The Heretic Queen

by Michelle Moran

Ramesses looked at me in shock. There was silence beyond the gates. It seemed as if nobody moved, as if no one was breathing. “Return to your homes!” he cried. “Let the palace of Malkata mourn in peace.” He stood motionless, watching as the human sea beneath his feet began to ebb.

  Slowly, the crowd began to disperse. Some of the women still shouted “Heretic,” and a few made vows to return, but the immediate danger was over. After some minutes of silence, Ramesses turned to take my hand. Inside the palace, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” he whispered.

  “Thank you,” I told him. Yet secretly I knew better. One day, she will convince him that I really am a heretic, and nothing I do will ever be able to change his mind.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ANOTHER LIFE IN RETURN

  ALTHOUGH FOR TWO nights Ramesses did not visit, new light still found its way into the darkness of my chamber. By the second of Pachons my body gave me confirmation of what Merit had suspected for a month. I whispered it to Woserit and Paser, and when Merit heard, she sent up such a whoop of joy that Tefer scampered fearfully from the bed.

  “A child?” she exclaimed. “You must tell Pharaoh Ramesses! When he hears—”

  “He will think of Prince Akori and wonder if Iset was right.”

  Merit stepped away from me. “You must never repeat that.”

  “Iset accused me of stealing her child’s ka, and now I’m pregnant with my own.”

  “Pharaoh could never think such a thing! The princess is a superstitious fool. You must tell him.”

  “If he comes.”

  “He will, my lady. Give him time.”

  But several days passed, and on the fifth night, when it was clear he wasn’t coming, I wept into my pillow, emptying all of my sorrows into the linen as Merit stroked my hair. It wasn’t just loneliness. It was the sadness that hung over the palace like a shroud. I saw Ramesses every morning in the Audience Chamber, but he never laughed, and even when the viziers brought news that the farmers were finding success with his invention, his face was still grim. In the Great Hall, courtiers watched me with suspicion, and even Woserit had very little to say. I begged her to let me tell Ramesses that I was pregnant, but she made me swear not to reveal anything to him until he visited me on his own.

  So I waited, and on the seventh of Pachons, Ramesses arrived as the sun rose. He came to the very edge of my bed, and when I sat up to embrace him, tears stained his cheeks. It was as if all of his joy and rash optimism in life had been drained away.

  “The priests tell me it was the will of the gods,” he whispered, “but how could it be their will that a child of Pharaoh, his first son, should be stolen by Anubis?”

  He held his nemes crown in his lap, and I caressed his hair. “I can’t pretend to understand,” I told him. “But perhaps when the gods saw your terrible loss, they gave you another life in return.” I took his hand and placed it on my stomach, and his breath caught in his throat. “A child?”

  I smiled cautiously. “Yes.”

  Ramesses stood and crushed my hands in his. “Amun has not abandoned us!” he cried. “A child, Nefer!” and he kept repeating it. “Another child!” He pulled me up with him, then searched my face. “You know that night on the balcony—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly.

  “But I never really believed—”

  I placed my finger on his lips. “I know you didn’t,” I lied. “Those are peasants’ superstitions.”

  “Yes. She comes from superstitious people. And without Akori she’s become irrational. And inconsolable,” he admitted. “I promised to begin a mortuary temple in Thebes for the prince—for all of us—but it isn’t enough. Even the flowers at the gates mean nothing to her.”

  “What . . . what flowers?”

  Ramesses glanced away. But when I pushed back the long linen curtains of the balcony and saw the tribute that women had left for Iset, I brought my hand to my mouth. The heavy bronze bars were twined with flowers, and lilies, the symbol of rebirth, stretched as far as the eye could see beyond the gates. “They love her so much,” I whispered, hoping Ramesses wouldn’t see how much it hurt me.

  “And they will love you,” Ramesses swore. “You are to be mother to Pharaoh’s eldest child now.” Ramesses strode to the door that led to Merit’s chamber, calling her out and instructing her to let the palace know that a second child was on its way.

