The Egyptian rose

1341 BCE

Chapter 2

Nefertiti sat at the edge of the bath pool, Setepenre on her lap. The three-year-old played with her toy ring, a gift from her older sisters, while they played in the bath pool and allowed the servants to bathe them. Setepenre had five older sisters, four of which were there with her that day. Anytime they would splash about, she would squeal with delight, making it harder for her mother to hold her steady.

"Stop squirming! You’ll fall in!" Nefertiti scolded, trying desperately to hold onto her.

Setepenre stopped but only for a few seconds and then began to squirm in her lap again. Nefertiti had had enough and held her up in the air, waiting for a servant to pick her up. Upon being lifted out of her mother’s arms, she began to wail loudly. Her mother laughed at her cries, knowing it would only be temporary until she was settled down for her nap.

"You do have six," another servant mused, taking to brushing her long, straight black hair. Nefertiti looked out amorously at her other daughters in the pool.

"Yes and all six of them gave me problems!" she smiled, a gleam of joy in her eyes.

"Where is the eldest today?"

"Doing a duty for her father," Nefertiti replied, moving her head slightly to look up at her servant.

"Already? But she’s still a child!"

"Yes, she still is, but her father insists on preparing her for what is to come," Nefertiti sighed.

Her servant laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "She still has another few years though."

"Yes, another year or two and my first born will be a woman," she sighed again.

The servant stopped brushing her hair and stepped away as two men approached the women. The girls in the pool stopped playing and Nefertiti turned to face the men who entered the bathhouse uninvited. Every servant stopped in their tracks and bowed their heads in recognition of the gentlemen who entered the house. It was not common to see a man in the bathhouse this way and most of the queen’s servants were embarrassed by their presence.

"Can I help you, Nakhte?" the queen asked, not caring for formality.

"Your presence is requested in the drawing room," he spoke directly to her eyes, but even as he spoke, he licked his lips and allowed his eyes to wander to her neck and bare shoulders.

"Tell my husband I will be there shortly," she replied without flinching as his eyes combed her body.

"Yes, your highness." Only then did he bow to her, showing his rank below her. The other man with him bowed slightly as well and both men left without another word. Even though he was the Vizier of Lower Egypt, Nakhte still showed Nefertiti some respect, but only because she was his queen. The fact that she was a woman meant she always came second to the king and he could easily overrule all of the power the king had bestowed on her. Nefertiti did not care for the man and often asked her husband to appoint a new Vizier to the position. Sadly, the king had always refused her plea, never understanding her concern towards this man.

She clapped her hands twice loudly and the servants scurried about, lifting her children out of the water and into dry cloths. She stood up from her chair and spoke to the servant that was brushing her hair. "I want my robe and my scepter. Bring the children outside for their lessons today while I am gone," she commanded.

"Yes, your highness," the servant bowed and the bathhouse was immediately cleared.

*  *  *  *  *

"I’ve never seen such anger," Meritaten said when they had returned to Khenti’s room at the inn early that afternoon.

"You said you wanted the truth," he replied curtly, opening the door and allowed her to enter first.

"I just don’t like what people said about my father. He’s a good man, you know," she pouted.

"I’m sure that’s the way you see him," Khenti shrugged off her concern.

"They don’t even know him," she turned to face him abruptly.

"Neither they nor I need to know him. What he has done to us is enough for me and us to judge him in our own way."

Khenti walked past her and plopped himself down onto the chair behind the desk. Crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in the chair, he propped his feet up onto the desk with a thud. Meritaten huffed in response to his aggressive behavior towards her father. She could not believe the accusations these people made about him or what he had supposedly done. From what the king had told her, they were just people who were disturbing the peace, but this, this went beyond anything she could have imagined.

"Now you know part of the truth. I’m sure your father will be quite pleased to know that you know what he’s done to his own people!" he spoke to her angrily.

"I don’t believe your truth!" she spat back. "My father told me—"

"Your father told you what he needed to tell you to get you to come here and be a spy for him, find out what we’re saying about him!" he interrupted her, dropping his feet to the floor, leaning over the desk and folding his hands under his chin.

