CHAPTER TEN

A PHARAOH’S MARRIAGE BEGINS ON THE WATER

  IN THE GREAT Hall that evening, the whole court appeared to see the worm that had turned into a butterfly. Everyone was eager to see the niece of the Heretic Queen, whom Ramesses was going to take to wife.

At the long, polished table on the dais, a servant led me to my seat between Ramesses and Woserit, while Iset had been placed at the side of Queen Tuya. I felt sorry for Iset, who didn’t have the sense to laugh and pretend to be joyful. Though she should have felt triumphant in knowing that she was carrying Ramesses’s first child, her face was as sour as a tamarind. I wondered if it was because he had not turned out to be the husband she’d imagined. I knew she enjoyed the exquisite jewels and fur-lined cloaks, but what did she and Ramesses have in common? But if Iset appeared dark and glowering, then across from her, Henuttawy was at her best. The viziers were laughing at her jokes, and when she saw me, she announced brightly to the table, “The butterfly emerges.”

But Ramesses heard the edge in her voice. “She is like a butterfly,” he said. “Hidden away for a year, and emerging more beautiful and talented than ever.”

“When she told me she was not going to become a priestess of Hathor, I was worried she would not find a place in Thebes.” Woserit turned to her sister. “But it seems that she has found a place on the highest step of all.”

Henuttawy’s smile vanished, and Rahotep’s face looked immensely pained.

“Come,” Woserit said cheerfully, “let us raise our cups.” She lifted her wine and the rest of the table did the same. “To the princess Nefertari,” she said.

“To the princess,” Vizier Anemro repeated, though I wondered which princess he meant.

“And let us all hope that the curse of the Heretic King does not run in her veins.”

Henuttawy had gone too far. Pharaoh Seti clenched his cup in his hand. “Nefertari is no more of a heretic than you are. I trust that she will make good decisions in the Audience Chamber. She may not be popular yet, but she’s certainly no fool.”

Everyone at the table knew who he meant, but no one dared to look in Iset’s direction.

Queen Tuya shook her head, and Ramesses added indignantly, “She’s also my wife.” But Pharaoh Seti remained silent, and soon steaming bowls of roasted duck were brought from the kitchens.

Ramesses turned to me. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

I smiled the way Woserit had taught me to smile in the face of disappointment. “I believe the court is waiting for your blessing.”

Ramesses looked to his father, who nodded, then stood from his throne while the room fell silent. “We dedicate this feast to Pharaoh Seti the Great, beloved of Amun and Reconquerer of a dozen lands.” A loud cheer went up in the hall and Ramesses proclaimed, “May the gods watch over your journey to Avaris, and may they watch over the joyous union tomorrow that shall precede it.”

The court’s cheers reverberated beneath the columns, because it would have been foolish to do otherwise. But I wondered how many of them were like the High Priest of Amun, who had fathers and grandfathers murdered by Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

As the cheers still echoed, Seti leaned over and whispered to me, “I am allowing you to put yourself in danger at this court. But there is no one else in the kingdom of Egypt I would rather see on the throne with my son than you. . . . Did you know that if Pili was alive, this would have been the year of her marriage as well? You would have been like two sisters in your bridal boats.” He patted my hand, and I saw in that moment why his care for me had always been so tender.

I took my free hand and placed it over Pharaoh’s. “Thank you,” I told him. “I will try never to disappoint you.”

He smiled, but not at me. His look was far away, and only later would I understand how a son’s marriage can be both happy and sad. Of course, a father is hopeful for all of the events in the future, but he is also reminded of the family members who are not there to celebrate with him. And when a son begins producing heirs, spinning Khnum’s potter wheel of creation faster and faster, he must begin to imagine his own potter’s wheel slowing down. But I was too young to understand this then.

IN THE tiled hall outside my chamber, Asha was waiting. His arms were folded over his chest, and in the light of the torches, I searched his face to see if he was angry. As soon as he saw us, he straightened, and Woserit was discreet enough to join Merit inside my room.

“Asha,” I said cautiously. “I’m sorry I missed you in the Great Hall tonight.”

“You were surrounded by courtiers. I’ll have to grow used to that now.” I felt as though a heavy stone had been lifted from my chest, and when he stepped forward to embrace me, I did the same. “I’m very happy for you,” he said.

“But you told me—”

He nodded. “That was before I knew how much Ramesses needed you.”

I flinched at the word. Did he need me, or love me?

