Chapter Twenty

1347 BCE

first of Mechyr


THERE WAS NO rebellion in Amarna, though we expected it with every message that came from my father. Horemheb had been forgotten, and the people tolerated their heavy taxes for the glory of Aten the way they did throughout the rest of the kingdom. They ate less, they worked harder, and more women sought out acacia and honey. Fewer mouths to feed meant less food to buy. But as they watched Akhenaten’s buildings rise pillar by pillar, they met in secret to pray to Amun. In Thebes, we set up our own shrine, hidden beneath a bower of jasmine. And this is how the late days of summer passed, and all of autumn. I knew my sister must be growing heavy with child. Then, one day as I was sitting by Ipu’s side, explaining to her the uses of foreign herbs, the message I knew would come arrived.

I had expected to see my father’s seal on the scroll, his two sphinxes rearing with the symbol of eternal life between their claws. But it was my mother who had written.


The month of Mechyr has arrived and your sister has summoned you to Amarna. She cannot, however, promise Nakhtmin’s safety. Horemheb still sits in prison and Pharaoh’s fondest wish is that he will die on his own. Your father has told him that if he raises his hand to strike Horemheb down there will be civil war. But all this is insignificant if Nefertiti produces a prince. Your father asks that you come as well. He will send the royal barge for you.


“You must go,” Nakhtmin said simply. “She is your sister. “What if she dies in childbirth?”

I recoiled. Nefertiti was strong, she was relentless. She wouldn’t die. “But you can’t come,” I protested. “If the people should see you and rise up, Pharaoh would have you killed.”

“Then I’ll stay here and wait for your return. Take Ipu. I will be fine,” he promised. “And besides, there is the matter of our tomb.”

Yes. We were married now, and work should begin on our tomb. I thought back to the tomb of Tuthmosis, the dank and heavy darkness, and shivered. I didn’t want to choose the site of my own burial chamber. It would be better to let him find our resting place in the hills of Thebes without me. He could choose a rocky outcropping near the sleeping Pharaohs of Egypt, in the valley near my ancestors and his. I looked at my husband in the shifting light, and a feeling of great tenderness overwhelmed me. He was waiting for me to say something, and I nodded. “I will go.”

I left on the royal barge with Ipu, early enough to escape the prying eyes of neighbors, who would have wanted to know why the barge was there, who was leaving in it, and where it was going. We traveled downriver, and I thought of how much had changed in the eight months since I had left Pharaoh’s city in the desert. I was a married woman now, with a house and my own land. I had sheep and chickens, and I didn’t need to stand in Nefertiti’s shadow anymore. I didn’t need to fetch her linen or make her juice to know that she loved me. We were sisters, and as I looked out across the River Nile, I realized that that should be enough.



My mother and father met us in the Great Hall, and when my mother saw me she gave a sharp cry and threw up her hands, kissing my cheeks, my hair, my face. “Mutnodjmet.”

My father smiled and kissed my cheeks warmly. “You look well.” He turned to Ipu. “As do you.”

“Tell us everything!” my mother exclaimed, and she wanted to know a hundred things at once. How I was living, what my villa was like, and if the Nile there was full this Season of Growing. Thutmose, hearing that I had arrived, came in and swept a great bow to me.

“The lady that Amarna won’t stop talking about.” He smiled. “And Ipu, the finest beautician in Thebes. Everyone will want to see you,” he promised.

Ipu giggled. “What? They don’t they have any other fodder for gossip?”

“Only Pharaoh’s Arena.”

I threw a sharp glance at my father and he said ruefully, “His new gift for the people.”

I paused in the Great Hall of Amarna. “But there are no more builders,” I protested.

My father raised his brows. “Which is why he hired Nubians.”

“Foreigners to work alongside soldiers?” I asked, shocked. “But they could be spies!”

“They certainly could,” my father said as we began our walk to the Audience Chamber. “But Panahesi convinced Akhenaten that he could have an Arena immediately and cheaply if Nubians were employed.”

“And you allowed this? Couldn’t Tiye try to stop him?”

My mother and Thutmose exchanged heavy looks.

“Tiye has been banished from the palace,” my father said. “She stays in your villa.”

“Like a prisoner?” My voice echoed in the hall and I checked myself. “Like a prisoner in her own son’s city?”

He nodded. “Panahesi has convinced Akhenaten that his mother is dangerous; that if given the chance, she will take back the throne.”

“And Nefertiti?”

“What can Nefertiti do?” my father asked. We arrived at the Audience Chamber, then he turned to warn me. “When you go in, do not be surprised.” The guards threw open the doors, sweeping low bows before us, and the herald announced our names to the court.

Servants were dressed in golden pectorals, their wrists cuffed in bands of lapis and gold. The women who sat like statues around Nefertiti’s throne wore dresses of netted beads and nothing else, playing harps and writing poems and laughing. Pharaoh’s nearly completed Amarna shone like a polished jewel, and I was shocked. I walked into the chamber and felt like a foreigner in a different land.

“Mutny!”

Nefertiti was helped to her feet, and as she came down the dais the room parted before us. I inhaled the familiar scent of her hair, realizing suddenly how much I had missed her. Above us, Akhenaten cleared his throat.

“Sister,” he greeted. “How nice to see you.”

“It is always a pleasure to be in Pharaoh’s city,” I said flatly.

“Is that why you ran off so quickly to Thebes?”

The court went very quiet.

“No, Your Highness.” I smiled my sweetest court smile. “I ran because I thought I was in danger. But, of course, being here now in the arms of my sister, all such feelings disappear.”

Rage flushed Akhenaten’s face, but the look Nefertiti shot her husband shrank him back onto his throne. I was the not the same girl who’d run away to Thebes. I was a married woman now.

The silence that had stolen over the Audience Chamber turned at once to nervous conversation. Nefertiti embraced me. “You know you have nothing to fear,” she promised. “This is my home. Our home,” she corrected. She hooked my arm in hers, and the court watched us move toward the double door of the Audience Chamber. My sister pressed her cheek against my shoulder, and I could feel Akhenaten’s eyes boring into our backs. “I knew you would come. I knew you would,” she swore.

The court made its way through the glittering hall, following us, talking and laughing while my father spoke with Pharaoh.

“There is news of Hittites in Mitanni, Your Highness.”

But Akhenaten didn’t want to hear any news. “Everything is taken care of!” he snapped.

