Chapter Seventeen

AMARNA


twenty-eighth of Payni


“I’M AFRAID SHE will stay here tending her herb garden for the rest of her life. Without a husband, without children…”

I could hear my body servant’s words from the garden. Three months ago, on the day I’d discovered that someone had poisoned me to kill Nakhtmin’s child, I had found this villa myself, newly built and sitting empty in the golden terraces overlooking the city. No family had purchased it yet from the palace, so I moved into its rooms and claimed the villa as my own. No one would dare to suggest I be removed.

It had taken three months of seeding and planting, but now I reached down to feel the leaves of a young sycamore, warm and soft. My body servant’s voice grew closer to the garden. “She’s outside, where she always is,” she said, sounding worried. “Tending to her herbs so she can sell them to the women.”

I felt her presence behind me like a pillar of stone. I didn’t need to hear her voice to know who it was. Besides, I could smell her scent of lily and cardamom.

“Mutnodjmet?”

I turned and shaded my eyes. I never wore a wig since leaving the palace. My hair grew long and wild. In the 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.”

She was silent. The only sound was the kitten’s pitiful mew.

I rolled my eyes. “All right. But you can take care of it.”

When my father arrived with my mother in tow, their serving lady had a basket filled with luxuries from the palace I didn’t need. He frowned at the sight of Ipu crouched by the divan, dangling a string and calling softly to something underneath.

“What is she doing?” he asked.

The serving woman put the basket on the table, and the three of us turned to look. There was the flash of a gray paw, then a startled scream as the string disappeared. “The naughty creature won’t come out!” Ipu cried.

“What is it?” My mother peered closer.

“Nefertiti sent me a kitten,” I said flatly. My father studied my expression. “I only took it because Ipu wanted it,” I said. The kitten scampered down the hall.

My mother grinned. “Have you named her?”

“Him. His name is Bastet.”

“The patron of felines,” my mother said approvingly.

My father looked at me in surprise.

“It was Ipu’s idea.”

My mother began unpacking various linens from the basket, and my father and I strolled out into the garden.

“I heard my sister came to visit you yesterday.”

“She thinks there is a chance of success in Kadesh,” I told him, waiting for his response.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s possible, Mutnodjmet. But it’s nothing I would wait for. He is gone. We have all lost loved ones to Osiris.”

I fought back tears. “But not like this!”

“Nefertiti didn’t know,” my father explained. “She is beside herself. The child is due at the end of Thoth, and the physicians say if she doesn’t get rest and begin to eat she will lose it.”

Good. Let her lose it, I thought. Let her know what it’s like to wake up robbed of everything she holds dear. Immediately, however, guilt overwhelmed me. “I hope she finds peace.” I bowed my head. “But even if she didn’t know about the herbs, she allowed Nakhtmin to be taken.”

My father said nothing for a while. Then he warned, “She will want you at the birth.”

I bit my tongue. My father knew the irony of what he was asking. “When the time comes,” I whispered.



Queen Tiye visited me for a second time. She swept up the steps of the villa with seven ladies in tow, each of them carrying large willow baskets.

“Ipu, find Bastet!” I shouted. “We can’t have him running around attacking the queen’s ankles.” This was Bastet’s new game. He would find a piece of furniture under which to hide, and then run out to bite the ankle of anyone who passed. “Bastet,” Ipu wailed. “Come here, Bastet.”

I could hear the queen’s ladies drawing closer. “Bastet!” I commanded, and the little ball of fur pranced out from his hiding place, marching up to me as if to demand what I wanted with him. “Ipu, take him into the back room.” I pointed.

He looked at Ipu and gave a plaintive cry.

“How come he comes for you and not for me?”

I looked down at the proud little kitten. Even though Ipu was the one who fed him, it was my chair he sat under and my lap he curled up on in front of the brazier. Arrogant miw, I thought.

