Salvation in the Sun

by Lauren Lee Merewether

  After his prayer, he found Pawah there in the temple of Amun. Pulling him aside, he whispered, “I cannot live with knowing the blood on my hands.”

  Pawah stood up straight and crossed his arms slightly in front of his chest. “You must. I will not be executed because you cannot deal with your guilt.”

  “You killed him because I asked you to,” Anen said.

  “No . . . no, I did not.” Pawah chuckled as he looked around to make sure no one was listening. “We all know the priesthood of Amun is more powerful than Pharaoh. I did it for more than just your money, you fool. If the new Crown Prince did marry your daughter, it would have sealed the priesthood’s position as the sole ruler of Egypt. One day I will become First Prophet of Amun and I will see its power fulfilled. Amenhotep’s marriage to Nefertiti is just a setback. Have no fear, brother,” he said. “I am working on someone who will connect the priesthood to the royal family. All is not lost.”

  “We killed someone! Don’t you see that?” Anen yelled. Pawah threw his hand over Anen’s mouth and pushed him into the wall.

  “Brother, you will keep your mouth shut, or I will shut it for you,” Pawah said, towering over Anen. “Go home and do not speak another word.”

  As the days turned into months, Anen grew increasingly ill. He barely slept or ate. He would pass by the palace and just stare at the statue of Thutmose for hours at a time. His increasingly scrawny body coveted strong drink so he could at least find solace in sleep.

  Kasmut often awoke to her father crying out in the middle of the night. He refused to eat and be with his family. Worried for her father, she knew she had to talk to Amenhotep again, somehow; but there was always an excuse, given by General Paaten or vizier Ramose or vizier Huy or Queen Tiye or whoever, as to why she could never see him. She looked to the papyrus on her desk and knew her letters to him probably never made it either. She sat on her bed and hugged her knees.

  She told herself it was so she could speak to him about her father’s pains; but secretly, she knew she wanted to see if Amenhotep was regretting choosing Nefertiti over her.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE TIME OF REUNITING

  The night covered their whisperings, as it did every night since they were crowned Coregent and Queen. Every night since, they’d told each other more about themselves. Their night talks grew in depth until they began to share with each other the deepest and most remote reaches of their souls.

  But every night, at the last moment before sleep overtook their eyes, Amenhotep would turn away from Nefertiti. He would compare their time with the time he spent with Kasmut before they were married, speculating. What if he had gone against his mother and married Kasmut instead? His secret rendezvous with Kasmut had diminished entirely; he supposed his mother had commanded General Paaten to keep her from him.

  One night, as sleep almost overtook them and Amenhotep began his rollover, Nefertiti spoke again, causing his thoughts to drift from Kasmut to Nefertiti.

  “My mother died during childbirth. I am the reason she is gone,” Nefertiti said as she lay on her side in their royal bed. “Tey is only my step-mother. I still love her . . . but I wish I knew my real mother. My father tells me I resemble her likeness.”

  Amenhotep caught the glisten in her eyes from the moonlight as she continued.

  “Sometimes, when I was younger, he gathered flowers from my mother’s garden and laid them by my head so I would awake to their aroma and smell of her. He still misses her even after all these years.”

  “I did not know Tey was not your mother,” Amenhotep replied. “My mother did not speak about such things. My mother . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “What do you wish to say?” Her eyes could grasp any secret held deep within him and pull it right off his tongue, just as they did the day they wed.

  “My mother and father loved Thutmose more than me. I have also known my father never had great expectations of the man I would become. I am always getting sick or feel pain in my muscles, bones, and back. Only the Aten’s rays can heal me. My father sees me as . . . weak.” He stopped, lest the last phrase overtake him.

  Pushing the thought from his mind for fear of crying in front of his wife, he changed the subject to his mother. “I have worked every day to gain the love of my mother. She has given it once or twice, but I make a habit of disappointing her.” He tried to blink back tears. “I will continue to my dying day to gain their love and approval.”

  That is why I married you and not Kasmut. Mother told me I could never marry Kasmut, even after I requested to make her my royal wife instead of chief royal wife. These thoughts he still kept to himself.

  “I am . . . sorry.” Nefertiti for once had no words. For the first time, she noticed her heart feel empathy for her husband. I am more than a prize, a puppet in this scheme, she thought. I am here because he is my husband, and I need to love him as my father loved my mother. I now seek not to gain his trust because of some hidden agenda, but because I love him and he is my husband.

  Amenhotep whispered, “My mother wanted you for Thutmose, as did my father. As did Thutmose. My mother did not even seek a wife for me, but now, I’m all she has left.”

  “She is lucky to have you, just as I am,” Nefertiti said. She rubbed his cheek to wipe away a tear as it fell.

  “No, the luck is on my side.”

  She lifted her hand from his head as he turned his back to her, just as he did every night.

  “See you tomorrow when the Aten shows his face.”

  “Amenhotep . . . ?” Nefertiti pulled his shoulder back toward her. “Do you love me?”