Nefertiti turned and Pharaoh smoothed his face, laughing nervously. “Your father thinks I have underestimated the Hittite power.”

We entered the Great Hall and Nefertiti said sharply, “My father loves you. He is trying to protect our crown.”

“Then why does he think I am less powerful than King Suppiluliumas?” Akhenaten whined.

“Because King Suppiluliumas is greedy and you are satisfied living a life that serves your people and the glory of Aten.”

They ascended the dais and I took my old seat at the royal table with my father and mother.

“The wandering sheep returns,” Kiya said, and looked down at my waist. “Not in foal?”

“No, but then neither are you.” I lowered my voice. “I hear Pharaoh visits your chamber only twice a renpet now. Is that true?”

One of Kiya’s ladies said quickly, “Don’t listen to her. Come.” They rushed away to greet guests across the hall.

“So tell us about Thebes,” my mother pressed brightly.

“And Udjai,” my father added.

I told them that Udjai had grown fatter than he had been in my father’s boyhood days.

“No, he was always large,” my father said. “And now he is a landowner.” He nodded approvingly. “He has carved a good life for himself. But no children?”

“Three,” I replied. “And a wife from Mitanni. She cooks perch with cumin and Bastet sneezes whenever he comes back from their garden.”

My mother laughed. I had forgotten how beautiful it sounded. “And your house?”

“It’s mine.” I smiled with satisfaction. “No one else’s but mine. We’ve planted a garden and expect a harvest in Pachons. Ipu has arranged an entire room for me where I can work, and Nakhtmin has promised to watch the garden till I return.”

My mother reached across the table to squeeze my hand while cheerful music played around us. “You have had the blessings of the gods,” she said. “Whenever I cry, your father reminds me that you have what you’ve always wanted.”

“I do, mawat. I am only sorry we are so far away.”



I rubbed the soles of Nefertiti’s feet with coconut oil, smoothing it into her small, rough heel as she lay in her bath. “What do you do, go barefoot all day?” I asked her.

“When I can,” she admitted, stretching her back. A great copper tub had been built in the royal rooms and was perfumed with lavender. “You just don’t know what it’s like to carry a child,” she complained.

My eyes met hers and she sat up quickly. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said at once.

I rubbed the oil over her feet. “I have been trying for eight months,” I told her. Her eyes traveled to my waist. “Nothing. I don’t think I will ever have a child.”

“You can’t know that,” Nefertiti replied hotly. “It’s up to Aten.”

I set my jaw, and she laid her head back in the tub and sighed. “Why don’t you tell me about Thebes? What is it you do all day?”

I would have answered, but we were interrupted by the squeals of children and the heavy sound of an adult woman chasing after them.

“Meritaten, Meketaten!” My sister laughed. The two girls scrambled into Nefertiti’s wet arms, and my story was forgotten. The nurse was not laughing, however, though she made a short bow when she entered Pharaoh’s chamber.

The younger girl was crying, holding her forelock. “Meri pulled my hair,” she wept.

“I didn’t touch her hair. You can’t believe her!”

I let Nefertiti’s foot drop, and both children immediately stopped what they were doing to look up at me with wide, interested eyes. The older girl came up and stared into my face with the confidence Nefertiti had owned as a child.

“Are you our aunt Mutnodjmet?” she asked.

I smiled at Nefertiti. “Yes, I am.”

“You have green eyes.” She narrowed hers, trying to determine whether she liked me or not. Then Meketaten began to wail again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked the little princess, holding out my arms, but she clung to her mother’s hand.

“Meri pulled my hair,” she sobbed.

I looked at Meri. “You wouldn’t do such a thing, would you?”

She batted her dark eyes. “Of course not.” She looked up winningly at her mother. “Otherwise, mawat won’t let us ride.”

I stared at Nefertiti.

“Chariots,” she explained.

“At two and three? But Meketaten is too small—”

I thought I caught a satisfied nod from the nurse, who was standing at the door watching over her two charges. “Nonsense,” Nefertiti said as a servant helped her from her bath and brought her a robe. “They ride as well as any boy their age. Why should my children be denied just because they are girls?”

I stared at her in amazement. “Because it’s dangerous!”

Nefertiti bent down to Meritaten. So Meri’s the favorite, I thought. “Are you frightened when you ride in the new Arena?” she asked, and the scent of her lavender soap filled the bath.

“No.” The older princess shook her black forelock and the ponytail came to rest as a curl beneath her chin. She was a pretty child.

“You see?” Nefertiti straightened. “Ubastet, take the girls to their lessons.”

“No, mawat.” Meritaten let her shoulders go limp. “Do we have to?”

Nefertiti put her hands on her hips. “Do you want to be a princess or an uneducated peasant?”

Meri giggled. “A peasant,” she said naughtily.

“Really?” Nefertiti asked. “Without horses or paints or pretty jewels to wear?”

Meritaten trudged out but hesitated at the door, wanting some consolation before she left. “Will we be going to the Arena tonight?” she pleaded.

“Only if it pleases your father.”

In the Royal Robing Room, Nefertiti held up her arms. The servant moved to get her dress, but she said, “Not you. Mutny.”

I took the linen gown and pulled it over her head, envious of the way it fit her body, even in pregnancy. “You allow them to ride in the Arena at night? Is there anything you don’t allow?”

“When we were children, I would have given half of Akhmim to live the kind of life my daughters are having.”

“When we were children, we understood humility,” I said.

She shrugged and sat before her mirror. Her hair had grown. She handed me her brush. “You always do it so much better than Merit.”

I frowned. “You could write to me once in a while,” I told her, taking the brush and pulling it gently through her hair. “Mother does.”

“It was your choice to go running off with a soldier. Not mine.” My fingers tightened around the brush and Nefertiti’s eyes flew open.

“Mutny, that hurt!”

“I’m sorry.”

She settled back in her ebony chair. “Tonight we’ll go to the Arena,” she decided. “You haven’t even seen the crowning jewel of this city.”

“I thought that was you.”

She ignored my wry humor. “I think I have accomplished it,” she said. “I think I have built something that will stand until the end of time.”

I stopped with her hair. “Nothing is forever,” I said cautiously. “Nothing lasts.”

Nefertiti studied her reflection in the mirror and grinned brazenly. “Why? Do you think the gods will punish my overreaching?”

