Salvation in the Sun (The Lost Pharaoh Chronicles Book 1)

by Lauren Lee Merewether

  Nefertiti listened, and after a short silence between them, she said, “I knew your brother well . . . but now I also know you, as we have shared our secrets every night since we were wed. You and your brother are not the same person, and so why should I compare the life I would have had with him when I am beginning my life with you?”

  The question hit him at his core. Was that not exactly what he was doing with Kasmut?

  She continued. “You are my confidant now. You have become my true friend, and if I can live the rest of my life with my true friend, then I will have had the greatest life I could ever have imagined.” She placed her hand on his.

  “I love you, Nefertiti,” Amenhotep said as he rubbed her hand between his fingers and looked her in the eyes.

  Had those words just escaped his lips? No, I love Kasmut! he thought to himself. Or . . . maybe I love both Kasmut and Nefertiti.

  “I love you too.” Happiness blushed her cheeks. She waited for him to embrace her or kiss her or something, but all he did was break their trance and look to the sky.

  “The moon is very beautiful. I did not see before, but the moon gives great light. We try to hide the light of the moon with candles, but if we could just see the moonlight, it would be sufficient.”

  “Amenhotep, you are always the moonlight to me. No candles are needed.” Nefertiti surprised herself by meaning every word she said.

  He slowly looked back to her, and as if touching an ancient statue of glass, he placed his finger on her forehead and traced the outline of her high cheekbone down to her chin.

  She closed her eyes, cherishing the very first moment he touched more than her hand.

  He didn’t know what to do, but her lips had tempted him since the day he spoke to her. Still, Kasmut lingered in the back of his mind. When Nefertiti opened her eyes, he cradled her face in his hands and placed his forehead on hers.

  I am not married to Kasmut, he told himself. I am married to Nefertiti. This is my life right now, and my wife is stunning.

  The moonlight fell on her face, and their shadows allured him to step closer so their toes touched. She could feel her heartbeat pump feverishly in her chest, and all at once breathing became a chore. He lost himself in the abyss of her black eyes, and he pulled her close enough to taste her lips. He tasted them again, tasting the salt from her tears, and relishing in her soft sigh.

  Chapter 6

  The Time of Guilt

  “Pharaoh and his Queen,” the messenger said with a deep bow, “and Pharaoh Coregent and his Queen. More ill news I must bear.”

  Queen Tiye held her breath. Pharaoh’s chin fell only slightly as the messenger read aloud from his papyrus scroll.

  “The brother of Pharaoh’s Queen, Anen, Second Prophet of Amun, Divine Father, Chancellor of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, has passed from this life.”

  “Anen . . . ?” Queen Tiye forgot her demeanor as tears welled in her eyes.

  Nefertiti gasped, but immediately realized her display of emotion and held her stare on the great pillar of the hall.

  “How did this happen?” Queen Tiye asked.

  The messenger froze in fear, praying to Amun-Re not to have Pharaoh end his life with the words that were about to escape his lips. “He refused to eat and died from a heavy heart.”

  Pharaoh’s chest rose sharply and the air came out softly.

  “A heavy heart?” Queen Tiye shook her head. “No, it cannot be.”

  The slaves who stood nearby fanning the royal family looked to one another in awkward silence, and the guards pretended to be interested in the hieroglyphs on the hall pillars.

  Sensing Tiye’s emotional distress, Pharaoh quickly responded so as not to have her embarrass herself further. “Prepare the burial. We shall send the Second Prophet of Amun, brother of the Queen, Anen, with only the best on his journey to the afterlife. Thus Pharaoh says.” Pharaoh Amenhotep III spoke with a weaker voice than had accompanied his sed festival.

  The four of them sat looking out to the throne room for a while. The slaves continued to fan them. The burst of air became a blessing upon Nefertiti’s face. The heat began to make her eyelids heavy.

  “Pharaoh commands all in the throne room to leave at once.”

  The doors to the throne room closed with a loudness that shook Nefertiti’s eardrums.

  “Anen, why did you have a heavy heart?” Queen Tiye said as she clenched her fist and brought it to her lower lip. A tinge of guilt crept over her chest. She knew why. She had thought his stature as the Second Prophet would be enough for him to duck his head and continue with life quietly, but she had clearly misjudged her older brother.

