“Would you stop doing that?!” Ankhesenpaaten stomped her foot. “If I wanted you dead, Tut, I would have killed you already. You have done nothing but tear at my heart for the last two years.”
Sennedjem stood awkwardly in the back, his eyes going back and forth between the two royals.
“But Pawah—”
“Pawah has murdered my mother!”
“Oh, yeah, and how do you know? Are you trying to lead me outside so you can strike me when no one is around?” His voice cracked as puberty encroached on his years.
Ankhesenpaaten growled and turned her hands into fists. “Tut! He ambushed us—we made it through an escape tunnel but I heard Pawah through the door. He cut her off from us.”
“Who is ‘us’?” Tut raised his cane as if to stop her and demand an answer.
“General Paaten and Nefe and—”
“Where are they? Why don’t they come and tell me the same thing?” Tut crossed his arms.
“They left. General Paaten made a promise that he would take us out of Egypt so we could live peacefully, but only Nefe and Aitye went with him. I stayed behind so I could warn you because—because I love you . . . you are my husband and my friend, and I—I was afraid Pawah would come after you as well.”
“Hmm . . .” Tut hobbled around Ankhesenpaaten, sizing her up. “It is an elaborate story, chief royal wife.” He stopped and looked to his tutor. “Sennedjem, what are your thoughts?”
Sennedjem bowed. “Coregent, I have no thoughts. Chief royal wife Ankhesenpaaten always speaks truth to me. I give no direction.”
“Your reputation might save you,” Tut said as he rubbed his chin and eyed her.
Ankhesenpaaten let out a sigh. She wanted to scream. “Don’t believe me and let him kill you too, then,” she said, and walked away. She got to the entrance of the royal harem and debated leaving the city of Aketaten to try to catch General Paaten. But as soon as she took a step east, her mother’s words came back to her.
Pharaoh’s place is defender of Egypt.
“If Pawah kills Tut, there will be no one left to defend Egypt,” she whispered to herself. The desert wind whipped through her wig, westward, as if the gods were asking her to stay.
Her body wanted to fall against the wind, but her mother’s scream through the stone planted her feet to the ground. Finally, the wind settled as she became resolved to stay.
“Goodbye Nefe,” she whispered to the east. “I love you.”
Then she went to find her grandfather, not noticing that Tut had left the royal harem in search of Pawah only moments after her.
Moments later, Ankhesenpaaten found herself surrounded by the royal guards, being escorted through the hallways toward the council room. She almost ran away knowing Pawah lay in wait for her there—she also knew she couldn’t trust the royal guards around her—but then she saw Mut emerge from the room with bleary eyes and a hardened brow.
“Mut!” she called. The guards pointed their spears at her when she walked toward Ankhesenpaaten. “Oh, stop it! Put those down!” She pushed her way through their barricade and Mut rushed into her arms.
“Mut, Mut, is it my mother?”
“She’s gone,” Mut cried. “Father and Horemheb want to—” She stopped short.
“They want to what?” Ankhesenpaaten asked as she pulled her back to look at her.
“You will have to go ask them,” Mut said as she straightened up and wiped her tears away. “You have something on your face,” she mumbled as she pushed her away and continued down the hallway.
Ankhesenpaaten watched her leave and then wiped her face, remembering the warm blood of Jabari. A cold chill crawled up her spine, and she drew in a deep breath. Turning her attention to the council room, she braced herself to see her mother’s dead body. No telling what that horrid Pawah did to her mother.
Her feet took her to the door and she went in. Holding her breath, she walked around to the other side of the table, unnoticed by Horemheb and Ay, who both knelt beside Nefertiti.
Her eyes grew wide and a whimper escaped her lips. The two men turned to look.
“Ankhesenpaaten!” Ay said, and Horemheb stood.
“Let me see her,” she said with a calm tone.
“My queen, why is there blood on your face?” Horemheb asked her.
Ankhesenpaaten took a step forward and looked at her mother’s body. Her jaw clenched. Her eyes set on the chest wound; the blood dribble from the corner of her mouth.
Horemheb repeated his question, drawing her from her focus.
