Nefertiti
The day is here, the day is here! It is here.
I, Nefertiti, shall be Queen. My cousin, my love, will be King. We will rule Kemet with the Good God and the Great Wife as long as it pleases the Aten to let them live.
Then we will rule alone.
And things will change.
My noble ladies in waiting have washed me thoroughly with scented waters softened with salts of natron. Now they dress me, here in the main Palace of Malkata. They bring me warm woolens against the windy cold They bring me, to go over them, a sheath of gold, pectorals filled with many jewels, rings, bracelets, golden sandals for my feet, my own special conelike blue crown which I designed and which is like no other, rising high and drawing back from my face to reveal it in all its beauty.
There is no one in Kemet as beautiful as I. There is no one in Kemet—I hesitate, but I am strong and fearless, and I say it—there is no one in Kemet as strange as he. He believes this gives us great advantage. I believe it too. What he believes, I believe. For he is always right.
The ladies in waiting flutter about me, exclaiming and awe-struck by my beauty. They increase it with kohl for my eyes, powders and rouges for my cheeks, tints for my hair. I hold my head very still, examining myself over and over in the bronze jewel-ringed mirror which he gave me on our last birthday. (I gave him a small scarab which he wears as a ring, showing on its reverse Horus the falcon representing Pharaoh, standing on Sebek the crocodile representing longevity, and flanked by two cobras representing the goddess Buto of Lower Egypt—thus, Lower Egypt protecting Pharaoh and giving him long life. These are things we no longer believe in, but it is a pretty conceit. And it symbolizes something for us: we seem to feel more at home in Lower Egypt, away from the intrigues of this city, though it is here in Thebes that we will chiefly rule.)
I study myself in the mirror, and slowly, carefully, with infinite delicacy, my principal lady in waiting, An-ser-Woss-ett, draws rings of green kohl, made from ground malachite, around my eyes, heavily shading my eyelids, drawing out the fine lines at the end of each eye to exaggerated lengths to make me seem glamorous and mysterious—not that I need much of that, for I am glamorous and mysterious: but it is the custom. Then from another little pot she takes powdered red ochre, which she applies to my lips and cheeks to heighten their already lovely color. My hair (which will be seen briefly when my unusual crown is removed after the wedding and then formally returned to my head by my uncle Aanen to signify my coronation as Queen of the Two Lands and Chief Wife of the Co-Regent) she tints lightly with henna—again, a custom, for it shines with a beautiful dusky red color, as it is. Custom also calls for it to be shaven after I become Queen, and for me to wear heavy wigs thereafter; but this I think I will not do. I have classic features, a long, lovely neck; why hide them under an ugly thatch of someone else’s hair? I will permit them to be covered with cloth of gold for certain major ceremonies, but for the rest I shall wear my crown and look as nature intended me. This will be treat enough for Kemet, I think, and while there may be a little grumbling that I break tradition, what of it? It is not the only tradition we intend to break.
Now An-ser-Woss-ett is preparing to drench me with perfumes, which I must admit I like. Myrrh and frankincense, cinnamon, bitter almond, sweet wine mixed with honey, sweet rush, cardamom—they all blend together in a delicious jumble which I thoroughly enjoy. I shall smell lovely when I come to his bed, though it will not be the first time: we have had each other many times in the weeks since our marriage was announced and no one, save possibly Kaires, has even suspected. We have become very clever at concealing what we do—and concealing what we think. Only my father suspects our thoughts a little, and even him I think we have succeeded in confusing. It is vital that we do so, until we have the power. There will be time enough then for the world to exclaim.
I said “many times” but actually it has only been twice, for it has not been easy to arrange: but it has been enough to prove to me that I can be his wife, as he can be my husband, willingly and joyously in every sense. I was not at all sure of this, for you must understand that his terrible illness imposed a strain on me greater than it did on anyone save himself: and of course I did not know what final damage it might have done to him. For a long time I was uncertain on all counts, even though I have known almost from the time I knew anything that someday we would marry. I knew that this would still be true if he should survive the change, no matter what he looked like, or what, if any, his powers might be—for from the first our marriage has been considered necessary for Kemet. But I really thought for a time that it might have to be a marriage complete with all the love, affection and support I could give him, but incomplete in the one thing that matters most to us and to Kemet—that we should be able to love one another in all ways, and that we should also be able to have many healthy sons to strengthen our House and continue the Eighteenth Dynasty forever and ever.
