Nefertiti

more joyous.

Akhenaten was at Nefertiti’s side at once. “What shall we name them?”

She smiled for him, though I knew her disappointment was bitter. “Setepenre,” Nefertiti replied. “And—”

“Neferneferuaten.”

“No. Neferneferure.”

I glanced at Nefertiti, and the hardness in her eyes told me that she would not name her daughters after a god who had given her six princesses. I wondered whether Amun might have given her a prince.

Akhenaten picked up my sister’s hand and pressed it to his chest. “Neferneferure,” he conceded, “after the most beautiful mother in the world.”

When my father heard the news, he sat down outside the birthing chamber and called for a drink. “Six girls,” he said hollowly; he couldn’t believe it. “He gives Kiya a son and your sister has six girls.”

“But he loves them. He’s possessive of them.”

He stared up at me. “He may love them more than he loves Aten, but it’s what the people will think.”

As the news spread through Amarna, I went into the gardens to find my husband.

“Did you hear?” I asked him, wrapping my cloak around my shoulders.

“Twins.”

“Not just twins,” I said softly, and my breath made a puff of air in the garden. “Girls.”

“How did he take the news?” Nakhtmin asked.

I joined him on the bench near the lotus pond and wondered how the fish could swim when it became so cold like this. “Akhenaten or my father?”

“Your father. I can guess how Pharaoh feels. No son to be in competition with for Nefertiti’s affection. No prince to be wary of when he’s an old man. Panahesi may think he’s holding all seven pawns. He doesn’t realize how much Pharaoh fears Nebnefer.”

“But Nebnefer’s seven—”

“And when he’s fourteen or fifteen?” my husband asked.

I watched the fish come to the surface of the pond, their round mouths searching for food. “Would you be jealous of a son?”

“Jealous?” He laughed. “I couldn’t think of a greater blessing,” he said earnestly. “Of course,” he added, “if it never happens—”

I took his hand and squeezed softly. “But what if it did?”

He stared quizzically at me and I smiled. He leaped from the bench. “Are you—”

I nodded, my smile widening.

He pulled me off the bench and pressed me into his arms. “How long have you known? Are you sure? It isn’t—”

“I’m three months already.” I laughed deliriously. “I haven’t told anyone. Not even Ipu. I waited to be sure it wasn’t a false sign.”

The joy in his face was deep and overwhelming. “Miw-sher.” He pressed me to him and stroked my hair. “A child, miw-sher.”

I nodded, laughing. “By Mesore.”

“A harvest child,” he said wonderingly. There was nothing more auspicious than a child at harvest. We stood with our hands clasped, gazing into the pond, and the air didn’t seem so bitter.

“Will you tell your sister?”

“I will tell my mother first.”

“We should tell her before we leave for Thebes. She will want to make arrangements to be there for you.”

“If my sister doesn’t demand I have the child here,” I said. It would be just like Nefertiti to do such a thing. Nakhtmin glanced at me. “I will tell her no, of course. But we should stay another few months; the extra time will pacify Nefertiti, especially if it’s a son.”

“Must everything pacify Nefertiti?” he asked.

I looked down at the hungry fish and told him the truth, the way it had always been in my family. “Yes.”

Nakhtmin came with me to tell my mother the news. She was with my father in the Per Medjat, warming herself by the brazier as he drafted a proclamation to the kings of foreign nations that the Pharaoh of Egypt had been blessed with two more heirs.

Guards opened the heavy doors, and when my mother saw the look on Nakhtmin’s face she knew at once.

“Ay,” she said warningly, standing up.

My father lowered his reed pen in alarm. “What? What is it?”

“I knew it!” My mother clapped loudly and came to embrace me. “I knew there would be!”

Nakhtmin grinned at my father. “There is going to be an heir for this family, too.”

My father looked at me. “Pregnant?”

“Three months.”

My father laughed, such a rare, precious sound, then he stood up and came over to embrace me as well. “My youngest daughter,” he said, holding my chin in his hands. “About to be a mother. I will be a grandfather seven times over!” For a few golden moments, I was the daughter that had achieved something worthwhile. I was going to bring a child into the world. A legacy of their flesh and blood, and part of us that would last until the sands ran out. We stood as one happy, laughing family, then the door swung open and Meritaten was there, watching us.

“What’s happening?”

“You are going to have a cousin,” I told her, and with a knowledge well beyond her years she asked wisely, “You are pregnant?”

I beamed. “Yes, Meritaten.”

“But aren’t you too old?”

Everyone laughed and Meritaten flushed.

My mother tutted softly, “She is only twenty. Your mother is twenty-two.”

“But this was her fifth pregnancy,” Meritaten explained, as if we were all very foolish not to understand.

“Well, for some it takes longer than others to have a child.”

“Is that because Nakhtmin went away?” she asked us.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the Hall of Books.

“Yes,” my father said at last. “It is because Nakhtmin went away.”

Meritaten saw she had said something she should not have, and came to embrace me. “Twenty isn’t so old,” she said seriously, giving me her permission. “Are you going to tell my mother now?”

I took a heavy breath. “Yes, I think I will tell her now.”

Nefertiti was still in the birthing pavilion. I was prepared for rage or weeping or drama. A child would take me away from her. I wasn’t prepared for her joy.

“Now you will have to stay in Amarna!” she cried happily. But it was a calculated happiness. The ladies in the birthing chamber watched me with interest. Over the soft music of the lyre, they could hear what we were saying.

“Nefertiti,” I cut in sharply, “in the end I will go home to have my child.”

My sister turned toward me with a look of deep betrayal, perfectly executed so that I would look like the one being unreasonable. “This is your home.”