do you want to do with them?” he asked. “They’re shouting for something, but I can’t understand what they’re saying.”
I separated myself from Ramesses. “What language do they speak?”
“Something I’ve never heard,” Asha admitted. “But one man was speaking Hittite.”
“They probably all speak some Hittite,” I guessed. “They may have learned it in Troy, along with Greek. What do you want me to tell them?”
“That they are prisoners of Egypt,” Ramesses said, then repeated what I had told him. “And that Egypt will never tolerate thieves.”
I smiled.
“And will you show yourself to them?” Asha asked.
It was a risk. Ramesses wouldn’t want the Sherden to think they were so important that the Pharaoh of Egypt himself had come to dispose of them. But if Ramesses appeared in his nemes crown with his crook and flail, they would be reminded of whom they had dared to anger, and that none could cross Pharaoh and remain unpunished.
Ramesses looked around the quay with its piles of looted treasure, and I saw his cheeks redden. “Yes, I will come.”
A soldier ran to fetch Ramesses’s crown, and Asha, forever cautious, said to me, “These men are pirates. Be careful. They are vicious, and if one of them should break loose—”
“Then I will have you and Ramesses there to protect me.”
We boarded the first ship where the captives were being held, and almost at once I was overwhelmed by the stench. Blood and urine soaked the decks, and I put the sleeve of my cloak to my nose. I prepared myself for the sight of men in chains, bleeding and angry. But the wounded had been taken to a separate ship, and the fifty men who sat blinking into the sun were unbowed. They didn’t wear beards on their chins like the Hittites, and their long yellow hair was a sight to behold. I paused to stare at them, and when they recognized Ramesses’s crown, they shook their chains and shouted. I commanded in Hittite, “Calm yourselves!”
Many of the men passed looks between one another. Some leered so that I would know what they were thinking, but I refused to be unsettled. “I am Princess Nefertari,” I addressed them, “daughter of Queen Mutnodjmet and wife of Pharaoh Ramesses. You have looted Pharaoh’s ships, taken Pharaoh’s goods, and murdered Pharaoh’s soldiers. You will now repay your debt to Pharaoh by serving in his army.” The men raised their voices, and next to me, Ramesses and Asha tensed. I saw Ramesses reach for the hilt of his sword, and I shouted over the outburst, “You may serve in Pharaoh’s army where you will be given training, outfitted with clothes, perhaps earn a command as an officer. Or you may rebel, and be sent to a certain grave toiling in Pharaoh’s quarries.”
There was a sudden silence, as the men realized that they were not to be put to death but trained and fed.
Ramesses looked at me. “You know that their leaders will have to be executed.”
I nodded solemnly. “But the rest of them—”
“May serve a better purpose.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PI-RAMESSES
Avaris
NEWS OF THE Sherden conquest traveled quickly up the River Nile. As we sailed toward the city of Avaris, people along the shore chanted triumphantly, “PHARAOH! PHARAOH!” Then the soldiers in the fleet took up the cry of, “WARRIOR QUEEN,” which the people on the shore returned without knowing why. And yet, I felt unease—for I wondered what Henuttawy would do when she heard that chant repeated.
Three days after the Sherden were defeated, we stood on the deck of Amun’s Blessing as the ship sailed into port. Because war and rebellion had stolen recent summers, the court in Thebes had not made its progress to Avaris since Ramesses had been crowned, and I was shocked by how much the city had changed. In the years I had been away, it was as if someone had taken a painting and left it out in the sun, allowing it to fade, then crack, and finally peel. I turned to Asha.
“What happened?” he gasped.
We both looked at Ramesses, and although he should have been basking in the adoration of the people who crowded the shore shouting his name, his face was stricken. “Look at the quay! Half of it’s falling to pieces!” Entire boards were rotten, and there appeared to be no system for washing away the grime, which clung to the women’s robes and feet. Merchants had dropped fish heads to rot where they lay, not bothering to kick them back into the river. “And