The Forgotten: Aten's Last Queen (55 page)

“I will only cause trouble for you if I do,” he answered quietly.

“If not for me, then for your son, my daughter. They need their father.”

Amyntas looked down and nodded slowly. “I have been a poor father to them. I’ve been angry at how our lives have turned out. I should not have been surprised that Mara’s heart was somewhere else. I blamed her when I should have blamed only myself. My heart was always yours.”

“And mine was yours.”

Just then, there was a thumping up the stairs. Tia’s head emerged from the opening. I quickly stood up.

“An, I have seen guards out in the neighborhood. They are looking for you. Someone has noticed your absence. We should leave now.”

Amyntas stood up next to me and put his hands on my shoulders. He rubbed them up and down my arms with his long fingers. “If you ask it, I will hide you here until morning.”

“And if they do search the house and find me, you will be in terrible danger. If anyone here speaks of Aten, everyone will be killed. There was an attack on my life years ago and blame has fallen to the followers of Aten. Anyone who says that name faces death. They will not differentiate between Aten and Adonai.” I looked up into his eyes. I wanted one more kiss, but his safety was the greater desire within me. I quickly stepped out of his grasp and walked down the stairs.

When I looked back, his gaze had not left me. I smiled weakly, and then dropped from his view. Esam was there waiting. He bowed at the waist to me.

“There is a back exit. You may take that out. There is a group leaving that way. Depart with them, and you should be covered from the guards. I have not told them who you are, only that you would appreciate an escort tonight. They will take you to the Temple of Amun.”

“Thank you, Esam,” I replied. Then quickly we ran down the hallway and to the first floor.

It was a group of priests who stood waiting. I quickly wrapped my veil about my head as we got closer. Tia kept in front of me.

“We are on an errand for the queen. We appreciate your assistance,” she said.

One of the priests bowed before us slightly. He wore a black robe. “Anything for the queen,” he answered.

In their company, we swept away from the house just like a dream does when the sunboat rises in the early morning sky. I prayed that nightmares did not follow us.

*****

Ay was in a foul mood already when I returned to my room. His eyes blazed as I walked in. They seemed to capture the firelight from the lamps and burn even more fierce.

“Where in the name of Set have you been?” he snapped.

“I went out for a walk. It’s none of your concern.”

“When the queen disappears from her bed chambers, it
is
my concern.”

I tossed my veil onto my bed. “What are you doing here at this late hour anyway?”

“Where have you been?” His voice seemed to simmer like water tossed over hot coals.

“I went out to find the Atenists. I wanted to see if I could catch their scent. Nobody suspects a lone woman inquiring at the temples, do they?”

Ay stepped close to me as I removed my overcoat. “Do you know what could have happened to you?” he asked accusingly.

“I’m not scared.” I replied tartly. I brushed aside a strip of cloth from my skirt to reveal a hidden dagger. “I know how to use this, by the way.”

“One dagger does not help against many men who desire your death.”

I untied the dagger sheath from my leg. “I am sorry to have worried you, but I felt perfectly safe. These are good people here. To be honest, I’m not so sure that boy you had me execute was an Atenist. I could find nothing to suggest the religion still looms in the city.”

I was about to toss the dagger onto my bed next to my veil, but Ay snatched my hand and jerked me toward him. My eyes grew wide. I could not tell if it was fear or anger that was in possession of me just then.

“You are too naive to run this kingdom. It’s lucky that your husband will return soon.”

I wrestled my hand away from Ay’s grip and almost tripped as I staggered backward. He was returning?

“I have not heard of this before tonight. Why?” I asked angrily.

“Because I have been the one receiving his correspondence. You have been busy playing Pharaoh, and I have kept track of your husband’s safety.”

“You speak as if there was more than one letter. If so, then where are they? I demand to see the words of Pharaoh. I am the regnant!” I yelled. Fury had overtaken my heart.

Ay merely chuckled at me. “So observant of my words. There is a bit of my daughter in you after all. Perhaps you aren’t as naive as I thought.”

