashen, and she stole a glance at Nefertiti, who avoided her gaze. How could he tear down the Temple of Amun? Where would the god rest? Where would the people worship?

Maya cleared his throat. “To tear down the temple could take years,” he warned.

“Then the lake can come last. But there will be towering stone pylons and heavy columns. And murals at every entrance.”

“Depicting our lives in Memphis,” Nefertiti envisioned. “The fan bearers and bodyguards, the viziers and scribes, the sandal bearers, the parasol bearers, the servants who walk the halls, and us.”

“On every column, the Pharaoh and Queen of Egypt.” Amunhotep reached out for Nefertiti’s hand, forgetting his pregnant wife beneath him, and the two of them were carried away by a vision that only they could see.

Maya put down the reed pen and looked up at the dais. “Is that all, Your Highness?”

“For now.” Amunhotep struck his scepter of reign on the floor. “Bring in the general.”

The doors swept open and General Horemheb was shown into the Audience Chamber. As the architect left and the general entered, I detected a stiffening of backs among Egypt’s viziers. What do they fear from him? I wondered.

“Has everything been prepared?” Amunhotep demanded.

“The soldiers are ready,” Horemheb replied. “They wait on your orders.” And expect to be repaid in kind. I could see this addendum on Horemheb’s face, that the soldiers expected war with the Hittites to stop them from encroaching on our foreign territories.

“Then give them my orders and go.” Horemheb moved toward the doors, but Amunhotep sat forward on his throne, stopping him before he reached the entrance. “You will not disappoint me, General.”

The entire court craned their necks and Horemheb turned.

“I never disappoint, Your Highness. I am a man of my word. As I know you shall be.”

When the heavy metal doors swung shut, Amunhotep stormed from his throne, startling the viziers. “This meeting is over!” The officials in the Audience Chamber hesitated. “Out!” he shouted, and the men scrambled to their feet. “Ay and Panahesi will stay behind.”

I stood up to go, too, but Nefertiti held her hand in the air for me to stay. The Audience Chamber cleared and I resumed my seat. Kiya, too, remained where she was. Below us, Amunhotep paced.

“This general cannot be trusted,” he determined. “He isn’t loyal to me.”

“You haven’t tested him yet,” my father said swiftly.

“He is loyal only to his men in the army!”

Panahesi nodded. “I agree, Your Highness,” and with this concurrence Amunhotep made up his mind.

“I will not send him to war. I will not send him north to fight the Hittites so he can come back with chariots full of weapons and gold that he can use to start a rebellion!”

“A wise decision,” Panahesi said at once.

“Panahesi, I am sending you to supervise the temples,” Amunhotep said. “You will go with Horemheb to see that nothing is stolen. Everything the army collects comes back to me. For the glory of Aten.” He turned to my father. “Ay, you shall deal with the foreign ambassadors. Whatever matters come before the throne of Horus will be handled by you. I trust you above all other men.” His black eyes held my father in their grip, and my father bowed respectfully.

“Of course, Your Highness.”

On our third night in Memphis, the dinner in the Great Hall was muted. Pharaoh was ill-tempered and suspicious of everyone. No one dared mention General Horemheb’s name, and the viziers whispered quietly among themselves.

“Have you seen the gardens yet?” my mother asked, reaching down and feeding a morsel of duck to one of the palace cats, making the servants envious. She was the only one who was merry at our table. She had been exploring the markets while Amunhotep was vowing to turn his back on the general as soon as Horemheb had raided the temples of Amun.

I shook my head. “No. I’ve been unpacking.” I sighed.

“Then we shall go after dinner,” she said cheerfully.

When the Great Hall cleared, we passed through the crowded courtyards and wandered into the quiet of the evening. From the topmost steps of the palace leading down into the gardens, I could see the windblown dunes of Memphis. The sand shifted in the waning light and dust billowed up in a shimmering haze. The sun was setting, but it was still warm, and that night the sky above was clear. I reached up and plucked a leaf from a tree. “Myrrh.” I tore the leaf apart and rubbed its juices on my fingers, then held them up for my mother to smell. She craned her neck back.

“Awful.”

“Not when you’re in pain.”

She looked at me in the fading light. “Perhaps you and I should have stayed in Akhmim,” she said suddenly. “You miss your gardens. You were always so talented with herbs.”

I glanced at her, wondering what would make her say such a thing now. “Ranofer was a good teacher,” I