  Coregent Amenhotep sat next to his father; Nefertiti sat next to her aunt. He glanced to his new wife with her white-cap crown: her jaw held tight, her shoulders shielding her neck. Aten, oh great sun-disc, god of creation, take away the pain of my Nefertiti, just as my pain is taken away by your shining rays, Amenhotep thought.

  “I cannot bear this, my Pharaoh,” Queen Tiye whispered to her husband. “The gods will not accept a heavy heart into the afterlife. My brother is condemned to this earth. His pride, his heavy heart . . . I saw it the day I went to the house of Ay. I should have said something else.”

  “My Queen, the past is past. We had to do what we had to do. If Anen could not bear it, then it was a sacrifice we agreed to make. Let us go forward. We will still send the very best we have with Anen, and we can pray to Amun-Re that he be merciful to his second prophet.”

  “I caused his death,” Queen Tiye said to herself, not allowing Pharaoh’s words comfort her.

  Nefertiti felt the pain of her aunt transfer to her own heart. She had gone along with the plan, and so believed she had a small hand in his death as well. She had already lost her meal that morning, but the same wave of troubled stomach came to her again. This time probably not for the same reason, she thought, her hand moving to her lower belly.

  “The gods have said it was his time,” Pharaoh stated. “Just as they proclaimed with our son.” He sighed and shook his head to remove the grief that still lingered. He wished almost at once that he could take back his words.

  Queen Tiye stood up. “You promised me we would never speak of Thutmose.”

  “The Queen shall address Pharaoh as Pharaoh,” he said with no inflection in his voice, yet his eyes betrayed his annoyance that she would be so informal with him in front of Amenhotep and Nefertiti.

  Her eyes cut him to the quick. “Pharaoh promised his Queen to never speak of the Crown Prince.” After a moment, Queen Tiye said through clenched teeth, “For the pain is too great to bear.”

  Nefertiti looked to her husband. The dead can wait, she thought, ignoring her own feelings for Thutmose. She saw the shame float across Amenhotep’s face as his parents spoke of his dead brother. Her eyes spoke to him. I have no doubts, they said.

  His eyebrow twitched as his father droned on about how great Thutmose would have been as Pharaoh if the gods had not decided otherwise. He looked to the floor and Nefertiti knew he was thinking that he did not want this—did not want her. He was thinking of what was lost. Thinking of Kasmut.

  Nefertiti cleared her throat, blinking.

  The royal couple stopped immediately and looked to her.

  “What does the Queen Coregent wish to say?” Pharaoh said.

  “The Queen Coregent wishes to say nothing,” Nefertiti replied and looked to Queen Tiye, then to Amenhotep.

  Realizing the words they had been speaking, and seeing the fallen back of their son, Queen Tiye looked away.

  Pharaoh let out a sigh. “Pharaoh Coregent will fill his brother’s place. The gods have granted us a spare son. Hopefully he will please Pharaoh as Crown Prince Thutmose would have.”

  “I . . . Pharaoh Coregent will please Pharaoh,” Amenhotep stuttered.

  “Of course he will,” Queen Tiye said, giving him a warm glance.

  “We shall see,” Pharaoh muttered, losing some of his formality in his expression o
f doubt. Pharaoh motioned for Queen Tiye to return to her throne, and with an emotionless voice he said, choosing his words carefully, “With Anen now passed, the priesthood has a momentary lapse in power.”

  He took a deep breath and slowly let it out, again regretting his words. Perhaps this is not the time, he thought. “Pharaoh and the Queen have nothing more to say,” Pharaoh said.

  But Tiye thought otherwise. “The Queen wishes to discuss the matter more,” she said at him.

  Wide-eyed, Pharaoh almost cursed her for going against his word, but Queen Tiye continued before he could. “Without the formality.”

  She stared him down until he agreed. “Son, daughter, we will be regaining stolen power from the Amun-Re priesthood,” he told them in a single breath and without hesitation.

  “Nefertiti knew of this,” Queen Tiye told Amenhotep as his mouth hung open. “That is why we wanted her for you.”

