Chapter One
1350 BC
Shemu, Harvest time
Year Ten Akhenaten
I pull my bedroom door open just as my older sisters drift past. "Mayati! Meketaten!"
I call to them, but they hardly look over their shoulders. The echo of their giggles trails them through the hall. My sisters, eight and seven years old and close as twins, step as lightly as gazelles in their jewel studded sandals.Their myrrh scented gowns swirl around them gracefully, as if planned, as if every move made by my older sisters had been practiced to perfection before they left their chambers. "Wait for me!" I cry, pulling my plain white sheath up to my knees and tearing behind them like a poor rekhyt girl of the fields.
I race past our servants, startling them as they rise from the bow they gave my sisters. They awkwardly fall again as I pass. I leap over their abandoned rags and scurry around their buckets of lemon scented water. At four years, old I barely notice these women. Servants are constant fixtures in our palace, and as normal and boring a sight as a table or chair. They bow to me just as they bow to my sisters, but as the often overlooked third born daughter, I hardly warrant any more attention from them than the customary show of obedience.
But even though I am only a middle child, and a girl at that, I am the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt. I am quite sure my father is the most spectacular Pharaoh who has ever lived, for he is a god on earth, the worldly manifestation of the great Sun God Aten. The people of our city, Amarna, bow to me; but when our father appears, every person presses their face against the ground, as though they might go blind from looking at him. Just before I catch my sisters, I glance at the high walls, where Father is carved into the stone, larger than life. He holds his massive arm high in the air, threatinging his cowering enemies with a stone mace. In the next scene, my mother stands at his back as the life giving rays of Aten descend from the sky to bless them. Not only is my father the most spectacular Pharaoh Egypt has ever known, my mother is his chief wife, distinctly favored over three hundred other wives, and this makes me the most important middle girl child in all the world.
I catch up to my sisters and ask hopefully, "Are you going swimming in the lotus pool?"
"Maybe," Mayati offers, and I know she's thinking about the new braids and turquoise beads just put into her thick black hair.
"I'm swimming!" I declare, pretending not to notice when Mayati rolls her eyes with impatience. It's no great secret that she barely tolerates me. She likes to be noticed, I like to explore the gardens. She sets the fashions for the noble daughters of the court; I befriend the cats who wander through the palace complex keeping us free from mice. I ask Aten every day to bless me with a playmate, a friend to be as close to me as my two older sisters are to each other. But my little sisters are years away from playing with me, or even talking, and they scream and whine more than any children alive.
The dim, smokey flames from our big ebony lamps are soon overpowered by beams of soft early morning sunlight. The gold-detailed cedar doors are wide open, as if waiting for us to pass through them. Palm fronds, pink hibiscus, and creeping vines threaten to spill over the threshold and into the palace itself. Beyond the doors, a papyrus bud columned portico lines the huge garden, and we stop while still in its shadow.
"Someone is here!" Mayati declares, sitting her gold-bangled hands on her hips. She pouts her lips indignanty. When her eyes dart about in search of the intruder, she looks like a cat on the hunt. I giggle at that, earning a sharp-eyed glance of warning from Meketaten. There is a tall, slim woman at the other end of the garden with her back to us; and now she looks over her shoulder, seeing us and tensing up like a skittish horse.
Mayati's eyes narrow in recognition of the stranger. "Absolutely not!" she declares, sounding just like Mother. "Come on, Meketaten. I won't stay here unless she leaves! Let's go tell her, before our nurses get here." Mayati prances off to expel the lady, and Meketaten trots a step behind.
I don't follow my sisters; they don't need my help to toss out the stray courtier. Instead, I step down from the portico, and onto the white limestone walkway that borders the garden. I've always loved the garden, planted with tall shade trees, palms, and exotic flowers popping peach and blue against the deep green foliage. In the center is our pool. Crocodiles are painted on the plaster under the rich blue tiles, and since it is harvest time, every morning pink, and white lotus flowers are picked and floated on the water. We finish swimming not only cooled, but perfumed as well.
I head to a black granite bench, polished to a high shine, where I can undress and lay my sandals and my white linen sheath. As I turn to undress, I spot another intruder standing deep in the flowers, only a small boy! I have never seen any other children in the private gardens of the King's House. From time to time, servants bring their young children to see us, but never to stroll alone in our gardens!
