The Heretic Queen (9 page)

"I know you are small, but I'd rather not walk over you, Nefertari." Iset swept past me with her arms full of sheaths and before I could reply, I saw my mother's wooden
naos.
The gold and ebony figure of Mut had been taken from the shrine in order to move it, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw that the statue had been broken in two.

"You broke my mother's statue?" I shrieked, and the commotion in the room came to a second complete halt. I leaned over the goddess my mother had prayed to as a little girl and gathered her in my arms. Her feline head had been separated from her torso, but it might as well have been my body that had been broken.

"I didn't break it," Iset said quickly. "I've never touched it."

"Then who did?" I shouted.

"Maybe one of the servants. Or Woserit," she said quickly. "She was here." Iset looked over her shoulder at the other women, and their faces were full of fear.

"I want to know who did this!" Merit said with soft menace in her voice, and Iset stepped back, afraid. "Woserit would never have touched my lady's shrine! Did you break this image of the goddess?"

Iset gathered herself. "Do you have any idea whom you are speaking to?"

"I have a very good idea who I am speaking to!" Merit replied, rage shaking her small, fierce body. "The granddaughter of a harem wife."

Color flooded Iset's cheeks.

Merit turned away. "Come!" she said sharply to me. In the hall, she took the broken statue from my hands. "Nothing good will come to that scorpion. Don't worry about your shrine, my lady. I will have the court sculptor fix it for you."

But, of course, I couldn't stop worrying. Not just about my mother's shrine, which was dearer to me than anything I owned, but about Woserit's warning, too. Her words echoed in my head like the chants we sang in the Temple of Amun. Already, life was changing for me, and not for the better. I followed Merit's angry footfalls to my new room on the other side of the courtyard. When we arrived, she pushed open the heavy wooden doors and made an oddly satisfied noise in her throat. "Your new chamber," she said.

Inside, the windows swept from ceiling to floor, overlooking the western hills of Thebes. I could see that Tefer had already found his place on the balcony, crouched as proud and confident as a leopard. Everything about the chamber was magnificent, from the tiled balcony to the silver and ivory inlay that shone from the paintings of Hathor on the walls. I turned to Merit in shock. "But this is Woserit's room!"

"She gave it up for you this morning while you were in the edduba," she replied.

So Woserit already knew that Iset had taken my chamber when she had spoken to me. "But where will she stay when she comes to the palace?"

"She will take a guest room," Merit replied, then regarded me curiously. "She obviously has an interest in you." When I didn't respond, she asked temptingly, "Do you want to see the robing room?"

In most chambers, the robing room is very small, with only enough space for three or four chests and perhaps a table with clay heads for keeping wigs shapely. In my old chamber, the space could barely fit a bronze mirror. But Woserit's robing room was nearly as large as her bedchamber itself, with a limestone shower as well, where water poured down from silver bowls. Merit had arranged my makeup chest near a window that looked out over the gardens. I opened the drawers to see my belongings in their new home. There were my brushes and kohl pots, razors and combs. Even my mother's mirror, in the shape of an ankh with a smooth faience handle, had been carefully laid out.

"If the High Priestess hadn't given me her chamber," I asked, "where would I have gone?"

"To another chamber in the royal courtyard," Merit said. "You will always remain in the royal courtyard, my lady. You are a
princess.
"

A princess of another court,
I thought bitterly, as a soft body rubbed against my calf.

"You see?" Merit added with forced cheerfulness. "Tefer approves of his new home."

"And you'll still be next door to me in the nurse's quarters?" I looked across the room, and near the foot of the bed I saw the wooden door, that for royalty meant that aid was only a softly spoken word away.

"Of course, my lady."

That evening, I climbed into my bed with Tefer while Merit swept a critical eye over the chamber. Everything was in place. My alabaster jars in the shape of sleeping cats were arranged on the windowsills, and the carnelian belt I would wear the following day had been laid out neatly with my dress. All of my boxes and chests had arrived, but my shrine was missing. And tonight Iset would be sleeping beneath the mosaic of Mut that my mother had commissioned.

I AWOKE in Woserit's chamber before even the earliest light had filtered through the reed mats.

"Tefer?" I whispered.
"Tefer?"

But Tefer had disappeared, probably to hunt mice or beg food from the kitchens. I sat up in the same bed I had slept in as a child, then kindled an oil lamp lying by the brazier. A breath upon the embers, and then light flickered over unfamiliar walls. Above the door was the image of the mother-goddess Hathor in the form of a blue and yellow cow, a rising sun resting between her horns. Beneath the windows, fish leaped across blue and white tiles, their scales inlaid with mother-of-pearl. And near the balcony Hathor had been depicted as a woman wearing her sacred
menat,
a beaded necklace with an amulet that could protect the wearer from charms. I thought of the painting of my mother in my old chamber and imagined her confusion at seeing Iset beneath her instead of me. I knew that a painting was nothing more than ochre and ink, not like an image in a mortuary temple to which the
ka
returns every Feast of Wag. Still, my mother's image had watched over me for more than thirteen years, and now, across the courtyard, Iset was in that room preparing for her marriage. I glanced at the corner where my mother's
naos
should have been and anger blurred my vision. Woserit had warned me. She had said that Iset would try to drive me from Thebes.

