The Heretic Queen

by Michelle Moran

  “Henuttawy’s heart will outweigh the feather,” I swore.

  Paser looked suddenly sad when he replied, “Yes. It probably will. Eat nothing that Merit hasn’t prepared for you, Nefertari.”

  Paser left me standing alone in the hall. I had birthed two sons, I had gone with Ramesses into battle against the Sherden, and I thought selfishly of how all of those triumphs would be forgotten now that Pharaoh Seti was dead. The words that the soldiers had chanted this very morning would become songs of mourning by tomorrow. In the nearby Temple of Amun, Henuttawy and Iset were already weeping false tears with the queen, tears for my truest protector at court. It was as if everything I touched turned into ash.

  That evening, dinner in the Great Hall was solemn, and Ramesses left his father’s chair empty on the dais. When Iset suggested that he take his place in it, he asked sharply, “Why?”

  The court knew enough to be silent after that.

  Later that night, in the privacy of my chamber, I bit my lip to keep from telling Ramesses what I’d heard. He sat on the gold and ebony bed I had slept in during every childhood summer in Avaris. Raised on a platform in the middle of the room, it overlooked the gardens that Seti had let grow untended. Layers of scum stretched unbroken over the pools, and I wondered if the fish had survived such neglect.

  “Have you seen my father’s stables?” he asked quietly. He didn’t want to speak about his father’s death. He will carry it with him like a heavy chain around a prisoner’s waist, I thought. “They are massive,” he said, though his voice was distant. “Five thousand warhorses in all.”

  I pressed the covers to my chest. Even the fires in the braziers did nothing to warm me. “That’s more than all of Thebes.”

  “And they are well kept,” he said, a flicker of life in his eyes. “He had weaponry for more than ten thousand men, and four thousand chariots are polished and ready. He was serious about war with the Hittites, Nefer.”

  “The Hittites have threatened war for generations—”

  “Not like this. Look around. Do you see the disrepair? All of the treasury’s gold has gone to preparation for this! Since the Hittite emperor conquered Mitanni, there remains no buffer between ourselves and Hatti. My father recognized how dangerous that was. He knew it was only a matter of time. Paser says that Muwatallis will move as soon as he hears of my father’s death.”

  “Another battle?” We had just returned from victory over the Sherden. There was a funeral to plan. Too much sorrow had fallen on us.

  Ramesses gazed into the brazier ruefully. “No, not another battle, Nefer. A war.”

  ON THE deck of Amun’s Blessing the next morning, Pharaoh Seti’s body was wrapped in linen and placed on a small dais surrounded by myrrh. His lips were curved in a gentle smile, released now from his watch on Egypt’s northern wall. In twenty days we would arrive in Thebes, and after seventy days of mummification, Seti would sleep in the tomb he had chosen, among Egypt’s greatest kings.

  Ramesses stood at the prow, and a single flag painted with an image of the mummified Osiris flapped solemnly in the breeze. Women lined the quay dressed in their long white robes of mourning. They floated lotus blossoms ahead of the ship and beat their chests with their hands so the gods would know of our plight. All along our passage south, I watched villagers and fishermen kneel on the shore in honor of their Pharaoh. If only they knew the truth of his passing, how many of them would be content to quietly bow and weep?

  When we reached the palace of Malkata, Woserit warned, “Do not let your sons from your sight. Not even to bathe.”

  “And Merit?”

  “You may tell her what you heard.” There were deep half-moons beneath Woserit’s eyes, and I wondered if Paser had comforted her through the nights the way I had tried to comfort Ramesses.

  Inside my chamber, Merit greeted me. I felt guilty over the pleasure I took in seeing my children while the rest of Egypt was in mourning. The milk nurses stood and watched as my sons raised their hands to me. “Look how they’ve grown!” I cried. We had been gone for a month, and my sons were nearly unrecognizable. They smiled when I called each of them by name, and I marveled at how clever they already were. “And their hair!” My sons’ heads were like crowns of the finest gold.

  “Like the king himself,” Merit replied, but as soon as she said his name, she thought of Seti’s death and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I was sorry to hear of Pharaoh, my lady.”

