The Heretic Queen

by Michelle Moran

  Now that we had reached the quay, it was possible to see just how large the Temple of Hathor truly was. The painted columns were cast in the sun’s golden light, and gilded images of the cow goddess crowned every limestone pillar. Our ship was greeted by a dozen of Hathor’s priestesses, and servants stood on the shore to unload our belongings.

  One of the young women in Hathor’s blue robes approached us with a pair of sandals, handing them to Merit and explaining, “Leather is forbidden in the Temple of Hathor. Sandals must be made of papyrus.”

  “Thank you, Aloli,” said Woserit. The young priestess bowed, and a tangle of red curls bounced on her head. “Will you please take Lady Merit and Princess Nefertari to their chambers?”

  “Of course, Your Holiness.” She waited while Merit and I replaced our sandals, and as my leather sandals were taken away, I wondered what other pieces of my old life I would have to lose. “May I show you to your rooms?” Aloli asked.

  We followed the priestess through the heavy bronze gates of the temple, and through the chambers for the pilgrims to Hathor. As we passed through the halls, I was careful not to step on her sweeping train. Her hips moved with a mesmerizing sway, and I wondered where she’d learned to walk the way she did. “This way,” she instructed, and she led us into the cool recesses of the temple, where silent priestesses moved among the offerants, spreading incense from golden balls.

  “The High Priestess has requested that you both be given chambers near to hers,” Aloli said. “But do not expect to see much of her here. This temple requires a great deal of care, and when she’s not in the palace, she’s out in the groves or meeting with pilgrims. This is where the priestesses eat.”

  She gestured into a wide room that seemed not so different from the Great Hall of Malkata.

  “Trumpets will call the priestesses to ritual once in the morning and once at sunset. After Hathor’s rites are finished they meet in this hall. I think you will find our food similar to what you are used to in the palace.” She looked at me. “Although I would not touch the wine,” she whispered. “The priestesses here like it strong, and a girl of your size might never wake up!” She laughed at her own joke, and Merit’s lips thinned.

  “This is where temple patrons come to worship,” Aloli continued. A vast hall spread beneath mosaics of the goddess, and at the foot of a polished statuary worshippers had left bowls of meat and bread. “In Shemu, a woman came who had lost all five of her pregnancies. We found her in the farthest corner.” Aloli pointed to a shadowy niche near a statue of Hathor. “With her husband!” She giggled, and Merit cleared her throat.

  “But weren’t they in trouble?” I gasped.

  “Of course. But nine months later she had two healthy sons!”

  Merit glared at me in case I should ever conceive such an idea. We turned into a beautifully kept courtyard ringed by sycamore trees. Aloli announced grandly, “This is where our most important guests stay.” She gestured to the windows that faced the square. “And this is where you will be.” We entered a chamber with blue-glazed tiles that swam with painted fish. Inlaid images of cows filled the western wall, opposite an ebony bed with lion’s-paw feet raised upon a platform. Aloli walked across the chamber and threw open a pair of heavy wooden doors. “And for Lady Merit,” she announced.

  The walls of Merit’s adjoining room had been brightly painted, and fresh linen was stacked on a low cedar table. Merit hummed her approval. “This will do well. Now I must go and direct the servants with our belongings.”

  When she left, I turned to Aloli. “What am I to do here?” I asked.

  The red-haired priestess looked surprised. “Didn’t the High Priestess tell you? She said that you have been brought here to study.”

  “To study what?”

  “Temple rituals, the harp . . .” Aloli shrugged. “Perhaps she hopes you might become the next High Priestess of Hathor.” A trumpet blared on the other side of the temple, and Aloli quickly twisted her ringlets into a knot. “I will see you tonight in the Great Hall.” She paused at the door. “It is a pleasure to have you here, Princess. I have heard a great deal about you.”

