I sat straighter in my bed. “He said two sons?”
“He said twins.”
“But how could he have known?”
“Perhaps he guessed. Or perhaps he thought . . .”
“Of Nefertiti?” In my joy, I hadn’t considered this, but now I could see how the people could view my sons as a link to the Heretic Queen, who had also borne twins. Was every blessing destined to be seen as a curse? I clutched my stomach, and the pain between my legs suddenly sharpened.
“What is it?” Ramesses worried. “Is there something you need?”
I winced, and Merit was at my side at once.
“I will bring my lady some ginger and tea. It will ease the pain in her womb, Your Highness.”
I sat back on my cushions, and Ramesses’s eyes were dark and full of worry.
“I’ll be fine,” I promised. “But I can’t bear to think—”
“Then don’t. You are the mother to the first princes of Egypt, Nefer.” He kissed my hand gently. “So what shall we name them?”
I looked at our children, wrapped in the very finest linen, and their little chests moved up and down with small, contented breaths. “I want to hold them first.”
Merit disturbed their feeding to bring them to me, and Woserit and Ramesses stood back as my sons were placed in my arms. Their bodies fit snugly against mine, and I nuzzled their soft cheeks and downy heads. It was true. Both of my children had thin wisps of auburn hair and eyes the color of turquoise. In fourteen days they would be taken to the Temple of Amun and introduced to the gods. But before then I would have to announce their names.
I studied their small features; both of them had delicate faces, with hands so small they could barely fit around a river reed. They were tiny gifts from Amun, a sign from the gods that was undeniable. “Our first will be Amunher,” I announced, and the midwives who were cleansing the chamber murmured happily, for Amunher meant “Amun is with him.” “And the second . . .” I looked at Amunher’s brother. His gaze was as curious and bright as Re. “And our second son shall be Prehir.”
“Re watches over him,” Ramesses repeated, and the women in the chamber sighed. “Woserit, tell the priestesses to make a special offering. Then let the people know that Nefertari is as healthy and strong as ever. Tonight, there will be a feast in the Great Hall.”
Merit returned my sons to the pair of young milk nurses who sat in the pavilion’s only private chamber. Although the pavilion was wide, the chamber door had been left open so that I could see my sons resting in the young women’s arms. For most of the afternoon I slept, and as the sun dropped lower in the sky, Woserit bowed politely and left. As she parted, I could hear the excited chatter in the hall as courtiers peered inside to catch a glimpse of the princes. Then Henuttawy entered the pavilion. She wore the seshed circlet on her brow, and the cobra’s golden hood gleamed from her dark hair as though it were ready to strike. Behind her was Iset, her eyes wide with fear. She hadn’t been inside the birthing pavilion since her own son had died, and I knew it was Henuttawy who’d insisted she come.
“We have all heard the wonderful news,” Henuttawy announced grandly. “Not one child, but twins, just like Nefertiti.” She looked at me, and her eyes were as cold and hard as granite. “Congratulations, Nefertari. Although it’s hard to imagine that a girl of your size could produce two children at once.” I felt the pain between my legs increase, and she glanced up from under her lashes at Ramesses. “Are you sure they are hers?” she asked teasingly.
“Of course,” Ramesses said sharply.
Henuttawy dismissed the remark with a laugh, as if she hadn’t meant anything by it. “So what has our little princess named them?” she asked.
“Amunher and Prehir,” I answered. I noticed that Ramesses was watching his aunt with a curious expression.
“Iset is thinking of Ramessu for her son. Ramessu the Great, just like his father.”
“And if it’s a girl?” I asked from my bed.
Iset put her hand over her large belly. “Why should it be a girl?” she whispered. “Ramesses has given his wives only sons.”
“That’s right,” Henuttawy said brightly, then hooked Ramesses’s arm in hers. And before I could protest, she led him away from me and into the midwives’ chamber. Merit quickly took a bundle of linens and began folding them near Henuttawy.
But Iset remained next to my bed, and she looked across the chamber at my newborn sons with longing. They were nestled into their milk nurses’ bosoms. I told her softly, “Henuttawy should not have brought you here. She doesn’t care about you.”
