The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran Page A

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