*Author's Note: First, I'd like to mention that all names used in this fic are real Ancient Egyptian names, and wherever possible are even the correct ones for each person. Also, I'd like to apologize for having picked such a famous pharaoh -- unfortunately, I didn't know he was so famous when I chose him, and just went by what seemed like a compatible personality and "plot" of his life. Fate, alas, does not seem to like me.*
~Chapter Two: The dull corner of the room~
Amenhotep tugged irritably at his braid. Was his hair always going to vex him? Sidelocks, braids, intricate crowns, and everything else that was far too heavy, sandy, itchy, pinching...
He threw his hand away from his hair as if burned and picked up his stylus, trying not to start a rant about that, too. It was hard, though, considering the stupidity of it all. Reading and writing? He had enough scribes, why did he need to be one himself? Tales of the gods? He'd worship them gladly, but it's not like they were predictable, so why should he care about their past benefices? If you couldn't predict them, you couldn't count on them, so how would they help him run his country?
With a sigh, Amenhotep went back to marking runes. It wasn't "his" country yet, even if Tuthmosis had gotten himself killed in Memphis in some "hunting accident." Hunting accident! Tuthmosis had been no more interested in hunting bulls than Amenhotep was in ruling. Or in wasting his time until he could. 'If it's my job, then I'll do it, but do I really have to sit around waiting for the decade until it's mine?' He finished the hieroglyph with a vicious stoke, set down the stylus, and awaited the inevitable comment that my prince could surely do much better if he'd just try. 'True enough, but your prince doesn't care!'
He nodded diligently to the lecture, thinking darkly about his tutor's right to criticize, and responded with a generic "thanks" to his dismissal. He slunk out of the room, ignored his next appointment, and gave honest thanks for the fact that, while the servants reported to his father, they couldn't keep him from going where he wanted to themselves.
Messengers, however, had to be treated with more respect. He tried to satisfy himself with a glare at the particularly smug one who had just come to summon him, and found that it didn't help at all. By the smirks on all their faces, his "secret" back-passage hide-out was now the first place they looked. Unfortunately, they were trusted to know at least hints of the king's affairs, and so Amenhotep could not even appease himself by dismissing them for petty offenses. And they knew it, the ingrates.
His father was in the private apartment, unsurprisingly for this time of day. Amenhotep fought down the feeling of pride he felt at even being there. After all, his father had hundreds of wives, many Egyptian along with the countless diplomatic marriages. None of his sisters had ever married foreign kings, of course, nor would a non-native son ever be accepted on the throne. None-the-less, while Amenhotep was the eldest living son of his father's chief queen, Tiye, sons by lesser wives were often allowed to rule. That Amenhotep had been chosen was a statement of confidence... but he didn't want to rule! Why should he play that game? If other people want him to, let them be the ones to make the sacrifices.
"I don't care what you pretend," began his father simply, but to Amenhotep it felt unpleasantly like he'd just read his mind. "I know what you can do," he continued, "even if you don't want to show it. A king is alone, above even his closest advisors, responsible for everyone who follows him. Only he can do this. And I know that you can, as well."
Amenhotep sighed to himself. 'If that's what a king does, then I wonder what you are.' But the braid scratching at his cheek was a pointed reminder that he was not yet more than a crown prince, so he kept his temper hidden. "As you say, father."
The king looked at him steadily. "I know that you can." Amenhotep met his eyes without blinking, and the king nodded at his silent response. "The coronation is scheduled for next year."
"Co-regent, I presume?" That had been the position Tuthmosis would have taken, had he returned to Thebes alive. It hadn't been much more than a year since then, and Amenhotep had little doubt that his father would die on the throne. He certainly wouldn't give it up so quickly.
"Of course. You're a quick learner, ta-sherit, but you don't even have a full court of advisors yet. I was younger than you are now when I took the throne, but I was raised for the job."