I step off the path and into the flowers, lured by curiosity. Sunlight filters through the trees and the shadows blink over the little boy in waving lines. The palms above us are stirred into a whispering song by the cool breeze. He's a very small, copper brown boy who can't be three years old yet, because his hair isn't shaved. It curls into soft black coils like Father's does, swirling over big baby cheeks. My sandal crunches a stray branch and I gasp at the loud noise. The boy looks up too, and behind his curls his deep, dark eyes widen in surprise. His eyes are entrancing, so dark their irises disappear into infinite black pools. Just like Father's eyes.
He has a half a pomegranate in his hand. His plump brown fingers are covered in sticky juice and his mouth is stained red. He clutches it tightly, like someone might snatch it away from him. The boy stares at me without a word, I stare back at him, not knowing what to say, not wanting to leave! Who is this boy, who looks so like my father, who I do not know?
"Tutankhaten!"
He looks away from me, and I follow his gaze to the stranger. She is a dazzlingly beautiful woman with her own gold bangles and anklets. I look back at Tutankhaten. The little boy thrusts his hand out, and he gives me the pomegranate, pushing it into my hand with pure confidence that his gift will be accepted. Before I can thank him, he runs away through the flowers just as quick as his stumpy little legs allow. He takes the woman's hand, and he casts one last look at me over his shoulder, before they vanish into the palace.
"Ankhesenpaaten! What are you doing?" Mayati is calling me. I linger for a moment, hoping the little boy comes back, and then I hurry back to my sisters.
Mayati settles under a beautiful fig tree with thick, twisted veins of bark climbing to its leaves.
Two eunuchs begin to fan her under the watchful eyes of our nurses, who always sit apart from us and gossip on their cedar bench. Meketaten sits next to Mayati, staring at the pool longingly, but still completely dressed. When I join them, Mayati's face becomes a mask of anger that frightens me! She reaches up and snatches my pomegranate. She throws it into the dirt and flowers and snaps, "You are not a dog to take treats! Are you mad? Mother would have you whipped!"
"For what? Who was that little boy?"
"That was Prince Tutankhaten! That little boy is the son of mother's greatest rival!"
"Mother has no rival!" I protest. Everyone knows it! She is Ta Hemet Nesu, the Great Royal Wife, who lives in father's own house rather than another palace or his harem. Who could rival her?
"Little girls like you should be more cautious! You are too young to know of Mother's struggles with Beketaten!" She hushes her voice to tell me, like it is a very great scandal. "Tutankhaten's mother, Beketaten, was really named Beketamun. She was a royal princess. Our mother was only a noblewoman from Akhmin. She was younger than our mother, and she thought she would usurp Mother's place as chief wife, and keep the old false gods in Egypt! Not surprisingly, Beketaten died in fever after childbirth, and Aten became the only god of Egypt. BecauseTutankhaten is a boy, he is kept here, where our parents can keep an eye on him. That woman was his nurse, and we've told her to be more careful about when she comes to our garden!"
"Why don't we know him? Why wasn't he in our nursery? Why does he never come with us to parade through the city?" I have so many questions!
Another scandalized face from Mayati! "Mother would be furious! That little boy is a constant reminder of her arch enemy. So great was her hate of the princess that more than two years after Beketaten's death, she can't bear the sight of the prince! Even Father knows how dangerous is Tutankhaten is to his real family!"
"Oh," I whisper. "So the poor boy has no mother, and hardly a father either?"
"Why should you care? If he isn't kept properly low, when he is big and strong he could challenge my right to be Father's heir! Who knows? With a heretic for a mother, that boy could challenge Aten himself! Don't even look at him when he passes us by!"
I refuse to promise to do such a terrible thing to the little prince! "It's hot," I announce, like I've forgotten the boy already, "so I'm going swimming!"
10 Mesore, Year Eleven
Today, when I am only five years old, Mother and Father invite me to my very first royal banquet! I feel very grown up in my pleated dress and carnelian bracelet. The guards at the door all bow their heads to us, they uncross their thick spears, and suddenly the back door to the mysterious great hall opens wide.
My father, Pharaoh Akhenaten, sits at a high table directly in front of me. It's raised from the others on a shiny red-granite island, so that no one is above the royal family. His throne is in the center, and Mother sits at his right, her hand against his cheek. Her chin is lifted and she must be saying sweet things, because her lips are pouty and smiling, and Father laughs like he always does when she compliments him.
