The Egyptian rose
1341 BCE
Chapter 13
"Mahu, please, let me help," Kamenwati begged again.
"You were one of the first to start trouble! You're not helping
now!" Mahu answered angrily.
"Baruti, please," Kamenwati tried the other man.
"I can't help you this time. I need to find my wife!" Baruti shouted
back.
All three men looked up when a fourth man entered the room. The sound of
a heavy foot crossing the threshold echoed in their ears, stopping their
quarrel immediately. When the man stood directly in front of all three,
he eyed each in turn before speaking only to Mahu and ignoring the
others' stares.
"Am I to understand the prisoner has a name for us?" he spoke very
authoritatively.
"He has been evading us," Mahu concluded, back to his former chief of
police stance.
"So tell us sir, what is the name of the leader of your group. Remember,
a name for your freedom," the man asked Kamenwati, who mistakenly made
eye contact with Baruti before he answered.
"His name is Khenti," Kamenwati replied, glancing back over to Nakhte,
who was the one who demanded the name. "You'll find him at the tavern
near the marketplace. It's where he sleeps at night."
"Kam, no!" Baruti shouted, knowing that's exactly where he had brought Meritaten, but told not one of these men standing in front of him. Even
Mahu sighed slightly at the mention of his old childhood friend, knowing
this all would end badly once Nakhte got his hands on him.
Satisfied with the reply as well as Baruti's outburst, Nakhte smiled and
looked away towards the door. Before he could move to leave though,
Baruti stepped in his path. His eyes glared at Nakhte, shooting daggers
of anger in his direction. Mahu tried to calm him by placing his hands
on his shoulders, but Baruti simply shrugged him off.
"What will you do to Khenti?" Baruti demanded.
"He will be taken care of. He has caused enough trouble for such a young
boy!" Nakhte countered. "But let's be truthful, here. This isn't about
your concern for the boy. You want to know where Kiya is," he smiled
deviously.
Baruti tried not to flinch when he answered. "Shouldn't his father
have a right to know what is going to happen to him?!"
"You're his father?" Nakhte laughed. "But you're barely two years
older! That's impossible!"
"I'm not his father, but Kam is!" he shouted back, not
catching a glimpse of the old man's stunned face.
"You're lying just to stall me and save them both!" Nakhte accused.
"Fine, don't believe me! But by killing one you stop them both from ever
sharing the truth!" Baruti argued.
Nakhte stared at Kamenwati when he gave his reply. "You mean you had no
idea?" When Kamenwati shook his head, Nakhte clapped his hands together
excitedly. "Then this will be even better than I had expected!"
Nakhte stormed out of the room, leaving the others to stare after him.
When he was gone though, Mahu turned to Baruti. "Why would you say such
a thing? You're giving him more a reason to kill Khenti!"
"Because it's the truth! If Kam gave him Khenti's name, he might as well
know the truth!" Baruti argued.
"He's my son?" Kamenwati interrupted their quarrel, causing both men to
look over at him. He was still behind the cell bars but was grasping
them as he made his shock known. "He's my son. But my son died a long
time ago," he tried to reason.
Baruti walked over to the cell and faced the old man. "I'm sorry, but
it's true. Khenti and his mother were crushed by the falling temple
pillars, but somehow he survived. He has been under Ramla's watchful eye
all these years."
"Ramla knew? But why would she withhold that information from me for so
long? He's practically a grown man now!" Kamenwati said, looking down at
the ground in disappointment.
"I guess she... look, I'm sorry, but I need to find my wife!" Baruti
interrupted himself, knowing this whole night had gotten out of hand and
the sun would be up soon.
"Your wife is with the Pharaoh," Mahu stated, realizing where Nakhte
would have taken her.
"What? Where?"
"The North Palace. It's where all Pharaohs take their lesser wives," Mahu explained calmly.
Baruti addressed Kamenwati then. "I'm sorry about Khenti but I need to
find Kiya before it's too late!"
Kamenwati nodded his response and painfully watched Baruti briskly walk
away. Mahu looked over at the old man, sighed and quickly followed his
friend out, knowing his service would be needed to get close to the
Palace. If he knew Nakhte well enough, he would not have let Kiya go see
the king without sampling for himself. Baruti's wife was first pointed
out to the Pharaoh months before by Nakhte as they were walking the
marketplace discussing the southern district and they had stopped to eye
the merchandise. Nakhte had already advised the king that his six
daughters would never do and that he needed to find a suitable wife to
bear him a son. Kiya seemed like a most beautiful choice.
* * * * *
"She's been missing all day. Should we try to find her again?" Ahmose
whispered into the Queen's ear.
Nefertiti was seated in the garden, watching her other daughters
playing, when she heard the whispered words. "She is a young girl who is
desperately seeking her father's approval. Let her have her time away.
She'll return when she needs to," she whispered in answer.
"Perhaps you are right," Ahmose replied, but his response was filled
with skepticism.
"Ahmose, do you not think I am just as capable of tending to my children
as my husband?" she demanded, turning around to look up at him behind
her.
"I just feel that the king would have gone to look for her, that is
all," he whimpered defensively.
"The king would also keep his own daughter under lock and key to prevent
her from learning the truth!" she hissed.
"Does she know?" he gasped, a hand to his mouth in surprise.
"She must suspect by now. She's very inquisitive that one. It's just a
shame it was her own father that go her into this mess," she replied all
too harshly.
"Your highness?" he was taken aback by her sudden anger towards her
husband.
"He blamed me for her," she sighed, not casting her eyes away from her
other daughters. "He wanted a son so badly, he sent his first born daughter
out to do his business and when she got hurt he blamed me."
"I had no idea," he replied.