  “It happened as soon as we arrived in Avaris.”

  “We heard that the Sherden had been conquered, then news came that Pharaoh was ill, but no one could believe it. They said it was his heart—”

  “It was poison,” I said harshly.

  Merit covered her mouth. She waved the milk nurses back into their chamber, and when they had shut the doors, I told Merit the full story.

  “I can’t understand . . .” Merit cried. “What happened to his tasters?”

  “He dismissed almost all the palace servants,” I said. “To pay for war with the Hittites, and to buy armor from Crete.”

  Merit pressed her fingers to her lips. “Henuttawy has given up her ka to make Iset queen. She will come for you,” she said with certainty. “You must hire a taster of your own.”

  I recoiled from the idea, but Merit persisted.

  “Ramesses has tasters.”

  “Because he is Pharaoh.”

  “And you will be queen! If you use a taster, Henuttawy will know, and she will never risk poison. Think of your sons! What would become of them if something were to happen to you? Do you think that Iset would keep me in this palace to watch over them? I would be sent with Woserit to the farthest temple in Egypt, while they lay here, defenseless.”

  I felt my limbs grow cold. It was true. I looked at my children, beautiful princes of Egypt who might someday be kings. “Hire a taster,” I said.

  “And if Pharaoh asks?”

  “I will tell him . . .”

  “That you are afraid of Hittite spies?” Merit said helpfully.

  Henuttawy and Iset were liars. I didn’t want to lie to Ramesses as well. I should tell him the truth, I thought: that I am afraid his own aunt will kill me with a cup of wine or sip of shedeh.

  There was a knock at the door, and before Merit received it, she turned to me. “Another year, my lady . . . Do you think he will keep his promise?” she asked.

  I tried to ignore the hurt of Pharaoh Seti’s request. “He has never broken a promise,” I said.

  “Even when Pharaoh Ramesses knows he made it to honor a lie? The people in Thebes heard from the messengers what happened to the pirates. They are starting to call you the Warrior Queen. They are saying that you risked your life for Egypt.”

  But I repeated, “Ramesses has never broken a promise.”

  Her shoulders sagged and she answered the door. “Your Highness!” She was startled in the doorway, quickly straightening her wig. “You have never knocked before . . .”

  “I heard voices and thought Nefer might be telling you what happened in Avaris.” Ramesses entered my chamber and saw me with our sons. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “I am sorry for what happened to your father. He was like a father to my lady as well. Always kind, always gentle.”

  “Thank you, Merit. We will all be moving down to my father’s court at Avaris as soon as his funeral has been held.”

  “The entire palace?” she cried.

  “Even Tefer.” Ramesses looked down, and Tefer responded with a plaintive cry. The cat had been sleeping beneath our sons’ cradles and appeared in no hurry to abandon his post. “It will take seventy days to prepare my father’s body. But once he is buried in the Valley of the Sleeping Kings, the court will move with us to Pi-Ramesses.”

  I could already see Merit cataloguing the work that would have to be done. She excused herself with a bow, and Ramesses stood next to me.

  “My father loved you, Nefer.”

  “I’d like to believe that,” I said so
ftly.

  “You must believe that. I know you heard what he made me promise. He feared for my crown. He wanted to see you made queen, but someone misguided him.”

  “I don’t think he was misguided,” I said carefully. “I think he was lied to.”

  Ramesses watched me, and I wondered whether he was thinking of Iset and Henuttawy. I could not be the one to tell him the truth. It would have to be something he came to on his own. At last, his look of concentration faded, and he put his arm around my waist. “I will protect you. I will always protect you, Nefer.”