“It is Jabari’s blood,” she said, and motioned to his body. “I was here. I heard Pawah kill her through the wall.” She pointed in the direction of the secret tunnel.
“Where?” Ay asked, looking to the stone.
Ankhesenpaaten proceeded to recount the entire horrible story of what happened, down to the last few moments. At the end of it, both men stood with chin in hand, lips pursed, eyes closed.
“I’m sorry you had to hear him do such unspeakable harm to your mother,” Horemheb said at last.
She nodded. “What are we to do now?”
“Pawah cannot be charged with murder. It would show the position of Pharaoh as weak in the people’s eyes,” Ay said, hoping the older Ankhesenpaaten would understand more than Mut.
Ankhesenpaaten nodded solemnly.
“Coregent Tutankhaten will be sole Regent—Pharaoh—and he will not believe Pawah killed his step-mother. But he is young, and he can be convinced in time,” Horemheb said, crossing his arms.
“What makes you so sure?” Ankhesenpaaten asked.
“The older a man gets, the wider their eyes become,” Horemheb answered.
She nodded again. “Pawah remains his vizier—the only vizier. How will he ever open his eyes, especially when Pawah undoubtedly wants to kill Tut too?”
“We all need to persuade our new regent that he needs two viziers and offer Ay up for appointment,” Horemheb suggested.
“I agree,” Ay said. “Now that General Paaten has left us, it would fall to me, but I think my position would better be served as vizier, and yours would be better served as General.”
“And what do we tell Egypt about her Pharaoh?” Ankhesenpaaten looked to her mother and took in another breath.
“She died peacefully in her sleep.” Horemheb spoke through thin lips.
“No. The people wanted her to abdicate the throne. Tell them she gave up the crown and died of a broken heart because her people abandoned her,” Ankhesenpaaten said. “This was the people’s doing. They should feel some remorse.”
“You are the chief royal wife,” Ay said. “We follow your order.” But she saw in his eyes that he agreed—the people of Egypt should be made to pay.
“No,” Horemheb said taking a longing look at Nefertiti. “Pharaoh does not refuse Amun’s appointment. Pharaoh is Pharaoh until death. Anything short of that is weakness.”
Ay let a tear fall. “Commander Horemheb is right, Ankhesenpaaten. It was why she did not abdicate in the first place. If we tell the people she did, she would have died in vain.”
“She could have been happy,” Horemheb whispered, thinking of the life he had envisioned with her.
“Yes.” Ay paused before turning to Ankhesenpaaten. “Come, granddaughter. You are much too young to be in a room filled with so much death.”
He guided her out, she trying to wipe the rest of Jabari’s blood from her face and he trying to wipe his tear-stained kohl from his cheeks so the guards outside would not see.
Horemheb, left alone in the council room, stood looking down at Nefertiti’s body. He knelt once more and lifted her head to his.
“In the next life . . .”
He paused and kissed her forehead. He could not finish his thought. He wrapped his arms around her and held onto her for one last moment, remembering her sweet laugh, and its memory rang in his ears. For one last time, her body pressed against his.
“I was too late,” he finally murmured. �
�I should have been here. I should have protected you.” His voice cracked as his agony finally burst forth. “I was supposed to save you . . . but instead you, in your last breaths, saved me from Pawah’s cowardice in attack.” He buried his head in her neck as hot tears burned his cheeks, wrapping her up into his body as if trying to cover her death from those who might have passed by. “How could I let this happen?” he moaned. “I was supposed to save you.” He nuzzled her face with his. “I’m so sorry. I will never forgive myself. I will . . .” His breath hitched as he whispered in her ear: “I will never forgive myself.”
He softly lay her down to the ground as the men outside began to whisper. Part of him did not care anymore, but another part knew that to retain the respect he needed in order to kill Pawah, he couldn’t let the whispers continue.
He studied her face: her cheeks still rose as high as the mountains and her lips were still as full as the blossom, but the pale mark of death had already begun to accompany her face. He sat back on his heel and held her hand. Closing his eyes, her laugh still rang in ears, but his countenance remained blank.
