The Heretic Queen

eastern Thebes?” I repeated.

Ahmoses regarded me for a moment, and instead of naming a price, as I thought he might, simply nodded his assent.

LATER THAT evening, before Ramesses visited my chamber, I told Merit what had happened. “He told me she never worshipped Aten.”

Merit stood from the brazier where she was setting aloe wood to flame. Poorer households used cow dung and river reeds for their fires, but the scent of aloe has a calming effect, and through the open door to Merit’s chamber I could see that my sons were already asleep. Her brows drew together until they formed a dark line.

“Well, you were there!” I said passionately. “Is it true?”

Merit sat on the edge of the bed with me. “I saw her worship Aten, my lady.”

“Because she had to?”

Merit spread her palms. “Perhaps.”

“But did you see her go to other shrines as well? Did she secretly worship Tawaret, or Amun?”

“Yes, when it pleased her,” she admitted.

“And when was that?”

“When she wasn’t worshipping herself,” Merit said with brutal honesty.

It was as though a heavy stone had been lifted from my chest. Perhaps she had been selfish, and greedy, and vain. Perhaps these things all went against the laws of Ma’at. But there was nothing worse than heresy. And she had not been a heretic.

The door of my chamber opened. Ramesses came inside and Merit stood to bow. As soon as she left, I joined Ramesses on the long leather bench near the fire and told him what Ahmoses had said. For several moments he was silent, then he placed the scrolls he had brought with him on a low table next to the brazier, and said, “I knew that what they taught in the edduba wasn’t true. How could anyone related to you be a heretic, Nefer? Look at your mother; look at you!” His voice rose in excitement. “And what does Merit say?”

“The same as Ahmoses. She had seen my aunt worshipping at Tawaret’s shrine.” I held my breath, wondering if this was the moment he would decide to make me Chief Wife. If I could have silently willed the decision into his heart, I would have then.

He took my hands and swore, “The people may not know the truth, Nefertari, but we do. And someday, I will resurrect the names of your akhu in Egypt.”

I was disappointed. “Until then?”

Color tinged Ramesses’s cheeks. Surely he knew what I’d been hoping for. “Until then, we will try to change the people’s hearts.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SEKHMET’S CLAWS

  IN THE DAYS after Ahmoses’s visit, I thought a great deal about my family and wished for things that could never be. I wished I could have gone with Asha to Amarna and seen the crumbling walls and abandoned remains of the city that Nefertiti had built. I longed to tear down every statue to Horemheb the way he tore down the statues of Ay and Tutankhamun, or wipe his name from the scrolls just as he tried to wipe away theirs. To avoid being consumed with vengeance, I spent my time thinking about my sons. I tried not to love them as much as I did; I knew that half of all children born never reached the age of three. But every day with my sons was an adventure, and neither Ramesses nor I could help but take them into our arms whenever our time in the Audience Chamber was finished. We laughed over the new faces they made when they were happy, or tired, or frustrated, or sad. By Tybi, they had their own little personalities, so that at night when I heard them crying from Merit’s chamber, I could tell their cries apart. Even after a long day of petitioners, I would sit up, and Ramesses would follow me to Merit’s door. “Go to sleep,” I’d tell him, but he wanted to be awake with me. So he would take Prehir, and I would take Amunher, and we would rock them by the light of the moon and smile at each other on those clear late-autumn nights.

“Can you imagine the day they’re old enough to hunt with us?” Ramesses asked one evening.

I laughed. “Hunting? Merit probably won’t even allow them to go swimming!”

Ramesses grinned. “She’s a good nurse, isn’t she?”

I looked down at Prehir’s contented face in my arms, and nodded. During the day, I doubted if our sons even noticed we were gone. They ate and slept under Merit’s supervision, and she was the perfect mawat, watching over them with a lioness’s ferocity.

“In a month, Iset will be going into the birthing pavilion,” Ramesses said quietly. “I’m going to take the army north before she gives birth.”

“To fight the pirates?”

“Yes. And I’ve been thinking, Nefer. What if you came with me?” My heart raced in my chest, and when I didn’t say anything Ramesses added, “What better way to convince the people that you’re beloved of Amun than to let them see you at my side when I defeat the Sherden? You would remain in the cabin surrounded by guards. There would be no danger—”

“Yes.”

Ramesses peered through the darkness at me. “Yes . . .”

“I will go with you. To the north . . . to the south . . . to the farthest ends of the desert.”

ON THE fifteenth of Tybi, good news came to Ramesses with the bad. Iset had been taken early to the birthing pavilion, and in the Northern Sea the Sherden pirates had attacked another Egyptian ship carrying five thousand deben worth of palace oil to Mycenae. Ramesses dismissed the day’s petitioners, shouting that the Audience Chamber must be cleared at once. Even Woserit and Henuttawy couldn’t calm him.

“There is nothing you can do today,” Henuttawy reminded, but Ramesses ignored her.

“Guards!” he demanded, as the viziers gathered nervously around the steps of the dais. “Summon Asha and his father, General Anhuri. Bring General Kofu in as well!”

“What will you do?” Henuttawy asked. “The army isn’t supposed to leave for ten days.”

“I’ll prepare a small fleet of ships tonight, and we will leave as soon as Iset has given birth.”

“But what if it’s a son?” Henuttawy asked. “How will Amun know that an heir has been born if no Birth Feast has been held?” Rahotep spread his hands in question, and the viziers looked at one another, waiting for Ramesses to make a decision.

“I will stay for the feast,” Ramesses conceded. “But only so that Amun knows this child. I won’t sit in Thebes while a band of thieving Sherden make fools of Egypt!”

I picked up the list that Paser had made, reading off the number of goods that Egypt had lost to the pirates. “A grove of potted myrrh trees for ointment, three golden collars from Crete, leather armor from Mycenae, chariots plated in gold and electrum, fifty barrels of olive oil, and twenty barrels of wine from Troy. The sooner we leave the better,” I said cunningly.

Henuttawy and Rahotep turned. “We?” Henuttawy said, and her eyes grew so narrow they looked like they had been painted on with the thinnest stroke of a reed brush. “Where do you think you’re going, Princess?”

“With me,” Ramesses said firmly.

“You are taking the mother of your sons,” Henuttawy asked calmly, “to war with the Sherden?”

“I wouldn’t call it war.” Ramesses glanced at me. “More like a battle.”

But Henuttawy wasn’t concerned about me; she was concerned that while Iset was recovering in the birthing pavilion, I would be riding into battle at Ramesses’s side, like the lion goddess Sekhmet, who avenged men’s evil deeds through war.

“It is kind of you to be concerned, Henuttawy,” I said, noting silently how much she resembled the viper she wore on her brow. “But I have no fear when I am with Ramesses. I know he’ll protect me.”

The doors to the Audience Chamber swung open and Asha arrived with his father, General Anhuri, and a second officer. The viziers stepped back to allow them through. “Your Majesty.” The men bowed.