mourning. Pharaoh stood by himself in the shadows, away from the single oil lamp that lit the room.
“Pili,” Ramesses whispered.
“Pili!” he cried. He didn’t care that it was unbecoming of a prince to weep. He ran to the bed and grasped his sister’s hand. Her eyes were shut, and her small chest no longer shook with the cold. From beside her on the bed, the Queen of Egypt let out a violent sob.
“Ramesses, you must instruct them to ring the bells.”
Ramesses looked to his father, as if the Pharaoh of Egypt might reverse death itself.
Pharaoh Seti nodded. “Go.”
“But I tried!” Ramesses cried. “I begged Amun.”
Seti moved across the room and placed his arm around Ramesses’s shoulders. “I know. And now you must tell them to ring the bells. Anubis has taken her.”
But I could see that Ramesses couldn’t bear to leave Pili alone. She had been fearful of the dark, like I was, and she would be afraid of so much weeping. He hesitated, but his father’s voice was firm.
“Go.”
Ramesses looked down at me, and it was understood that I would accompany him.
In the courtyard, an old priestess sat beneath the twisted limbs of an acacia, holding a bronze bell in her withered hands. “Anubis will come for us all one day,” she said, her breath fogging the cold night.
“Not at six years old!” Ramesses shouted. “Not when I begged for her life from Amun.”
The old priestess laughed harshly. “The gods do not listen to children! What great things have you accomplished that Amun should hear you speak? What wars have you won? What monuments have you erected?”
I hid behind Ramesses’s cloak, and neither of us moved.
“Where will Amun have heard your name,” she demanded, “to recognize it among so many thousands begging for aid?”
“Nowhere,” I heard Ramesses whisper, and the old priestess nodded firmly.
“If the gods cannot recognize your names,” she warned, “they will never hear your prayers.”
CHAPTER ONE
PHARAOH OF UPPER EGYPT
Thebes, 1283 BC
“STAY STILL,” Paser admonished firmly. Although Paser was my tutor and couldn’t tell a princess what to do, there would be extra lines to copy if I didn’t obey. I stopped shifting in my beaded dress and stood obediently with the other children of Pharaoh Seti’s harem. But at thirteen years old, I was always impatient. Besides, all I could see was the gilded belt of the woman in front of me. Heavy sweat stained her white linen, trickling down her neck from beneath her wig. As soon as Ramesses passed in the royal procession, the court would be able to escape the heat and follow him into the cool shade of the temple. But the procession was moving terribly slow. I looked up at Paser, who was searching for an open path to the front of the crowd.
“Will Ramesses stop studying with us now that he’s becoming coregent?” I asked.
“Yes,” Paser said distractedly. He took my arm and pushed our way through the sea of bodies. “Make way for the princess Nefertari! Make way!” Women with children stepped aside until we were standing at the very edge of the roadway. All along the Avenue of Sphinxes, tall pots of incense smoked and burned, filling the air with the sacred scent of kyphi that would make this, above all days, an auspicious one. The brassy sound of trumpets filled the avenue, and Paser pushed me forward. “The prince is coming!”
“I see the prince every day,” I said sullenly. Ramesses was the only son of Pharaoh Seti, and now that he had turned seventeen, he would be leaving his childhood behind. There would be no more studying with him in the edduba, or hunting together in the afternoons. His coronation held no interest for me then, but when he came into view, even I caught my breath. From the wide lapis collar around his neck to the golden cuffs around his ankles and wrists, he was covered in jewels. His red hair shone like copper in the sun, and a heavy sword hung at his waist. Thousands of Egyptians surged forward to see, and as Ramesses strode past in the procession, I reached forward to tug at his hair. Although Paser inhaled sharply, Pharaoh Seti laughed, and the entire procession came to a halt.
“Little Nefertari.” Pharaoh patted my head.
“Little?” I puffed out my chest. “I’m not little.” I was thirteen, and in a month I’d be fourteen.
Pharaoh Seti chuckled at my obstinacy. “Little only in stature then,” he promised. “And where is that determined nurse of yours?”