Father sparkles, as always. He is a handsome man, the tallest man in the room any where he goes, and he's slim like a runner. Nobody can see anyone else's face when Father is before them, and when his noblemen are in his presence they circle around him seeking some word or understanding. He cannot enter a room without brightening it, because he so outshines the other men, he outshone even the old gods and their jealous priests. He was sent to lead the people of our land away from false idols and superstition, and there are many people who were not ready to be enlightened, and so, Father says, we must always guard our hearts and our tongues, and be wary against those who would hurt us.
We enter the room as our names are called with trumpets and heralds. Everyone is looking at us and smiling. To be sure I don't make a mistake, I watch Mayati. She walks just as tall as she can, she carries herself gracefully and proudly. Like Meketaten, I try to copy her. As soon as we are sitting beside Mother, servants pile our gold plates high with duck and boiled greens and bread, and there is a tasty fruit sauce to dip our meat in. Mayati has watered wine poured into her cup; Meketaten and I get pomegranate juice in our little ivory cups, carved up with the shapes of hippos and birds and flowers.
"All the important people are here," Mayati tells us breathlessly when the adults at our high table resume their conversation. "You already know Meri-Re," she says, her eyes on the plump and pretty man to Father's left. Of course I know Meri-Re, the First Prophet of Aten. He is Father's high priest, who performs the temple offerings as Father revealed they should be done, to please Aten. "And next to him is his wife, Iniuia."
Meri-Re leans close to Father now, his eyes fixed on the little cluster of gold lamps. He is listening, listening, and then he gets Father's point and straightens up, very pleased, laughing at the cleverness of what he's been told. My father's dark hands spread out while he explains, his thick gold rings flashing in the firelight. From so far down the table, I can't hear, and I'm not meant to. Yet everyone close to him is in rapt attention.
Meketaten nudges me and I lean in, while Mayati looks to Father's chief architect, Paranefer, and murmurs about him. For all my life we've lived with the sound of banging hammers and men singing to keep time as they work. I was born here when noblemen still slept in tents, and ground was just broken on the important palaces and temples. But now, Amarna is an entire city, designed by Father and built just for him, just for us. After almost six years of building, it's nearly completed, and even I know that already this city is being touted as one of the world's most beautiful places. The architect Paranefer is responsible for bringing Father's visions to life. "See how many gold collars Paranefer wears around his neck? Father likes him very much, even if his brother was a priest of the false god before the reforms."
As Mayati continues talking, I look around and see that these gold collars weigh down most of the court. When my sister pauses for a moment, I ask her, "What are the collars for?"
"Father and Mother give the shebyu collars out to whoever pleases them. You see the man at the end of the table? He is Tuthmose, only a sculptor, but the very best there is. So he has more collars than the others." By the look in her eyes I know that there is something wrong about that, maybe the others might be thinking the sculptor's favor isn't earned. I am sure I couldn't sculpt anything, but I understand all the same.
Now Vizier Ay joins their conversation, and he is talking on about the problems created by the vast and distant nature of government in my grandfather's court. It's his common theme, and one Father agrees with. They think that Pharaoh should keep a smaller, centralized government, to better keep the powerful noble families from acquiring enough wealth and power to challenge the crown. The vizier is my mother's uncle. He served my grandfather, as well; and his sister, my grandmother, made herself my grandfather's chief wife, climbing over many many women. Just like my mother made herself chief wife. Ay himself has no blood of the royal family; yet he has been given many honorary titles, and so I guess that is why it is not dangerous that he is a wealthy nobleman.
Ay is a wiry, strong looking man, with the first shots of silver showing in his close-cropped black hair. His small eyes don't miss anything, and he is always working for Father.
A large roasted goose is brought out, and when it's sliced everyone claps to see that it's been stuffed with a duck, and a smaller teal inside the duck, stuffed through and out with fruit and citrus peels. Young women in white sheaths with white lotus flowers pinned in their hair serve us.
The golden afternoon cools into blue twilight. Alabaster lamps with short wicks blink all over our table between gold place settings. Little bowls of jasmine scented water are provided for each guest to wash their fingers, and there are white petals floating in mine. I peer over to Meketaten's bowl and see that there are jasmine petals in hers, too. Garlands of the flower are bunched around the lamps and all over the table. Father catches my eye and winks at me, before plucking a bloom from the garland and tucking it behind Mother's ear. I grin back. Blue light dances behind them from the skylight over their head, and their gold shines brilliantly.
