Chapter 17

My eyes adjusted to the light in the room. For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was. Then I saw the empty space on the bed next to me.

How late was it?

I ran my hands over the space next to me in bed and smiled to myself remembering the events of last night. I rose slowly, holding the sheet around my naked body. I looked around the room trying to find the clothes that I had carelessly discarded the night before. Walking to the other side of the room, I spotted a dried water Lilly sitting on a table. The flowers seemed familiar somehow, but right now I was more concerned than with the fact that it looked like I was about to do the walk of shame in only a bedsheet.

I sighed realizing my clothes were nowhere to be found.

Making sure I made as little noise as possible, I pulled on the door. Checking both directions before I left, I quickly began making my way back to my room.

"My lady," a voice whispers. I about jumped out of my skin.

Chione poked her head out from behind a column.

My breathing steadied, "You scared me," I said, "What are you doing here?"

She looked around before she spoke, "You need to come with me right now." She took my hand and pulled me down the hall.

I gripped my sheet tighter, "Where are we going?"

Adom could not believe what he was hearing, "She's from where?"

"Someplace called Maine," said Queen Tuya, "but that part is not important."

"How is that not important? Where's Maine?" Adom looked around the room at the Queen and the priest. "And you're telling me, you want to make this nobody a Queen of Egypt. Let me reminded you, she almost got herself sacrificed."

"That wasn't her fault," said the priest.

"Why must you always defined her?" the Queen asked.

"Because she is a young girl who is scared and living in a land she does not know."

"She can not be a girl anymore if she wants to survive," the Queen said. She turned back to Adom. "Do you accept your role in the plan. If not, I can find some post far to the south, in some desolate location without a woman, to send you to."

"Who said I like women?" Adom smiled. The Queen did not look amused. "I guess my choice has been made for me then," Adom said.

A knock came from the door behind Adom followed by a little servant girl who was pulling Natalie behind her.

"Wonder how you spent your night?" Adom said to Natalie looking at her bedsheet.

She gave him a dirty look, "By the looks of it, better than you spent yours."

Adom smiled. He looked over Natalie; she had lost much of her the childlike countenance of her early days in the palace. She looked older and the lines in her face harder. Maybe she would rise to the challenge. "Clearly, and now you could have a future Prince if Egypt in you if the Queen gets her way."

Her face fell, "What are you talking about?" Natalie looked around.

"You didn't tell her?" the Queen looked a little servant girl.

"I was getting to it. I only just found her," Chione said glaring at Adom.

Suddenly, Natalie sank to the ground. Adom panicked thinking she fainted, but she seemed more or less ok just sitting on the floor.

"I'm... I'm," she started to say.

"With child," the Queen said just as Natalie finished her sentence.

"Fucked."

Adom finally lost it at that and laughed a deep, heavy laugh. The queen and the priest eyed him.

"Don't worry, there's a plan to make sure your only one kind of fucked."

"What plan?" She asked still looking at the ground.

The Queen rose from her chair, "From this day forth, you must give up the life you once knew. Your past is dead to you now. You can only look to the future"

Natalie didn't say anything, but she looked up at the Queen would continued, "You will tell people you are a member of a noble family from the Reign of Akhenaten that escaped to the South to avoid prosecution for heresy. This will explain the lack of a record of your family. And," the Queen continued, "your name is no longer Natalie."

"I have to give up my name too?" Natalie asked.

"Do you want your child to live as an outcast on the streets or branded a bastard?" the Queen waited for a response.

"No," said Natalie looking the Queen in the eye.

"Then you will do what I say for the sake of your child," the Queen finished.

"What will you call me?" Natalie asked as she stood up.

The Queen looked her over, "Nefertari."

I sat on my bed my hand on my stomach, "Are you sure?" I asked Chione. There was a baby in me. Growing needing love and protecting. The same love and protection I need. Was I ready for this?

"You haven't bled in 3 months, but to be sure you should I must perform a test." She put a hand full of seeds on a plate. "Now," she said handing it to me, "pee on it."

"What?" I asked.

"If the seeds release stems and roots then you are with child. Just the way you will grow a baby inside you, the seeds will also grow."

I nodded. I mean I made more sense the stick I watch my sister peed on once.

When I was done, Chione looked at the plate before placing it in the corner of the room. "We will check it in the morning, now you must rest."

"How can I sleep," I asked.

"I find sleep comes most quickly when we don't think we can."

Chione turned to leave, "Good night, and may the gods bless you Nefertari."

I felt the hair on my arms stand up at my new name. I curled up on my side and looked down at my flat stomach.

"I promise you will be safe. I will do everything in my power to make it so." I close my eyes and sleep claimed too soon after.

It is curious how some people can pass through life unnoticed. If you had asked anyone in the palace if they had seen a little servant girl creeping out late into the night, they all would have said no. Yet, there were the footsteps of the little girl as she crept across the floor and down the stairs to the entrance of the palace.

She looked around before slipping into a hidden alcove away from prying eyes.

"Are you sure?" asked a woman from the shadows.

"Yes," said the little girl, "I performed the test myself."

The woman hidden in the shadows smiled as she rubbed a red amulet, "Perhaps, this has all worked out for the best. Now, I will have two offerings for the gods."