I replied, “I don’t know.”



In a noisy throng of guards and jeweled chariots we moved down the Royal Road to the towering Arena. It was the first time I had seen the Royal Road in completion, and it stretched impossibly wide, threading through the city like a long white ribbon. Thutmose, who had become as important as any vizier at court, rode in my chariot, and I caught him watching me in the evening light.

“You look more like your sister than I remember,” he said. “The same cheeks, the same lips…” The artist in him hesitated. “But not the same eyes.” He peered closely at me as we rode. “They have changed.”

“They have grown more like my father’s. Wary and cunning.” I stared out ahead of me. “And Nefertiti?” I asked. “Has she changed since you first came to the court of Memphis?”

We both looked at Nefertiti in the chariot before us. Her crown glinted in the pale evening light and her long silver cloak whipped in the wind. Thutmose said proudly, “No, the queen is exactly the same.”

Still a spoiled child, I thought. But the people loved her. As we rode toward the Arena, they crowded in the streets, chanting her name and throwing lotus blossoms before her. As word spread that the queen was in the city, the chanting grew more fervent. Her Nubian guards made a circle around her in their polished chariots, warding off the crying people with their shields. “Stand back!” they shouted. “Stand back!” But Egyptians crushed against each other on the Royal Road, begging my sister to intervene with Aten to bring them happiness. “Please,” they cried out. “Please, Your Majesty!”

I glanced at Thutmose. “Is it always like this?”

“Always, my lady. They would walk to the quarries of Aswan for her. They line up at the palace gates just to see her pass by the window of her chamber. Every statue in Amarna is her shrine.”

“So she’s a goddess?

“Of the people.”

“And Pharaoh?” It was difficult to see him. He was surrounded by a thick press of Nubian guards.

Thutmose leaned close to me and said, “I would think he would be jealous. But she guides their love to him, and they praise him because she does.”

The horses turned sharply into the entrance of the Arena and the cries of the people fell behind us. I gasped. It was grander than anything I had ever seen. Thutmose gave me his arm to help me out of the chariot. “Look at the crown.” He drew my eyes to the top of the open Arena, where images of Nefertiti and Akhenaten had been painstakingly carved, their arms raised to the rays of Aten.

I gaped. “You did all of this?”

“With Maya’s direction. And in only seven months.”

Each of the sandstone statues had been painted and gilded. Their united hands formed the top of the Arena. It was a magnificent sight. A building to rival the temples of Thebes. We walked inside, and the stillness of night settled across the empty colonnades. Our voices disturbed the silence, and our long procession filled the Arena.

“What do you think?” Nefertiti searched my face.

“It’s magnificent,” I told her. “Thutmose is truly gifted.”

There were portraits of all the royal court on the Arena walls, riding in chariots, striking blows at the Hittites, but I searched in vain for Kiya and Prince Nebnefer. My sister had already erased them from Amarna. She knew that to speak the name of the dead was to make them live again, and that someday, when the Gods returned to Egypt, they would find no trace of Kiya’s existence.

“Shall we take her to the new horses?” Meri asked eagerly. “They’re Assyrian.”

Akhenaten led the way to the stables, and Nefertiti watched my awe at the lavishness of it all with satisfaction. I imagined all the letters my father must have written to procure so many breeds.

“That is the pair from Assyria.” Nefertiti pointed. “Akhenaten purchased two for Meri and Meketaten. And now who knows? Soon we may need one for a little son. It’s the greatest Arena in Egypt, isn’t it?”

“It must have taken a great deal of labor.”

“Three thousand Nubians,” Nefertiti replied.

“I would have thought you would have been wary of them as spies,” I said cautiously.

“The Nubians are more loyal than half of Egypt,” Akhenaten sneered. “They are loyal not just to me, but to the glory of Aten. There is only one god of Egypt.” He looked to Nefertiti. “The god who granted us the Horus crowns.”

Nefertiti had total sway over him now. Us.

She leaned her head against his arm and rested her hand on her belly.



It was an easy birth, like the first and the second, and I wondered how many more I would attend before I crossed the threshold of my own birthing pavilion. I told myself that I was going to leave as soon as the child came, but I couldn’t be jealous of my sister’s happiness when I saw the little infant pressed against her breast.

A third princess. Three girls in a row.

The herald announced the child’s name. Ankhesenpaaten, meaning “She Who Lives for the Glory of Aten,” and when I saw the tears of joy in Akhenaten’s eyes, I could not stop the bitter voice that asked why he deserved a child and Nakhtmin did not.

“What are you thinking?” my mother asked quietly.

I watched Nefertiti surrounded by her family. Akhenaten, Meritaten, Meketaten, and now the infant princess Ankhesenpaaten. All of them named after the god of the sun, a god no one understood but them. “You can guess,” I replied, pressing my lips together.

“It will only eat away at you.”

My father and Tiye came up behind us, embracing me sympathetically.

“Aren’t I the one who just had the child?” Nefertiti exclaimed. “What did she do besides sit and watch?”

Tiye passed me a look, then went to see the new Princess of Egypt. “Great Osiris.” My aunt looked over at me. “She has Mutnodjmet’s color. And the same shape of her eyes.”

My mother and father moved quickly to the bedside to see whether this was true, but I stayed where I was, too upset to see anything.

“She does,” my mother exclaimed.

Nefertiti beamed proudly at me. “Come. She looks just like you,” she said.

Pharaoh clenched his jaw as I bent over his third child and peered into her face. Then I smiled up at him. “Yes, just what my own daughter might have looked like. Had she not been killed.”



“He is furious with you.” The anger on her face froze the guards in their positions. But I refused to care.

“Then let him be furious!”

Nefertiti sat up and hissed, “You should never have said that! No one in Amarna believes such a thing.”

“Because no one in Amarna is foolish enough to tell you the truth. But I will not lie! I am going home.”

“To Thebes?” she cried, scrambling out of bed in the birthing pavilion. I shouldn’t have let her. She held on to my arm to pull me back. “Don’t go. Please don’t go, Mutnodjmet. You can’t leave me like this.”

“Like what?” I demanded. For a moment, I thought she wouldn’t answer.

Then she replied, “So vulnerable. Akhenaten never goes to see Kiya when I’m pregnant. He will go to her now.”

I couldn’t do this anymore. Be her spy, play her games, want what she wanted. I moved to go again.

