Nefertiti stopped, seeing the fondness in Ankhesenpaaten’s eyes at the mention of Kiya.
“Yes, Kiya . . . she was more of a mother to you than I ever was, and I’m sorry for that, Ankhesenpaaten. I left a foreign queen to care for my own children. I could not teach you about the true ways, and she could not either.” Nefertiti laughed as tears welled in her eyes. “It took her a long time to learn how to pronounce ‘Amun.’ ”
Ankhesenpaaten smiled and placed her hand on her mother’s knee. “I still love you, Mother.”
Nefertiti wrapped her arms around her daughter and kissed her forehead. “I love you.”
“What happened after?”
“Kiya comforted me. She loved you children so much. She was my friend, even though I treated her with contempt at times. If you strive to be like anyone, be like Kiya.” Nefertiti released her daughter and slid her hands down her arms. Before Ankhesenpaaten could soothe her, she spoke again, not wanting to be placated by her daughter. “Soon after, I ordered our armies home from the Mitanni and the Hittite lands, as disease was spreading. They brought back to Egypt the plague.” Nefertiti shook her head. “You were only seven. The plague took three of your sisters, your grandmother . . . and Kiya. I felt so numb after that. I had been the cause of my daughters’ deaths. I hadn’t thought it through. And then your father, lost in his own mind, only descended deeper into his madness, marrying you at seven, neglecting Egypt every day. The movement ran deep, and General Paaten, at my command, tortured men to find the leaders and discover what they were planning, until eventually the People’s Restoration of Egypt came to Horemheb, my father, and myself. Then I knew Pawah and Beketaten led the movement. They threatened rebellion that night if I did not bring poisoned wine to your father—”
Nefertiti heard Ankhesenpaaten’s gasp before she saw her eyes dim.
“So I did . . . to save our lives and to save the position of Pharaoh. I couldn’t quite bring myself, though, to make sure he drank, and during that time between leaving him the wine and him finally drinking, he announced Smenkare as his successor. It was my fault.” She let out a breath and then shook her head with an ironic, sad grin. “And Smenkare was worse than he was. Ordering the slaughter of Egyptians for their beliefs?” Nefertiti shook her head again. “Of course, Pawah and Beketaten came to me again. I told them I could not. I was not close enough to either Smenkare or Meritaten, and Meritaten believed as Smenkare did. Pawah poisoned Smenkare, but Sitamun, in her haste, and unknowing of Pawah’s doings, went to kill Smenkare herself. She killed Meritaten.”
Nefertiti swallowed her guilt. “I should have protected her.” Her mind raced back to the pain of losing Meritaten, again at her own negligence.
“And now, even though I have lifted the ban of worship, seized control of the priesthood, given power back to Pharaoh—somewhat . . .” She closed her eyes. “The people still hold influence. I am not Amun’s divinely appointed in their eyes because I was your father’s wife. They want Tut, the young child who can be molded. But Tut is the embodiment of my failure as a wife and a mother. His father failed him, as I have failed all of you.” She opened her eyes and wiped her tears. “In my grief, I asked for a Hittite prince to marry. A mistake. A mistake that will cost much. Pawah knows no bounds. He wants the crown, Ankhesenpaaten, and he will do anything to get it.”
Her hand went to her belly. She’d left out her affair and love for the Commander.
Some things are better left unsaid.
After Nefertiti spoke, Ankhesenpaaten was at first silent, taking in everything that had happened. She opened her mouth to speak but said nothing. Tears welled in her eyes and then she threw her arms around her mother’s neck and kissed her cheek.
“I will not doubt you again,” she whispered in her ear. “I love you, Mother.”
Nefertiti wrapped her arms around her daughter and pressed her body into her own. “I love you too, my daughter.”
They released.
Ankhesenpaaten wiped the tears from her eyes and looked to the window, which now poured out the full sun’s rays upon the floor. “A new day means new beginnings.”
“That’s right,” Nefertiti said as she took her hand to help them both stand. “Remember, Ankhesenpaaten, all you can do is love Tut, live truthfully, and pray he one day opens his eyes.”
