The Book of Coming Forth by Day: The Complete Three-Part Novel by Hawker Libbie

Author:Hawker, Libbie [Hawker, Libbie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Running Rabbit Press
Published: 2016-02-29T05:00:00+00:00

Nefertiti

Year 12 of Akhenaten,

Beautiful Are the Manifestations,

Exalting the Name,

Beloved of the Sun

The garden spread its cloak of green below Nefertiti’s window. Long banks of flowering hedges stretched across the garden’s breadth, their loose blossoms half-spent, yielding their sweet perfumes into the air with a frantic fervor. Soon the days of dry heat would set in, the long, arid weeks of late Shemu that gripped Egypt just before the floods arrived to cool and refresh the earth. Nefertiti sat with her elbow propped on the window sill, her chin resting on her fist. She watched the sun beat down upon the garden, glaring off the pale flowers. A bird sang a repetitive tune from somewhere across the flower beds. The notes fell in a lazy cascade. It was a rare moment of rest for the King’s Wife—a respite from the throne room, the demands of the court, the heat and rote monotony of the temple.

A welcome time of peace, and yet Nefertiti could not enjoy it. She seemed to feel Shemu’s impending heat and barren days within her own body, a long misery waiting to reveal itself, to dry her heart and wither her ka. The flowers’ rich perfumes only taunted her, for soon, she knew, the last petals would drop and the garden would smell of dust. The bird would fly away, seeking a friendlier place, where the gods blessed the land with green shade even during summer’s most violent heat. But she would still be here, locked in the dry valley of Akhet-Aten like a goat in a pen.

Movement at the garden’s farthest edge distracted Nefertiti from her dark reverie. Something stirred beneath the cool darkness of the portico, a ripple of movement, a tumble of laughter. A moment later Mutbenret came into the garden, herding Nefertiti’s six little daughters before her like a flock of thin, brown geese. The girls scampered around their aunt, darting across the paths, plucking the wilting flowers from their stems and chasing butterflies through the grass. Mutbenret ushered the girls toward the garden’s small, shallow pond. She settled on its edge as the splashing and squealing began.

Nefertiti watched her sister more than her daughters. She couldn’t help it; she always cast surreptitious glances at Mutbenret whenever she was near, and no matter the expression on Mutbenret’s face—sorrowful or vacantly beaming—Nefertiti couldn’t look at her without feeling a stab of regret and self-loathing. Today, Mutbenret smiled as she tended the girls—and not the distant, defensive smile she used at court or around the king. It was a rare thing, to see Mutbenret smile, but the time she spent with her nieces seemed to be the only time she was truly happy. Nefertiti could have hired any woman in the city to tend her children—the most elegant and erudite lady of the court. It would have been an honor no one would refuse. But minding the girls was Mutbenret’s only joy, and so Nefertiti left her to it. She had left such a weight of sorrow in her sister’s heart.

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