“But I still think you’ve chosen a dangerous road. Tomorrow, Pharaoh wants you to meet the people. He wants Ramesses to see their reaction before he makes a choice about Chief Wife. There are many other women in the harem.”

“If you have come here to insult me—”

Asha grabbed my arm. “Nefertari, I’m only trying to tell you the truth. Pharaoh Seti and Ramesses live their lives sheltered inside this palace. I see the people on the streets. I hear what they say, and you need to be careful tomorrow.”

I saw the concern in his eyes and nodded. “We will take guards,” I assured him.

“Make sure there are enough. At least two dozen, no matter what Ramesses says.”

“Do you think they’ll be that angry?” I whispered.

“I don’t know. There are many people who still remember . . .” But he didn’t finish. “This will be the fourth year that the Nile has been low, and there’s talk that in the poorer sections of Thebes people are already starving. If the river doesn’t flood its banks by the end of this month, famine will spread, and the people will want someone to blame.”

I felt the color drain from my face. “Not me?”

“Just be prepared.”

“I will,” I promised. We parted and I entered my chamber. In the light of the brazier, Woserit’s face appeared sharp and beautiful.

“How is Asha?”

“Concerned about what might happen tomorrow,” I told her.

“Then he’s a good friend to have. I will not always be in the palace to help you, Nefertari, so you must learn to recognize who can be trusted and who cannot. Once you marry Ramesses, there is no one in Malkata who will tell you the truth.”

“Merit,” I protested.

“Yes, Merit. She will be able to hear the whispers in the halls of the palace, but who will tell you about the conspiracies closer to your throne? Those conspiracies inside the Audience Chamber?”

I thought of Seti’s words about the dangerous road I had chosen. “On the evenings that Ramesses is with Iset,” she suggested, “meet Paser in his chamber. You may trust him to tell you what is truly happening in Thebes. And whenever I can, I will be there as well.” The flames of the brazier illuminated the paintings in her old room, and as I stood there in her rich cloak, I wondered again why Woserit was doing so much for me. She reached into her linen belt and produced a small statue of Hathor. “For tonight. Place it under your pillow and she will bring you fertility.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. I brushed the goddess’s face with my thumb. She had been carved from ebony and wore the tall modius headdress that Woserit did, with its small horns and sun disc.

“All will be well tomorrow,” she promised. “Be strong of heart.” Woserit embraced me, and as the door clicked shut behind her, Merit burst from her chamber next to mine.

“Have you decided which oil you want for your hair?”

I shook my head.

“Then what cream shall we use?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, hurry, my lady! Pharaoh is coming!”

Inside the robing room, I slipped from my sheath, and Merit filled the basin with hot water. “What’s the matter, my lady? Tomorrow you marry and it will be done!” She tested the surface with her hand, and beckoned me in.

“Asha just told me I should be prepared for anything,” I confided. Rainbows swirled over the surface of the water as light from the lamps filtered onto my bath. As I stepped into the tub, I could smell the lotus oil that Merit had added to keep my skin smooth.

“And what is anything?” Merit scrubbed at my hair.

“This is the fourth year the Nile has been low . . . what if they blame me?”

“Why would you say such a thing? You are a princess of Egypt, not some all-powerful goddess. I’m sure the people know the difference.”

When my bath was finished, Merit dried my legs and handed me a fresh sheath. I sat before the mirror, studying my reflection while she combed my hair. I opened the lowest drawer of my chest and took out the cream Merit had gone to the farthest market in Thebes to purchase. I rubbed it over my arms, then down my legs.

There was a knock at the door. Merit’s chin wobbled furiously. “Hurry!”

I rushed to prop myself up against the pillows, allowing my hair to spill onto the white linen, and when Merit opened the door I held my breath just in case it was a dream.

But she bowed very low. “Your Highness.”

“Nurse Merit,” Ramesses said in greeting.

“The princess Nefertari is waiting for you.” She gestured toward me on the bed, and when she reached the door to her chamber, said loudly. “Good night, my lady.”

When the door swung shut, Ramesses looked at me, and both of us laughed. “She’ll be waiting on the other side of the door all night,” I whispered.

“As a good nurse should,” he teased. “In case you should scream and want to run away.” He approached the bed, and I slipped the nemes crown from his brow, running my fingers through his hair. “As you did once before,” Ramesses said quietly.

The pain in his eyes wrenched at my heart. “But now I am here,” I promised, and let the sheath I was wearing fall from one of my shoulders. “Here with you for eternity.”