  He couldn’t respond. Maybe what he felt for her was love. He loved Kasmut, that he knew. Kasmut wouldn’t have had to ask if he loved her. Guilt for his new feelings of appreciation for Nefertiti overwhelmed him. He couldn’t say the words yet, but he had to keep her happy if she were to be his chief wife forever and always. “Yes . . . you have stood by me every step of this journey—even down the throne room when they crowned me Coregent.”

  He chuckled to hide his tears.

  “Why must you ask, Nefertiti?” He stood up and went to the window to find the night’s breeze. He knew why she asked. The moon outlined his slumped spine as he toyed with a small expired candle on the window sill.

  “The moon has been full almost four times since I became your wife, Amenhotep . . . and you have yet to touch more than my hand,” Nefertiti said, sitting up in bed.

  “Nefertiti, I must confess yet another failure.” He did not want to discuss it but knew he had to tell her eventually. Talking with her had become much easier with every night talk, but touching such a woman was still too daunting a task—and he thought for the most part his loyalty still remained with Kasmut. She was on his mind as he fell asleep every night. Well . . . Kasmut and Nefertiti, if he were honest with himself.

  “Amenhotep, when will you learn? The mountain of failures you think you have, they are but the tiniest of mounds!”

  A relief rolled through him as he realized he didn’t have to say what his failure was. He focused on rebuking her argument instead.

  “Yet they are still failures, mounds though they be,” he responded as he continued to stare out the window.

  “Look at me, Amenhotep.” She got out of bed and stood behind him. “I say look at me! I am your wife. You shall not turn away from me!”

  “I am Pharaoh!” he said with a snap of his head over his shoulder. He turned back to the window.

  Nefertiti’s mouth fell open. His outburst shocked both of them.

  “You may be Pharaoh, but you are also my husband,” she said in a softer tone.

  Aten, I wish you could give me words to speak. I need your rays. You heal me, he prayed as he looked to the moon and wished for it to be day. The silence lingered, then his spine slumped further as she spoke again.

  “Yes, you are right. You are a pharaoh . . . a pharaoh who refuses his wife—a woman whom you have said is the most beautiful of all the great a
nd mighty Egypt!” She left his bedchambers with her wig and a hard throw of the heavy door behind her.

  He watched her go, stuck in place with what little pride he had left, and then slammed his fist hard into the window sill. Stinging pain coursed its way up his arm, but he only shook it away.

  “Why am I such a failure, not only as King, but as a husband too?” he whispered to the sky. “Aten, though it be night, help me be a strong leader and man, for I still lack confidence. Please do not take my father now . . . nor ever. I cannot lead. The thought of leading a country makes my knees week. Wearing a crown and sitting on the throne gives tremble to my chin. The touch of Nefertiti sends spine-shattering shame throughout my soul. She is so beautiful—who am I to touch her? I am not good enough for her. Why can Nefertiti not realize I am not good enough? Everyone else sees. She was meant for my brother, who deserved her. Even my parents knew I would fail.

  “I only want to live a life of insignificance with Kasmut.”

  NEFERTITI STOOD in the hallway and clasped her arms over her stomach. She wanted to scream out as she bent over, but she bit her tongue and stood up to regain her royal composure: back straight, shoulders rolled backward, neck high. She began to walk the long hallways of the palace to ease her mind.

  Whispers carried from around the stone hallway.

  “I heard that she is not with child,” one voice said.

  “I heard she will not let him touch her,” said another voice.

  “Haughty princess—she would let no man touch her,” the first voice responded.

  Nefertiti held her breath to keep the tears from coming. Bracing herself against the wall with her hand, she bowed her head. The voices were nearing too quickly for her to hide.

  Two servant maids rounded the corner and saw Nefertiti. Dread crept over their faces as they hoped she did not hear them.

  Nefertiti lifted her head, and her tears obeyed gravity.

  “My Queen,” they both intoned, bowing as they passed by.

  The one who had called her a haughty princess noticed the smudged kohl beneath the Queen’s eyes. “May we be of service?”

  “Yes, you may. Keep your words about the Pharaoh Coregent and his Queen silent or you shall have your tongue removed,” Nefertiti said, looking past them. Even as a noble woman, a daughter of an official, she could never have made a threat like that. She puffed out her chest and lengthened her neck. The tone had to be set for her queenship. She was not a princess. She was a Queen Coregent. Queen Tiye would never have allowed such talk, but a warning for now would suffice.

  Their eyes grew big. “Yes, my Queen,” they said in unison as they hurried away, mute and silently thanking Amun for the Queen’s warning and not her punishment.

  “Nefertiti?” a familiar voice whispered behind her. Two hands grasped her shoulders.

  A sad smile grew on her face.

  Ay turned his daughter to face him. “What are you doing up this hour of the night?”

  “Oh, Father!” She buried her face in his chest. After a few sobs, something occurred to her. “Why are you at the palace?”

