Nefertiti Read Free Page B

when she wants to be a leader of the people?”
    My mother furrowed her brows. “If the queen approves.”
    “The queen is my sister,” my father said simply. “She will approve of Nefertiti as Chief Wife.” But I could see the concern in his eyes. A crown prince who defiled his brother’s burial chamber, a man who couldn’t control his own emotions? What kind of Pharaoh would he make? What kind of husband?
    We stood and looked at Nefertiti until she saw the three of us watching her. She beckoned me over with her finger. I went to where they were laughing by the pools, my sister and my tutor.
    “Good afternoon, Mutnodjmet.” Ranofer smiled up at me, and for a moment I forgot what I had wanted to tell him.
    “I tried the aloe today,” I said at last. “It healed our servant’s burns.”
    “Really?” Ranofer sat up. “What else?”
    “I mixed it with lavender and there was less swelling.”
    He smiled wider at me. “You are surpassing even my teaching, my lady.”
    I grinned, proud of my ingenuity. “Next, I think I want to try—”
    “Talking about something interesting?” Nefertiti sighed and leaned back in the sunshine. “Tell me, what was Father saying just now?”
    “Right now?” I am a terrible liar.
    “Yes. While you were standing there spying on me.”
    I flushed. “He spoke of your future.”
    She sat up, the ends of her black hair brushing her chin. “And?”
    I paused, wondering if I should tell her the rest. She waited. “And that the queen might be coming,” I said at last.
    Immediately, Ranofer’s smile vanished. “But if she comes”—his voice rose—“you will leave Akhmim.”
    Nefertiti frowned over Ranofer’s head at me. “Don’t worry,” she promised lightly. “Nothing will come of it.”
    There was a moment between them, then Ranofer took her hand and they both stood up.
    “Where are you going?” I cried, but Nefertiti didn’t answer, so I called after my tutor. “What about our lesson?”
    “Later.” He grinned, but it was only my sister he really had eyes for.

    Word arrived that the queen would pay a visit to our villa in Akhmim. In our family shrine, this was what Nefertiti had been secretly praying for, laying down bowls of our best honeyed wine at the feet of Amun and promising all sorts of wild things if he would only send the queen to our city. Now that Amun seemed to have granted her request, Nefertiti was unbearable in her excitement. While my sister preened, my mother rushed around the house, snapping at slaves and servants alike.
    “Mutny, make sure the towels are clean. Nefertiti, the bowls please. Make sure the servants have washed them. All of them.”
    Our servants dusted the fringed wall hangings while my mother arranged our best inlaid chairs around the Audience Chamber, which would be the first room the queen would enter. Queen Tiye was my father’s sister; she was a hard woman and would not approve of sloppy housekeeping. The tiles in the kitchen were scrubbed to gleaming, even though the queen would go nowhere near them, and the lotus pool was stocked with orange fish. Even Nefertiti did some work, actually inspecting the bowls instead of pretending she had. In six days, Amunhotep the Younger would be crowned at Karnak and made coregent with his father. Even I knew what this visit meant. The queen had not come all the way to Akhmim for over six years. The only reason to visit now would be for a marriage.
    “Mutny, go help your sister get dressed,” my mother said.
    In our room, Nefertiti stood in front of the mirror. She pushed her dark hair from her face, imagining herself with the crown of Egypt. “This is it,” she whispered. “I will be the greatest queen Egypt has ever known.”
    I scoffed. “No queen will ever be greater than our aunt.”
    She whirled around. “There was Hatshepsut. And our aunt doesn’t wear the pschent crown.”
    “Only a Pharaoh can wear it.”
    “So while she commands the army and meets with foreign