“Mutnodjmet, please!” She scrambled so that her legs became twisted in the linens. “I can’t do this without you.”

“What exactly do you do?” I asked scornfully. “You don’t till the land, you don’t fish the Nile, you don’t fight to keep the Hittites at bay the way Tiye did when this was truly an empire.”

“No! I play the goddess to the people!” she cried. “I play the savior of this kingdom when masses of Egyptian soldiers want to revolt and are stopped only when I can convince them that Aten has spoken through me and assured them of prosperity. I am the one who must hold the puppet strings in this play, and only Father”—her lower lip began to tremble—“only Father knows how hard and tiring that is.”

She closed her eyes and the tears hung suspended on the edge of her lashes. “Please. Stay with me. Just for a while.”

“Not forever,” I warned her.

“But a little while.”

As soon as Nefertiti knew that I would stay, she did her best to make sure I thought very little of my husband in Thebes as he was working on our tomb, carving our likenesses into the stone so that the gods would know us when they returned. She made sure she was full of laughter and praise, showering me with gifts: emerald pendants to match my eyes, golden cuffs for my ankles, even turquoise beads for my hair, which was thick and lustrous—the only feature I possessed that Nefertiti ever envied. Every morning we rode to the Temple of Aten, where she made obeisance to the sun and Akhenaten shook the sistrum to the holiest of holies.

“You can’t stand and do nothing while we worship,” Nefertiti admonished.

But Pharaoh didn’t argue when I refused, for I was the one who reined in Nefertiti’s vicious temper, playing Senet with her, reading myths to her, bouncing the precocious Meritaten on my knee, while for three nights he went to see Kiya. So I stood in the cool shadows of the columns and watched. I would not worship a disk in the sky. Hidden in my chests, I had brought my own statues of Hathor and Amun to Amarna, and those were the gods I bowed to every morning.

“What?” A voice echoed across the empty hall as I watched. “The Sister of the King’s Chief Wife doesn’t worship Aten?” Panahesi emerged from the shadows. “Aten is the god of Egypt,” he said warningly.

But I wasn’t afraid of Vizier Panahesi anymore. He was nothing more than the father of the king’s second-favorite wife. “So you believe in a faceless god?” I demanded.

“I am the High Priest of Aten.”

My eyes lingered on his jewels. He caught my meaning and stepped closer to me.

“You know that Pharaoh has been to visit Kiya for three nights now,” he hissed. “He went to her as soon as the princess was born. I thought you’d be interested to know, little sister, that Kiya is certain she is pregnant. And this time, like the last, it will be a son.”

I studied Panahesi’s deceptive face and challenged him. “How do you know that she is pregnant? A woman can’t tell for two months, even three.”

Panahesi turned his eyes to the courtyard where Nefertiti and Akhenaten were kneeling. He grinned. “I have been given a sign.”



I did not tell Nefertiti what Panahesi said, but I went to my father, who counseled me to say nothing. “She is recovering from birth. Do not disturb her with gossip. There is enough to think about with the Hittites so close to war in Mitanni.”

“But Akhenaten has been to her palace for three nights,” I complained.

My father started at me as if he didn’t understand the problem.

“For three nights!”

“And he must have sons. Even in his foolishness, Akhenaten knows that. If Nefertiti cannot produce one, then he will turn to someone else.”

I looked at my father in horror.

“It’s not disloyal.” He read my thoughts. “It’s the way of the gods.” He put his hand on my shoulder to placate me, and I noticed how many scrolls were unrolled on his table, waiting to be answered. Many of them bore the Mitanni seal.

“Will there really be war in Mitanni?” I asked, studying the parchments.

“Before the month is out.”

“And then?”

“Then if Egypt sends no soldiers to their aid, Mitanni will fall and we will be next.”

We watched one another, both understanding what this meant for Egypt. Our army was not ready; our greatest generals had either been imprisoned or sent away. We were a kingdom great in our history and in our gold, but in might, we would be crushed.

I went back to Nefertiti in the small studio Akhenaten had built for the princesses. Pharaoh was there, and they were arguing. As soon as Nefertiti heard the door open, she beckoned me angrily. “Ask her,” she demanded.

Akhenaten looked at me with loathing.

“Ask her!” Nefertiti demanded louder this time, and Akhenaten replied that he didn’t need to ask me how many nights he had been to see Kiya in the Northern Palace. She stormed past me toward the door and Akhenaten sped after her.

“Wait! I’ll be with you tonight,” he promised.

“I should hope you would be!” Nefertiti seethed. “Or have you forgotten you are their father, too?” She jerked her chin toward Meritaten and Meketaten, who had stopped playing with their paints to watch the scene.

“I won’t return to her palace,” Akhenaten apologized.

Nefertiti hesitated at the door. “Will we ride out tonight?” she asked him, already knowing his answer.

“Yes, and we can take Thutmose with us,” he said.

“Good.” Her gaze softened.

“And will we be going, too?” Meritaten asked.

I held my breath, waiting to see how Akhenaten would react to being questioned by a child, but Pharaoh swept Meri up into his arms. “Of course, you will be coming, my little princess. You are the daughter of Pharaoh. Pharaoh does not go anywhere without his precious ones.”

The family filed out. Nefertiti pressed me to join their expedition into the city, but I refused.

“I’m tired.”

“You’re always tired,” she complained. “You would think you were queen the way you drag yourself around.”

I threw a sharp look at her and she laughed, wrapping her arm around my waist. “I’m only playing.”

“Who rubs your feet, who makes you juice, who brushes your hair?”

She rolled her eyes. “But you’re eighteen years old. What will you be like at forty?”

“Probably dead,” I said acerbically, and her dark eyes narrowed.

“Don’t say such things. You want Anubis to hear you?”

“I thought there was only Aten.”



Fifteen days later, my sister shrieked. “A festival for what?

The doors to the Audience Chamber had been shut to everyone; only our family was in attendance. Akhenaten muttered, “A festival in honor of Kiya’s second child.”

Nefertiti threw her scepter of reign across the dais, listening to it clatter against the tile floors. She exploded with rage. “Does that mean you will be eating as well as sleeping in the Northern Palace tonight?”

Akhenaten hung his head. “It’s a feast in her honor, and it can’t be refused. But you are Queen of Egypt.” His reached out to her. “You are welcome, of course.”