Ankhesenpaaten nodded. As she turned to leave, she noticed the letter to the Commander on Nefertiti’s bedside table. “I can take this to the Commander, Mother.”
Nefertiti thought it might be safer with her than with a messenger she may or may not be able to trust, but then her father opened the door to check on them.
“That’s all right, Ankhesenpaaten,” Nefertiti said. “I’ll ask my father to give it to him.”
I’ll ask him to give it to Horemheb when I announce my marriage, but I will wait on the announcement. I need more time. No, I want more time.
Ankhesenpaaten smiled and nodded. “All right, Mother. I shall go get ready for the day.”
Nefertiti kissed her daughter’s forehead.
“A new day,” she whispered.
“A new day,” Ankhesenpaaten whispered back, her eyes gleaming in the morning sun.
Chapter 24
The Time of Desperation
“A rumor is growing.” Pawah pranced down the hall alongside Nefertiti and Horemheb. “A nasty little rumor it is, too. Is Pharaoh giving Egypt into the hands of the Hittites? A prince is at Egypt’s borders coming to the throne in all haste. He will be here in a few decans’ time.”
Nefertiti stopped in her gait and turned to Pawah. “Your lies cannot faze me.”
“Well, Your Majesty,” he said with a faux-bow as Horemheb stepped between them. “The people still demand Tut, and I have Tut believing you and your entire family want him dead. He will remove you all if you don’t abdicate. I will make sure of it.” He talked over Horemheb’s shoulder.
“You are showing your hand, Pawah,” Nefertiti said as she lifted her chin. “One day the people will see you for what you really are.”
“Leave,” Horemheb said through his teeth, and pulled his dagger from his chest belt. It would be so easy to kill him here, he thought. His knuckles went white around the dagger’s handle. The past two seasons had been nothing but heartache for him, one attempt to kill this man after another failing. He wished he could just stab him like he did Khabek, but he knew there were supporters in the palace who would tell the people the truth, which would result with a mass riot on their hands.
“Ah, the ever-loyal Commander protects his Pharaoh,” Pawah teased, and put his finger on the dagger’s flat edge, guiding it away from his face.
Horemheb pulled it back up to Pawah’s neck. “I will kill you. When you fall down, knowing you are going to die, I want you to think of me.”
“Oh, Commander. Your threats mean nothing to me. How many of your little ‘attempts’ have failed now? I know of at least thirteen.” He chuckled. “Go ahead. Spill my blood right here, right now. See what happens to your beloved Pharaoh. My loyal supporters are everywhere. You can’t be awake all the time, can you now, Commander?”
Horemheb leaned forward and pressed the blade into Pawah’s neck as his nostrils flared and his grip tightened on the blade’s handle. He gripped Pawah’s collar with his other hand, which shook as his muscles tightened, restraining himself from pushing any more. Blood began to seep onto the blade. He clenched his jaw and finally pushed Pawah away from him.
“Not today, Pawah, but I will end you.”
Pawah chuckled. “Yes, Commander. I’m sure.” Then he peered over at Nefertiti as he wiped the blood from his neck. “One last chance to quell the people’s thirst—marry me, Nefertiti.” He threw his arms wide, but Horemheb stepped toward him.
Nefertiti’s eyes narrowed at him. “I would rather die.”
“Careful with the words you choose,” Pawah muttered under his breath. His eyes darted between her and Horemheb, then he slunk back into the shadows from whence he came
.
“There are more riots in the streets of Waset and Men-nefer every day as the Hittite gets closer to Aketaten,” Ay told Nefertiti. “Pawah feeds the people’s rage with your planned marriage to Prince Zannanza.”
“So I have heard,” Nefertiti said indifferently, then turned to the General. “Is Pawah any closer to death?”
He grimaced. “Commander Horemheb is attempting this as we speak. He will be absent tonight, along with Ineni. I will stand at your door, and chief royal guard Jabari and Hori will stand guard for your daughters, until they are able to resume. It is your father’s night to sleep.”