  There were to be no petitioners in the Audience Chamber that day. The viziers watched from a large table in front of the dais as Ramesses and I entered together, and only Paser looked happy to see me. Everyone now knew that I was with child. I saw Iset on her throne, and I thought, Henuttawy has instructed her to be here today. Her face appeared sunken and hollow; as we ascended the steps her eyes never moved from an invisible spot on the floor.

  “Iset.” Ramesses gently took her hands. “Why are you here? Did you get enough rest?”

  “How can I rest,” she asked tonelessly, “when someone has stolen the lifeblood of our prince? The midwives say that he was healthy and screaming when he came.”

  Ramesses glanced at me. “There was every protection in the birthing pavilion. Tawaret and Bes—”

  “And do Tawaret or Bes prevent the evil eye?” she cried, so that even the old men in the back of the Audience Chamber looked up from their Senet games. “Can they stop a charm from stealing a prince’s ka? There is only one woman who would want to take our child!”

  Rahotep rushed forward from the viziers’ table. “The princess Iset is not well,” the High Priest said quickly. “Let me take her to her chamber.”

  “I’m perfectly fine!” Iset shrieked. “I’m fine!” But the front of her gown where Akori should have been nursing was wet, and her eyes darted wildly across the chamber.

  Ramesses placed a steady hand on her arm. “Iset, go and rest. Penre is coming with designs for a temple. As soon as we are finished, I will come to you.” But her chest rose and fell with her heavy breaths, and she didn’t move. “Even though it’s your time with Nefertari?” she challenged.

  I heard the hesitation in Ramesses’s voice before he answered, “Yes.”

  Iset shifted her gaze to mine, and I saw fear in her eyes. She truly believes I stole her child’s ka. She thinks I’m a murderess. She composed herself, moving gracefully across the chamber, and as she reached the doors I heard a courtier murmur, “It’s only her first child. There are sure to be others.”

  When the doors swung shut, the viziers watched me, and courtiers whispered.

  I tried to keep my voice from trembling. “Shall we summon Penre?”

  We waited in silence while he was sent for, a silence unbroken until the herald announced grandly, “The architect Penre, son of Irsu and Keeper of the King’s Great Works.”

  A triumphant Penre entered the chamber, beaming conspicuously. In a single month, his design, based on the painting in Meryra’s tomb, had spread up and down the Nile. By the end of Shemu, there would be the first real harvest in four years, and offerings of grain could be placed in the completed Temple of Luxor. Now, Penre would undertake the construction of the greatest mortuary temple in Egypt. Two scribes followed in his wake, carrying a heavy clay model on a large board between them. A linen cloth obscured the details of the model. Penre stretched his arms out in obeisance.

  “Your Majesty,” he announced. “The Ramesseum.” He swept the linen cover away, and a row of viziers murmured their appreciation. “It will be the largest mortuary temple in Thebes,” Penre explained, “built next to the Temple of Seti the Reconquerer.” He pointed out the intricate details. “Two rows of pylons, towering as large and thick as the pylons at Luxor, will lead one after the other into a courtyard.” Chairs scraped on tiles as the court pressed forward to get a better look. “Beyond the second courtyard, a covered hall with forty-eight columns will enclose the inner sanctuary.” Another murmur of awe from the viziers’ table. “And inside . . .” Penre removed the
ceiling, showing the court the blue sky with scattered gold stars that he had painted. “Inside, three rooms that will stand for a million years as a shrine to Ramesses the Great and his reign.”

  There was a moment of shock in the Audience Chamber. No one dared to give Pharaoh a title; he always chose it for himself. The court looked to Ramesses, to see his reaction.

  “Ramesses the Great,” he repeated, “and his million-year Ramesseum.”

  Penre squared his shoulders with confidence. “And to the north of the hall with its forty-eight columns, a temple for the most beautiful princesses in Egypt.”

  I saw statues of myself and Iset, both equal in height and width. I should have been flattered, but I was worried. The mortuary temple was an undertaking that would require years, and a great deal of the treasury’s gold. Before Ramesses went to Iset’s chamber that night, he came to mine and I asked him, “Where will the deben come from to build all of this?”

