"Things would be much easier if you succeed, daughter."
"Pray to the Aten that pharaoh allows me to speak." Nefertiti gave a small sigh. "He still thinks of me as a child. A day doesn't go by that he doesn't recall some embarrassing incident. Yesterday he told Merytaten about the times I used to run away from my lessons and go sailing in my skiff on the Nile."
"I remember, daughter. Queen Tiye was most grieved that you didn't show proper gravity at being trained to be queen of Egypt."
Ignoring her father's amusement, Nefertiti said, "I'll go to pharaoh now, before Tutu has a chance to think of throwing away the tablets."
That incident had taken place years ago. Since then she'd fought similar battles with other ministers and won them all. But with her little girl dead, fighting such battles took more strength of will than she feared she had. Nefertiti spoke the words of the Aten ritual without thinking, her gestures practiced and unhesitating after countless repetitions. She often indulged in reverie while performing the adoration. Since Akhenaten was the means by which the Aten communed with the world, her attention wasn't absolutely necessary anyway.
As the ceremony ended, Akhenaten gave her a kiss and looked into her eyes. "Beautiful one, you aren't sleeping. There are shadows beneath those magnificent eyes."
They stood together, bathed in sunlight. Hundreds of offering tables spread out before them in a consecrated field within the temple. Priests and courtiers alike kept their distance, for it was well known that Akhenaten tolerated no invasion upon his private conversations with the great royal wife. The rays of the Aten touched the cobra headdress of the king and made Nefertiti's electrum broad collar and bracelets gleam.
Akhenaten searched her eyes, his brow furrowed and his long, equine face troubled. "I must receive a delegation from the Assyrian king, my love, but I insist that you go home and try to sleep. It's nearly time for the girls to take a nap. If you rest with them, sleep will come."
"I don't think so."
"At least try, my love."
Sighing, Nefertiti consented and left the Aten temple. To her surprise, Akhenaten was right. Once the girls were asleep, she found that she could close her eyes and drift off to the sound of their breathing. Sometimes she forgot how perceptive her husband could be.
She woke late in the afternoon to find that the nurses had succeeded in getting the girls out of her chamber without waking her. Feeling almost at peace, Nefertiti decided to go to Akhenaten and thank him. She didn't understand how he could be so caring and kind to her and yet so blind to the suffering of those he'd displaced with his heresies.
Her guards formed a barrier between her and the people in the streets as Nefertiti drove to the ceremonial palace again. Her entourage passed a train of donkeys laden with vegetables, groups of scribes hurrying to various government offices, carrying chairs bearing court ladies, and a gaggle of Aten priests.
She reached the palace and couldn't find pharaoh in any of the usual spots where he sheltered from the heat. It wasn't time for worship, so Nefertiti inquired of the steward. She received the unexpected reply that pharaoh was at the police barracks.
She couldn't imagine why he was there. Military surroundings made Akhenaten nervous. Anyway, her husband preferred the tiled and gilded luxury of the palaces. Perplexed, Nefertiti set out with Sebek and an escort for the barracks, which were located to the rear and down the street from the ceremonial palace. The military sector of the central city lay beyond the records office and visitors' quarters.
She found Akhenaten by following the line of royal bodyguards that stretched along the street and into the low, rectangular building that housed the city police. Inside, a sentry directed her through several offices, and outside again past stables and supply rooms to a small, windowless building. As she drew near the structure Nefertiti exchanged uneasy glances with Sebek. She was sure she wasn't going to like what she found inside.
A guard at the door saluted but failed to move aside. Nefertiti was about to send in a request for admittance when a man screamed. It was a mindless scream of agony such as she'd never heard. The sound penetrated to Nefertiti's bones and robbed her of speech. When the scream subsided into short, hoarse cries, Nefertiti shoved past the sentry, her guards at her back.
The blackness of the interior made her pause for her eyes to adjust. The building was split into two large rooms. The first, into which Nefertiti stepped, was lit by a lamp resting in a stand by an inner door. Against the walls she saw crouched bodies. As her vision cleared, Nefertiti saw that the bodies were three men whose arms were bound behind their necks. Five policemen stood near the outer door, armed with spears.
Near the lamp stood a man whose gold bracelets and short wig marked him as an officer.
"Pharaoh?" Nefertiti asked.
The man bowed and opened the door to the next room without comment. Nefertiti was through the entry and into the chamber before the reek of feces and sweat reached her. She heard Sebek gasp. Nefertiti swallowed her own nausea and stared at the scene before her.
