Tiy and the Prince of Egypt (17 page)

Tiy bit her lip.
The only thing she could think about were bulls ramming into his chariot and dragging him off to his death.

“
Don’t worry about me. I am Pharaoh, the gods will protect me.”

“I hate the thought of you getting hurt.”

“Why don’t you come with me? Your presence alone will protect me.”

Tiy
raised an eyebrow. “You’ve seen me with a bow and arrow. I couldn’t hit a barrel, even if I was in it.

Amenhotep nodded, smiling. “
I’ll give you a knife.”

Tiy’s
raised her other eyebrow to match the first. “If we are close enough to a bull to do any harm with a knife, then we’d have bigger problems on our hands.”

Amenhotep chuckled. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, my Desert Guardian.”

Tiy rolled her eyes, but her insides clenched. Why did he look at her so differently just then? And why did she feel so…different? Nothing had changed from twenty minutes before and yet something felt…different. There was no other word for it.

“Well?” Amenhotep said.

“I can’t leave my mother,” she said. “She is due to arrive in Memphis any day. I can’t leave her now.”

Amenhotep’s
eyes took on a playful spark. “You are right. It would be rude to leave her here alone. I mean, the unfortunate woman would only have hundreds of servants to wait on her every need, endless shops to wander—not to mention a royal purse at her hip.” He smiled before continuing. “She would be lost without you.”

Tiy
laughed and pushed his shoulder with her hand. “Very funny, Amenhotep. Although, I’m afraid you are right; she probably wouldn’t notice if I left.”

“So you’ll come?”

“I still can’t leave her. I would feel horrible.” And she couldn’t watch Amenhotep ride off to his death. She’d heard about the bulls and knew what they were capable of. Plenty of older, more experienced men had returned maimed, if they’d returned at all. But perhaps that was the point. If Amenhotep could defeat even one or two on his own, Egypt would have no reason to doubt him.

Amenhotep
’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll send updates so you can still enjoy the adventure with me.”

“Not quite with you, but thank you
for understanding.”

Amenhotep
jumped to his feet and started toward the door. “I’m going to have Ramose prepare the ships,” he said. “Are you staying in here?”

“For
a minute,” she said, her voice losing its strength. Amenhotep nodded, and she watched him disappear behind the rug. A strange feeling rose in her gut and she wondered if she should have agreed to go with him. What if she
was
his Desert Guardian and something happened to him because she wasn’t there? Her stomach churned. Perhaps he was not meant to go. Perhaps the gods were telling her that he should stay.

Tiy stood and brushed off her
kalasiris, wiping the nonsensical thoughts away. Of course he was meant to go. He was Pharaoh, and he must prove to his people that he could be strong for them. But if something were to happen to him, could
she
be strong enough for them? Could she be strong without him? Tiy shuddered at the thought.

In the early hours of a mild Peret morning, Nebetya bounded into Tiy’s chambers. Tiy took one look at Nebetya’s wide eyes and dropped the brush she had been using to untangle her long curls.

“What is it?”
she asked, alarmed. Amenhotep had left for the bull hunt three days before, and she had yet to receive any word from him.

Nebetya
closed the door behind her, backing up against the handle. She bit her lip and wrinkled her brow. Her tear-filled eyes would not meet Tiy’s gaze.

Tiy’s
heart quickened. Had Amenhotep been hurt? She wished she had gone with him. Desert Guardian or not, she should have been there to protect him. Her chest tightened and she couldn’t breathe. Shu seemed to have taken all the air from the room. She gasped for more, but it wasn’t enough.

“Just tell me, I can take it,”
Tiy said.

“It’s quite unexpected, I’m not sure I even want to inform you.”

“Inform me!” Tiy had become hysterical. Nebetya had bad news about Amenhotep, she just knew it. Some wild bull attacked him, and she hadn’t been there to help him. She shook her head. She couldn’t let herself be swallowed up by her fears. For all she knew, Nebetya had come to tell her someone had broken her favorite sculpture or set fire to the Temple of Re. Amenhotep was strong, nothing could happen to him.

But
if anything
did
happen to him she didn’t know what she would do. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. Her mind wandered to all the dark possibilities once again and her chest hardened until she couldn’t breathe.

“Is it Amenhotep?”
Tiy asked. “Is he okay?”

Nebetya jerked her head up.
“Pharaoh? No, no, it’s Kepi. She is here, in the palace.”

