Nefertiti

Chapter Eighteen

1348 BCE

Shemu, Season of Harvest

DAY AFTER DAY, village women sent for my herbs, and sometimes I delivered them personally. In the city that sprawled beneath the white pillars of the palace, I would wind my way through the narrow streets, and often I would find myself in houses where women had just given birth and there was no hope that the mother would survive. I would bend over her sickbed to inspect her womb and make a special tea with the oil of nettle. And the women would rub their forbidden amulets to Hathor and whisper prayers to the goddess of motherhood. The first time I saw these forbidden amulets I was surprised, and a servant in the house explained quickly to me, “She has protected Egypt for a thousand years.”

“And Aten?” I asked curiously.

The servant tensed. “Aten is the sun. You cannot touch the sun. But Hathor can be held and made obeisance to.”

So, at seventeen years of age, they called me Sekem-Miw, and I came to know all the villages in Amarna better than Pharaoh himself.

“Where are we going today, my lady?”

It was the charioteer from the palace. He was not on duty, and I had reached the end of the long road from my villa. He smiled down at me, and I tried to stop myself from thinking of Nakhtmin.

“To collect seeds,” I replied, walking faster, ignoring the rapid beat of my heart.

“Your basket looks heavy. Wouldn’t you rather ride?” He slowed, and I debated. I had no guards. I had insisted on having none when I’d left Nefertiti and her palace. But without guards, I had no charioteer, and it was a long way to the quay. The charioteer saw my hesitation. “Come.” He held out his hand and I took it, stepping up into his chariot. “I’m Djedefhor.” He bowed.

Djedefhor began to appear every morning.

“Do you wait out here for me each day?” I demanded.

Djedefhor grinned. “No, not each day.”

“You shouldn’t,” I said earnestly.

“Why not?” He lent me his arm and we rolled toward the quay, where I searched out new herbs from among the foreign sellers every few days.

“Because I am the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife. It is dangerous for you to be seen with me. I’m not a favorite of Pharaoh.”

“But you’re a favorite of the queen’s.”

When she wants something, I thought, and my lips thinned into a line. “If you value your place in Pharaoh’s house,” I said sternly, “you will not be seen with me. I can be of no use to you.”

“Very well, then, because I am not looking to use you. Just escort you to the market and back again.”

I flushed. “You should know the man I love is in Kadesh.”

It was the first time I had spoken of Nakhtmin to anyone outside of my family.

Djedefhor bowed his head. “As I said, I want nothing from you. Just the pleasure of escorting you back and forth again.”

The first time Ipu saw me with Djedefhor, her eyes grew wide. She followed me around the house, as bad as Bastet, and tried to get me to speak about him. “Where did you meet him? Does he drive you every day? Is he married?”

“Ipu, he isn’t Nakhtmin.”

Ipu’s smile faded. “But he’s handsome.”

“Yes. He’s a handsome, kind soldier. That’s all.”

Ipu hung her head. “You’re too young to be alone,” she whispered.

“But it’s how my sister wants it,” I replied.

“The Hittite regime is growing in the north. The mayor of Lakisa sent for help this morning.” My father produced a scroll from his belt, and Tiye held out her hand to read it.

My house had become a place of meeting. I was allowed to listen while Tiye and my father debated how to rule the Kingdom of Egypt. And while the Hittite king Suppiluliumas swept through Palestine, creeping closer to Egypt, Akhenaten and Nefertiti commissioned statues and rode through the streets arrayed like gods, tossing copper from their chariots into the crowds.

My aunt lowered the scroll to her lap. “Another of Egypt’s territories in danger.” I knew she was thinking that the Elder would have forfeited his ka to Ammit before he saw Hittites on Egyptian land. “Just like Qatna.” She looked at my father. “But we cannot send help.”

“No,” my father said, and took back the scroll. “At some point, Akhenaten will discover that gold is being drawn from the treasury to defend Kadesh and—”

“Gold is being drawn from the treasury to defend Kadesh?” I interrupted.

“To draw more to defend Lakisa would be dangerous,” Tiye agreed, ignoring my outburst.

