“I have decided that I am done being the handmaiden to Nefertiti.”
He stared at me in the firelight. In the glow of the flames, his hair was like copper. “Have you told your father this?”
My cheeks warmed. “Not yet.”
He thought of Nefertiti. “And I suspect the queen will be angry.”
“To say nothing of Akhenaten,” I added. I looked up into his face and he wrapped his arms around me, grinning. “But what if we are banished?” I asked him.
“Then we will go back to Thebes. I will sell the land I inherited from my father and we will buy a farm. One that is all ours,
“But you will no longer be a general,” I warned.
“And you will no longer be Sister to the King’s Chief Wife.”
We were quiet, clasping hands by the fire. “I wouldn’t mind that.”
I found I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his, and he stayed until the early hours of the dawn. It was the same throughout that entire month of Phamenoth and into Pharmuthi: The guards would look the other way and smile as he made his way to my tent. Sometimes when he came, we talked by the brazier, and I asked him what the men thought of Akhenaten.
“They stay because they are paid so well,” he said. “It’s the only thing that keeps them from revolt. They want to fight. But they’re willing to build so long as the gold keeps coming.”
“And Horemheb?”
Nakhtmin heaved a heavy sigh. “I suppose that Horemheb is far to the north.”
“Killed?”
“Or fighting. Either way”—he stared into the flames of our small fire—“he is gone and Pharaoh has what he wanted.”
I was quiet for a moment. “And what do the men say about my sister?”
He glanced sideways at me, to gauge how much I really wanted to know. “They are under her spell the same as Pharaoh.”
“Because she is beautiful?”
He watched me carefully. “And entertaining. She goes into the workers’ villages and tosses deben of silver and gold into the streets. But she would do better to toss them bread, for there’s little to buy, even with all the gold in Egypt.”
“Is there a shortage?” I asked.
He glanced at me.
“I didn’t know.” In the royal camp, there was plenty of everything: meats, fruits, breads, wines.
“Until the population of Thebes moves north, there will always be a shortage. There are few bakers and no place to house them even if there were more.”
A shadow appeared outside the tent and Nakhtmin rose. His hand flew to his sword.
“My lady?” It was only Ipu. She pushed aside the flap and looked at Nakhtmin, blushing although he was fully clothed. “The queen is asking for you, my lady. She wants her tea.”
I looked at Nakhtmin. “She doesn’t want tea. She only wants to gloat that they’ve nearly finished the palace.”
“She could be an ally to us,” he said practically. “Go,” he suggested, “and I will see you tomorrow.” He stood up and my eyes filled with tears. Nakhtmin said kindly, “It’s not forever,
Nefertiti wasn’t due to give birth until Thoth, but she walked through the camp as if the child might come any day. Everyone had to stand three paces back when they were near her, and work in the city stopped when she went past, so that the noise of the hammers wouldn’t disturb the unborn child. She was convinced that it would be a prince, and Akhenaten catered to her every need, ordering her wool from Sumer and the softest linen from the weavers of Thebes. Then she tested her power by demanding that he stop visiting Kiya in the pavilion across the road, in case her worry should hurt the child.
“Could it happen?” Akhenaten came upon me at the well. Though we had servants for fetching water, I enjoyed the musty scent of the earth. I lowered my bucket and shaded my eyes.
“Could what happen, Your Majesty?”
He looked across the lotus pond that had been built in the midst of our camp. “Could she lose the child if I were to upset her?”
“Anything could happen, Your Majesty, if she were upset enough.”
He hesitated. “How upset?”
We both looked at Nefertiti, her small powerful body moving across the camp, trailed by seven guards.
She came up to us and Akhenaten grinned, as if he hadn’t been talking about visiting Kiya. “My queen.” He took her hand and kissed it tenderly. “I have news.”
Nefertiti’s eyes glittered. “What is it?”
“Maya sent word this morning.”
Nefertiti let out a little gasp. “The city is finished,” she guessed.
Akhenaten nodded. “Maya has sworn that within days the walls will be painted and we shall leave our pavilions behind.”
Nefertiti gave a small cry, but I thought at once of Nakhtmin. How would we meet once we moved? He would live with his men in the barracks and I would be trapped inside Akhenaten’s palace.
“Shall we go and see it?” Akhenaten asked eagerly. “Shall we reveal our city to the people?”
“We’ll take everyone,” Nefertiti decided. “Every vizier, every noblewoman, every child in Amarna.” She spun around to face me. “Has there been word from Father?”
“Nothing,” I replied.
She narrowed her eyes. “He hasn’t written to you secretly?”
I stared at her. “Of course not.”
“Good. I want to be the one to tell him Amarna is finished. When he sees the palace”—her face was exultant—“he will realize that Akhenaten was right. We have built the greatest city in Egypt.”
At noon, the announcement was made: The gates would be opened and Amarna would be unveiled to the people at last. A palpable excitement passed through the camp. By orders of Pharaoh, only workers and noblemen had been allowed inside the gates to see the construction. Now the palace would be revealed, along with hundreds of villas crouched in the towering hills behind it. By evening, the long procession of chariots swept through the desert, carrying viziers and noblemen, foreigners and commoners. Riding beside me in my chariot, Ipu gasped as the gates were drawn open to the city of Amarna.
The magnificent temple, with its glittering quay and its tightly packed villages, had been finished. Hundreds of white villas had been built for the nobility, and they sheltered like pearls in the folds of the hills. Everywhere was construction, everywhere were workers, but the city itself shone lustrous and white.
The procession went first to the Temple of Aten. Beneath its pillared courtyard, priests were making sacrifices to the sun. The men bowed in obeisance to Pharaoh and my sister, and they fanned away the smoke so we could see how beautifully the courtyard had been done. Moringa and pomegranate trees trimmed the wall, but most brilliant were the safflowers, yellow and cheerful in the fading light of the open court. Light had obviously been important in the design, and Akhenaten announced proudly that he was the one who had instructed Maya to build the clerestory windows inside.
“What are clerestory windows?” I whispered.
Nefertiti smiled slyly. “Come see.”
We passed from the courtyard to the inner sanctum, where the evening light streamed down from the ceiling,