  Pharaoh placed his finger on her lips to silence her as he continued. “They have become more powerful than the throne of Pharaoh. What the priesthood writes into law overrides that of what Pharaoh declares. The actions of the priesthood gather action from the people. The actions of Pharaoh gather cheer, but not action. The council of Pharaoh has created a plan to remove the power of the priesthood. They did not allow me to appoint the prophets of Amun, as Pharaoh’s authority dictates, but rather took my appointments as ‘suggestions,’ choosing to make their own ruling. They will do it again, too.”

  Nefertiti sat on the edge of her seat, tapping her thumb against her thigh as she listened. It had been almost a year since her father told her about the power of the priesthood, but never the plan.

  “We will worship the Aten, the sun-disc, once the First Prophet dies,” Pharaoh said. “I was not expecting the death of Anen, but now there is a gap in their hierarchy—we may be able to move quicker than expected. We have seen Aten’s power in healing Amenhotep’s aches and pain, and we will use this to sway the people. When Aten begins to perform for them, they will drift away from the priesthood. When we declare a new priesthood, the people will follow. We will give back the worship to Amun-Re once the throne is reestablished as the sole divine authority of all under the sun.”

  “Will we not be labeled as heretics if the priesthood is more powerful than we?” Nefertiti asked as her assumptions of the plan were confirmed.

  “Daughter, we must act quickly before the priesthood can respond,” he responded. “And it must be the new Pharaoh’s decree—I have my legacy. This will be the legacy of my son, the next sole Pharaoh. As soon as the First Prophet dies, Amenhotep will instigate the change either as Coregent or Pharaoh if I have already gone. I have already elevated Aten to my personal god, but as much, it has not been effective at removing the threat of the Amun priesthood. This is why we must take drastic action to remove the cult of Amun.”

  Amenhotep looked into his father’s eyes. Was that pride he saw? He couldn’t be sure.

  Suddenly, a thought hit him like a blow to the stomach. “Kasmut is the daughter of Anen, the Second Prophet of Amun,” Amenhotep said aloud.

  The three of them stared blankly at him. His statement was obvious.

  “You didn’t want me to marry Kasmut because of political power?” Amenhotep jerked up out of his seat, his hands in fists. “You made me marry her”—pointing to Nefertiti—“instead of Kasmut because of some power struggle? You forbade me to ever marry Kasmut because you can’t lead your own people!”

  “Amenhotep!” Pharaoh stood and smacked his son hard on the cheek. “Remember your place! You disgust me, child,” he growled as he took his seat again.

  Amenhotep looked to his mother, but she averted her eyes and said softly, “Marrying Kasmut would undermine the entire plan of stripping the power of the priesthood.”

  Pharaoh continued when Queen Tiye could not finish her thoughts. “Your marriage to her would only strengthen the priesthood, you fool. Instead, you will marry your sisters, Nebetah and Henuttaneb, to strengthen your claim to the throne, and my wife, Kiya, to further strengthen your relationship with the Mitanni. Should you have daughters, you will need to marry them as well as I have with your sisters, Sitamun and Iset. Women of royal blood in ceremonial marriage validate legitimacy of your divine appointment as Pharaoh.”

  “But I loved Kasmut. I only wanted to marry Kasmut,” Amenhotep said ignoring a majority of what his father said.

  The words rang through the throne room and reverberated in Nefertiti’s chest.

  “You are Pharaoh,” his father said without hesitation. “Pharaoh does not enjoy the luxury of marrying for love. I was one of the few lucky ones,” he said as looked to Queen Tiye, his chief royal wife. She smiled back at him.

  “It’s not fair,” Amenhotep whimpered, not realizing the extent of the heartache he was causing his own chief royal wife. “I wish Nefertiti could have married Thutmose.” He rubbed his cheek, almost certain it would be a mark of shame upon his face.

  I do too, Nefertiti thought.

  “Amenhotep, it would do you well to never think of Kasmut again,” his father said with a shake of his head. He yanked Amenhotep’s hand from his face. “We all wish Thutmose was here, but he is not here. He is dead. You are my only other son.” He paused and shook his head. “You must take his place. The gods have spoken. They wanted you instead—for some reason we do not know—to lead the revolution.”