  I closed my eyes and prayed to Amun, Just let him discover whom to protect me from.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  IN THE VALLEY OF THE

  SLEEPING KINGS

  Thebes

  WHEN THE SEVENTY days of mummification were complete, Pharaoh Seti’s body was placed in a golden bark and carried on the shoulders of twenty priests into the Western Valley. Assuming that his heart was as light as Ma’at’s feather of truth and he was allowed to pass into the fields of Aaru, he would need this boat to travel with the sun on its daily journey around the world. Thousands of Thebans had crossed the River Nile to follow the winding funerary procession, and as the sun began to sink beneath the hills, the scent of sage baked all day by the sun was carried down on the cool evening wind. Adjo raised his muzzle to sniff at the air, and though I walked next to him with the rest of Seti’s closest family, the iwiw remained strangely subdued. I wonder if he knows that his mistress’s life has been changed forever? Now Tuya had become a Dowager Queen, and although she’d remain in Avaris when we arrived, she would probably retire to a quiet room in the palace, leaving the court’s politics and festivities to Ramesses. I had never seen her smile at children or laugh at their antics when they scampered through the halls. Some widows settled into contented lives as grandmothers, but I imagined Tuya’s days would be spent alone with Adjo, and that pampering him would become the sole purpose of her remaining years. She leaned heavily on Ramesses’s arm as she walked. In front of them the High Priest of Amun strode purposefully across the sands, following Penre and a small group of viziers whose job was to guide Seti’s golden bark to its rest.

  I looked behind us at the priestesses of Isis, and even from a distance I could see the red figure of Henuttawy. She had chosen to walk among her priestesses instead of accompanying her family at the front, and she took no pains to preserve a solemn silence.

  “She’s enjoying the attention,” I whispered harshly.

  “And Amun will punish her,” Merit vowed. “Her heart will tell its tale.”

  “When it’s too late, and she has destroyed everyone we love.” I thought of Amunher and Prehir, sleeping in the palace. I’d warned the milk nurses not to leave their side.

  Merit read my look and promised, “I trust them. They will not leave the chamber, or I would not have left it myself.” She looked beyond the dunes to where the hills rose steep and jagged in the fading light. “Do you think his tomb is far?”

  “Yes. I think it is high in the cliffs,” I said, then added bravely, “but there’s nothing to fear.”

  “Only jackals,” Merit whispered.

  “And the High Priest of Amun.” I glanced ahead at Rahotep, who lingered near Seti’s body like an animal hovering over one of its kills. With his hunched shoulders and his mirthless grin, he looked as remorseful as a hyena that has chased a lioness from her prey. This night belonged to him. He was the one leading the royal family into the Valley, and he would be the one to seal Seti in his innermost chamber, with everything Pharaoh would need in the Afterlife.

  I had last been inside a tomb for the burial of Princess Pili. I was six then, but I still remember the walls inside, covered with directions for navigating the Afterlife. Questions that the gods ask of the dead would be answered, so that when Seti’s ka traveled down the final corridors of this world, it would be able to memorize the answers for passage into the next. Assuming he was able to pass these tests, he would need everything he had once used in this life. This was why Seti would need a mask, so that his soul would have a face in the land of Aaru. Surrounding his sarcophagus would be hundreds of ushabti, small statues of servants that would come to life in the next world to toil for their master. And so that none of these important things were besmirched, servants would place pinches of salt in their lamps, preventing any black smoke from rising.

  I watched Iset and the High Priest of Amun—in profile they were the very image of two hyenas, sniffing about to see what they might scavenge. In the sharp light of sunset, with half of Rahotep’s frightening grin cast in shadow, I was suddenly struck by the resemblance between them. They walked side by side, and it seemed strange that I had missed how similar they were—not just in the animal grace of their movements, but in the way their noses grew straight and their cheekbones sat high on their narrow faces as they squinted into the sun’s last rays. Iset’s mother could have married whomever she wished . . . yet no one seemed to know who had fathered Iset. What if Rahotep’s interest in making Iset queen wasn’t solely out of hatred for my akhu? With Iset as Chief Wife, would he be grandfather to the future Pharaoh? The High Priest looked in my direction, and when Iset saw that I was watching them, she quickly moved from his side.

