by Dee, Debbie
Tiy pictured the beautiful girl she remembered as Kepi. Who could forget such an exotic looking face? Or such big Egyptian eyes, or beautiful bronze skin. Tiy turned back to the mirror and looked at her plain, freckled face. With a frown, she wrapped her pale yellow hair on top of her head. It had gotten long, reaching past her waist, which she loved more than she hated, but it had forced her to use thicker, longer wigs.
“Nebetya, do you mind helping me?” Tiy asked as she gestured to a particularly full wig.
“Not at all, my lady.” Nebetya tucked, pinned, and pulled a long wig over Tiy’s thick bun. “You know, this would be much easier if you let me shave your head like everyone else.”
Lapis-lazuli beads clinked together as the dark strands fell to her waist. “Amenhotep likes my hair,” Tiy said.
Nebetya began to cry.
“What are you crying about now?” Tiy asked with a chuckle.
“It’s nothing, my lady. I’m just so happy Pharaoh loves you so. You never know with these great men.”
Tiy turned to face the mirror. “I suppose you’re right. You never know.” And for the first time, Tiy felt a sickening fear at the thought of Amenhotep falling in love. It wasn’t uncommon for pharaohs to have two, or three, or a dozen wives. She would always be the first in the eyes of Egypt, but in Amenhotep’s heart, she would become the last.
She placed one of her less formal crowns on top of her head, a band of gold with a blue lapis-lazuli stone set over her brow. She wondered how Amenhotep felt about her. Did he think about her as often as she thought about him? Did he panic when he thought she might be in danger?
She touched the stone on the crown. It was a rare color of lapis-lazuli, light blue with yellow flecks. Amenhotep said it matched her eyes and was the very color of the desert sky after a storm. He claimed the pale lapis-lazuli was his favorite stone, and he always seemed pleased when she wore her lapis-lazuli crown.
She smiled in the mirror, glad she had chosen to wear Amenhotep’s favorite crown. With Kepi in the palace, she needed to feel closer to him somehow. He was the only person Kepi didn’t chew up and spit out onto the ground.
“I’ll see her, but she can wait,” Tiy said to Nebetya. “Send her to my private audience chamber and I’ll try to make my way over there sometime later this afternoon. Or maybe I’ll make her wait until evening.”
Nebetya giggled. “That’s more like it.” But they both knew Tiy’s curiosity would eventually overrule and she would join Kepi within the hour.
Nebetya flitted out the door to relay Tiy’s orders. When she came back in, she stood behind Tiy at the mirror. “Would you like to start getting ready right now?” she asked.
Tiy sighed and nodded. She closed her eyes and Nebetya drew a thick black line of kohl around her eyes to a point near her temples. With the same kohl, she darkened her brows to match her black wig and added a touch of green malachite underneath. Nebetya painted her lips with red ochre and clasped a necklace of lapis-lazuli around her neck. The hundreds of tiny blue stones draped across her shoulders and down her chest.
“You look beautiful,” Nebetya said as she stepped back to admire her work.
Tiy grimaced. All her old insecurities returned in full force. She felt like an imposter, like someone pretending to be Egyptian. She stood on uncertain legs, knowing that Kepi would be able to smell her insecurities. That she would prey on them. Although she was considered the most powerful woman in Egypt, the goddess Nekhbet, protector of Pharaoh, Tiy had never felt more small.
Chapter 28. Foreign Drink
Tiy took the longest route possible to her private audience chamber, traveling to the furthest courtyard and around the Temple of Set before wandering back. The moment she entered, Kepi stood and bowed low to the ground.
“Your Majesty,” Kepi said.
Stunned, Tiy glanced over her shoulder, wondering if someone else had followed her. Kepi couldn’t possibly be talking to her with such sweetness. But when Tiy faced Kepi again, Kepi was looking right at her with a smile plastered on her pretty little face.