The musicians strike up their tune again. They sit on their shins throughout our great hall, playing their lutes and their lyres. The drums rumble lively, their flutes trill magically. They sit interspersed in groups around the massive lotus style columns. The men sit at the front of the room, arranged in low backed chairs before low tables stocked with wine and meat and honey cakes, and every good thing that they could desire. Their women congregate a bit further behind the men, laughing raucously from their stools and low couches, the back sky light pouring down on them. Some of the women have placed little scent cones on their braided wigs, and the heat of the open flames melts the waxy cone so that the perfumed oils within are slowly released. The hall is filled by the most amazing smells of cinnamon, almond, orange oil, and myrrh.
I turn my attention back to my own high table. There is young woman at our table, several years older than Mayati, who sits next to Teye. She looks like my mother with her finely chiseled features, straight nose, and rose bud lips. Her eyes have that same odd color like Mother's, the rich green of growing crops, but hers are tinged with iron. "Is that our aunt?" I ask Mayati.
"Yes. Lady Mutnojme. Since her parents are dead and she is still unmarried, she lives with the vizier and Lady Teye, her next closest kin."
I didn't think she was paying any attention to us, but at the sound of her name, Mutnojme looks over and smiles. Like Mother, like Mayati and Meketaten, her smile is stunning. Even at five years old, I fear I'll never be able to compete with the beautiful girls around me who are like perfect statues, full of pink lips and eyes like priceless gemstones! I'm scrawny and plain, or at least that's what Mayati tells me. My eyes are just brown, not even black like Father's or Tutankhaten's. My lips aren't flushed red like they've been bitten, but pinkish-brown and far too plump for my face. My hair, when taken from its braids, is thick, black, and full of unruly curls. The only thing in my favor is that my lashes are very dark and I don't need nearly as much kohl as my sisters! Still, that is a very small thing. And then of course, there is this: since my father will not declare Tutankhaten his heir, because of the worry he won't adhere to the worship of the one true god, Aten, all the city is constantly abuzz with the rumor that Father will call Mayati his heir. Then, he will offer her in marriage to his most suitable courtier, the man he is sure would rule properly. That is usually taken to mean his half-brother Smenkhare, son of Amunhotep the Third and a woman from the deep south of Egypt. That is certainly the way Mother wants if. But Father, he says nothing. We all, even I, know that he is holding out for the hope that Mother will give him a son, whose right to rule will be uncontested as my mother is Father's chief wife.
"Let us have dancing!" Father calls out, and in moments, a troop of naked dancing girls runs into the hall, their jeweled belts sparkling around their hips. Their copper skin is oiled to a shine that catches the light as they sway and shake. The noblemen lean forward in their chairs to watch the beauty displayed before them, but Father has a contemplative frown on his face. "Wait, wait!" he calls out, standing up and waving his hands. The music goes dead, and the girls stop with wide eyes. Father summons a servant, a soft looking eunuch, and whispers a request into his ear that makes his eyes pop. The Pharaoh only laughs, flicking his wrist in a dismissive gesture, and the part-man disappears through the doors that I came in to do whatever Father told him to do.
The court begins to whisper, and soon their impatient, curious questions take over the room with a low rumble. They look like Mayati does when she's tired of waiting for a gift! Soon enough, the servant returns, along with several men to help him carry ten sacks the size of my head.
"Good! Give me one of them." My father thrusts his hand into the sack and pulls it out again, and when his hand emerges it's shining like the sun, and he grins. The court's murmuring falls silent.
"He has gold dust," Mayati tells her little sisters, like she's seen everything before.
The Pharaoh now beckons the leader of the dancers to him, and she shyly makes her way to the royal dais, bowing deeply before my parents.
"Stand up," I can hear him say, though his voice is very quiet. The girl stands without looking up.
Father takes gold dust in his hands and shakes it over the girl, and soon she's painted and bright. He lifts her chin with his finger, takes gold dust with his hand, and blows it into the girl's face. The dancer offers a mouse-like sneeze then, causing Father to chuckle, and he's soon joined by all the men near him. I would be horrified to be her, but a glance at my mother and Lady Teye tells me that I shouldn't be concerned about a dancing girl, and so I sit back in my chair and try to mind my manners.
