Nefertiti

MY HUSBAND WAS at the quay as soon as the ship sailed into port. He took me into the house and laid me down on our bed. I looked up at the walls that had shone white and lusterless when we’d arrived. Now they were bright with river scenes and faience tiles. “Who did all of this?” I asked him.

“I hired a painter from the city. He did it all in three days.”

I appraised the painter’s work. It was pretty. Not anything as grand as Thutmose would have produced, but beautiful all the same. The colors he had chosen for the river were deep and varied.

“So tell me,” he said.

I sighed, telling him the story of Ankhesenpaaten’s birth, then of Kiya, and of my banishment from Amarna. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. “What is it about you, miw-sher, that makes people so obsessed? I thought about you every day and wondered if your sister would hatch some plan to send assassins, then marry you off to someone else when I was dead.”

I gasped. “Nakhtmin.”

“You are everything to her,” he said soberly.

“And you are everything to me. Nefertiti understands that. And if she so much as heard a whisper against your name, she would stop the hand of Pharaoh—”

“She has become that powerful?”

“You should see the people at the Arena and in the streets. They would do anything for her.”

“And for him?”

“I don’t know.”

He caressed my cheek with his hand. “Let’s think of other things now.”

We made love that afternoon. Later, Ipu brought us lunch, figs and almonds with slices of fish and fresh barley bread. We ate and talked, and Nakhtmin told me about our tomb in the hills of Thebes, how solidly it was built and how beautiful the workers had already made it. “I found the workers Pharaoh fired before moving to Amarna. Now they are hiring out their services to any nobleman who is willing to pay. Pharaoh was foolish not to take them.”

“Pharaoh is foolish about many things,” I said. The door creaked open and Nakhtmin’s hand flew to his knife. I looked down and laughed. “It’s only Bastet! Come here, you big miw.”

Nakhtmin frowned.

“And look how big he’s grown!” I lifted Bastet onto my lap and he purred, pleased with my attention. “I’m surprised he’s not angry with me for leaving.”

Nakhtmin raised his brows. “Oh…He did his share of moping while you were gone.”

I looked down at Bastet. “Were you a naughty miw?”

“Ask your favorite linen sheath.”

I paused. “The one—”

Nakhtmin nodded.

“You tore my good sheath?” I cried, and Bastet’s ears flattened against his head, as if he knew exactly what I was talking about.

Nakhtmin said, “I doubt he understands you.”

“Of course he does. He ruined my favorite sheath!”

“Maybe that will teach you to leave home,” Nakhtmin added playfully. We wrapped ourselves in our light linen covers and Bastet curled up at the foot of our bed. Then Nakhtmin listened while I described Amarna to him, the Northern Palace and the Arena that had taken thousands of men to build. Eventually, when evening fell, we opened the doors and sat on the balcony, watching the moon rise over the river. Across the water, large houses glittered with a hundred winking lamps.

“How could he think Amarna would ever compare to this?” I asked, and I was so thankful to Amun to be alive and sitting with the man I loved on a balcony overlooking the greatest city in Egypt.

The next morning when I returned to my garden, I complimented my husband on the job he had done to keep the mandrakes watered and the hibiscus fed. Even Ipu was impressed with his skill while we’d been gone.

“I thought for certain we’d return to dirt and weeds,” she confided.

We both laughed, and Nakhtmin demanded to know what we were laughing about.

“Only your prowess in the garden!” I said.

It was not difficult to return to my life in Thebes. The Nile rushed, the birds sang, the herons mated, and Bastet stalked through the house like the Master of Egypt.

Ipu and I went to the market to buy fish for Bastet, and I was reminded yet again what a magnificent city Thebes was. The blush of the hills and deep gold of the rocks was bright and fresh in the early morning light. Between the stalls old women were arranging their wares, chewing on betel nuts as they gossiped to one another. The winter’s sun glinted gold off the river, where men with heavy nets carried cargo from merchant ships. We walked through the crowds and the men looked first at me, attracted by my gold and silver cartouches, but their eyes lingered longest on Ipu, who swayed through the stalls, smiling at all the men’s jokes.

Paser, the carpenter, wanted to know whether Pharaoh was satisfied with the box he had made him seventeen years ago.

“It’s still in his chamber, accorded the most prominent place,” Ipu told him.

The old seller reeled back, clapping his hands. “You hear that? Paser the Carpenter’s work in the Riverside Palace.”

I glanced at Ipu, who gleamed at her lie. Paser leaned forward. “I could have worked on the tombs. I bet they would have taken me if I had gone to Amarna, and I could have carved ushabti for Pharaoh’s journey into the afterlife.”

“But what would your daughter have done without you?” she asked.

“She could have come, too,” he said excitedly, and then he gave a heavy sigh. “Ah, but these are just an old man’s dreams.”

“Not so old,” Ipu flattered, and the carpenter grinned.

We moved on, and I reminded Ipu of the fish for Bastet.

“We’ll go to Rensi’s stall,” she promised. “He always has the best.”

“It’s for Bastet. I doubt he will know the difference.”

Ipu passed me a look. “He knows everything, that miw.” She strode purposefully to the last stall in the market, then came up short at the sight of a young man in Rensi’s place. He was tall and well built with hands that didn’t belong to a fish seller.

“What can I get for you, my ladies?”

“Where is Rensi?” Ipu demanded.

“My father has business in Memphis these next two months. Until then, I’ll be tending his stall.”

Ipu put her hands on her hips. “Rensi never told me he had a son.”

“And my father never told me he had such lovely customers.” He looked between us, but I could see that his compliment had been meant for Ipu.

“Well, then, we want perch. Fresh perch. Nothing you caught two days ago and rubbed over with thyme.”

The son looked taken aback. “Do you think I would really sell a days-old fish?”

“I don’t know. Is the son of Rensi as reputable as his father?”

He handed her a wooden bowl with perch already cut. “You take this home and tell me if it’s not the finest fish in Thebes.”

“I’m afraid she won’t be able to tell you that,” I said flatly. “It’s for a miw.”

The son looked at Ipu as if she was insane. “Perch for a cat?” he rejoined, and reached out to take the fish back.

“You sold it,” Ipu exclaimed. “Too late!”

“That’s the finest fish in Thebes!” He looked to me to try to find some reversal.

“And I’ll be giving it to Thebes’ finest miw,” Ipu promised.