"That’s not true!" she defended, her anger making her misjudge exactly what he was after. "He wanted me to stop you!" As soon as it had been released from her mouth, she knew she had said too much.

"As you can see from the cries of Egypt, you can’t stop us. But I’m afraid you have an even bigger problem at the moment," he mused.

"And what is that?" she asked, deliberately staring him down and squaring her shoulders as she challenged him.

"You can’t tell your father that you know what he’s done to his own people. He obviously told you his side of the situation but now that you know the other, you have no way of going back to him and explaining how you rectified the problem. Go home, Meritaten," he glared at her, finally remembering her name. "Think about whose side you really want to be on when this war erupts and daddy can’t save you!"

"I... I have to go... " she replied nervously, backing towards the door.

"Remember, you can’t say a word of what you saw and heard, to anyone!" his voice followed her.

As soon as she reached the front of the tavern, she rushed out the door, knowing all eyes were averted to her again. Nearly bumping into several people in the marketplace, she quickly found her way back to the North Riverside Palace, but her heart was racing and her breathing came in shallow gasps by the time she reached her room. Thankfully, no one had seen her come in as she slammed her door closed and slid down along its heavy wood until her bottom hit the cold floor.

From everywhere, servants rushed in, lifting her up off the floor, stripping her of her clothes and changing her into a more fitting evening dress. Her hair was done up, since her running has caused her tender curls to fly everywhere, and when it was over, she was shoved out the door before she had any chance to protest. So many thoughts were still circling around in her head and she was afraid to meet her family for the evening meal, knowing she would be scrutinized for information and knowing the secrets she kept hidden from her father.

The great dining hall was alive with noise and chatter when she entered quietly from behind the long table where her entire family sat. No one took notice when she sat down on the other side of her mother, the Queen of Egypt. Her father, thankfully, was engaged in some other intense conversation with the Royal Vizier on his other side. Nefertiti was the first to acknowledge her presence in the dining hall.

"You father is very pleased with you," she smiled down at her daughter, who tried not to make eye contact.

"Me?" she asked. "What for?"

"The riots have died down so whatever you did worked wonderfully!" her mother explained with another reassuring smile.

Meritaten bit her lip in response. She had not really done anything at all to stop the problem her father had sent her out to take care of. In fact, the rally she had gone to did not seem to show any signs that the disturbances would stop at all! She could not tell anyone what she knew and yet she felt compelled to defend her father and the royal family from the blasphemy that was spewed from the mouths of the very same people she was told to stop! She just needed more time to figure it all out in her head.

*  *  *  *  *

"Why did you let her come in the first place?" Kamenwati asked him as they sat at a table in the tavern, waiting for their food to be served.

"Relax Kam, she’s just a child. She wouldn’t know what to do with all the information we fed her," Khenti smiled at his friend.

"A child, yes, but a child of the great Pharaoh, nonetheless!" Kamenwati tried to protest.

Khenti waved him off. "You worry too much old man! You handle the crowds, and let me take care of our royal princess!" he smirked.

As food was brought to their table and they began to eat, Kamenwati still protested his views on the matter. "I’ll admit, when we first allowed you to lead us in this challenge, I was skeptical. But for such a young man, you certainly have the spirit of the gods on your side."

Khenti smiled, remembering his powerful dreams. "Well old man, you’re not so bad yourself."

"But I still don’t understand why you decided to bring her to a rally. She probably had no idea about the things we said her father did!"

"They were all true!" Khenti argued. "Besides, what better way to overthrow the king, than to get his own daughter on our side?!"

"You really think she’d come willingly? I’m sure her father can be just as, if not more, persuasive."

"Not willingly, but perhaps with a little persuasion of our own!" Khenti laughed.

"Remember, she’s only a child!" Kamenwati scolded.

"Yes, and children her age are very impressionable. We need to strike soon before our chances are lost forever!"

