My head began to spin as I heard the boy describe how he’d seen me crouch in the moonlight under the branches of the sycamores with Ta-Miu pinned helpless under my hand. “She called on the power of Set the Destroyer. She held a flint knife over the she-cat’s body, but when she first tried to kill Bast’s sacred child, the cat squirmed free and slashed her dress. She laid hold of it a second time and killed it. She took its blood and mixed it with a handful of soft wax. She made the wax into two figures and gave them the names of my father and my brother, pronouncing ghastly curses against them. Then she crushed them under her feet, she pulled them apart in small pieces, she oblit- obliterated them utterly.” He inhaled deeply and concluded: “I followed her when she carried the cat’s body to the river and threw it in. I watched her return to her rooms. I went back the next day, when she was gone, and with Amun’s help I was able to take that dress and bring it to the priests and tell them what I had seen and—and—and I think that’s all.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to focus my gaze and make sense of what I was hearing. The vizier, the nobles, and Thutmose all heard Meketre’s oddly formal recitation with expressions of growing horror. The priests looked grave, but there was no surprise on their faces. I was so overwhelmed by the scope and audacity of the lies filling the chamber that I wouldn’t have been able to refute them then and there even if I’d recovered the full use of my tongue.
If I made and destroyed those wax images, where are the pieces? If I killed Ta-Miu with a knife, where is that? And why would I want to curse Pharaoh and Thutmose in the first place? Meketre’s story is a tattered fishing net that can’t hold the truth. Doesn’t anyone else see that?
All that I could do was appeal to the one friend I had: “Th-Thutmose—”
“What would you have me do, Nefertiti?” he asked mournfully. “This boy’s—my brother’s testimony changes everything.”
“He—he isn’t tell—telling …” My speech was coming back to me, but not fast enough. I shook my head and mimed the act of writing, mutely imploring Thutmose to have someone bring me a pen or a brush, a scrap of papyrus or a shard of broken pottery.
Thutmose closed his eyes and sighed as if his heart were being crushed under a stone. Had he seen my gestures at all? “The penalty for blasphemy—” he began.
A commotion from the back of the chamber interrupted him. A tall figure paused in the doorway chamber. A trick of light and shadow made it look like an impossible monster, a two-headed beast that stalked the shadows just beyond the lamplight’s reach.
“What is going on here?” Amenophis used one arm to push his way through the men who stood between him and his brother, the other arm holding Nava to his bony chest. The instant she saw me, she thrust free of Amenophis’s hold and hurled herself into my arms.
“Brother, how did you know—?” Thutmose stared at Amenophis, perplexed.
“She brought me.” He pointed at Nava, who was clinging to me as if I were all that stood between her and the jaws of Ammut. “She woke as Nefertiti was being taken away. She followed silently and once she saw where your men brought her, she ran to tell—” He paused. “It doesn’t matter who she told, only that he was able to tell me. Now in the name of our father’s justice, explain this!”
Thutmose did so. He did it gently and graciously, without lashing out at his brother for barging into his presence and making demands. I sat on the floor, rocking Nava in my lap, awed by the man Thutmose had become.
“Where is he?” The mild-mannered Amenophis I’d known was gone. “Where is her accuser?”
“Our brother is there,” Thutmose responded, pointing to where Meketre cowered among the priests.
Anger transfigured my friend, infused him with strength and authority. He didn’t raise his voice when he faced Meketre; he didn’t need to. “Hear me, brother: I swear by the all-seeing light of Aten’s sun-disk, if any harm comes to Nefertiti because of your false words, you will regret it all the days of your life.”
Meketre began to cry. The chief priest curled his lip in disgust at the boy’s teary, snot-streaked face. “Take him away,” he said. Two of his underlings obeyed. “A fine thing, threatening a child!”
“I made no threat,” Amenophis said. “I made a promise.” He turned to Thutmose. “We must send word to Dendera at once. Father must hear about this.”
“Brother, you forget.” Thutmose stood up, his arms crossed on his chest, the crook and the flail in his hands. It was the same commanding stance that I had seen on countless statues and paintings of Pharaohs who had ruled the Black Land in the past and then gone to join the gods. “Our father is here,” he said solemnly. “I rule in his name.”
“Then rule the way he would!” Amenophis exclaimed. “With justice.”
“What’s come over you, Amenophis?” Thutmose asked, his voice and demeanor unnaturally meek. “I’ve never heard you defend anyone so passionately before, not even yourself. Tell me I can still trust you. Tell me that you haven’t betrayed your own brother by stealing the love of my intended bride. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I—I—” Amenophis stammered, caught off guard by the accusation. “I’m only defending her because she’s been falsely blamed.”
The priest of Amun gave a short, cynical laugh. “You reject Meketre’s testimony as blindly as you fight for Nefertiti’s innocence. May the gods have pity on you, Prince Amenophis, for I fear you are the victim of this girl’s evil enchantments. Her beauty is undeniable. Coupled with her sorcery, it’s irresistible. She has enslaved you, poor man. Why else would you question the absolute authority your divine father, Pharaoh Amenhotep, has bestowed upon Prince Thutmose?” A sly look came into his eyes. “Unless this is your way of saying that you are more worthy to rule?”
“No!” Amenophis was appalled by the priest’s insinuation. “I would never—”
“Then let him rule!” The priest shouted him down.
The two brothers looked at one another. “Amenophis, do you believe that Father was right to let me speak in his name until he returns from Dendera?” Thutmose asked earnestly. Amenophis held his gaze and I counted five of my rapid heartbeats before Thutmose said, “You hesitate, my brother?”
“Traitor,” the priest muttered.
“Amenophis is no traitor!” I cried, and with Isis’s healing help the words were able to leave my mouth without bungling into one another. “I swear by Ma’at—”
“Be quiet, you!” The priest closed in on me. Nava gasped, her eyes rolling in terror. Was this what it was like for her when they came for her sister? I thought. I pressed her face protectively to my shoulder and met the priest’s furious look with one of my own.