For a moment, I thought she would say she would go. Then she stood violently and moved past him. The double doors to the chamber swung open, and with a commanding look in my direction she was gone. As the doors banged shut, I glanced at my mother.

“Go,” she said immediately.

I ran after Nefertiti and found her in the antechamber leading to the Window of Appearances. She was looking down over the city of Amarna. The temples of Aten reared up in the distance, their columns like dark sentinels in the dusk. I was afraid to disturb her, but she’d already heard my footfalls.

“I am the one they want,” she said.

I moved closer to see who she was talking about. Below, wealthy foreigners in jeweled turbans stood staring up at the palace, as if they could see her shape in the window. But the dark of night shielded her from their view. “They love him because of me,” she said.

“He has to go to Kiya,” I replied. “He has to have sons.”

She spun around. “And you think I can’t give him one?”

I stepped closer so that we were both looking down over the city. “If you don’t, would he stop loving you?”

“He adores me,” she said heatedly. “Who cares that Kiya is pregnant? He’s only going tonight because it’s Panahesi who called him. He thinks Panahesi is loyal.” She stiffened. “So while Father slaves away procuring ships and avoiding war, Panahesi whispers into Akhenaten’s ear, and it’s as if Aten himself has spoken. And his influence is growing.”

“Not above Father’s?”

“Never above Father’s. I make sure of that.” She looked down at the people who couldn’t see her. They moved across the city carrying baskets of harvested grain on roads that twisted like white ribbons. “Only Hatshepsut ever had such influence as I have. And Kiya is not a queen. She could have five sons and never be queen.” The rage returned to Nefertiti’s eyes. “I should attend,” she said viciously. “I should attend this feast and ruin it for her.” And I could see by the look on her face that she meant it.

There was a noise behind us and Father entered the antechamber. “Come, Nefertiti.” He drew my sister away from the Window of Appearances and they conversed in low tones. While they spoke, I passed my fingers over the paintings that decorated the walls of the palace. I wondered what Nakhtmin would think if he could see the gold from the temples staring back at him in gilded images of my family, myself in some of them, all faces that Thutmose had drawn from memory.

I studied one of the engravings, an image of my father receiving golden necklaces from Pharaoh. It was symbolic, of course, since my father had never received such gifts and would have only needed to raise his hand to command them. But in the scene, Nefertiti had her arm around his waist, her other arm resting on Akhenaten’s shoulders. The two princesses were there, and someone had begun painting a third child held in a nurse’s arms. Tiye and I stood off in the distance. Our arms were not raised to Aten the way everyone else’s were. We were dressed in open kilts, and the sculptor, Thutmose, had emphasized the green color of my eyes. We were everywhere, my family, and only the absence of Panahesi and Kiya was conspicuous in Amarna. If the Northern Palace ever fell, their tombs would be the only testament to their existence.

“Are you coming?” Nefertiti demanded.

I looked around. “Where’s Father?”

Nefertiti shrugged slyly. “On business.”

Her smug silence warned me. “What’s happening?” I asked her. “What’s going on?”

“We’re going to the feast,” she said simply.

“Nefertiti—”

“Why not?” she exclaimed.

“Because it’s cruel.”

“Power is cruel,” she retorted, “and it will either be mine or hers.”



My sister watched herself in the mirror. “I want to be as beautiful as Isis tonight. Unearthly beautiful.”

She stood, and the netted dress she was wearing arched over her breasts and fell down her back. The silver on her lashes and across her thighs caught the torchlight. She had replaced her crown with silver beads in her hair that moved when she did. I almost felt sorry for Kiya. But Kiya was just as cunning as my sister, and if Nefertiti never gave Akhenaten a prince, our family would bow to Kiya when her son took the throne. It was this that made me sit and endure the painful plucking and careful painting of my cheeks and lips. The thought of our family serving a man like Panahesi…I shook my beaded head. It must never be.

In the open courtyard, Nefertiti’s ladies were waiting, talking and giggling like girls. We walked between them, and I had the impression that we were silver rain droplets in a field of lotus blossoms. The ladies parted, and I realized that they were all girls I didn’t know, the daughters of scribes and Aten priests whose job was to keep my sister entertained. From the stables, a throng of guards had appeared. A lieutenant took Nefertiti’s hand and helped her up into her chariot. She took the whip from him.

“You’re going to drive?” I exclaimed.

“Of course. To the Northern Palace!” she cried.

Nefertiti flicked the whip and the chariot lurched forward toward the white beacon in the night. The guards scrambled to chase after her, and I could hear the wild laughter of the women racing in their chariots from behind.

“Not so fast,” I shouted, petrified of turning over, but the wind drowned out my words as the chariot sped north. “We will die, Nefertiti!”

My sister turned to me in triumph. “What?”

As the chariot reached the palace gates, she tugged on the reins and the horses dropped back. I was stunned at the majesty of Kiya’s palace. Its delicate reflection wavered on the Nile, a white bastion constructed out of love and dedication. Every column had been carved into a lotus blossom, springing upward as if to embrace Aten. From the wide opening of the palace’s pillared front, I could see into its courtyards and torchlit gardens. Kiya’s guards assembled themselves in a frenzied panic when they saw who we were, falling over one another to lead the way and bow before us.

“Your Majesty, we didn’t know you were coming.”

“Announce our arrival,” Nefertiti commanded.

The servants in gold kilts rushed toward the hall as we made our slow and purposeful progression between the oil lamps that lined the limestone stairs. Guests bowed down before us, whispering to each other. When we reached the Great Hall, the trumpeters reassembled.

“Queen Nefertiti and the Lady Mutnodjmet,” the herald declared.

We swept inside and the Great Hall burst into chatter. Nefertiti’s ladies followed us closely; they fanned out, finding food and seating appropriate for a queen. The silver of our necklaces and bangles caught the light, and I knew that we were more beautiful than anyone there, even the proud and pretty daughters of the palace viziers and scribes. Kiya turned sharply, talking quickly to her husband to draw his eyes away, but his gaze was fixed on my sister, a silver fish flashing in an illuminated pond.

“Take me to the table of honor,” Nefertiti said, and we were taken across the hall to the table where Akhenaten and the pregnant Kiya were sitting. Nefertiti sat down at the opposite end. Between us sat all of Kiya’s closest ladies. I knew I could never have the courage to do what Nefertiti had just done: sweep into a lion’s den like the head of the pride.

