Nefertiti

One of Kiya’s ladies said quickly, “Don’t listen to her. Come.” They rushed away to greet guests across the hall.

“So tell us about Thebes,” my mother pressed brightly.

“And Udjai,” my father added.

I told them that Udjai had grown fatter than he had been in my father’s boyhood days.

“No, he was always large,” my father said. “And now he is a landowner.” He nodded approvingly. “He has carved a good life for himself. But no children?”

“Three,” I replied. “And a wife from Mitanni. She cooks perch with cumin and Bastet sneezes whenever he comes back from their garden.”

My mother laughed. I had forgotten how beautiful it sounded. “And your house?”

“It’s mine.” I smiled with satisfaction. “No one else’s but mine. We’ve planted a garden and expect a harvest in Pachons. Ipu has arranged an entire room for me where I can work, and Nakhtmin has promised to watch the garden till I return.”

My mother reached across the table to squeeze my hand while cheerful music played around us. “You have had the blessings of the gods,” she said. “Whenever I cry, your father reminds me that you have what you’ve always wanted.”

“I do, mawat. I am only sorry we are so far away.”

I rubbed the soles of Nefertiti’s feet with coconut oil, smoothing it into her small, rough heel as she lay in her bath. “What do you do, go barefoot all day?” I asked her.

“When I can,” she admitted, stretching her back. A great copper tub had been built in the royal rooms and was perfumed with lavender. “You just don’t know what it’s like to carry a child,” she complained.

My eyes met hers and she sat up quickly. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said at once.

I rubbed the oil over her feet. “I have been trying for eight months,” I told her. Her eyes traveled to my waist. “Nothing. I don’t think I will ever have a child.”

“You can’t know that,” Nefertiti replied hotly. “It’s up to Aten.”

I set my jaw, and she laid her head back in the tub and sighed. “Why don’t you tell me about Thebes? What is it you do all day?”

I would have answered, but we were interrupted by the squeals of children and the heavy sound of an adult woman chasing after them.

“Meritaten, Meketaten!” My sister laughed. The two girls scrambled into Nefertiti’s wet arms, and my story was forgotten. The nurse was not laughing, however, though she made a short bow when she entered Pharaoh’s chamber.

The younger girl was crying, holding her forelock. “Meri pulled my hair,” she wept.

“I didn’t touch her hair. You can’t believe her!”

I let Nefertiti’s foot drop, and both children immediately stopped what they were doing to look up at me with wide, interested eyes. The older girl came up and stared into my face with the confidence Nefertiti had owned as a child.

“Are you our aunt Mutnodjmet?” she asked.

I smiled at Nefertiti. “Yes, I am.”

“You have green eyes.” She narrowed hers, trying to determine whether she liked me or not. Then Meketaten began to wail again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked the little princess, holding out my arms, but she clung to her mother’s hand.

“Meri pulled my hair,” she sobbed.

I looked at Meri. “You wouldn’t do such a thing, would you?”

She batted her dark eyes. “Of course not.” She looked up winningly at her mother. “Otherwise, mawat won’t let us ride.”

I stared at Nefertiti.

“Chariots,” she explained.

“At two and three? But Meketaten is too small—”

I thought I caught a satisfied nod from the nurse, who was standing at the door watching over her two charges. “Nonsense,” Nefertiti said as a servant helped her from her bath and brought her a robe. “They ride as well as any boy their age. Why should my children be denied just because they are girls?”

I stared at her in amazement. “Because it’s dangerous!”

Nefertiti bent down to Meritaten. So Meri’s the favorite, I thought. “Are you frightened when you ride in the new Arena?” she asked, and the scent of her lavender soap filled the bath.

“No.” The older princess shook her black forelock and the ponytail came to rest as a curl beneath her chin. She was a pretty child.

“You see?” Nefertiti straightened. “Ubastet, take the girls to their lessons.”

“No, mawat.” Meritaten let her shoulders go limp. “Do we have to?”

Nefertiti put her hands on her hips. “Do you want to be a princess or an uneducated peasant?”

Meri giggled. “A peasant,” she said naughtily.

“Really?” Nefertiti asked. “Without horses or paints or pretty jewels to wear?”

Meritaten trudged out but hesitated at the door, wanting some consolation before she left. “Will we be going to the Arena tonight?” she pleaded.

“Only if it pleases your father.”

In the Royal Robing Room, Nefertiti held up her arms. The servant moved to get her dress, but she said, “Not you. Mutny.”

I took the linen gown and pulled it over her head, envious of the way it fit her body, even in pregnancy. “You allow them to ride in the Arena at night? Is there anything you don’t allow?”

“When we were children, I would have given half of Akhmim to live the kind of life my daughters are having.”

“When we were children, we understood humility,” I said.

She shrugged and sat before her mirror. Her hair had grown. She handed me her brush. “You always do it so much better than Merit.”

I frowned. “You could write to me once in a while,” I told her, taking the brush and pulling it gently through her hair. “Mother does.”

“It was your choice to go running off with a soldier. Not mine.” My fingers tightened around the brush and Nefertiti’s eyes flew open.

“Mutny, that hurt!”

“I’m sorry.”

She settled back in her ebony chair. “Tonight we’ll go to the Arena,” she decided. “You haven’t even seen the crowning jewel of this city.”

“I thought that was you.”

She ignored my wry humor. “I think I have accomplished it,” she said. “I think I have built something that will stand until the end of time.”

I stopped with her hair. “Nothing is forever,” I said cautiously. “Nothing lasts.”

Nefertiti studied her reflection in the mirror and grinned brazenly. “Why? Do you think the gods will punish my overreaching?”

I replied, “I don’t know.”

In a noisy throng of guards and jeweled chariots we moved down the Royal Road to the towering Arena. It was the first time I had seen the Royal Road in completion, and it stretched impossibly wide, threading through the city like a long white ribbon. Thutmose, who had become as important as any vizier at court, rode in my chariot,