Nefertiti

lamp above Nefertiti’s head. I awoke at the brightness and saw my sister’s face in the golden light, perfect even in her sleep.

“My lady?” our servant called, but Nefertiti didn’t stir. “My lady?” she called louder. She looked at me, and I shook Nefertiti awake. “My lady, the Vizier Ay would like to speak with you.”

I sat up quickly. “Is something wrong?”

But Nefertiti didn’t say a word. She stepped into her robe, taking an oil lamp down from the wall and sheltering the sputtering flame with her hand. “What’s happening?” I asked, but she didn’t reply. The door simply whispered shut in her wake. I waited up for my sister’s return, and by the time she came back, the moon was a yellow disk high in the sky. “Where were you?” I scrambled up on my pallet.

“Father wanted to speak with me.”

“Alone?” I challenged her. “And at night?”

“When else are all the nosy servants asleep?”

Then I knew at once. “He doesn’t want you to marry Amunhotep,” I said.

Nefertiti rolled her shoulders, playing coy. “I’m not afraid of Kiya.”

“It’s Vizier Panahesi he’s concerned about.”

“I want to be Chief Wife, Mutnodjmet. I want to be Queen of Egypt the way my grandmother was Queen of Mitanni.”

She sat down on her pallet and we were silent, illuminated only by the flame of the lamp she’d brought in.

“And what did Father say?”

She shrugged again.

“Did he tell you what happened in the tombs?”

“So he refused to kiss the jars,” she said dismissively. “What does that matter if in the end I’m sitting on the Horus throne? Amunhotep is going to be the Pharaoh of Egypt,” she added, as if this settled the matter. “And Father has already said yes.”

“He said yes?” I threw off my linen cover. “But he couldn’t have said yes. He said the prince was unstable. He swore he would never give a daughter to that man!”

“And he changed his mind.” In the flickering candlelight, I saw her lie down and draw up the covers. “Will you find me some juice in the kitchens?” she asked.

“It’s night,” I retorted, my voice tight with disapproval.

“But I’m sick,” she reminded. “I have fever.”

I hesitated.

“Please, Mutny. Please.”

I would go, but only because she had fever.

The next morning, the tutors ended our lessons early. There was no sign of illness on Nefertiti. “But we shouldn’t tax her,” my father said.

My mother disagreed. “These are all the lessons she will ever have if she’s to be married soon. She should learn what she can.”

My mother, who had not been raised among nobility like my father’s first wife, knew the importance of an education, for she’d had to fight for hers when she was young and the daughter of a simple village priest. But my father turned his palm over.

“What else is there for her to learn? She excels at languages, and she’s more proficient than the palace scribes at writing.”

“She doesn’t know the healing herbs like Mutny,” my mother pointed out.

I raised my chin, but my father only replied, “That is Mutnodjmet’s gift. Nefertiti has other skills.”

We all looked at my sister, the center of attention in her short white sheath, her feet dangling in the lotus pools. Ranofer, the son of a local physician, had brought her flowers, a bunch of white lilies bound with twine. He was supposed to be my tutor, teaching me the secrets of medicine and herbs, but he spent more time watching my sister.

“Nefertiti charms people,” my father said approvingly, “and the people she doesn’t charm she can easily outwit. What does she need with herbs and medicine when she wants to be a leader of the people?”

My mother furrowed her brows. “If the queen approves.”

“The queen is my sister,” my father said simply. “She will approve of Nefertiti as Chief Wife.” But I could see the concern in his eyes. A crown prince who defiled his brother’s burial chamber, a man who couldn’t control his own emotions? What kind of Pharaoh would he make? What kind of husband?

We stood and looked at Nefertiti until she saw the three of us watching her. She beckoned me over with her finger. I went to where they were laughing by the pools, my sister and my tutor.

“Good afternoon, Mutnodjmet.” Ranofer smiled up at me, and for a moment I forgot what I had wanted to tell him.

“I tried the aloe today,” I said at last. “It healed our servant’s burns.”

“Really?” Ranofer sat up. “What else?”

“I mixed it with lavender and there was less swelling.”

He smiled wider at me. “You are surpassing even my teaching, my lady.”

I grinned, proud of my ingenuity. “Next, I think I want to try—”

“Talking about something interesting?” Nefertiti sighed and leaned back in the sunshine. “Tell me, what was Father saying just now?”

“Right now?” I am a terrible liar.

“Yes. While you were standing there spying on me.”

I flushed. “He spoke of your future.”

She sat up, the ends of her black hair brushing her chin. “And?”

I paused, wondering if I should tell her the rest. She waited. “And that the queen might be coming,” I said at last.

Immediately, Ranofer’s smile vanished. “But if she comes”—his voice rose—“you will leave Akhmim.”

Nefertiti frowned over Ranofer’s head at me. “Don’t worry,” she promised lightly. “Nothing will come of it.”

There was a moment between them, then Ranofer took her hand and they both stood up.

“Where are you going?” I cried, but Nefertiti didn’t answer, so I called after my tutor. “What about our lesson?”

“Later.” He grinned, but it was only my sister he really had eyes for.

Word arrived that the queen would pay a visit to our villa in Akhmim. In our family shrine, this was what Nefertiti had been secretly praying for, laying down bowls of our best honeyed wine at the feet of Amun and promising all sorts of wild things if he would only send the queen to our city. Now that Amun seemed to have granted her request, Nefertiti was unbearable in her excitement. While my sister preened, my mother rushed around the house, snapping at slaves and servants alike.

“Mutny, make sure the towels are clean. Nefertiti, the bowls please. Make sure the servants have washed them. All of them.”

Our servants dusted the fringed wall hangings while my mother arranged our best inlaid chairs around the Audience Chamber, which would be the first room the queen would enter. Queen Tiye was my father’s sister; she was a hard woman and would not approve of sloppy housekeeping. The tiles in the kitchen were scrubbed to gleaming, even though the queen would go nowhere near them, and the lotus pool was stocked with orange fish. Even Nefertiti did some work, actually inspecting the bowls instead of pretending she had. In six days, Amunhotep the Younger would be crowned at Karnak and made coregent with his father. Even I knew what this visit meant. The queen had not come all the way to Akhmim for over six years. The only reason to visit now would be for a