Nefertiti

Chapter Fifteen

THEBES

1349 BCE

fifteenth of Thoth

AMUNHOTEP PACED. “MY mother is in the Audience Chamber. She is wearing the Queen of Egypt’s crown. It is yours now. Shall I take it for you?”

We sat in a circle in the richest chamber of Malkata: my mother, my father, Ipu, and I. We had sailed to Thebes for Pharaoh’s burial, and now the Elder’s room belonged to Amunhotep IV. We watched while Merit painted Nefertiti’s eyes. She was beyond us now. More powerful than Tiye. More powerful than our father even. When the Elder had been alive, there had always been the possibility of appealing to him for help if there was trouble. Now, there was only Nefertiti.

“Let her keep the crown,” my sister ruled. “I will wear a crown that no Queen of Egypt has ever worn. Something I have created.” She looked over at Thutmose, who went wherever we did.

But Amunhotep wasn’t satisfied. “We should take the crown,” he insisted cruelly. “She could be dangerous to us.”

My father’s gaze found Nefertiti’s, who stood up at once. “It’s not necessary,” she replied.

“She was my father’s wife!” Amunhotep rejoined, his voice full of menace.

“And she is my father’s sister. He will watch her for you.”

Amunhotep studied my father, then shrugged, as if his mother was a matter he was willing to let go. “I want to move from this city as soon as we can find a place to build.”

“We will,” Nefertiti promised, going to him and caressing his cheek. “But we must put things in order.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “We must rid ourselves of the Amun priests before they can try assassination—”

“Your Highness,” my father interrupted.

“I won’t have them disturbing my sleep!” he raged. “I dream about them at night. They’re in my dreams. But I will send the priests to the quarries.”

I gasped, and even Nefertiti froze at the suggestion. These were men who had never toiled a day in their lives, representatives of Amun who spent their time praying. “Perhaps we should just send them away,” she offered.

“So they can plot somewhere else?” Amunhotep demanded. “No. I will send them all to the quarries.”

“But they will die,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

Amunhotep turned his dark gaze on me. “Very good.”

“And what about the ones who will bow to Aten? They can be saved,” Nefertiti implored.

Amunhotep faltered. “We will offer them the chance. But those who refuse will be shackled and sentenced.” He left the room, shouting at his guards to keep seven paces back.

“The Elder has not been a month in his tomb and you are planning the destruction of Thebes?” my father asked furiously. “The people will see that this is against the laws of Ma’at. They will never forget this.”

“Then we will give them something else to remember,” Nefertiti swore. Her eyes were painted and around her throat was the golden symbol of life. “Bring me my crown.” Thutmose disappeared. Then Nefertiti took off her wig and those of us in the room let out a cry.

“What have you done?” my mother exclaimed.

Nefertiti had shaven off her hair. The beautiful black tresses that had framed her face were gone. “I had to shave it for the crown.”

My mother placed a hand over her heart. “What kind of crown is it?”

“The crown that will come to be associated with Egypt,” she said. As she did, I realized that even without her hair, Nefertiti was still beautiful. She was threatening and powerful and stunning. She looked at herself in the mirror as Thutmose came up behind her. He raised the flat-topped crown so all of us could see it, then fit the burden tightly around Nefertiti’s head. No one else could have worn it. It had been designed for her, tall and slender with an asp ready to spit poison into her enemies’ eyes. Nefertiti turned around, and if I had been a peasant in the fields, I would have thought I was staring into the face of a goddess.

The Audience Chamber was filled to bursting. Scribes, merchants, courtiers, diplomats, viziers, and priests stood elbow to elbow in the magnificent room with its sweeping mosaics and towering windows. The Audience Chamber of Thebes put the chamber in Memphis to shame. There was a gasp of awe as we entered the room. Nefertiti swept up the stairs to her throne and Queen Tiye, on the second step of the dais, was no longer the reigning queen in Egypt. Now she would be Dowager Queen. I heard whispers as I took my place on the third step next to my father, for no one knew what my sister’s crown meant. Was Nefertiti queen? A king-queen? A coregent? To whom should the people address their petitions? The viziers looked from Amunhotep to Nefertiti to my father. We were the most powerful family in Egypt. In the world.

General Nakhtmin stood in full regalia at the side of Horemheb. They were watching the Nubian guards behind our thrones with critical eyes. I knew what they were thinking: Amunhotep distrusted his army so much he had hired foreign men to protect him. And I knew what even they did not. That now Amunhotep would announce the building of a new capital city called Amarna. There would be no war with the Hittites as they encroached on our territories. Instead, the army would build cities for Aten.

