Ramses slid open a compartment beneath the ebony-and-ivory senet board and handed the four counting sticks to Nefertari. He placed the pieces on the board by alternating spools and cones on the first row of ten squares and nodded for her to throw first.
Several turns later, the sticks showed three plain sides and one decorated side. Ramses, having won his single point, began his play while Nefertari tried to score a one. Soon both were in the game. Nefertari jumped her marker over Ramses’s and then moved a space backward.
Three sticks landed decorated side up. Nefertari advanced her marker three spaces. Ramses tossed the sticks to score five points when all four plain sides showed.
He glanced at Nefertari and caught her smothering a yawn.
“It is late, and you are tired. Would you like to finish later?”
“Are you afraid I’ll win, Ramses?” She teased him with a smile.
“I’m afraid you’ll fall asleep on the board and scatter the pieces.”
Nefertari tilted her head and looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “Whoever clears the board wins.”
Chuckling, Ramses watched her leave and knew he would never tire of this wife, would never give her title of Great Wife to another. She was indeed whom he, the sun, did shine for.
No one else expressed concern over the shadows beneath his eyes or seemed to care that his clothes hung loosely. He knew without being told it was Nefertari who had ordered his favorite foods prepared, hoping to persuade him to eat.
Ramses pushed the wooden pieces around the board. It was late, but he dared not sleep, dreading the ordeal of struggling through visions seared in his mind throughout the night. Were he a lesser man, he would surround his bed with priests to ward off these demons, but as pharaoh, he must not be seen as weak and unable to battle evil alone.
Evil. Did these torments come from Seth, brother and enemy of Osiris? Possibly.
He had not yet sacrificed to Seth. Ramses stacked the game pieces into a pyramid. He would make a blood sacrifice since Seth was a god of violence. He would order the death of prisoners—fourteen prisoners. That number should satisfy Seth since after killing Osiris, Seth had cut his brother’s body into fourteen pieces.
Ramses scraped his hands across the stubble darkening his chin. Tonight he would not sleep, would not risk the darkness of grieving the loss of his family and his nation. Nothing was more terrifying. He would do whatever necessary to avoid it.
His own journey into the afterlife did not overly concern him. The mortuary temple where he would be worshipped was nearing completion, and his tomb was already well stocked for the next life. The Book of the Dead with its spells to allow his ba to take different forms and move in and out of the tomb had been carved on the wall. His soul would not be confined.
Ramses repositioned the senet pieces. He layered the cones on the spools, balanced spools on cones. In spite of his steady hand, they tumbled across the narrow table.
Was it an omen—a portent of the horrors coming true? Mentally, Ramses shook himself. He was becoming as superstitious as an old woman. As if he had intentionally scattered the pieces in his boredom, Ramses stood and strode into the hall. He walked without thinking, without a destination, until he came to a wall painting of the judgment of the dead.
In the picture, the god Anubis knelt beside golden scales to weigh the feather of truth against a heart. Watching the scales was the devourer Ammat, his crocodile head leaning close, ready to swallow the heart if it were judged false. Thoth, god of wisdom, waited to record the verdict. If the heart was judged true, its owner would enter into eternal afterlife.
Ramses suppressed a shudder. He, too, must someday face this judgment before a panel of gods. Would his heart be judged true? Was it as light as a single feather? The gods would bear witness against him or for him. If he lost Egypt, he, too, was lost.