Tiy wanted to hit her, strangle her, pull her hair, anything. Kepi had been the cause of so much pain in her life that it would have been nice to give some of it back. Instead, she controlled her anger and, with the elegance of a queen, perched herself on a chair with legs that met the carpet with a lion’s head on each end, its fierce head roaring. The chair sat higher from the ground than she needed, but to shorten it would have meant to cut off the carved lions. She was glad she had thought to keep them. Their fierceness gave her the strength she needed to face Kepi. She sat forward on the edge of the chair so her feet could touch the floor and rested her elbows on the jeweled arm rests.
Kepi sat on one of the lower stools. As a show of respect, she had removed her sandals before entering the room and was waiting patiently for Tiy to address her.
“Honestly, I’m surprised to see you Kepi,” Tiy managed to utter, still in shock.
“My perspective has changed since Merymose and I married.” Kepi paused and bowed her head. “I hope there are no hard feelings between us.”
Tiy swallowed.
“I’ve come to apologize.”
“It isn’t necessary.” Tiy didn’t want an apology from her, especially considering how contrived it would be.
“I feel horrible for my behavior toward you while we were in school.”
You should feel horrible, Tiy thought to herself. “I didn’t notice,” she said instead. If Kepi was going to lie, she would too.
Kepi’s eyebrows raised and her lips parted. “Oh,” was all she said. She squirmed in her chair and bit her lip.
“What career has Merymose chosen to follow?” Tiy said, trying to move the conversation along. She could guess the real reason behind Kepi’s visit and wished to be done with it.
“He hasn’t settled on anything yet.”
“He was a good friend of Amenhotep’s. Perhaps if Merymose has not already chosen a path, I could suggest that he offer him an official’s position.”
Tiy waited for her to respond. She was being much nicer than she needed to be, much nicer than Kepi deserved. The surprise on Kepi’s face expanded, and Tiy wrinkled her brow. Was this not the real reason Kepi had come to her? She couldn’t believe Kepi’s pretense of regret had any truth to it.
Kepi searched Tiy’s eyes, uncertainty clouding them. She opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it again. Her eyes drifted to Tiy’s necklace where Tiy’s fingers were stroking the lapis-lazuli stones. All of Egypt knew about Tiy’s necklace, and the tremendous effort Amenhotep made to ensure it was fashioned out of the same rare stones in her crown. He had pulled half a dozen masters from their homes to relocate to the palace while it was created and had personally selected the hundreds of stones to be set in the design.
Kepi’s eyes blackened and her uncertainty disappeared. “I have brought you a bottle of my father’s finest wine for us to share in celebration of our new friendship.”
Celebration? Friendship? Tiy felt no desire to celebrate. What she felt was an urge to storm out and commit Kepi to prison. “That’s so kind of you,” she said through clenched teeth. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.
Kepi stood and gripped a pair of goblets from a nearby table, her fingers turning white against the crystal. Her lean figure swayed as she stumbled back to the chair. What was wrong with her? She never seemed so discomposed before? And yet, Tiy couldn’t help notice that she was dressed impeccably, wearing one of the nearly see-through, and highly fashionable, kalasirises she always wore when they were in school. Kepi knew even then that her figure was perfect and would often brush up against Amenhotep whenever the opportunity presented itself.
A sudden stab of jealousy pierced Tiy at the memory. She hated thinking of Kepi so close to Amenhotep. Squirming in her chair, she scowled so fiercely she could feel the skin bunching between her brows. Never had she felt any jealousy when they were in school, why would she feel it so strongly no
w? She looked away from Kepi’s perfectly Egyptian form, trying to understand the strength of her emotions.
Kepi poured a dark red wine into the goblets, letting it slosh around before she stretched her arm out to offer the drink. “Please accept a drink from my father’s house,” she said.
She was acting so strange, but Tiy was too disturbed by her jealousy to care. She knew Amenhotep despised Kepi, and yet the memories bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Why did the thought of Kepi with Amenhotep make her want to throw things, including Kepi, across the room? She wanted to shake her fists in frustration. She didn’t know what to think.
Tiy snatched the goblet from Kepi’s outstretched hand and swallowed several long gulps. It wasn’t until half her wine was gone before she noticed that Kepi had yet to take a drink. Kepi watched her from over the rim of her goblet, her eyes cold and calculating.
