The Egyptian Royals Collection (89 page)

“He was the High Priest of Aten,” she whispered. “When your aunt saw that she must either return the gods to Egypt or face rebellion, she began to rebuild the temples of Amun. The priests of Aten were stripped of their power.”

“Including Rahotep?”

“Especially him. He lost everything to her.”

“The priests of Aten were given the chance to join the priesthood of Amun,” I challenged. “He could have saved his position.”

“Perhaps he didn’t believe we would return so eagerly to our true gods. But he lived embittered and in poverty for many years. Your
akhu
were not interested in helping him. He reminded your grandfather of heresy and ruin.”

“Do you think it was he who set the fire?” I asked. “Is
that
what you know?”

Merit looked down at the fan in her lap, and the strength to keep hidden what she had concealed for so long seeped out of her like water from a cracked bowl. “It may have been him. I would not be surprised. He is the Aten priest who helped to kill Pharaoh Nefertiti and her daughter.” She raised her eyes. “Before their murders, I saw him enter the passageway leading to the Window of Appearances.”

“Where she was killed?” I whispered.

“Yes. He was with another priest. I thought she had summoned them. She was always feeling sorry for the priests …”

“Nefertiti?”

Merit nodded sadly. “She was not always cruel. I know this is what they taught you in the edduba, but there were many times when she was kind.”

“Were you there when they killed her?”

“I wasn’t far away,” Merit admitted. “I heard her screams and saw the priests walking calmly through the hall. Rahotep looked at me, and his hand was covering one eye.”

“Because she fought back!”

“Yes, but I didn’t know it then.”

“So you didn’t say anything?”

“Of course I did! I told your father! He searched for both of them, but they had disappeared. There are many places to hide in Egypt. When your mother died, Rahotep returned to court searching for a new position.”

“Giving up his belief in Aten?” I was shocked.

“He is a believer in gold.” Merit snorted. “And, of course, I recognized him. I would have turned him over to the army for murder, but when the viziers wanted to send you from this court, I warned Rahotep that if he spoke against you as well, all of Egypt would know how he came by that eye. So when Pharaoh Horemheb asked for his advice, he swore that you were of no harm to anyone. This bargain is why you remained here.”

I studied Merit’s face and marveled that she had kept such a heavy secret to herself for so long. For more than twenty years she had kept the memory inside. “Why did you never tell me this?” I asked quietly.

“What would be the purpose?”

“I would know my enemies!”

“
I
know your enemies, my lady, and that is enough. There’s no reason to let the corruption of the court make you as old as I am.”

I realized she was not talking about the wrinkles on her face. She meant a different kind of old, the kind that had made Iset bitter because she had lost Ashai and learned that love is not easy. She was speaking about an aging of the soul, when a person’s
ka
is a thousand years older than her body. “Does Woserit know all of this?” I asked softly.

“Yes. Otherwise, if something happened to me,” she explained, “these secrets would be buried in the tombs. And in a tomb, there’s nothing I could do to protect you, my lady.”

“Then if Woserit knows, Paser must know as well.”

“You are safe from Rahotep,” she promised. “He will not speak openly against you in the temple, and I will not tell Egypt that he is the murderer of a Pharaoh.”

“And probably two!” I cried, but Merit sat back in her chair.

“We don’t know that.”

“If he could murder Nefertiti,” I said heatedly, “then he could have started the fire that killed my family. Why shouldn’t I tell Ramesses what he’s done? What power does he have?”

Merit laughed, sharp and full of warning. “The kind of power you have not yet seen because he’s never used it against you. Thanks to his friend Horemheb, he is the mouth of Amun. The people trust him the way they trust Pharaoh.”

“Not if he is a
murderer.
”

“And would the people believe that? Or would they believe him when he says that the niece of heretics is spreading lies?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither does he. So we are silent, and he is silent, and the arrangement holds.”

“No, it doesn’t! He is still turning the people of Thebes against me.”

“And you are winning them back with every petitioner and foreign emissary.”

I remained standing, looking down at Merit, and something occurred to me. “When Henuttawy lets him into her bed at night, she thinks she is convincing him to stand against me. But he already is!”

“Snakes can deceive snakes. But they also slither into unexpected places,” she warned.

IN THE
Great Hall that evening, Iset arranged Nubian dancers for the court’s entertainment. Beneath papyrus bud columns twined with blossoms, perfumed women fluttered between tables, laughing behind their heavy golden cups as the generals told stories of their adventures abroad. Sermet beer flowed from open barrels, and bowls were filled with roasted goose in rich pomegranate paste and wine.

“While Ramesses is marching toward rebellion,” I seethed under my breath to Woserit, “they are drinking and dancing!”

On the dais, Henuttawy raised a cup of wine. “To Iset,” she announced cheerfully. “And to her second child who will one day rule Thebes!” The table raised their cups to Iset, and the few women who hadn’t heard the pregnancy rumors now squealed in delight. When I refused to raise my cup, Henuttawy asked, “What’s the matter, Nefertari? Not enjoying the feast?”

The viziers looked at me, studying my carefully hennaed breasts and the wide silver belt around my waist. Merit had taken extra care with my kohl, extending the line out to my temples and shading my eyelids with malachite. But all of the paint in Egypt could not cover my disgust.

“Does she look as if she’s enjoying the feast?” Rahotep asked. “Everyone at court abandoned her today to be with Iset.”

Henuttawy gave an exaggerated gasp. “
Everyone?
” she repeated. “I’m sure it wasn’t everyone.”

