is not wise to persist in opposition to his desires.’
I stared at the Queen while my heart slowly chilled. Into what blood-stained hands had my Father delivered my beautiful and innocent sister?
‘If he is…thwarted,’ said my mother carefully, ‘what remedies do you suggest?’
‘Instant compliance,’ said the Queen, still with her bitten-persimmon mouth. ‘And if he is foaming and screaming, an infusion of valerian and reed-heads will calm him. I never expected to raise him,’ she said slowly. ‘When he was thirteen he was struck with a fever which raged for three days. He was as hot as a smith’s brand and no medicine could quench it. All the physicians said that he would die. But then, quite suddenly, he fell into a sweat and then into a sleep, and when he awoke he was…distant. His ka had travelled, he said, to the Field of Reeds and found it empty but for the god Aten, the sun-disc.
‘And then he did not develop like other boys. I thought it was just laziness—he has never liked to run or fight—when he fattened like a heifer, growing breasts and belly. I told myself, he is young and his father is solid and stocky, may he live forever. I thought nothing of it. By the time I knew that it was not so with my son, he was changed into what he is now. You are gentle and beautiful, Nefertiti, and he likes beautiful things. Love him as best you may. I can only hope that this child,’ she caressed the mound of her belly, resting heavily on her thighs ‘is a boy, for if my son Akhnamen becomes sole ruler, I do not know what will become of the Land of the River.’
She clapped her hands and her four suspicious maidservants came through the curtain. They did not look on us any more kindly, and I wondered if they disliked us on principle, or if they were defending their mistress, whom they evidently loved, from exertion. The old one knelt for her orders.
‘The presents for the Great Royal Wife and her mother and sister, Sahte,’ said Tiye gently, and the old woman blushed, muttered something, and gestured to the others, who brought a large basket. According to custom this could not be opened until we were back in our own apartments, so we bowed and kissed her sandal and were going away with a lot to think about, when the Queen Tiye said to my mother, ‘I will send a scribe to your daughter Mutnodjme, Lady, if it please you. I think that she should be literate.’
‘She can write and read as much as any princess,’ said Tey, displeased at this slur on our household.
‘I think she should be able to do more than that,’ said the Queen, and now there was no doubt that it was a command. ‘I will send a scribe tomorrow for the lady Mutnodjme, and a companion. She is a stranger here, and I think that she will be a friend to another stranger.’
‘I and my family are in the Queen’s hand,’ replied Tey conventionally.
The plump woman shifted in her chair, cradling her burden. ‘Yes, you are,’ she agreed. ‘So do not beat your little questioner, Great Royal Nurse Tey. It is never wise to beat children for exhibiting intelligence.’
‘As the Queen says,’ responded my mother through gritted teeth.
I walked behind her out of the Royal Bedchamber, thinking hard. A companion? I had been torn away from my friends when we had moved into the palace, and there were few children of my own age in the marble halls of Amenhotep may he live. And although I could read and write at least as well as my sister, my father had not considered that women needed much education, and had recalled his scribe to his other duties after we had mastered letters and numbers in the ordinary script enough to keep our household accounts, and understand recipes and prayers.
Father’s scribe had been the old man Ani, a stern greyish man in a linen cloth with ink stains on his clever fingers. He had kept his eyes averted from us. I expected that a Royal Scribe would be sterner and older, and hoped that he would not hit me and my new companion if we made mistakes, as Ani had.
Running to keep up with my mother as she walked briskly down the corridor of tribute bearers, I did not ask questions. I had escaped one beating by divine favour, and