The Heretic Queen (32 page)

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.