“You’re right,” Rahotep corrected himself. “There were a few courtiers who wished to play Senet.” The emissaries around the table laughed. “But the princess wasn’t idle,” he revealed. “While Iset was preparing for the Feast of Wag, Nefertiti was listening to a petition from the greatest heretic in Thebes. He asked for her by name.”

There was a shocked murmur around the table, and Woserit darted a questioning look at me. But Henuttawy clapped her hands with delight. “Well, you know what they say. Ravens will flock with ravens.”

“And scorpions will nest with scorpions,” I replied, looking between her and the High Priest of Amun. I stood from my throne, and Woserit stood with me.

“Leaving so early?” Henuttawy called, but Woserit and I ignored her taunt.

Outside the Great Hall, Woserit turned to me. “What happened in the Audience Chamber?” she demanded. But the doors of the Great Hall swung open, and Paser joined us in the courtyard. Woserit hissed at him, “You allowed
a heretic
to see Nefertari?”

I rested my hand on the swell of my stomach and tried to fight back a sudden nausea. “He wouldn’t give his petition to anyone else,” I explained. “His name was Ahmoses; he was a Habiru.”

“But tell her what he wanted.” Paser’s look was riotous.

I realized he had heard more than I’d thought in the Audience Chamber. “For me to free the Habiru from the military.”

“
Every
Habiru?” Woserit exclaimed.

“Yes. He calls himself the leader of his people. He wishes to take the Habiru back to Canaan where they may worship as they please.”

“Canaan is still Egyptian land,” Woserit said angrily.

Paser shook his head. “Only in name. There are no temples to Amun or shrines to Isis. He clearly thinks that the Habiru would be free to worship whom they wish in the land of Sargon.”

I recalled the ancient myth Paser had taught us in the edduba, about the high priestess in the east who secretly gave birth to a son despite her vow of chastity. She had placed her newborn infant in a basket made tight with reeds and set it adrift in the River Euphrates where the child was found by Aqqi, the water bearer. The boy was given the name of Sargon, and he grew up to be a powerful king, conquering the lands of Gutium and Canaan. And now, Ahmoses wished to return to the land that Sargon had made fruitful.

Woserit exchanged a look with Paser. “Why did he request to see Nefertari, and not Iset?” she asked suspiciously.

“Because Princess Nefertari has a reason to grant his request,” Paser guessed. “He knows that she could win favor with the people by telling them she is expelling the heretics from Thebes.”

Woserit looked at me. “It
could
turn the people in your favor. There would never again be any question of your faith in Amun.”

“You can’t seriously consider it!” I exclaimed.

“A
sixth
of Egypt’s army is Habiru,” Paser warned. “Someday, the Hittites—”

But the seed had been planted in Woserit’s mind. “She could finally win over the people, Paser …”

“I’ll win them some other way,” I said. “Ramesses can’t risk Egypt’s safety for me.”

“He could increase the army’s pay,” she protested. “More men would join.”

“With what gold?” Paser asked wryly.

“He could increase taxes on the land.”

“And have the people resent
him
instead? Think of what you are saying,” Paser said. He placed a tender hand on her shoulder. “There are other ways for her to win the people’s love.”

“And Rahotep?” she asked. “Did he hear all of this?”

“No. He was listening to petitioners. But Merit has told me what he did,” I said darkly.

Woserit sighed heavily. “I know it was a terrible thing to learn. Especially the fire—”

“You knew he set the fire?” I cried.

“No one knows for certain,” Paser said quietly.

“But everyone believes it?”

Neither Paser nor Woserit denied it.

“You must never speak a word of this to anyone,” Woserit cautioned. “No matter how your heart bleeds, let only the gods hear its cries. Do not weep on anyone’s shoulder. Not even Ramesses’s.”

I pressed my lips together, and Paser added emphatically, “
Especially
not Ramesses.”

“The truth does not stay buried forever,” Woserit promised. “Eventually the winds blow away the sand and expose what’s beneath. But don’t think of this now,” she advised. “The most important thing is the child. You don’t want him to feed off bitterness and anger. Have Merit send for food and heat you a bath.”

I nodded my consent, but how could I stop myself from being angry? I watched Woserit and Paser leave, then listened to them as they whispered in the dark corridors of the palace, their silhouettes bent together like two sycamore trees, and I felt a deep longing to speak with Ramesses. If he had been in Thebes, we would be lying in my bed, talking about the Habiru Ahmoses, and I would have told him the painful story of how my uncle had come upon the idea of a single god. But out there in the darkness to the south, Ramesses was traveling on toward Nubia.

Instead of returning to Merit, I kept walking through the halls. The palace was silent. Every servant who wasn’t in the Great Hall with Iset had gone to bed, and I made my way through the corridors to a door that no one ever opened. Once, that door had been guarded by four men in polished breastplates, and my family had used it to reach the royal courtyard. But that courtyard and all of its chambers had burned. I had not seen the charred remains since Merit had taken me as a little girl. There had been nothing to see then except weeds and ashes, but now I wanted to see with a woman’s eyes the destruction that Rahotep had brought on my family.

I stepped through the door, and in the moonlight the scene looked like a shipwreck that had been washed onto a black and desolate shore. Charred timbers lay where they had fallen, surrounded by rocks and thickly growing vines. I moved through the courtyard, swatting at an insect that had made the devastation its home. I could see where a bed would have stood once, although all that was left was part of its frame. It might have been the one my mother shared with my father, but of course, there was no way of knowing. Smudged tiles supported its blackened legs, and I used the edge of my sandal to scrap away a few layers of dirt, uncovering more burnt tiles. No one had thought to take them away. The damage was so complete that Horemheb had left the chambers for nature to reclaim.