She gestured into a wide room that seemed not so different from the Great Hall of Malkata.
“Trumpets will call the priestesses to ritual once in the morning and once at sunset. After Hathor’s rites are finished they meet in this hall. I think you will find our food similar to what you are used to in the palace.” She looked at me. “Although I would not touch the wine,” she whispered. “The priestesses here like it strong, and a girl of your size might never wake up!” She laughed at her own joke, and Merit’s lips thinned.
“This is where temple patrons come to worship,” Aloli continued. A vast hall spread beneath mosaics of the goddess, and at the foot of a polished statuary worshippers had left bowls of meat and bread. “In Shemu, a woman came who had lost all five of her pregnancies. We found her in the farthest corner.” Aloli pointed to a shadowy niche near a statue of Hathor. “With her husband!” She giggled, and Merit cleared her throat.
“But weren’t they in trouble?” I gasped.
“Of course. But nine months later she had two healthy sons!”
Merit glared at me in case I should ever conceive such an idea. We turned into a beautifully kept courtyard ringed by sycamore trees. Aloli announced grandly, “This is where our most important guests stay.” She gestured to the windows that faced the square. “And this is where you will be.” We entered a chamber with blue-glazed tiles that swam with painted fish. Inlaid images of cows filled the western wall, opposite an ebony bed with lion’s-paw feet raised upon a platform. Aloli walked across the chamber and threw open a pair of heavy wooden doors. “And for Lady Merit,” she announced.
The walls of Merit’s adjoining room had been brightly painted, and fresh linen was stacked on a low cedar table. Merit hummed her approval. “This will do well. Now I must go and direct the servants with our belongings.”
When she left, I turned to Aloli. “What am I to do here?” I asked.
The red-haired priestess looked surprised. “Didn’t the High Priestess tell you? She said that you have been brought here to study.”
“To study what?”
“Temple rituals, the harp . . .” Aloli shrugged. “Perhaps she hopes you might become the next High Priestess of Hathor.” A trumpet blared on the other side of the temple, and Aloli quickly twisted her ringlets into a knot. “I will see you tonight in the Great Hall.” She paused at the door. “It is a pleasure to have you here, Princess. I have heard a great deal about you.”
But before I could ask what she had heard, she disappeared into the hall. I crossed the chamber and stood at Merit’s window, looking out over the groves. On the western bank of the River Nile, Ramesses would be taking his afternoon meal with Asha and Iset. There would be dancing in the Great Hall come nightfall, and the news would spread that I had chosen to become a priestess of Hathor. I wondered if Henuttawy would swallow her sister’s lie.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I jumped, startled by Woserit’s silent approach. “Yes, very,” I acknowledged.
“Tell me, Nefertari. When you look out on these groves, what do you see?”
I hesitated. The sun was directly over the river, and birds flew between the long stalks of papyrus, calling to one another as kilted men worked in the fields. “I see a small clay model,” I said. “Like the ones in the tombs, only this one is filled with moving people.”
Woserit raised her brows. “That’s very creative.”
I flushed and looked out over the balcony again, to see if there was something else I had missed.
“What about the groves of sycamores?” she asked. “What do they look like to you?”
“They are beautiful as well,” I said cautiously.
“But do you think they always looked so beautiful?”
“Not when they were saplings,” I guessed. “Then their limbs wouldn’t have touched and they couldn’t have formed the tunnel that they are creating now.”
Woserit was satisfied with my answer. “That’s right. It took many years for them to grow and eventually bend into that form. When they were first planted here, I was your age. I can remember visiting the High Priestess of Hathor and thinking that her garden was extremely ugly compared to the ones we had in Malkata. I didn’t see then that she was planning for the future. Do you understand what I’m saying, Nefertari?”
I nodded, because I thought I did.
“You are like a young sycamore right now. The viziers look at you and see a wild and untended garden. But together we are going to shape you for the future, so that when Ramesses looks at you, he doesn’t see a little sister, but a woman and a queen.”
Woserit’s voice grew firm. “However, if you want my help, it will mean following my advice even when you do not understand it. In the past, I have heard that you disobeyed your nurse. There will be no disobedience if I’m instructing you.”
“Of course not,” I said quickly.
“And there will be times when what I’m saying may seem to conflict with advice your nurse has given you, but you will simply have to trust it.”
I looked up to see what Woserit meant, and she explained.
“I am sure your nurse has told you never to lie. But a queen must learn to be a very good liar about many things. Is that something you are willing to do?” she questioned. “Lie when you must? Smile when you’re not happy? Pray when the gods don’t seem to be listening? How much is a place at court, and Ramesses’s love, worth to you?”
I looked out beyond the sycamore groves to the crests of dunes that vaulted one beyond another. If the wind, which only had the power of breath, could make a hill, then surely Woserit could make a princess into a queen. “Everything.”
Woserit smiled. “Come then.”
I followed her into Merit’s robing room, and she indicated the leather chair in front of the mirror. When I took a seat, she watched me from behind in the polished bronze.
“Do you know what they say about you at court?”
I met her gaze and shook my head.
“That your best feature is your smile. Now it’s time you learn how to use it. Pretend that I’m an old friend,” she said, “and you’ve seen me in the market. How would you smile?”
Even though I felt foolish, I grinned widely, and Woserit nodded.
“Good. Now, I’m an emissary that you’ve just met. How do you greet me?”
I smiled widely again and Woserit frowned. “You’re like an easy girl in the harem of Mi-Wer, giving it all away,” she criticized. “Start slow. You don’t know him yet.”
I let my lips curve upward but didn’t show my teeth. This time, Woserit nodded. “Good. Now I’m the emissary and I’ve just complimented you.
I smiled so that all my teeth were showing, and Woserit said sharply, “Not so fast! A woman’s smile has to be slow, so that a man knows he must work for it. See?” Woserit let her lips curve slightly. “Now compliment me.”
I searched for a compliment.
“You see?” Woserit said. “You want it to feel like a surprise. You want to keep him guessing whether he’ll make you smile entirely so that when you do, he will feel like he’s been given a gift.” She put her arm in mine and led me to the door.
“Watch,” she instructed.
We entered the hall outside her chamber and passed through a courtyard where servants were shoveling and toiling at the heavy work of the garden. As soon as they saw us, they scrambled to their feet and bowed. One man, who looked to be the head of the gardeners from the cut of his linen, stepped forward to greet Woserit. “It’s an honor to see Her Holiness in the courtyard. We are graced by your presence,” he said.
Woserit let her lips curve slightly. “You’ve done beautiful work,” she complimented.
It was true. Myrtle and jasmine grew up around a granite fountain of Hathor, and stone benches had been