She bit her lip and let out a breath. Every time Horemheb led an attempt, she wished safety on him and hoped they would have at least one more time together. The Hittite prince was due any day now. “General, I want you to stand at my daughter’s door. Should the people attack, you need a way to keep your promise to me.”
“I insist, Pharaoh. Let me stand at your door,” General Paaten pressed.
“No. Protect my daughters, General.” Nefertiti’s stare signaled that the topic was not up for debate.
General Paaten nodded in agreement.
“Very well,” Nefertiti said, moving on. “What else should I know?”
“There are reports of people who pray to Amun to reject your divine appointment,” General Paaten said. “They want Coregent to be the sole regent.”
“Daughter, please, give up the crown. I cannot save you if you do not,” Ay said.
“You cannot or will not, Father?” Nefertiti’s eyes met his. “Do you care nothing for the position of Pharaoh?”
“I would give my life to save yours,” Ay said as he placed a hand over hers. “But I am but one man. The people are many, and they follow the word of Pawah. I do care about the position of Pharaoh, but I care for you more.”
Nefertiti’s heart smiled at her father’s words, but her face fell. “Then it would seem, after all this time, everything we have done is in vain. The people do not fear Pharaoh. Pharaoh has not regained power at all.” Nefertiti’s disgust sank into the stone walls of the council room. “The stench from our failure burns my soul.”
“It was not all in vain,” General Paaten said after a moment. “Pharaoh now has more power than the Amun priesthood.”
“I do not think so,” Nefertiti said.
“It is true. Pharaoh restored the priesthood as the divine ruler. Therefore, Pharaoh reigns over them. You appointed the first prophet, as it is supposed to be. Pharaoh Amenhotep III could not even do that. It was not all in vain, my Pharaoh.” General Paaten smiled at her, but it felt forced, and they all knew it.
“But they still demand from Pharaoh a boy, Tut, the crippled child, to be their King. The son of the man they hated,” Nefertiti muttered. “They don’t care he is Coregent.”
General Paaten nodded.
Nefertiti took in a hot breath through her nose as she rolled her anger in her mouth like a fireball. Then she released it, standing, her cheeks red. “Why? What have I done that makes the people dislike me so? I have done nothing to them. I have given them everything! Their bellies are full, their hands are working, their heads are praying . . . I have done nothing to harm them!”
“They want the boy even more so than Pawah. He is young and can be molded. He is not jaded like you.”
“I am not jaded.”
“The people think that you are. You were married to Pharaoh Akhenaten, and there are plenty of reliefs that show you with him worshipping the Aten with your children. Tut is not in those reliefs because you are not his mother and he was crippled. As vain as Akhenaten was, he ended up being like his father, shunning the less-than-perfect son,” General Paaten said with a smirk of pity for the dead.
Nefertiti gritted her teeth. “I haven’t done anything. In fact, I was the one who rid them of him, and they cast me out. Me! This is how they show me gratitude?”
“My lotus blossom, please, let it go, get past this,” Ay begged. “Pawah will kill you, just like he did with Smenkare, or he will find someone who can get close to you and kill you like he did with yourself and Akhenaten.”
“No.” Nefertiti’s voice fell low. “I will show them.”
“How?” General Paaten asked. “What will you do?”
Nefertiti looked off to the wall. “You are certain your strike will result in Pawah’s death?”
General Paaten nodded.
“And after Pawah’s death, I will still be forced to marry Tut?”
General Paaten nodded again. “Or enrage the people and marry the Hittite. Or don’t marry either, and then for sure, with or without Pawah, you will have a rising on your hands, both domestic and foreign.”
“I will not marry either. I will not be forced. I will not have war. I will not have an uprising.”
Nefertiti lifted her chin, resolved in her path forward. She would marry Horemheb, bear his child, and that child would be the next heir; but that meant removing Tut in the equation as General Paaten worked to remove Pawah.
“I will show them they cannot simply make me disappear . . . one way or another.”
