The Heretic Queen

by Michelle Moran

  The generals returned to their fires, and the young scout was given two gold deben for his trouble. But in my pavilion, Ramesses couldn’t sleep. I kissed his shoulders, then his chest, but I could see that he was in no mood for me to undress him.

  “If the Hittites have truly left,” he said, “we can take Kadesh tomorrow evening before the Hittite army has a chance to return. We can shut the gates and defend the city from within. You will remain on this hill with the provisions. I have given the Master of the Guards, Ibenre, instructions that only you may move this camp. If a division that doesn’t carry a banner of Amun, Ra, Ptah, or Set approaches this hill, I want you to leave for the south, for the city of Damascus.”

  I placed my fingers on my lower lip, and gently, Ramesses brushed them away.

  “There is nothing to fear. The gods are watching, and we shall be victorious.”

  THERE WAS whispering outside my pavilion. A dark shape moved against the moonlight, and Ramesses sat up with his hand on his sword.

  “Your Highness!”

  “It’s General Anhuri,” I said. I felt a selfish pleasure that he had known to look for Ramesses with me. Ramesses rushed to the opening and pulled aside the linen. Next to his guards, the general stood with Kofu and two bound prisoners.

  “Two Hittite soldiers, Your Highness,” said Anhuri. “Found lurking in the hills beneath the camp.”

  I dressed myself quickly and joined Ramesses outside. The spies had been bound with rope, and a large gash cut the taller man’s cheek. Both wore the long kilts of the Hittites, with their hair braided away from their faces.

  “What story have they given you?” Ramesses demanded.

  “They speak little Egyptian,” Kofu replied. “But the taller one says they deserted the army.”

  “What are your names?”

  “They call themselves Anittas and Teshub.” Anhuri raised his brows. “Whether those are their real names is anyone’s guess.”

  Ramesses peered down into the faces of his captives, and even the tallest one only came to his chest. “Why would you leave Emperor Muwatallis?”

  Both men shook with fear, but it was Teshub, the fatter one, who replied, “We understand very little Egyptian.”

  “Then you may use the little Egyptian you have,” Ramesses roared, “and explain yourselves to me, or you will be explaining yourselves to Osiris!”

  Teshub glanced in my direction, and his gaze lingered on me. “We left the army of Emperor Muwatallis,” he said quickly. “We did not want to fight for such a coward.”

  Anhuri prodded the fat man with the edge of his sword. “What do you mean coward?”

  “Emperor Muwatallis has fled!” Teshub said. “He heard that the great Pharaoh Ramesses was coming with an army that could fill the horizon!”

  Ramesses looked at me, then at his generals. A wide grin spread across his face, and he stepped closer to the deserters. “Muwatallis heard that I was coming and fled? In which direction?” he asked eagerly.

  Teshub pointed to the north.

  “Aleppo?” Kofu demanded.

  “Yes.” Teshub nodded swiftly. “To find more soldiers.”

  Ramesses’s eyes glowed. “We will take Kadesh tomorrow!” he vowed. “I will lead Amun’s army north to the city before Muwatallis brings reinforcements. Instruct my men to get up. They are done sleeping tonight.”

  “And the other divisions?” Kofu asked.

  “They shall follow at first light.”

  Even before the gray of dawn brightened the sky, the division of Amun assembled on the hill. They would reach the gates of Kadesh before nightfall, and I wondered how long it would be before the Hittite army returned. In the privacy of my pavilion, Ramesses encircled my waist with his arms. They had been bronzed by the harsh summer’s sun and were corded with muscle from his years of training. I felt them tighten protectively around me and wished they would never let go. But he still had to make his farewell to Iset, and to Merit, who was dressing our sons.

  “Capturing the governor will be quick,” he said eagerly. “When Muwatallis returns, he will see that Kadesh has been retaken. Then Asha and the fifth division will appear! It’s over for him.”

  “And what will stop him from taking this hill?”

  “Because Muwatallis has fled north, Nefer! He will have to get by us first. You are well protected here.”

  WE WATCHED the Amun soldiers move out, and by afternoon, the men had disappeared and all we could see was a dusty marching column in the distance. Merit held tightly to Prehir, wiping away his tears as he gestured toward the horizon. But Amunher squirmed in my arms, feistier than his brother, and he didn’t shed any tears.

  “He would crawl after Pharaoh if he could,” Merit remarked.

  “He will be a little warrior. Won’t you, Amunher?”

  “ He will be a crown prince,” Merit said firmly. “As soon as this year has passed.”

  “Rahotep would sooner give up his leopard robes and go naked than crown Amunher.”

  “Then I hope he enjoys the cold,” Merit snapped.

  We both looked to the tent where armed soldiers guarded the Hittite deserters. Even from the edge of the hill, I could hear the two men arguing inside. One of the guards called to me, “They are speaking in tongues, Princess. Their captivity has made them lose their minds.”

