The Heretic Queen

by Michelle Moran

  The court had assembled itself on the quay, while a small golden vessel was rowed to the shore. It would fit only three people: myself, Merit, and a ferryman. Once Pharaoh Seti gave his permission, we would be rowed the short distance to the Temple of Karnak. Behind us, Ramesses would sail in his own golden bark, accompanied by his parents and rowed by a single soldier from Pharaoh’s army: Asha. Behind them the court would follow in a flotilla of brightly painted boats. When I asked Merit once why a Pharaoh’s marriage begins on the water instead of the land, she told me that it was because Egypt had been born from the Watery Waste of Nun, and if such a fertile land could be birthed from the water, a fertile marriage would as well.

  I stood on the quayside, separated from Ramesses by hundreds of courtiers in their whitest linens and finest gold, waiting for Pharaoh Seti to give his blessing. When the piercing sounds of several trumpets blared, Pharaoh Seti said something I couldn’t hear. But he must have given his blessing to set sail, for Merit took my arm and led me to the boat, helping me inside and arranging my cloak so that it fanned out around my legs like a lotus blossom. She seated herself next to me, as straight and serious as Paser. When I opened my mouth to speak, she shook her head firmly. I was meant to be a silent bride, timorously approaching my fate, even though inside my heart was soaring. I knew that I shouldn’t turn around. I didn’t want to appear like a goose craning its neck to see what was happening in every direction, so I looked ahead as our boat left the lake in front of the palace, and entered the main current of the River Nile itself. Thousands of people stood on the banks, crushed together to see the spectacle of the court sailing beneath Pharaoh’s golden pennants. They had chanted eagerly for Iset when she had been married, yet now there was silence.

  I glanced at Merit, and she returned my uneasy gaze. It was as if someone had taken a heavy sheet of linen and draped it across the people on the shore. Only the muffled sound of children crying reached us on the river, and Merit turned her sharp eyes on the ferryman.

  “What is the talk in Thebes?” she demanded.

  “In Thebes?” he repeated.

  “Yes! What are they saying about her? She already knows she’s the Heretic’s niece. There’s nothing you can say that will shock her. Just tell us the truth so we can be prepared.”

  The man looked at me, and his face was sorrowful. “Since Pharaoh Ramesses announced his intention to marry the princess yesterday, my lady, there is talk that she may be the reason for the famine all of these years.” The ferryman’s voice shook. “They think she has brought bad luck to the city. Her akhu angered the gods so deeply that once Pharaoh makes her his wife, they will turn away from Egypt completely. I’m sorry, Princess.”

  I held on to the sides of the boat so that my sudden dizziness would not overwhelm me, and I looked ahead at the unwelcoming faces of the people on the riverbank. Their silence was terrifying. What were they waiting for? That Ramesses might change his mind?

  When we reached the quay in front of the temple, a young priest reached down to help me up. A crowd of priestesses circled around us, chanting and shaking their long bronze sistrums. They led us through the gates of Karnak, and we followed their loud jangling to the inner sanctum, where I ascended the dais and waited for Ramesses. When he arrived, his eyes met mine. Then all I could see was the High Priest in front of me. He took a vessel of oil from the altar, and as he raised it above my head he intoned, “In the name of Amun, Princess Nefertari, daughter of Queen Mutnodjmet and General Nakhtmin, is bound together with Pharaoh Ramesses.”

  I stole a glance at the throngs of courtiers who filled the inner sanctum. The High Priest approached Ramesses. “In the name of Amun, Pharaoh Ramesses, son of Pharaoh Seti and Queen Tuya, is bound together with Princess Nefertari.”

  Ramesses held his breath as the oil poured over his nemes crown. There was one symbolic gesture left to make. Rahotep produced a golden ring from his robes. Ramesses slipped the band on to my fourth finger, since a vein travels from this finger to the heart. Now, I wore two rings. One bore the insignia of my family, the other bore Ramesses’s name in hieroglyphics. Ramesses’s ring was gold with an ebony stone, and by placing it on my finger, he had “captured” my heart. Like a shen, a design with no beginning and no end, we were joined for eternity. The High Priest announced, “United and blessed before Amun.”

