*Author's Note: Sorry for the long delay, guys. I've no other excuse except "school." But then again, doesn't that say it all?*
~Chapter Four: Unable to deny~
"So what matters of grave importance do we have to decide upon today?"
Amenhotep smiled at his wife as she settled on the throne beside him. "Just life, death, and the natural harmony of order in the universe, my dear."
"What, again?" Ankhtify, now known more pompously as Nefertiti, sighed. "I thought we sorted out the order of the universe last week!"
"Apparently, there are a few lingering kinks in our beautiful and assuredly flawless plan." Their eyes met for a moment, and their smiles, already tinged with mirth, turned to laughter. The messengers hid smiles of relief -- new the young king might be, but they had already learned to be grateful for his good moods. Some of the lower-level officials had even gone so far as to specially befriend some of the palace guards. While Amenhotep ruled the people fairly enough, well... it was not unheard of for rulers to dismiss their savants in an uncomfortably permanent fashion. Forewarned was forearmed -- sometimes more literally than others. An extra hour to slip out past the walls might be a welcome thing one of these days...
But for today, they were safe. Amenhotep was smiling, joking with his merry, dark-skinned queen. Nefertiti -- a picture of radiant beauty she was not. As a well-off merchant's daughter, she was of the sort that the more ambitious among them might hope to wed, but how she had taken the fancy of the prince -- that was not something to be discussed aloud, good day or no. At least, not by anyone but the queen herself. She seemed to have no limits to her freedom.
Her eyes still sparkled with mischief as Amenhotep waved forward his first advisor. He was only a few years older than Amenhotep himself, and was considerably taller, but he looked gangly and nervous, as if the royal couple were scribes for whom he was reciting his lines. He had not been raised to his job, either. Amenhotep made another gesture, much more sweeping and grandiose than before, so the boy cracked a wavering smile and knelt briefly. "Great King, the news I bring you is..." he fumbled for an appropriate adjective for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, there's some good and some bad, my King. The crops are doing well and flourishing -- as much as can be expected in this early season, thank merciful Hapy. Hopes remain high, and it seems last year's harvest is lasting, as there have been few reports of attempts at looting from the temples. Of course, that also means there haven't been many seeking to labor on your building projects, my Lord." He glanced nervously at the King, to make sure that his "obvious" conclusion had not offended. Amenhotep returned his look with a thoughtful frown.
"I've been building something?"
"Uhh...." But the King laughed and waved him on -- there were always things being made. "Right, well, uh... Um, so there's also been reports of bandits along the main trade routes, Great King. They are becoming most troublesome, I fear."
"Wait." It was Nefertiti who spoke this time, with a sideways glance at her husband. "I thought you said thieves weren't a problem?"
"I did, my Queen, but these are not ordinary thieves -- peasants desperate for some bread. These are skilled bandits. The devastation has been terrible -- wreckage of boats has been floating down the Nile, and bones of the animals."
Amenhotep nodded. "That trade is important. If the merchants are too afraid to travel, Egypt's whole economy could shut down. Fortunately, it's nothing a few soldiers won't handle, I'm sure. I'll speak with the General of the Army about it later in the morning." One of the messengers slipped quietly away from the group and out a side door to inform him of the meeting. The advisor bowed.
"Very wise, my King. Now, a prince of the Mitanni arrived yesterday, as you know."
"And there will be a banquet."
Nefertiti laughed at her husband's dour comment. "You'd rather we greet him with stale bread and water?"
"Only if he insisted on eating."
The advisor interrupted nervously with a cough. "Yes, my Lord. Your father has arranged a great welcome for him. The prince has brought us gifts of gold, my Lord, and greetings and news from the Kin..."
The news was nothing extraordinary -- some tales of sickness, petty politics, and the like -- and the banquet was just as dull. That was, indeed, an impressive feat, since Takhirna was just as vigorous as Egypt's young rulers, but anything sanctioned by he Great House always seemed to be so. In all, it was with relief that Amenhotep took the sanctuary of his private rooms as the day turned to a bitter-cold night.