The room had been bare until pharaoh came. It was a chamber of blank walls, a dirt floor, and no other openings except the door. The ceiling was low and added to the atmosphere of oppression and tightness. Toward the back of the room, suspended from ropes attached to beams in the roof, hung the naked body of a man, the man who screamed. More ropes stretched from his feet to a stake in the ground. Lit by alabaster lamps, the man's body glistened like a freshly butchered carcass. Hundreds of precise, thin cuts ran from his neck, down the man's chest, all the way to his thighs. Beside the victim a Nubian soldier wiped blood and flesh from a bronze razor much as a barber tends his instrument. Nearby on a stool was Mery-Re. In another corner a scribe sat with pen and papyrus.
To one side, ensconced in a cushioned chair of ebony and gold, sat pharaoh. The chair rested on a woven mat. Pharaoh's fan-bearer plied a fan over Akhenaten's head. Another courtier held a tray with wine flagon and goblet. Akhenaten held a vial of perfume to his nose. When Nefertiti entered, he turned and peered at her over the lip of the vessel. In a languid motion pharaoh held out his hand to Nefertiti. Nefertiti knelt before her husband and fixed her gaze on the gold roundels that decorated the king's robe. Fingers decked with heavy electrum rings lifted her chin. Nefertiti looked into the king's eyes. They questioned in a mild, distracted manner.
"My beautiful one has come. Have you rested well?"
"Yes, majesty."
"I am pleased. And it pleases me also that you've tired of dry bureaucrats and harvest taxation and come to see the more important work that takes my time."
Nefertiti kept her gaze on Akhenaten and away from the man on the ropes. "What work is this, majesty?" She signaled for Sebek and her guards to remain near the door.
"The work of my father the Aten." Pharaoh nodded his head toward the victim. "Lately it has been necessary to chastise those who seek to hide the wealth of the false gods from me."
Nefertiti understood immediately. Akhenaten had recently discovered that, under increasingly violent persecution, the Amun priests had hidden their valuables rather than have them sequestered for the use of the Aten. The man whose skin hung in thin, bloody strips was a priest.
Pharaoh sniffed at his perfume bottle and called for a stool for Nefertiti. From a dark corner stepped a man Nefertiti had never seen before. He was tall, as tall as the Nubian torturer, and as lean. Dressed in a kilt and pleated overrobe, he wore a broad collar of gold and turquoise beads and wide arm bands with insets of lapis lazuli. His rich trappings set off skin of a tone darker than Nefertiti's, yet lighter than the Nubians. Pharaoh beckoned to the nobleman, calling him Kenro.
Kenro placed a stool beside Nefertiti and bowed. Nefertiti noticed his cool perfection. Every pleat in his robe hung straight. His linen gleamed white and spotless under the lamps. His feet in their red and gold sandals were free of dust. The flail in his hand was a work of art in black and gold enamel.
Even Kenro's face bore the flawless artistry of an expert at cosmetics, though the features were perfect to the point of almost feminine beauty. Long, slanting eyes regarded her steadily. They were deep-set, brown, and oddly calm.
A moan from the priest attracted pharaoh's attention. "Proceed, Kenro. No mere priest is going to keep me from finding the treasure of Amun."
Kenro moved with quiet grace to stand beside the Nubian. He whispered instructions, and the torturer applied his razor to the man's chest. He drew several horizontal incisions across the vertical cuts he'd already made. The victim screamed and jerked, but the ropes held him taut. His torso was soon a mass of oozing red checks. Kenro raised his hand. The Nubian withdrew his blade.
Kenro cocked his head to one side and looked at pharaoh. Nefertiti went sick at the dreamy expression on the man's face. She'd seen that look on Akhenaten's face when he made love to her.
"Well?" Akhenaten questioned impatiently. "Come, divine father, tell me where the treasure is. If you tell me, I'll have you killed quickly. Otherwise I'll have Kenro apply his more sophisticated instruments to you."
The priest was so weak his head had to be lifted. Through lips cracked and bleeding he whispered the name of a village in the Hare nome. "In the house of the doorkeeper of the chapel of the god Toth." The man's words ended on a sob.