A knock resounded throughout the house, and Ipu rushed to open the door. Outside, two servants held a peacock sunshade over my aunt’s head to protect her from the sun.

“Queen Tiye.” I bowed. “It is a pleasure to see you.”

My aunt held out her hand so that I could escort her inside. The rings on her fingers were dazzling, great chunks of lapis set in gold. She took a seat on a feather pillow in the loggia, studying the torn tapestry on the wall. She fingered the loose threads. “The kitten from Nefertiti?” She smiled at my surprise. “There was talk in the palace when it wasn’t returned.”

At once my ire rose. “Talk?” I demanded.

“Someone suggested that all might be forgiven.” She watched me carefully while color darkened my cheeks.

“And did someone suggest that a gift won’t buy a child? Won’t buy back a man’s life?”

“Who would say that to your sister? No one challenges Nefertiti. Not I, not even your father.”

“Then she does what she pleases?” I asked her.

“The same way all queens have. Only with a greater passion for building.”

I gasped. “There can’t be more building?”

“Of course. There will be building until the army finds a leader who will lead them in revolt.”

“But who could be powerful enough to revolt against Pharaoh?”

Ipu brought in tea with mint. My aunt raised the cup to her lips. “Horemheb,” she said frankly.

“Which is why Horemheb was sent to Kadesh.”

My aunt nodded. “He was too popular. Like Nakhtmin. My son saw danger where he should have seen advantage. He is too much a fool to see that with Nakhtmin in your bed, he would never have revolted.”

“Nakhtmin would never have led a revolt,” I said quickly. “With or without me.”

Tiye raised her sharp brows.

“He wanted a peaceful life.”

“He didn’t tell you that in Thebes, when Akhenaten was ready to take his brother’s crown, soldiers came and asked him to lead a rebellion? And that he agreed?”

I lowered my cup. “Nakhtmin?”

“There were viziers and soldiers who convinced him that a rebellion was the only way to achieve Ma’at once Prince Tuthmosis was killed.”

I stared at my aunt, trying to determine whether she was truly saying what I thought she might be. That Tuthmosis had been killed not by a fall from his chariot, but by his own brother’s hand. She saw my question and stiffened.

“I hear servants’ gossip as well as anyone else.”

“But his chariot fall—”

“Might have killed him regardless. Or he might have recovered. Only my living son and Osiris now know the truth.”

I shuddered. “Only there was no revolt.”

“Nefertiti arrived and the court believed she would be Egypt’s salvation from my son.”

I sat back. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked her.

My aunt put down her tea. “Because someday you will return to the palace, and either you will return with your eyes wide open or you will be buried with them shut.”



Twenty days later, Tiye was sitting on an ivory stool between the rows of my garden, quizzing me about plants, wanting to know what other uses the licorice root had besides sweetening tea. I told her that when it was used instead of honey, it prevented tooth decay, and that eating onions instead of garlic would do the same. My father came upon us between the feathery green herbs; I hadn’t even heard Ipu greet him at the door.

My father looked first to her, then at me. “What are you doing?”

My aunt stood up. “My niece is showing me the magic of herbs. A very clever girl, your daughter.” She shaded her face with her hand. I couldn’t tell whether the look in my father’s eyes was one of pride or displeasure. “And what brings you here?”

“I came to find you.” My father’s voice was grave, but my aunt had lived through many grave times and wasn’t moved.

“There is trouble in the palace,” she guessed.

“Akhenaten is planning a burial in the east.”

Tiye glanced at him sharply. “No Pharaoh has ever been buried in the east.”

“He plans to be buried where the sun rises beyond the hills and wants the court of Amarna to leave any tombs they’ve already cut in the west.”

My aunt’s voice deepened with rage. “Leave tombs we have already built in Thebes? Move the tombs from where they have always lain at the feet of the setting sun to be buried in the east?” It was the angriest I’d ever seen her. “He will never do it!”