"There!" Father declares. "Now you are fit to dance for us!" He calls a group of palace guard, and points to the sacks. "Paint the rest of them!" There is a great deal of laughter now, as Father's Nubian guards, in their luxurious silver-threaded kilts, paint a cloud of dust around the girls. The girls twirl and spin elegantly in the hands of the guards, their faces smiling, their black hair swinging around their hips, just like it was all planned for everyone's entertainment. The men in the room begin to clap and cheer, and the drums kick up again.
An elegantly formed, dark skinned man in fine robes and shimmering gold passes unannounced through the back door.
"Prince Smenkhare," Mayati breathes quietly, turning her head to follow the perfect-looking man as he struts straight to the head of our table.
Smenkhare is tall and sleek, and he moves more fluidly than the cheetah in Father's menagerie. He has fifteen rows of long black braids tied at the nape of his thick neck. Smenkhare is not yet twenty. His robe hangs open to show an athletic, mahogany chest, where a gold pectoral thumps as he walks. He clutches a scroll in his gold-ringed hands. He has the same eyes as my father, slanted and feline and endlessly black, but where Father's nose is sharp and long and a bit hooked, Smenkhare's is flat and wide and strong. Mayati's eyes follow him in a way I don't understand. She looks at him like she might look at some unique jewel which she must possess.
Father sits back in his chair, turning his head to Smenkhare as he comes to the head of the table. "Move over," Father tells Meri-Re, and so the High Priest gets up and stands awkwardly while the prince takes his seat. "Have you finished it?"
Now the dance begins, with the gold-dipped girls, but Father's complete attention is on the unfurled scroll in his hands. Smenkhare sits back in his chair confidently, only speaking when Father points to some particular glyph. As Father reads, Smenkhare politely meets the gazes of the others at our table then is reabsorbed by his poetry. Mayati sneaks a look at him from under that black fringed canopy, and her she bites her grin a moment too late, and carefully checks Mother to make sure she wasn't seen.
"It's good. Very good," Father says to Smenkhare. "I will inscribe it on the walls of the Great Temple."
After the dance, Father beckons the girl he painted. He whispers quietly into Mother's ear as the girl approaches, and Mother smiles beautifully; but the smile doesn't reach her cold green eyes. The girl arrives, and Father tells her, "You dance exquisitely. Come with your king, and you'll have your reward."
She agrees quietly, bowing her head and throwing a nervous glance to her troupe. Father laughs again and takes Mother's hand, and they rise to exit quietly, their dancer following.
After a while, I grow tired. I don't know where my parents have gone to, but they didn't say goodbye or goodnight. The courses of food, sweets, and drink come less frequently to our table. When Ay sends Mutnojme home, I start to wonder when Mother will come back.
"The child is about to fall asleep," I hear. It's Lady Teye, eyes on me.
"Go on," Ay permits her, and she pushes her chair back along the smooth granite and walks around the table.
"Come with me, princesses," she says. Her eyes are warm brown, lined heavily with artfully smudged kohl. I like the little red beads around the bottoms of her many braids. I stand up and give her my hand immediately.
"I'm fine, Lady Teye," Mayati says, stopping Meketaten halfway as she rises from her chair.
"You need to rest now, Princess," Teye says firmly.
"I don't have to leave if I don't want to. I am the firstborn of the god! Who are you?" Mayati smiles brazenly.
Teye draws in a small breath. She tells my sister smoothly, "Suit yourself, your highness. But there are no other children here, no one your age by far. So you might find yourself bored, goddess or not."
*
"We have a new student in our group today," says our tutor Senqed.
Immediately, my eyes are on the door. I sit next to my sisters in the front row of the class, where no one else will sit even if we're gone. But behind us are the other children of the palace. The smartest of them seems to be little Seti, the son of Pharaoh's chief horse master Captain Ramses. Our classroom is close to the King's House, and it's a cool, quiet room. The floor is laid with the deepest, prettiest blue tiles anywhere.
I love school. I love the faint but fresh smell of the papyrus and the way its ridges feel under my fingertips, the way the endless white of the high-quality paper I use is just waiting to capture my thoughts and words… I make the twenty five characters of our alphabet as perfectly as I can, and it's a good thing, too, for if there are any errors, Senqed makes us copy and recopy, and not even Mayati is exempt!
