The verdict of Ma’at! “You were the voice of the goddess?” I cried. “But what happened to the priest Thutmose bought? The one who was going to use Ma’at’s mouth to condemn me?”
“You knew about my brother’s plot?”
“Henenu told me.”
“I see.” He looked dejected. “I would have done the same, Nefertiti, but I thought if you knew what Thutmose had in mind—”
I stepped into his embrace and took a swift, sweet kiss from his lips. “Hush. I understand why you kept some secrets from me. Henenu helped me see your reasons.”
“Bless him for that,” Amenophis said. “I was afraid you’d be mad at me for hiding things from you.”
“Just see to it that you never do so again,” I told him. “Now, how did you deal with Thutmose’s hired priest?”
“By hiring men of my own,” he replied. “Did you see them? They were the ones who carried me away when I ‘fainted.’ As soon as we were well away from the courtyard, in a deserted part of the temple, I enjoyed an extraordinary recovery. I led the way as we stole through the inner corridors to reach the room where the ‘voice’ of Ma’at hides. Father showed it to me once, when I was still a child. It’s very small—not more than a cubbyhole with a speaking tube that leads to Ma’at’s wooden image—so the job usually falls to one of the youngest, smallest, scrawniest priests. When my men yanked open the door, he took one look at them and crawled out without a fight. I took his place, and you know the rest.” He grinned. “No one else will, though. My men made it clear to the little priest that his silence and his health are now partners. And they’ll never say one word about what happened. I sealed their lips with well-earned gold.”
His smile withered. “It’s always gold, gold and influence. Thutmose buys the goddess to destroy you, I buy her back to save you, but the real voice of Ma’at is gone. Was it ever there? If the gods have any real power, why do they stand by and allow us to buy and sell their voices? If Ma’at is the goddess of truth, why does she remain silent and permit so many lies to flourish? I am just as guilty of profaning her holy truth as the priests my brother bribed. I impersonated Ma’at herself, speaking in her name: If that was sacrilege, why didn’t she stop me?”
I lifted my face to his. “If she had stopped you, what would have become of me?”
He kissed me, and his kiss was far more lingering than mine had been. I wished I could drown in it. When he drew back to speak again, I gave a little sigh of longing.
“Maybe the gods know better than we do when to keep silent,” I said, resting my head over his heart. “Maybe—maybe the goddess sees what we can’t, a greater truth.”
“I love you, Nefertiti,” Amenophis said softly. “I don’t know of any greater truth than that. Do you think that’s what Ma’at read in my heart when I pretended to be her?”
“If she did, then she must have forgiven you.”
We kissed again, and I felt my blood turn to honey, warm and sweet. My senses danced, and all the fears and uncertainties and revelations of the day blew away like the dust of the Red Land’s wild wastes. We were alone in my rooms, and I was powerless to tell whether knowing this made me eager or afraid. When our lips parted, he murmured, “I should go.”
“Don’t.”
His long-fingered hands, once so clumsy, brushed my hair away from my face. “Even in the lamplight, you shine like the sun, Nefertiti. When I kiss you, it’s like bathing in the fire of heaven. What an incredible gift of love Hathor has given me to cherish in you. I’ve never felt like this. I never knew I could.”
“And I—” I choked on all the words I wanted to say. There were too many things I needed to tell him, and not enough time, not if we lived for a hundred years. “I want you to—”
A cascade of flickering flames invaded my bedchamber, oil lamps held high in the hands of a small army of harried, fearful serving women. Their eyes darted here and there, as if they didn’t dare to look at us but didn’t dare to look away. Then their ranks parted and a blazing coal of pure fury hurled itself upon us.
“Get away from her!” Aunt Tiye’s nails dug deep into Amenophis’s shoulder. She pulled him back so hard that it seemed she was trying to fling him to the floor. “Is this what you do? Fly to her like a vulture to carrion? There’s not enough gold in this palace to reward the man who warned me about where to find you!”
“You don’t need to be ‘warned’ about my comings and goings, Mother,” Amenophis said evenly. “I’m not a prisoner.”
“But your brother is! And here I find you, in the arms of the one to blame for that. Have you no loyalty? Don’t you understand that she’s destroyed our lives? Your brother was my one hope to secure this family’s future! Now what’s going to happen to us? Because of her, Amenhotep has turned his face away from his own son! I’ve beaten my hands bloody against his doors and he still refuses to let me in. If I could only talk to him, I could make him see that Thutmose was not himself today. He was—he was sunstruck, that’s what happened. It affected his mind, but only for a little while, except she took advantage of his momentary weakness to make him look bad in Pharaoh’s eyes. I don’t care how slyly she played it or who helped her, Thutmose can’t possibly be held responsible for what he did today! We might as well punish you for fainting like some weak-blooded girl. My husband must be made to see what really happened in the Palace of Ma’at. He loves the boy. He might be swayed to forgive him. He could—”
“Mrrrr?” Ta-Miu stuck her head out from under my bed.
You would have thought she was a viper from the way Aunt Tiye reacted. “What’s that?” she shrieked, pointing at the cat with one shaking finger. “Why is she here? Ah! You stole her, didn’t you?” she snapped at me. “You took the one comfort my poor child had in his unfair captivity!”
“I didn’t take Ta-Miu,” I said, trying to stay calm. “She was given to me.”