I raised my hand, poised to smack him across the face, but again he snatched my wrist. He pulled it down and then wrenched me forward. My face smacked against his bone-hard chest. I felt my teeth cut my bottom lip. I pushed away from him with my free hand, and he let go of my wrist and let me fall backward onto my mattress.

“See how helpful your knife would have been? An old man bested you, twice.”

“Get out of here!” I screamed.

“Tell me, is it me you are mad at or the fact that your husband is coming home? Did you enjoy doing whatever you wished? Seeing whomever you wished?”

“I will have you thrown out of this palace,” I raged. I felt the anger pouring out from me as thick as the blood I tasted on my tongue.

“No, you won’t. Otherwise, your husband will learn where you really were tonight.” Ay began to walk to the doors. “I have my spies. Masons, fishers,
priests
, they are everywhere. They actually told me a funny story about you before you arrived. It seems as if a close friend of yours, and also an Aten worshipper, escaped from Akhenaten. I certainly hope that you went to him to say goodbye. Or… my goodness… I can just see the look on your husband’s face if he finds out. The correspondence he sent, well it certainly sounds as if he misses
you
.”

Ay knocked on a door. The sentries standing outside parted the double doors for him, and he left.

My body shook with rage. I turned over and screamed into my mattress. I picked up my headrest and raised it above my head, every urge inside me wanting to throw it across the room, but I stopped.

Slowly, I brought the headrest before my eyes. The column was decorated in the image of the goddess Taweret. She was the patron of childbirth and a protector of women and children. Her face was carved upon the neckpiece. Below this, her cat-like legs sprouted outward as its support. The wood in my hands was smooth. Each night it protected me against the chaos my ka wrestled within.

I gently set down the piece. I would not succumb to my anger. He had threatened me, used me, but I would not let him control my emotions anymore.

I let myself fall back onto the mattress. The linen sheets ruffled up from my drop. Amyntas was returning to me, and Tutankhamun was coming home. I had much to figure out.

The Sweet Seems Bitter, for Taste is Lost
1322 B.C
.

Funeral Procession of Pharaoh Tutankhamun

I don’t remember how I came to be on the royal boat again, yet I found myself gliding across the smooth breadth of the Nile. Its mirrored surface, cut by the stroke of our oars, reflected my empty eyes back to me. The sun was almost hidden behind the rocky crests of the King’s Valley. Soon, we would be at the palace, a serpent’s nest of secrets and betrayals.

Mutbenret sat down beside me on the deck. She put her arm around me. I felt numb to her touch. There was nothing left inside of me that deserved such comfort.

“What did he say to you?” she asked.

I looked at her face. Her eyes were frightened.

“He said it was my fault this day has come,” I answered with a break in my voice.

“He is overcome by grief. He had always thought of Pharaoh Tutankhamun like a son. He is lashing out. That is all.”

I wanted to push her away from me, but she did not understand. I would not be so cruel. “No, he knew something that could have… He made it clear I was the one who killed him, not his body but his heart. He is right, too.”

Mutbenret stood. She strided over to her husband and spoke into his ear. His face contorted in anger then. His head sharply turned toward the figure sitting beneath the canopy. In a flash, he swept underneath the wooden ceiling, yanked Horemheb to his feet, and pulled him out to stand before him and Mutbenret. They began talking. Their voices were soft but their actions were deafening.

I stood and walked over, keeping myself behind Horemheb. I could hear his words clearly as I approached.

“He refused the harness. He refused a driver. He stormed his chariot out in front of the charge and bore his chest to the enemies. He asked for his death. The Hittites were only too glad to give it to him.”

“How dare you say such things to his wife!” Nahkt-min scolded.

“If she had not --” Horemheb protested.

Mutbenret cut him off, “This is not about you and me. This is not about your wife who resides in Aaru, either. And what you have said will cloud the queen’s heart for the rest of her days.”

“As all women in this land deserve.”

Nahkt-min looked ready to punch his elder. “Did you not see her today? She loved him.”

“As a master does its pet.”

