“Who is the child’s father?”
“General Horemheb.”
Nefertiti dropped the sack she was carrying. Her reaction made Mundi nervous.
“Please, you mustn’t tell Aunt Ty,” Mundi begged.
“So Horemheb is the lover from the secret?” Nefertiti asked.
Mundi nodded. “We’re in love. I can’t leave him, sister. It would be a sin against my heart.”
Nefertiti cherished the all-encompassing emotion of love, and though her feelings were hurt, she understood Mundi’s unwillingness to leave behind the father of her unborn child.
“I won’t speak a word to Aunt Ty. You will when you’re ready. But tell me, Mundi, how do you know for sure whether Horemheb truly loves you or is just using you to gain a position of royalty? He’s most certainly an ambitious man.”
Mundi looked astonished by her sister’s remark. “I may not be as beautiful as you, but I am worthy of love, Nefertiti.”
“You are, Mundi. That’s not what I—” She broke off and reconsidered her tactics. “I don’t want your heart to be misled by anyone, that’s all.”
“He loves me,” said Mundi, stoic and firm. Her defensiveness caused Nefertiti to refrain from speaking another word about Horemheb. Instead, she masked her true feelings about him with words and expressions of joy that would comfort Mundi.
“Let the sweetness of love embrace you both,” said Nefertiti, “as it has embraced me and Teppy.”
Nefertiti hugged Mundi, and they kissed each other on the cheek. “Go now,” said Nefertiti, wiping her sister’s tears away.
Mundi turned for one last look at Nefertiti before walking off the barge. Nefertiti waved good-bye, distressed that she might never see her sister again.
NEPER WAS MISSING. The former Amun priest had failed to come to the pharaoh’s royal barge at the designated time of departure. Concerned, Meri-Ra boarded a chariot and made his way to Neper’s home in the healing temple of Amun. When he arrived at the temple’s courtyard, he was confronted by three Amun priests, curious to why a priest of the Aten had come to their home. Instead, they directed him to the Amun temple, an hour chariot ride away, where they had seen Neper and Sia together.
THE AX SWING INTENDED for the Amun statue had sliced into the flesh of Neper’s leg. The priest had collapsed, falling backward onto the ground as Teppy’s guards continued striking their axes against the statue’s base until the colossus monument had finally toppled. Neper had cried out as an elbow of the massive golden structure broke off and landed across his chest, pinning him down, just before the entire Amun statue had fallen on the limestone floor in a thunderous crash.
As quickly as the guards had arrived and desecrated the temple, they fled into the night. Neper was left inside, alone and trapped. He glanced down at his leg, the blood was pulsating out of his body with every breath he took. He tried to push the fractured piece of statue off his chest with his arm, but it was much too heavy and the loss of blood was continuing to weaken him. He thought that if no one came for him soon, his body would be completely drained of it.
In the distance. Footsteps.
“Help me!” shouted Neper.
The sound of footsteps grew louder. Soon, Neper was relieved to see his twin Sia standing over him.
“My brother, help me; the pain’s unbearable,” said Neper.
Sia attempted to lift the statue off his brother’s chest.
“No, it’s much too heavy,” said Neper. “You have to find someone to help you lift it or I’ll die here.”
Neper cringed at the sight of the blood pooling around his leg wound. It intensified his labored breathing.
“Stay calm, I’ll return,” replied Sia, before rushing away and out the temple doors.
Within minutes, Sia returned. Neper was wary to see that his twin was alone.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
“Have patience,” replied Sia, “Help’s coming.”
There was something tainted about Sia’s voice—a tone of deception that only an identical twin united in blood could detect.
“No one is coming, are they?” asked Neper.
Without uttering a word, Sia shook his head. The whites of his eyes turned bloodshot and suddenly his skin perspired. He removed the rope that held his robe around his waist and knelt down beside Neper, staring at him through dilated black pupils.
“For your betrayal of Amun—” said Sia. Neper finished his thought. “He has struck you down and judged you for death.”
Sia smiled, amused that even in his brother’s last moment of life, he was still capable of finishing his thoughts.