“And this time I won’t let you run away.”

WHEN RAMESSES and I emerged from his chamber the next morning, we walked together to the lakeside, and the cheers from the courtiers who were waiting for our arrival must have reached the ears of the gods themselves. Ramesses took my hand in his, and the viziers of Seti’s court surrounded us, talking and smiling as though they had supported my marriage all along. Although Iset had claimed an indisposition and remained inside Malkata, the rest of the court was in attendance. Even Queen Tuya spared a smile for me. Her iwiw bared his fangs, and a low growl rumbled in his skinny throat.

“Hello, Adjo,” I said cheerfully.

I smiled at the thought that I might never have to see him again. Tonight, there would be a feast of both celebration and farewell, and tomorrow Pharaoh Seti would sail with his half of the royal court to the palace in Avaris. Ramesses had been fully trained in the Audience Chamber; now he would rule Upper Egypt on his own. His father, in his advancing age, would reign in the capital of Lower Egypt, where less would be required of him. This move had been planned for many years, yet even though Ramesses had always known it was coming, I saw his lips turn down in sorrow when he gazed across the lake. The eastern horizon was obscured by his father’s towering ships. They floated like pregnant herons on the water, their decks filled with some of the most valuable treasures in Thebes: ebony statues and granite tables, rare sedan chairs with wide lion’s-paw feet. While some kings were content to remain in the same city as their coregents, governing from the very same Audience Chamber, Pharaoh Seti now wanted a simpler life. Once he reached Avaris, there would not be so many petitioners, and in his summer palace closer to the sea, there would never be the kind of heat that sucked the life from the air as it did nearly every month in Thebes.

The court had assembled itself on the quay, while a small golden vessel was rowed to the shore. It would fit only three people: myself, Merit, and a ferryman. Once Pharaoh Seti gave his permission, we would be rowed the short distance to the Temple of Karnak. Behind us, Ramesses would sail in his own golden bark, accompanied by his parents and rowed by a single soldier from Pharaoh’s army: Asha. Behind them the court would follow in a flotilla of brightly painted boats. When I asked Merit once why a Pharaoh’s marriage begins on the water instead of the land, she told me that it was because Egypt had been born from the Watery Waste of Nun, and if such a fertile land could be birthed from the water, a fertile marriage would as well.

I stood on the quayside, separated from Ramesses by hundreds of courtiers in their whitest linens and finest gold, waiting for Pharaoh Seti to give his blessing. When the piercing sounds of several trumpets blared, Pharaoh Seti said something I couldn’t hear. But he must have given his blessing to set sail, for Merit took my arm and led me to the boat, helping me inside and arranging my cloak so that it fanned out around my legs like a lotus blossom. She seated herself next to me, as straight and serious as Paser. When I opened my mouth to speak, she shook her head firmly. I was meant to be a silent bride, timorously approaching my fate, even though inside my heart was soaring. I knew that I shouldn’t turn around. I didn’t want to appear like a goose craning its neck to see what was happening in every direction, so I looked ahead as our boat left the lake in front of the palace, and entered the main current of the River Nile itself. Thousands of people stood on the banks, crushed together to see the spectacle of the court sailing beneath Pharaoh’s golden pennants. They had chanted eagerly for Iset when she had been married, yet now there was silence.

I glanced at Merit, and she returned my uneasy gaze. It was as if someone had taken a heavy sheet of linen and draped it across the people on the shore. Only the muffled sound of children crying reached us on the river, and Merit turned her sharp eyes on the ferryman.

“What is the talk in Thebes?” she demanded.

“In Thebes?” he repeated.

“Yes! What are they saying about her? She already knows she’s the Heretic’s niece. There’s nothing you can say that will shock her. Just tell us the truth so we can be prepared.”

The man looked at me, and his face was sorrowful. “Since Pharaoh Ramesses announced his intention to marry the princess yesterday, my lady, there is talk that she may be the reason for the famine all of these years.” The ferryman’s voice shook. “They think she has brought bad luck to the city. Her akhu angered the gods so deeply that once Pharaoh makes her his wife, they will turn away from Egypt completely. I’m sorry, Princess.”

I held on to the sides of the boat so that my sudden dizziness would not overwhelm me, and I looked ahead at the unwelcoming faces of the people on the riverbank. Their silence was terrifying. What were they waiting for? That Ramesses might change his mind?

