The Heretic Queen Read Free Page B

in the court of Nefertiti and Akhenaten, so she would know if this were true. Her father had been an important vizier, and Merit had been a nurse to Nefertiti's children. In the terrible plague that swept through Amarna, Merit lost her family and two of Nefertiti's daughters in her care. But she never spoke about it to me, and I knew she wished to forget this time twenty years ago. I was sure, as well, that Paser had taught us that the High Priest Rahotep had also served my aunt once, but I was too afraid to confirm this with Merit. This is what my past was like for me. Narrowed eyes, whispering, and uncertainty. I shook my head and murmured, "I am nothing like my aunt."
    Merit raised her brows. "She may have been a heretic," she whispered, "but she was the greatest beauty who ever walked in Egypt."
    "Prettier than Henuttawy?" I challenged.
    "Henuttawy would have been cheap bronze to your aunt's gold."
    I tried to imagine a face prettier than Henuttawy's, but couldn't do it. Secretly I wished that there was an image of Nefertiti left in Thebes. "Do you think that Ramesses will choose Iset because I am related to the Heretic Queen?"
    Merit pulled the covers over my chest, prompting a cry of protest from Tefer. "I think that Ramesses will choose Iset because you are thirteen and he is seventeen. But soon, my lady, you will be a woman and ready for whatever future you decide."

CHAPTER TWO

    THREE LINES OF CUNEIFORM
    EVERY MORNING for the past seven years I had walked from my chamber in the royal courtyard to the small Temple of Amun by the palace. And there, beneath the limestone pillars, I had giggled with other students of the edduba while Tutor Oba shuffled up the path, using his walking stick like a sword to beat back anyone who stood in his way. Inside, the temple priests would scent our clothes with sacred kyphi, and we would leave smelling of Amun's daily blessing. Ramesses and Asha would race me to the whitewashed schoolhouse beyond the temple, but yesterday's coronation changed everything. Now Ramesses would be gone, and Asha would feel too embarrassed to race. He would tell me he was too old for such things. And soon, he would leave me as well.
    When Merit appeared in my chamber, I followed her glumly into my robing room, lifting my arms while she fastened a linen belt around my kilt.
    "Myrtle or fenugreek today, my lady?"
    I shrugged. "I don't care."
    She frowned at me and fetched the myrtle cream. She opened the alabaster jar with a twist, then spread the thick cream over my cheeks. "Stop making that face," she reprimanded.
    "What face?"
    "The one like Bes."
    I suppressed a smile. Bes was the dwarf god of childbirth; his hideous grimace scared Anubis from dragging newborn children away to the Afterlife.
    "I don't know what you have to sulk about," Merit said. "You won't be alone. There's an entire edduba full of students."
    "And they're only nice to me because of Ramesses. Asha and Ramesses are my only real friends. None of the girls will go hunting or swimming."
    "Then it's lucky for you that Asha is still in the edduba."
    "For now." I took my schoolbag grudgingly, and as Merit saw me off from my chamber she called, "Scowling like Bes will only scare him away sooner!"
    But I wasn't in the mood for her humor. I took the longest path to the edduba, through the eastern passageway into the shadowed courtyards at the rear of the palace, then along the crescent of temples and barracks that separated Malkata from the hills beyond. I have often heard the palace compared to a pearl, perfectly protected within its shell. On one side are the sandstone cliffs, on the other is the lake that had been carved by my akhu to allow boats to travel from the River Nile to the very steps of the Audience Chamber. Amunhotep III built it for his wife, Queen Tiye. When his architects had said that such a thing could never be made, he designed it himself. With his legacy before me, I walked slowly around the Arena, past the barracks with