the queen shouted. She walked out onto the balcony and wrapped her fingers around the railing. “Perhaps I chose the wrong daughter as Chief Wife,” she said.
My father looked over his shoulder to where I sat, but I couldn’t read his expression. “Send him to Memphis,” my father encouraged. “There he will see that it is not so easy to interfere with Ma’at.”
In the Audience Chamber that noon, the queen announced our departure to Memphis. We were to leave on the twenty-eighth of Pharmuthi. We had five days to prepare.
Chapter Six
twenty-fourth of Pharmuthi
THIS TIME, WHEN we went to watch Amunhotep ride in the Arena, he gathered us in the stables and asked Nefertiti which horse she liked best. Kiya would have batted her lashes and answered that she liked the horse with the most beautiful mane. But Nefertiti observed their width and breadth, the strength of their muscles beneath their coat and the fire in their eyes, then replied in a firm voice, “The dark one. The chestnut champing at the gates.”
Amunhotep nodded. “Bring out the chestnut!”
Kiya turned to the three ladies who were always with her, tall women who towered over my sister, and one of them said loudly so my family would overhear, “Next thing he’ll be letting her pick out his kilts.” They all snickered, but Nefertiti walked purposefully to where Amunhotep was standing near Panahesi and my father, and watched him fasten his leather gauntlets. “Have you always ridden?” Nefertiti asked.
Panahesi snapped, “Since the Pharaoh was a boy in Memphis.”
Nefertiti looked to where a group of men were waiting, the sons of other viziers who practiced with the king. Amunhotep saw the direction of her gaze and added firmly, “Those men don’t lose to me every morning because they have to. I can outride any soldier in my father’s army.”
Nefertiti stepped closer. “And you say you have done this since you were a child?”
Amunhotep strapped on his helmet and replied, “I rode the chariot as soon as I learned to walk.”
“And what if I wanted to learn?” she asked him.
Across the stables Kiya retorted sharply, “Women don’t ride in the Arena.”
“I rode in Akhmim,” Nefertiti announced. I glanced at my father, whose face was reserved. He said nothing, and Nefertiti took a helmet from the nearby shelf and placed it brazenly on her head. “I want you to teach me.”
Amunhotep paused to measure the seriousness of her statement.
She added brilliantly, “I want to feel the exhilaration of riding with Egypt’s finest steeds. I want to learn from the greatest rider in Egypt.”
Amunhotep laughed. “Bring out the Master of the Horse!” he cried, and Panahesi and Kiya flew into action.
“She’ll be killed!” Panahesi cried. Of course, his real objection was that his daughter hadn’t been smart enough or quick enough to suggest it for herself. Now the Arena would be full of Nefertiti. Not even our father had thought of this, but it was perfect, really. An exquisite move. If she could sink her claws in Amunhotep’s chamber, his politics, and now his pastime, where wouldn’t they be united?
“But Your Highness—” Panahesi said.
Amunhotep turned and his look was dark. “Nothing more, Vizier. My queen wants to ride, and I will teach her.”
In the wooden tiers beneath a linen shade, we watched them ride, and Kiya hissed to me, “What does she think she’s doing?”
I looked down at my sister, laughing and radiant, tossing her long hair back in the sun. Amunhotep laughed with her, and I replied, “She’s entertaining the king. What else now that her tutor is gone?”
“That was well done,” my father complimented.
Nefertiti sat smugly in her chair, waiting for Merit to finish beading her wig. A pair of red riding gloves had arrived in her chamber, a gift from Amunhotep. She said, “It was fun.”
“This once,” my father warned.
“Why? I enjoyed it. Why shouldn’t I learn to ride?”
“Because it’s dangerous!” I exclaimed. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“What’s to be afraid of?”
“The horses. Or toppling over the chariot. Look what happened to Crown Prince Tuthmosis.”
My father and Nefertiti exchanged glances. Ipu and Merit both looked away.
“Tuthmosis died at war,” Nefertiti said dismissively. “And this isn’t war.” Merit strung the last beads over Nefertiti’s wig, and when my sister stood up the glass made hollow music.
My father stood with her. “I will be in the Per Medjat drafting letters to foreign nations. They must know where to find your husband and address their petitions.” He glanced across the room, where nothing had changed since yesterday’s news. “We are