  I guarded my thoughts, for now we entered the Valley and the road narrowed. The thousands of mourners remained behind. Only the highest-ranking members of the court were allowed to know the location of Seti’s tomb. Everyone else would wait for our return, holding their oil lamps on the rim of the cliffs to light our way back to the river. The sun had already passed the horizon, and the deep burning color of the sky silhouetted the hills. Each night, the sun god would leave his position in the sky completely and pass through the Underworld to defeat the snake god of darkness, Apep. When the snake was crushed, Ra would emerge in the east, the revealer of all things, riding on his solar barge to bring light back to the earth. Pharaoh Seti would never see the sun again, and if the order of things could be so upset in Egypt, I wondered, why couldn’t it be upset in the Underworld, too? What if tonight Ra was overcome, and tomorrow there rose no more sun? I banished such thoughts, and reminded myself that the sun had always risen. Ra had always been victorious. Just as I will be.

  We began to climb the limestone cliffs, and even over the grunting of the priests who carried Seti’s barge on their backs, I could hear Iset’s breathing grow ragged. She was afraid of the darkness, and once, when a jackal sounded in the distance, she let out a frightened cry.

  “Anubis,” I said. “The jackal-headed god of death. Perhaps he’s coming for the guilty.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Rahotep said sharply.

  But I challenged the High Priest, “How do you know it’s not Anubis? Where else would he be if not in this Valley?”

  “Be silent!” Henuttawy snapped. Her voice echoed over the cliffs, and from the front of the procession, near the sarcophagus, Ramesses turned to see the cause of the commotion. Henuttawy lowered her voice. “Be silent,” she threatened.

  “Does the idea of Anubis stalking through these hills frighten you? I’m not afraid of death. When he comes for me, there is nothing I have to hide.”

  Behind me, Merit sucked in her breath.

  Henuttawy hissed, “Have respect for the dead.”

  “By dancing and gossiping?”

  We reached the mouth of the tomb, and Ramesses dropped back to walk at my side. “What is this whispering?”

  “Henuttawy has said she wants to lead us into the tomb,” I invented. “She wants to be the first to see her brother’s sarcophagus placed inside its burial chamber.”

  Ramesses looked at Henuttawy. Even in the low light of the flickering torches I could see that she had lost the color in her cheeks. “That’s very loyal,” he said. “You may go after Penre. He will show you the way.”

  Henuttawy turned her dark eyes on me, but she didn’t argue. She raised her chin and stepped after Penre, leading the procession into
total darkness. Woserit dug her nails into my arm, warning me to be careful. But what was there to lose? Important courtiers followed after us, and armed guards stood watch at the mouth of the chamber to see that no one else was let inside. We descended the stairs into the belly of the earth, taking care not to touch the walls where images of Seti’s life had been painted. Penre had told us that there was no other tomb in Egypt as long or deep as this, and when the air grew dank, I wrapped my cloak tighter around my waist. We moved through the first and second corridors by torchlight, and when we reached a four-pillared hall, the procession paused. I marveled at the shrine to Osiris and the scenes from the Book of Gates. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, and Ramesses held my shoulder. “Your father would be proud.”

  “Doesn’t this frighten you?” Iset whispered. Ramesses let go of my shoulder and took Iset’s arm. “As a child, I watched my father build this tomb,” he said. We moved into another passage, deeper still. When the High Priest removed the ebony adze that hung from his neck, to begin the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony, Iset began to shake. The ceremony would give Seti his breath in the Afterlife. Rahotep placed the adze against Seti’s mouth, and I watched as Henuttawy stood as still as a figure carved in stone. After all, what words might Seti say if he again drew earthly breath?

  “Awake!” The High Priest’s voice resounded in the chamber. Queen Tuya stifled a sob. Ramesses held her while I stood close to Merit. “May you be alive and breathing as a living one, healthy and rejuvenated every day. May the gods protect you where you are now, giving you food to eat and fresh water to drink. If there are any words you wish to say, speak them now, that all of Egypt may hear.”

  The viziers shifted uncomfortably with their torches, and the courtiers held their breath to listen. When there was silence, I imagined that I saw Henuttawy smile thinly at Iset. Then the sarcophagus was lifted through the narrow corridor into its final chamber. The small party turned to Henuttawy, who would be the first to kiss the Canopic jars and see the sarcophagus lowered into the black void of the shaft below. We watched her step forward. Then she knelt in the dirt and quickly kissed the jars that would carry Seti’s poisoned organs into the Afterlife.