“Father?” This was worse than the time he’d tried to force us away from his confrontation with Henenu. Then his anger sprang from grief, but now—now he looked crushed, broken. My father, the strongest, bravest man I’d ever known, was like a small slave boy who’d been punished harshly for some small misdeed. I tried to hug him again, but he held me at arms’ length and shook his head.
“My little kitten, do you know how much I love you?” I nodded, my mouth dry. He sounded on the brink of tears. “I’d do anything I could to protect you, but sometimes—sometimes …”
I understood. “Sometimes you can’t.”
“She threatened us, Nefertiti.” Now his face was streaked with tears. “I didn’t know she had so much command. She’s not just Pharaoh’s Great Royal Wife; she’s also the God’s Wife of Amun, high priestess of the supreme god. The domination of the Amun priests is greater than anything you can imagine. Pharaoh Amenhotep is doing what he can to weaken it by declaring himself to be a god while he lives, instead of after death, but what strengthened him also strengthened her.”
“What did she say she’d do?” I asked. I didn’t want to hear, but I had to know.
“My sister is wise.” Father uttered a hollow chuckle. “She didn’t bother menacing me with poverty or exile. She simply reminded me that there was a high priest of Isis who’d be more than happy to add his testimony to hers that I’d blasphemed against the gods. I would die for that, my possessions would be confiscated, and my family—enslaved. I had no choice, little kitten.” His laugh became a sob. “I had no choice.”
This time when I tried to put my arms around him, he let me. “It’s all right, Father,” I said. “Maybe it will work out well. I might like Thutmose.”
“May the gods grant it.” He wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “To hear Tiye talk, it’s impossible not to like Thutmose.” He laughed again, and now it sounded a bit more natural. “Which is why I was able to gain you a little breathing space.” He saw my questioning expression and went on: “My sister says she doesn’t make ‘marketplace bargains,’ but the truth is that she’s a born haggler at heart. As much as she likes winning, she likes a challenge even better, so I gave her one. When I saw that there was no hope of escaping this marriage, I began to plead that you were too young to marry just yet.”
“But didn’t she say she was even younger when she married Pharaoh?”
“Ah! But then I pointed out that she was an extraordinary woman. You can guess how much she liked that.” His old smile was back. “I also said that it might be best if she used the time between now and your marriage to teach you all about the perils and practices of the royal court, making you into a worthy wife for her precious Thutmose.”
“Time?” I echoed. “How much time?”
“Three years!” Father proclaimed his small victory over his sister as if he’d conquered an entire kingdom for Pharaoh. “With the condition that if you decide you want to marry Thutmose sooner, so be it.”
“So it won’t be,” I said. “If I’m fated to marry him, I’ll do it when I must and not a single day earlier.”
“Don’t close your heart or your mind, my sweet kitten,” Father said, beginning to lead me back into the room where Aunt Tiye, Mery, and Bit-Bit waited. “You might like Thutmose. You said it yourself. Now come, let’s enjoy your aunt’s fine hospitality.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then come and stop your sister from stuffing herself with too much duck. You will stay here with the royal court, but your mother and I have to go back to Akhmin, and I don’t look forward to sailing down the river with Bit-Bit being sick over the side of the boat all the way home.”
The next day, Father managed to persuade his sister to make a public oath before the temple of Amun, renewing her promise to delay my marriage to Thutmose by three years. The ceremony took place before many witnesses, not just the members of our family but also those nobles attending the queen, the priests of Amun, of Osiris, and of several other gods who were revered in Abydos.
I wore my best dress and sandals for the occasion and stood between Father and Aunt Tiye at the top of a wide flight of steps leading to Amun’s sanctuary. Aunt Tiye tried to get me to agree to have my head shaved so that I could wear one of her finest wigs, with gold beads weighing down every one of the hundreds of tiny plaits, but I refused. As a compromise, I let her heap my body with the weight of enough bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and hair ornaments to bring a horse to its knees. One of those bracelets was the silver one I’d given back to her. She made it very clear to me that while she was only lending me the other ornaments, I had better not refuse the silver bracelet a second time. I was beginning to understand that with Aunt Tiye, you either gave her her own way, made a compromise that left things going mostly her own way, or fooled her into thinking she was getting her own way when she wasn’t. The last option was very dangerous.
After she took that oath in Amun’s sight, she dismissed Father and me. “We’ll be leaving for Thebes tomorrow. I must make sure that everything awaiting you there will be perfect, my dear.” She patted my cheek and swept away.