My father spread his palms. “We can’t stop him. But we can build a second tomb and keep the tombs we’ve built in the Valley—”

“Of course, we will keep them. I will never be buried in the city of Amarna,” she vowed.

“Nor I,” my father said, and his voice was also low.

They both turned to me. “You must be the keeper of this,” Tiye instructed me. “If we die, you must make sure we are buried in Thebes.”

“But how?” How would I go against Akhenaten’s wishes?

“You will use your cunning,” my father said swiftly.

When I saw that he was serious, I was stricken with fear. “But I’m not cunning,” I worried. “That’s Nefertiti. She could do it.”

“But she won’t. Your sister is building a tomb with Akhenaten. They have abandoned our ancestors to risk burial in the east.” My father stared at me in earnest. “You are the one who must make sure this happens.”

My voice rose with fear. “But how?”

“Bribery,” my aunt replied. “The men who work as embalmers are as easily bribed as the next.” When she saw that I did not understand, she gazed into my face as if no girl could be as ignorant as I was. “You have never heard of women who give up their children to the infertile wives of the nobility? They tell their husbands the child has died and the embalmers take a monkey and wrap it up like an infant.” I shrank back in horror and Tiye shrugged, as if everyone knew about this. “Oh, yes, they can work miracles in the City of the Dead. For a price.”

“If it should ever come to that,” my father said, “you would bribe the embalmers to place a false body in the city of Amarna.”

My hands began to shake. “And take you to Thebes?” It didn’t seem real. It didn’t seem possible. My father and the queen would never die. But my father patted my shoulder as if I were a child.

“When the time comes—”

“If it comes,” I stressed.

“If it comes.” He smiled tenderly. “Then you will know what to do.” He glanced at Tiye. “Shall we meet here tomorrow?”

“In my garden?” I exclaimed.

My father replied, “Amarna has become a court infested with spies, Mutnodjmet. If we wish to speak, it will have to be here. Akhenaten trusts no one, and Panahesi’s women are everywhere, flitting through the palace and reporting back to him. Even some of Nefertiti’s ladies.”

I thought of Nefertiti alone in the palace, surrounded by false friends and spies. But I refused to feel sorry for her. It’s a bed of her own making.



I was commanded to the palace at the end of Epiphi. A herald arrived with a letter that bore my father’s heavy seal, pressing it into my hand with urgency.

“The queen, my lady, is already in labor.”

I opened the letter and saw it was true. Nefertiti was about to give birth. I pressed my lips together and folded the sheets, unable to bear the sight of the news. The herald continued to watch me. “Well, what do you want?” I snapped.

The boy didn’t flinch. “I want to know if you will you be coming, my lady. The queen has asked for you.”

She had asked for me. She had asked for me knowing that while she was birthing her second child, my first had been murdered! I crumpled the folded papyrus in my hand, and the herald watched me with widening eyes.

“There is a chariot waiting.” The boy’s voice grew pleading.

I studied him. He was twelve or thirteen. If he failed to bring me, it might end his career. His eyes remained wide and hopeful. “Wait, and I will get my things,” I told him.

Ipu hovered in the kitchen. “She has physicians. You don’t have to.”

“Of course I do.”

“But why?”

Bastet arched his silky body against my calf, as if to comfort me. “Because it’s Nefertiti, and if she dies, I would never forgive myself.”

Ipu followed me into my chamber, trailed by Bastet. “Do you want me to come?” she offered.

“No. I’ll be back before night.” I took my box of herbs, but as I went to leave Ipu pressed my hand.

“Remember, you’re going there for the child.”

I swallowed bitterly. “Which should have been mine.”

“She said she had nothing to do with it,” she reminded.

“Maybe,” I replied. “And maybe she sat by and said nothing while it was done.”

The herald took me to his chariot. He snapped the whip and the bright chestnut horses galloped along the Royal Road. On every pillar, at every crossroads, there were statues of my sister. In painted images, she raised her arms over the desert city she and her husband had built, dressed in the dazzling clothes of Isis, and where the gods should have been on the temple gates there was her face with Akhenaten’s.