Panahesi, on the right side of Akhenaten, grew red with fury. At Kiya’s own feast, Nefertiti called for music, and everyone laughed and sang and drank. Kiya was caught; at any other time, all of her ladies would have snubbed my sister. But now, in the Northern Palace, none of them dared to snub Nefertiti in Akhenaten’s presence, so they were fawning and kind, telling her stories, exchanging gossip, and as the wine-fueled laughter heightened, so did Kiya’s rage.

“What is it?” Akhenaten said, worried.

Kiya glared back at him from under her lashes. “This is my feast, not hers!”

Akhenaten looked around to be sure Nefertiti wasn’t near him, then promised, “I will make it up to you.”

“How?” she cried shrilly.

Akhenaten tore his gaze away from my sister, who threw back her head and laughed at one of Thutmose’s jokes. “I will have Thutmose sculpt you,” I heard him say.

“And if we have another son,” Kiya pressed her advantage, “will Nebnefer finally be declared your heir?”

I leaned closer to hear how he would respond.

“That is up to Aten.”

I thought triumphantly, To Aten and our family.



When the feast was over, I could see the strain of what Nefertiti had done in her eyes. Her voice brooked no argument when we reached her chamber and she said, “Stay with me until he returns.”

I climbed into her bed and stroked her hair comfortingly.

“The Hittites are at Mitanni’s gates and I am playing seductress to my own husband,” she seethed. Then her voice broke, “She cannot have another son.”

“She might not. It might be a princess.”

“But why can’t I have a son?” she cried. “What have I done to anger Aten?”

What have you done to anger Amun? I thought, but said nothing. “Have you been taking the honey?”

“And mandrakes.”

“And have you gone to the temples?”

“Of Aten? Of course.”

I let my silence speak.

Nefertiti asked quietly, “Do you think I should seek out Tawaret?”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

She hesitated. “Will you come? Akhenaten can’t know.”

“We can go tomorrow,” I promised, and she squeezed my hand tenderly. She turned over and pressed the covers to her chest. When she’d fallen asleep, I lay awake, wondering where in Amarna we’d find a shrine to the hippopotamus goddess of birth.

Early the next morning, before the sun was up, Merit had an answer for me. She told me that some of the women in the village kept their own statues to Tawaret for when their daughters went to the bricks to bear a child. I asked her to take us to the house with the largest shrine, and even before Akhenaten awoke, bearers carried our covered palanquin up the hills into the cluster of wealthy villas.

The rising sun in the sky was warm. Below us the city was waking in shades of cardamom and gold. I parted the linens and inhaled the scents of a woman cooking date bread and mulling wine.

“Close the curtains,” Nefertiti snapped. “This should be done quickly.”

“You’re the one who wanted to come,” I said sternly.

“Have you ever prayed to Tawaret?” she asked.

I knew what she was asking. “Yes.”

At the top of the hill, the bearers lowered the palanquin and a servant came to greet us. “Your Majesty.” The girl bowed deeply. “My lady is waiting in the loggia.”

We swept up the steps, Nefertiti, Merit, and I. The litter bearers remained in the courtyard, ignorant of why we had come, and a woman in fine linen came to greet us.

“Thank you for gracing my humble home. I am Lady Akana.” But Nefertiti wasn’t listening. She was looking around for the statue of Tawaret. “Our goddess is this way,” Lady Akana whispered. “Hidden from public view.” Her eyes shifted nervously from Nefertiti to me.

We walked to a room at the back of the villa where the reed mats were lowered. The white walls had been painted with bold images of the hippopotamus goddess. Lady Akana felt the need to explain. “Many people keep images like this, Your Majesty. Only public shrines have been forbidden. Many people keep their private shrines hidden.”

Not well hidden enough to escape Merit’s attention, I thought, and Nefertiti nodded silently.

“I shall leave you, then.” Lady Akana retreated. “If you have need of anything, you have only to call.”

Nefertiti, as if woken from a dream, turned around. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Do you want me to go as well?” I asked.

“No, I want you to pray with me. Merit, leave the offering and shut the door.”

Merit left the incense and lotus blossom on a stool, then retreated the way Lady Akana had gone. We were left alone in the chamber. The hippopotamus goddess smiled at us, her big belly of polished ebony gleamed blue in the rays filtering through the reed mats. “You go first,” Nefertiti prodded. “She knows you,” she explained.

I went to the goddess, kneeling before her with a handful of lotus blossom. “Tawaret,” I murmured, “I have come before you asking to be blessed with a child.”

“We’re here for me,” Nefertiti said sharply. I scowled over my shoulder at her.

“I have also come on behalf of the Queen of Egypt.” I pressed the lotus blossoms to Tawaret’s feet. “I have come to ask that you make her fertile.”

“With a son,” Nefertiti clarified.

“Can’t you do this yourself?” I demanded.

“No! She might not listen to me!”

I bowed my head again. “Please, Tawaret. The Queen of Egypt is in need of a son. She has been blessed by three princesses, and now she asks that you send her a prince.”

“And not Kiya,” Nefertiti blurted. “Please make it that Kiya does not have a son.”

“Nefertiti!” I cried.

She stared blankly. “What?”

I shook my head. “Just light the incense.”

She did as she was told, and we stared at the hippo goddess, enshrouded in smoke. She seemed to smile benevolently on us, even when what Nefertiti had asked for was malicious. I stood up, and Nefertiti stood with me.

“Are all your prayers like that?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind. Let’s go.”



The next morning, a messenger arrived in the Audience Chamber.

“The Great Wife Kiya is ill.”

Immediately, I thought of Nefertiti’s prayer and paled. My father glanced at me and I began to confess. “Yesterday—”

But my father’s hand cut through the air. “Go find your sister and Pharaoh in the Arena!”

I brought Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and though Nefertiti kept asking me what had happened, all I could whisper was “Your prayers have been answered.” We burst into the Audience Chamber. It had been emptied of servants and petitioners. My father stood at once. “This messenger has news for Pharaoh,” he said.

The messenger bowed low. “There is news from the Northern Palace,” he reported. “The Great Wife Kiya is ill.”

Akhenaten froze. “Ill? What do you mean? How ill?”

The messenger’s eyes fell to the ground. “She is bleeding, Your Highness.”

