The Heretic Queen

favor with the people by telling them she is expelling the heretics from Thebes.”

Woserit looked at me. “It could turn the people in your favor. There would never again be any question of your faith in Amun.”

“You can’t seriously consider it!” I exclaimed.

“A sixth of Egypt’s army is Habiru,” Paser warned. “Someday, the Hittites—”

But the seed had been planted in Woserit’s mind. “She could finally win over the people, Paser . . .”

“I’ll win them some other way,” I said. “Ramesses can’t risk Egypt’s safety for me.”

“He could increase the army’s pay,” she protested. “More men would join.”

“With what gold?” Paser asked wryly.

“He could increase taxes on the land.”

“And have the people resent him instead? Think of what you are saying,” Paser said. He placed a tender hand on her shoulder. “There are other ways for her to win the people’s love.”

“And Rahotep?” she asked. “Did he hear all of this?”

“No. He was listening to petitioners. But Merit has told me what he did,” I said darkly.

Woserit sighed heavily. “I know it was a terrible thing to learn. Especially the fire—”

“You knew he set the fire?” I cried.

“No one knows for certain,” Paser said quietly.

“But everyone believes it?”

Neither Paser nor Woserit denied it.

“You must never speak a word of this to anyone,” Woserit cautioned. “No matter how your heart bleeds, let only the gods hear its cries. Do not weep on anyone’s shoulder. Not even Ramesses’s.”

I pressed my lips together, and Paser added emphatically, “Especially not Ramesses.”

“The truth does not stay buried forever,” Woserit promised. “Eventually the winds blow away the sand and expose what’s beneath. But don’t think of this now,” she advised. “The most important thing is the child. You don’t want him to feed off bitterness and anger. Have Merit send for food and heat you a bath.”

I nodded my consent, but how could I stop myself from being angry? I watched Woserit and Paser leave, then listened to them as they whispered in the dark corridors of the palace, their silhouettes bent together like two sycamore trees, and I felt a deep longing to speak with Ramesses. If he had been in Thebes, we would be lying in my bed, talking about the Habiru Ahmoses, and I would have told him the painful story of how my uncle had come upon the idea of a single god. But out there in the darkness to the south, Ramesses was traveling on toward Nubia.

Instead of returning to Merit, I kept walking through the halls. The palace was silent. Every servant who wasn’t in the Great Hall with Iset had gone to bed, and I made my way through the corridors to a door that no one ever opened. Once, that door had been guarded by four men in polished breastplates, and my family had used it to reach the royal courtyard. But that courtyard and all of its chambers had burned. I had not seen the charred remains since Merit had taken me as a little girl. There had been nothing to see then except weeds and ashes, but now I wanted to see with a woman’s eyes the destruction that Rahotep had brought on my family.

I stepped through the door, and in the moonlight the scene looked like a shipwreck that had been washed onto a black and desolate shore. Charred timbers lay where they had fallen, surrounded by rocks and thickly growing vines. I moved through the courtyard, swatting at an insect that had made the devastation its home. I could see where a bed would have stood once, although all that was left was part of its frame. It might have been the one my mother shared with my father, but of course, there was no way of knowing. Smudged tiles supported its blackened legs, and I used the edge of my sandal to scrap away a few layers of dirt, uncovering more burnt tiles. No one had thought to take them away. The damage was so complete that Horemheb had left the chambers for nature to reclaim.

I picked up one of the broken tiles and smoothed away the ash with my palm. Although Merit would be furious, I used the sleeve of my robe to reveal the image, then held up the tile to the silvery light. It was nothing like what Asha had brought back from Amarna. Just a blue glaze where the fire hadn’t melted the paint. But my mother’s foot had probably touched it once. I pressed my hand to the cool surface and thought of how much Rahotep had taken from me. And yet the power of rebellion rested in his hands. My heart felt sick knowing I would have to keep his secret from Ramesses. I wanted to tell all of Egypt what the High Priest had done to my akhu. I wanted him to suffer the way I had suffered. I wanted him to know loneliness, and fear, and despair. Without Ramesses and Merit, whom did I have in the palace of Malkata? I looked down at my swelling stomach and thought that at least I would always have my children, and I was aware of the irony—that I was standing in a place of ruin and death while inside of me, new life was growing. I wrapped the tile in a fold of my robe, then cast a last glance across the shipwreck that had swallowed my family, pitching me alone into the waves of palace life. Merit would say that they were still watching me; that your akhu never leave you except in body. I hoped that this was true. I wanted to imagine my mother looking down at me from the realm of Aaru, the starry sky that separates the land of the living from the land of the dead. And I hoped that in Aaru she was sitting at Ma’at’s table, whispering into the goddess’s ear all the terrible things that needed to be set right on earth.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

AMUN WAS WATCHING US

  IN THE WORST heat of Mesore, a messenger ran ahead of the army and declared that Ramesses had been victorious. “An uprising in Nubia has been averted and the rebels have been crushed!” the herald exclaimed. “The army is already approaching Thebes!”

There was elation in the Audience Chamber, and I shouted over the noise from my throne. “The dead! Where is the list of the dead?”

“There is no list!” The messenger was jubilant. He knew this news would bring him a dozen deben. “Pharaoh Ramesses has been completely triumphant.”

I fought my way through the crush of bodies hurrying to leave the Audience Chamber, and Merit found me in the hall. “Hurry, my lady, or we’ll be late! There’s a ship already waiting.”

“But did you hear? Not a single officer killed!”

“And all of it accomplished in only a month! The gods have protected him.” She touched the ankh at her neck and murmured a quick prayer of thanks. Then she took my arm and pressed forward. “Move for the princess Nefertari!” she shouted. “Move aside!” Dozens of courtiers stepped back, as we emerged onto the quay, where Iset was already waiting aboard Amun’s Blessing, shielded from the sun by a canopy of painted linen.

I settled into a shaded chair next to Merit, and when I put my fingers to my lips in excitement, Merit pushed them down.

“You’re not a child!”

“But I feel like one.” I giggled. “It feels like the first time I saw Ramesses, after being hidden away at the Temple of Hathor.”

When the ship reached the eastern bank, armed guards led us down the Avenue of Sphinxes so we could greet Ramesses beneath the freshly raised columns of Luxor. Thousands of Thebans swelled in the streets, so filled with joy that the women even shouted blessings to me. Then they began chanting Ramesses’s name and breaking off palm branches to shade him as his army went by. Heat billowed up in a shimmering haze from the sandy streets, and as we passed through the market I could taste the scent of cumin in the air. When we reached the gates of Luxor, I was amazed once more by the towering statues of Ramesses. Woserit took my hand and led me to the steps of the temple, beside Iset in her best sheath and crown. She looked stunningly beautiful, carrying the weight of her coming child in her swelling breasts and rounded hips. What if Ramesses gives her his sword? I worried.

There was a loud call of trumpets as the army appeared on the Avenue of Sphinxes with Ramesses at its head. He was wearing the khepresh crown of war, and his hair streamed behind him like wisps of fire. He was the tallest of any of the men and bronzed from the sun. In his kilt, with the golden pectoral of Sekhmet, there was no more beautiful man in Egypt. He met my gaze and slowly withdrew his sword. I could feel