My father nodded, and I wondered what Akhenaten might do if it was ever discovered that Egypt’s highest vizier was siphoning gold to defend Egypt’s most important stronghold against the Hittites. My father was taking a risk, ruling Egypt the way he believed the Elder would have wanted the world’s most powerful kingdom to be ruled, but it was Akhenaten’s crown, not his, not even Nefertiti’s. When the Elder had built his army, Egypt had extended from the Euphrates into Nubia. Now her land was being eaten away, and Akhenaten was allowing it. My sister was allowing it. And had it not been Nefertiti, had it been Kiya or another harem wife, Tiye and Ay would have struck her down—murder, poison, an unfortunate fall. But Nefertiti was Ay’s daughter. She was Tiye’s niece and she was my only sister, and we were supposed to forgive her anything.

Tiye rearranged her linen. “So what will we do with Kadesh?” she asked.

“Hope the gods are with Horemheb and he will achieve victory,” my father said. “If Kadesh falls, every other city will fall in her wake, and there will nothing to stop the Hittites from marching south.”

The next month when I went to the market, Djedefhor insisted on coming with me through the crowded stalls along the quay. “It’s not safe for the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife to walk by herself,” he said.

“Really?” I smiled slyly. “And yet I have been doing it every other day since Mesore.”

I thought he was flattering me, but then he stepped forward and said seriously, “No. It is not safe for you to be alone right now.”

I glanced about me, at the bustling market with its foreign goods baking in the heavy heat. Everything was as it normally was. Only the children paid me any attention, staring at my sandals and the gold bracelets around my arms. I started to laugh, then was checked by the look on his face. He took my arm and led me through the crowd. “Pharaoh has done a foolish thing today,” he confided.

I looked at him askance. “Is my family in danger?”

He drew me into the shade where two pottery merchants had erected a pavilion. “He’s answered the mayor of Lakisa’s plea for troops with monkeys in soldiers’ garb.”

I studied him to see if he was joking. “You’re not serious.”

“I am very serious, my lady.”

I shook my head. “No! No. My father would never have allowed it.”

“I doubt your father even knows of it yet. But he will, when angry Lakisans begin marching on the palace.”

I looked around me, and now I could see that none of the dark-skinned Lakisans were at their stalls. Suddenly, the heat became overwhelming.

“My lady!” Djedefhor reached out his hand to steady me, then withdrew it quickly.

“Take me to my villa,” I said quickly, and as we rolled through Amarna I realized how many builders there were, on the streets, around Akhenaten’s half-built temples, and all of them were soldiers. All of them were men who, in the Elder’s time, had been defending our vassal states, keeping the Hittites at bay in Qatna, Lakisa, and Kadesh. As soon as we were at the gates to my villa, Ipu came running and my heart leaped into my throat.

“The Vizier Ay was just here!” she cried.

I jumped from the chariot. “What did he say?”

“There is going to be trouble today. He sent soldiers to the market to find you.”

I looked at Djedefhor, feeling rising panic.

“I’ll find them,” he promised. Then he turned around. “Don’t worry, my lady. They will not harm your sister. The soldiers will stop them at the gates!”

I had not been in the palace since the birth of Princess Meketaten eleven months before. Now, the sound of my sandals slapping against the palace stones drew the servants out to stare. There would be gossip all throughout the kitchens tonight. Even the children peered around the columns at me. My mother tightened her hold on my arm, as if she was afraid I might turn and run away. “Your sister has made very foolish decisions. But we are bound to Nefertiti. In life and in death, her actions will speak for all of us.”

Two Nubian guards opened the doors to my father’s rooms and I saw that Nefertiti was already inside, pacing the tiles and clenching the scepter of reign. When she saw me, the guards moved swiftly to shut the doors behind us. She turned an accusing look on our father.

“Ask Mutnodjmet what the people think,” he commanded.

Nefertiti glared at me, and I was surprised at how Meketaten’s birth had changed her. The angles of her face had softened, but there was still a sharp determination in her eyes. “Well,” she said. “Tell us all what the people think.”

I wasn’t afraid of her disapproval anymore. “They think Aten is something too distant to be worshipped. They want gods they can see, and touch, and feel.”

“They can’t feel the sun?”

“They can’t touch it.”

“No god should be touched,” she retorted.

My father added hastily, “That’s not all the people think.”

“They are afraid of the Hittites,” I added, commanding myself not to think of Nakhtmin. “They hear news from merchants who tell them that the Hittites are sweeping through the north, taking women as slaves and slaughtering men, and they wonder how soon before it happens here.”

“In Egypt?” she cried, and she turned to see if our father agreed. “The people of Amarna think the Hittites will invade?” When his face was hard against her, she looked at me. “We have nothing to fear from the Hittites,” she said smugly. “Akhenaten has made a treaty with them.” My father dropped the scrolls he’d been carrying, and Nefertiti shifted defensively. “I think it is a wise decision.”