Akhenaten went very still and my father came toward him. “You should go to her,” he suggested.

Akhenaten turned to Nefertiti, who nodded. “Go. Go and make sure the Great Wife gets well.” He hesitated at her kindness and she smiled sweetly. “She would want you to go for me,” she said.

I narrowed my eyes at Nefertiti’s cunning, and when Akhenaten was gone, I shook my head sternly. “What’s happening?”

Nefertiti shrugged off her cloak. “Tawaret answered my prayer, just as you said.”

My father frowned. “Nothing’s done yet.”

“She’s ill,” Nefertiti said quickly. “And she’s certain to lose the child.” I stared at her in horror, and then Nefertiti smiled. “Would you find me some juice, Mutnodjmet?”

I froze. “What?”

“Find her some juice,” my father said, and I saw what was happening. They wanted me gone so they could speak in private. “Pomegranate,” Nefertiti called out after me, but I was already out the doors of the Audience Chamber.

“My lady, what happened?” Ipu stood quickly. “Why was everyone dismissed from chambers?”

“Take me to my old villa,” I replied. “Find me a chariot that will take me to Tiye.”

We rode the entire way in silence. When we arrived, the house looked the same as when I had left it. The broad loggia and rounded columns shone white in the sun, the cornflowers a dazzling blue against them.

“She planted more thyme,” Ipu observed quietly. She went to the door and a servant answered. Then we were shown in to what had once been my home. There were more tapestries in the hall and several new murals depicting a hunt. A lifetime of rule and this is what the Dowager Queen of Egypt is left with. We turned into the loggia, and the queen stepped forward to embrace me. She had heard of our coming.

“Mutnodjmet.” Heavy bangles made music on her arms, and her golden pectoral was rich with pearl. She held me at arm’s length to take in my face. “You are thinner,” she noticed. “But happier,” she added, looking into my eyes.

I thought of Nakhtmin and felt a deep contentment. “Yes, I am much happier now.”

A servant brought us tea in the loggia and we sat on thick pillows stuffed with down. Ipu was allowed to stay. She was family now. But she remained silent.

“Tell me all of your news,” my aunt said happily. She meant about Thebes and my garden and my villa. But I told her about Nefertiti’s birth and Kiya’s pregnancy. Then I told her about the feast and Kiya’s illness. “They say she will lose the child.”

Tiye passed me a calculating look.

“I’m sure my father would never have a child killed,” I said swiftly.

“For the crown of Egypt?” She sat back. “For the crown of Egypt, all that has been done and worse. Just ask my son.”

“But it’s against Amun,” I protested. “It’s against the laws of Ma’at.”

“And do you think anyone worried about that when you were poisoned?”

I flinched. No one mentioned that anymore. “But there’s Nebnefer,” I warned.

“Who’s only seen his father every few months, when Nefertiti lets Akhenaten out of her sight. And do you really think that Akhenaten would let a son rule? He, who knows better than anyone else the treachery a son can bring?”

We were interrupted by my aunt’s old herald. He bowed at the waist. “A letter from the general Nakhtmin. To Her Lady Mutnodjmet.”

I glanced at Tiye. The servants still called my husband “general.” I hid my satisfaction and replied, “But how did this come to be here?”

“A messenger heard where you were and came looking.” He bowed himself out, and my aunt watched my face as I read.

“Our tombs are finished. They’ve carved them and have already begun painting.”

My aunt nodded encouragingly. “And the garden?”

I smiled. She had become a great lover of gardens. I skimmed the papyrus for news of my herbs. “Doing well. The jasmine is in bloom and there are grapes on the vines. Already. And it’s not even Phamenoth.” I looked up and saw the yearning on Tiye’s face to have a real home of her own. Then a thought came to me. “You should leave Amarna and come and see them,” I said. “Leave Amarna and return to Thebes.”

At once, my aunt grew very still. “I doubt I shall ever leave Amarna,” she replied. “I will never return to Thebes except in my coffin.”

I stared at her, aghast.

She leaned forward and confided, “Just because I am not in the palace doesn’t mean my power there has vanished. Your father and I work hard never to have our influence seen.” She smiled ruefully. “Panahesi has succeeded in turning Akhenaten against me. But he’ll never rid Egypt of your father. Not so long as Nefertiti is queen.”

I stared at Tiye in the light of the windows. Where did the strength come from to do what she did? To remain in Amarna and be the power behind the throne while her spoiled, arrogant son sat on the dais?

“It’s not as hard as it seems,” she replied to my unspoken question. “Someday you may understand this.”



“Where have you been?” Nefertiti crossed the chamber in several strides.

“In my villa.”

“You don’t have a villa,” she challenged.

“I was visiting Tiye.”

My sister reeled back as though I had hit her. “While I was waiting for news, you were visiting Tiye? While Kiya was ill”—her voice rose with fury—“you left me?”

I laughed. “What? Did you need support for the shocking news that Kiya was sick? That she might lose her child?”

She stood immobile. I had never spoken to her this way before. “What is that?” She was looking at the scroll in my hand.

“A letter.”

She tore it from me and began reading.

“It’s a letter from my husband!” I reached out and took it back.

Nefertiti’s face darkened. “Who delivered it here?”

“How should I know?”

“When did it come?”

“While you were with Father.”

Then I realized what she was saying and my voice rose with indignation. “Why?” I exclaimed. “Have there been others?”

She said nothing.

“Have there been more?” I shouted. “Have you hidden them from me? Nakhtmin is my husband!

“And I am your sister!

We glared at one another.

“I will come to dinner. After that,” I swore, “I am leaving for Thebes.”

She stepped in front of me. “You don’t even know what happened to Kiya—”

“Of course I know what happened to Kiya. Just what you said. She lost the child.”

“Panahesi will be suspicious—”

“Of course he’ll be suspicious. But you will have to watch him alone.”

“You can’t leave me!” she cried, and I turned to face her.

“Why? Because no one else can? Because everyone else is too awed by your beauty? You have fifty other women at court who will follow you like lapdogs. Have one of them watch out for you.”



I went to dinner as I promised, and Nefertiti tried to test my loyalty by ordering me to find her a special fruit she knew was only kept in the back of the kitchens. I stood up and told the nearest servant to bring my sister a plate of jujube.

“It could be poison!” she cried. “I want you to go.”

