pennant of Amun. But as the Hittite division grew closer, Iset began to pace the hill, and then finally she screamed, “He’s going to lose! Don’t you see? He was fooled by a pair of Shasu. He will die, and now we will all die with him! Forget Asha!
I looked to Ibenre. “Do we have more time?”
“Until noon.”
Iset’s eyes were pleading, for even if Asha arrived, there would no longer be time to cut off the Hittite division now fast closing upon us. “Then we should move,” I told him. “We have waited as long as we can.”
Iset closed her eyes in deep relief, and Ibenre nodded briefly. “Move out!” he shouted, and in a chaos of armed guards, grain wagons, and horses, we fled down the hill for the Egyptian city of Damascus.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE HEAVY SHROUD OF THE GOD PTAH
THE GOVERNOR OF Damascus had been instructed to accommodate me in his largest chamber, and it was a testament to Iset’s overwhelming fear of being killed that she didn’t complain about this slight. Instead, she wandered the halls for two days, wringing her hands over what would happen to her if Ramesses should die. On the third day, I seated myself next to her in the Great Hall, and though she shrank from me the way a rat shrinks from a hawk, I placed my hand on hers and said softly, “Even if the Hittites come, Iset, which of the women do you think they’ll save? Look around. Who here is more beautiful than you?” She cast her eyes timidly about the room, and I withdrew my hand. “But Ramesses isn’t going to die,” I said firmly. “He isn’t going to be defeated by the Hittites.”
“How can you be so certain?” The light of the Great Hall illuminated her face, and though her eyes were red and weary, I hadn’t lied. She was still the most beautiful woman in Damascus.
“Because the gods are watching over him,” I said. “Amun, Ra, Osiris, Sekhmet.”
I pretended to have no doubts about our victory, acting as if I knew it were only a matter of time. Yet every day without news had been unbearable. At night, dusty desert heat hung over the palace, and I imagined it looking like the heavy shroud of the god Ptah, wrapping the entire city in its embrace like the mummified husband of Sekhmet. It was impossible to sleep, impossible to eat, almost impossible to breathe not knowing what was happening to Ramesses at the walls of Kadesh.
For five days we waited like hungry cats for scraps of news, and every rider who approached the city was met by Ibenre, impatient for word. At last, a messenger came with a report from the front, and immediately the governor sent word to my chamber.
“My lady!” Merit cried. “A messenger!”
I didn’t care that it was unseemly for a woman to run, or that I hadn’t put on my Nubian wig. Ramesses had taken twenty thousand men into an ambush. If they’d been defeated, it would mean not only the loss of Kadesh, but likely the loss of Egypt itself. He had gambled, risking everything for this.
I entered the Audience Chamber, and the governor took my arm and led me to one of the four thrones on the dais, three of which always remained empty for Pharaoh and his two most important wives. I took my seat next to Iset, but neither of us fooled anyone with our brave faces.
The boy looked between us. “A truce has been declared!” he exclaimed. “A truce between Hatti and Egypt!”
I glanced at Ibenre at the bottom of the steps.
“A
“The Hittites have retreated to the hills,” the boy replied. “And Pharaoh’s army is marching in victory toward Damascus.”
Iset slumped against her chair. “We have won,” she whispered. “Egypt is saved.”
“Egypt may not be lost,” I said, “but Pharaoh hasn’t won. A truce is not a victory.” I thought of how foolish Ramesses had been to believe a pair of Hittite spies. He had risked everything because his father had asked him to, taking twenty thousand men north to Kadesh where he imagined an easy victory over the Hittite emperor. And when spies had hidden themselves in the hills, he had been more than eager to believe that a veteran king of war had fled from his path in fear. “Who will keep Kadesh?” I demanded.
“The Hittites, my lady. But the generals say it could have been much worse. They say that Pharaoh was saved because of you.”
The governor of Damascus and all of his courtiers turned to look at me. “I didn’t do anything,” I demurred.
“But you did, Princess. The three divisions you sent after Amun gave Pharaoh enough time to prepare a counterattack.”
“They were already preparing to march—”
The boy shook his head as if that didn’t matter. “They are calling you the
We followed the boy to the Window of Appearances, where the governor stood whenever he wished to address his people. And beyond the city walls, the battle cry of “RAMESSES” could be heard. Then came the unmistakable second chant, a cry of “WARRIOR QUEEN.”
“How many are there?” I whispered.
“Twelve thousand men,” the boy revealed.
I turned. “A
The boy lowered his gaze. “Yes, my lady. But look at them all.”
He was too young to understand the gravity of it. The army had approached the palace gates, thousands of weapons gleaming like burnished gold beneath the sun. Iset and I pressed together in the narrow window, close enough to smell the lavender oil on her skin, and the scent of jasmine from her hair. “He is back,” I cried to her. “He’s returned.”
When Ramesses appeared in the courtyard below, he raised his iron sword to us in triumph. His leather shield was stained with blood, and he had removed the
“Nefertari!” he exclaimed. “Oh,
He greeted Iset with a firm embrace, and she wept in his arms the way she had wept daily since we left Avaris.
“How did you survive it?” I whispered. I searched his body for any sign of wounds.
“Only by the grace of Amun,” he admitted, but when he turned to greet the people of Damascus, he raised his arm triumphantly and declared, “We have returned!”
A magnificent cheer rose through the courtyard, echoing beyond the open gates into the city’s streets. Then Ramesses promised the people peace. He promised them trade in the rich Aegean Sea through the hostile territories of the Hittites, and he swore that although Kadesh had been lost, Egypt would endure.
“We have taught the emperor a powerful lesson,” Asha declared, his voice carrying over the thousands assembled. “The Hittites will never again rush to invade the kingdom of a Pharaoh as brave as Ramesses the Great.”
While the city feasted, Ramesses found me in my chamber.
“Tell me what happened,” I said. “Tell me how Egypt can be victorious if a truce has been declared and we have lost Kadesh for good.”
Ramesses sat on the edge of the bed and placed his head between his hands. “We were victorious because my soldiers weren’t slaughtered. We were victorious because although I lost Kadesh, I didn’t lose Egypt.” His eyes brimmed with tears. “And I didn’t lose you.” He took me in his arms. “Nefertari,” he whispered. “Nefertari, my pride almost killed you. It killed so many men. Good soldiers who
“You couldn’t have known that they were spies,” I said, but he was right. His pride had cost thousands of men. When we returned to Avaris, their mothers would wait at the gates to greet their sons, searching the faces of
