The Heretic Queen

“The entire palace?” she cried.

“Even Tefer.” Ramesses looked down, and Tefer responded with a plaintive cry. The cat had been sleeping beneath our sons’ cradles and appeared in no hurry to abandon his post. “It will take seventy days to prepare my father’s body. But once he is buried in the Valley of the Sleeping Kings, the court will move with us to Pi- Ramesses.”

I could already see Merit cataloguing the work that would have to be done. She excused herself with a bow, and Ramesses stood next to me.

“My father loved you, Nefer.”

“I’d like to believe that,” I said softly.

“You must believe that. I know you heard what he made me promise. He feared for my crown. He wanted to see you made queen, but someone misguided him.”

“I don’t think he was misguided,” I said carefully. “I think he was lied to.”

Ramesses watched me, and I wondered whether he was thinking of Iset and Henuttawy. I could not be the one to tell him the truth. It would have to be something he came to on his own. At last, his look of concentration faded, and he put his arm around my waist. “I will protect you. I will always protect you, Nefer.”

I closed my eyes and prayed to Amun, Just let him discover whom to protect me from.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

IN THE VALLEY OF THE

SLEEPING KINGS

Thebes

  WHEN THE SEVENTY days of mummification were complete, Pharaoh Seti’s body was placed in a golden bark and carried on the shoulders of twenty priests into the Western Valley. Assuming that his heart was as light as Ma’at’s feather of truth and he was allowed to pass into the fields of Aaru, he would need this boat to travel with the sun on its daily journey around the world. Thousands of Thebans had crossed the River Nile to follow the winding funerary procession, and as the sun began to sink beneath the hills, the scent of sage baked all day by the sun was carried down on the cool evening wind. Adjo raised his muzzle to sniff at the air, and though I walked next to him with the rest of Seti’s closest family, the iwiw remained strangely subdued. I wonder if he knows that his mistress’s life has been changed forever? Now Tuya had become a Dowager Queen, and although she’d remain in Avaris when we arrived, she would probably retire to a quiet room in the palace, leaving the court’s politics and festivities to Ramesses. I had never seen her smile at children or laugh at their antics when they scampered through the halls. Some widows settled into contented lives as grandmothers, but I imagined Tuya’s days would be spent alone with Adjo, and that pampering him would become the sole purpose of her remaining years. She leaned heavily on Ramesses’s arm as she walked. In front of them the High Priest of Amun strode purposefully across the sands, following Penre and a small group of viziers whose job was to guide Seti’s golden bark to its rest.

I looked behind us at the priestesses of Isis, and even from a distance I could see the red figure of Henuttawy. She had chosen to walk among her priestesses instead of accompanying her family at the front, and she took no pains to preserve a solemn silence.

“She’s enjoying the attention,” I whispered harshly.

“And Amun will punish her,” Merit vowed. “Her heart will tell its tale.”

“When it’s too late, and she has destroyed everyone we love.” I thought of Amunher and Prehir, sleeping in the palace. I’d warned the milk nurses not to leave their side.

Merit read my look and promised, “I trust them. They will not leave the chamber, or I would not have left it myself.” She looked beyond the dunes to where the hills rose steep and jagged in the fading light. “Do you think his tomb is far?”

“Yes. I think it is high in the cliffs,” I said, then added bravely, “but there’s nothing to fear.”

“Only jackals,” Merit whispered.

“And the High Priest of Amun.” I glanced ahead at Rahotep, who lingered near Seti’s body like an animal hovering over one of its kills. With his hunched shoulders and his mirthless grin, he looked as remorseful as a hyena that has chased a lioness from her prey. This night belonged to him. He was the one leading the royal family into the Valley, and he would be the one to seal Seti in his innermost chamber, with everything Pharaoh would need in the Afterlife.

I had last been inside a tomb for the burial of Princess Pili. I was six then, but I still remember the walls inside, covered with directions for navigating the Afterlife. Questions that the gods ask of the dead would be answered, so that when Seti’s ka traveled down the final corridors of this world, it would be able to memorize the answers for passage into the next. Assuming he was able to pass these tests, he would need everything he had once used in this life. This was why Seti would need a mask, so that his soul would have a face in the land of Aaru. Surrounding his sarcophagus would be hundreds of ushabti, small statues of servants that would come to life in the next world to toil for their master. And so that none of these important things were besmirched, servants would place pinches of salt in their lamps, preventing any black smoke from rising.

I watched Iset and the High Priest of Amun—in profile they were the very image of two hyenas, sniffing about to see what they might scavenge. In the sharp light of sunset, with half of Rahotep’s frightening grin cast in shadow, I was suddenly struck by the resemblance between them. They walked side by side, and it seemed strange that I had missed how similar they were—not just in the animal grace of their movements, but in the way their noses grew straight and their cheekbones sat high on their narrow faces as they squinted into the sun’s last rays. Iset’s mother could have married whomever she wished . . . yet no one seemed to know who had fathered Iset. What if Rahotep’s interest in making Iset queen wasn’t solely out of hatred for my akhu? With Iset as Chief Wife, would he be grandfather to the future Pharaoh? The High Priest looked in my direction, and when Iset saw that I was watching them, she quickly moved from his side.

I guarded my thoughts, for now we entered the Valley and the road narrowed. The thousands of mourners remained behind. Only the highest-ranking members of the court were allowed to know the location of Seti’s tomb. Everyone else would wait for our return, holding their oil lamps on the rim of the cliffs to light our way back to the river. The sun had already passed the horizon, and the deep burning color of the sky silhouetted the hills. Each night, the sun god would leave his position in the sky completely and pass through the Underworld to defeat the snake god of darkness, Apep. When the snake was crushed, Ra would emerge in the east, the revealer of all things, riding on his solar barge to bring light back to the earth. Pharaoh Seti would never see the sun again, and if the order of things could be so upset in Egypt, I wondered, why couldn’t it be upset in the Underworld, too? What if tonight Ra was overcome, and tomorrow there rose no more sun? I banished such thoughts, and reminded myself that the sun had always risen. Ra had always been victorious. Just as I will be.

We began to climb the limestone cliffs, and even over the grunting of the priests who carried Seti’s barge on their backs, I could hear Iset’s breathing grow ragged. She was afraid of the darkness, and once, when a jackal sounded in the distance, she let out a frightened cry.

“Anubis,” I said. “The jackal-headed god of death. Perhaps he’s coming for the guilty.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Rahotep said sharply.

But I challenged the High Priest, “How do you know it’s not Anubis? Where else would he be if not in this Valley?”

“Be silent!” Henuttawy snapped. Her voice echoed over the cliffs, and from the front of the procession, near the sarcophagus, Ramesses turned to see the cause of the commotion. Henuttawy lowered her voice. “Be silent,” she threatened.

“Does the idea of Anubis stalking through these hills frighten you? I’m not afraid of death. When he comes for me, there is nothing I have to hide.”

Behind me, Merit sucked in her breath.