Senqed is a tough teacher, and I doubt there is a scroll in the world the man doesn't keep stuffed into his office beside the classroom, or balanced in enormous piles on his desk that are always on the brink of collapse! He's a large man, and sometimes I must bite my lips or squeeze my fists to keep from laughing as his ample rear topples our day's lessons to the floor. I wouldn't want him to catch me! An errant student might be made to copy texts one hundred times, or be sent to the House of Life on the hunt for some obscure fact. But I think Senqed enjoys his work, and maybe deep down, he likes us too. He straightens himself up from his desk, giving his tightly fitting but richly embroidered tunic a tug before crossing to the door, and leaning out a bit. "Come on, then."
The open door fills with the little boy who I saw in the garden a year ago, Tutankhaten! Only now, his head is shaved but for his little braided side lock. He stands, belly puffed out over his little kilt, with his ebony palette tucked under his arm. Senqed bows his head as he tells us, "Students, we will welcome Prince Tutankhaten."
We silently watch him as he walks cautiously through the door. I push up on my hip a little to peer over my sisters. What good fortune brought him to Senqed's group? Has my mother taken her jeweled sandal of the prince's neck?
Tutankhaten doesn't know where to sit. If his mother were alive, he would sit before us as that special thing, a first-born prince. But even at his young age, he knows not to do that. He looks up at Senqed curiously. Senqed waves his hands at the boys of the second row, the children of Father's highest lords. Tutankhaten is now neatly tucked behind beside Seti, and he too busy greeting the boy to catch me looking at him. He imitates our posture; he crosses his legs and puts his palate before him, then sets up the little jar for water and neatly pours the powdered ink into the palate's depressions.
"More papyrus," Senqed says to himself in his grumbling way, and he takes some poor-quality yellow papyrus for the little boy to learn his letters on. "We're reading the Satire of the Trades, you must listen for now, and later I can help you with your alphabet." As he says this, he hands Tutankhaten one of the same leather-bound little books that we are reading from.
"My nurse taught me my alphabet, sir. And I can read and write my name."
"Well!" Senqed is truly surprised! "Very good! You should be able to recognize some of the characters. Back to work, then! We shall continue with Seti."
Seti stands up. He's my age, a quiet boy who is careful to be polite to us; his family is from the north, Lower Egypt. Since the time of the first Pharaoh, there has always been a rivalry between the warrior clans of Upper Egypt, and the families of Lower Egypt. The ancestors of men like Ramses and his little son Seti tried to maintain Egyptian rule in the Delta when it was occupied by foreigners from Asia. We rescued them, of course, and reunified our country under home rule. But Seti's family fought bravely to end the occupation and they have broken bread with us for centuries. His voice is clear as he reads, "'I would have you love writing more than your mother, and have you recognize it's beauty, for the profession of the scribe is greater than any on earth…'" I listen intently, though my favorite passages are those where the author, Khety, graphically describes the horrors of other occupations. Earlier I read my verse as I struggle not to giggle, 'I see the coppersmith toil at the mouth of his furnace, his fingers like crocodile skin, his stench worse than fish eggs.' The Satire is read by all schoolchildren, to encourage them to pick the scholarly path, though as a royal girl I know that I will never work at anything other than my marriage and my children.
We break for lunch, and will eat as usual in the little garden adjoining our classroom. Mayati watches me warily, until the high priest's daughter calls her away; Mayati thinks the girl important to know. I smile sweetly, and her eyes narrow towards me in warning before she walks away.
I bite my lips and trail behind, so that I'm the last to leave the classroom. And then, the sun goes out: Senqed's big body blocks the door, and he scolds me, "Princess Ankhesenpaaten! You were too distracted this morning. Her majesty would be unhappy! You must pay attention after lunch, so don't over eat."
"Yes, Master Senqed," I respond automatically, bobbing my head in quick obedience. How I wish he would move!
"See that you do, or it's off to the House of Life to find the Instructions of Kagemni!" he grumbles, then steps aside.
Now that Senqed is back in the classroom, I walk into the sun and search the courtyard. Meketaten is with her friends and paying me no attention. Then, I see him. Tutankhaten sits alone under the acacia tree, looking through his new book. I walk to him. "Hello," I say softly, and the boy looks up.
"Princess Ankhesenpaaten!" The book snaps shut and he's up and bowing before I can blink.
"I was wondering if I can sit with you."
Tutankhaten stares at me for so long, I think he's not going to speak, but then he tells me, "You don't have to ask me." The cool way his black eyes pass over me makes me I feel like I've made a mistake.