Nefertiti stood up, steadying herself with a hand on pharaoh's chair. She could barely wait for Akhenaten to leave this room of horror with its blood and gilded furniture. The nobleman with the wine tray left, along with Mery-Re, Nefertiti's guards, and the fan-bearer. Nefertiti followed Akhenaten to the door while the scribe remained to finish his notes. She looked back to see that Kenro lingered beside the priest, his eyes sliding over what had once been the man's skin. Kenro wasn't going to kill his prisoner. Nefertiti knew it. She touched Akhenaten's arm.
"Majesty, the priest has defied you, yet he has suffered for it. Please, send him to the netherworld."
Akhenaten frowned at her. "You have sympathy for Amun and his followers?"
"I have sympathy for a man in pain, my husband. Is this wrong?"
"Yes. He deserves agony without end for defying me." Pharaoh suddenly ripped the dagger from his belt. "Kill him yourself. Show me your devotion, little warrior."
If she hesitated, Akhenaten would leave his victim with Kenro. Nefertiti took the dagger from pharaoh's hand— quickly, before she had time to contemplate what must be done. She sent Kenro and the Nubian backing away from the priest with a sharp command. She wasn't tall enough. She stood on a stool so she could aim at the priest's heart. Turning her back to pharaoh, she gripped the weapon and drew back her arm. The priest lifted his head. His eyes opened as he whispered words of thanks.
Nefertiti whispered, "May Hathor await you. May Osiris receive your ka." She dared not wait. She drove the blade between muscles and ribs into the heart of the priest as he smiled. Her hand met the scored mass that used to be a chest. She jerked the dagger out of the body and hopped back off the stool. The man's bowels released their contents, and the odor of feces and urine mingled with the smell of blood.
Nefertiti turned to Akhenaten, but Kenro was beside her. "If thy majesty will permit thy servant."
Gentle as the touch of a snake's tongue, Kenro's hands bathed hers with a clean, wet cloth. The dagger was wiped and given back to her. Wet fingers touched the back of her hand, and Nefertiti shivered. Not daring to think of what she'd just done, in an agony of spirit, she joined her husband.
"I didn't think you'd do it," Akhenaten said. Pharaoh studied Nefertiti as if she were a stranger. "You are indeed my little warrior."
"What is the name of the priest, majesty?"
"I've forgotten. It doesn't matter. He won't have a grave, and his name will be wiped out. This is one heretic whose ka will die permanently."
Nefertiti resisted when pharaoh attempted to guide her from the room. "I've never killed before."
"Do you want his hand?"
"I want no battle trophy, my pharaoh. That was no barbarian. If you will allow it, I would like to know the name of the first man you ever asked me to kill for you."
"Kenro knows."
Kenro spoke from somewhere behind Nefertiti. "His name was Montemhab, majesty. Superintendent of the god's treasury of Amun in Thebes."
Nefertiti thanked Kenro and Akhenaten. She followed the king out into the sun. The royal bodyguard formed around them. As she walked beside the king, Nefertiti made a great effort to listen to pharaoh's discussion of the hidden wealth he was determined to ferret from the temples. All the while another part of her heart vowed to find some way to help Montemhab's ka survive without a body. Pharaoh was going to have the corpse burned.
She managed to get herself through the next few hours without collapsing. Once she had regained the refuge of her own rooms, Nefertiti sank to the floor and lay there trembling and sobbing. She had killed. For mercy, it was true, but the act itself defiled her.
She lay on the floor for a long time, in darkness no blacker than the misery of her ka. As she lay there in desolation, at long last Nefertiti began to hate her husband. Behind the great vision of one shining god lay intolerance, ignorance, and cruelty. She had failed to banish them from her husband's character with her beauty and guidance. Such a thing had never been possible. Tiye and Amunhotep had been wrong to make her think it possible. Hope of moderation was dead, as dead as that poor priest.
It was a madness of the sun, like when he told you about the Aten coming to him in the desert. It was sun madness. May the gods help you if you ever provoke the demons that possess his ka.
That night, the evil dreams began.
Memphis, reign of Tutankhamun
Disaster had come without warning. To Kysen it had been like reliving the nightmare of his childhood before Meren had bought him from his father—sudden violence without reason. In the middle of the night soldiers of the king had forced their way into the house, dragged him from his bed, and held him, Bener, and his men at spearpoint. They had searched every cubit from rooftop to cellar and carried away all correspondence, all records, anything written, even Bener's household accounts. Now Kysen realized why his father had instructed the scribes to get rid of any records relating to Queen Nefertiti. During the search a confused and disbelieving Maya came to tell them that Lord Meren had tried to kill pharaoh and had fled the country.