Henuttawy who chased Ashai away. The moment has come,” she said firmly. “You have kept my sister’s secret long enough.”
“And Rahotep?” I asked, imagining the High Priest’s sickening grin as he helped spread Henuttawy’s lie among the people.
“Kill the viper first. Snakes may be immune to their own kind’s venom, but you have become something more powerful than a snake today.”
I followed her eyes to the image of a queen painted above the door. The golden wings of the woman’s vulture crown swept down her hair. As Chief Wife, I would wear a similar headdress, for the vulture is the most powerful symbol in Egypt. It is more powerful even than the cobra, for its flight brings it closer to the gods.
“Enjoy these next few days, Nefertari. There will be a Birth Feast tomorrow,” Woserit said. “But when the right time comes . . .”
When the right times comes, I thought, then the viper will see what a vulture can do.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A TRUTH MADE WHOLE
I TOOK WOSERIT’S advice and waited, savoring the days I had with my sons before I would have to return to the Audience Chamber and be parted from them. After the Birth Feast, I lay in the pavilion for fourteen days, reading to Amunher and Prehir, and singing to them the hymns of Amun that my mother would have sung to me if she had lived. There was nothing in the world so beautiful as watching them sleep, studying the steady rise and fall of their little chests, and listening to the small noises they made when they were hungry, or tired, or in need of being held in their own mother’s arms. Of course, I was not allowed to suckle them, so Merit bound my breasts with linen and I watched while my sons fed from their milk nurses, cheerful women who had recently given birth themselves.
As my fourteen days passed, Ramesses came to me every afternoon to tell me the news of the Audience Chamber, bringing me presents of honeyed dates and pomegranate wine. At night, when the nurses had wrapped our sons in blankets and placed them in the pavilion’s private chamber, Ramesses lit the oil lamps and climbed into my bed. And there, surrounded by gifts from foreign kingdoms, we studied the day’s petitions together.
For a short while, I knew the perfect life. I wasn’t in the Great Hall to hear the gossip about me, and I didn’t have to see Rahotep’s frightening grin. But the world could not be kept at bay forever, and the news that came into our happy pavilion and disturbed me the most was not about myself, but about Egypt’s security.
“I won’t let this go on!” Ramesses raged on my last night in the birthing pavilion. He pointed to the pile of growing petitions from Memphis. “Sherden pirates attacking our ships along the River Nile. Sherden pirates attacking our ships in Kadesh!”
“The same pirates who overtook the Mycenaean King’s ship and stole the gifts that were meant for little Amunher and Prehir,” I reminded, and Ramesses’s face reddened.
“We won’t let it continue. We will wait until Tybi,” he said decisively. He wouldn’t risk leaving Iset before she delivered her child, not knowing whether she lived or died. “And if these Sherden attack another Egyptian ship, or even a ship that’s bound for Egypt, they’ll be humbled by what will be waiting for them.”
In the Audience Chamber the next day, the viziers crowded around the base of the dais, greeting me with unusually low bows as I took my seat. But when Rahotep smiled strangely at me, I felt the sudden urge to hold my sons. I knew that they were safe, yet as Ramesses struck his crook on the floor of the dais, and as the viziers took their seats, I had to remind myself that there was no better nurse in Egypt than Merit.
“Bring forth the petitioners,” Ramesses announced. The doors swung open, and a figure crossed the tiles of the chamber. I recognized Ahmoses and his shepherd’s staff at once. He didn’t stop at the table where the viziers were waiting but came straight toward me. When the soldiers stepped forward to pull him back, I raised my hand to let them know that the Habiru should come forth.
“Princess Nefertari.” Unlike our previous meeting, Ahmoses bowed briefly before my throne. I wondered if this was because Ramesses was present. No one in Egypt would dare to come before a Pharaoh without bowing. I didn’t wait