“Amun, forgive their arrogance,” I whispered.



As in Memphis, a birthing pavilion had been built. I could see Nefertiti’s hand in the design: the floor-to-ceiling windows, the padded seats, the vases spilling over with plants, particularly lilies, her favorite kind. There were dozens of chairs arranged around room for the ladies of the court, nearly all of them occupied.

“The Lady Mutnodjmet,” the herald announced, and the talking and laughing that filled the chamber stopped.

“Mutny!” Nefertiti shooed her women away, and the viziers’ daughters who clustered around her bed all parted, their eyes wide and envious.

I stopped before her bedside. She was healthy and beautiful, propped up on a pile of cushions without any sign of pain. The color rose in my cheeks. “I thought you were in labor.”

“The physicians all say it will be today or tomorrow.”

A storm crossed my face. “Your messenger said it was urgent.”

She turned to her ladies, who were studying my hair, my nails, my face. “Leave us,” she commanded. I watched them flutter away like so many moths, girls I didn’t even know. “It is urgent. I need you.”

“You have dozens of women to keep you company. Why do you need me?”

“Because you’re my sister,” she said sharply. “We’re supposed to be with each other. Watching out for each other.”

I laughed meanly.

“I didn’t take your child!” she cried.

“But you know who did.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You know who poisoned me. You know who was too afraid that I should give birth to a son, a child of a general…”

She covered her ears. “I won’t hear any more!”

I stood silent, watching her.

“Mutny,” she pleaded. She looked up at me with her dark plaintive eyes, as black and wide as pools, thinking her charm would get her what she wanted. “Be with me when I have this child.”

“Why? You look happy enough.”

“Should I go around with the fear of death on my face, frightening Akhenaten so he won’t give me more children? So that the ladies of my court can run back to Panahesi and tell him that the Queen of Egypt has grown weak? What better time for Kiya to rise up than when I’m down? What else am I supposed to look but happy?”

I marveled that she could think of these things even when she was about to give birth.

“Stay with me, Mutny. You’re the only one I trust. You can be sure of what the midwives are giving me.”

I stared. “You don’t think they would poison you?”

She looked up at me with a wearied expression.

“The physicians would discover that you were poisoned,” I pointed out.

“After I am dead! What good is it then?”

“Panahesi would be risking his own life to do such a thing.”

“And who would be there to prove it? Who do you think Akhenaten would believe? A tattling midwife or the High Priest of Aten? And then there are the Amun priests,” she said fearfully, “who would give their lives to see that Akhenaten never produces an heir.”

I thought of someone poisoning her the way I had been poisoned. I imagined her contorted in pain, crying out as Anubis crept closer because I had refused to be with her during her child’s birth. “I will stay. But only for the birth.” She smiled, and I sat down grudgingly. “So, what will you name it?”

“Smenkhare,” she said.

“And if it’s a girl?”

She looked sharply at me from under her long lashes. “It will not be a girl.”

“But if it is?”

She shrugged. “Then Meketaten.”



Though Nefertiti was impossibly small, Nekhbet must have blessed her womb, because all of her children seemed to come without difficulty. The midwife caught the tiny bundle in her arms, bloodied and crying, and the other midwives in the room pressed forward to peer at the sex. Nefertiti sat forward.

“What is it?” she gasped.

The midwife looked down. My mother clapped her hands with joy, but as the servants helped Nefertiti back to her bed, I saw that the color had drained from her face. Her eyes met mine from across the room. Another princess. I let out my breath and thought spitefully, I’m glad it’s not a son. I gathered my basket and moved toward the door.

My mother grabbed my arm. “You must stay for the blessing!”