Sia wrapped the rope around Neper’s neck and pulled both ends. Neper’s eyes widened in horror.
“Can the Aten save you now, my brother?” asked Sia as he pulled the rope tighter, causing it to constrict deeper into his brother’s throat.
Neper tried to speak, but there were only gasps as he struggled at first, grinding his teeth and trying to squeeze his fingers between the rope and his neck to stop the excruciating pain. He kept squinting at Sia as if begging him to stop but to no avail. The rope tightened around his neck so hard that it disappeared into his skin. Neper had always believed that he and his brother were physically the same. That day he discovered how wrong he had been. Sia’s inhuman strength was grotesque and unrelenting, and finally Neper gave in to the inevitability of death.
Sia witnessed Neper go limp. His life-spirit left his body and Sia kissed his brother’s lips, taking into his mouth, Neper’s last breath.
“You and I are as one now,” said Sia. “The way it was meant to be from the beginning.”
The sound of footsteps trampling over debris quieted Sia, and he hastily removed the rope from Neper’s neck, tied it back around his waist and rushed toward the entrance of the temple. Sia stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of Meri-Ra plucking Neper’s priest wand from the debris. He had entered the Amun temple alarmed to see it had already been ransacked. Ay’s promise to persuade the pharaoh in postponing the temple’s desecration was worthless.
“That belongs to my brother,” said Sia, pointing to the priest wand in Meri-Ra’s hand.
“Where is Neper?”
“Neper is dead, said Sia without a hint of emotion”
Meri-Ra froze in shock. “How?”
“The pharaoh’s guards murdered him.”
“The pharaoh’s guards were ordered only to destroy statues.”
“So you knew of the pharaoh’s planned atrocity?”
“If a priest was killed it was because they were protecting an Amun statue,” said Meri-Ra; his way of justifying Teppy’s orders to slay Amun priests—a course of action he would never condone.
“It was as you say,” Sia replied.
“Neper wouldn’t give his life to protect a statue of Amun when he had made the decision to convert to the Aten priesthood.”
Sia sneered. “You think you know my twin better than I do, priest of the Aten?”
“I want to see his body,” Meri-Ra demanded.
He walked over more debris and headed toward the direction of the toppled Amun statue.
Sia stepped in front of him, blocking his way and his view of Neper’s corpse. “He’s being prepared for mummification,” Sia replied.
Meri-Ra thought to challenge him but assumed it would be useless, so he turned to leave.
“You are aware that the Apis bull refused to eat from Pharaoh Teppy’s hand during the Sed-Festival. It is written if the bull refuses the food offering, one is not fit to be pharaoh,” said Sia.
Meri-Ra faced him. “That is the law of Amun, not the law of the Aten.”
“And Amun will have his vengeance against the pharaoh and all who follow him out of Thebes.”
Meri-Ra ignored Sia’s warning. The Amun priest had threatened him many times before, even when he had been an adolescent priest of the Aten. It was the habit of the Amun priests to intimidate anyone who didn’t follow their explicit inst
ructions with a curse from the Amun god.
“Pharaoh Teppy has ordained me as the Aten’s lector priest, and I have no fear of Amun,” said Meri-Ra, as he walked away.
“I don’t believe you,” replied Sia “You should put down Neper’s priest wand. It’s scorching hot.”
In an instant, he heard a sizzling sound, then a tingle sensation in his fingers morphed into intense heat. The smell of burning flesh caused Meri-Ra to drop Neper’s wand. He gasped at the sight of blackened skin across his fingers as if they were burned by fire. This was indeed the ancient magic Meri-Ra had assured Ay that Sia could not possess; the same form of magic that has frightened the Egyptian people for hundreds of years. Meri-Ra was wrong. Sia was indeed one of the elite conjurors from the long lost cult of the Heka, endowed with power stronger than illusions. Meri-Ra ignored what looked like pus-filled blisters forming in the palm of his hand, and faced Sia head on.