Panahesi stood from his chair and announced, “The Pharaoh of Egypt has declared that Aten shall be praised above all other gods in Egypt!”

There was an angry murmur among the priests.

Panahesi raised his voice to speak over them. “Aten shall have temples in every city, and the priests of Amun shall bow down before him or they shall be taken from Thebes and sent to the quarries.”

There was a cry of outrage.

“The quarries,” Panahesi continued, “of Wadi Hammamat.”

The murmur rose and Amunhotep stood from his throne. “From this day forth,” his voice echoed across the chamber, “I shall be known as Pharaoh Akhenaten. Beloved of Aten. And Thebes shall not be where Aten’s Pharaoh reigns. I will build Aten a bigger city, a greater city, and this city shall be called Amarna.”

Now chaos erupted in the Audience Chamber: shock that Amunhotep would change his name, and that a new capital would be built to replace the greatest city in the East. Akhenaten looked to Panahesi, who demanded silence. But the crowd had grown violent. The priests were shouting, the viziers were trying to calm the priests, and the merchants who had supplied the temples of Amun with costly herbs and gold were making deals with the new priests of Aten. I looked at my mother, whose face had gone white beneath her wig.

“Guards!” the newly proclaimed Akhenaten shouted. “Guards!”

Two dozen armed Nubians swept into the crowd. Akhenaten stood and took Nefertiti’s hand in his. He turned to the generals of the army and shouted above the noise, “You will empty every temple and turn the statues of Amun, Isis, and Hathor to gold. You will give the priests and priestesses one chance to turn to Aten.” Akhenaten looked at Nefertiti and she nodded. “If they refuse, chain them and send them to Hammamat.”

At the word chain, the room fell silent. Guards stood poised at every window and entrance in case further trouble should erupt, only now the people in the chamber understood. Akhenaten didn’t want to elevate Aten over Amun: he wanted to tear down every statue of the gods and goddess who had protected Egypt for two thousand years.

A vizier stood from his seat below the Horus throne. “But the Amun priests are nobility. They are the foundation upon which Egypt rests!” he cried.

There was a murmur of consent in the room.

“The Amun priests,” Akhenaten said slowly, “will be given one chance. They may become priests of Aten or they may give up their lives for a god who no longer rules in Egypt. Is Pharaoh not the mouthpiece of the gods?”

The old man stared at him, at a loss for words.

“Is Pharaoh not the mouthpiece of the gods?” Akhenaten repeated, shouting.

The old man fell to one knee. “Of course, Your Highness.”

“Then who knows better the will of the gods, them or me? We shall build Aten a city that shall be greater than any city that has come before it.”

Queen Tiye shut her eyes and General Horemheb stood forward.

“The Hittites have taken control of Qatna and the governor of Kadesh has requested three times that we come to his aid. His letters have not been answered by anyone but Vizier Ay, who can do nothing without Pharaoh’s consent.” He glared up at Akhenaten. “If we fail to send men this time, Your Highness, we will lose the territory the Elder won with the lives of three thousand Egyptian soldiers.”

The blood rushed to Akhenaten’s face. He scanned the room to see who agreed. “You say you wish to fight the Hittites?” he asked.

General Horemheb heard the threat in Pharaoh’s voice. “My wish is to protect Egypt from invasion and to save the territories that my father and I fought so hard to procure.”

“Who here agrees with the general?” Akhenaten shouted.

No one moved in the Audience Chamber.

“Who?” he bellowed.

Five charioteers stepped out of rank and looked around them. Akhenaten smiled widely. “Very well. Here is your army, General.” The Audience Chamber shifted, not sure what game Akhenaten was playing. Pharaoh turned to my father. “Send them to the front lines of Kadesh, for this is the army that will save Egypt from the Hittites! Who else would like to join this war?” he asked menacingly.

I held my breath, wondering if Nakhtmin would volunteer.

Akhenaten grinned. “Five warriors then. Let’s all rise for the heroes who will defend Kadesh from the invading Hittites.” He began to clap in mock approbation, and when no one clapped with him, he clapped louder. The Audience Chamber erupted with nervous applause. “Your heroes!” Akhenaten turned to his Nubian guards. “Take them away. Take them all the way to the fronts of Kadesh!”

The courtiers who filled the chamber watched in stunned silence as General Horemheb and his five men were led away. No one moved. I don’t think anyone even dared to breathe.

Panahesi straightened his cloak. “Pharaoh will now receive petitions.”