  Ramesses held my hand above the cheering courtiers of the inner sanctum, who would have forced themselves to look happy even if he’d been marrying his mother’s iwiw. “Are you ready?” he asked. We would walk from the temple through the city, then sail from the quay in front of the marketplace. Only newly crowned royalty made such a walk. When I nodded, he took my hand firmly in his and pressed forward.

  The noise of the procession grew deafening. The priestesses of Isis were playing their tambourines and Hathor’s women were singing as we passed through the magnificent halls of Karnak into the city. Thousands of people filled the streets, but I saw with a rising sense of alarm that only a handful of them waved palm branches or cheered. We passed through the marketplace, and the noise of our procession made an awkward contrast to the continuing silence of the people. Ramesses raised his hand in mine and shouted jubilantly, “Princess Nefertari!”

  Behind us, the court echoed his cry, but in the streets the old women watched me with their arms across their breasts. At the end of the market an old woman shouted, “Another Heretic Queen!” and then the people of the marketplace began to chant.

  “HER-E-TIC. HER-E-TIC.”

  “Stop them!” Ramesses shouted angrily. His guards formed a tighter circle around us, but the people’s chanting was quickly building to a feverish pitch. Even children, who didn’t know what they were shouting, squinted into my face and yelled, “Another Heretic Queen!”

  The songs of the priestesses grew louder to drown out the people’s chants, but soon it became impossible. Ramesses might have ordered violence on the surging mob. But there were old women and children, so instead he called, “Get back to the boats!”

  ONCE WE had cast off from the quay, Ramesses took me in his arms, soothing me while I shook. The faces of the women were terrible to see. Many of the young girls were weeping into their hands. Henuttawy asked, “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  Queen Tuya used a linen to dab her eyes, and a sob escaped from her lips.

  I looked up into Ramesses’s face, and I was the one who spoke the embarrassing truth first. “You won’t be able to make me queen.”

  “They’ll change their minds,” he vowed. “Once they know you . . .” But he looked at his father, and entire conversations were conveyed in that glance.

  “Let us proceed to the feast,” Woserit announced. “This is still a celebration.” But her good cheer rang hollow, and the courtiers who sailed with us did so in silence.

  In the Great Hall, the cheerful laughter of the servants and the comforting crackle of the fires contrasted with the mood of the court. The rich smell of wine and roasted duck filled the chamber, and musicians began to play as we appeared. Pharaoh Seti ascended the dais as if nothing had happened, and I took my place next to Ramesses at the table. Because the court knew its purpose, there was suddenly merrymaking and dance. Even the young girls had dried their eyes and repainted their cheeks, now that the scare was over.

  Pharaoh Seti took my hand. “There is nothing you could have done differently,” he said. “They don’t know that you are as much my daughter as Ramesses is my son.”

  I lowered my head in shame. It was Seti’s final day of rule in the palace, and instead of leaving Thebes in triumph, he would depart wondering if the next time he returned it might be to rebellion. Then I noticed that while others were taking their seats, our table on the dais remained empty. “Where are Woserit and Henuttawy?” I asked.

  Ramesses followed my gaze. “And where are the viziers?” He stood from his throne and appealed to his father. “They are meeting without us!”

  Pharaoh Seti shook his head. “
Tomorrow, this will become your city,” he challenged. “What will you do?”

  Ramesses pulled me with him, and we rushed down the dais, crossing the Great Hall as courtiers scrambled to move out of our way. Ramesses flung open the doors to the Audience Chamber. Inside, the conversation immediately stopped. At the base of the dais, Asha was standing with his father. The viziers and generals of Egypt were present, and so were Woserit and Henuttawy. Woserit passed me a warning look.

  “What is this?” Ramesses demanded.

  “Your Highness,” Rahotep began, “I think you know why we are meeting here.”

  “Behind my back?” Ramesses challenged, and glared at Asha.

  “The people,” Henuttawy spoke sharply, “are against Nefertari, as I warned you—”

  “And who rules this kingdom?” Ramesses asked angrily. “The people, or me?”

