Free Drinker Of Blood by Lynda S. Robinson Page B

shall have an ornament befitting your warlike spirit. You, my queen, shall wear a war crown."
    "But that is the crown worn by pharaoh," Nefertiti protested. "It is a battle symbol."
    "That's why you shall wear one I design for you, my little warrior."
    She knew better than to argue. Once an idea became fixed within his heart, Akhenaten tended to consider it a divine inspiration. She had grown in wisdom since marrying him. Far better to save her influence for persuading her husband to stop his newly appointed ministers from commandeering a whole granary full of wheat intended for the mortuary temples of Thebes.
    Akhenaten glanced down at her again as they neared the quay where the royal barge waited to take them across the river to the palace. "Truly, Nefertiti, you grow in beauty and dignity each day."
    She smiled at him. She had learned the art of appearing regal from Queen Tiye; her body was wrapped in gauze, electrum, and precious stones. Green malachite and kohl paint emphasized her eyes. Never did she forget her duty to be beautiful, for Akhenaten's affection was founded upon her appearance. Once, such knowledge would have dismayed her. Now she understood her husband better. To him, her beauty balanced his lack of it, and having so beautiful a wife enabled Akhenaten to say to the world, Look, this magnificent woman loves me; in her eyes I am worthy.
    Nefertiti turned away to look at the Nile. Sometimes her heart hurt with pity for Akhenaten. His ka seemed to contain a lost and lonely little boy who never grew older, who never learned to master his pain, and who searched endlessly for relief. Being the wife of such a man was hard; being the wife of such a man who was also pharaoh seemed impossible. She grew weary of her role as his mooring rope, of the constant need to be strong and beautiful.
    The chariot stopped, and Akhenaten conducted her to the royal barge through a sea of kneeling onlookers. Once they were on board the gilded vessel, it drifted majestically away from the quay. Nefertiti enjoyed standing at the rail and watching the river traffic. She and Akhenaten surveyed great oceangoing freighters, smaller river boats, the pleasure yachts with their trailing kitchen boats, and the swarm of fishing boats and tiny skiffs.
    She glanced over her shoulder when she heard a shout. A boat was being rowed alongside the barge, and a priest of Aten scrambled up a rope to the deck. Carrying a leather document case, the man hurried to Akhenaten, folded his body, and touched his forehead to the deck.
    "Ah, Penno, you've finished. Give them to me."
    Nefertiti drew closer, wondering what could have been so urgent that the priest would chase after pharaoh in so hasty a manner. Akhenaten unrolled a long sheet of papyrus. She could see that most of the text consisted of lists. She glimpsed a section given to property in the delta. There was a whole page devoted to workshops and another to storehouses holding gifts and spoils of war. She glimpsed another papyrus devoted to property in Upper Egypt, including fields, herds of cattle, and goats. Another section listed personnel—overseers of estates, scribes, soldiers, herdsmen, and a vast array of artisans. A separate sheet detailed foreign possessions, from gold mines in Nubia to whole towns as far north as the Orontes River above Byblos. Nefertiti's gaze caught the number of orchards—over four hundred—the hundreds of thousands of head of livestock, the scores of ships, and the tens of thousands of laborers.
    The sheets over which Akhenaten was poring had to be a compilation of the vast riches of the temple of Amun. It couldn't be an accounting of the possessions of the Aten temples, and pharaoh had more riches. Nefertiti turned away to gaze out at the setting sun. This list had been composed by Penno, a prophet of the Aten, not by the Second Prophet of Amun, to whom such an administrative task would have fallen ordinarily.
    Why did Akhenaten need a separate list? She already