CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ANOTHER LIFE IN RETURN

  ALTHOUGH FOR TWO nights Ramesses did not visit, new light still found its way into the darkness of my chamber. By the second of Pachons my body gave me confirmation of what Merit had suspected for a month. I whispered it to Woserit and Paser, and when Merit heard, she sent up such a whoop of joy that Tefer scampered fearfully from the bed.

“A child?” she exclaimed. “You must tell Pharaoh Ramesses! When he hears—”

“He will think of Prince Akori and wonder if Iset was right.”

Merit stepped away from me. “You must never repeat that.”

“Iset accused me of stealing her child’s ka, and now I’m pregnant with my own.”

“Pharaoh could never think such a thing! The princess is a superstitious fool. You must tell him.”

“If he comes.”

“He will, my lady. Give him time.”

But several days passed, and on the fifth night, when it was clear he wasn’t coming, I wept into my pillow, emptying all of my sorrows into the linen as Merit stroked my hair. It wasn’t just loneliness. It was the sadness that hung over the palace like a shroud. I saw Ramesses every morning in the Audience Chamber, but he never laughed, and even when the viziers brought news that the farmers were finding success with his invention, his face was still grim. In the Great Hall, courtiers watched me with suspicion, and even Woserit had very little to say. I begged her to let me tell Ramesses that I was pregnant, but she made me swear not to reveal anything to him until he visited me on his own.

So I waited, and on the seventh of Pachons, Ramesses arrived as the sun rose. He came to the very edge of my bed, and when I sat up to embrace him, tears stained his cheeks. It was as if all of his joy and rash optimism in life had been drained away.

“The priests tell me it was the will of the gods,” he whispered, “but how could it be their will that a child of Pharaoh, his first son, should be stolen by Anubis?”

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.