“Then who does?” she hissed. Her arm was wrapped around her belly, and I knew it was to protect it from the evil eye. “Do you think that Ramesses cares?” she demanded.
I was stunned. “Of course.”
She smiled bitterly. “The way he cares about you?”
“There is nothing you owe Henuttawy. No payment—”
“And what would you know about payment? A princess by birth who never had to pay for anything in her life.”
Ramesses emerged from the chamber ahead of Henuttawy, and his expression was taut, like leather stretched too tightly over a drum.
“Shall we prepare a feast for tonight?” Iset asked eagerly. She offered Ramesses her arm, but he turned his strained expression to me and asked, “Nefertari, what would you like?”
The smile froze on Iset’s face.
“I’d like to summon Penre to tell him what to paint on the Wall of Proclamation,” I said. “I want to let Amun know that two princes of Egypt have been born.”
“And the feast?” Iset repeated. “Shall we go and plan the feast?”
But Ramesses walked back toward the milk nurses’ chamber. “Why don’t you plan the feast with Henuttawy?” he said.
Iset blinked away tears but didn’t refuse his request. “Of course.” She took Henuttawy’s arm, and on their way out of the pavilion they met Woserit, who was returning.
“Such a happy day,” Woserit said cheerfully. “Don’t you think?”
Neither Henuttawy nor Iset replied. Woserit came to my bed, and I glanced at Ramesses, who was humming softly to his sons. He had taken off his nemes crown so that his auburn hair curled about his neck, and the little princes looked like miniature versions of their father. “Henuttawy was talking to him,” I whispered. “Alone. But Merit might have overheard.”
Woserit stood and went straight to Merit. I watched the pair of them speak in the alcove by the window. When Woserit came back to me, her look was grave. “Someone has spread the word in Thebes that your sons are not really yours, that they were born to a palace servant.”
“Someone?” I hissed, nearly choking on my rage. “Someone? Who could it be but Henuttawy and Rahotep? Ammit will devour their souls,” I vowed. “They will never pass into the Afterlife! When the time comes for their hearts to be weighed against the truth, the scales will sink to the ground and Ammit will destroy them!” Woserit put her hand on mine. I wouldn’t be calmed, but I lowered my voice. “So what does this mean?” I demanded. “In fourteen days when my sons are brought before the altar of Amun, will I be declared Chief Wife?”
“The viziers will all tell Ramesses to wait and see what the people believe.”
“You mean wait and see if Iset has a son.” I could barely contain my rage. Across the wide birthing pavilion, Ramesses still hummed softly to the princes. I closed my eyes. “And Paser?”
“Of course Paser will speak for you! And Ramesses himself witnessed the birth. When the people see two red-haired princes with the same bright eyes and dimpled cheeks as Pharaoh, who do you think they will believe?” Woserit asked. “Though we must leave nothing to chance,” she quickly amended. “Henuttawy’s name is respected in Thebes. The people don’t know what she really is.”
“A viper,” I said.
Ramesses smiled at us from the corner of the pavilion where he was watching our sons, and Woserit added quickly, “Iset doesn’t know yet tha
t it was Henuttawy who chased Ashai away. The moment has come,” she said firmly. “You have kept my sister’s secret long enough.”
“And Rahotep?” I asked, imagining the High Priest’s sickening grin as he helped spread Henuttawy’s lie among the people.
“Kill the viper first. Snakes may be immune to their own kind’s venom, but you have become something more powerful than a snake today.”
I followed her eyes to the image of a queen painted above the door. The golden wings of the woman’s vulture crown swept down her hair. As Chief Wife, I would wear a similar headdress, for the vulture is the most powerful symbol in Egypt. It is more powerful even than the cobra, for its flight brings it closer to the gods.
“Enjoy these next few days, Nefertari. There will be a Birth Feast tomorrow,” Woserit said. “But when the right time comes . . .”