When we reached the quay in front of the temple, a young priest reached down to help me up. A crowd of priestesses circled around us, chanting and shaking their long bronze sistrums. They led us through the gates of Karnak, and we followed their loud jangling to the inner sanctum, where I ascended the dais and waited for Ramesses. When he arrived, his eyes met mine. Then all I could see was the High Priest in front of me. He took a vessel of oil from the altar, and as he raised it above my head he intoned, “In the name of Amun, Princess Nefertari, daughter of Queen Mutnodjmet and General Nakhtmin, is bound together with Pharaoh Ramesses.”

I stole a glance at the throngs of courtiers who filled the inner sanctum. The High Priest approached Ramesses. “In the name of Amun, Pharaoh Ramesses, son of Pharaoh Seti and Queen Tuya, is bound together with Princess Nefertari.”

Ramesses held his breath as the oil poured over his nemes crown. There was one symbolic gesture left to make. Rahotep produced a golden ring from his robes. Ramesses slipped the band on to my fourth finger, since a vein travels from this finger to the heart. Now, I wore two rings. One bore the insignia of my family, the other bore Ramesses’s name in hieroglyphics. Ramesses’s ring was gold with an ebony stone, and by placing it on my finger, he had “captured” my heart. Like a shen, a design with no beginning and no end, we were joined for eternity. The High Priest announced, “United and blessed before Amun.”

Ramesses held my hand above the cheering courtiers of the inner sanctum, who would have forced themselves to look happy even if he’d been marrying his mother’s iwiw. “Are you ready?” he asked. We would walk from the temple through the city, then sail from the quay in front of the marketplace. Only newly crowned royalty made such a walk. When I nodded, he took my hand firmly in his and pressed forward.

The noise of the procession grew deafening. The priestesses of Isis were playing their tambourines and Hathor’s women were singing as we passed through the magnificent halls of Karnak into the city. Thousands of people filled the streets, but I saw with a rising sense of alarm that only a handful of them waved palm branches or cheered. We passed through the marketplace, and the noise of our procession made an awkward contrast to the continuing silence of the people. Ramesses raised his hand in mine and shouted jubilantly, “Princess Nefertari!”

Behind us, the court echoed his cry, but in the streets the old women watched me with their arms across their breasts. At the end of the market an old woman shouted, “Another Heretic Queen!” and then the people of the marketplace began to chant.

“HER-E-TIC. HER-E-TIC.”

“Stop them!” Ramesses shouted angrily. His guards formed a tighter circle around us, but the people’s chanting was quickly building to a feverish pitch. Even children, who didn’t know what they were shouting, squinted into my face and yelled, “Another Heretic Queen!”

The songs of the priestesses grew louder to drown out the people’s chants, but soon it became impossible. Ramesses might have ordered violence on the surging mob. But there were old women and children, so instead he called, “Get back to the boats!”

ONCE WE had cast off from the quay, Ramesses took me in his arms, soothing me while I shook. The faces of the women were terrible to see. Many of the young girls were weeping into their hands. Henuttawy asked, “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

Queen Tuya used a linen to dab her eyes, and a sob escaped from her lips.

I looked up into Ramesses’s face, and I was the one who spoke the embarrassing truth first. “You won’t be able to make me queen.”

“They’ll change their minds,” he vowed. “Once they know you . . .” But he looked at his father, and entire conversations were conveyed in that glance.

“Let us proceed to the feast,” Woserit announced. “This is still a celebration.” But her good cheer rang hollow, and the courtiers who sailed with us did so in silence.

In the Great Hall, the cheerful laughter of the servants and the comforting crackle of the fires contrasted with the mood of the court. The rich smell of wine and roasted duck filled the chamber, and musicians began to play as we appeared. Pharaoh Seti ascended the dais as if nothing had happened, and I took my place next to Ramesses at the table. Because the court knew its purpose, there was suddenly merrymaking and dance. Even the young girls had dried their eyes and repainted their cheeks, now that the scare was over.

Pharaoh Seti took my hand. “There is nothing you could have done differently,” he said. “They don’t know that you are as much my daughter as Ramesses is my son.”

I lowered my head in shame. It was Seti’s final day of rule in the palace, and instead of leaving Thebes in triumph, he would depart wondering if the next time he returned it might be to rebellion. Then I noticed that while others were taking their seats, our table on the dais remained empty. “Where are Woserit and Henuttawy?” I asked.

Ramesses followed my gaze. “And where are the viziers?” He stood from his throne and appealed to his father. “They are meeting without us!”