“A treaty with Hittites?” my father roared.

“Why not? What do we care about Lakisa or Kadesh? Why should we pay to defend them when we could spend—”

“Because the blood of Egyptians bought those territories!” My father was shaking in his rage. “This is the most foolish thing you have ever done! Of all the poor decisions you have let your husband make, this—”

“It was the decision of both of us.” She stood tall, her black eyes proud and defiant. “We did what we thought was right for Egypt.” She reached out her hand. “I thought you of all people would understand this.”

My father looked at me to see my reaction.

“Don’t look at Mutnodjmet!” Nefertiti shrieked.

My father shook his head. “Your sister would never have been foolish enough to bargain with Hittites. Handing them Kadesh!” My father’s eyes blazed. “What next when they have taken Kadesh? Ugarit, Gazru, the Kingdom of Mitanni?”

My sister lost some of her confidence. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“Once Kadesh has fallen, why not? The Kingdom of Mitanni will be theirs for the taking. And when they’ve raided Mitanni’s land, raped her women, and turned her men into slaves, what’s to stop them from marching south to Egypt? Kadesh is the last stronghold saving Mitanni. When Mitanni falls”—my father’s voice rose, and I wondered how many servants could hear him through the door—“then so does Egypt!”

Nefertiti walked to the window and looked out over Amarna, a city of sun and light. How long would it last? How long before the Hittites came to the borders of Egypt and contemplated attacking the most powerful kingdom in the world?

“Build up the army,” my father warned.

“I can’t. To do that would be to stop building Amarna. And this is our home. In these walls, we will achieve immortality.”

“In these walls, we will be buried if we do not stop the Hittites.”

Nefertiti opened the window and stepped out onto the balcony. A hot breeze pressed the soft linen of her dress to her body. “We have signed a treaty,” she said with resolution.

The next morning, the markets were calm, but I sensed a tenseness when I walked through the stalls, like the sharp eyes of a crocodile watching just below the surface of placid waters.

“This treaty with the Hittites is all everyone is talking about,” Ipu confided.

And Nefertiti’s belly, I thought bitterly. Only eleven months after Meketaten and Nefertiti was with her third child.

Ipu stopped walking to glance across the market. “Djedefhor’s not here,” she observed.

I looked around. Djedefhor usually patrolled the quay, but today the soldiers were all strangers. From across the square, the meat seller recognized Ipu and called out to her.

“Good morning, my lady! Has the Sister of the King’s Chief Wife come to buy gazelle?” We made our way over to his crowded stall, where apprentice boys were using palm leaves to keep away the flies.

“No gazelle today.” But Ipu smiled and leaned across the counter, inviting the man into her confidence. “The market is quiet.”

The meat seller raised his thick eyebrows and nodded, cleaning his knife. “There are rumors,” he said. “Rumors of—” He was cut off by the sound of children shouting. Their cries filled the streets. Women began rushing from the stalls, calling to their husbands, and the meat seller dropped his knife in excitement.

“What’s happening?” I exclaimed.

But the meat seller had dropped his linens and begun shutting up his stall, searching for his apprentice. When he found the boy, he shouted excitedly, “Take care of everything. I’m going to see.”

“See what?” Ipu cried. But the meat seller disappeared. Hundreds of people surged around us. She dropped her basket and grabbed my arm, but we were carried away by the swell of the crowd. I had never witnessed anything so wild or chaotic. Sellers abandoned their stalls, leaving their daughters behind to mind them. Women began tearing branches from dwarf palms and running into the street, shouting out praises as if the gods themselves had descended upon Amarna.

“What’s going on?” I shouted above the din.

A woman next to me pointed wildly. “Horemheb and his men are coming! They’ve defeated the Hittites in Kadesh!”

Ipu looked at me, and I felt my eyes go wide as saucers. She took hold of my hand and pushed me toward the front of the crowd. Riding through the streets in chariots of gold, as the woman had said, were Horemheb and his men, still dressed in their armor.

“Is he there?” I cried.

Ipu pushed us farther in front, so close that we could reach out and touch the men’s horses. And then we both saw him. “He is here, my lady!” She was screaming. “He is here!”

The procession passed and I shouted out his name, but the people were cheering too loudly. Their sons were coming home; Egypt’s soldiers had been victorious. They were heroes. Then I thought of Akhenaten.