When the right times comes, I thought, then the viper will see what a vulture can do.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A TRUTH MADE WHOLE
I TOOK WOSERIT’S advice and waited, savoring the days I had with my sons before I would have to return to the Audience Chamber and be parted from them. After the Birth Feast, I lay in the pavilion for fourteen days, reading to Amunher and Prehir, and singing to them the hymns of Amun that my mother would have sung to me if she had lived. There was nothing in the world so beautiful as watching them sleep, studying the steady rise and fall of their little chests, and listening to the small noises they made when they were hungry, or tired, or in need of being held in their own mother’s arms. Of course, I was not allowed to suckle them, so Merit bound my breasts with linen and I watched while my sons fed from their milk nurses, cheerful women who had recently given birth themselves.
As my fourteen days passed, Ramesses came to me every afternoon to tell me the news of the Audience Chamber, bringing me presents of honeyed dates and pomegranate wine. At night, when the nurses had wrapped our sons in blankets and placed them in the pavilion’s private chamber, Ramesses lit the oil lamps and climbed into my bed. And there, surrounded by gifts from foreign kingdoms, we studied the day’s petitions together.
For a short while, I knew the perfect life. I wasn’t in the Great Hall to hear the gossip about me, and I didn’t have to see Rahotep’s frightening grin. But the world could not be kept at bay forever, and the news that came into our happy pavilion and disturbed me the most was not about myself, but about Egypt’s security.
“I won’t let this go on!” Ramesses raged on my last night in the birthing pavilion. He pointed to the pile of growing petitions from Memphis. “Sherden pirates attacking our ships along the River Nile. Sherden pirates attacking our ships in Kadesh!”
“The same pirates who overtook the Mycenaean King’s ship and stole the gifts that were meant for little Amunher and Prehir,” I reminded, and Ramesses’s face reddened.
“We won’t let it continue. We will wait until Tybi,” he said decisively. He wouldn’t risk leaving Iset before she delivered her child, not knowing whether she lived or died. “And if these Sherden attack another Egyptian ship, or even a ship that’s bound for Egypt, they’ll be humbled by what will be waiting for them.”
In the Audience Chamber the next day, the viziers crowded around the base of the dais, greeting me with unusually low bows as I took my seat. But when Rahotep smiled strangely at me, I felt the sudden urge to hold my sons. I knew that they were safe, yet as Ramesses struck his crook on the floor of the dais, and as the viziers took their seats, I had to remind myself that there was no better nurse in Egypt than Merit.
“Bring forth the petitioners,” Ramesses announced. The doors swung open, and a figure crossed the tiles of the chamber. I recognized Ahmoses and his shepherd’s staff at once. He didn’t stop at the table where the viziers were waiting but came straight toward me. When the soldiers stepped forward to pull him back, I raised my hand to let them know that the Habiru should come forth.
“Princess Nefertari.” Unlike our previous meeting, Ahmoses bowed briefly before my throne. I wondered if this was because Ramesses was present. No one in Egypt would dare to come before a Pharaoh without bowing. I didn’t wait for him to rise. “How did you know I would have twin sons?”
“Because Queen Nefertiti gave Pharaoh Akhenaten twins,” he replied, meeting my gaze. “I said nothing about sons.”
Though we were speaking in Canaanite, I still glanced at Ramesses. He was watching us with a peculiar expression. “You are never to mention the names of the Heretic Rulers in Thebes,” I said harshly.
“The Heretic Rulers?” Ahmoses frowned. “Akhenaten, yes. But your aunt . . .” He shook his head.
“Are you saying,” I demanded, “that she didn’t worship Aten?”
“She only worshipped Aten while her husband still lived. Otherwise, she allowed shrines to be built to the gods that her husband had abandoned.”
Now both Ramesses and Iset had stopped listening to petitions. Both of them were watching me. “What are you saying?” I grew flustered.
“I am saying that Queen Nefertiti never stopping praying to Amun. She was not a heretic, as Pharaoh Horemheb called her.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because I saw her shrines, and I watched your mother accompany the queen to the hidden temples of Tawaret. There was great danger in what your aunt was doing. If her husband had discovered it, he would have cast her off and taken Princess Kiya as Chief Wife instead.”
