filtering through long windows. I had never seen anything like it.
“He is a genius,” Ipu said wonderingly.
I pressed my lips together, but there was no denying it. Nothing like it had ever been built.
Viziers and nobility walked into the temple, studying the tapestries and large mosaics while the rest of the procession waited in the courtyard.
Nefertiti was triumphant. “What do you think Father will say?” she asked.
She smiled; I had said what she wanted to hear. But I would never tell her that it was worth Amun’s gold, or worth Egypt’s security and her vassal states. Akhenaten came up beside us.
“Maya shall be rewarded richly,” he announced. He surveyed the fluted pillars of his temple, the wide stairways leading up to balconies where smaller sanctuaries were bathed in light. Warm air floated up from the river, wafting through the courtyard. “When the emissaries return to Assyria and Rhodes, they will know what kind of Pharaoh reigns now in Egypt.”
“And when they see the bridge”—Nefertiti opened a heavy wooden door—“they will know that a visionary planned this.” The door swung back to reveal a bridge that arched over the Royal Road, connecting the Temple of Aten to the palace. It was higher than any bridge I had ever seen, wider and more elaborate. As we walked its expanse, I had the feeling I was crossing into the future, that I was seeing my grandchildren’s lives and what their world would look like after I was gone.
In the palace, no expense had been spared. Windows swept from ceiling to floor and perfumed fountains tinkled musically in sunlit corners. There were chairs of ebony and ivory, beds inlaid with precious stone. I was shown to the room that I would have, and the chamber my parents would take, with blue glazed tiles and mosaics of hunting scenes.
“We have named it Riverside Palace,” Nefertiti said, taking me to see every corner and niche. “Kiya’s palace has been built to the north.”
“Outside the walls?” I asked warily.
She smiled. “No, but far.”
We walked through the water garden with its alabaster fountain, and I was amazed at what had been done. I couldn’t imagine how they had built it all so quickly, or how much gold it had taken. Nefertiti kept walking, pointing out statues that I should notice and brightly painted walls where her image stared back at us. The court followed jubilantly behind us, whispering and exclaiming among themselves. “And this is where the royal workshop shall be,” my sister said. “Thutmose will sculpt every part of our lives.”
“In a thousand years, our people will know what we ate and where we drank,” Akhenaten vowed. “They will even see the Royal Robing Room.” He pushed open the door to a chamber with plush red cushions and boxes for wigs. There were kohl pots, copper mirrors, silver brushes, and perfume jars arranged on cedar stands, waiting to be used. “We will offer them a glimpse into our palace, and they will feel as if they have known the rulers of Egypt for a lifetime.”
I surveyed the opulent chamber and wondered if I knew them myself. Nefertiti had spent Egypt poor for a city in the desert. It was new and it was breathtaking, but it was the sweat of soldiers that had built these walls, and painted these murals, and erected the colossal images of Akhenaten and Nefertiti so that the people would know they were always watching.
“When Thutmose is finished,” Nefertiti swore, “Egypt will know me better than any other queen. In five hundred years, I’ll be alive to them, Mutnodjmet. Living on the walls, in the palace, across the temples. I’ll be immortal not just in the Afterlife, but here in Egypt. I could build a shrine where my children and their children would go to remember me. But when they are gone, what then? This”—and Nefertiti looked up, touching the brightly painted walls—“will last until eternity.”
We passed through the doors of the Audience Chamber, and I noticed there were no images of bound Nubians on the tiles. Instead, there were images of the sun, its rays reaching down to Nefertiti and Akhenaten, kissing them in blessing. Akhenaten strode to the top of the dais and spread his arms. “When Thebans come,” he proclaimed, “every family will be given a home. Our people shall remember us as the monarchs who made them wealthy, and they will bless the city of Amarna!”
“My lady, are you ill?” Ipu ran to fetch a bowl while I held my stomach and emptied its contents two, then three times. I groaned, resting my cheek against the soft leather of my padded stool. Ipu put her hands on her hips. “What have you eaten?”
“I’ve had nothing since the tour of the palace. Goat’s cheese and nuts.”
She frowned. “And your breasts?” She tugged at the corner of my shirt. “Are they darker”—she pressed her finger against my flesh—“tender?”
My eyes went wide and a sudden fear welled up inside me. These were Nefertiti’s symptoms. This couldn’t be happening to me. Not after all the help I’d given women in this very camp. Ipu shook her head and whispered, “When was the last time you bled?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“What about the acacia?” she demanded.
“I’ve been taking it.”
“All the time?”
“I don’t know. I think. So much has happened.”
Ipu gasped. “Your father will be furious.”
My lip trembled and I buried my head in my hands, for, instinctively, I knew it was true. I had missed my blood. “And I’m my mother’s only daughter,” I explained. “She will be so upset, so lonely if—” I began to cry and Ipu took me in her arms, stroking my long hair.
“It may not be so bad,” she comforted. “No one knows better than you that there are ways to be rid of it.”
I looked up sharply. “No!” I clasped my hands across my stomach.
“Then what else? If you have this child, your father will never make you a marriage!”
“Good,” I said wildly. “Then the only man who will want me is the general.”
But Ipu’s voice grew desperate. “And what about Pharaoh?”
“I have done enough for Nefertiti. It’s her turn now. She will have to convince him.”
Ipu’s look was incredulous, as if she didn’t believe it would happen.
“She
I paced the tent all afternoon. Two women came for acacia and honey, and my insides turned as I handed the mixture to them, thinking of how careless I had been. Then Merit appeared; the queen was asking for me.
“She wants to know if you will be coming for dinner?”
“No,” I said, too ill with regret to face my sister. “Go and tell her that I am sick.”
Merit disappeared, and several minutes later Nefertiti parted the curtains without announcing her arrival.
“You are always sick lately.” She strode to a chair and sat down, studying me. I was sorting my herbs, and my hands trembled when they came to the acacia. “Especially at night,” she added suspiciously.
“I haven’t been well for several days.” I didn’t lie.
She watched me closely. “I hope you haven’t been taken with that general.” The color must have drained from my face because she added harshly, “This family cannot trust anyone in the army.”
“So you’ve said.”
Nefertiti studied me. “He has not come to visit you?” she demanded.
I lowered my gaze.
“He has come to visit you?” she shrieked. “In the camp?”
“What does it matter?” I snapped shut my herb box. “You have a husband, a family, a child—”
