4 The Courtiers

Mentus has been quite busy with gathering information regarding the Hittite spy in our Kingdom. As per the sources, the spy was a main part of the political hierarchy and therefore was able to provide the intruders with our latest strategies and plans to defeat them. This angered me so much and I swore to myself that no matter how close the spy would be to me , I would never show any leniency towards him.

As advised earlier, the 3 consorts started to attend the inner court meetings and acknowledged Nefertari's leadership and power as the Queen of Egypt. Seeing that everything was falling into place in the inner court , I went to meet the courtiers and officials in the throne room. All showed their respect by bowing their heads and the normal Pharaohic duties were started. At the end of the meeting all the courtiers stated that they have a concern regarding the harem. I glared at them, but as per the procedure insisted them to speak up.

"Your Majesty, It was brought to our notice by some of your official consorts that you have not visited any other consorts other than Queen Nefertari. It bothers us as we are your well-wishers. Your inclination towards the Queen might affect the whole nation"

"What do you mean when you said, affect the whole nation?"

"You see your majesty, You have only been spending your nights with the Queen for the last 4 years and she has still not given you a heir. This is a disturbing fact for the whole nation as the future of Egypt is at stake. We think that you should allow your loyal advocates to come up with a schedule on the visits to your consorts to make sure that your heir is born at the earliest."

"Ha Ha Ha. So what you are basically saying is that you want to control my sex life and have one of the consorts of your family bear my heir?".

"Your Majesty..."

"Listen Carefully. I am the Pharaoh of this nation and I am completely aware of my duties to provide a heir to the throne but the only person who would bear my heir would be , my Queen Nefertari. She will be the mother of my child. Henceforth, I will take strict action against anyone that speaks regarding this matter in public. It is my personal affair and I don't find the need to discuss it in court."

Saying that I walked out of the throne room and the meeting was adjourned. I could feel that the courtiers are trying to play a dirty game to bring Nefertari down from her title and power. If a consort bears my heir, Nefertari's power would lose it's meaning and the Consort would be declared the mother of the nation. I will never allow that to happen.

As I was walking to meet Nefertari, Mentus approached me with a disturbed face. I knew he had some information. We went into my secret chamber and I asked him to speak up.

"Your Majesty, Please understand what I'm about to tell you has not been confirmed and it's just some information that I have come across when I was searching about the people in Egypt connected to the Hittites. I found out that the reason that the family of Queen Nefertari was killed by your father is that , her father shared kingdom secrets with the Hittites. The king was very fond of her father and therefore did not let other people find out about this crime and had her family killed secretly."

"What?.... I mean Nefertari's father supported the Hittities?"

"Actually your Majesty , there is a lesser known fact about the Queen's family. Her mother was a Hittite. A relation of the Hittite Royal family. In other words, our queen Nefertari is half Hittite"

There was a silence as I processed this new information regarding Nefertari. I had asked her countless times about her family but she always avoided the topic and I didn't pressure her to open up to me.

"Your Majesty, please know that I'm not accusing our Queen but there is another detail that I need to bring to your attention"

I nodded him to continue. "Queen Nefertari has been sending out secret letters to a Hittite and this was not brought to your attention by your servants as they don't doubt their Queen and she had specifically instructed them to keep it a secret. She had bribed them with a silver bar for each letter. She had been receiving letters secretly too. Did she ever mention about a correspondence with the Hittites?"

"No. She didn't . Mentus Please keep these information to yourself and secretly look into it. I'm sure there is a valid reason for her to do what she did and a good enough reason to hide it from me. I don't want her name to be dragged in the spy matter. Please be careful".

I walked out of the room with a heavy heart knowing that my Nefertari has been keeping things from me.