  At his son’s silence, he pointed to Nefertiti and said, “Look! Son, you have Nefertiti, the most exquisite wife a man could ever hope to have—especially you. The people are entranced by her beauty, and they would expect no one else to be their future Queen. She is also quick and clever, having learned from her father skills you will need in a Queen to regain power. I would also advise you to take her father, Ay, into your council, for he is an asset to have by your side.”

  Amenhotep swayed where he stood, his head to the ground.

  His father, sensing the weakness in his second son, decided to further insult him—perhaps that way he could push Amenhotep into being what he wanted him to be. “I assume Kasmut is the reason Nefertiti is not yet with child?”

  Amenhotep was silent.

  “There shall be none of that. She will need to be with child by the next full moon. She needs to validate her claim to the throne as chief royal wife. You are denying her what is needed to regain power.”

  “But Father—” Amenhotep began.

  “Enough! Do you not think Nefertiti is beautiful and intelligent? Do you not trust her? Will she not make a good Queen? Can you not see her as the mother of the future royal bloodline?”

  After a few moments, Amenhotep whispered, “I do.”

  “Then very well,” Pharaoh said. “No more talk of Kasmut. Pharaoh commands her name to never be spoken by Pharaoh Coregent, forever and always.”

  It’s not that easy! Amenhotep wanted to yell. How do you just turn off feeling for someone? How do you stop thinking about someone? He held his lips shut as he attempted but failed to keep the hot tears from streaking down his face.

  His father refused to look at him, afraid of what he, Pharaoh of Egypt, would do to a crying man whom he had to call his son.

  “Amenhotep,” Queen Tiye said, “if you let yourself fall in love with Nefertiti, I assure you, you will not remember former infatuations.”

  Amenhotep wiped his arm across his face to rid himself of the tears. At once, his gaze went to Nefertiti, and she took his breath away. The sting of tears in her eyes made him shut his mouth.

  She held her hand to her belly. He doesn’t know, she thought. I wanted to surprise him . . . but would he be happy, knowing it isn’t Kasmut’s child? Did he mean it when he said he loved me? Or was he just using me since he couldn’t have Kasmut?

  Minutes of silence passed. As Nefertiti turned away from the other three, Amenhotep finally broke the silence.

  “Father, I know I was not the firstborn. I know I was not meant to lead Egypt. I know I was not in your confidence to take thi
s legacy. I know you and Mother have so much doubt, just as I have doubt in my own ability. But Nefertiti tells me she has no doubts. I trust and confide in her, and I know that with her help I will be able to accomplish what you have asked. I also know marrying Nefertiti is what a good Pharaoh would have done, and so I am proud to have married her.”

  Amenhotep hoped Nefertiti would turn around to show him she had heard his words. She did not.

  “Son, I do have doubts in your abilities—your speech, your stature, your quickness of mind—but Amun-Re and Nefertiti will be with you, and through them I have no doubts in you. You will be a great legacy.”

  His father’s words smeared his self-image. He was nothing in his father’s eyes without Amun-Re, without Nefertiti. He was nothing in his own eyes. Only the Aten viewed him as worthy. His mighty rays gave him strength.

  “Amenhotep, listen to my voice,” Queen Tiye said as she reached out to touch his chin. “You will be a great leader, just as your father. He had to learn how to be Pharaoh, just as you will. I have no doubts, just as Nefertiti.”

  Amenhotep smiled at his mother. He wanted to throw his arms around her neck and be safe in her warm embrace just as he did when he was a child—but he knew his father sat there watching for him to make another mistake.

  He wiped the smile from his face. “I will make you proud, Father,” he said.

  “We shall see,” Pharaoh replied.

  Another moment of silence.

  “Amenhotep, when you take away the power of the Amun-Re priesthood,” his father warned, “remember to put your power to the betterment of Egypt. Those fools know nothing of politics and our foreign allies and enemies. They will run this great nation into the ground. You must be of sound mind to keep Egypt from falling . . . else all be in vain.”

  “Yes, Father,” Amenhotep said, but he had not heard Pharaoh’s words. Instead he thought, I will build the greatest city the world has ever known, and I will be the most important Pharaoh to ever have existed. I will make such a lasting legacy on the people of Egypt that my father will look back on his journey to the afterlife and see my greatness.