“
Kepi?” Relief flooded Tiy’s body. Amenhotep was okay. He was safe and would return soon. She wouldn’t have to live her life without him.

T
aken aback by the strength of her emotions, she held a hand to her chest. She felt as though a portion of her soul had been taken for a moment and returned only when she knew he was safe. She found she could breathe again.

But
nerves soon replaced her happiness as Nebetya’s last statement settled in. Kepi was in the palace?

“What is she doing here?”
Tiy asked.

Nebetya shrugged.
“She has come to request an audience with you. Maybe she wants to ask for your forgiveness.”

Tiy
rolled her eyes. She doubted Kepi had an apologetic hair on her head. Kepi and Merymose had married a season after she and Amenhotep had. It was a quiet ceremony, not befitting Kepi’s self-imposed grandeur, and only attended by close relatives.

“
She must want me to give Merymose a prestigious office.” Tiy said. “Merymose likely needs a career to support his spoiled wife.”

Nebetya shrugged again
. “It wouldn’t hurt to hear her out. Besides, it might be fun to flaunt that you were the one Amenhotep chose.”

Tiy s
cowled. “Amenhotep didn’t choose me. I didn’t win his heart any more than Kepi did.” Her breath hitched as she realized her small confession followed by a stitch of pain that flared in her chest. It was a searing pain that had nothing to do with the risk of divulging her secret. Somehow, the pain had been waiting until this moment to rear its ugly head, the moment she admitted even to herself that Amenhotep had settled when he married her. When it had come time for him to marry, he hadn’t fallen in love with anyone, so she became his next best choice.

T
his revelation troubled her. Was this how she felt? Did it bother her that Amenhotep married her as his friend and nothing more? It shouldn’t bother her. She married him for the same reason. At least, she thought she did. She wasn’t so sure anymore.

Nebetya waved her hand as if swatting a fly
. “How can you say such things? Pharaoh Amenhotep loves you. I doubt he even remembers Kepi.”

Tiy
pictured the beautiful girl she remembered as Kepi. Who could forget such an exotic looking face? Or such big Egyptian eyes, or beautiful bronze skin. Tiy turned back to the mirror and looked at her plain, freckled face. With a frown, she wrapped her pale yellow hair on top of her head. It had gotten long, reaching past her waist, which she loved more than she hated, but it had forced her to use thicker, longer wigs.

“
Nebetya, do you mind helping me?” Tiy asked as she gestured to a particularly full wig.

“Not at all, my lady.”
Nebetya tucked, pinned, and pulled a long wig over Tiy’s thick bun. “You know, this would be much easier if you let me shave your head like everyone else.”

Lapis-lazul
i beads clinked together as the dark strands fell to her waist. “Amenhotep likes my hair,” Tiy said.

Nebetya began to cry.

“What are you crying about now?” Tiy asked with a chuckle.

“It’s nothing, my lady. I’m just so hap
py Pharaoh loves you so. You never know with these great men.”

Tiy
turned to face the mirror. “I suppose you’re right. You never know.” And for the first time, Tiy felt a sickening fear at the thought of Amenhotep falling in love. It wasn’t uncommon for pharaohs to have two, or three, or a dozen wives. She would always be the first in the eyes of Egypt, but in Amenhotep’s heart, she would become the last.

She
placed one of her less formal crowns on top of her head, a band of gold with a blue lapis-lazuli stone set over her brow. She wondered how Amenhotep felt about her. Did he think about her as often as she thought about him? Did he panic when he thought she might be in danger?

She
touched the stone on the crown. It was a rare color of lapis-lazuli, light blue with yellow flecks. Amenhotep said it matched her eyes and was the very color of the desert sky after a storm. He claimed the pale lapis-lazuli was his favorite stone, and he always seemed pleased when she wore her lapis-lazuli crown.

She smiled in the mirror, glad she had chosen to wear Amenhotep’s favorite crown. With Kepi in the palace
, she needed to feel closer to him somehow. He was the only person Kepi didn’t chew up and spit out onto the ground.

“I’ll see her, but she can wait
,” Tiy said to Nebetya. “Send her to my private audience chamber and I’ll try to make my way over there sometime later this afternoon. Or maybe I’ll make her wait until evening.”

Nebetya giggled
. “That’s more like it.” But they both knew Tiy’s curiosity would eventually overrule and she would join Kepi within the hour.