Since the continuation of the House and the Dynasty are so important, I was even prepared if necessary to accept the fact that I might have to submit myself to some substitute father (undoubtedly Pharaoh himself, ailing as he is), so that my sons could be produced for Kemet behind the public screen the marriage would provide. But now I know that this will not be necessary. It is the one thing I had to know to be able to go through this day with the genuine joy and happiness I should feel, and show the people.
Therefore I persuaded him to join me in the experiment, which at first he was a little reluctant to undertake—not for any moral reasons, for since the age of eight we have witnessed what happens in Thebes during the Festival of Opet, from peasant hut to royal Palace (two weeks of drunkenness and couplings of all kinds everywhere, even in the streets), and nothing about the morals of Kemet shocks us now. Indeed, the morals of Kemet do not exist in the sense, for instance, in which morals seem to exist in some heathen lands beyond Mittani which we read about. It is the order of things which exists in Kemet, and the order of things can be stretched to include almost anything as long as the order of things remains the order of things. This is a lesson we have learned and will not forget
So we would both, I thought, have acquiesced, as a matter of simple practicality, had it been necessary for me to lie with his father to beget our sons: but we would neither of us have been happy about it. I explained this to him gravely, while he watched me with those calm eyes which can be sometimes almost hypnotic in their steady, deliberately expressionless gaze. I did not allow his lack of response to shake me. I did not stumble or falter. I continued to the end. But I realize now that I should have carried away inside a hurt from which I would never have recovered had he not studied me with silent intensity for a moment when I finished and then said quietly:
“Any Sons of the Sun who are begotten on your body will be begotten by me and by no one else. I will kill myself before I will let my father or anyone else profane the only woman I will ever love.”
After that, it all went easily; and I found out what I had to find out: that the illness by some miracle had stopped before it destroyed him altogether as a man; and that I, out of the love I have known since our babyhood and the compassion that has joined it since his illness, was capable of taking to myself his misshapen body without revulsion, without reservation, without anything but what I have always known for him, a love so deep that it can never change.
So we are one entirely, and so the day will proceed as happily and fittingly as it should. I needed only to know about his body to be to him in all things the great Queen I know I have the ability to be. It has been many, many years since I needed to know about his heart, for it has belonged to me always, as mine to him. And for his mind I have known, as early as I knew anything, trust and respect and utter confidence in all he says and does. For he is always right.
He is quick, very quick, though now this is hidden behind the shy, veiled eyes, the deliberately bland expression, the customarily unsmiling face. It is best that this be so, for he and I have many thoughts and many plans that Kemet must not yet know.
An-ser-Woss-ett applies the final trace of powder to my cheeks, the tiniest final touch of rouge to my lips, one more lightest tracing of kohl along the eyelids, a swift final shower of many perfumes. She stands back and studies me. I study myself. All the ladies flutter. She likes what she sees, I like what I see. We exchange the smiles of two women working in harmony to achieve the result both desire. I take a large carnelian ring engraved with the head of Horus (she is a sweet but very superstitious woman) from the box I have concealed beneath the table and, reaching for her hand, place it upon her finger. She drops to her knees, kissing my hand and praising me. All the ladies do the same. I stand, go to the mirror, turn this way and that: I gleam with gold and jewels from head to foot. My beautiful face is perfect, my lovely long neck is white as the whitest sand and soft as the softest linen. My eyes are dark and mysterious—and as intelligent as his, which few in Kemet know. Which is just as well.
I feel radiant.
I look radiant.
Very soon now they will come for me and I will go in my own special ship of state down the river to Luxor. And all along the banks of the Nile amid their wild hysterical shouts of love and loyalty, the people will say to one another, and I will hear them say it, “Lovely, lovely! Oh, she is beautiful, she is beautiful! A Beautiful Woman Has Come, and now she is ours!”
And he will greet me with the smile that lights only for me, and in the brooding eyes that conceal so much of pain and hurt there will today be only happiness.
And I shall be content.
***