Sphinx's Queen (28 page)

Amenophis’s anguished cry seared my heart. I thrust my arms straight out to the sides, breaking Aunt Tiye’s loveless embrace, and jumped away from her as if she were made of knives.

“Are you
insane?”
I shouted at her. All thought of the respect I owed her as my aunt and my queen was gone. She was nothing but a jackal with foaming fangs she wanted to sink into my throat and steal my last breath of life. “Have
you
been sunstruck or has your mind been shattered? After everything that Thutmose has done to me!”

“Nothing …”
The word was a warning growl deep in her throat, but it sounded as if it came from the depths of an eternal night. “My son has done
nothing wrong.”

At least she didn’t try to slap me. I would have slapped back, and the gods know where that would have ended.

“How can you say that?” I protested. “As soon as you and Pharaoh left for Dendera—”

“Nefertiti, no more.” Amenophis cupped my shoulders with his hands, speaking softly but urgently. “It’s no use arguing with her about what’s in the past between you and my brother. Speak to her about
now.”

I saw the wisdom in his words and nodded. “Aunt Tiye,” I said, pulling back my shoulders and standing as firmly as I’d done that morning in the house of truth. “Aunt Tiye, the only wedding voyage I will make is when I marry
this
man.” I clasped my beloved’s hand in mine and raised them high for her and all her attendants to see.

My aunt regarded the two of us coldly for a long time. My bedchamber filled with silence as we waited to hear what she would say to my open act of defiance. Then, instead of speaking, she made a curt gesture to her maids and they filed out of the room, out of my quarters entirely, leaving the three of us alone with the few lamps my maids had kindled before I’d sent them away. One of these had already run out of oil and was no more than a blackened wick sending up a thread of smoke in the shadows. Two remained, petals of fire wavering against the dark.

“Little girl, save your breath,” my aunt said at last. “You can argue, fight, weep, curse, even bring the voices of a
dozen
gods to speak for you. The result will be the same. You will marry Thutmose or you will marry no one.”

“What’s the matter with you, Aunt Tiye? Why are you still trying to do this to me? The game is
over
. You can’t win. You said yourself that Thutmose won’t inherit the throne because he’s lost his father’s favor.”

“And you have gained it. I have stood outside my husband’s rooms, pleading with him to reconsider his actions against our boy, to understand, to forgive him and restore him to his rightful place as heir to the double crown. He wouldn’t open the doors. But if you were to go to him and declare that you realized that Thutmose was—was under a spell, or ill, or
something
to excuse his actions this morning, those doors would open. And if you then told Pharaoh that you repent all your foolishness and want nothing more than to accept Thutmose as your husband, your words would become the wings to lift him to the place he belongs—onto the throne of his ancestors. Marry my son, Nefertiti, and undo all the harm you’ve done to him, to me, to your family.”

Her reasoning made twisted sense: If I could forgive Thutmose for everything he’d done and tried to do to me, his father should be able to forgive him anything, even profaning Ma’at’s shrine with a bared weapon and vile speech. Even so, how could she believe I’d ever be a willing part of such a plan?

I sighed deeply. “Aunt Tiye, I’m not the one who’s done any harm to our family. I never wanted to leave Akhmin, to come to Thebes, to live in a palace, to wear a crown. I certainly never wanted Thutmose’s father to turn his back on his eldest son. If Pharaoh will consent to see me, I’ll go to him and ask him to take Thutmose back as his son, even if not as his heir, but that is
all
I’ll do.”

“Little enough,” Aunt Tiye snarled. “Worse than nothing. Amenophis!” Her head whipped in his direction. “You claim to care about me, and you say you want your brother’s happiness. Show it! Make this stupid girl do what’s needed to restore Thutmose to his rightful place. You can do it. She loves you.”

I never saw such a look of dismay and disillusion on Amenophis’s face as I saw then. “If that’s how you think, Mother …” He shook his head slowly. “My poor, poor father.”

“What are you babbling about?” Aunt Tiye spat the words in his face. “Go! Get out of my sight!”

“I’m not leaving you alone with Nefertiti,” he replied.

“Why not? Afraid I’ll hurt her?” Aunt Tiye sneered. “If
that’s
what you think of your own mother, rest easy: I’m leaving, too.”

“I never said I was leaving at all.”