Nebe
tya flitted out the door to relay Tiy’s orders. When she came back in, she stood behind Tiy at the mirror. “Would you like to start getting ready right now?” she asked.

Tiy
sighed and nodded. She closed her eyes and Nebetya drew a thick black line of kohl around her eyes to a point near her temples. With the same kohl, she darkened her brows to match her black wig and added a touch of green malachite underneath. Nebetya painted her lips with red ochre and clasped a necklace of lapis-lazuli around her neck. The hundreds of tiny blue stones draped across her shoulders and down her chest.

“You look beautiful,” Nebetya said
as she stepped back to admire her work.

Tiy
grimaced. All her old insecurities returned in full force. She felt like an imposter, like someone pretending to be Egyptian. She stood on uncertain legs, knowing that Kepi would be able to smell her insecurities. That she would prey on them. Although she was considered the most powerful woman in Egypt, the goddess Nekhbet, protector of Pharaoh, Tiy had never felt more small.

Tiy took the longest route possible to her private audience chamber, traveling to the furthest courtyard and around the Temple of Set before wandering back. The moment she entered, Kepi stood and bowed low to the ground.

“
Your Majesty,” Kepi said.

Stunned, Tiy
glanced over her shoulder, wondering if someone else had followed her. Kepi couldn’t possibly be talking to her with such sweetness. But when Tiy faced Kepi again, Kepi was looking right at her with a smile plastered on her pretty little face.

Tiy
wanted to hit her, strangle her, pull her hair, anything. Kepi had been the cause of so much pain in her life that it would have been nice to give some of it back. Instead, she controlled her anger and, with the elegance of a queen, perched herself on a chair with legs that met the carpet with a lion’s head on each end, its fierce head roaring. The chair sat higher from the ground than she needed, but to shorten it would have meant to cut off the carved lions. She was glad she had thought to keep them. Their fierceness gave her the strength she needed to face Kepi. She sat forward on the edge of the chair so her feet could touch the floor and rested her elbows on the jeweled arm rests.

Kepi
sat on one of the lower stools. As a show of respect, she had removed her sandals before entering the room and was waiting patiently for Tiy to address her.

“
Honestly, I’m surprised to see you Kepi,” Tiy managed to utter, still in shock.

“My perspective has changed since Merymose and I married.”
Kepi paused and bowed her head. “I hope there are no hard feelings between us.”

Tiy swallowed.

“I’ve come to apologize.”

“It isn’t necess
ary.” Tiy didn’t want an apology from her, especially considering how contrived it would be.

“I feel horrible for
my behavior toward you while we were in school.”

You
should
feel horrible, Tiy thought to herself. “I didn’t notice,” she said instead. If Kepi was going to lie, she would too.

Kepi
’s eyebrows raised and her lips parted. “Oh,” was all she said. She squirmed in her chair and bit her lip.

“What career has Merymose chosen to follow?
” Tiy said, trying to move the conversation along. She could guess the real reason behind Kepi’s visit and wished to be done with it.

“He hasn’t settled on anything yet.”

“He was a good friend of Amenhotep’s. Perhaps if Merymose has not already chosen a path, I could suggest that he offer him an official’s position.”

Tiy
waited for her to respond. She was being much nicer than she needed to be, much nicer than Kepi deserved. The surprise on Kepi’s face expanded, and Tiy wrinkled her brow. Was this not the real reason Kepi had come to her? She couldn’t believe Kepi’s pretense of regret had any truth to it.

Kepi searched
Tiy’s eyes, uncertainty clouding them. She opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it again. Her eyes drifted to Tiy’s necklace where Tiy’s fingers were stroking the lapis-lazuli stones. All of Egypt knew about Tiy’s necklace, and the tremendous effort Amenhotep made to ensure it was fashioned out of the same rare stones in her crown. He had pulled half a dozen masters from their homes to relocate to the palace while it was created and had personally selected the hundreds of stones to be set in the design.

Kepi
’s eyes blackened and her uncertainty disappeared. “I have brought you a bottle of my father’s finest wine for us to share in celebration of our new friendship.”

Celebration?
Friendship? Tiy felt no desire to celebrate. What she felt was an urge to storm out and commit Kepi to prison. “That’s so kind of you,” she said through clenched teeth. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.