“I will always love you, my Nefertiti,” he whispered.
The thickness in his throat made swallowing difficult. Holding in the night’s dinner, he stood, never taking his eyes off of her.
The whispers in the hallway halted his grief as he resolved that he would not rest until Pawah was dead. He wiped his face with his arm, and with a sunken stare he walked out to face his men. He grabbed his dagger from the doorframe. Yanking it from the wall, he noticed a small trail of blood down his arm where Pawah had nicked him. In his rage and his despair, he had missed his chance to kill the man and instead let him leave a scar upon his life, and now also upon his arm. The lasting scar would always remind him in an ironic twist of fate that the woman he planned to save had instead saved him after he was too late—an eternal reminder of his failure.
He turned to Paramesse, his comrade, and studied his contorted face and knew then: Paramesse could guess the reason for his heartache. But at least Horemheb knew his secret would be safe with Paramesse, his lifelong brother-in-arms. Horemheb then turned to the others.
“Pharaoh was murdered, but you are to say she died in her sleep. The position of Pharaoh depends on it. If you do not, Pharaoh Neferneferuaten will have died in vain, and we will have been to blame, each of us, for a broken oath, and we will be subject to execution. Is that what you wish for Amun’s appointed and for yourselves?”
The men one by one shook their heads, not wanting to die an embarrassing death, not wanting their Pharaoh to endure any more pain.
“Then we are agreed.” Horemheb swallowed his heart into his stomach, but stood as the Commander should. “Guard Pharaoh’s body until the priests come to take her for burial preparation.” He nodded to Hori and Ineni.
“Yes, Commander.” Hori nodded, and he and Ineni took a post next to the council room.
Horemheb looked to Paramesse and the remainder of the men. “Crown Prince and Coregent Tutankhaten will be Pharaoh. We serve him now.”
Chapter 27
The Time of the Boy King
“She was with child,” Beset, the priest who oversaw burial preparations, whispered to Ay.
Horemheb overhead and snapped his head toward him. A fine sweat took shape on his brow as he dug his nails into his curled fists. “She was with—?”
Beset pulled Ay closer, attempting to cut Horemheb off from overhearing any more of the conversation. “A male child,” Beset said to Ay as he pressed his lips together, peered over at Horemheb, and shook his head. “You are her father, and she had no husband. I did not know who else to ask this, but what shall we do with her son?”
Ay bit his lip as he looked over to Horemheb’s contorted face, then looked to the floor before he responded: “Prepare him alongside his mother.”
Beset nodded and turned to leave.
Ay continued, “And Beset . . . tell no one.”
Beset bowed to Ay and left to tend to the rest of Nefertiti’s preparation for the afterlife.
Ay shook his head, remembering back to his last moments with Nefertiti—what was it she’d said? She had “fell in lo—” He closed his eyes; now he knew the rest of what she was going to say. Perhaps she had fallen, yes . . . but at least she had fallen in love.
“My poor lotus blossom. Denied love and a child . . . forced to marry another,” Ay muttered under his breath. His gaze fell upon Horemheb and he clamped his teeth. “She was in love with you, wasn’t she? Her child was yours.” Ay let out a breath of peace. At least he knew Horemheb was a good man and had treated her with love in the last times of her life.
Ay’s words fell on deaf ears. Horemheb’s heart raced through his chest and his breath couldn’t decide to stay in or come out. His brow beat out sweat of anger and of vengeance against Pawah. He took not only Nefertiti, but their child as well! His firstborn. His love’s only son. A child he could never have. He took his dagger from his chest belt and let out a warrior yell and turned to the door.
Ay grabbed his arm, and when he found his eyes, he said, “Commander, I loved her too, and I wished nothing more for her to bear a son. But we cannot act now.”
“Pawah! He took everything,” Horemheb said through his teeth, and lunged toward the door; but Ay, in his elder years, still held him back.