  But before I could ask what she had heard, she disappeared into the hall. I crossed the chamber and stood at Merit’s window, looking out over the groves. On the western bank of the River Nile, Ramesses would be taking his afternoon meal with Asha and Iset. There would be dancing in the Great Hall come nightfall, and the news would spread that I had chosen to become a priestess of Hathor. I wondered if Henuttawy would swallow her sister’s lie.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I jumped, startled by Woserit’s silent approach. “Yes, very,” I acknowledged.

  “Tell me, Nefertari. When you look out on these groves, what do you see?”

  I hesitated. The sun was directly over the river, and birds flew between the long stalks of papyrus, calling to one another as kilted men worked in the fields. “I see a small clay model,” I said. “Like the ones in the tombs, only this one is filled with moving people.”

  Woserit raised her brows. “That’s very creative.”

  I flushed and looked out over the balcony again, to see if there was something else I had missed.

  “What about the groves of sycamores?” she asked. “What do they look like to you?”

  “They are beautiful as well,” I said cautiously.

  “But do you think they always looked so beautiful?”

  “Not when they were saplings,” I guessed. “Then their limbs wouldn’t have touched and they couldn’t have formed the tunnel that they are creating now.”

  Woserit was satisfied with my answer. “That’s right. It took many years for them to grow and eventually bend into that form. When they were first planted here, I was your age. I can remember visiting the High Priestess of Hathor and thinking that her garden was extremely ugly compared to the ones we had in Malkata. I didn’t see then that she was planning for the future. Do you understand what I’m saying, Nefertari?”

  I nodded, because I thought I did.

  “You are like a young sycamore right now. The viziers look at you and see a wild and untended garden. But together we are going to shape you for the future, so that when Ramesses looks at you, he doesn’t see a little sister, but a woman and a queen.”

  Woserit’s voice grew firm. “However, if you want my help, it will mean following my advice even when you do not understand it. In the past, I have heard that you disobeyed your nurse. There will be no disobedience if I’m instructing you.”

  “Of course not,” I said quickly.

  “And there will be times when what I’m saying may seem to conflict with advice your nurse has given you, but you will simply have to trust it.”

  I looked up to see what Woserit meant, and she explained.

  “I am sure your nurse has told you never to lie. But a queen must learn to be a very good liar about many things. Is that something you are willing to do?” she questioned. “Lie when you must? Smile when you’re not happy? Pray when the gods don’t seem to be listening? How much is a place at court, and Ramesses’s love, worth to you?”

  I looked out beyond the sycamore groves to the crests of dunes that vaulted one beyond another. If the wind, which only had the power of breath, could make a hill, then surely Woserit could make a princess into a queen. “Everything.”

  Woserit smiled. “Come then.”

  I followed her into Merit’s robing room, and she indicated the leather chair in front of the mirror. When I took a seat, she watched me from behind in the polished bronze.

  “Do you know what they say about you at court?”

  I met her gaze and shook my head.

  “That your best feature is your smile. Now it’s time you learn how to use it. Pretend that I’m an old friend,” she said, “and you’ve seen me in the market. How would you smile?”

  Even though I felt foolish, I grinned widely, and Woserit nodded.

  “Good. Now, I’m an emissary that you’ve
just met. How do you greet me?”

  I smiled widely again and Woserit frowned. “You’re like an easy girl in the harem of Mi-Wer, giving it all away,” she criticized. “Start slow. You don’t know him yet.”

  I let my lips curve upward but didn’t show my teeth. This time, Woserit nodded. “Good. Now I’m the emissary and I’ve just complimented you. My, Queen Nefertari, I never dreamed what a beautiful shade of lapis your eyes were. How do you respond?”

  I smiled so that all my teeth were showing, and Woserit said sharply, “Not so fast! A woman’s smile has to be slow, so that a man knows he must work for it. See?” Woserit let her lips curve slightly. “Now compliment me.”

  I searched for a compliment. “High Priestess Woserit, you . . . you look lovely today. I’d forgotten what beautiful dark hair you had.” As I spoke, Woserit’s smile widened, but it wasn’t until I had said my last words that her eyes fixed on mine and she gave me her fullest smile. I felt a sudden hotness in my cheeks.