"Yes, father. I am working on it." In truth, Amenhotep gave his future associates as little thought as possible, and preferred to have it so. Fortunately, his tutor and other caretakers were deft to scout out children whose first loyalty would (apparently) be to him, and all he had to do was nod and give enough rejections to make them think he was paying attention. And if they thought this meant they could influence him once he was actually enthroned, well, let them! He'd have no hesitations showing them wrong.
Oh, how much easier it must be to have this all decided at birth!
Amenhotep III continued. "I'm not sending you away to Memphis like I did with your brother. You've still too much to learn, and there's no need. As co-regent, you'll stay here and rule by my side, so you won't yet need a full court of your own right away."
"Yes, father. And you said you would be in charge of the foreign nations?" They'd had this conversation before.
"That's right. You'll handle much of the internal affairs." He smiled. "It will leave me more time for studying."
Amenhotep couldn't help sighing aloud this time. His father was obsessed with ancient practices. Like this whole Aten thing. He'd found some old references to a cult of the sundisk, decided it must be great, and started promoting it right and left. Weren't there enough gods to appease already? He sighed again, and traced the path of the golden lock through his braid with a finger. He'd once considered it a good omen. Now it was just annoying. "Yes, father," he replied, no longer sure if there was even a question.
"So putting the finishing touches to your court can wait, but be sure to have chosen your wife before then."
Amenhotep's mind froze, except or a few unpleasant thoughts that sloshed into view like icy water. 'A wife?! A WIFE? Advisors are fine... aren't supposed to kill 'em, but you can send them off alright... but a WIFE? Ohh, I can't believe I forgot about that... The first wife's supposed to be something special. Can't just toss her in a harem and forget about her, not when you marry her when you're getting crowned... A WIFE?" That word froze into place at the top of his mind.
His father chuckled at his obvious discomfort. "Choose someone from my harem. I won't mind the loss." He put his hand on Amenhotep's shoulder and guided him out the door. "You know where to find it!"
Amenhotep stumbled a few steps after his father's hand left his back, then stood blank-faced and silent in the hall. Of course he knew where the harem was -- that was where he had to go to study every day! 'Great,' he grumbled, re-finding his feet. 'I'll never be able to look at those painted ladies the same way again...'
'I never want to look at these ladies again,' moaned Amenhotep to himself as he slunk out of the harem many days later. Lessons were painful enough, without those... women staring at him and giggling and weren't they supposed to be making cloth with their servants or something? They weren't allowed to just sit around in their flimsy dresses and do nothing, he knew, even if they were the daughters of kings, or pretty noblewomen. Ugh. The king had the worst taste. Amenhotep grumbled darkly as he slipped into grimier halls -- the palace complex was too big for its own good.
"His" room was well off the normal routes, and wasn't even needed as a storeroom. The palace had been built by his father in the standard fashion: big, shiny, and incomplete. He didn't think he'd ever seen a temple that wasn't in some, sometimes abandoned, stage of construction. Here, the walls were bare, the furniture consisted of the odd pieces he'd taken for himself, and the only ornaments were a scattering of boxes and trunks, some containing forgotten baubles or useless shiny relics. The instruments he loved so much were hidden among these -- a harp between two boxes, a flute tucked inside... Even if the whole world knew he was hiding here, he couldn't bear to leave them out in the open. At least this way he could still pretend.
He had brought a torch with himself as usual, since the room had no windows and lights weren't routinely kept here. A little light was all he needed... there was nothing to see here except things to trip on. He took the torch over to a back corner, supposedly to make it less obvious from outside, but really so that he wouldn't be blinded looking at whatever messenger was sent to fetch him this time. With a groan, he shook his head to dislodge those honest thoughts, and opened his eyes to see a dark sheen slipping out of view behind a box. He started slightly, but his shoulders quickly sagged again. 'Just a servant doing some petty thieving.' He walked forward, holding the torch slightly higher. 'With what's in here, their find will be petty indeed.'