“Yes, he did, Pawah did this, and one day we will make sure he pays for his transgressions. But for now we must stay silent.” Ay’s heart broke at the words he said—he wished he could let Horemheb go kill the monster, wished he could allow himself to join in avenging his daughter’s death. But Egypt did not need a civil war right now. If the people see and respect Tut as Amun’s divinely appointed and Pawah kills him, then would be the time to strike to minimize bloodshed. All would see Pawah for what he was—a murderer, a liar, a schemer.
“He took . . . he took . . .” Horemheb’s spine slumped, and his eyes vacated as he thought:
The gods punish me for my infidelity and my part in removing Akhenaten. O my Nefertiti, and my son! His cheeks burned as his heart filled with the grief of a thousand men. What would you have done? he called out to the gods. What would you have done? Now you take my son from me as well as the only woman I have ever truly loved?
“Yes, Pawah took everything.” Ay found his eyes and put a hand over the handle of his dagger. Pushing it down, he said, “Revenge will come soon enough, Commander. Revenge will come.”
Tut wanted to hastily bury Nefertiti, mad at her for sending Aitye to kill him and not caring about Ankhesenpaaten’s feelings in the matter; but of all people, Pawah convinced him not to. He was no fool and knew if Tut had not named him as Hereditary Prince before he passed, Ay or Horemheb could easily steal the throne from him, and so he needed Tut on his side and he needed the people to honor Tut so as to honor his named successor. He would just make sure Tut never had children who lived.
“The people believe they caused her passing,” Pawah told Tut as he stood in front of Tut’s throne. “They mourn her death. They didn’t want her as Pharaoh, but they didn’t want her to die either.”
Ankhesenpaaten sat behind Tut as Pawah spoke to him.
“My son, bury her as a Pharaoh, give her the honor the people want for her,” Pawah said. “I know she conspired against you”—Tut cut a stare to his wife as Pawah continued—“but you must give her a proper send-off to the afterlife or risk the people demand you abdicate the throne as well, and who would be left to rule? You have no children.”
“Fine,” Tut said, and crossed his arms petulantly.
“No one conspired against you, Tut,” Ankhesenpaaten said, but Pawah cut her out of his view.
“Don’t listen to her,” Pawah said. “She is only trying to save her own skin. But in due time the liar that she is will reap her reward.”
The whisper only partially made its way back to Ankhesenpaaten, but Tut nodded in full agreement. “I’m married to a liar,” Tut whispered. “First she told me s
he loves me, and then she tells me you killed her mother.” He shook his head. “Liar.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” Pawah said with a sneer.
“Yeah.” Tut hugged his arms tighter across his chest. His eleven-year-old body had grown stronger as his lessons with Sennedjem progressed over the years, but he still needed a cane to walk.
Pawah smiled. “That’s my good son.” He stood up straight, turned to Ankhesenpaaten, and then back to Tut. “My work here is done. I shall make preparations for Pharaoh Neferneferuaten’s burial. I shall be back, Pharaoh,” he said, and bowed to the young King, then left.
Ankhesenpaaten got up from her throne and marched out after him. She caught him in the hallway. “Pawah, you snake!”
Pawah bowed his head as she approached him. “My Queen, what have I done to deserve your wrath?”
“You know what you did.” Ankhesenpaaten threw her hands on her hips. “You turned Tut against me. But I plan to protect him and Egypt from the likes of you!”
Pawah burst out in a laugh. “You?” He shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t even get your own husband to believe you! You know, he told me what you said in the Kap training yard. Clearly the rants of a deluded woman.” His eyes lingered in victory.
“You murdered my mother and you seek his throne,” Ankhesenpaaten said to his face. “I heard you through the wall.”
“Perhaps I should have done away with all of you,” Pawah said as he rubbed his chin. “Fewer loose ends to tie up.”
“You are despicable.” Ankhesenpaaten spat at the floor between his feet.
Pawah rolled his eyes, remembering Nefertiti’s similar action. “The ambitious always are.” He sidestepped her insult and walked around her. “You see, my precious Queen, your husband, young and stupid, trusts me with his life, and he will always choose me over you.”
Pawah’s sneer almost caused her to lose her dinner. “Would you bet your life on it?” Ankhesenpaaten snapped back, crossing her arms.
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