“Certainly not. I would have told you. Really, child, can’t anyone make one remark about your sister without your trying to grab their attention for yourself?”
Bit-Bit looked stricken at our aunt’s casually harsh words, and Father’s face hardened even more, but he said nothing. Mery was the one to speak up: “Mutnodjmet knows better than to do that, Great Queen. She’s not one of those young women who have to have everyone’s eyes on them all the time.”
“Indeed? I’m comforted to hear it,” Aunt Tiye replied blandly. “And how nice to hear your voice at last my dear. I owe you a very great debt for how well you raised Nefertiti after Ay lost his first wife. I know he’s grateful to you as well. You must also be commended for how well you’ve steered clear of the stepmother’s greatest snare: treating your true-born daughter better than your foster child.”
“Nefertiti is a daughter to me as much as Mutnodjmet,” Mery said. “What sort of mother would ever treat one of her children better than the other?”
“And yet it happens,” Father said. “Once Tiye was chosen to marry Pharaoh Amenhotep, my parents had trouble remembering they’d ever had a son.”
“You’re exaggerating, Ay,” Tiye said.
“I wasn’t the one who could give them a tomb worthy of the richest noblemen in the Black Land. I couldn’t send them all those luxuries, big and small, that let them live lives of royal splendor until the day they died. And when you became Great Royal Wife, I vanished like a shadow at noon, as far as they were concerned.”
My aunt snorted. “Oh, rubbish! Our family members have always been faithful to one another. There are no exceptions. That loyalty is the source of all the power we have ever earned and the only thing that lets us hold on to that power. Don’t try telling me that you have no enemies, my brother.”
Father raised his wine cup to his lips, frowning. “I do.”
“You’ll tell me about them later,” Tiye said, with a casual wave of her hand. “I’ll see that they’re made harmless.”
“I can fight my own battles, Sister.”
“If you could do that, you wouldn’t have any enemies,” Tiye replied with a wide smile.
“And what about you?” Father asked, flinging the challenge back in her face. “Are you saying you have no foes? If so, things have changed very much since the days before Nefertiti was born and you used her mother to—”
“I have rivals,” the queen snapped, cutting him off. Her smile was gone. “There is a difference. My royal husband has many junior wives and concubines. I’m sorry to say that he is no longer here at Abydos to receive you, Brother. He’s already returned to Thebes, supposedly because of pressing business. I know the truth: It’s to be with his newest bride. That is his right as Pharaoh, the living god. I wouldn’t dream of telling a god what he can and can’t do. A pity that some of those foolish women see things otherwise and try to rob me of his devotion. They believe that just because they are royal by birth, they are better than I am.”
“But, Aunt Tiye, you’re the Great Royal Wife!” I protested. “How could anyone be better than you?”
My aunt’s angry expression vanished as quickly as her smile had disappeared before. Her expressions and feelings changed so swiftly that watching her was like trying to keep your eye fixed on a single leaping flame in the heart of a blazing fire. She rose from her chair and seized both my hands, then stripped a silver bracelet from her arm and jammed it onto mine. I couldn’t believe the richness of her gift—silver was much rarer than gold. I couldn’t accept something so precious.
“Aunt Tiye, I don’t deserve this. Please, take it back.” I tried to remove the bracelet and return it, but she clutched my hands so tightly that I couldn’t move.
“I decide what you deserve, my dear,” she said. “Don’t argue with me. I say that your beauty deserves this, and your wisdom seals the bargain. You’re right, you know: I am Amenhotep’s Great Royal Wife. It is the supreme honor for any woman, but even more so for me. Our family isn’t of royal blood, Nefertiti. My father wasn’t even born in this land. He came from the north, from the kingdom of the Mitanni.”
“Like my mother,” I said too softly for her to notice.
“There is no bloodline in all of the Black Land that is more royal than Pharaoh’s,” my aunt went on as she returned to her seat. “It’s more than royal; it’s divine, the blood of the gods. A Pharaoh can have as many women as he likes, but only one can be his Great Royal Wife, and that woman must come from the same family as Pharaoh. That way, the heritage of their child, the next Pharaoh, will stay pure, undiluted by the blood of ordinary mortals.”
Father clicked his tongue. “She knows all that, Tiye. I didn’t raise my daughters under a rock. You’re wasting time, teaching a lesson she’s already learned.”
“Why, Ay, I’m surprised at you,” Aunt Tiye said a bit too sweetly. “You should know that I never waste anything. I’m reminding her, not teaching her, because I want her to understand my position. It wouldn’t hurt if you paid attention as well. My status as Great Royal Wife has been your good fortune. There are plenty of men who’d love to have your job as Pharaoh’s overseer and investigator in Akhmin.”