  “You see?” Woserit said. “You want it to feel like a surprise. You want to keep him guessing whether he’ll make you smile entirely so that when you do, he will feel like he’s been given a gift.” She put her arm in mine and led me to the door.

  “Watch,” she instructed.

  We entered the hall outside her chamber and passed through a courtyard where servants were shoveling and toiling at the heavy work of the garden. As soon as they saw us, they scrambled to their feet and bowed. One man, who looked to be the head of the gardeners from the cut of his linen, stepped forward to greet Woserit. “It’s an honor to see Her Holiness in the courtyard. We are graced by your presence,” he said.

  Woserit let her lips curve slightly. “You’ve done beautiful work,” she complimented.

  It was true. Myrtle and jasmine grew up around a granite fountain of Hathor, and stone benches had been arranged in clusters beneath the sycamore trees so that the pilgrims to Hathor’s temple could sit and contemplate the goddess’s splendor.

  “It is beautiful,” the young gardener agreed. Woserit’s smile widened. “But that is only because it is a reflection of you.”

  Woserit smiled fully. “Very pretty.”

  She laughed, but the young man didn’t laugh. He was taken by her, and there was a light of new fascination in his eyes. “Come,” Woserit said to me primly. “I will show you the orchards.” When we left the courtyard and passed into the groves, Woserit turned.

  “He stared after you until we left the courtyard!” I cried.

  “You see what a smile can do? And mine is not even pretty.” I made to interrupt her, but she shook her head at my protest. “It’s true. It’s nothing like yours. You have teeth as white as pearls, and no man who sees your smile will ever forget it.”

  “I don’t think that gardener will ever forget yours,” I pointed out.

  “That’s because I’ve learned how to use it,” Woserit said. “I don’t pass it out like an old woman giving free milk to the village cats. It’s something that must be controlled, and for you especially. You use it on anyone. You must learn to be more judicious.”

  She looked down the path and I followed her gaze to a group of men harvesting figs from the sycamore trees. “Do you see one who is handsome?” she asked.

  I flushed.

  “Don’t be shy. There will be plenty of men at court, and some will need to be convinced that they are in your special favor. How will you do that? With a look,” she answered. “With a smile. As we walk by, I want you to choose a man,” she said. “Make him feel that he has been chosen. And then make him speak to you.”

  “Without using words?” I exclaimed.

  “Using only your smile. So, which one shall it be?” she said slyly.

  I looked over at the group of men. Sitting down, sorting the good figs from bad, was a young man with dark hair. “The one who is counting,” I said immediately.

  I thought a smile alone might not suffice, and the thought came to me to reach for my bracelet. . . . Quickly, I loosened the clasp, and as we passed the group of men I met the expressive eyes of the dark-haired man and smiled slowly. When his eyes widened with the realization that I was acknowledging him specifically, I let the bracelet fall. “My lady!” He jumped up and fetched my bracelet. “You have dropped something!” He held the bracelet up, and I let him have my fullest smile, the way Woserit had with the gardener.

  “How clumsy of me!” I took the bracelet from his hand, brushing his palm with my fingertips, and the group of men watched in silence as Woserit and I disappeared through the groves.

  At the bank of the River Nile, Woserit nodded approvingly, “Now you are no longer a giggling child, smiling at whoever comes along. You are a woman with power. Learn to control your smile, and you can control what men will think about you. So, the next time you see Ramesses, what will you do?”

  I smiled slightly so that only the top of my front teeth could be seen.

  “Good. Slow and reserved. You don’t give him everything, because you don’t know how it will be received. By the time you see him again he may already have decided to make Iset Chief Wife. We also don’t want Henuttawy to realize that you haven’t retreated. You never want to give away everything at once,” she warned. “We are playing a delicate game.”

  I looked up, still guessing at her true purpose. “What kind of game?”

  “The kind you played when you dropped your bracelet,” she said with finality.

