“You seem to be enjoying your music, my lady.” I hid my blush behind the feathers of my fan, and the next day when Merit said approvingly, “You stay longer and longer at every lesson.” I finally told her, “That’s because Aloli has been speaking with me about more than just the harp.”
Merit stopped filling my alabaster jar with perfume and came inside from the balcony. “What does she teach you?” she asked flatly.
I put down my reed pen. “Other things. Such as what I should do on my wedding night.”
Merit gave a sharp cry.
“I have to know everything! Iset does,” I added quickly.
“You are not some girl from the harem!”
“No. I am the princess from a family that’s been erased from history. You know as well as I do what it will mean if I become Chief Wife. My family’s name will be rewritten in the scrolls. It will save my family, and it will save us all from Henuttawy. Can you imagine a Thebes where Henuttawy is as powerful as the queen?”
“But for the Priestess Aloli to teach you such things—”
“Why not, if they will keep us safe? If it will keep my mother’s name alive?” I glanced at my broken shrine. Although the court sculptor had done his best, I could still see the thin line where the goddess’s neck had been broken from her body. “You will always be my mawat,” I promised. “But I had another mother who gave her life for me. And what have I given her? What has Egypt given her? As Chief Wife I could make sure that she is never forgotten, that we are never forgotten,” I corrected. “My family ruled Egypt for more than a hundred years and there’s not a single mortuary temple to remember them by! But I could build one in the hills for you, and for my parents.” A warm wind blew the sweet scent of figs from the sycamore trees, and I inhaled. Merit always said that my mother had loved their smell. “There are so many reasons to become Chief Wife. But what if Ramesses doesn’t love me?”
Merit’s face softened. “He has always loved you.”
“As a sister,” I protested. “But what if he can’t love me as a wife?”
WHEN THE season of Shemu came, the court prepared for its annual progress north to the palace of Pi-Ramesses, where the suffocating windless heat of Thebes could be relieved by the ocean breezes. It was the first time I wasn’t going to sail with the flotilla of brightly painted ships or stand on a deck with Pharaoh’s golden standards snapping above me in the warm Payni sun. I stood on the balcony of my chamber one day and imagined the world sailing away from me with only Tefer left for company. And even he wasn’t much good, spending all his time chasing mice in the fields. He didn’t need me. No one needed me.
“What’s wrong with you?” Merit challenged from the door. “Every afternoon you come out here. These groves haven’t changed since yesterday.”
“I’m missing everything! When Thoth comes and a new year begins, I’ll miss the Feast of Wag, too.” Wag is the only night when a person’s akhu can return to the land of the living and enjoy the earthly food that’s presented to them.
But Merit shook her head slyly. “I don’t believe you will miss the feast. Yesterday, I saw the High Priestess while you were practicing harp. She said that in two months you will have been away from court for an entire year, and that soon . . .” Merit paused for effect. “You may be ready to return.”
ON THE tenth of Thoth, Merit shook me out of bed. “My lady, the High Priestess is waiting!”
I sat up and wiped the sleep from my eyes. “What?”
“You are not to study with the vizier today. The High Priestess wants to see you instead!”
We rushed to the mirror, and I sat patiently while Merit applied my paint. “We will use the malachite,” she determined, and opened the jar of expensive green powder. I closed my eyes while she applied it to my lids, and she spent extra time outlining my eyes with kohl. When Merit took my wig from its box, I saw that she had added green faience beads. “How—”
“For the occasion,” she said eagerly.
In all the many months since I first entered the Temple of Hathor, Woserit had rarely seen me. Merit hennaed my nails with a brush meant for