I start to speak, but then I flush with embarassment. There's nothing else to do but straighten up and turn away
"Wait," Tutankhaten cries suddenly, and I turn on my heel. He looks at me plaintively, eyes big and black. "What about your sisters?"
"They stay together," I explain.
"Oh. You can sit with me," Tutankhaten decides.
I grin brightly and plop to the ground. Fuzzy, round, yellow acacia flowers cover the tree, and the fallen flowers carpet the place Tutankhaten chose to eat. Their sweet, heady perfume surrounds us, as the green leaves shade us from the sun. A servant brings us our lunch, lentils and bread and grape juice, and we eat quickly and quietly. I realize he must be waiting for me to speak to him. "So… you can already read and write?" I ask, seizing on the first thing that comes to mind.
"My name and a few words." He opens up his book to show me, placing a chubby finger under the characters of his freshly inked name. "I did that just now."
I examine his neat work. "That's really good. It took me a full year to learn the alphabet, to learn when characters are used as sounds and when they're words… you'll learn fast now."
"I hope so."
"Just don't talk until Senqed gives you permission. He won't pamper you because you are a prince, believe me!" I gulp, knowing again I've said the wrong thing!
Tutankhaten's eyes pop in surprise at my tactless comment, and then his nose crinkles up and he laughs; when I look at him and smile uncertainly, I see his eyes twinkling like they have stars throughout their blackness. "Do you come every day?" he asks me.
"Only half of the week, the rest of the time it's just boys. The other five days are for my dancing lessons. Meketaten sings and is very good with the harp, but not such a good dancer. Mayati is good at everything."
"You are the dancer," He repeats, smiling softly, and I like the way it sounds.
I add proudly, "And I like to ride horses. I can already canter."
"Really? Can you drive a chariot?"
"Me! No! My mother learned at thirteen, but I won't have any use for that!"
Tutankhaten sits a little taller as he declares, "I want to race chariots. And I want to be a great hunter."
"What would you hunt?"
His eyes sparkle. "Everything! Lions, crocodiles, hippos, ostrich!"
"Big game," I say approvingly. I like this boy. "Do you like Father's lions?"
Quiet muffles his dreams of hunting. "I have never seen them. No one has taken me. But I know he has lions. And cheetahs from far south."
And birds, and monkeys… But I don't say that. Instead, I whisper, "I'll take you to see them."
His little face is suspicious. "Why would you do that for me?"
I lean close to Tutankhaten. I know Aten's heard my prayers, and now this is my chance to have a twin, just like Mayati and Meketaten are together! "Because we should be friends," I offer, knowing how full of hope my voice is.
Those black eyes of his run over me again, like he wants to see through me, to know if it's a trick. Mother is unkind to him, and Mayati doesn't speak-or want any of us to speak-when we pass him in the halls. Maybe Tutankhaten won't trust me!
His delicate face grows very shy. "I've never had a friend," he reveals.
"I don't really have anyone either," I say. "No one to tell secrets to, I mean."
"You walk behind them," Tutankhaten tells me, as he looks towards where Meketaten eats.
"Yes. But I don't care. I think we should be best friends, me and you."
All of a sudden, all of his loneliness pushes up to the surface of him. Tutankhaten stares at me like I've done a complicated flip or some worthy act. He smiles, and murmurs, "I would like to be best friends with you."
We go back to class full of laughter and smiles. Mayati and the priest's daughter breeze in late, and when Senqed gives her a disapproving look she challenges him silently, with arched eyebrows. She doesn't even know that I sat with Tutankhaten! Meketaten shakes her head at me subtly, like I am a traitor to Mother, and I stick my tongue out at her when no one else is looking.
Tutankhaten and I eat together at the tutor's whenever we can after that day. But better, we begin to play together outside of class, too, sneaking off to visit all the places he has never seen, cooped up with his nurse! And he loves our menagerie, full of animals like giraffes, tame little gazelles that wander freely, and even father's lions that frighten me when they prowl behind their bronze bars.
Like me, Tutankhaten loves to swim, rather than sunning himself all day long like my sisters do. I take him out on one of our barges, Aten's Beauty, and we look for crocodiles and giant fish beneath the shimmering surface of the Nile. He's especially impressed by our horses, having none himself, and so I let him ride the gentle, steady horses reserved for training Pharaoh's children in the equestrian arts safely. His own training has been neglected-the sheer size of the littlest horses is daunting to him! We decide he should sit behind me, and he does, his small brown arms tight about my waist.