  The sun reflected in Woserit’s diadem, and in the golden sun disc at the center of her brow I could see a twisted reflection of myself. “Tomorrow,” Woserit went on, “your temple training will begin. If Henuttawy asks one of my women what you are doing here, it must look as though you are truly planning to devote your life to Hathor. I don’t expect you to join the priestesses in the Great Hall tonight, but tomorrow morning Aloli will summon you to my chamber and I will explain how we are to proceed.”

  AFTER THE sun sank below the hills that evening, Merit sat on the edge of my bed. “Are you nervous, my lady?”

  “No,” I said honestly, drawing the covers up to my chest. “We are doing what must be done. Tomorrow, Woserit is going to tell me how I am to spend my year.”

  “In a manner befitting a princess, I should hope.”

  “Even if I have to swing a bronze censer from dawn to dusk, if it makes Ramesses miss me, then it will be worth it.”

  THE NEXT morning, Aloli knocked on the door to my chamber, and her big eyes grew even wider when she saw me in Hathor’s long blue robes. “You are really one of us now!” she exclaimed, and her voice echoed through the silent halls.

  “Perhaps we should be quiet,” I offered.

  “Nonsense! It’s practically dawn.” She gave me her arm as we walked through the halls. It was so early in the morning that she needed an oil lamp to guide us down the gray passages of the temple. “So, are you nervous?” she asked merrily, and I wondered once more why everyone thought I should be. “I can still remember my first day in temple. I began my career in the Temple of Isis.”

  “With Henuttawy?”

  “Yes.” Aloli wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know why my mother chose that temple. She might have chosen the Temple of Mut, or Sekhmet, or even Hathor. If she were still alive, I’d ask her. But she died when I was ten. I spent five years with the High Priestess. Fetching her water, polishing her sandals, fixing her hair . . .”

  “Is that what a priestess is supposed to do?”

  “Of course not!”

  A door opened at the end of the hall and a voice cried sharply, “Be quiet!”

  “That’s Serapis. The old priestess likes to sleep in late.”

  “Shouldn’t we be silent then?”

  “Silent?” Aloli laughed. “Soon she’ll be sleeping for eternity. She ought to get up and enjoy the hours she has left.” We reached a hall that ended in a pair of double doors, and Aloli said, “Stay here.”

  Her silhouette dissolved into the chamber’s blackness as
I waited in the hall beneath a painted image of the Nile in the Sky. When I was younger, Merit had pointed to the band of stars clustered across the void and told me the story of how the cow goddess Hathor had sent her milk across the heavens as a path on which Ra could sail his solar bark. I stared up at the painting, wondering if that was the same path my parents had taken to the heavenly fields of Yaru. Then the creak of a door interrupted my thoughts, and the priestess’s hand beckoned to me. “Come. She is willing to see you.”

  She let me pass into Woserit’s private chamber, and as I entered the room I tried to hide my shock. Three chairs had been placed around a lit brazier sunk into the tiled floor, and one of them was taken by Paser. Instead of wearing his hair in a severe scholar’s knot, it was now tied back in a lapis band. In the firelight, I could see a cartouche hung at his neck, engraved with Ramesses’s full title in gold.

  “You may close the door, Aloli.” The priestess did as she was told, and Woserit pointed to a seat across from her. “Nefertari,” she began when I was seated, “I am sure you are surprised to see your tutor here, especially as he has now become vizier.”

  I looked at Paser to see how being part of Pharaoh’s court had changed him. Wearing a vizier’s tunic made him seem somehow different.

  “Paser has many new duties in the palace now,” Woserit explained, “but he has agreed to continue your education. Every morning, before he reports to the Audience Chamber, he will come to the temple to tutor you in the languages that you have studied with him.”

  “At sunrise?” I exclaimed.

  “And earlier.” Paser nodded.

  “He knows you will not disappoint him,” Woserit said. “You have mastered seven languages in the edduba. This is what will separate you from Iset and make you invaluable.”

  I frowned. “To Ramesses?”

  “A queen’s job is more than bearing children,” Paser replied. “It is speaking with the people, meeting with viziers, and greeting dignitaries who come into the palace. With a command of Shasu, Hittite, Nubian, who will be best suited for entertaining princes?”