Daughter of Re

Chapter One

Thank you for clicking on this story, it means the world to me. I have a great love and interest in Ancient Egyptian history and especially in the 18th Dynasty. Please leave a comment and tell me how to improve and I'm on the look out for a beta reader.

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Year 5

Mayati and Meketaten- age 10
Ankie-age 2

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The desert stretched out ahead into all directions. The barren kingdom of the scorpions and snakes now invaded by a flurry of great wooden litters, flanked by royal medjay and each carried by four strong slave carriers from the far eastern empires, each built like an ox.

The sun continued to beat down, cooking the gold sand below their feet and causing the carriers to sweat profusely. Inside the litters were warm and the two young princesses sat uncomfortably, sticky and tired. Mayati was bored. The journey was taking longer than her tutors and menat had said. The entourage had embarked after the morning worship of Aten in the former capital, but halted for the midday worship of the Aten. The journey was long and tedious for the little princess as she lounged on the soft cushions only able to watch the veiled desert outside.

Meki soft snores were the only sounds to fill the small litter; Mayati envied her sister, the girl could have slept through the final fall of Aten. Staring at the desert sand, Mayati yearned for the old palace, for the gardens, for the smells of the hot bread of the palace kitchens, for her kitten. For anything that isn't desert, she could only think as the litter continued into what felt like the unending desert. Above all she ached for her grandfather again, the great king of her early years. She missed him, he had never been a person of great affection, and she had only seen him show true affection was to her grandmother. To everyone else he was a person that inspired love without a need to give it himself, despite that he would always visit her in the nursery. Grandfather was a marvellous storyteller, always recounting the heroic tales of his own reign and those of the dynasty, that he took great pride in, and the odd time he would tell story of previous kings, how they rose to defeat the evil in Kemet.

Father had always worried they were too violent for a child's mind but Mayati loved them. She could never pinpoint why, she just did, and they always captivated her when she listened to them. A sad smile crept onto her little face as she remembered her grandfather. How she had wept from the moment her mother told her of his death under the canopy of trees and the tears did not stop until long after her father had restored his abilities in the afterlife. Aten give him rest.

Remembering back to the funeral now just over a year ago, she recalled how strange her father had seemed in the days after, like he was afraid to reveal something. It was something that now puzzled her, father had never kept secrets from the family.

Before she could puzzle it again, the litter finally stopped. Please let this be the end, she pleaded as she pulled back the curtain, letting in even more light and waking Meki. The carrier slaves carefully lowered the litter, it had barely made contact with the ground as Mayati bounced out with her sister following, still sluggish and rubbing sleep from her eyes. It was blinding as Mayati looked round the caravan of litters, she could see other looking behind her. Following their view before her, in the valley of the mountains the city of Akhenaten, sprawling white houses and the palaces to the North and the great towers topped with gold reflecting the Aten's rays across the city.