How Aunt Tiye’s eyes flashed with rage when he said that! “Then stay with her, and may Ammut devour both your hearts for this treachery.” She strode out of the room.

I reached up and kissed Amenophis’s cheek. “I’m so sorry, my dearest one. I wish she’d turned all of her anger against me before she said such awful things to you.”

“She couldn’t help herself, Nefertiti,” he replied. There was a great weariness in his voice. “She loves Thutmose too much to see him the way others do. And what’s worse”—he paused for a breath—“so do I.”

His words robbed me of the power to speak. All I could do was stare at him, my mouth open, numbly asking myself if I’d misheard him. “How … ?” was all I could muster. “How?”

“How can I say that, after all you endured today?” Amenophis made a helpless gesture. “I can’t explain it. It’s not as if he was ever kind to me. There were moments when I sensed he wanted to treat me differently, except he didn’t know how.” He shook his head. “Maybe I just imagined those times because I craved them so much.”

Or maybe they were there
, I thought.
Maybe Thutmose did want to be a true brother to Amenophis, but someone made him afraid to try. Oh, Aunt Tiye, if this is what your love has done to your firstborn, I’m glad you held it back from your second son!

Amenophis held me close. His eyes brimmed with sadness. “I must speak honestly, even if you come to hate me for it. I can never forget what Thutmose tried to do to you, but—forgive me, Nefertiti—I still love my brother.”

“Then love him.” I cradled Amenophis’s face in my hands. “And may the day soon come when he loves you.” We shared another kiss, but I was the one who ended it when I realized I was trying to stifle a yawn.

“Poor Nefertiti.” Amenophis chuckled and brushed my chin with one fingertip. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

It was the truth. My legs were beginning to feel like wilted flower stems. Suddenly all I wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for days. “Sorry …” I tried and failed to smother a second yawn.

He kissed the top of my head. “Rest well, beloved,” he murmured into my hair, and left me.

I shed my dress, blew out the two remaining lamps, collapsed onto my mattress, and dove into sleep.

The next morning, I was wakened by Ta-Miu’s cold little nose touching mine. The cat mewed loudly, wanting to be fed. I called for my maids and was pleasantly surprised to find that they’d not only brought my breakfast already, but had also included a dish of fish and cold chicken for the cat. After I ate, the girls escorted me to the bathing room in a nearby part of the women’s quarters. While I washed myself with sweetly perfumed cream, they took turns pouring jugs of water over me until I felt deliciously clean again.

I was just dressing when a messenger from Aunt Tiye showed up. It was a maidservant—perhaps one of those who had attended her last night when she stormed into my bedroom. She could scarcely look at me while she delivered her mistress’s words.

“Hail, Lady Nefertiti. I am commanded to bring you to my most excellent royal mistress, Queen Tiye, Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep, Lord of the Two Lands, god-on-earth, master of—”

“What for?” I didn’t need to hear all of Pharaoh’s grand titles. “Why does she want to see me?”

“Uh! That is, she was expecting … um … You should have—you had to …” My interruption had thrown off the poor girl’s memory. “I mean, um, you were supposed to be there for breakfast!”

Strange
, I thought as I followed the maidservant through the palace halls to Aunt Tiye’s apartments.
I forgot all about that invitation. Even if I’d remembered it, I wouldn’t think she’d still want to see me after what I said to her last night
. It was all very perplexing, but I soon shrugged off my puzzlement. I was too taken up with enjoying my restored freedom. How nice to be a part of the bustling world of the palace that lay beyond the women’s quarters! How interesting to see the grand variety of people swarming in and out of the reception areas, the offices, the storerooms. So many different faces, clothes, jewels, to say nothing of the stunning combination of smells—food, perfume, sweat, spices, even the sudden sharpness of an animal’s presence when we crossed paths with a noble leading his tame cheetah through the halls.
What would Ta-Miu make of you, my pretty one?
I thought.

Some of the faces I passed were familiar. I was deeply pleased to receive warm greetings and cries of “Welcome back, Lady Nefertiti!” from several people. At one point, I nearly bumped into Pharaoh’s vizier. His momentary frown at being jostled disappeared the instant he recognized me.