Pharaoh Seti shook his head. “Tomorrow, this will become your city,” he challenged. “What will you do?”

Ramesses pulled me with him, and we rushed down the dais, crossing the Great Hall as courtiers scrambled to move out of our way. Ramesses flung open the doors to the Audience Chamber. Inside, the conversation immediately stopped. At the base of the dais, Asha was standing with his father. The viziers and generals of Egypt were present, and so were Woserit and Henuttawy. Woserit passed me a warning look.

“What is this?” Ramesses demanded.

“Your Highness,” Rahotep began, “I think you know why we are meeting here.”

“Behind my back?” Ramesses challenged, and glared at Asha.

“The people,” Henuttawy spoke sharply, “are against Nefertari, as I warned you—”

“And who rules this kingdom?” Ramesses asked angrily. “The people, or me?”

“Did the people rise against Iset when you married her?” Henuttawy spoke swiftly. “Did they shout Heretic Queen in the streets?”

“Iset wasn’t taken through the city,” Woserit rejoined. “In fact, I believe that idea was yours.”

Henuttawy turned on her sister, and it was like watching a lioness attack one of its own pride. “Are you saying I planned this?”

“I don’t know,” Woserit said calmly. “How many temple offerings would you need to sell in order to buy the people?”

Paser stepped forward. “Give the people time. They haven’t seen the princess in the Audience Chamber. She is wise and just.”

Henuttawy smiled sweetly, and I knew that something vicious was coming. “Vizier Paser is willing to say and do whatever pleases my sister,” she said bitterly. “Listen to reason!”

I put my hand on Ramesses’s arm. “It’s true.” Everyone turned in shock, and Woserit watched me with a strange expression. But I thought of the hatred I had seen in the streets. Even if Henuttawy had paid the women to chant, they had been angry enough to risk their lives by raising their voices against a Pharaoh. “Remember what happened under Akhenaten,” I said.

“Wait to choose a queen,” Rahotep suggested. “There is no harm in waiting.”

“For how long?” Ramesses demanded.

Asha’s father, General Anhuri, had been listening, and now he stepped forward. “If Pharaoh doesn’t choose a Chief Wife, how will the thrones be arranged on the dais? Who will the petitioners see?”

“There can be two thrones flanking Pharaoh,” Rahotep said. The other viziers immediately raised their voices in displeasure.

“Two thrones on each side of Pharaoh?” Woserit exclaimed. “And they will both wear the diadem of a princess? Neither will be queen?”

“The people were outraged to see me at Ramesses’s side,” I said, feeling pained. I couldn’t meet Woserit’s gaze.

“Give your decision time,” Henuttawy suggested, taking the advantage. “Place three thrones on the dais. In the Audience Chamber, let the petitioners be divided between the two princesses.”

“Then who will be Pharaoh’s heirs?” Woserit asked. “The children of Iset or Nefertari?”

“Nefertari, of course.” Ramesses’s voice was adamant.

“If the people accept her,” Henuttawy said.

Ramesses looked to me. I made no motion to protest, and he said quietly, “We will wait. But this court knows who will make the better queen for Egypt.”

“YOU DID what was right,” Merit said quietly.

I watched while the servants filled my bath with hot water. When the women left, I crouched in the tub, putting my arms around my knees. “You should have seen their faces,” I whispered.

“I did, my lady. It was not so terrible as you think.”

“But from the front of the procession,” I told her, and my eyes welled with tears, “their faces were so full of hate.”

There was a brief knock on the door. It was the quiet tap of a servant, and I answered carelessly, “Come in.” Neither of us turned. “You know as well as I do that the only reason I am in Paser’s favor is because of Woserit.”

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

Merit and I both spun, and Woserit emerged from the darkness of the doorway. “Even if Paser wasn’t in love with me, I don’t believe he’d want to see a fool like Iset in the Audience Chamber.” Woserit laughed at the shock apparent on Merit’s face. “It was never a secret.”

I stood from my bath, wrapping myself in a long linen robe before joining Woserit at the brazier.

“Nefertari asked why I was willing to help her become Chief Wife.” Woserit seated herself on the largest chair. “I told her that I was doing it for myself as much as for her. Not only do I fear a city where Henuttawy is as wealthy as she wishes to be, I am also afraid of what my sister might do out of jealousy.”

“But what can she have to be jealous of?” Merit asked.

“That I was the first to be asked for in marriage.”

I took a seat and named the man to whom she was referring. “Vizier Paser?”