  “Did the people rise against Iset when you married her?” Henuttawy spoke swiftly. “Did they shout Heretic Queen in the streets?”

  “Iset wasn’t taken through the city,” Woserit rejoined. “In fact, I believe that idea was yours.”

  Henuttawy turned on her sister, and it was like watching a lioness attack one of its own pride. “Are you saying I planned this?”

  “I don’t know,” Woserit said calmly. “How many temple offerings would you need to sell in order to buy the people?”

  Paser stepped forward. “Give the people time. They haven’t seen the princess in the Audience Chamber. She is wise and just.”

  Henuttawy smiled sweetly, and I knew that something vicious was coming. “Vizier Paser is willing to say and do whatever pleases my sister,” she said bitterly. “Listen to reason!”

  I put my hand on Ramesses’s arm. “It’s true.” Everyone turned in shock, and Woserit watched me with a strange expression. But I thought of the hatred I had seen in the streets. Even if Henuttawy had paid the women to chant, they had been angry enough to risk their lives by raising their voices against a Pharaoh. “Remember what happened under Akhenaten,” I said.

  “Wait to choose a queen,” Rahotep suggested. “There is no harm in waiting.”

  “For how long?” Ramesses demanded.

  Asha’s father, General Anhuri, had been listening, and now he stepped forward. “If Pharaoh doesn’t choose a Chief Wife, how will the thrones be arranged on the dais? Who will the petitioners see?”

  “There can be two thrones flanking Pharaoh,” Rahotep said. The other viziers immediately raised their voices in displeasure.

  “Two thrones on each side of Pharaoh?” Woserit exclaimed. “And they will both wear the diadem of a princess? Neither will be queen?”

  “The people were outraged to see me at Ramesses’s side,” I said, feeling pained. I couldn’t meet Woserit’s gaze.

  “Give your decision time,” Henuttawy suggested, taking the advantage. “Place three thrones on the dais. In the Audience Chamber, let the petitioners be divided between the two princesses.”

  “Then who will be Pharaoh’s heirs?” Woserit asked. “The children of Iset or Nefertari?”

  “Nefertari, of course.” Ramesses’s voice was adamant.

  “If the people accept her,” Henuttawy said.

  Ramesses looked to me. I made no motion to protest, and he said quietly, “We will wait. But this court knows who will make the better queen for Egypt.”

  “YOU DID what was right,” Merit said quietly.

  I watched while the servants filled my bath with hot water. When the women left, I crouched in the tub, putting my arms around my knees. “You should have seen their faces,” I whispered.

  “I did, my lady. It was not so terrible as you think.”

  “But from the front of the procession,” I told her, and my eyes welled with tears, “their faces were so full of hate.”

  There was a brief knock on the door. It was the quiet tap of a servant, and I answered carelessly, “Come in.” Neither of us turned. “You know as well as I do that the only reason I am in Paser’s favor is because of Woserit.”

  “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

  Merit and I both spun, and Woserit emerged from the darkness of the doorway. “Even if Paser wasn’t in love with me, I don’t believe he’d want to see a fool like Iset in the Audience Chamber.” Woserit laughed at the shock apparent on Merit’s face. “It was never a secret.”

  I stood from my bath, wrapping myself in a long linen robe before joining Woserit at the brazier.

  “Nefertari asked why I was willing to help her become Chief Wife.” Woserit seated herself on the largest chair. “I told her that I was doing it for myself as much as for her. Not only do I fear a city where Henuttawy is as wealthy as she wishes to be, I am also afraid of what my sister might do out of jealousy.”

  “But what can she have to be jealous of?” Merit asked.

  “That I was the first to be asked for in marriage.”

  I took a seat and named the man to whom she was referring. “Vizier Paser?”

  Woserit nodded. “Paser asked my father if we could marry. We were seventeen and had studied together in the edduba. He was being groomed for the job of vizier. But when Henuttawy heard he wanted to marry me, she flew into a rage. There were a hundred men at her door, but she couldn’t stand the thought that there was one at mine. She went to our father and begged him not to shame her by letting me marry before she did. He asked Henuttawy if there was someone she wanted to marry. She said there was. Paser.”