Tiy dropped the goblet and jumped to her feet. “What have you done?”
Kepi narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, my Queen?”
Kepi batted her eyelashes and Tiy fought the impulse to rip them out. They both knew what she had done. Her tongue was already enlarging, her throat tightening. Gasping for air, Tiy tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound. She pushed on her throat with her fingers, trying to massage the tightness, but to no avail.
Kepi had poisoned her.
Kepi set her goblet on the table and slunk over to Tiy. Leaning down she whispered into her ear with the coldness of a thousand steel swords. “Don’t worry little Tiy, you probably won’t die.”
Tiy turned her head to glare. Probably? What good was probably to her? Her vision blurred, the grey corners closing in. Her limbs hardened into dead weight as her lungs rejected every breath.
“No,” Kepi said, “you won’t die. I’m not too fond of being executed.” Kepi’s laughter trilled through the air. “But I am fond of humiliating you.”
Tiy searched Kepi’s face, wondering what she meant. Did the wine have a poison that would render her a mute forever? She could deal with that. She would find another way to communicate, and she would tell all of Egypt what Kepi had done to her.
Kepi must have noticed the resolve set in her jaw because she laughed again and whispered. “You won’t tell a soul what happened here today because if you did, you would regret it, trust me. I can hurt your precious Amenhotep in ways you can’t even dream.”
Tiy cried out, her thick tongue preventing any words from forming. She wanted to lash out at Kepi, call her guards, anything, but her body refused her. Her head lolled onto the ground, her vision close to black.
Kepi’s lips turned up into a sickening grin. “No one would suspect anything,” she said. “The true cause of Pharaoh Tuthmosis’ death was hushed up, wasn’t it? For the most part, that is. We all suspect it was an assassin, but just how did he die? I wonder what really happened. Was it poison, an arrow, a traitorous knife to his throat? You never know when a guard might defect. Hmmmm. So many possibilities for your little Pharaoh.”
Kepi’s shrill laugh filled the room, leaving behind a cool chill. Tiy shook, hating her weakness, her inability to do anything but thrash on the floor while Kepi threatened Amenhotep.
“You don’t deserve him,” Kepi said, her upper lip turned up. “You aren’t even Egyptian, you disgusting Mitannian.”
Tiy moaned, her stomach burning with the strength of a thousand fires. She had never been in so much pain, not even when the sands of the desert had lashed at her skin. This was a fire that was consuming her entire body, inside and out.
Kepi tore off Tiy’s wig and threw it across the room. “Look at you. You don’t even look Egyptian. Your filthy blood is going to ruin Egypt’s crown.”
Tiy’s vision blurred into complete blackness and Kepi’s laugh echoed in her ears, muffling into an inaudible hum. She was powerless to cry out or stop the tugging she felt at her hair. The top of her head stung and then dulled as she slipped into emptiness.
Chapter 29. Desert Queen
Tiy awoke on one of the cushions of her receiving room, a blanket pulled to her shoulders and tucked around her body. Her mind swirled and her vision slowly came into focus. Only one goblet remained on the table near the couch, empty and shining as if no liquid had ever touched its etched crystal. Next to it laid her wig.
She picked up the thick wig, ran her shaking fingers through the dark strands, and lifted it to her head. Her thumb brushed the top of her head and an odd sensation crept up her hand. With her breath caught in her throat, she dropped the wig and thrust her hands to her head, her palms meeting the soft flesh of her scalp.
Her hair was gone.
She rubbed her hands over her scalp again, unbelieving. It couldn’t be true! Dropping to her knees, she searched the ground for traces of her hair, for proof that it had ever existed, that she wasn’t going mad. Not a single strand remained. The wine, the hair; it was all gone. Her beautiful hair was gone. She wrapped her arms against her knees, never feeling so naked and alone in her entire life.
Pulling herself together, she gathered her wig off the floor and slapped it onto her bald head. It scratched against her sensitive skin, the foreign touch a bitter reminder of what Kepi had taken from her. She shook as she leaned against the table and stood. She picked up the goblet, meaning to throw it into the nearest wall, but her eye caught the edge of a folded piece of papyrus. Snatching it from the table, she unfolded it quickly, knowing the author before she saw the writing.
