Ramses stood behind a shadowed screen and watched Nefertari reclining on a blue silk cushion beside her pool. As she stretched to reach a water lily floating by on the surface, the sunlight glinted on her bracelet of gold and ebony. She lifted her arm as if to admire her husband’s gift.
The other wives, seeing it, clamored over the delicate workmanship. Jealousy coated their words as they wondered aloud why Ramses did not give them such treasures.
Their foolishness amused him. Nefertari was his home, his haven, a place where he could be simply Ramses—not Ramses the pharaoh, or Ramses the general, or Ramses the high priest, but Ramses the man.
Silently he thanked the gods for his father’s wise choice of Great Wife. The first time Ramses met her, he had been a young vizier reigning with Seti I, his father. He had decided then that he would crown her the Queen of Egypt, the Great Wife of Pharaoh. He shook his head in amazement. She did not understand the power she held.
She was well schooled in court etiquette, he realized anew, as Nefertari smiled and nodded to the babbling court wives. Her face remained blank as if she were oblivious to the comments regarding the bracelet’s value.
The antics of pet ducks, another gift to his Nefertari, caught the women’s attention. The court wives dipped their hands into the scented waters and splashed the ducks, and Nefertari joined their laughter.
He must honor this woman of laughter and wisdom.
He knew many accused him of being a harsh man, a ruthless leader, but they would also complain if he were weak and indecisive. The god of Egypt must be strong, fearless, confident in action. It could not be otherwise. To the world he must be thus, but with her it was safe to show kindness, tenderness. She had vowed to never break his trust. She never had.
He understood he had become her lodestone. She wore the styles he liked, served the food he favored, and lived to please and serve him. Consequently, she had become the most influential person in Egypt other than himself.
Willow trees swayed in the breeze, tickling the water’s surface, and Ramses let the women’s chatter roll over him as he waited for Merit-Amun to arrive in obedience to her mother’s summons.
High-pitched voices warned him that their eldest daughter approached with her ever-present gaggle of squawking maids.
“Mother, whatever happened to your hair?”
“I’m well, my dear. Thank you for asking, and how are you?” Nefertari corrected her daughter with gentle words. “It’s so warm today I decided to enjoy the northern breeze. Come sit with me, dear. I was about to take some refreshment.” She lifted her hand to receive the silver cup and nodded for her maid to pour a second one.
Merit-Amun accepted a cup, sniffed, and motioned for it to be removed. “You know I don’t care for plain well water, Mother. It is unbearable without honey.”
Ramses saw his daughter level a bored look at Nefertari.
“Are you just sitting here doing nothing?”
Nefertari answered her with a graceful smile. “Serenity comes with age, child.”
“Don’t say that, Mother. You are not ‘aged,’ and I hate it when you talk like this.”
The lips so like her mother’s pouted, and although the voice was petulant, Ramses heard the fear underlying the words. Nefertari must have heard it, too. She shooed away the maids and court wives.
“My dear, you are, as always, beautiful, yet you seem troubled. Did the bad dream come upon you again, Merit-Amun?”
“Oh, Mama.” The arrogant girl disappeared, and in her place sat a child with frightened eyes. “It comes so many nights, and I wake up with my heart pounding, afraid to move. Every time, I’m boating with my friends and maids on the river when my favorite necklace—you know, the one with the lotus blossom carved in ivory, the one from Nubia—falls over the boat’s side. It doesn’t sink, I can see it floating just below the surface, but when I reach in the water and pull it out, it’s no longer a necklace. It has become a crocodile which tears apart our family and then destroys all of Egypt.”
“Have you consulted with your priests again?”
In her delicate face, Merit-Amun’s amber eyes appeared huge. “Several times—countless times. They tell me not to go boating because I will fall in, or that it is a sign from the gods I am vain, or that I have displeased the river god and need to make sacrifices.” She studied a perfect oval fingernail. “If their answers are from the gods, why are they all different? Do the gods change their minds?”
Nefertari paused before answering. “There are times, my lovely one, you must heed the advice of those wiser than yourself, whether they are priests or parents or even a servant.” She held up her hand as if to still an expected protest. “Let me finish. And there are times you must listen only to the voice within yourself.”
Merit-Amun clasped her hands and wailed. “But how do I know when to do which?”
“That, my dear, is the harder question. Would you like to know how I decide to whom I shall listen?” Without waiting for an answer, Nefertari continued, “Ask, ‘Why?’ For example, why would the priest think you offended the river god? Have you done something to anger either the priest or Hapi, the river god? Answer yourself truthfully.
“Then ask yourself, ‘Why should I listen to the voice within? Is there something I know which no one else does?’”
Nefertari sipped her drink. “At times I ask myself, ‘Why do I want to do this? What is my real reason?’ If you are completely, brutally honest with yourself, you will discover the answer. The secret is asking yourself, ‘What is my why?’”
“So I should try to understand the dream myself?”
“Perhaps. No one knows you better than yourself … or your mother.”
Merit-Amun laughed.
“Be ruthlessly honest with yourself, my dear. What are you hiding? What do you fear? What is your deepest desire? It may not interpret your dream, but it will reveal you to yourself.”
“Mama?”
“Dear one.”
“Mama, my deepest desire is to … I know that as Pharaoh’s daughter, I carry the right to kingship within my body, and if you retire to the harem in Faiyum or walk in the eternal afterlife, I could be crowned Great Wife to my father. Since my father will be my husband in name only, what chance will there ever be for me to have my deepest desire, to bear a child?”
Ramses raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t thought of that, but it was true.
“Someday I may be a queen of Egypt, yet I cannot have the one thing I want—someone to call my own, someone I do not have to share with Egypt.” For an instant, her chin trembled. “Will anyone ever call me Mama?”
“I’m sorry, dear one. You would have been a good mother.”
Mother and daughter sat quietly, and then Merit-Amun stood and kissed her mother’s forehead. “Thank you, Mama.”
A whiff of jasmine reached Ramses’s thin nose as his daughter left the courtyard, oblivious to her father’s presence. He stepped from behind the screen as Nefertari approached him.
“You would be a good priestess, Nefertari. If you ever tire of being the Great Wife…”
She placed a finger over his lips. “I am content to simply be your beloved. I wish to serve only one god—you.”