Heretic of El Amarna

Chapter 21: Nefertiti

My feet were a mass of raw, blistered flesh.

Amenhotep never traveled during the day for fear of being caught by any searching guards. Not only that, night was cooler and the sand was not hot.

Towards midnight, however, all warmth had been leached from the sand, so it not only rubbed my feet raw, it also froze them. The only plus to that was that it numbed the pain in my heels and toes.

I collapsed onto the ground, staring at the sand-crusted, oozing sores that covered the bottoms of my feet. I wanted to gag as I saw how bad it was. What had I been thinking to just come along with Amenhotep?

No. I had to go. He could not go off on his own with no one to keep him company or help him should he need it.

Sometimes though – especially at times like this when I looked at my blistered, oozing feet – I had trouble remembering why I had not listened to Amenhotep and stayed at the palace to marry Thutmose and have his children. It would not have been a particularly joyful existence – nor would it have been easy – but it would certainly have been easier than this miserable drudgery.

Amenhotep had promised me – promised me – that my feet would toughen up and form callouses. But that had not occurred. Instead, the gods saw fit to be cruel to me and punish me with the raw, bloodied scabs on my feet, which caused me to walk with a perpetual limp.

I looked over at the cause of my misery and gave him a glare.

He glanced over just in time to catch it. He frowned. “What?”

I stared out at the moonwashed sandscape before me, wishing I had never come, my silence stony.

He scooted over to sit beside me. “Nefertiti… Please…”

“No. Do not start. I do not want to blame you or be angry with you for this… I came of my own free will – against your request, I might add – but when I look at my feet and feel the pain the cold cannot quite block anymore, I cannot help but want to be irritable with you.” I sighed.

He nodded, pulling me into his side while taking care not to drag my feet into the sand.

I leaned into him, a tear slipping down my cheek involuntarily as my foot hit a rock on the sand. I let out a muffled hiss, trying not to make any sounds Amenhotep could hear. He didn’t need to know just how close to breaking I was. And I was so close. I walked a fine line between dropping onto the sand and remaining there to die.

He lifted my chin, brushing away my tear with a gentle caress. “Shhh… I know it hurts, Nefertiti… We’ll be in Abydos in another week of traveling - a few days if we could hold out the pace we have been going at. But with your feet like they are, we are taking it slowly from here on out. Hold out till then, alright, and you will be able to have a bath while I look for a place for us to live.”

I looked down at my torn dress, which had blood stains on the lower hem from the times when I had used the soiled cloth to wipe the blood gingerly from my feet in an attempt to clean the grit and sand out of the wounds. It had failed miserably, and eventually, I gave up, knowing I was only reopening the wounds and making the pain worse. “What will we tell everyone there? It is not appropriate for us to live in the same small house…”

He leaned in, bringing our lips together.

He had become bolder out of Thutmose’s shadow, giving me what I truly wanted – freedom and him – and his searching, passionate kiss reminded me why I came with him.

To be honest, I had not come just because I did not want him to be alone. I had also come because I had wanted to escape. I wanted to be free to wed him if he would ask me, and I did not want to be tethered to Thutmose unwillingly.