Looking over the box, he saw a girl, no older than six, with her head bowed and her arms wrapped around her knees. By the dark, reddish shade of her skin, she was more used to being outdoors than in, and from what he could see of her bare form, she already worked as a laborer. No wonder she was in here stealing.
He nodded to himself, turned, and set the torch in its accustomed niche. When he turned back around, another of those Anubis-sent messengers was smirking in the doorway. "Crown Prince Amenhotep, the just Meryre, long may he live, requests your presence at once." The servant turned without a pause, and was as quickly gone.
Amenhotep sighed. So soon. He knelt and plucked a soft arpeggio on the harp, then straightened his tunic and brushed some of the dust off his skirt. He left the room without a word, leaving the torch flickering dully behind him.
The seasons turned, and the hot, sandy winds that had blown down from the South abated as the Nile oozed back into its channel. New Year's was celebrated, with an excess of religious pomp, and the merchants that traveled throughout the country and farther along the Nile returned from wherever they'd spent the Inundation. Foreign emissaries came as well, and the pharaoh gloated over the gifts he received from his loving, loyal allies.
Amenhotep's anxiousness -- and irritation -- over his impending coronation had if anything increased, and messengers dragged him out of his musical sanctuary so often now that he'd stopped even trying to find relief there. Instead, he took to sloping around the less formal parts of the palace, and had managed to rapidly become an annoyance to the cooks and other workers.
It was with something akin to delight that he found the communal buffet for lesser nobility and supposedly-honored guests one day -- even if it was a slightly sullen member of that family. There might be more sand in the bread, but there was sand everywhere and no fawning, sycophantic aristocrats-to-be here. Their places were carved out, and whether or not they were content, they wouldn't be begging favor from him. Too valuable to be afraid, and too low to rise any higher, they were among the few people who didn't bother with the games of politics.
"...so a flat-barge like mine had no chance in waters like those, right? But can you imagine carrying all those bales down through the desert? The Nile might be falling, but there's still the winds, and, well, you know what that's like. But leaving my goods behind -- no way! They're priced more than my skin's worth, and that's a pretty penny, as you know!" Amenhotep nodded an eager agreement, and splashed more wine into the gregarious merchant's cup. "So then I dragged my sons out -- and you can be sure they didn't want to show their faces; they'd gotten me into this mess in the first place, right -- so I dragged them out, and of course all our horses had drowned, so I took out the harnesses..." Amenhotep roared with laughter, spilling wine out of the skin and into the dust on the floor. The merchant grinned in appreciation and gave him a comradely poke in the side with an elbow, but accompanied it with a whisper that was abruptly sober. "See who's coming," he muttered, with the barest glance toward the door. Amenhotep caught his look, glanced as well, and groaned.
"Will I never have any peace?" His tone was as low as the merchant's, but his eyes were rolled to the heavens.
"Nay, not in this place," the man murmured back, as he bowed low to the approaching king.
Amenhotep responded with a single, rueful nod, then looked up, smiling cheerfully. "Wine, father?"
"Certainly." Amenhotep III accepted the cup from his son and stood silently swirling the wine for a long moment. The trader tried to appear engrossed in his own drink, and mildly drunk. "Had any luck today?" he suddenly asked.
"Yes, as a matter of fact." Amenhotep took a swig from his own cup. "I managed to eliminate everyone in your harem, individually and as a group."
Amenhotep III accepted this without blinking. "So?"
The boy shrugged. "This game's getting old. Let's end it." He glanced casually around the room, which had grown much quieter, and then pointed to a girl leaning against a table, not yet old enough to be habitually wearing clothes -- or already wed. "Her."
His father raised an eyebrow and looked at her sideways. "And her name?"
Amenhotep shrugged again and looked at the merchant, who coughed nervously. "Ankhtify, Great King. She's the daughter of my brother."
The old king nodded to this, looked at the girl again, and swiftly drained his cup.