Woserit nodded. “Paser asked my father if we could marry. We were seventeen and had studied together in the edduba. He was being groomed for the job of vizier. But when Henuttawy heard he wanted to marry me, she flew into a rage. There were a hundred men at her door, but she couldn’t stand the thought that there was one at mine. She went to our father and begged him not to shame her by letting me marry before she did. He asked Henuttawy if there was someone she wanted to marry. She said there was. Paser.”

“She could have asked for anyone!” I cried. “Even the prince of a foreign nation.”

“Egypt never gives away her princesses,” Merit corrected me.

“Then another vizier’s son,” I said. “Or a wealthy merchant. Or a prince willing to live in Egypt.”

“It’s true. My sister’s beauty was as tempting then as it is now. When Henuttawy said she wanted Paser, my father summoned him to the Audience Chamber to see which sister he would choose.”

“And Paser chose you.”

“Yes. And when he told Pharaoh this, Henuttawy vowed that she would never take a husband.”

“So that you could never marry.”

Merit clucked her tongue. “How cruel.”

“If Iset becomes Chief Wife with Henuttawy whispering in her ear, then there is little hope for Paser and me. But now you are here, and the risk is worth taking . . .”

I flinched at the callousness of her statement. I was a Senet piece that she had polished and moved across the board for her own benefit.

Woserit saw the betrayal on my face. “If I did not like you, I would never suggest you to Ramesses as Chief Wife, whatever the reward for myself. There are things more important than whether or not I marry. Stability in the kingdom and a wise queen for the throne. You are getting what you want, and perhaps someday I will get what I want. And if we can help each other to that end—”

“But your father is gone,” I protested. “Can’t you marry now?”

“And leave the Temple of Hathor?” Woserit asked. “For what? If Iset becomes queen and I marry Paser, what will happen to him once my brother is gone?”

“Henuttawy and Iset will drive him from court, and he’ll lose everything.”

Woserit nodded.

“But why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“Because there are enough burdens resting on your shoulders,” she said. “You don’t need the weight of my destiny on you as well. Your first responsibility is to Ramesses, and then the people.”

I glanced at Merit, who knew what I was going to ask. “Do you think those people will rebel because of me?”

Woserit was honest. “Anything might happen,” she replied. “Especially when the Nile runs low. What does Ramesses say?”

“He is horrified,” I whispered.

“Good. And you will never mention becoming Chief Wife. He has made his decision to wait. Let Iset complain and drive him away. You will be silent and long-suffering and he will love you even more.”

“And his decision?” Merit asked.

“It all depends on how soon Nefertari can change the people’s minds—by being wise and judicious in the Audience Chamber. Tomorrow, Pharaoh Seti will be gone, and there will only be Pharaoh Ramesses to rule in Thebes. She must build her reputation as the clever princess.”

“I am a danger to Ramesses’s crown,” I said. “Did I do what was right in the Audience Chamber today?”

Woserit hesitated. “You stopped him when his rashness might have made you queen tonight. You placed the kingdom of Egypt and Ramesses’s welfare before your own.” She smiled sadly. “You love him.”

I nodded. I did, and in the end, I knew such love might prove costly.

LATER THAT night, when Ramesses came into my chamber, Merit disappeared into her own room. There was nothing that Ramesses needed to say. He embraced me, stroking my hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again and again. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

“It’s fine,” I told him, but we both knew it wasn’t. On a day that Egypt should have been celebrating, the people couldn’t have been angrier. They had risen up against Pharaoh’s guards, something that had not happened since the reign of Akhenaten.

“Tomorrow,” Ramesses promised, “things will be different. You don’t belong in the streets of Thebes. You belong with me, in the Audience Chamber.” He guided me to the edge of my bed and drew a cloth-wrapped object from inside his cloak. “For you,” he said softly.

The linen wrapping had been painted with images of Seshat, the goddess of learning. When I unveiled the gift within, I thought my heart would stop in my chest. I held the heavy scroll up to the oil lamps, slowly unrolling the papyrus, as light illuminated the painted text. “Ramesses, where did you find this?” I asked. It was a history of every major kingdom in the world, from Hatti to Cyprus, written first in hieroglyphics and then in the language of each country. Not even Paser owned such a book.

“The scribes have been compiling it for you for more than a year.”

“A year? But I was in the Temple of Hathor—”

I stopped, realizing what he meant. Every misery of the afternoon disappeared. It didn’t matter that the people hated me. We fell onto the bed and thought only of each other that night.