CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

FOR THE KING IS PTAH-SOUTH-OF-HIS-WALL

  THE NEXT MORNING, the palace lay subdued. Men quietly offered their petitions in the Audience Chamber, unwilling to break the uneasy silence. But when Woserit appeared in her blue robes of Hathor, a ripple of whispers passed among the courtiers.

“Woserit.” Ramesses stood to embrace her, and the viziers rose to offer sympathy. I searched her face for any trace of sadness, but when she turned to me, I could only see immense relief in her eyes.

“Nefertari.” She embraced me, and when I encircled her in my arms, I heard her whisper, “It’s over.” There was an unsteadiness in her voice, as if she had never really believed that her sister was mortal. The courtiers of the chamber surrounded her, wanting to express their own sympathy and shock. That evening as I prepared for the Great Hall, I asked Merit quietly, “What do you think will happen to Henuttawy?”

“What does it matter?” She placed Amunher with his brother on the bed and returned to fasten a pectoral around my neck. “She will probably be buried in an unmarked grave, placed inside the earth without even an amulet for the gods to identify her with.”

I thought of Henuttawy’s final moments, and I shivered to imagine how she must have felt knowing that Rahotep’s blade was meant for her. I walked to the bed and kissed Amunher softly on his cheek. “There will never be a question anymore,” I whispered. “When you learn to walk, when you learn to speak, all of Pi-Ramesses will pay attention and know that you are the heir to your father’s throne.” He reached out and pulled at my earring, giggling as if he understood what I was telling him. But the rest of Pi-Ramesses was not so merry.

For ten days, we waited for news from the Hittites, and though only two thrones of polished ivory and gold now rested on the tiled dais of the Audience Chamber, it felt as though I had been robbed of my triumph. In the month of Thoth I would become Ramesses’s queen, but it wasn’t until a message arrived from Hattusili that I felt it was complete.

Ramesses took the scroll, and when he’d finished reading, he looked up with amazement.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Peace,” he said, triumphantly. “With the Empire of Hatti.”

Cheers erupted in the Audience Chamber, breaking the silence that had hung like a heavy pall over the palace of Pi-Ramesses. He handed the scroll to me and watched as I read. There was agreement that the Hittites would retain Kadesh, and in the case of war with Assyria, neither country would use the advantage to encroach on the other’s kingdom. For the second time, I read over Paser’s flawless Hittite and thought, It is a pact for the ages. In a thousand years this treaty will remain as a testament to our reign.

“Is there anything you would change?” Ramesses asked.

“No.” I smiled triumphantly. “I would seal this treaty and dispatch it before sunset.”

“Bring me the wax,” Ramesses commanded. A tablet with heated wax was brought, and when Ramesses was finished, I took my ring and pressed it deep enough to make an impression. Two sphinxes with the ankh of life appeared, the symbol that had belonged to my akhu since the scrolls of Egypt had first recorded history. My family would live on; even when the sands buried Amarna and my mother’s face disappeared from the mortuary temple in Thebes, the cartouche that belonged to our family would endure.

“Our kingdoms are now at peace!” Ramesses declared.

“And the blessing of the treaty?” Paser asked. “Shall we consider the replacement for High Priestess now?”

Asha spoke up from the table beneath the dais. “I would like to suggest Aloli of Thebes,” he offered.

Ramesses looked to me. “I think she would make a fine High Priestess. But the decision to release her must be Woserit’s.”

Woserit was summoned, and when she arrived, I again searched her face for any trace of sadness. Her sister was condemned to be forgotten by the gods for eternity. But she smiled at Paser as she approached the dais. When Ramesses asked her about Aloli, she looked to Asha.

“Aloli would make an excellent replacement,” she pronounced. “If she would like, she may start with morning prayers.”

Asha settled back in his chair, red-faced from his brow to his neck. “And the High Priest of Amun?” Ramesses asked his viziers. “By the first of next month, there must be another High Priest. I have waited two years to crown my queen, and I will wait no longer.”