“Ipu! We have to go. We have to get to the palace!” But the crowd was moving. It swelled and swayed. Children ran after the horses and women threw flowers at Horemheb’s feet, following the soldiers down the Royal Road. “We have to go! Akhenaten will kill them!”

We pushed our way out and at the edge of the crowd, his eyes searching frantically, was Djedefhor. “My lady!” he shouted.

“Djedefhor!” I almost cried in relief. “How did they do it? How did they defeat them?”

“General Nakhtmin is a great tactician. With Horemheb’s training, the Hittites were slaughtered! Horemheb has brought back the head of the Hittite general.”

I stepped back in shock. “The head?”

Djedefhor nodded. “To lay at Pharaoh’s feet.”

I imagined Horemheb riding triumphantly into the palace, his soldiers following on his heels as he burst into the Audience Chamber, tossing the general’s head at Akhenaten’s sandals. I could imagine the horrified look on Akhenaten’s face, and the dark glare of Nefertiti, who would neither shudder nor look away. Then I imagined Akhenaten’s anger filling the halls, ordering death for every soldier returning from the fronts of Kadesh. My voice rose with fear. “Djedefhor, can you take me to the palace?”

He took my arm and led us through the crowds. Then I gathered my skirts and we ran like thieves through the back alleys of Amarna until we came upon the gates of the palace, guarded by two dozen of Akhenaten’s Nubian men. The procession was only a few blocks behind us and the noise could now be heard even in the courtyard where Akhenaten’s trees grew in manicured rows. “Open the gates!” I cried, thrusting my ring with the insignia of Nefertiti under the guards’ noses.

The guards passed looks among themselves, and then the tallest one grunted his approval. Grudgingly, the soldiers opened the gates. “Come!” I shouted to Djedefhor and Ipu, but a tall Nubian stepped in front of me.

“They remain outside.”

I looked at Djedefhor, and he nodded to Ipu. “She should go to your villa, and I will wait here in the courtyard,” he said.

“I’ll return,” I promised. But with what kind of news, I didn’t know.

I heard my father’s voice in the Audience Chamber even before the guards pushed opened the heavy doors. Inside, Nefertiti was with the princesses Meritaten and Meketaten. Akhenaten was standing before the Horus thrones. He was dressed in gold armor and carried a spear. He threw open the doors to the balcony, and the cheering of the crowd echoed from below.

“HOR-EM-HEB! HOR-EM-HEB!”

The wind blew the chants up to the Audience Chamber, and the veins in Akhenaten’s neck grew thick. “Arrest them!” he commanded. His white cloak swirled around his ankles. “Arrest them and make sure that none of those men see the light of day!” He stalked from the balcony, his eyes as hard as coal. I don’t think he saw me when he passed. I don’t think he saw anyone. “The people want heroes?” Akhenaten sneered. “Ay!” he shouted. “Bring a chest of gold from the treasury.”

“Your Highness—”

“Now!”

My father bowed and went away to do Pharaoh’s bidding.

Akhenaten turned on my sister. His eyes glittered, cold as an adder’s, and he gripped Nefertiti’s shoulders so hard that I gasped. “When your father returns, we will go to the Window of Appearances. Then the people will remember who loves them. They will remember who built a city out of sand for the glory of Aten.”

There was a commotion outside, and I saw that beneath the balcony Horemheb was standing on a block of granite. Nubian guards surrounded him, waiting to see what he would do. Then the people began to cheer, and Horemheb held up the bloodied head of the Hittite general he had killed. I gasped, and Nefertiti pressed closer to the balcony.

“He’s brought back the head,” she said in a horrified whisper. “He’s brought back the head of the general!”

Akhenaten rushed to the balcony. In the courtyard below, Horemheb held the severed head high to the cheering crowds. Then the general turned and recognized Akhenaten. He tossed the bloody trophy over the balcony, where it rolled against Akhenaten’s white sandals. Akhenaten reeled backward. It was the closest he had ever come to battle, and it was the closest I had come to such gruesome death. I covered my mouth as blood splattered across Akhenaten’s legs. Panahesi rushed forward to draw Pharaoh away and the doors to the Audience Chamber swung open. My father had returned with seven men, six of whom carried a chest laden with gold.

Akhenaten grabbed Nefertiti’s arm. “To the Window of Appearances!”