“You cannot stand against the Aten. You cannot stand against the Aten,” repeated Meri-Ra. “To me belonged the universe before your god had come into being. You have come afterward because I am Heka, and you cannot stand against the Aten.”
Sia’s smirk melted when his legs suddenly buckled beneath him, and he collapsed to the floor.
Sia discovered he was not the only priest who had learned the ancient cult of magic from the writings of the Heka god, and from that day on, it would be an unrelenting battle between the priesthood of the Aten and that of the god Amun.
AS A THIRD OF THE POPULATION of Thebes boarded the boats that would take them to the land of the Aten, others gathered near the bank of the river to witness pharaoh Teppy’s departure, and to see who had chosen to follow him.
Horemheb stood in the forefront of the crowd, watching, as the largest barge, at one hundred twenty cubits in length, carried the obelisk that once stood tall at Teppy’s unfinished Gempaaten temple. There were rumors of the pharaoh’s plan to leave Thebes, but Horemheb had refused to believe them until he learned that Teppy’s guards had raided and ransacked the Amun temple. It inflamed Horemheb that an act of aggression by the pharaoh’s royal guards, an extension of his army, was not brought to him first for his approval. How unthinkable that an Egyptian pharaoh would leave the capital city and curse to damnation the gods that existed in Egypt since the beginning of time. Standing on the bank of this grand departure, it became clear to Horemheb that Teppy was the heretic abomination that his father accused him of being.
Alongside Horemheb stood his younger half-brother, Kafrem—a tall, slender, lanky man twenty-two years of age. He had drooped shoulders, skinny legs and a concave chest that he would stick out whenever he was in the presence of Horemheb.
To hide his premature balding, he wore a wig made of date palm fibers that were shaped and curled by waxing. The fibers were shoulder length and tinted with henna and juniper berries.
The brothers had different fathers, with Horemheb’s father being of a poor family of farmers, and Kafrem’s father’s lineage from wealthy descendants of royal scribes, that which Horemheb sensed his brother had felt entitled. The Amun priesthood had ordained Kafrem mayor of Thebes just days before the Amun temple was raided. Horemheb suspected his brother’s appointment was meant to soften the blow that the priests had planned to challenge his right to regency of Thebes. Kafrem would be expected to overlook their unlawful acts, unwittingly, a pawn under the Amun priests’ control.
Both Horemheb and Kafrem gazed in silence at the enormous fleet of ships floating in the river. It was a grand spectacle that filled Horemheb with both anger and awe.
“Do you believe the pharaoh and his followers will return?” asked Kafrem.
Horemheb grinned. “I once saw the word ‘heretic’ carved in his father’s chest. I never understood why Amenhotep mutilated himself in such a manner until this moment.”
Kafrem turned to his brother, eager to hear the answer why.
"He was carving his son's destiny into his skin with a flint knife," said Horemheb.
“Had he gone mad?”
“Premonitions are not borne of madness. Amenhotep was a great man, a noble man, and a courageous warrior. Teppy is not of his father. He cannot prevail without us. He will return. I guarantee you, he and his followers will come crawling back to us.”
The general smiled at his prediction as the massive fleet drifted downstream. Mundi appeared and walked into Horemheb’s open arms in tears. He lovingly consoled her, comforting her with words of assurance of the pharaoh and Nefertiti’s inevitable return.
CHAPTER 21
The first three days of sailing for the great fleet were uneventful. While the royal family gorged themselves on sweet breads, fruits, and Egypt’s best Canopic branch wines, time passed by fleetingly. Teppy and Nefertiti did their best to keep the children amused with games of twenty-squares, while they enjoyed their own board game of Senet.
Teppy so cherished seeing the joy on his sweet Nefertiti’s face when she would win that he never tried to be victorious in the game himself. It was satisfying to see the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled after removing her last piece from the board ahead of him, cementing her triumph.