The room grew more crowded. A herald arrived, followed by Thutmose, as servants flitted around Nefertiti to wash her body and fit her crown. My mother took my elbow and led me toward the window. Bells were ringing, announcing the new princess’s birth. Three tolls for a Princess of Egypt, same as a prince. “At least wait until she is named,” my mother begged.

Nefertiti looked over and saw the two of us together. “Isn’t my own sister going to come to wish me long life and good health?”

The entire room turned. I could feel my mother’s hand on the small of my back, pushing me forward. If my father had been allowed in the birthing chamber, he would have set his jaw sternly against my disrespect. I hesitated, and then moved forward. “May Aten smile upon you.”

Everyone backed away as Nefertiti opened her arms to embrace me. The milk nurse was in the corner of the cheery pavilion, already giving suck to the little princess. “Come, be happy for me, Mutny.” Everyone was smiling. Everyone was exultant. It wasn’t a boy, but it was a healthy child, and she had delivered successfully. I held up my basket.

“For you,” I said.

She peered into it eagerly and her eyes grew bright. She looked from the basket to me, then back again. “Mandrakes?”

“Only a few grew well this season. Next season should be better.”

Nefertiti glanced up. “Next season? What do you mean? You’re coming back.”

I didn’t answer her.

“You have to come back to the palace. Your family is here!”

“No, Nefertiti. My family was murdered. One in my womb and the other in Kadesh.” I turned away before she could rebuke me.

“You will be there for the blessing,” she shouted. It was not a request.

“If that is what you want.” I left the birthing chamber, letting the doors swing shut behind me.



Outside the palace, villagers throughout Amarna were feasting. The birth of a royal heir meant a day of rest, even for the tomb builders high above the valley. I walked to the outer courtyard, where royal charioteers stood waiting to take dignitaries in and out of the city. “Take me to the Temple of Hathor,” I said, and before the charioteer could say he did not know of any such forbidden temple, I placed a deben ring of copper in his hand. He nodded quickly. Once we were there, we both stared at the columned courtyard carved into the side of the hill.

“Are you sure you want to be left here, my lady? It’s abandoned.”

“A few women still tend Hathor’s shrine. I will be fine,” I said.

But the royal charioteer was young and concerned. “I can wait,” he offered.

“No.” I gathered my basket and descended. “There’s no point. I can walk home if I need.”

“But you are the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife!”

“And like many other people, I possess two legs.”

He chuckled and was gone.

On the hill amidst the outcroppings of rock and carved stone, there was silence. The few women who kept Hathor’s hidden shrine would be feasting in the villages below, pouring out libations to the new god of Egypt in thanks for the delivery of a new princess. “But not all of us have forgotten you.” I knelt before a tiny statue of Hathor on the hill, placing an offering of thyme beneath her feet. Although shrines to Amun were forbidden in Amarna, on the outskirts of the city women had secretly commissioned small temples like this. And in homes like mine, her statues were often hidden in secret niches where oil and bread could be placed so the goddess would remember our ancestors and children that never were.

I bowed in obeisance. “I thank you for delivering Nefertiti safely. Though she offers you up no wine or incense, I do so in her name. Protect her always from the hands of death. She is thankful for the gift of new life you bring her, and for a healthy recovery in childbed.” I arranged the herbs next to a jug of oil another woman had brought and heard the crunch of gravel behind me. Someone spoke.

“Do you ever pray for yourself?”

I didn’t turn. “No,” I replied. “The goddess knows what I want.”

“You can’t do this forever,” my aunt said. A hot wind blew the edges of her skirt behind her. “At some point, you must let the child’s ka rest. He’s not coming back.”

“Like Nakhtmin.”

My aunt’s eyes were solemn. She took my hand in hers, and we stood on the topmost tier of the temple, looking out over the desert to the reeds of River Nile. White-kilted farmers threshed in the fields and oxen pulled the heavy carts of grain behind them. A hawk wheeled overhead, the incarnation of the soul, and the Dowager Queen sighed. “Let them both rest.”

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