He stalked through the palace, the entire court on his heels. My father studied the blood on Akhenaten’s feet and said to me, “Stay close and say nothing.”

We swept through the halls to the bridge between the palace and the Temple of Aten. From there, the Window of Appearances looked out over the same courtyard as the one where Horemheb stood with his men. But unlike the balcony from the Audience Chamber, the Window of Appearances was official. When the window opened, all of Egypt stopped to listen. We entered the chamber, and Panahesi rushed to throw open the window. At once, the chanting stopped below. Akhenaten looked at Nefertiti for guidance. She stepped forward, raising her arms.

A thousand Egyptians dropped to their knees.

“People of Egypt,” she called. “Today is a day of celebration. For today Aten has given mighty Pharaoh a victory over the Hittites!”

A cheer went up throughout the crowds.

Nefertiti continued. “Aten looks on Pharaoh with pride, and the blessings of Aten are bestowed upon us!” Akhenaten dug his hands deep into the wooden chest, tossing armfuls of coins out to the people. Women began to shriek and children cried with laughter; men leaped into the air. No one noticed the guards fanning out around the soldiers, marching them away to the dungeons of Amarna.

I surged forward, but my father held me tightly. “There is nothing you can do for Nakhtmin,” he whispered. I wrestled my arm away. Suddenly, Tiye was there, speaking quietly but sharply.

“Don’t be foolish. This is not the time.”

“But what will happen to him?”

“The people will either rise up,” she predicted with brutal honesty, “or every one of those soldiers will be executed.”

We stood back and watched as Akhenaten tossed handfuls of gold over the balcony. In the crush to reach the glittering coins, the soldiers had been forgotten. Guards ordered the men to drop their weapons, and directed them to step clear of the crowd and to follow them into the palace. Every one of them complied.

Even Horemheb. Even Nakhtmin.

“Why aren’t they resisting?” I cried, pressing closer to the Window of Appearances.

“It is a hundred of them and five hundred Nubian guards,” Tiye said.

My father turned to me. “Go now,” he said quickly. “Go to Nefertiti’s chamber and wait for her there.”

Light flickered from two dozen oil lamps and illuminated the paintings on Nefertiti’s walls. An artist had painted Nefertiti and Akhenaten raising their arms to embrace Aten, and the rays of sun ended in tiny hands whose fingers caressed my sister’s face. The pair of them together looked like gods, while Aten was unknowable, untouchable, a disk of fire that disappeared every night and reappeared at dawn. I looked around the room, but none of the gods that had made Egypt great had been rendered. Not even the goddess Sekhmet, who had brought Egypt victory in the land of Kadesh.

I took one of Nefertiti’s figurines in my hand and there was a sharp intake of breath from behind me. My look silenced the guards, but they continued to watch me, wondering what I was doing in Pharaoh’s quarters. I stared at the miniature carving in my hand and held it up to the oil lamps. When the light revealed its feline face, I gasped. No other god besides Aten had been given a place in these chambers, but here was the cat-goddess, Lady of Heaven, counterpart of Amun, the great mother Mut. I pressed my lips together. I have been cruel to Nefertiti. I have accused her without truly knowing if she knew of Akhenaten’s plans.

The door opened and a tall figure appeared silhouetted in the light of the passage. Akhenaten? My heart jumped and the guards stretched out their arms in obeisance. “Your Highness.” At once, I let out my breath. Her crown had made her taller in the evening light.

“Mutnodjmet?” She saw me and came closer, hesitating.

I put the statuette on a chest as she stepped into the room. “What is happening to Nakhtmin?”

Her eyes fell on the ebony statue. She pointed to the goddess Mut. “My replacement.”

“For what?” I didn’t like how she changed the subject.

“For you.” Nefertiti turned to the guards and barked, “Go!” They moved out, and when the door had shut, she turned back to me. “I am pregnant for the third time and none of my children know their aunt, and now I wonder if they ever will.”

My eyes filled with tears. She was pregnant again, but I refused to be drawn in. “Nefertiti, where is Nakhtmin?”

She took the statue of Mut and placed it back on the table. “Do you remember when we were young,” she said, “and we laughed that someday we would raise children together and you would be the firm mother and I would be the one to give them everything?” She cast her eyes around the room, taking in the paintings and murals. “I miss those days.”

I repeated, “Where is Nakhtmin, Nefertiti?”

My sister averted her gaze. “In prison.”

I took her hands. They were cold. “You have to get him out. You have to.”