Amenhotep enjoys wine, does he not? I would love to pour him a glass of my father’s richest. Do so much as utter the word and I’ll make it happen.
The threat couldn’t have been more obvious and it frightened Tiy like nothing ever had before. The deaths of pharaohs and kings were often sudden and unexplainable. With careful planning, a threat to the king could easily turn into the death of a king. A guard could be paid to look the other way, a disgruntled servant coerced into tainting the king’s food. Tiy knew all the dangers that faced Amenhotep because she worried about every one of them.
Tiy clenched the empty goblet in her hand and hurled it into the nearest wall. It shattered against the stone and fell into hundreds of shards all over the floor. She didn’t feel any better.
A servant girl rushed in with two guards behind her. “You’re awake, majesty,” she said bowing low. “Are you okay?”
“I broke a glass,” Tiy said with more venom than she had intended. She seethed inside and was certain it showed on her face.
The servant girl bowed again, her chin quivering. “Kepi said you dozed off in the middle of your conversation. She said you seemed very tired and not to bother you.”
Tiy stormed passed the girl. She wouldn’t let Kepi get away with this. She would do everything within her power to protect Amenhotep. After all, that was one of the reasons he wanted to marry her, to offer him the protection of a goddess. He was convinced she was Nekhbet, the goddess sent from Ra to keep him from harm, and it was time she started believing it herself. Who more deserved the divine help of the gods in protecting the great Pharaoh of Egypt than his wife and best friend? Vulture or not, she embraced the bird goddess. She would fly to the ends of the earth to protect him and send Kepi into the blackest pits of despair. She would be his Desert Guardian.
Tiy thundered down the corridors toward the courtyard outside her chambers, her sharp footfalls echoing off the stone columns. As loud as she thought the slapping of her sandals sounded, it was apparently not loud enough to alert the servant girls gossiping outside her chamber doors. Her servant girls. Hearing her name whispered with a slight edge, she pushed herself against a column and strained to listen to their conversation.
“Queen Tiy has given him nothing,” one of them said.
“Nothing,” another repeated. “No child to speak of.”
“Did you see Kepi? Heaven knows why Pharaoh didn’t marry her. She would have given him an heir.”
Several girls hummed in agreement and a fierce anger boiled inside
Tiy. She couldn’t believe the audacity! They were exactly the sort of servants who posed a threat to her and Amenhotep. If speaking insolently about their king and queen came so easily, than what would keep them from being bought to poison a meal or two?
And couldn’t they see that Kepi was a heartless, conniving woman capable of caring for no one but herself? She would never be good enough for him!
Tiy realized with a start that no one was good enough for Amenhotep. No one, that is, except her. She felt liberated as the truth of this took root in her soul, as if a pair of strong wings had just sprung from her back. No one could ever be as right for Amenhotep as she was. She wanted to say it again and again in her mind. Strength blossomed inside of her, a sense of belonging she had never felt before. She belonged to Amenhotep and he to her. She protected him in the desert sands and against arrows and dangerous beasts when no other could. It didn’t matter where she came from or what she looked like. She could be whatever she wanted to be, however strong she wanted to be and however intelligent she wanted to be. She was perfect just the way she was, just as Amenhotep had been trying to tell her all this time.
She set her jaw in a hard line. It was time she began sharing a greater portion of the mantle Amenhotep’s shoulders carried in ruling the Two Lands. It was time she stood up for herself, believed in herself and became the Queen she was destined to be.
Chapter 30. Pharaoh’s Equal
Tiy rounded the corner with a fresh wave of strength and fury. The servant girls scattered, pretending to be busy with important tasks. But Tiy’s demanding glare caught their attention and brought them to a standstill.
“How dare you speak of Amenhotep and me with such insolence?”
The servants cowered before her, their jaws hanging open and their heads bowed. They had never seen her speak to anyone with such strength. Never before had she stood up for herself, raised her voice, or spoken her mind before.