“Ah, Lady Nefertiti! May the gods be praised that all went well for you yesterday. The memory of your first trial still disturbs my dreams. I never did believe you were guilty of such terrible offenses. Now that everything’s been settled, I’m going to see to it that the boy who gave false testimony against you is punished. Meketre probably won’t get everything he deserves—he’s still one of Pharaoh’s lesser sons, even if he’s a wicked little liar—but I’ll do what I can.”

“Please, let it pass,” I said.

The vizier was surprised. “You don’t want anything done to the boy?”

“I don’t want revenge against a child.”
Especially not a child who was only someone else’s tool
, I thought, recalling how badly Meketre had stumbled over his testimony and how closely the Amun priests had shepherded him throughout.
He was forced to work for the priests, the priests worked for Thutmose, and even Thutmose worked for another. Has he ever lived free of Aunt Tiye’s power? Has he ever had the chance to ask himself whether
he
wants to be pharaoh, or have her wishes left no room for any of his own?

Aunt Tiye had a sumptuous meal waiting for me in her apartments. The bread was fresh and warm from the ovens, some of the loaves stuffed with savory onions, and there were bowls heaped with honeycombs, baskets of fruit, and platters of cheeses. She greeted me as if our clash of the night before had never happened, and even set a wreath of flowers on my head with her own hands. I wished her a good day, thanked her for the food, and spent the rest of the meal waiting for her next attack. It never came.

“Hasn’t this been nice, Nefertiti?” she remarked as she escorted me to the door of her apartments. “We must do it again soon. I’m sorry it can’t be tomorrow, but I’ve had such a splendid note from my beloved lord, Pharaoh Amenhotep, saying that he wants my company all day then.” She blushed like a young girl.

“Did he? Oh, Aunt Tiye, I’m so happy for you!” I meant that sincerely. It pained me to think of the family remaining so shattered by what Thutmose had done. I didn’t want to marry him, and I didn’t want him to become our next pharaoh—if he couldn’t govern his own passions, how could he govern the Black Land?—but I did want to see him reconciled with his father. If Aunt Tiye was going to spend the whole day with her husband, I was sure she’d use her persuasive wiles to bring that about.

“What a good girl you are,” she said, patting my cheek a little too briskly. It stung, but I said nothing. Surely it was an accident. “And what do you think you’ll be doing for the rest of today and tomorrow?”

“Oh, I’m—I’m not sure,” I replied.

But I was, and my expression must have betrayed my thoughts because she said, “You’re going to seek out Amenophis, aren’t you? Of course you are.” She smiled and gave me a sharp push across her threshold into the hall.
“Good luck.”
The words sounded as hard as her laughter at my back when she slammed the door behind me.

There was no servant waiting to guide me back to the women’s quarters from Aunt Tiye’s apartments. I had to find my own way, and it took a good deal of time, even though I asked directions. By the time I got back to my own rooms, my maids had disappeared yet again. There was no one to carry a message for me to Amenophis. I couldn’t do so myself. In all the time I’d lived in the royal palace, I’d never found out where his rooms lay, though I had a vague idea.

Should I go to that part of the palace and ask?
I thought, then discarded the notion. I longed to see him, but if I went running after him like that, it would give the countless wagging tongues throughout the palace a fresh source of gossip.

I don’t care what they’d say about me
, I told myself.
I just don’t want
him
to be embarrassed
. A sudden, telltale warmth flushed my cheeks, forcing me to admit,
Who am I fooling? I care what they’d say about me, too. I’ll write out a message for Amenophis and get one of the other women’s servants to deliver it for me
.

It was all so easy. I didn’t have any close friends among Pharaoh’s junior wives and his other female companions, but nearly everyone knew me. I’d come into their midst as the promised bride of a royal prince, I’d gained notice when I happened to uncover a deadly plot by two of the women, and I’d become notorious when I was dragged away to stand trial for Ta-Miu’s “death.” Now I’d returned, victoriously acquitted by the word of Ma’at herself. Who
didn’t
know my name? And who hadn’t heard the story of how grateful Pharaoh was to see me exonerated?

In the women’s quarters, Pharaoh’s good will was worth more than gold. As soon as I approached one of the younger junior wives with my request for writing supplies and a messenger, every other woman within eavesdropping distance flooded me with pens, paints, papyrus, and offers to lend me the services of their smartest, swiftest-footed maidservants. My note was on its way before midday.