Kepi
stood and gripped a pair of goblets from a nearby table, her fingers turning white against the crystal. Her lean figure swayed as she stumbled back to the chair. What was wrong with her? She never seemed so discomposed before? And yet, Tiy couldn’t help notice that she was dressed impeccably, wearing one of the nearly see-through, and highly fashionable, kalasirises she always wore when they were in school. Kepi knew even then that her figure was perfect and would often brush up against Amenhotep whenever the opportunity presented itself.

A
sudden stab of jealousy pierced Tiy at the memory. She hated thinking of Kepi so close to Amenhotep. Squirming in her chair, she scowled so fiercely she could feel the skin bunching between her brows. Never had she felt any jealousy when they were in school, why would she feel it so strongly now? She looked away from Kepi’s perfectly Egyptian form, trying to understand the strength of her emotions.

Kepi
poured a dark red wine into the goblets, letting it slosh around before she stretched her arm out to offer the drink. “Please accept a drink from my father’s house,” she said.

She was acting so strange, b
ut Tiy was too disturbed by her jealousy to care. She knew Amenhotep despised Kepi, and yet the memories bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Why did the thought of Kepi with Amenhotep make her want to throw things, including Kepi, across the room? She wanted to shake her fists in frustration. She didn’t know what to think.

Tiy snatched
the goblet from Kepi’s outstretched hand and swallowed several long gulps. It wasn’t until half her wine was gone before she noticed that Kepi had yet to take a drink. Kepi watched her from over the rim of her goblet, her eyes cold and calculating.

Tiy
dropped the goblet and jumped to her feet. “What have you done?”

Kepi
narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, my Queen?”

Kepi batted her eyelashes and Tiy fought
the impulse to rip them out. They both knew what she had done. Her tongue was already enlarging, her throat tightening. Gasping for air, Tiy tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound. She pushed on her throat with her fingers, trying to massage the tightness, but to no avail.

Kepi had poisoned her.

Kepi set her goblet on the table and slunk over to Tiy. Leaning down she whispered into her ear with the coldness of a thousand steel swords. “Don’t worry little Tiy, you probably won’t die.”

Tiy
turned her head to glare. Probably? What good was
probably
to her? Her vision blurred, the grey corners closing in. Her limbs hardened into dead weight as her lungs rejected every breath.

“No,” Kepi said, “
you won’t die. I’m not too fond of being executed.” Kepi’s laughter trilled through the air. “But I
am
fond of humiliating you.”

Tiy
searched Kepi’s face, wondering what she meant. Did the wine have a poison that would render her a mute forever? She could deal with that. She would find another way to communicate, and she would tell all of Egypt what Kepi had done to her.

Kepi
must have noticed the resolve set in her jaw because she laughed again and whispered. “You won’t tell a soul what happened here today because if you did, you would regret it, trust me. I can hurt your precious Amenhotep in ways you can’t even dream.”

Tiy cried out, her thick tongue preventing any words from forming. She wanted to lash out at Kepi, call her guards, anything, but her body refused her. Her head lolled onto the ground, her vision close to black.

Kepi’s lips turned up into a sickening grin. “No one would suspect anything,” she said. “The true cause of Pharaoh Tuthmosis’ death was hushed up, wasn’t it? For the most part, that is. We all suspect it was an assassin, but just
how
did he die? I wonder what really happened. Was it poison, an arrow, a traitorous knife to his throat? You never know when a guard might defect. Hmmmm. So many possibilities for your little Pharaoh.”

Kepi
’s shrill laugh filled the room, leaving behind a cool chill. Tiy shook, hating her weakness, her inability to do anything but thrash on the floor while Kepi threatened Amenhotep.

“
You don’t deserve him,” Kepi said, her upper lip turned up. “You aren’t even Egyptian, you disgusting Mitannian.”

Tiy moaned, her stomach burning with the strength of a thousand fires. She had never been in so much pain, not even when the sands of the desert had
lashed at her skin. This was a fire that was consuming her entire body, inside and out.

Kepi
tore off Tiy’s wig and threw it across the room. “Look at you. You don’t even
look
Egyptian. Your filthy blood is going to ruin Egypt’s crown.”

Tiy’s
vision blurred into complete blackness and Kepi’s laugh echoed in her ears, muffling into an inaudible hum. She was powerless to cry out or stop the tugging she felt at her hair. The top of her head stung and then dulled as she slipped into emptiness.