Tutankhaten lives in the King's House too, but far away, across the sycamore courtyard. My mother must have put him here, almost as far as the servants, and alone! I go with him, to his room. He collects lizards and keeps them there, and I promise that I will help him find the one he's looking for, the big blue Agama. He has soldiers, too. Many little soldiers, and horses, and animals of every kind made of wood and glass. I wonder if Father visits him, quietly when Mother won't know, and sets up his wooden soldiers or gives him a glass hippopotamus.
By the summer of my sixth year, we are inseperable. I can say anything I think with Tutankahten, and never have to worry about what he might think or do with that I tell him. And he shows me the world of boys, of frogs caught in hand from the palace gardens, of leaping into pools tucked into a ball and not caring about freshly braided hair. By the end of the summer he calls me Amisi, for flowers, and I think that's just fine.
Chapter Two
Season of Akhet, Year 12
In the heat of summer, Mayati becomes a woman, and suddenly she's drawn away from our world. She marks the distinction with fine belts and sashes to sling low on her widening hips, she paints her lips with red oche and wears lotion with gold dust and crushed pearls stirred into the cream. Mayati has always practiced her walk, but now she sits in her cushions and holds up her golden mirror, turning her head this way and that, playing with the cast of her bright green eyes and the curtain of her lashes. Meketaten hangs back a bit more, now that Mayati's passed through that magical veil into adulthood and all Meketaten can do is ask her questions about it.
When we all sit together, Mother and Father, Meketaten and Mayati, and the nurses holding the two babies, Mayati now listens carefully to Mother and Father's conversation, and Father will ask her for her opinion on what flowers might be planted in the Great Temple, or if he should arrange for dancing or acrobats at the next great court feast.
After we eat, we go out on Mother's balcony and Father talks to us about Aten, or the history of our grandsires and the mighty monuments they raised to the glory of our family, the glory of Egypt. I love these nights, after Father takes the babies on his lap and kisses them goodnight, and the servants pull out a big stone and bronze fire pit and make a glowing, crackling fire of applewood. As the smoke curls up into the clear, starry sky, we imagine our brave ancestors, fighting the foreigners to liberate the Delta Egyptians from the occupation. Father and Mother drink wine, and now Mayati does too, full wine, not watered. Meketaten and I have warmed milk with cinnamon and get drowsy in the bed of pillows on the cool limestone floor.
On some days, Father will surprise us, bursting into Senqed's classroom to great fanfare and the happy gasps of the children. Mother will be in tow, in her fine gowns sewn with thread of gold, and all the boys try not to look at Pharaoh's radiant chief wife. Then Father will call the three of us girls from class, announcing that he wants the people of Amarna to see his beautiful princesses. I can't help leaping to my feet to follow, even as I steal a quick look over my shoulder at my best friend. Tutankhaten raises his head from his humble bow and stares straight ahead, he stares through Senqed with his little jaw set tight, and he doesn't even watch us go.
And then, I'm ashamed to say, I forget all about him to leap into my ceremonial chariot, which I now share with Meketaten. Mayati rides ahead of us alone wearing a seshed circlet with gold beads hanging in shining bands over her henna-glossed black hair. We're proceeded by drummers and trumpets, and all of the city rushes from their stores and homes to line the streets and bow to us.
Father tells us that he is planning a great celebration for Peret, the planting season after the flood waters pull back. He sits proudly behind his huge, red Aswan granite desk, his loose black curls hanging over a royal diadem where a jewel studded cobra rears from his brow. Father leans back in his chair and calls us three girls and Mother to stand behind him, and we bunch together, each trying to stand closest. His dark, gold-ringed finger points to a drawing he has made of a great canopied dais, built up over the heads of men, with the top pulled into a point like a big tent. "We will set a great pavilion in the palace courtyard, and all of the princes, from Kush to Babylonia, will come to see what Aten has made here!"
"Even the Hittites?" Mayati asks, and Meketaten and I gasp in surprise. The Hittites are from the far north, and are only spoken of when our nurses mean to frighten us into obedience, or by the viziers and generals when they pull Father to the side with hushed whispers.
Father turns his brilliant gaze up to us. The unshakeable confidence in his face leaves us no room for worry when he declares, "Even the Hittites!"