  “She could have asked for anyone!” I cried. “Even the prince of a foreign nation.”

  “Egypt never gives away her princesses,” Merit corrected me.

  “Then another vizier’s son,” I said. “Or a wealthy merchant. Or a prince willing to live in Egypt.”

  “It’s true. My sister’s beauty was as tempting then as it is now. When Henuttawy said she wanted Paser, my father summoned him to the Audience Chamber to see which sister he would choose.”

  “And Paser chose you.”

  “Yes. And when he told Pharaoh this, Henuttawy vowed that she would never take a husband.”

  “So that you could never marry.”

  Merit clucked her tongue. “How cruel.”

  “If Iset becomes Chief Wife with Henuttawy whispering in her ear, then there is little hope for Paser and me. But now you are here, and the risk is worth taking . . .”

  I flinched at the callousness of her statement. I was a Senet piece that she had polished and moved across the board for her own benefit.

  Woserit saw the betrayal on my face. “If I did not like you, I would never suggest you to Ramesses as Chief Wife, whatever the reward for myself. There are things more important than whether or not I marry. Stability in the kingdom and a wise queen for the throne. You are getting what you want, and perhaps someday I will get what I want. And if we can help each other to that end—”

  “But your father is gone,” I protested. “Can’t you marry now?”

  “And leave the Temple of Hathor?” Woserit asked. “For what? If Iset becomes queen and I marry Paser, what will happen to him once my brother is gone?”

  “Henuttawy and Iset will drive him from court, and he’ll lose everything.”

  Woserit nodded.

  “But why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

  “Because there are enough burdens resting on your shoulders,” she said. “You don’t need the weight of my destiny on you as well. Your first responsibility is to Ramesses, and then the people.”

  I glanced at Merit, who knew what I was going to ask. “Do you think those people will rebel because of me?”

  Woserit was honest. “Anything might happen,” she replied. “Especially when the Nile runs low. What does Ramesses say?”

  “He is horrified,” I whispered.

  “Good. And you will never mention becoming Chief Wife. He has made his decision to wait. Let Iset complain and drive him away. You will be silent and long-suffering and he will love you even more.”

&nbs
p; “And his decision?” Merit asked.

  “It all depends on how soon Nefertari can change the people’s minds—by being wise and judicious in the Audience Chamber. Tomorrow, Pharaoh Seti will be gone, and there will only be Pharaoh Ramesses to rule in Thebes. She must build her reputation as the clever princess.”

  “I am a danger to Ramesses’s crown,” I said. “Did I do what was right in the Audience Chamber today?”

  Woserit hesitated. “You stopped him when his rashness might have made you queen tonight. You placed the kingdom of Egypt and Ramesses’s welfare before your own.” She smiled sadly. “You love him.”

  I nodded. I did, and in the end, I knew such love might prove costly.

  LATER THAT night, when Ramesses came into my chamber, Merit disappeared into her own room. There was nothing that Ramesses needed to say. He embraced me, stroking my hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again and again. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

  “It’s fine,” I told him, but we both knew it wasn’t. On a day that Egypt should have been celebrating, the people couldn’t have been angrier. They had risen up against Pharaoh’s guards, something that had not happened since the reign of Akhenaten.

  “Tomorrow,” Ramesses promised, “things will be different. You don’t belong in the streets of Thebes. You belong with me, in the Audience Chamber.” He guided me to the edge of my bed and drew a cloth-wrapped object from inside his cloak. “For you,” he said softly.

  The linen wrapping had been painted with images of Seshat, the goddess of learning. When I unveiled the gift within, I thought my heart would stop in my chest. I held the heavy scroll up to the oil lamps, slowly unrolling the papyrus, as light illuminated the painted text. “Ramesses, where did you find this?” I asked. It was a history of every major kingdom in the world, from Hatti to Cyprus, written first in hieroglyphics and then in the language of each country. Not even Paser owned such a book.