  “My father accepts tribute from more than a dozen nations. I’ve seen the accounts from the treasury. There’s enough to build three Ramesseums,” he said. “It is what our descendants will remember of us.” He looked at my stomach and drew me close to him. “Our little kings,” he added lovingly.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AHMOSES OF CHALDEA

  FOR TWO MONTHS, the gates of Malkata Palace were strewn with flowers, so that whenever we rode out to see the progress of the Ramesseum, the guards had to clear a path for the horses. Iset would descend from her chariot, and no one would speak as she chose the prettiest flower for her hair, reminding everyone that she had borne and lost the first prince of Egypt.

  In Paser’s chamber, Woserit paced the tiles and demanded, “When will this be over? Every day flowers are burying the gates and women are weeping in the Temple of Hathor. She lost an infant, not twin eighteen-year-old princes!”

  “And now there’s news that she’s with child again,” I revealed. “Merit heard it in the baths.”

  Woserit turned to Paser, “Before Iset has another child,” she said irritably, “we must make the people understand that Nefertari is Ramesses’s choice for queen. What’s wrong with them? She speaks eight languages and has impressed every emissary from Assyria to Rhodes.”

  “They still remember the Heretic King,” Paser replied. “They hear their grandparents speak of the days when the gods were banished and Amun turned his back on Egypt by bringing us plague. But I have intercepted messages from Nubia that speak of a second rebellion. And if Pharaoh Ramesses leaves with his army, Nefertari will be left to rule in his stead.”

  “It will be your opportunity to show the people how you would govern,” Woserit said eagerly.

  “No!”

  Paser and Woserit both stared at me.

  “Ramesses promised to take me on his next campaign. Who will be of more help to him?” I demanded. “A Nubian translator or me?”

  “You are carrying Ramesses’s child,” Woserit said. “Are you willing to risk his likely heir? There would be no litters. You would travel through the desert entirely by chariot, and water would be scarce. This rebellion may be your only chance to prove at court that you will not be another Heretic Queen.”

  I looked down at the small swell of my stomach. If Ramesses left me in Thebes, would I be able to change the people’s hearts, or would they call my child a heretic as well?

  Paser sat forward in his carved wooden chair. “Do not suggest that you go with him. There’s nothing more important than the health of this child.”

  “And Iset?” I asked quietly. “If Ramesses doesn’t declare a Chief Wife, would we both rule jointly in the Audience Chamber?”

  Woserit raised her sharp brows. “Yes. Which would be very interesting.”

  THAT NIGHT, Ramesses crept away from Iset, bringing me the scrolls that Paser had seized from a captured Nubian merchant. We sat together on the balcony, and I translated letter after careless letter detailing a rebellion that was planned for the first of Mesore, when the heat was so brutal that Egypt’s soldiers were unlikely to travel very far south.

  “They have more than a thousand men,” I confirmed, “who are willing to overtake the palace and kill the Egyptian viceroy.”

  “So Paser was correct.” Ramesses stood from his chair and looked out over the balcony. An early summer’s breeze bore the scent of lavender, and the chirp of insects from the dark gardens below. If Ramesses left, there was no telling when he might return, or what might happen in his absence.

  “I must write to my father and speak with my generals,” he announced. “In a month, I will lead Egypt’s charioteers into Napata and remind Nubia to whom she owes her allegiance.” When he saw the look on my face, his voice faltered. “You could come.” He hesitated, and we both looked down at my three-month belly.

  “No. It would be too dangerous,” I said, rising to join him. But we both knew what I wanted. Ramesses took my hand and we stared into the night, listening to the wind as it eased through the boughs of the sycamore trees.

  “I will return to you safely,” he promised. “And if I ever leave again, you will come. Even if it’s to the farthest reaches of Assyria.”

  I laughed miserably. “And how would I survive?”

  “I would have the army carry you by litter. They would bear you across the desert like Amun’s shrine.” When my laughter was genuine, he smiled. “While I’m gone, I want you to oversee the building. Luxor is finished, but there is Nubian gold and shiploads of ebony bound for the Ramesseum. There’s no one else I trust.”

  “What about Iset?”