Mutbenret’s hand, so delicate and soft, slashed across Horemheb’s cheek. The sharp slap roused me back to the present. My memories of all I had done wrong dissipated as she spoke. “May you never have to marry someone you do not love. May you never feel like a failure to your spouse. May you never feel the heartbreak of watching a child die in your arms. And if you do, I pray to every god in the heavens that you remember this day well. And may the sting of this day come upon you tenfold and strip your ka dry and raw. You have let evil blacken your heart.”

“You did not look into his eyes. His heart was ripped apart by her.” Horemheb turned to point at me, but instead he met me face to face.

“And if Pharaoh had broken my heart? If he had another woman in his life, and my heart had torn in such a way… would you still care? Would you still throw out such words at my death?” I asked softly.

“But he didn’t. He had only you. You should have known better. You were all he had. And what did he get from it? Two dead children and a wife who had sex with another man in his own palace.”

“I never gave my body to another man. May Amun strike me down right now if I did. My husband was my one and only. Of our daughters, I wish to lay down with them right now. I wanted to give him a healthy child more than anything else in my life.”

“Yet you gave the cursed one a healthy child?” Horemheb looked to Nakht-min. “I cannot believe you support this traitor! She gave her husband no heirs and yet sprouted life from the seed of a heretic!”

Nakht-min answered him calmly, “I have seen birth. It is not a woman’s fault if the baby does not survive. We are lucky they survive such a process. Their bodies are ripped apart giving us such a gift. Their life spills all over the floor. Horemheb, my friend, you know not of what you speak.”

Horemheb had no warmth in his eyes when he turned towards Nakht-min. “All those years ago, when you came to me about marrying Mutbenret, I should have said no. You knew I had feelings for her. What would you have done if I had said no?”

“I would have married her. You could not have stopped it. But we were friends. I wanted you to know. I would not deceive you.” Nakht-min replied, taking Mutbenret’s hand in his.

Horemheb looked back at me, “One day, this throne will be rid of the lot of your family.”

Mutbenret tried to keep her voice calm. “Horemheb, I am still your friend. You must push aside this foolishness. We all need each other. I was there for you when your wife died. Please, be there for others in their sorrow.”

“I would have done anything to save him.” Horemheb said, turning away from us. “Anything. I tried to stop him.”

“He had just buried a child,” Mutbenret said gently. “He was not in his right mind. He was in mourning. These things are something that one day you will understand.”

“And you will never understand how a man feels when the woman he loves turns away from him,” he said, his eyes narrowed to slits, to Mutbenret. Then he walked away back under the canopy where Ay sat watching the boat approach the quay.

I could take no more.

The world around me went black.

I fell backward, felt strong arms catch me, and knew nothing more…

Chapter Eight

The Way of Heaven Descending

1324 B.C. – Seventh year of Tutankhamun’s reign

We were completely alone.

He held me close in a presently unoccupied part of the palace. Tia was standing outside the only entrance, watching for any passersby. I owed her so much.

The night we had returned from the “Aten” gathering, Tia had gone back to warn Amyntas and Esam. They were able to evacuate their home before the soldiers came. Now they lived with their neighbors, quietly waiting for the storm to dissipate.

Ay was furious. He was in such a flurry that Horemheb had to order him bedrest for two days until his mood calmed. Amyntas stayed protected. His children dwelled safely within the palace walls. And he was able to continue his work at the palace as no one in his district would say who lived in the abandoned “Aten house.” Ay was left with nothing but a well-manicured home. Without proof, I refused to launch an inquiry into the matter. He was left without any ground to stand on. So for now, the investigations stopped, and there were no more raids for Atenists in that part of Waset. Amyntas and his father knew they could not return to their former home, so they were starting to search for other places to reside. For now, they were safe, but their meetings were forced into an abrupt standstill.

For now…

For now, we sat wrapped within each other’s arms. We talked. We laughed. We found peace in the nearness of each other. It would be the last time for a long time. I had told him that in two days, I would depart for Man-nefer to meet up with Pharaoh and the returning army. I did not know when I would return. It would be at least a season, if not years, until we would be together again.