My feet felt their way uncertainly through the gloom, as my lamp brought color to the robing chamber ahead. I sat at my makeup chest, taking out a pellet of incense and rubbing it under my arms. I tied back my hair and leaned close to the polished bronze. Woserit believed I could challenge Iset, but what about me could ever compare with Iset's beauty? I studied my reflection, turning my face this way and that. There was the smile. My lips curved like an archer's bow, so that I always appeared to be grinning. And there were my eyes. The green of shallow waters touched by the sun.

"My lady?" I heard Merit open my chamber door, and then when she saw that my bed was empty, the heavy pad of her feet into the robing room. "My lady, what are you doing awake?"

I turned from the mirror and felt fierce determination. "I want you to make me as beautiful as Isis today."

Merit stepped back, then a slow smile spread across her face.

"I want you to bring my most expensive sandals," I said hotly, "and dust my eyes with every fleck of gold you can find in the palace."

Merit smiled fully. "Of course, my lady."

"And bring me my mother's favorite collar. The one worth a hundred deben in gold."

I sat before the mirror and inhaled slowly to calm myself. When Merit returned with my mother's jewels, she placed a bowl of figs on my table. "I want you to eat, and I don't mean picking at the food like an egret." She bustled around me, collecting combs and beads for my hair.

"What will happen today?" I asked.

Merit sat on the stool next to me and placed my foot in her lap, rolling cream over my ankle and calf. "First, Pharaoh Ramesses will sail to the Temple of Amun, where the High Priest will anoint that scorpion in marriage. Then there will be a feast."

"And Iset?" I demanded.

"She will be a princess of Egypt and spend her time in the Audience Chamber, helping Pharaoh Ramesses rule. Think of all the petitions he must stamp. Pharaoh's viziers oversee thousands of requests, and the hundreds that they approve must go to Pharaoh for final consent. Pharaoh Seti and Queen Tuya aid him already; he can't do it alone."

"So now Iset will render judgment?" I thought of Iset's hatred for learning. She would rather be at the baths gossiping than translating cuneiform. "Do you think that Ramesses will make her Chief Wife?"

"Let us hope our new Pharaoh has more sense than that." In the cool hours of morning, she stiffened my wig with beeswax and resin, then replaced the beads that had broken in storage. She spent a great deal of time with my kohl, mixing it with palm oil until it was perfectly smooth, then applying it to my eyelids with the thinnest brush I had ever seen. When she turned me around to face the mirror, I inhaled. For the very first time, I looked older than my thirteen years. My face was too small for the wide sweeps of kohl that women like Iset and Henuttawy used, but the fine black lines Merit had extended from the inside of my eyelids to my temples were incredibly flattering. The carnelian beads she'd braided into my wig matched the large carnelian stones of my scarab belt. And the pinch of precious gold dust that she had blown onto the wet kohl highlighted the filigree of my sandals.

I turned to face Merit, and she fastened my mother's jewels around my neck, then let the hair of my wig fall into place.

"You are as beautiful as Isis," she murmured. "But only if you sit like a lady. There will be no running around with Pharaoh Ramesses today. This is a marriage, and princes from Babylon to Punt will bear witness if you are acting like a child."

I nodded firmly. "There will be no running."

Merit scrutinized me. "No matter what Pharaoh wants. He is King of Egypt now and must behave like one."

I imagined Iset in my chamber, and all of the things she would do with Ramesses under the painting of my mother come nightfall. "I promise."

Merit led our path through the crowded halls of the palace. Outside, beyond the linen pavilion, hundreds of courtiers had gathered near the quay where the ships would set sail for the Temple of Amun. Neither Ramesses nor Iset had arrived, and Merit raised a sunshade above our heads to protect us from the rising heat. I couldn't see any of the students from the edduba, but Asha spotted me from across the courtyard and called out, startled, "Nefer!"

"Remember what I told you," Merit said severely.

As Asha approached me, his eyes widened. He took in my wide, carnelian belt and the gold that glittered above my eyes. "You're
beautiful,
Nefer," he said.

"
I
haven't changed," I said heatedly, and Asha stepped back, surprised by my seriousness. "It's everyone else!"

"You mean your chamber." Asha glanced at Merit, who pretended not to be listening. "Yes. And she did it out of spite." Asha lowered his voice. "She may be all sweetness and perfume with Ramesses, but we know the truth. I can tell him--"

"No," I said at once. "He'll think that you're being petty and jealous."

Trumpets echoed from the quayside, and Iset emerged from the palace, answering their call. I knew that once she reached the quay, she would sail alone to the Temple of Amun on the eastern bank. Ramesses would ride in a vessel behind her, and the court would follow them in boats decorated with silver pennants and gold. Once the High Priest anointed Iset a princess, she would return with Ramesses in his boat, wearing his family ring to signify their union. Then Ramesses would carry her onto the quay and over the threshold of the palace they would come to rule. They would only emerge later that night for the feast. It was his carrying her across the threshold of Malkata that would bind their marriage. Nothing the priests did in the temple could make them married in the eyes of Amun unless he chose to carry her inside, and for a wild moment I imagined that he might refuse. He might realize that Iset was not the rose she pretended to be, but a tangle of thorns, and he would change his mind.

But, of course, this did not happen. Instead, we sailed in a long flotilla of boats down the river, and all along the shore the people began chanting Iset's name. The women raised ivory clappers above their heads, and those who couldn't afford such luxuries used their hands as they shouted for their queen. It was as though a goddess had descended to earth. Children floated lotus blossoms on the water, and little girls who caught sight of her face wept with excited joy. When we reached the temple, Ramesses took Iset as his wife, and they returned to the cheers of a thousand guests. Then he took her up in his arms, and they disappeared together into the palace.