Kamenwati smiled in response to this proclamation. He was quite in awe at how Khenti’s mind worked. For someone at the young age of eighteen, he had many high leadership qualities, yet Kamenwati did not share the same views on how to go about their leadership of the group. Where Khenti was excellent at the use of words and aggression, Kamenwati used blunt force to make a statement to the crowds. Most of the people were growing tired of talking and they were interested in taking action against the king now, something Khenti had no strategy for. They ate the remainder of their meal in silence. Khenti excused himself and returned to his room, alone, to think of his next move towards gaining the king’s daughter’s trust. Kamenwati, on the other hand, ordered another drink and began to brew a new idea for his great revolution.

*  *  *  *  *

Sleep did not come easy for Meritaten. She did not want to believe all the things that she had heard those people say about her father, especially since the Pharaoh was considered a mortal deity. When sleep finally did come to her, much later in the evening than she had hoped, her mind revisited the rally she had been dragged to. Khenti had spoken to the people of better times yet she knew he was no more than a boy, someone who would have grown up knowing only the life of Egypt that she herself knew. He acted as if he knew exactly how these people felt and he seemed to feed into their fears and anger with his words, stirring up the masses into a frenzy which almost always resulted in a riot or miscreant behavior.

Then suddenly, her dreams took a different turn, almost as if the Aten, the great sun god, was sending her a message. She no longer saw the crowd of people screaming at each other for what her father had done; she was seeing exactly what her father had done to the people of Egypt, when she was too young to remember. In another time and another place in Egypt, her father had taken everything away—closing down temples, destroying ancient relics, and moving an entire capital city, those people walking on foot to their new location!

Meritaten awoke in tears, the screams of the people of Egypt still ringing in her ears. Her father had trusted her to take care of and eliminate the problem by herself, yet it was he who uprooted society and changed their whole way of life! All those years her father had boasted about the prosperous new city and he never once spoke of how it all came to be! Not wanting to be in the palace any more, she scrambled out of bed and silently crept through the empty halls, making her way out to the gardens. Even they were unoccupied and held an eerie stillness against the backdrop of the moon.
 
In the dead of night it was difficult to see where she was going and she began to stumble over root and rock as she made her way farther from the palace walls. The only thin ray of light came from the quarter moon through the clouds above and even that was not sufficient enough to see clearly. When she finally reached the far end of the garden, she stopped to catch her breath, but realized she was not alone. Fear gripped her body enough that her legs were cemented to the ground and she could not move.

Slowly though, she was able to turn her body around in place enough to see someone approaching her, a hooded cape shadowing their face. Meritaten was backed to the edge of the garden, the branches of the shrubs cutting into her back through her robe, and she frantically looked around for anywhere to run. She shut her eyes tight, hoping the figure was only a figment of her imagination and she could will it away, but when she opened them again, the figure was still there, this time closer than before. Then it pointed an accusing finger up to her before it spoke, a female voice coming from under the hood.

"You will rise above the chaos and meet your destiny," she replied.

"What chaos? What destiny?" Meritaten stammered, unable to take her eyes off the caped figure before her.

"You father has done many terrible things in this lifetime. It has been written that there will be a day when all is made right by one who is flesh and blood of the old ways. You are that one!"

"Why am I the one?" Meritaten questioned innocently. "And who are you?" she added.

The figure pulled back her hood and revealed herself as the great prophetess Meritaten had only heard stories of. Ramla was an elderly woman who had many years outlined into her face. Even though Meritaten had never met her before, she felt as if she already knew her and bowed her head slightly as a sign of reverence to the woman. Her mother had often told her about the prophecies that were written into the very walls of the palace she resided in but never understood any of their meanings.

"Your destiny is already written in the stars and Egypt will rejoice again when peace is restored," Ramla continued.

"I don’t understand," Meritaten sighed, frustrated with Ramla’s words.

"You will, my child, you will," she soothed.

Ramla replaced the hood of her cloak over her head and walked away. When Meritaten awoke the next morning, she was lying comfortably in her own bed. She had no recollection of how she had gotten back to her room and she wondered if her chance encounter with the prophetess was actually just a dream. One thing was certain though—she had a destiny to fulfill and if that meant risking her life to disobey her father, the Pharaoh, then so be it!
 

 

continue to chapter 3