the dais and touch both of his wives. In the history of Egypt, there had never been two thrones for dueling princesses.
“Are you ready?” Ramesses asked both of us, and I nodded. He struck his crook on the dais and declared, “Bring forth the petitioners!”
Courtiers sprang into action. The wide doors leading to the courtyard of Malkata were thrown open, and the first petitioners were led inside. Three men approached the viziers’ table, and all of them bore scrolls that they handed to the viziers. I watched while Paser, Rahotep, and Anemro read the petitions, then took out their reed pens and signed a name on the bottom of each scroll. Then all three men approached the dais, and the oldest one held his petition out to me with a bow.
“For the princess Nefertari,” he said. My family’s seal had been drawn on the scroll, but it wasn’t in Paser’s hand. The old man watched me with plain distrust. “I asked to see the princess Iset, but the High Priest sent me to you. I specifically requested—”
“Whatever you specifically requested,” I snapped, “I will be the one who reads your petition.” Woserit had warned that if I allowed a single petitioner to treat me as though I was less important than Iset, he would leave the palace and tell of my timidity to the others still waiting in line. I looked at the open scroll. The man had come to request entry into the Temple of Amun at Karnak. Commoners were not allowed inside, yet he was requesting a special dispensation to see the High Priest. “What is this for?” I asked him quietly.
“My daughter is sick, and the offerings I’ve placed at our shrines have not been enough.” The old man narrowed his eyes. He watched me pick up the reed pen from the small table at my side, then write across the bottom of his scroll. “You may enter the temple,” I said.
The old man stepped back as if to see me better. “I was alive during the time of Amarna,” he said. “I saw the Heretic break the statues of Amun and murder the god’s priests.”
I tightened my fist around his petition. “And what does that have to do with me?”
The man squinted up into my face. “You look like your aunt.”
I suppressed the strong desire to ask him how. Was it my nose, my lips, my high cheekbones, my build? But I knew what he was trying to imply, and instead, I shoved the scroll at him and said darkly, “Go. Go before I change my mind!”
Ramesses glanced at me instead of paying attention to his own petitioner, and his look was one of pity, not admiration. I felt the fire in my stomach spread.
“Next!” Whatever happens, keep smiling, Woserit had warned. A farmer came forward and I smiled beautifully. “Your petition?” He held out his scroll. I read it, then looked down at the man. His kilt had been neatly pressed for the occasion, and he was wearing leather sandals instead of papyrus. “You come from Thebes and wish to claim access to your neighbor’s well? And why should your neighbor grant you this access?”
“Because I have given his cows grazing in my fields! I have no water on my land and I want something in return.”
“So if he will not give you water, stop giving his cows feed.”
“My son would let the beasts starve! And he would do it to spite me!”
I sat back on my throne. “Your neighbor is your son?”
“I gave him a piece of my land when he married, and now he won’t give me access to my well because of his wife!”
“What’s wrong with his wife?”
“She is against me!” he cried. “When I told my son I didn’t want a harlot like her for a daughter, he married her anyway. And now the girl wants to ruin me,” he raged.
The viziers stopped to watch us, but I resisted the temptation to see which had sent the farmer to me. “And what has your daughter-in-law done to make you think that she is unfaithful?”
“She has slept with half of Thebes. She knows it as well as Ma’at! My son’s heirs might be any man’s children, and now she won’t even give me access to my land!”
“Did you deed your son the land?” I asked him.
“I gave him my word.”
“But not the deed?” The man clearly didn’t understand. “It is not enough to give your word,” I explained. “It must be set