I was aware that even though we were speaking Canaanite, the entire chamber had become my audience. “You have been to the palace of Malkata three times,” I said angrily. “What is your purpose?”
“To remind you that your aunt suffered in the name of her gods. She wasn’t free to worship as she wished. Instead, she had to bow to Aten, and your mother—”
“My mother never bowed to Aten!”
“But there were times when she wondered if she should, when the pressure was so great she would have done anything to escape it. Your family suffered like the Habiru are suffering—”
“Pharaoh will not set the Habiru free!” I swore. “They are a part of his army.”
Ahmoses searched my face, to see if I might change my mind, and when he saw that I wouldn’t, he shook his head and turned away. I watched him make his way across the chamber. When he reached the guards, I heard myself exclaim, “Wait!”
He turned slowly to face me, and I stood from my throne.
“What are you doing?” Ramesses asked. But I walked beyond the viziers’ tables and met Ahmoses at the heavy bronze doors. The courtiers had stopped playing Senet to listen, but even if they could understand Canaanite, I lowered my voice so that only Ahmoses would hear. “Come again in Thoth,” I told him.
“Will the Habiru be set free with the next new year?”
I hesitated. Because Ramesses trusted me, it was possible that I could persuade him. But was I willing to risk the safety of Egypt because one Habiru had revealed to me the truth about my ancestors? “I . . . I don’t know. In eight months, a great deal can change.”
“You mean perhaps, by then, you will be queen?”
I felt the eyes of the entire court boring into my back and whispered, “Have you heard what the people are saying about my sons?”
Ahmoses didn’t flinch or look away. And he didn’t lie, as one of the courtiers might have. “Your mother was known for her honesty at court, and I believe the same of her daughter,” he said. “I have told the Habiru that Prince Amunher and Prince Prehir are royal sons.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “My husband thinks he can threaten gossip away. He swears that anyone speaking such things will be sent to the quarries, but you and I know . . . Will you tell the rest of the people?” I asked, and I was aware of how desperate I had become that I was asking a favor from a heretic. “Will you spread the word in eastern Thebes?” I repeated.
Ahmoses regarded me for a moment, and instead of naming a price, as I thought he might, simply nodded his assent.
LATER THAT evening, before Ramesses visited my chamber, I told Merit what had happened. “He told me she never worshipped Aten.”
Merit stood from the brazier where she was setting aloe wood to flame. Poorer households used cow dung and river reeds for their fires, but the scent of aloe has a calming effect, and through the open door to Merit’s chamber I could see that my sons were already asleep. Her brows drew together until they formed a dark line.
“Well, you were there!” I said passionately. “Is it true?”
Merit sat on the edge of the bed with me. “I saw her worship Aten, my lady.”
“Because she had to?”
Merit spread her palms. “Perhaps.”
“But did you see her go to other shrines as well? Did she secretly worship Tawaret, or Amun?”
“Yes, when it pleased her,” she admitted.
“And when was that?”
“When she wasn’t worshipping herself,” Merit said with brutal honesty.
It was as though a heavy stone had been lifted from my chest. Perhaps she had been selfish, and greedy, and vain. Perhaps these things all went against the laws of Ma’at. But there was nothing worse than heresy. And she had not been a heretic.
The door of my chamber opened. Ramesses came inside and Merit stood to bow. As soon as she left, I joined Ramesses on the long leather bench near the fire and told him what Ahmoses had said. For several moments he was silent, then he placed the scrolls he had brought with him on a low table next to the brazier, and said, “I knew that what they taught in the edduba wasn’t true. How could anyone related to you be a heretic, Nefer? Look at your mother; look at you!” His voice rose in excitement. “And what does Merit say?”
“The same as Ahmoses. She had seen my aunt worshipping at Tawaret’s shrine.” I held my breath, wondering if this was the moment he would decide to make me Chief Wife. If I could have silently willed the decision into his heart, I would have then.
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