The Egyptian Royals Collection by Michelle Moran Read Free Book Online Page B

around.”
    “When?” Nefertiti sat up.
“When?”
    “Tomorrow,” my father said with certainty. “And if not tomorrow, then we will make him see that you are more than just his mother’s choice of wife.”

Chapter Three
     

    twentieth of Pharmuthi
     
    THE CORONATION OF Egypt’s new Pharaoh and his queen was to take place on the twenty-first of Pharmuthi, and my father did everything in his power to put Nefertiti before Amunhotep’s eye.
    In the morning we entered the wide, bronze gates into the towering Arena that Amunhotep III had built for Amun. Nefertiti squeezed my hand, for neither of us had ever seen anything so high or magnificent. A forest of columns encircled a sandy pit and the painted walls stretched to the sky. On the lowest tier of seats, the nobility assembled while their servants held drinks and honeyed cakes. This was where Amunhotep liked to ride in the morning, so we were there, watching the prince sweep around the tracks in his golden chariot. But Kiya was there as well, and the Vizier Panahesi, so that when the prince was finished playing warrior an hour later it was Kiya he kissed, and Kiya he laughed with, while Nefertiti had to smile and look pleased before her rival.
    At noon, we were in the Great Hall again, sitting below the dais, eating and chatting as happily as if everything was going our family’s way. Nefertiti laughed and flirted, and I noticed that the more Amunhotep saw of his future wife, the less he could stop watching her. Kiya had none of Nefertiti’s sleek charm. She couldn’t turn a room the way Nefertiti did. But when the afternoon meal was finished, no further words had passed between the prince and Nefertiti, and when we returned to our chamber, my sister was silent. Ipu and Merit rushed around us, and I watched Nefertiti with a growing unease. Amunhotep still saw her as his mother’s choice of wife, and I couldn’t see how my father planned to change that.
    “What will you do?” I finally asked.
    “Repeat to me what he said in the tombs.”
    Merit stiffened, poised to apply gold across Nefertiti’s chest. It was bad luck to speak of what happened below the earth.
    I hesitated. “He said he would never bow to his brother. Never bow to Amun.”
    “And by the fountain he said he wanted to be loved by the people,” Nefertiti stressed. “That he wanted to be the People’s Pharaoh.”
    I nodded slowly.
    “Mutnodjmet, go and find Father,” she said.
    “Now?” Ipu was applying kohl to my brows. “Can’t it wait until after?”
    “After
what?
” she asked tersely. “Kiya has birthed him a son?”
    “Well, what are you going to tell him?” I demanded. I wasn’t going to leave until I’d determined that it was worth disturbing our father.
    “I am going to tell him how we can turn the prince.”
    I sighed, so she would know I wasn’t happy about it, then I went into the hall, but I couldn’t find my father. He wasn’t in his room or in the Audience Chamber. I searched the gardens, made my way into the labyrinthine kitchens, then rushed into the courtyard at the front of the palace, where a servant stopped me and asked what I needed.
    “I’m searching for the Vizier Ay.”
    The old man smiled. “He’s in the same place he always is, my lady.”
    “And where is that?”
    “In the Per Medjat.”
    “The
what?
”
    “The Hall of Books.” He could see that I did not know where this was and so he asked, “Shall I show you the way, my lady?”
    “Yes.” I hurried after him into the palace, past the Great Hall toward the Audience Chamber. For an elderly man, he was spry. He stopped short at a pair of wooden doors, and it was clear he could not go inside.
    “In there?”
    “Yes, my lady. The Per Medjat.”
    He waited to see whether I would knock or go in. I pushed open the doors and stood gazing up at the most magnificent room in all of Malkata. I had never before seen a hall of books. Two twisting flights of stairs in polished wood wound toward