"How could you have known? He had you doing his bidding as well—collecting peasants, merchants, even educated people because they
refused his rules," she continued.
"He had good reason, though. Egypt has become a very prosperous place
because of those rules."
"But at what expense? Ahmose, please tell me you don't believe Pharaoh
would do these things for the greater good of Egypt?"
"I have always believed that whatever Pharaoh does, he does for all of
Egypt as well."
Nefertiti laughed and looked back up to acknowledge him, taking her eyes
off of her daughters briefly. "Please tell me you remember what it was
like in Thebes? Those people—the people of Egypt—lost everything for
the sake of the Pharaoh and his god!"
"You dare speak blasphemy against your king and your husband?!" he
gasped, wide-eyed at her words.
Nefertiti stood up and at full length she was just an inch shorter than
Ahmose at almost six feet tall. She glared at him straight in the eye
before answering him. "You hold your tongue when you are addressing the
Queen of Egypt!"
"Exactly, the Queen! You hold no power next to the Pharaoh except
to be his Great Royal Wife! And just the same will all your daughters
be!"
Nefertiti quickly glanced back at her daughters, still playing in the
garden, unaware of their heated conversation. Ahmose moved closer behind
her and whispered purposefully into her ear. "Come now, my Queen, did
you really think your daughters would rule Egypt? Even now, as we speak,
I'm sure the king has gone to the North Palace to produce himself a male
heir, while you sit here watching the future Great Royal Wives of the
Pharaohs!"
Nefertiti stood her ground. "Get out of my sight! Your presence here is
unnecessary! Leave me!" she commanded, her tone overpowering her
weakness for the time being.
Ahmose bowed his head in defeat and backed out of the gardens. Nefertiti
watched him sternly until he was gone, then turned her attention back to
her daughters. All five were still playing together, laughing, and not
paying the least attention to her presence there. She sat down in her
chair just as a tiny tear ran down her cheek, but she did not bother to
wipe it away this time.
* * * * *
A knock at the door caused both Meritaten and Amisi to jump. They were
not expecting any visitors and Khenti certainly would not have knocked
on his own door to come back inside. Looking at each other through
scared eyes, Amisi instinctively grabbed Meritaten's hand, clutching it
tightly to her side. The knock grew louder and more forceful and both
girls looked on with wide eyes and the handle began to move. When the
door finally flew open, Meritaten gasped in surprise.
"Where is he?" Nakhte demanded, standing in the doorway.
"Who are you looking for?" Meritaten asked, her voice shaking with fear.
"Where is the boy? Khenti!" Nakhte shouted.
"He's not here," Amisi replied, stating the obvious.
"Where did he go?"
"He... he stormed out," Meritaten said, not wanting to meet his glare.
"And you have no clue where he went?" he continued his interrogation.
Both girls shook their heads in reply. "Good. Then it will be awhile
before he tries to come find you!" He signaled to someone in the hallway
and two officers came in. "Take them away! We'll leave a message for
young Khenti that his two friends were taken in place of him!"
Meritaten and Amisi struggled under the powerful arms of the officers,
but to no avail. They were quickly dragged from the room, kicking and
screaming and bringing attention to themselves from every patron in the
tavern. All conversation stopped as they stared at the girls being
dragged away. Nakhte followed close behind and his glares sent
everyone's eyes away from them as they exited the tavern.
"Isn't that...?" the tavern owner whispered to one patron seated at a
table in the far corner.
With his head bowed low so as not to draw attention to himself, he
replied in a low voice. "I'll take care of it as soon as they leave."
He lifted his head slightly to acknowledge the old man and caught
Meritaten's eye. She struggled even more to free herself when she
recognized it was Khenti who sat and watched without helping them at
all. As soon as they were outside, he walked back into his room, picked
up the note, and slammed his fist into the back of the door.
Khenti knew he was defeated. Everything he had been fighting for, for so
long, was crumbling around him. The group wanted action, yet he only
provided them with encouraging words; Baruti wanted friendship, yet he
could not look him in the eye without feeling betrayed. He knew Amisi
loved him yet he could not fully return that love; and when he tried to
convince Meritaten of all the evil her father had done, she took it all
for granted because she was too younger to understand.
He knew he had to bring Amisi and Meritaten back and he needed a much
better plan than storming the all three Palaces to find them. This was
the time he could have used Kamenwati's expertise in strategy but even
he was out of reach. His father (although he still had a hard time
dealing with that title) now sat in a jail cell waiting for his sentence
because he tried so desperately to cling to the story that the king had
taken everything away from him. For most of Khenti's eighteen years of
life, Kamenwati was living under false pretense that his son was dead,
not knowing that his son was alive and that he had no reason to fight
against the king of Egypt.
As he sat there and read Nakhte's unpleasant note, he put things
together and realized that the king had no intentions of killing his own
people. The king, the Pharaoh of Egypt, had simply played into the hands
of a much more powerful figure in the high Egyptian society. Looking
down at the piece of papyrus in his hands, he re-read Nakhte's words,
his mind screaming with anger and he finally understood how everything
was falling into place:
Khenti,
I was coming to retrieve you to reunite you with your father who is
unconventionally sitting in a cell waiting for his sentence. Since
you were not here to celebrate this joyous union, we have taken
your two lovers to take your place. The king will be very upset to
know his daughter is a traitor but the other girl will make quite an
addition to his harem.
Signed,
The Royal Vizier—Nakhte
Khenti clenched his fist around the paper and slammed it down onto his desk. If Nakhte laid one hand on Amisi, he would make him pay for it with his life. Then he thought about Meritaten and how all of this was his fault. Her own father sent her right to him and instead of leading her to the information she sought, he led her right into the center of the protests, the chaos, and Nakhte's ultimate plan for power!