Panahesi marched in to the holiest of holies with his army of Nubians and the great temples of Thebes were stripped of their statues. Images of Isis were shattered or burned. Hathor was toppled from her place above the river and Amun was defaced. People cowered in their homes and the priestesses of Isis wept in the streets. Akhenaten’s new army of Nubian guards ripped the robes from the chests of Amun priests and new robes were issued adorned with the sun. Those who refused them were sent to certain death.

And before the Elder was even cold in his tomb, Akhenaten and Nefertiti knelt before the altar that had once been Amun’s, and Panahesi anointed them Pharaoh and Queen of all Egypt. I sat in the first row in lapis and gold, and while choirs of boys raised their sweet voices to the sun, all across Thebes Pharaoh’s army defaced images of our greatest gods.

That night, Nefertiti called a meeting. We sat in a circle around my bed, keeping our voices low. I had a new room in Thebes. Princess Meritaten had my old room next to Pharaoh. I let my father into my chamber, expecting him to be outraged, but a deadly calm had settled over him.

“Say something,” Nefertiti commanded.

“What is it that you want me to say?” my father asked quietly. “You called this meeting.”

“Because I wanted your advice.”

“What do you need my advice for? You don’t take it.”

“What am I supposed to do?” she demanded.

“Save Amun!” he lashed out. His eyes were blazing in the firelight. “Save something. What will be left of Egypt when he is through with it?”

“You think I don’t know this?” Her voice broke a little. “He is building a city and he wants it in the desert.”

“In the desert?”

“Between Memphis and Thebes.”

“No one can build there. It’s desolation—”

“That’s what I told him! But Panahesi has convinced him it is Aten’s will.” Her voice rose hysterically. “You gave him the job of High Priest of Aten and now Akhenaten thinks that Panahesi is the mouthpiece of the god.”

“Better the mouthpiece of the god than treasurer. In the end, it will not be Akhenaten who decides the next Pharaoh of Egypt. If death should strike your husband, it will be the people and their advisers who choose. Panahesi may control the temple, but I control its gold, and gold will win more hearts than a god no one can see.”

“But Akhenaten wants to choose the site by the end of Aythyr. And he wants to take Kiya!”

My father glanced at her. So here was the real crisis. Not that the city would be in the midst of desert, but that Akhenaten would take Kiya to help choose where it should be.

Nefertiti’s panic rose. “What will I do?”

“Let him.”

“Let Akhenaten take Kiya to choose our site?”

“There is nothing you can do.”

“I am Queen of Egypt,” she reminded.

“Yes, and one of two hundred other women that Akhenaten inherited from his father’s harem.”

“Akhenaten will have nothing to do with them. They were his father’s women.”

“So anything his father ever touched is tainted now? Including this city?”

Nefertiti sat silent.

“How will he find workers to build Amarna?” he asked her.

“The army.”

“And how will we defend our foreign territories when they are invaded by Hittites?”

“Hittites! Hittites! Who cares about the Hittites? Let them take Rhodes or Lakisa or Babylon. What do we want with them?”

“Goods,” I interrupted, and everyone looked at me. “We get pottery from Rhodes, caravans of gold from Nubia, and every year a thousand baskets of glass arrive on Babylonian ships.”

Nefertiti narrowed her eyes. “How do you know?”

“I listen.”

She stood up and directed her words at our father. “Send messages in Akhenaten’s name and threaten the Hittites with war.”

“And if they still invade our territories?” he asked.

“Then we’ll tax the temples and send them the gold to raise an army!” she retorted. “Akhenaten has already sworn that our army will build the city of Amarna. He thinks it will write our name in eternity. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“And you?” my father asked shrewdly. “Do you think it will write your name in eternity?”

She paused over the brazier, the rage gone from her face. “It could.”

“Has Akhenaten met with Maya?” my father asked.

“Maya said it will take six years. They will build a main road and the palace first. Akhenaten wants to move by Tybi.”

“So soon?” my father demanded.

“Yes. We’ll set up tents so we can watch the progress and be there for every phase.”

We both stared at her. “You?” I asked, brutally frank. “You, who like all the comforts of the palace?”

“And what about the old?” my father asked her. “What will they do when it begins to grow cold during Inundation?”

“Then they can stay behind and come when the palace is finished.”

“Good. And so shall I.”

Nefertiti stared. “You have to come. You’re treasurer.”

“And will there be a treasury? A secure-enough holding to keep safe all that gold?”

Nefertiti bridled. “Akhenaten won’t like your staying behind at the treasury,” she warned. “And not just you, but his mother.”

My father stood up. “Then he’ll simply have to learn to accept it,” he said and stormed from the chamber.