running her fingers through the red-gold tresses, whispering in his ear the way Henuttawy whispered to handsome noblemen whenever she was drunk.
“I haven’t seen you in days,” he said apologetically. “You can’t imagine what it’s been like in the Audience Chamber. Every day it’s another crisis. Do you remember last year how the lake receded?”
I nodded. Ramesses shaded his eyes with his hand. “Well, that’s because the Nile didn’t overflow its banks. And without an overflow to water the land, very little was harvested this summer. In some cities it’s already led to famine.”
“Not in Thebes,” I protested.
“No, but in the rest of Upper Egypt,” he said.
I tried to imagine a famine when tomorrow the palace would feed a thousand people. Cuts of beef, roasted duck, and lamb were already being prepared in the kitchens, and wide barrels of pomegranate wine were waiting in the Great Hall to be rolled into the pavilion.
Ramesses caught my glance and nodded. “I know it’s hard to believe,” he said, “but the people outside of Thebes are suffering. We’ve had a little rain, but not cities like Edfu and Aswan.”
“So will Thebes share its grain?”
“Only if there’s enough. The viziers are angry that the Habiru are growing so plentiful in Egypt. They say there are nearly six hundred thousand of them, and in a time when there’s not enough food for Egyptians, some of my father’s men are saying that measures must be taken.”
“What kind of measures?”
Ramesses looked away.
“What kind of measures?” I repeated.
“Measures to be sure that there are no more Habiru sons—”
I gasped. “What? You wouldn’t allow—”
“Of course not! But the viziers are talking. They’re saying it’s not just their numbers,” Ramesses explained. “Rahotep believes that if the sons are killed, the Habiru daughters will marry Egyptians to become like us.”
“They are like us! Tutor Amos is a Habiru and his people have been here for a hundred years. My grandfather brought the Habiru to Thebes when he conquered Canaan—”
“But Rahotep is telling the court that the Habiru worship one god like the Heretic King.” Ramesses lowered his voice so that none of the servants who were passing could hear him. “He thinks they’re heretics, Nefer.”
“Of course he would say that! He was a heretic himself—a High Priest of Aten. Now he wants to show the court that he’s loyal to Amun.”
Ramesses nodded. “That’s what I told my father.”
“And what does he say?”
“That a sixth of his army is Habiru. Their sons fight alongside Egyptian sons. But the people are growing angrier, Nefer, and every day it’s something different. Droughts, or poor trade, or pirates in the Northern Sea. Now everything has to stop while hundreds of dignitaries arrive and you should see the preparations. When an Assyrian prince came this morning, Vizier Anemro gave him a room that faced west.”
I covered my mouth. “He didn’t know that Assyrians sleep facing the rising sun?”
“No. I had to explain it to him. He moved the prince’s chamber, but the Assyrians were already angry. None of this would have happened if Paser had simply agreed to be vizier.”
“Tutor Paser?”
“My father has already asked him twice. He’d be the youngest vizier in Egypt, but surely the most intelligent.”
“And both times he declined?”
Ramesses nodded. “I can’t understand it.” He looked down at the scrolls I was carrying. “What are these?” There was a glint in Ramesses’s eyes, as if he was tired of talking about his wedding and politics. “It looks like several days’ worth of work to me,” he said, and snatched one of the scrolls. “Have you been missing classes?”
“Give it back!” I cried. “I was sick.”
I made a grab for the papyrus but Ramesses held it higher.
“If you want it,” he teased, “you’re going to have to catch it!”
He sprinted across the courtyard, and with my arms full of scrolls, I gave chase. Then a shadow loomed across the stones and he stopped.
“What are you doing?” Henuttawy demanded. The red robes of Isis swirled at her feet. She snatched the scroll that Ramesses had taken and shoved it at me. “You are a king of Egypt,” she reminded him sharply, and her nephew flushed. “Do you realize that you have left Iset all alone to decide which instruments shall be played at the feast?”
The three of us looked across the courtyard at Iset, who didn’t seem all alone to me. She and her friends were huddled together, whispering. Ramesses hesitated, and I saw how keenly he felt Henuttawy’s disappointment in him. She was