Before she reached the bank, the girl turned aside. She scrambled along a track beside the river and away from the collection of royal barges moored at the quay. She trotted past the yachts of pharaoh's chief ministers, confident that the sailors on duty would take her for a peasant. It was her experience that without her jewels, slaves, and tutors, most people could not tell Nefertiti, daughter of Lord Ay and niece of the great royal wife Tiye, from any other twelve-year-old girl.
"Psst."
Nefertiti ducked behind a stack of clay jars and peeked in the direction of the sound. A low whistle floated across to her from the direction of a moored fishing boat. There, beached on the riverbank, lay a reed skiff. Beside it near the curved prow stood Webkhet.
"Nefertiti." Webkhet's voice floated in the breeze. "Over here."
Before her friend finished speaking, Nefertiti was at the prow.
Webkhet grinned at her. "I thought you weren't coming. It's so late."
"Aunt came to visit, so I couldn't get away." Nefertiti shivered even though the night was warm.
Webkhet nodded in sympathy. The daughter of a royal guard, she was familiar with the crowded and circumscribed living arrangements of pharaoh's family. Both girls climbed into the vacant fishing boat and sat down. They'd been friends for years, ever since Nefertiti had discovered how to escape her elderly nurse unnoticed and come upon Webkhet in the palace kitchen. They'd played, fought, laughed, and plagued the royal servants. With Webkhet, Nefertiti could yell and steal melons, run hard and quarrel, without fear of a reprimand from anyone. With Webkhet she was free of the fearful dignity required of even so minor a member of the royal family as she.
Once settled in the boat, the girls gazed across the river at the dark fields and the lights of the houses that perched between them and the desert. Nefertiti cupped her chin in her hand and sighed, giving way to misery.
"Aunt was hinting again. She asked if I liked Akhenaten, if I liked spending time with him. I think they've decided."
Webkhet patted her hand. "Who?"
"Pharaoh and Aunt. I think they've decided I should marry Akhenaten."
"How awful.'" Webkhet squeezed Nefertiti's shoulders. "Do you dare tell them you don't want to marry him?"
Nefertiti sighed. It was questions like this that showed her how different her life was from Webkhet's.
"Would you deny pharaoh?"
Nefertiti received another squeeze of sympathy. No one she knew wanted to marry Akhenaten, prince and heir to the throne of Egypt though he was.
Akhenaten was so strange. He didn't like the gods. No one else in all of Egypt disliked the gods, but Akhenaten did. Nefertiti didn't understand why Amun, king of the gods, hadn't struck him blind-or worse-for his heresy. She'd listened to him complain about Osiris, god of death and rebirth, only this morning. Akhenaten was always mad at the gods, all except one, the Aten, whom he claimed for his own.
All girls married. It was the way of things. How else could men survive and have children who would care for them in old age? She had always known she would marry someone, but not her odd cousin.
Akhenaten's behavior was as strange as his appearance. Always sympathetic of heart, Nefertiti had never laughed at her cousin behind his back as many at court did. The young noblemen scoffed at Akhenaten's scrawny shoulders, sagging belly, and equine face. The ladies of the royal household were no kinder. Nefertiti despised those callous creatures who cared not that Akhenaten might perceive their contempt. There had been many times when she tried to distract his attention so that he wouldn't see a smirk or hear a derisive comment. Akhenaten might be odd, but he did have feelings.
Now Nefertiti could see that her pity and her attention had been what caught Tiye's attention and inspired the queen to consider her for her son. Aunt and pharaoh thought their plans a secret. They made the mistake of thinking their significant looks and prodding questions beyond the perception of a mere girl. Even Father thought her ignorant. With everyone bent on secrecy, Nefertiti had turned to her friend for comfort.
"If I have to marry him and be queen, I won't be able to see you anymore," Nefertiti said to Webkhet. "I won't be able to do anything interesting or fun. I'll be trained by Aunt to be queen, and she'll make me study forever."
"No more running off to sail on the river," Webkhet said with a pitying shake of her head.
They clambered out of the fishing boat, unhappy and apprehensive. Returning to the skiff, Nefertiti helped Webkhet push it into the water. Each must return home before someone missed her. Nefertiti watched her friend shove away from the bank with her paddle, seeing freedom about to sail away.
"What's that?" Webkhet pointed at something over Nefertiti's shoulder.
Specks of yellow light bobbed and danced across the causeway. Nefertiti caught her breath and counted. Ten, sixteen. She stopped counting. She jumped clear of the skiff and gave it a shove, sending the small craft into deeper water.
"Go," she said. Webkhet gawked at her. Nefertiti raised her voice in fear. "Go! They're looking for me. If they find you-" She had no need to finish. Webkhet knew the danger.
Nefertiti's friend held out her hand. "Come with me. We'll run away together."
Nefertiti shook her head. She sloshed toward shore and turned back to the other girl.
"I must lead them away before they see you." With grim courage she steadied her voice to conceal the wreck of her hopes. "The gods protect you, Webkhet, my friend." She lifted her hand in salute before racing toward the line of guards that spilled onto the riverbank.
Webkhet's voice sailed after her. "May the gods protect you."
Lord Ay walked in the royal pleasure garden in pharaohs palace. Beside him strode his indomitable sister Tiye, great royal wife, queen of Egypt. Ay had been summoned for an audience with the living god, only to find himself waylaid by the queen and taken to the gardens for a private talk.
Tiye had dismissed all her attendants. A slight woman with deep-set eyes that reflected a world of experience, Tiye walked with the swift, nervous gait of a much younger woman. When the last slave had vanished, Tiye took refuge from the sun beneath an aged tamarisk tree but walked back and forth in its shadows.
"Brother, you understand pharaohs difficulty." Or course.
"You know that his many years of good living sit ill upon him. Although his wits are as sharp as ever, the king's health isn't as it should be."
Ay nodded. Pharaohs teeth had rotted, and he suffered from his weight. Although no longer the embodiment of a great warrior and son of the king of the gods, Amun, pharaoh suffered far more from knowing that his heir, Akhenaten, was a strange and unpredictable young man whose wisdom was as questionable as his religion. Pharaoh had recently decided to cure his heir's strangeness and lack of training. As some heirs had done before him, Akhenaten was to share the throne with his father in a joint reign, and he was to be married.
"If your oldest had lived…" Ay's voice trailed off.
Tiye threw up her hands. "Regret is useless. Akhenaten is heir. Akhenaten. He won't even use his real name, no doubt because it's also his father's." Tiye sighed and turned to regard her brother with the solemn confidence he'd come to recognize.
"Pharaoh and I have decided upon a wife for Akhenaten."
Bracing himself, Ay heard the voice of his heart in his ears. He'd dreaded this decision, prayed to the gods to guide pharaoh's choice in a different direction.
"We've chosen Nefertiti."
"You know I don't want my daughter given to Akhenaten."