His wife was less completely pleased. She sat on their bed, looking pensively at a too-ornate vase, silent and lost in thought. Amenhotep sat behind her and put his arms around her waist, which was starting to show quite clearly that they'd been married for several months now. "What is it, my dear?"
"Oh..." She turned her head and looked back at him through half-lidded eyes. "I was thinking about what we heard this morning, about the bandits and the merchants."
"What do... oh, are you worried about your family?"
Nefertiti smiled and shook her head so that all of her tiny braids danced. "No, not at all. They don't travel what anyone would call "main" trade routes at this time of year. But still, you're right -- I've been a merchant all my life. My father and uncle... they used to tell me all about trading. The tricks, and the skills -- and the dangers." She looked back at the pot in the corner. "He used to tell me stories about monsters, hideous monsters that came from the hills or the river, and attacked without warning. Not that warning would have made a difference... no-one could stand against them."
Amenhotep laughed and hugged her tightly. "I'd much rather have been a merchant than a king! They tell such wonderful stories. Of course, minstrels tell the best of all." He patted her on the shoulder and stood to take off his scratchy wig.
Nefertiti smiled slightly, but her eyes were dark and worried -- and her voice low. "But I know that I saw one..."
In only a few months, however, the bandit problem faded away. A few ragged bands were caught -- not enough to have done it all by themselves, but they were openly punished and that alone could be enough to encourage the others to find a different line of work, and keep the traders happy with theirs. Even if they did try to haggle a higher price in exchange for the danger -- but if you listened to merchants, you'd believe every day was the beginning of the apocalypse.
Nefertiti herself was distracted by the birth of her first child, a daughter. While it would have been quite appropriate to hand her off to a wet-nurse and let the other woman take on the (quite honorable) chore of raising her, Nefertiti insisted on taking young Meritaten with her practically everywhere. Many were the audiences in the royal throneroom that were interrupted by Meritaten's angry cries, but Nefertiti's eyes always shone with love all the more, and Amenhotep could not bring himself to say anything against it. And it always did distract the more stubborn and unreasonable visitors.
Her family's caravan came to Thebes several months after Meritaten's birth. Not having any official tie to the royal family, since of course the Queen's birth had been a divine one, they went as usual to the merchants' banquet with no presumption to a higher class. They had only been in the city for two hours, however, before Nefertiti swept through the doors, followed by a wet-nurse and fanbearers... but smiling like a young girl just come home.
With light feet, she ran across the stone floor and embraced her father, uncle, and aunt, laughing at her uncle's gruff protests that she'd spill his wine. "Come, look!" Nefertiti took Meritaten from the nurse and held her out proudly toward the others.
"My beautiful, lucky darling!" Her father embraced her around the baby, while her uncle smiled into his wine. "I'm glad to find you still well!"
"And I you!" She returned the hug, then gave one to her aunt and let her take Meritaten to admire for a minute. "Come, won't you join us? My husband is eager to talk to you."
Her uncle clucked his tongue. "Been causing him trouble, have you? Well, he took you on and now it's his problem, so I say!" Nefertiti laughed and led them through the shining hallways.
The night was a normal one, however, and a quiet dinner with family wasn't on the schedule. The merchants sat quite a distance from the royal family and their more prominent guests -- but from the looks on their faces, the musicians and clinking, acrobatic dancers were enough to keep them in a good mood. And once the visiting nobles had been coaxed off to their beds, they lounged against the tables with the king and queen, half-empty beer mugs set all around.
"So, tell me, are you ready to retire from the merchant business yet? I'm sure Nefertiti would love having your company, and I'll never say 'no' to having another friendly face around."
"Not me, Great King," replied Nefertiti's uncle with a fond glance at his wife. "We're far too young to give it up now."
