The mystery of Queen Nefertiti (Charlie Wilford and the Order of the Knights of Time - I Book 1) by C.T. Cassana

Author:C.T. Cassana [Cassana, C.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIII: Ankhesenpaaten

Ankhesenpaaten broke away from the funeral procession for a moment and went to look at the offerings for her husband, the foods and drinks that the pharaoh would need on his journey to the next life. Despite the efforts of the priests to arrange them appropriately, they were all crowded together and looked rather disorderly due to the limited space in the cubicle.

Indeed, the king had died unexpectedly before his twentieth birthday and would have to be buried in a tomb that was not at all in keeping with his royal rank.

The young queen stood still, gazing at the delicacies, when suddenly her thoughts took her away from there and her whole life flashed before her eyes in an instant.

The happy years of her childhood came back to her, and she saw herself surrounded by all her family. Those were the days when her mother, the beautiful Queen Nefertiti, was happy at the side of her father, Pharaoh Akhenaten. Back then he was still a bold reformer with a vision, who sought to liberate his people from the yoke of oppression that the priests of Amun had placed upon them; but he was also a proud man who lacked the skill to deal with the fierce resistance that such profound changes would provoke. Every hardship, every problem, every setback had the effect of gradually grinding him down, until he had turned into a ruler who lived in fear of treason, an arrogant despot who would listen to no one. Not even to his wife, whom he had begun to despise for having blessed him with six beautiful and loving daughters but no male child.

Little by little, the king turned his back on his wife, his family and his people. He paid heed only to his sycophants, to the servile courtiers who applauded his increasingly erratic decisions, and concealed from him the real problems that were afflicting the country.

Ankhesenpaaten was still a child when death came into their lives, and with it the pain and tragedy that would hound their family from that time on. In a little more than two years it took three of her sisters: the two youngest and the beloved Meketaten.

Pain consumed the beautiful Nefertiti, abandoned by her husband and besieged by sickness and sorrow. The queen convinced herself that she was responsible for all their misfortunes, for such tragedy could only be a punishment from the gods for having offended them by denying their right to exist and to be venerated by men, as they had been since the dawn of time.

She had supported her husband; she had backed his decision to ban the worship of any deity other than Aten, the Sun God; she had participated actively in all the rites and ceremonies led by the pharaoh. Indeed, she never tried to dissuade him, although in her heart and her soul she knew that it was utter madness. And now the gods were punishing her, denying her the male child that she and her husband so desperately wanted, and snatching from her the daughters that she loved so dearly.

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