The Heretic Queen

TO THE RIGHT OF THE KING

  IN THE AUDIENCE Chamber, Ramesses still wore his nemes crown. He appeared no different to me than three months earlier, when only Thebes had been his to govern. But the palace of Malkata had certainly changed since his coronation. The walls had been stripped of their vermillion rugs, and from every niche the statues had been taken and placed in wooden chests bound for the palace of Pi-Ramesses. Wherever I went in the halls of the palace, servants were carrying heavy reed baskets, filling them with every conceivable luxury that the city of Avaris might lack. Few petitioners ventured into the Audience Chamber with the palace in such a state, so when Ahmoses appeared and demanded to see me, Paser waved him by, already knowing what my answer to the Habiru’s request would be.

“You’ve come at a bad time, Ahmoses. The court is leaving tomorrow,” I said.

“Then this would be a good time for the Habiru to leave as well,” he offered. “Why make them suffer the move to Avaris?”

“The army does not suffer.” I laughed. “They’ll be sailing the Nile in the same ships as Pharaoh.”

“Not every Habiru is in Pharaoh’s army. Some must sell their stores of grain to hire boats.”

“And they will have to hire boats to reach the shores of Canaan.”

“Not if we walk.”

“The Habiru cannot leave!” I exclaimed, more sharply than I intended. “Reports have come from the north of advancing Hittite troops. If the Hittites take Kadesh, there will be war. Every soldier is needed. Wait until Thoth.”

“I want to know when Pharaoh will set my people free!” His eyes were blazing. He brought his staff crashing down on the tiles, and armed guards moved forward, but I raised my hand to stop them.

Ramesses turned from his business with Paser. “My wife has told you the truth. Every soldier in Thebes will be coming to Avaris,” he said with a sharp dismissal. Then he turned to me. “Why do you entertain him?” he asked quietly.

As Merit and I made our way to the baths that night, she repeated Ramesses’s question.

“Because my mother suffered the way the Habiru do. But if Emperor Muwatallis moves for Kadesh, every soldier in Egypt may not be enough to stop him. And if Kadesh falls, Avaris will be next. Then Memphis. Then Thebes . . .”

The dark silhouette of Merit’s head shook as we walked the tiled path leading to the bathhouse. “If Pharaoh knew that you were considering this,” she began, but I held up my arm to stop her.

“Listen!”

There was the sound of weeping. I glanced at Merit.

“It’s coming from in there,” she whispered.

We slipped quietly through the columned entrance to the royal courtyard. Standing behind the girth of a sycamore tree was the shape of Iset and with her was a young man. From any other entrance, they would have been hidden from view. Her back was to us.

“You could come every morning,” she pleaded. “You’re a sculptor, Ashai. We could tell the court you’re sculpting my bust. No one would know—”

“I should never have come to you.” The Habiru moved away. “I loved you once, but I’ve learned to love my wife. She’s given me two children . . . But inviting me here—you’re putting my life in jeopardy!” He must have caught a glimpse of our movement, for in a moment he had fled.

Iset turned, and when she saw me standing with Merit, she covered her mouth in horror. She sank to her knees among the belt of flowers bordering the path to her chamber. “Are you going to tell Ramesses?” she whispered, her head bowed.

“No. Your secret is safe from him,” I said quietly.

Merit looked at me in shock. “My lady!”

Iset looked up at me, eyes narrowed in calculation. “And what will I have to pay for this silence?”

“It is only people like Henuttawy who expect payment,” I replied.

LATER, IN my chamber, I told Woserit and Paser what had happened. “They were hidden beneath the branches of a sycamore,” I finished. “If we hadn’t been on our way to the baths, we would never have seen them.”

“A wife of Pharaoh must be beyond suspicion,” Woserit said darkly. “When Ramesses discovers this—”

“He won’t discover it. I told Iset that her secret was safe.” Though Woserit and Paser both stared at me in astonishment, I shook my head firmly. “Henuttawy has already made her life miserable enough. And Ashai swore that he would never return. How would knowing this make Ramesses happy?”

“But Iset is betraying him!”

“For love. My mother betrayed her family for love. I wouldn’t be here if my mother hadn’t chosen the general Nakhtmin over duty to her sister.”

“But your mother wasn’t married to your sister!” Woserit cried. “They hadn’t sworn an oath before Amun.”

It was true. The situation wasn’t the same, but now that the time had finally come, and it was in my power to destroy Iset, I didn’t have the heart.

THE NEXT morning, every Theban who depended on Pharaoh for their employment was on the road. I shaded my eyes with my hand, and from my balcony, I could see the thousands of wagons, loaded with grain, chests, and weapons of war, beginning the long journey to Avaris. Those who could afford it hired barges, packing their belongings into simple chests. Beyond the city, farmers carried their last baskets of threshed grain to the whitewashed silos, where scribes paid them from the treasury. The fortunate used these copper deben to purchase a place for their families on ships.

I embraced Ramesses tightly as we stood together looking out over the sea of people.

“It’s not like Nefertiti and Akhenaten,” Ramesses promised. “We aren’t building a city in the desert to glorify ourselves. We’re moving to Avaris to protect our kingdom.” Ramesses looked down at me and smiled. “Do you know what I instructed the builders to see to first? Your chamber,” he said. “I’ve had them build you one next to mine, painted with all the scenes from Malkata.”

No one had ever done something so considerate for me. I put my hand to my heart, and when he saw that he had left me speechless, he kissed my lips, my cheeks, my neck. “Your akhu built Malkata, Nefer. Your mother lived here. I don’t want you to feel sad when you leave it today.”

I pressed my hands against the hardness of his chest, then down to his waist, and even farther. He swept me into his arms, carrying me from the balcony, but the servants had already packed my bed.

Next to the brazier was a sheepskin, deep and white and soft. “Like you,” he whispered when he laid me against it. He knelt to kiss my shoulders, then my breasts, then the soft inside of my thighs. He inhaled the scent of jasmine I always wore between my legs. We lay on the warm rug in my empty chamber and made love, until Merit’s knocking had become too loud to ignore.

Still, I wanted to look out over the fruit trees in the garden one last time. Their branches were supported on painted trellises, and some nights I imagined that it was my mother who’d planted them. She had been a great gardener, but there was no one to tell me which flowers she had left to me in Thebes. I’d told Ramesses that I wouldn’t be sad to leave Malkata, but now I realized that I had lied. In four months, during the Feast of Wag, there would be nowhere for me to go to in Avaris to light incense for my mother’s ka. She would sit untended in Horemheb’s temple, her face enshrouded by darkness, forgotten.

“We’ll return.” Ramesses came up behind me.

“My mother walked these halls,” I said. “Sometimes, I stand on this balcony and wonder if she saw what I am seeing.”

“We will build her a temple,” Ramesses promised. “We will not let her be forgotten. I am Pharaoh of all of Egypt now.”

“Akhenaten was once Pharaoh of all of Egypt—”

He took me by the shoulders. “You are related to me now. To Amunher and Prehir. The people have seen my victories in Nubia and Kadesh. They’ve seen our conquest of the Sherden. The gods are