His wife, a thick-boned woman with a kind face, smiled back at him. "That's right! We're just starting to get the hang of it all, and what good would it be to stop now? There's so much left to see." She leaned over and kissed her husband, reinspired with the thought of a life of travel and adventure. Amenhotep nodded and turned to Nefertiti's father.
"And you, Ay?"
The man looked down and studied his cup for a moment. Older by some years than his brother, his wife had died not long after Nefertiti's birth. Nefertiti's early name of Ankhtify, "One Who Will Live," was a sure reflection of his growing unease. With these thoughts in his eyes, he looked up and nodded. "Thank you, Great King. I will gratefully accept. While I wish my brother best luck, that life is no longer for me, and I welcome the chance to settle down."
"I am gladdened to hear this news!" Amenhotep encouraged. "If you like, you may work for me, perhaps with my chariotry. You are good with horses?"
"Yes, my Lord, I have some skills."
"Then it's settled!" Amenhotep smiled on the others as well. "You are all always welcome here with me. My house is yours." They smiled back at him, and, for that moment at least, they were nothing more than family.
The seasons changed again and, with the merchants long gone, the weather turned blustery, with hot winds kicking up the sand and making travel impractical. Meritaten was still attached to Nefertiti like a leech -- or perhaps it was the other way around -- and Ay settled into his new job as Master of the Horses nicely. Amenhotep was disappointed to find him almost deadly dull, with a pedantic outlook and none of the fanciful tales characteristic of his previous compatriots, but he worked diligently and faithfully, so Amenhotep just strove not to engage him in conversation.
As it was, though, Amenhotep supposedly had enough to occupy his attention. Now 17, he would be moving to a palace in Heliopolis as soon as it was convenient to travel, and preparations had to be made. True enough -- but these were done by lower officials, not the king himself, and with the country relatively peaceful and prosperous, there was often little for him to do. Letters and grain reports could take up only so much time.
It was with this bored mood that he set off on a quest through the palace one afternoon, telling his wife, "We'll be leaving soon, and I really don't think I've left enough mark on this place yet." She politely declined to join him in his "artistic" destruction, saying that Meritaten was antsy. 'As am I,' he thought resentfully, irritated with her split attention.
His irritation slipped away, however, as he strode randomly around the palace and felt utterly irresponsible. An hour rummaging through forgotten storage boxes yielded several piece of relatively cheap and very gaudy jewelry to hang around his ears and neck, as well as a pretty little box that he thought would look nice in his rooms. Now he was walking along a back hall, considering whether to order the artists to repaint it with some garish scene... something involving a lion, perhaps. Something preposterous enough to consternate the painters. His ruminations on what this could be were cut short as he rounded a corner and caught sight of a slightly familiar figure clad in filthy linen rags. She saw him as well, and took off running.
Without knowing why, he set off after her -- but she was scared and he unfit. Struck by an idea, he carefully threw the box over her left shoulder, making her yelp with surprise. The box shattered against the ground and she darted to the right into a room.
And he had her. Looking in through the doorway, he recognized her at once as the young slave girl he'd once spared by ignoring. Her eyes showed fear as she looked back at him, but there was no doubt that she recognized him as well. For a long moment, they only stared.
"What is your name?" he finally asked.
"Bessel, my Lord." Her tone was strong, but not defiant -- more resigned. Amenhotep felt sick inside at those simple words. Bessel -- named after Bes, the goddess of fertility. She must have been only a child when she received that name. Something inside him clenched.
"Never again!" She started and looked up at him with wide eyes. Looking into those eyes, Amenhotep felt like he understood everything about her and would never know it all. "From now on, you will be 'Kiya.'"
Mahogany glimmered in her eyes, and she wore the faintest smile. "Yes, my Lord. Thank you." But Amenhotep didn't return her smile, and she blinked, again disconcerted. "My Lord?" She turned around and looked at what the king was staring at, a mural showing marching soldiers, slain bodies, fire, and various disfigured shapes that could only be termed "monsters." Behind her, Amenhotep swallowed painfully.
"Well, that can't be good."