“A
Ramesses smiled at us from the corner of the pavilion where he was watching our sons, and Woserit added quickly, “Iset doesn’t know yet that it was Henuttawy who chased Ashai away. The moment has come,” she said firmly. “You have kept my sister’s secret long enough.”
“And Rahotep?” I asked, imagining the High Priest’s sickening grin as he helped spread Henuttawy’s lie among the people.
“Kill the viper first. Snakes may be immune to their own kind’s venom, but you have become something more powerful than a snake today.”
I followed her eyes to the image of a queen painted above the door. The golden wings of the woman’s vulture crown swept down her hair. As Chief Wife, I would wear a similar headdress, for the vulture is the most powerful symbol in Egypt. It is more powerful even than the cobra, for its flight brings it closer to the gods.
“Enjoy these next few days, Nefertari. There will be a Birth Feast tomorrow,” Woserit said. “But when the right time comes . . .”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A TRUTH MADE WHOLE
I TOOK WOSERIT’S advice and waited, savoring the days I had with my sons before I would have to return to the Audience Chamber and be parted from them. After the Birth Feast, I lay in the pavilion for fourteen days, reading to Amunher and Prehir, and singing to them the hymns of Amun that my mother would have sung to me if she had lived. There was nothing in the world so beautiful as watching them sleep, studying the steady rise and fall of their little chests, and listening to the small noises they made when they were hungry, or tired, or in need of being held in their own mother’s arms. Of course, I was not allowed to suckle them, so Merit bound my breasts with linen and I watched while my sons fed from their milk nurses, cheerful women who had recently given birth themselves.
As my fourteen days passed, Ramesses came to me every afternoon to tell me the news of the Audience Chamber, bringing me presents of honeyed dates and pomegranate wine. At night, when the nurses had wrapped our sons in blankets and placed them in the pavilion’s private chamber, Ramesses lit the oil lamps and climbed into my bed. And there, surrounded by gifts from foreign kingdoms, we studied the day’s petitions together.
For a short while, I knew the perfect life. I wasn’t in the Great Hall to hear the gossip about me, and I didn’t have to see Rahotep’s frightening grin. But the world could not be kept at bay forever, and the news that came into our happy pavilion and disturbed me the most was not about myself, but about Egypt’s security.
“I won’t let this go on!” Ramesses raged on my last night in the birthing pavilion. He pointed to the pile of growing petitions from Memphis. “Sherden pirates attacking our ships along the River Nile. Sherden pirates attacking our ships in Kadesh!”
“The same pirates who overtook the Mycenaean King’s ship and stole the gifts that were meant for little Amunher and Prehir,” I reminded, and Ramesses’s face reddened.
“We won’t let it continue. We will wait until Tybi,” he said decisively. He wouldn’t risk leaving Iset before she delivered her child, not knowing whether she lived or died. “And if these Sherden attack another Egyptian ship, or even a ship that’s bound for Egypt, they’ll be humbled by what will be waiting for them.”
In the Audience Chamber the next day, the viziers crowded around the base of the dais, greeting me with unusually low bows as I took my seat. But when Rahotep smiled strangely at me, I felt the sudden urge to hold my sons. I knew that they were safe, yet as Ramesses struck his crook on the floor of the dais, and as the viziers took their seats, I had to remind myself that there was no better nurse in Egypt than Merit.
“Bring forth the petitioners,” Ramesses announced. The doors swung open, and a figure crossed the tiles of the chamber. I recognized Ahmoses and his shepherd’s staff at once. He didn’t stop at the table where the viziers were waiting but came straight toward me. When the soldiers stepped forward to pull him back, I raised my hand to let them know that the Habiru should come forth.
“Princess Nefertari.” Unlike our previous meeting, Ahmoses bowed briefly before my throne. I wondered if this was because Ramesses was present. No one in Egypt would dare to come before a Pharaoh without bowing. I didn’t wait for him to rise. “How did you know I would have twin sons?”
“Because Queen Nefertiti gave Pharaoh Akhenaten twins,” he replied, meeting my gaze. “I said nothing about sons.”
Though we were speaking in Canaanite, I still glanced at Ramesses. He was watching us with a peculiar expression. “You are
“The Heretic
“Are you saying,” I demanded, “that she didn’t worship Aten?”
“She only worshipped Aten while her husband still lived. Otherwise, she allowed shrines to be built to the gods that her husband had abandoned.”
Now both Ramesses and Iset had stopped listening to petitions. Both of them were watching me. “What are you saying?” I grew flustered.
“I am saying that Queen Nefertiti never stopping praying to Amun. She was not a heretic, as Pharaoh Horemheb called her.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because I saw her shrines, and I watched your mother accompany the queen to the hidden temples of Tawaret. There was great danger in what your aunt was doing. If her husband had discovered it, he would have cast her off and taken Princess Kiya as Chief Wife instead.”
I was aware that even though we were speaking Canaanite, the entire chamber had become my audience. “You have been to the palace of Malkata three times,” I said angrily. “What is your purpose?”
“To remind you that your aunt suffered in the name of her gods. She wasn’t free to worship as she wished. Instead, she had to bow to Aten, and your mother—”
“My mother never bowed to Aten!”
“But there were times when she wondered if she should, when the pressure was so great she would have done anything to escape it. Your family suffered like the Habiru are suffering—”
“Pharaoh will not set the Habiru free!” I swore. “They are a part of his army.”
Ahmoses searched my face, to see if I might change my mind, and when he saw that I wouldn’t, he shook his head and turned away. I watched him make his way across the chamber. When he reached the guards, I heard myself exclaim, “Wait!”
He turned slowly to face me, and I stood from my throne.
“What are you doing?” Ramesses asked. But I walked beyond the viziers’ tables and met Ahmoses at the heavy bronze doors. The courtiers had stopped playing Senet to listen, but even if they could understand Canaanite, I lowered my voice so that only Ahmoses would hear. “Come again in Thoth,” I told him.
“Will the Habiru be set free with the next new year?”
I hesitated. Because Ramesses trusted me, it was possible that I could persuade him. But was I willing to risk the safety of Egypt because one Habiru had revealed to me the truth about my ancestors? “I . . . I don’t know. In eight months, a great deal can change.”
“You mean perhaps, by then, you will be queen?”
I felt the eyes of the entire court boring into my back and whispered, “Have you heard what the people are saying about my sons?”
Ahmoses didn’t flinch or look away. And he didn’t lie, as one of the courtiers might have. “Your mother was known for her honesty at court, and I believe the same of her daughter,” he said. “I have told the Habiru that Prince Amunher and Prince Prehir are royal sons.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “My husband thinks he can threaten gossip away. He swears that anyone speaking such things will be sent to the quarries, but you and I know . . . Will you tell the rest of the people?” I asked, and I was aware of how desperate I had become that I was asking a favor from a heretic. “Will you spread the word in