Nefertiti threw open the doors of her bedchambers, strolling inside. “Aitye!”
Her servant rushed to her as the doors closed and bowed. “Yes, my Pharaoh.”
She kept her voice low so Jabari, who stood just outside, would not hear. “I want you to do whatever it takes to get rid of Coregent Tutankhaten.”
Aitye swallowed a large ball of fear. “Get—get rid of . . . ?”
“Yes. I want him gone,” Nefertiti whispered as she began to walk past her.
“Has he done something against you?” At Nefertiti’s silence, she asked, “Why?”
Nefertiti turned and smacked her across the cheek. “I am your Pharaoh. Do as you are told.” Her ring caused her cheek to bleed.
“My Pharaoh, please, may I speak freely, as I once was given that privilege?” Aitye’s words came on shallow breaths as she fell on her knees, silently begging Amun to not let this demand fall into her hands.
“No.” Nefertiti’s coarse voice evidenced her throat closing up on itself. “I don’t want to change my mind. With him and Pawah gone, the people will have no recourse. They will quit their complaining, and I will no longer have to marry either one!” Nefertiti knocked a candle from the table. “Get rid of Tutankhaten tonight. Make it so, Aitye.”
“My Pharaoh, he is only a boy,” Aitye whispered, but Nefertiti stormed off to take her bath. “Why have you fallen from your grace, our lady of the two lands?” Aitye asked under her breath. “I warned you. I warned you so.”
Aitye watched the lesser servants tend to her and felt the breeze from the window, which cooled the tears in her eyes. Her gaze fell to the neatly folded thick wool blanket she had placed at the foot of Pharaoh’s bed. She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to imagine having to push it over the Crown Prince’s head, but her feet took her near to it and her arm obediently reached for it.
Pharaoh wanted it done tonight. There is no time to have someone else do it; it must be me, she thought, and pushed the blanket up to her own face, trying to inhale, but found it difficult.
Lowering it to her chest, she whispered, “You are Pharaoh.” Bowing her head, her tears wet the blanket. “I will do as you command me to, and I pray that at the end of my life my heart hangs well on the scales of Ma’at, for this deed I pray be on you, Pharaoh.”
With the blanket still held fast to her chest, she turned and went to the royal harem, asking Tut’s guard to let her into the room on account of Pharaoh. He eyed her but followed Pharaoh’s secondhand command and let her in, closing the door behind her.
She clutched her heart as she watched Tut sleep, the blanket she held smashed between her arms and her body. She feared her shallow breaths would surely wake the sleeping child. She held the folded blanket over his head for an interminable moment, not touching his face. Licking her lips, she told herself that it would be so easy to just hold it over him unt
il he quit moving. He would be helpless without his cane, delirious from his sleep, maybe think it was a bad dream.
Murderer, the breeze whispered to her as she held her chosen weapon suspended above Tut’s head.
He let out a soft snore, and she brought it back into her arms. Shaking her head and dropping the blanket, she backed up until she found the door and walked out.
“No, no, no, no,” she said over and over again until she reached Nefertiti’s chambers. She entered and saw all the other servants attending to Nefertiti as she lay in bed, humming a deep and enchanting melody that Tey used to hum to her.
Aitye approached her and bowed. “May I be so bold as to request a private audience with Pharaoh Neferneferuaten?”
“Yes, Aitye,” she answered. “Leave us,” she told the others. When she heard the doors closed, she ordered Aitye to speak. “Give me the news I need to hear.”
“My Pharaoh,” she began. “I have served you every day you have been my master to the very best of my abilities—”
“Is it done?” Nefertiti asked impatiently.
Aitye formed words, but no sound came out. She finally uttered, “I could not.”
Nefertiti rubbed her temples.
“I stood there, but I—”
Nefertiti held up her hand to silence her. “You fail me.”
“I have never taken a life,” Aitye said as tears streamed down her face. “Even at the order of my Pharaoh, whom I love, I could not do it.”
Secrets in the Sand Page 27