I CAN remember very little of my coronation in that month of Thoth. For all the anticipation, when the moment came, I felt a strange calm settle over my chamber. Although Merit was rushing from chest to chest, and servants were tearing through boxes to find my best leather sandals and lotus perfume, I sat in front of the polished bronze mirror and thought of the events that had brought me to this day. My bitterest enemies in the palace were gone, and though they say that snakes can’t kill each other with their poison, I saw it happen.

When Rahotep was executed and the news was brought into the Great Hall, the court looked to Iset, but she didn’t cry. Perhaps the shock of her father’s death weighed equally against the murder of Henuttawy. But aside from these thoughts, I remember very little, and in my memory the day seems like an artist’s palette, with colors and scents running into each other.

I know that Merit dressed me in Pi-Ramesses’s finest linen, and that the Dowager Queen gifted me her collar of lapis beads and polished gold. I can recall Aloli coming into my chamber with Woserit, and that both of them had never looked so happy or talked so much. Aloli thanked me for what I had done for her in the Audience Chamber. I told her that it was Asha who had first spoken her name.

“I think he is very much in love,” I said. “Perhaps like someone else I know.”

We both looked to Woserit, who bowed her head like a young bride.

“Will you marry after Nefertari’s coronation?” Aloli pressed.

“Yes.” Woserit blushed. “I believe we will.”

“But as High Priestess—”

Woserit nodded at me. “I’ll have to give up my chambers in the temple and move into the palace. Someone else will perform the morning rites. Then someday, if there are ever any children, perhaps I will have to leave altogether. But . . . but not yet.”

“And Henuttawy?” I whispered. “Do you know what will be done—”

“She is to receive a burial without recognition. But I will place an amulet in her mouth,” she promised. “So the gods will know who she is.”

I nodded quietly, and I understood that even though they had never been friends in life, they had still been sisters, and Woserit would do what was right.

In the Temple of Amun in Avaris, the new High Priest, Nebwenenef, poured the sacred oil over my wig. I closed my eyes, knowing that somewhere below the dais Iset was watching. I imagined her face holding the same bitter expression Henuttawy used to wear. If she had sent Rahotep after Henuttawy, I didn’t want to know. Then came the words. “Princess Nefertari, daughter of General Nakhtmin and Queen Mutnodjmet, granddaughter of Pharaoh Ay and his wife, Queen Tey, in the name of Amun I crown you Queen.”

There was a deafening sound of cheers from all around me. Amunher and Prehir were bouncing and clapping as well, caught up in the jubilation of the crowd. My wig was removed and the vulture crown of queenship placed on my head. The wings of the vulture swept from the diadem over my hair. I would never wear the seshed circlet of a princess again. On the steps of the altar, Ramesses took my hand.

“You are queen,” he said, marveling at the beauty of the vulture headdress that framed my face in lapis and gold. “The Queen of Egypt!”

A thousand courtiers celebrated behind us, and when I looked beyond the Temple of Amun, the faces of the people were filled with joy. The morning had dawned cloudless and brilliant, and the sound of sistrums filled the temple and echoed far beyond the banks of the River Nile. Children held palm branches above their heads, and the women who had come in their finest wigs laughed beneath their white linen sunshades. For as far as the eye could see, there was smiling and celebration, and the scent of roasted duck with barley beer and wine filled the streets. Thousands of people pressed into the roads, wanting to share in the joy of the day. I was their queen. Not the Heretic Queen, but a Warrior Queen, beloved of Ramesses the Great.

“So what will you do first?” Ramesses asked me.

I thought of the Ne’arin who had come to Egypt’s rescue in Kadesh, and when I turned to Ramesses, he knew my request before I said the words.

THAT EVENING, Ramesses announced to the Great Hall that I had expelled the heretics from Egypt. The people rejoiced as if the army had just taken back Kadesh. But across from me, Iset’s face grew pale. “Will every Habiru be leaving?” she asked desperately.

“Only the ones who want to go,” I replied in a low voice.

Iset excused herself early, and though I knew where she was going, I kept my silence.

The next morning, Merit reported that a painter named Ashai would be keeping his family in Avaris while the Habiru journeyed north.