  Ay rubbed his daughter’s back. “Pharaoh called me to the council on the items that he is to be buried with once he passes from this life. We discussed it for a long time.” Ay gave a weary yawn. “Now—who or what causes my daughter to cry?”

  “Father . . . am I not beautiful? Why will he not even kiss me? I have been encouraging, and we speak every night, growing closer to each other, but still he turns away from me. I hear the servants whisper, and”—she glared past him at where the two servants had disappeared—“just tonight they were whispering. I should be with child now. I am so embarrassed!”

  She cried some more. He half grimaced at the thought of Amenhotep causing his daughter to shed tears instead of brim with laughter and happiness at this early stage of their marriage.

  Ay calmed his daughter by wrapping his arms around her and stroking her back. She was now about the same height as Temehu, and at the thought of her he wished that Temehu could be here for Nefertiti. She’d always had a way with words.

  Nevertheless, he mustered what advice he could. “Nefertiti, the loveliest star of the night, dry your tears,” he said as he wiped the smudges from her face. “He does not mean to embarrass you.”

  “Then why does he turn his back on me?” Nefertiti whispered.

  “Trust and truth are united in marriage, my daughter. I have seen the way he looks at you, much how I looked at your mother in the beginning. He does care for you.” He did indeed see Amenhotep’s lingering stare at her during his time at the palace, so he hoped what he said was not all a lie.

  “But you loved my mother so much . . . He cannot even say ‘I love you’ to me!”

  “A love like the one I had for your mother comes after a long time of trust and truth,” he said. “Remember in the days following your marriage you confided in me, thinking perhaps he wanted to marry another, but that with the situation he is in he could not? Think about how you would feel if Thutmose were still alive, yet you were forced to marry another.”

  Nefertiti swallowed hard. Thutmose. It had been a while since his face had flashed in her mind. She had been so focused on being a good wife and princess. More tears came as the suddenness of his name being spoken aloud brought up the buried pain at hearing he was dead . . . and the guilt of forgetting to think about him.

  “There, there, my lotus blossom,” Ay said. “In time, you and Coregent Amenhotep will come to love one another, and the others will fade as cherished memories. They will always have a special place in our hearts, but time makes us busy and we move on. The wound will never heal, but Amun-Re provides for us an escape from the pain with other people such as Tey—and you, my last remnant of Temehu.”

  Ay’s eyes glistened as the heartache rushed to the forefront of his memory.

  “And so it will be for you and the Coregent.” Ay pulled Nefertiti’s chin up to see her face to face.

  “I do not understand why the wound never heals, Father. Will it always be a rift between us?”

  The candlelit hallway cast a shadow upon her father’s face.

  “No, it will not always be that way. See my marriage with Tey. There is no rift there. Nefertiti, you will understand in time. That is my promise.”

  “But Father, the servants—”

  “They are but servants. You are the future chief royal wife, sole Queen of Egypt.” He ran his finger off her chin and touched her nose. “Go back to him now, and if he turns his back another night, you touch his shoulder and you whisper ‘I love you.’ Then you sleep and wake in the morning.”

  “But Father . . .”

  “Trust me, Nefertiti. I am going to retire the night with Tey now, but I shall be seeing you over the next few days. Pharaoh desires to speak with his council again until every item is accounted for.”

  “As you wish, Father. Thank you,” she whispered, and she gave him one more hug. She knew when he was done speaking.

  They smiled at each other, and he continued walking down the hall.

  “Father!” she called after him.

  He turned.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Nefertiti,” he said. I love you too, Temehu. Be with our daughter. Teach her to wait in grace.

  Nefertiti watched her father’s shadow until it disappeared from the stone floor, then she made her way back to her bedchambers.

  THE DOOR REMAINED AJAR, and Amenhotep still stood looking out the window. The last candle burned out; the moonlight fell into the room.

  He heard her light steps as she walked in and closed the door. She walked up behind him as he hung his head, still looking to the moon. Placing her hand between his shoulder blades on her way to the bed, she whispered, “I love you, Amenhotep. You have already given me your heart in the words you speak to me at night, and this is enough for me.”

  She is too good for me. Even now, as I refuse her, she still loves me. Would Kasmut? he thought. I cann
ot keep pushing her away. I cannot condemn her to a life of loneliness . . . but will she be happy with me? He felt her hand rub his back, and for once it cleared his mind of worry.

  She dropped her hand as she continued to the bed, but suddenly, he grabbed her wrist. He slowly looked back up to the moon. “Come watch the night with me,” he asked more than commanded, and he led her to his side.

  The stars twinkled, and the moonlight filled the room.

  “I have had time to think,” he said. “I am sorry I yelled at you, Nefertiti. You deserve much more than that. You took my silence as me not loving you, but . . . I am afraid of you. I am afraid of you seeing me for what I truly am.” In his head he added, And afraid of what you would think if you found out that I still love Kasmut. “I am afraid you will think you could have had a better life with my brother. He would have known what to do, and I don’t. I never know what to do.” Especially now.

  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.