She watched me sadly. “I have already made arrangements for his release. The others will be executed; only Nakhtmin shall be spared.”

I blinked in shock. “How?”

“How?” she repeated. “I told Akhenaten to let him free. He refuses me nothing, Mutnodjmet. Nothing. Of course, he went running off to Kiya’s chamber. But so what? I am the one who’s pregnant with his child. I’m Queen of Egypt, not her.” She looked like a little girl singing out loud in the dark to convince herself that she wasn’t scared. I embraced her tightly, and the two of us stood in the light of the oil lamps, leaning into one another. “I will miss you,” she whispered. “I wanted to be the only one that mattered to you.” She stepped back to look at me. “But I would never have poisoned your child,” she whispered. “I never—”

I squeezed her hand, looking over at the small feline goddess. “I know,” I said. I leaned into her shoulder and squeezed again.

She nodded. “Go. Go tonight.”

“Djedefhor, isn’t there any other way?”

“This is the only way up the hill, my lady.”

The streets teemed with people. Chariots shared the road with jostling carts and dozens of soldiers milled about. “What is everyone doing?” I asked him.

“Talking,” he replied. “They have heard that General Nakhtmin has escaped.”

“Escaped? But he hasn’t. My sister—”

Djedefhor raised a gloved hand and lowered his voice. “The people want an escape. And it won’t be long before the soldiers go to him, asking him to lead the army against Pharaoh and take the Horus throne.”

“He would never do that,” I said firmly.

Djedefhor said nothing and the chariot rolled toward the hills and my villa.

“He would never do that,” I repeated.

“Perhaps not. But Pharaoh will send men tonight.”

Assassins. That was why Nefertiti said her children would never know their aunt. Why she pushed me out of her chamber and told me to hurry. “Do you really think they will come tonight?” I leaned closer so that Djedefhor could hear me above the wind.

He nodded. “I know they will, my lady.”

I held my breath as the chariot rolled toward the villa that I had made into my home. We stopped in the courtyard that I had seen so many times in the sun, but in the waning light it suddenly seemed dark and threatening. Djedefhor took my hand, and together we rushed into the forecourt. But when he threw open the door to the villa, I stepped back. Dozens of soldiers occupied my loggia. And Nakhtmin was there. He turned, and the entire room went quiet.

“Mutnodjmet.”

My eyes welled with tears as he took me in his arms. In a room full of strangers, we held each other close. He smelled of heat and dirt and battle. I drew back to study his face. He was dark from the sun, and there was a scar across his cheek that had not had time to heal. I thought of the sword that had cut him there and fresh tears came to my eyes. “There is no child,” I wept.

He looked into my face, brushing the tears away. “I know.” Akhenaten had stolen our child and imprisoned him. His gaze found Djedefhor’s, and his look was threatening.

“What?” I panicked. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing.”

“My sister is queen. You won’t rebel against her?”

“Of course I won’t. Nor will anyone else,” he swore loudly, and the soldiers shifted uneasily in their armor. “The gods saw fit to put Akhenaten on the Horus throne, and there he will stay.”

“Until what?” one of the soldiers shouted. “The Hittites overrun Egypt?”

“Until Pharaoh sees the fault of his actions.” My father swept in from the back of the atrium, his white cloak brushing the tiles. “Daughter.” He took my hand.

I looked around my villa and realized that the men were dressed for battle. “What are all of these men doing here? In my house?”

“They came to convince Nakhtmin to take the Horus throne,” my father said. “I had Nakhtmin brought here for his safety, and these men came to find him. If they know where he is, then so does Pharaoh.” My father stepped toward me. “The time has come for you to make a choice, Mutnodjmet.”

My mother appeared at my father’s side, and suddenly, my throat felt tight. I could see Ipu at the edge of the kitchen, and Bastet surveying the room from his perch on a pillar. I turned to Nakhtmin.

“I will have to leave Amarna,” he warned. “And unless my safety is guaranteed by Pharaoh, I will never come back.”

“But Nefertiti released you. She could ensure it.”

My father shook his head. “Your sister has done what she can tonight. If you choose this life, if you choose to marry Nakhtmin, you must leave Amarna.”

I looked first at Ipu, then at Bastet, then out to my beautifully cultivated garden.

“Tiye will tend it until you can return,” he promised.

Panic swelled in my chest, imagining a life without my parents. “But when will that be?”

