Nefertiti

I followed her to the table of honor before the dais. Panahesi was there with Kiya. So was the sculptor Thutmose and the builder Maya, and I wondered when they had become family. An old man with gold rings on his fingers called to my mother from across the hall and she changed course to go toward him. A servant pulled out an armed chair and Kiya’s ladies watched me with quiet menace from under their wigs. As I took my seat, Kiya announced brightly, “Why, Lady Mutnodjmet, how nice to see you. I thought you might have missed the celebration.”

“And why would I have done that?” I asked.

“We thought you were sick.”

The color drained from my cheeks and the viziers passed questioning glances among themselves.

“Oh, there isn’t any need to be modest. You must share your good news with everyone.” Kiya announced to the table, “Lady Mutnodjmet is pregnant with the general’s child!”

It was as if time had suddenly halted. Two dozen faces turned toward me, and the painter Thutmose’s eyes grew large as cups. “Is it true?” he asked.

I smiled, lifting my chin. “Yes.”

For a moment, there was a shocked silence among the viziers, then there was a flurry of frenzied whispering.

Across the table, Kiya smiled complacently. “Sisters, and pregnant at the exact same time. I wonder”—she leaned forward—“what Pharaoh had to say?”

I didn’t respond.

“You mean”—Kiya gasped—“he doesn’t know?”

“I am sure he will be happy,” Thutmose interjected.

“Happy?” Kiya cried, losing all sense of decorum. “She has bedded a general! A general!” she shrieked.

“I should think Pharaoh would be proud,” Thutmose assumed. “It is a chance to win the general over to his cause, since Osiris knows Nakhtmin’s heart isn’t in the building.”

Kiya’s voice was flat. “Then where is it?”

Thutmose thought. “In the north with the Hittites, I suppose.”

“Well, perhaps he can go and join Horemheb then.”

Kiya’s ladies laughed, and Thutmose put a placating hand over hers. “Come now, no one wishes for Horemheb’s fate.” Kiya’s features softened and the sculptor turned toward me. “Tawaret protect you,” he said quietly. “You have helped enough women at court to have earned some happiness for yourself.”

My mother returned and the trumpets blared, announcing my sister and Akhenaten’s arrival. They cut a glittering path through the Great Hall, smiling as they went, but when my sister came to me her gaze shifted and she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I heard Kiya’s voice in my head. Sisters, and pregnant at the exact same time.

All night dancers swirled across the Great Hall of Amarna in ripples of linen and netted dresses of bright beads. Fire throwers had come to entertain Akhenaten, but all he had eyes for was my sister. It must have burned Kiya to her very core to see the way women crowded around Nefertiti when she descended the dais, deigning to talk to one or another of the noblewomen. I found my sister speaking with Maya’s wife.

“Excuse us,” I said, taking Nefertiti’s arm.

“What are you doing?” The color rose in her cheeks.

“I want to know if you’ve spoken with Pharaoh.”

Her temper rose. “I warned you about him. I told you not to—”

“Have you spoken to him?” My voice grew louder. My mother, at the table beneath the dais, looked over at us. Nefertiti’s face grew hard.

“Yes. Nakhtmin has been sent north to fight the Hittites with Horemheb.”

If she had struck me across the face, I would have been less shocked. My breath stuck in my throat. “What?”

Nefertiti flushed. “I warned you, Mutnodjmet. I said not to go near him—” She cut herself off as Akhenaten appeared. He must have known what we were talking about because he came to me with his brightest smile.

“Mutnodjmet.”

I turned to him accusingly. “You sent the general to fight the Hittites?”

His smile faltered. “Playing with fire will only get you burned. I am sure your father taught you that, little cat.” He reached out to caress my cheek and I flinched. Then he bent close and whispered, “Perhaps next time you shall choose a more loyal lover. Your general asked to go.”

I stepped back, refusing to believe it. “Never!” My gaze switched to Nefertiti. “And you did nothing?” I demanded. “You did nothing to stop it?”

“He asked,” my sister said weakly.

“He never asked,” I said viciously, implicating Pharaoh in my truth, not caring how dangerous my words were. “I am pregnant. I am pregnant with his child and you let him be sent off to his death!” I cried. Conversation in the Great Hall had stopped.

I banged through the double doors into the night. But I had nowhere to go. I didn’t even know where my chambers were in the palace. I wept, clutching my stomach. What am I going to do? My knees buckled and suddenly I felt ill, unable to stand.

“Mutny!” my mother cried. She turned to Ipu; they had both followed me out of the Great Hall. “Find her a physician! Now!”

There were more voices than I could name, all shouting instructions. I was very ill, someone said, and they should move me to the temple where the priestesses could pray for my life. Another voice asked if this would be the temple of Amun or Aten. I drifted into darkness, and I could hear someone talking about the healing powers of the priests. I heard the name Panahesi and my mother’s sharp retort. Linens came, and I felt a heaviness between my legs. My stomach cramped. There was water. Lemon water and lavender. Someone said my father had arrived. Had entire days passed? When I awoke, it was always to darkness, and Ipu was constantly by my side. When I moaned, I remember feeling the cool hands of my mother across my forehead. I asked for her many times. I recall that clearly. But I never recall asking for my sister. I learned later that for days I drifted in and out of consciousness. The first thing I remember clearly is waking up to the smell of lotus blossoms.

“Mutnodjmet?”

I blinked against the morning light and frowned. “Nakhtmin?”

“No, Mutnodjmet.”

It was my father. I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked around. Reed mats were rolled up above the windows, letting in the morning sun, and the tiled floors gleamed red and blue. Everything was large. The cross- legged stools of animal hide, the jeweled caskets and wig boxes, the onyx lamps with turquoise embedded into their columns. But I was confused. “Where is Nakhtmin?”

My mother hesitated. She sat down on the corner of my bed, exchanging looks with my father. “You’ve been very sick,” she said at last. “You don’t remember the feast, my love?”

And then it came back to me. Nakhtmin’s death sentence, Nefertiti’s selfishness, my sickness outside the palace. My breath came faster. “What happened? Why am I sick?”

My father took a seat next to me and placed his large hand over mine.

My mother whispered, “Mutnodjmet, you’ve lost the child.”

I was too horrified to speak. I had lost Nakhtmin’s baby. I had lost the only thing that bound me to him, the piece of him I was to keep with me forever.

My mother pushed my hair away from my face. “Many women lose their first child,” she comforted me. “You are young. There will be others. We must be thankful the gods spared you.” Her eyes welled. “We thought you were gone. We thought you were—”

I shook my head. “No, this isn’t happening,” I said, pushing away the covers. “Where is Nefertiti?” I demanded.

My father replied solemnly, “Praying for you.”