At night they all sang jubilant songs together. Queen Ty, Ay, Teyla, the children, Nefertiti, and Teppy, the entire royal family all sang and played musical instruments that mimicked the sounds of birds. The children danced for their parents and were happy and exhausted by the time they were put to bed. After they had fallen asleep, Nefertiti found herself walking about the deck alone after twilight, watching the group of forty oarsmen turn their oars in perfect unison. The rocking of the boat sickened her, making it nearly impossible for her to fall asleep. Four nights into their voyage and she was without a full night’s rest. The fatigue from it all caused her to overlook Halima. She had not seen or spoken to her most favorite maidservant since the day they embarked on their voyage. Nefertiti made an unannounced visit to Halima’s cabin that night, and was horrified to see her prostrating in front of a statuette of Amun; one she had hidden away before the purge.
“What are you doing?”
Halima was startled out of her trance. Before she could stand up on her feet to answer, Nefertiti marched up to her and struck her across the head, knocking her back onto the floor.
“Get up!” ordered Nefertiti.
Halima stood up disoriented.
“If my husband found out about your blasphemy he would have you executed on the spot. It’s only because you are a vital part of my children’s lives that I’d even think of sparing you from his wrath.
“Please forgive me, Queen. I am so ashamed.”
“Listen to me Halima, because I’ll only tell you this once. You will hide the statuette in your garment and when no one is watching, you will toss it overboard into the river. Is that clear?”
Halima nodded.
“There is no other god here but the Aten. None!” shouted Nefertiti. “I have always shared a predilection for you, but if you are seen again with any statues or images of gods from Thebes, I myself will harden my heart and give you fifty blows of the whip before my husband cuts off both your hands.”
“My queen, I’ll do as you ask. Praises to you and the Aten for your undeserved mercy.” Halima held the statue inside her garment and meandered out to the deck with her head down in shame.
The following night, Nefertiti slept soundly. The river had changed its course and the wind became almost non-existent. Though the boat had ceased the drastic rocking that had kept her awake, the absence of wind created treacherous sandbanks and some of the ships ran aground. By the sixth day, it had become a dangerous journey that when coupled with the darkness of night, became all the worse.
Queen Ty summoned Teppy to her cabin. When he entered she kissed his cheek, a tentative kiss that drew attention to her distress. His mother was not dressed extravagantly as he was accustomed to seeing her. She wore no makeup, nor any of her precious jewelry. Her garment had a tear on the sleeve, a minor inconvenience for anyone e
lse, but highly unusual for a meticulous Queen Ty.
Because her eyes were glassy, it concerned Teppy that the rocking of the boat had sickened her as it had Nefertiti.
“Let me send in a physician to see you,” he said. “You don’t appear well.”
Ty took the scarf that was around her neck and tied it around her head. “It’s not physical,” she replied and seated herself on the couch. Teppy followed and sat next to her.
“Then what is it?”
Before she answered she took his hand. “When you were a child someone had taken your favorite toy. It was a wooden hippopotamus with jaws that opened and closed. You adored it. Do you remember?”
Teppy nodded.
“You were sure the thief was one of your cousins and you cried and screamed and refused to play with them ever again. Of course they were hurt because they loved you and enjoyed coming to the palace to play with you. It was months later when you found your hippopotamus toy. You had hidden it away in one of your straw clothing baskets and had forgotten. I remember how you worried if your cousins would forgive you for abandoning them, but when they returned to the palace to play with you again, it was as if it had never happened.”
The Queen placed her hand gently on Teppy’s face. “My dear son, it’s not too late. We can return to Thebes with our pride still intact, the people will forgive us. It’s where we belong,” she pleaded.
Her desperation caused Teppy to crease his forehead. He moved his mother’s hand away from his face and stood up. “For the remainder of this journey, don’t speak another word to me,” he said, menacing.
Teppy left his mother’s cabin disgusted by her vile words and her unfaithfulness to the Aten. He would immediately have to pray for her forgiveness, so that the Aten would not curse her or the remaining days of their voyage.
By the seventh day, the children were restless and yearned to be on solid ground. Sailing into shoals was a common occurrence, but Teppy’s prayers to the Aten were answered and by nightfall they had succeeded in navigating all their vessels away from the treacherous shoals of the river and into calmer waters.
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