My father’s eyes shone the color of bright polished lapis, imagining a time when his daughter would be Pharaoh of Egypt in all but name. Perhaps even in name. The ultimate ascension for our family. “When Nefertiti grows powerful enough to order you back with or without her husband’s consent.”

“But then again, it could be never,” Nakhtmin warned.

I looked at my parents and Nakhtmin. Then I slipped my hand in his. I felt his shoulders relax, and I turned to my mother. “You will visit?” I whispered.

My mother nodded quickly, but her tears still came. “Of course.”

“And Nakhtmin will be safe?”

“Akhenaten will forget about him,” my father predicted. “He will not risk Nefertiti’s wrath to pursue him from city to city. Nefertiti is the one the people follow,” he said. “And Akhenaten will not risk her anger.”

Ipu shoved handfuls of linen into baskets and the servants rushed into action. The soldiers were gone, and my mother and father took Nakhtmin aside, whispering with him about Thebes. Fear and excitement welled in my stomach. Tiye watched from the garden as the donkeys were laden with my belongings, then came and held out a lotus flower for me to take.

“The sister who should have been queen,” she said.

“No, I could not do what Nefertiti has done.”

“Make a treaty with the Hittites, birth two girls in succession, and erect statues of herself at every crossroads?” My aunt turned to Nakhtmin. There were signs of battle still on his kilt, the blood of enemies he had slain. “You have been fortunate in your destiny,” Tiye said. To me she added, “Maybe you are the lucky sister. The one who will have peace in this life.”

In the city below us, tension hovered like a cloud. As the evening cool settled across the villages, women opened their shutters and men took to the Royal Road.

“The men are taking to the streets.” I panicked, peering over the balcony.

“They have heard my son plans to execute Horemheb and his men. Certainly, they are.”

“Then why did Horemheb return? He must have known that Pharaoh would imprison him.”

Tiye looked to Nakhtmin and guessed, “Perhaps he hoped for rebellion.”

“I don’t know,” Nakhtmin admitted, his voice softening. “Perhaps it was pride. Horemheb is full of lofty ambitions. I only know what I came for.”

I felt heat creep into my cheeks. Beyond the balcony, I could see the swelling of people in the streets. My aunt saw the direction of my gaze and raised her brows.

“So it begins.”

I glanced at her. “Aren’t you afraid?”

Tiye tossed her head, a gesture I had seen Nefertiti make a hundred times, and at once a deep regret overwhelmed me, that I could steal away in the night like this, leaving my sister forever.

“It is the price of power, Mutnodjmet. Someday you may come to understand that.”

“No. I would never want to be queen.”

When the sun descended, Nakhtmin and I mounted horses. Djedefhor was to sail a bark full of servants behind us while we went on. “We will visit when we can,” my mother swore, standing at the edge of the villa. Ipu came forward. Her eyes were red as she embraced various members of my household: the cook, the gardener, the boy who cleaned the lotus pools. Then she stepped toward Djedefhor, since she’d be sailing with him.

“You don’t have to come with us,” I told Ipu again. “You can stay here and keep Bastet.”

“No, my lady. My life is with you.”

Nakhtmin fastened his bow behind him. “We must go,” he said tensely. “It will be dangerous tonight.”

My father pressed my hand in his.

“What if they storm the palace?” I asked him.

“Then the soldiers will beat them back.”

“But the soldiers are not on Akhenaten’s side.”

“They’re on whatever side has silver and gold,” he said, and I understood suddenly why my father had not opposed my marriage with Nakhtmin. With the general on our side, the soldiers had no one to rally behind. As long as Horemheb remained in prison, our family was safe on the throne of Egypt.

We rode out under the cover of darkness, and as we sped through the streets, we could see the beginnings of rebellion. Men with sticks and rocks marched in the streets, demanding the release of the soldiers who had thwarted King Suppiluliumas and defeated the Hittites. The chanting grew louder as we rode through the city, then there was the clash of weapons. Fire swept up the mountainside where my villa and its herb garden stood, and I turned around on my horse and looked back into the night.

“The fire will not reach it,” Nakhtmin promised, slowing to a canter as we came upon the gates that would lead us out of the city of Amarna. “Say nothing,” he instructed. He held out the scroll my father had given him; I could see Vizier Ay’s seal in the torchlight, as dark as dried blood with the sphinx and Eye of Horus pressed into it. The guard looked at us, nodding his assent for the gates to be opened.

And suddenly, we were free.