Nefertiti

sun, Ipu said my eyes were like emeralds; hard and unyielding. “Your Majesty.” I made a very deep bow.

Queen Tiye blinked in surprise. “You have changed.”

I waited for her to tell me how.

“You seem taller, darker, I think.”

“Yes. I spend more time in the sun where I belong.” I put down my spade and she studied the gardens while we walked.

“It’s very impressive here.” She noticed the date palms and blooming wisteria.

I smiled. “Thank you.”

We entered the loggia and my aunt took a seat. I had changed, but she was still the same: small and shrewd, her mouth pinched, her blue eyes cunning. I sat across from her on a small feather pillow. She had arrived in Amarna with my father, leaving behind the city of Thebes at his request, working with him in the Per Medjat until all hours of the morning, studying scrolls, writing letters, negotiating alliances.

Ipu placed hot tea between us and the queen took it in her hands. “I have not come to try to bring you back,” she said.

“I know. You are too judicious for that. You understand that I am done with the palace. With Nefertiti and her statues and her endless scheming.”

Queen Tiye smiled thinly. “I always thought I chose the wrong sister.”

I blinked in surprise that anyone would want me over Nefertiti. Then I shook my head firmly. “No. I would never have wanted to be queen.”

“Which is why you would have made such a fine one.” She put down her cup. “But tell me, Mutnodjmet, what would you suggest for an old woman whose joints are aching her?”

I glanced at her questioningly. “You have come for my herbs?”

“As you said, I’ve not come to convince you to come back. I am far too judicious. Besides, why would you leave this villa?” She looked around her, at the wandering vines and high painted columns. “It’s a peaceful sanctuary, away from the city and from my son’s foolish politics.” She tilted her head so that the jewels around her neck, heavy lapis and gold, clinked musically. Then she leaned forward intimately. “So tell me, Mutnodjmet, what do I use?”

“But your court physicians—”

“Are not as well versed in herbal knowledge as you.” She looked out the open doors to my cultivated garden, row upon row of senna and chrysanthemums, their leaves flashing green and yellow in the sun. There was juniper for headaches, wormwood for cough. For women who wanted it desperately, I still ground acacia. Even knowing that my herbs had killed my own child, I wouldn’t deny them. “The women say you’ve become quite a healer. They call you Sekem-Miw,” she said, meaning powerful cat, and at once I thought of Nakhtmin and my eyes became clouded. My aunt studied me with a critical expression, then reached out and patted my hand. “Come. Show me the herbs.”

Outside, the warm sun dappled the garden. The dew on the plants would dry as the day grew warmer, and I inhaled the heady scent of the earth. I bent down and plucked a green unripe berry from the juniper plant.

“The juniper would be good.” I handed her the berry. “I can make you a tea, but you would have to have it twice a day.”

She crushed the berry between her forefinger and thumb, then brought her fingers to her nose. “It smells of letters from Mitanni,” she mused aloud.

I looked at her in the light, forty years old and still making alliances with foreign nations, conspiring with my father on how best to run a kingdom.

“Why do you still do it?” I asked, and she knew at once what I meant.

“Because it’s Egypt.” The sun reflected in her bright auburn eyes and the gold around her wrists. “I was the spiritual and physical leader of this land once. And what has changed? So I have a foolish son who is sitting on the throne. They are still my gods, my people. Of course, had Tuthmosis been Pharaoh…”

She sighed and I asked quietly, “What was he like?”

My aunt looked down at her rings. “Intelligent. Patient. A fierce hunter.” She shook her head at a regret that only she knew. “Tuthmosis was a soldier and a priest of Amun.”

“Both things that Akhenaten can’t abide.”

“When your sister married him, I wondered if she was too fragile.” My aunt laughed sharply. “Who knew that Nefertiti, little Nefertiti, would be so…” She searched for the word, her gaze falling across the city below us, a white pearl against the sand.

“Passionate,” I responded.

My aunt nodded ruefully. “It wasn’t what I planned.”

“Nor I.” My lip trembled and when my aunt saw the tears she took my hand. “Ipu thinks you are lonely.”

“I have my herbs. And my mother comes in the mornings with bread. Sesame bread and good shedeh from the palace.”

The queen nodded slowly. “And your father?”

“He comes, too, and we talk about news.”

She arched her brows. “And what has he told you recently?”

“That Qatna has sent pleas for help to defend themselves against the Hittites,” I said.

Tiye’s face grew stern. “Qatna has been our vassal for a hundred years. To lose her now would tell the Hittite kingdom we are not willing to fight. It is the second of our vassal states to ask for help. I write letters of peace, and behind my back my son sends requests for more colored glass. They want soldiers”—her voice rose—“and he asks for glass! When our allies have fallen and there is no buffer between us and the Hittites, what then?”

“Then Egypt will be invaded.”

Tiye closed her eyes. “At least we have our army in Kadesh.”

I was horrified. “Of one hundred men!”

“Yes, but the Hittites don’t know that. I would not underestimate the power of Horemheb or Nakhtmin.”

I refused to think that Nakhtmin could return. I sat in the garden under the sunshade and thought, If he returns, they will have been victorious in Kadesh, and that will never happen. I dropped a chamomile leaf into my morning tea. Even after so many months, I never slept well, and when I thought of Nakhtmin, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“My lady!” Ipu appeared on the terrace. “A gift has arrived from the palace.”

“Then send it back like the others,” I said. I would not be bought off. We weren’t little girls anymore; she couldn’t break my favorite toy and give me one of hers later. She still thought that this was nothing, that Nakhtmin was just one man and that there would be others. But I wasn’t like her. I couldn’t kiss Ranofer one day and leave him the next.

But Ipu was still watching me. “This may be something you’d like to keep.”

I scowled, but I put down my tea and went into the house. There was a basket on the table. “Great Osiris, what’s in it?” I exclaimed. “It’s moving.”

Ipu grinned. “Look.”

At Ipu’s prompting, I lifted the lid. Crouching inside, tiny and scared, was a small spotted kitten, a breed only the wealthiest nobles in Egypt could afford. “A miw?” The little creature looked up at me, crying for its mother, and against my better judgment I took her out. She was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, and when I brought her to my chest she began to purr.

“You see?” Ipu said, proud of herself.

I put the kitten down. “We’re not keeping her.”

“It’s a him. And why not?”

“Because it’s a gift from my sister, and she thinks that a kitten can replace a child.”

Ipu lifted her palms. “But you’re lonely.”

“I’m not lonely. Every day I have clients. And my parents.” I put the kitten back into the basket, placing the lid carefully on top. Its little voice echoed through the weaving and Ipu stared at me coldly.

“Don’t look at me that way. I’m not killing it. Only sending it back.”