  “She can’t oversee the Ramesseum,” he dismissed. “Perhaps the Feast of Wag. But in the Audience Chamber, if there’s something she doesn’t understand, Nefer, you will help her, won’t you? I don’t want foreign emissaries to think she’s a fool.”

  Too late, I thought sharply, holding my smile. “Of course I will.”

  IN THE hours before dawn, a flotilla of ships crowded the bay, while Asha ushered the charioteers aboard. A month had passed since Ramesses had learned of the plot for rebellion in Nubia, and now two thousand men, with their weapons and horses, shouted farewells from the vessels to their wives and children. On the quay, Ramesses cupped my chin in his palm.

  “Sometimes, I forget how small you are,” he said tenderly. “Promise that you’ll let Merit take care of you. Listen to what she tells you while I’m gone, even if you don’t like it. There are two of you now to watch over.”

  I looked down at my small stomach and wondered if Tawaret would abandon me in childbirth the way she had abandoned my mother. Perhaps if I lit incense every day and reminded her that I was the Heretic’s niece, not the Heretic’s daughter, she would forgive the crimes of my akhu. Or would my prayers only attract their attention, and bring Anubis back to stalk the palace once more? “I will listen,” I assured him.

  The sound of trumpets pierced the morning air, and the priestesses of Hathor joined with Isis in shaking their sistrums and singing a hymn to Sekhmet, the lion-goddess of war.

  Ramesses made his way to Iset and kissed her briefly, then he came back to me. “I will return before the month is over,” he swore.

  We watched the fleet as it worked its way through the channel, and then slowly upstream. When the last pennant had disappeared, Woserit took my arm and led me through the doors of the palace. In the Audience Chamber, the court took its place while musicians played “The Song of Sekhmet.” I had thought I was prepared for Ramesses to leave, but at the sight of his empty throne on the dais, I drew an uneven breath.

  “This is an opportunity,” Woserit said bracingly as we crossed the chamber.

  “What if the people return?” I worried. “What if they shout Heretic at the gates?”

  “Then four hundred guards will be here to protect you. The greater threat is in the Temple of Isis. Think of what my sister could do if her temple became the largest in Thebes! Pilgrims from all across Egypt would leave their gold at her shrines. If Henuttawy and Ra
hotep were to use their resources collectively, they would be wealthy enough to tell Ramesses which wars should be waged and which monuments should be built. Why do you think the Heretic abolished the priestship of Amun? He was willing to risk the wrath of the gods to destroy such rivals to his power.”

  “Why doesn’t Ramesses see what Henuttawy is after?”

  “Why should he? My sister is his beloved aunt. The one who taught him how to balance the khepresh crown on his head and to write his name in hieroglyphics as a child. Would he believe me if I told him what she really wants?”

  With that, she left the Audience Chamber, her long blue robes swishing across the tiled floor. The turquoise jewels of the goddess Hathor encircled her arms, and I wished I looked so tall and splendid. Like Henuttawy and Iset, she commanded the chamber, but as the heavy doors swung shut in her wake, I noticed that the room was nearly empty. “Where is everyone?” I exclaimed.

  Rahotep turned in his chair. “Who is everyone?”

  My neck grew hot beneath my wig. “Where is Iset? Where is the rest of the court?”

  “Preparing for the Feast of Wag,” he said dismissively.

  “Doesn’t she plan to hear the petitioners?” I demanded.

  Rahotep raised his brow. “I suppose she will come when she is ready.”

  The musicians kept playing. They would play until the herald announced the petitioners. I sat on my throne and felt the heat creep from my neck into my cheeks. The entire court was attending Iset; the only courtiers who had remained with me were the old men playing Senet in the back of the chamber. Gone was the pretty laughter of noblemen’s daughters. Even the girls from the edduba, who had never liked Iset, were missing. They all believe she is the future of Egypt.

  I struck Ramesses’s golden crook on the dais. “Bring forth the petitioners,” I announced.

  Three men approached the viziers’ table, but only two held out written petitions. The third gripped a wooden staff in his hands. His long beard was the milky color of moringa blossoms. I tried to guess what his language might be, as only foreigners wear hair on their faces.