The Murder of King Tut - James William Patterson [40]
I am the pharaoh, Tut reminded himself. What does it matter what others think? Let my wife be angry with me. My father had lovers. So did my father’s father, and his father before him. What does it matter if I take this woman to my bed—or take her for my wife, for that matter?
Tut moved forward until he was sitting on the edge of his seat. By the look in her eyes, it was clear that the girl sensed that she was about to be beckoned. Her hard look had softened.
Tut rose and stared at her. He could feel a deep and powerful longing. He studied the girl—her face, lips, every curve—and then he turned and walked to his tent.
Alone.
He remained faithful to Ankhe.
Chapter 53
Tut’s Palace
1324 BC
ANKHESENPAATEN STAGGERED into the throne room holding her bulging belly in both hands. She was six months into her second pregnancy.
Each morning she had said a quiet prayer to Amun that this time he would let the baby live. Those prayers had been answered so far, but now something was happening, something new that had her terrified.
“Tut,” she whispered from the doorway. “Tut, please.”
Tut’s advisers stood in a semicircle before his throne, midway through their morning discussion about an upcoming invasion of Nubia. The pharaoh wore just a royal kilt and a decorative collar, for it was summer in Thebes, and at midmorning the temperature was already stifling. When Tut had decided to move the capital back to Thebes, he had not anticipated such extremes of weather.
At the sound of Ankhesenpaaten’s voice his head turned toward the doorway. Then he walked quickly to his queen, not caring that his advisers might disapprove.
“What is it, Ankhe?” he asked. After he had returned from war, the two of them had become closer than ever.
“Tut, I can’t feel anything.”
Tut glanced back at his advisers, who were trying—and failing—to somehow pretend that they weren’t smug about the conversation.
“I’m sure the baby is just sleeping,” Tut said in a low voice.
Ankhesenpaaten shook her head. “It’s been a whole day. Usually he moves inside me all the time. Here,” she said, taking Tut’s hand and placing it against the curve of her abdomen. “Feel that?”
Tut nodded. “That’s his foot,” she told him. “He normally kicks all the time, but that foot hasn’t moved today.”
She suddenly gasped in pain and crumpled to the floor. The advisers rushed to the pharaoh and his queen.
“Guard!” Aye yelled. “Send for the royal physician.”
Chapter 54
Tut’s Palace
1324 BC
ANKHESENPAATEN’S FACE HAD TURNED a sickly shade of pale. She cried out as wave after wave of excruciating pain coursed through her body.
“What is it?” asked Tut, holding her hand tightly. “What is happening?”
“The baby is coming, Tut. Right now.”
And at those words, Ankhesenpaaten began to cry. She knew that no child should enter the world so early in a pregnancy. There was no way it would live.
It was as if Tut and his advisers did not exist now. Alone with the child, she curled into a ball on the floor and sobbed bitterly, pressing her face into the cool, smooth stone.
“I am so ashamed,” she whispered.
“My queen… ,” said Tut.
“I am not worthy of being called your queen,” she said, sitting up straight and looking deeply into Tut’s eyes. The bile in her throat rose as she stared at the three advisers. “I cannot give you an heir. Don’t you see? I am incapable.”
The advisers said nothing to this, but none would have disagreed. Thanks to their spies within the royal household, the aging men knew that she referred to them as the Serpents. The girl was arrogant and disrespectful, but she was also very smart.
“Don’t speak nonsense,” Tut said in an unconvincing voice. This was the moment he had feared since Ankhesenpaaten had announced that she was with child again. “We’ll put the child in my burial tomb. Much of it is already finished.”
“You’re not listening to me,” said Ankhesenpaaten, just as a contraction sent a new wave of pain through her body.
“She’s right,” Horemheb pronounced. “She sees things clearly.”
Tut got to his feet