  I listened, then quickly handed Amunher to Merit and moved closer to the tent. One of the guards opened his mouth, but I shook

  my head fiercely, putting my fingers to my lips. When I had heard enough, I stepped back. “They are speaking in Shasu. And they’re fretting about what Egypt will do to spies!”

  There was silence inside the tent. The guards looked at me with terror as I shouted for someone to bring General Anhuri. The cry of spies echoed over the hill, and even Iset emerged from her pavilion where she had spent the day chastising Ramessu.

  When General Anhuri came running, he had his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “They are spies!” I said. “These men are not Hittite deserters! They were speaking Shasu!” My voice rose with terror. “They were arguing over what will happen to them once Ramesses discovers the Hittite army hiding behind the hills of Kadesh!”

  General Anhuri and his bodyguard entered the tent, armed with canes. I winced at the sounds of the men being beaten within. The nearby soldiers had heard what I was saying, and news was already spreading among the ranks that Pharaoh was marching into a trap. The division of Ra was already mobilized, and the men of the other divisions took up their spears, and axes, and shields. When Anhuri emerged from the prisoners’ tent, fresh blood stained his kilt. His grim nod confirmed what I had feared. “The three divisions are moving!” he shouted. “The princess Nefertari is placed in charge of the supplies and the three hundred guards who will be left behind.”

  MERIT AND I watched from the top of the hill as three divisions disappeared down the slope into the valley below. They wouldn’t reach Kadesh until morning, and although there were hundreds of guards to keep watch, that evening I refused to sleep. “I want to wait here and see it,” I told Merit.

  “See what?” she cried, shivering in her cloak.

  “I want to see Amun’s pennant flying triumphantly from the city’s walls,” I said stubbornly.

  But even in the gilded light of the moon, it was difficult to make out what was happening below. Campfires blazed before the walls of Kadesh, and though I knew that three divisions were making their way toward Ramesses, only their torches were visible from above. I listened to the night sounds of crickets, and sometimes I could make out small animals scampering through the brush, but it wasn’t until the sun rose that I could clearly see what was happening. And then I covered my mouth in shock.

  When Merit joined me at the rim of the hill, she followed my gaze into the distance and saw for herself what I had been watching since dawn. Although Amun’s division had taken Kadesh, the heavy walls of the city had been breached. Columns of our troops trod the northern road to
ward the city, still short of the river. Then she saw the encircling wings of Hittite troops coming toward us, only a single day’s march away, and panicked. “They’re coming! The Hittite army is coming!”

  Her sharp cry summoned women from their tents, and when Iset saw how close the Hittites were, her voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “We must leave! We must leave now before they reach us and murder us all!”

  But I knew that Ramesses would fight back. Three divisions had come to his aid, and surely Asha would arrive by river at the head of the fifth division to crush the soldiers now marching toward us. If we fled now . . .

  A boy clambered up the hill into our field of vision, wearing the kilt of a messenger. Ibenre took his news.

  “What is it?” I asked swiftly.

  Ibenre’s look was grave. “The division of Ra has been ambushed. At least two thousand soldiers have been killed.”

  “We must go!” Iset pleaded. “We must go before they kill us all!” She turned to run back to her pavilion, but Ibenre put out a hand to stop her.

  “If you leave alone, you will be captured. We go when Princess Nefertari says we go.”

  “But look!” Iset pointed wildly to the plains below.

  “Those columns are still a distance away,” I told her. “Once we leave for Damascus we can’t turn around. It’s a two-day journey.” I saw Iset blanch, and I added calmly, “Asha may yet come. We cannot abandon Ramesses here, his supply lines cut and surrounded.”

  We waited as the sun rose higher in the sky, hoping to see Ramesses’s victory banner flying alongside the 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! Please.”

  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

  Damascus

  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 truce?” he demanded. “What are you saying?”

  “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 Warrior Queen, my lady. Even the Hittites know your name!”

  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 third of the army has been killed?”

  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 nemes crown so that his hair streamed loose behind him. He climbed the stairs to the Window of Appearances, and though Iset held back, the guards parted for me and I rushed into his arms.

  “Nefertari!” he exclaimed. “Oh, Nefertari.”

  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 promi
sed 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 trusted me to lead them.”

  “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 every soldier until the entire army had passed and they realized their children weren’t coming home. His pride had done this. His rashness. His belief that the gods were with him and that Sekhmet would prevail over reason. That a divided army could confront the Hittite power. He should have waited for the rest of his army to take Kadesh. But how could I tell him this? I looked at Ramesses in his short white kilt and golden pectoral, and even in his nemes crown he looked like a frightened child, like the one who had begged Amun for Pili’s life in the temple. I repeated, “You couldn’t have known.”

  “What would have happened if you didn’t speak Shasu? What would have happened if the Ne’arin hadn’t come to our rescue after six thousand Egyptians already lay dead?”