I gave her a long look, then swept across the Great Hall in a fury. When I returned, my sister was surrounded by a throng of young courtiers. She tossed her head back and smiled when she saw the platter of fruit in my hands. “Mutny, you brought it.”

As though she’d doubted I would.

The women parted so that I could give her the fruit. Nefertiti swore, “You’re the best sister in Egypt. Where are the musicians?” She clapped. “We want music!”

While the girls took their seats, I sat with my mother at the base of the dais, and servants came with roasted gazelle and honeyed lamb.

“It’s how she shows she loves you,” my mother offered.

“What? By making me her servant?”

The music began, and Nefertiti clapped as the dancers emerged, clad in bright linens and bangles with bells. Half a dozen ladies were watching the way Nefertiti drank, holding their cup the way she did, between forefinger and thumb. “How long do I have to stay?” I demanded.

My mother frowned. “Until the dancing is over.”

My father said, “I hear you visited Tiye.”

“I told her what happened to Kiya,” I replied.

He nodded. “Of course.”

“And she wasn’t surprised.”

He stared at me strangely, and I wondered for a moment if there had been any poisoning at all, or if it had just been a happenstance of fate. Nefertiti looked down at us and her sharp brows lowered. She crooked her finger at me.

My father motioned with his chin. “She wants you.”

I got up, and Nefertiti patted an empty chair on the dais where guests were allowed to sit and converse. “I hope you weren’t talking to Father about Kiya,” she warned.

“Of course not.”

“It’s a dead subject.”

“Like her child.”

Nefertiti’s eyes widened. “Don’t you let Akhenaten hear you,” she warned. Akhenaten turned to see what we were saying. She smiled for him and I stared back expressionlessly. She turned back to me. “Look at this feast I had to arrange just to take his mind off her.”

“How kind of you,” I replied.

Her temper flared. “Why are you so angry with me?”

“Because you’re endangering your immortal ka and going against the laws of Ma’at,” I retorted. “And for what?”

“For the crown of Egypt,” she replied.

“Do you think there won’t be a single vizier who hasn’t wondered whether Kiya was poisoned?”

“Then they’d be wrong,” she said firmly. “I didn’t poison her.”

“So someone else did on your behalf.”

There was a lull in the music and our conversation stopped. Nefertiti smiled brightly, so that Akhenaten would think we were talking of inane, sisterly things. When the music started up again, she leaned over and said briskly, “I need you to discover what Kiya’s ladies are saying.”

“No,” I replied, and my answer was resolute. “I am returning to Thebes. I told you I’d leave. I told you that even before Ankhesenpaaten was born.” The musicians still played at the other end of the hall, but those nearest the thrones could overhear what we were saying. I walked to the bottom of the dais and she sat forward on her throne.

“If you leave me, then you can never come back!” she threatened. The court turned to look at me and she was aware of an audience. She flushed. “Make your choice!” she shouted.

I saw Akhenaten’s eyes widen with approval. Then I turned to look at my father at the royal table. His face was a perfect vizier’s mask, refusing to reveal what he thought of his two daughters fighting it out in public like cats. I inhaled deeply. “I made my choice when I married Nakhtmin,” I replied.

Nefertiti sat back on her throne. “Go,” she whispered. “Go and never come back!” she shrieked.

I saw the determination in her face, the bitterness that had set there, and I let the doors of the Great Hall swing shut in my wake.

In my chamber, Ipu had already heard what had happened. “We’ll leave, my lady. We’ll leave on the first royal barge tonight. You’re already packed.”

My chests readied on the bed, and I was shocked by the immediacy of it all.

I had been banished.

Then, suddenly, my mother was there. “Mutnodjmet, rethink what you’ve done,” she pleaded. My father stood like a sentinel at the door. “Ay, please! Say something to your daughter,” she cried. But he would not try to convince me to stay.

I went over to my mother and held her face in my hands. “I’m not dying, mawat. I am simply returning to my husband, to my house, to my life in Thebes.”

“But you have a life here!” She looked at my father, who took her hand in his.

“It’s what she has chosen. One daughter reached for the sun and the other is content to feel its rays on her garden. They are different, that is all.”

“But she can never come back,” my mother cried.

“Nefertiti will change her mind,” he promised. “You were good to have come here at all, little cat.”

I embraced my father, then held my mother tightly as the servants moved the chests, balancing them one on top of another.

“We will come twice a renpet,” my father promised. “I will arrange a meeting with the Mitanni king while we are there.”

“If Akhenaten lets you.”

My father said nothing, and I knew he intended to do it with or without Pharaoh’s permission. Then I heard a noise and turned, catching two little girls peeking around the columns at me. I beckoned them with my finger.

“Are you leaving?” the older one asked.

“Yes, Meri. Would you like to walk to the quay and bid me farewell?”

She nodded, then began to weep. “But I want you to stay.”

I was touched. She had only known me for a month.

“You haven’t even seen all my horses. I wanted to show them all to you.”

I blinked at her selfishness, then bent down and kissed her forehead. “Someday I will return and see them,” I promised.

“Even my temple?” Meri managed between sobs.

“Even your temple,” I said, biting my lip against such indulgence. Her own temple to Aten? What kind of queen would this little child become if she was permitted every luxury? How would she come to know restraint or patience?

I walked with my mother down to the quay and cried despite myself when the ship was ready. Who knew what might happen once we said farewell? I could die in childbirth or my mother could succumb to any pestilence that flourished near the Nile. We held each other’s hands, and I felt keenly how much I’d failed her. I had brought her only sorrow when a daughter was supposed to bring a mother joy.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “If I’d been a better daughter, I would have married a man who was acceptable to Pharaoh and stayed close to you. I would have given you grandchildren to bounce on your knee and be thankful for. Instead, all I have given you is heartache.”

“You have lived the life that Amun destined. There is nothing to regret.”

“But you are lonely,” I argued.

She bent close to whisper so that my father wouldn’t hear. “And I am consoled every night by the reminder that of my daughters, you are the one that eternity will smile upon. Even without gold, or children, or a crown.”

She kissed the top of my head, and even my father looked moved when I waved farewell to the towering city of Amarna, a jewel my family had created from the sand. She was only a cheap rival to Thebes, full of new glitter and gold, yet when I left her, there was a sense of loss, too: that this was my family’s legacy and I’d left it forever.

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