"The kingship is a goodly office; it has no son and it has no brother who shall make its monuments endure, but one man provides for the other…"

-The Teachings of Merikare

Memories, once cherished and frequently revisited, slip through his grasp.

The cold water against his outstretched finger, pulled back by the soft warm hand of his wet nurse. Was she trying to guide him away from the water's edge? Keep him from drinking? Was it time to leave? He can't remember, can only remember his mother's naked back glistening as she leaned over to pick up something. He doesn't know what.

Then, nothing. He remembers the feel of his damp side braid against his shoulder, tickling him. He didn't like it. He reached for his mother, knowing somehow that she was holding his baby brother, but it was his mother, he wanted to feel her touch this instant. Did she hand the baby to the wet nurse? He doesn't remember now, remembers only that she had smoothed the itchy braid away from his shoulder and cupped his face in her comforting brown hand just a little darker than his own. He remembers hands most of all, out of this memory, because he also remembers feeling frustrated that everyone, everyone was too tall to make their faces seen. His brother's smooth but chubby baby hand, waving over the wet nurse's shoulder. The memory's gone. He's never been able to remember those early years. How old must he have been?

He must have been three years old. Moses is three years younger than him.

He was four years old, he knows, and took great pride in telling Moses that he couldn't share anything that he was learning in the kap. Later, when Moses turned four, he too would enter the royal nursery and begin his schooling. But for now, Moses was hardly a year old, his drool shiny on his chin, sleepy and sated after nursing. Rameses can't remember the wet nurse's face anymore, nor her name, nor anything else about the memory save the glee involved with telling his baby brother that he had something Moses did not.

Moses had the wet nurse's attention, those days. Rameses cannot remember how he wailed and reached when first told there would be no more milk after the banquet celebrating his fourth birthday, has no memory of his mother's hand on his face, not gentle—the crack and tingling pain of a blow to his cheek. What he does remember is his jealousy, and the desire to keep something to himself, something that, despite his taunting, Moses will one day have, too.

It had been Moses's turn to recite, and, seeing as he was five and Rameses was eight, he had the easier task, considering Rameses had long ago memorized The Eloquent Peasant. But Moses had always stumbled through his recitations. His memory was good and reliable, but he doubted himself. He does not remember this, but when Moses had first entered the kap, Rameses had welcomed him with open arms, excitement, brotherly affection. Mehy and the other half-siblings of age being schooled in the palace alongside him were dear to him, but Rameses's childish jealousy had grown into protective, comfortable love, and now he looked forward to having his true blood close by for support and the occasional teasing.

But here was not an opportunity for teasing. Nebenteru, the royal tutor, did not dare strike the royal princes, but his disapproval could feel like a blow. Sensitive Moses, for all that he put on a brave face, had never done well in the face of displeasure, whether from family or tutor or even Mehy and his cohort. Rameses remembers watching, tense fingers gripping his ostracon until the knuckles turned white, as Moses rose to recite.

"Then this peasant said to his wife: 'Behold, two bushels of grain shall be left for bread for you and the children,'" Moses rattled off. Even now, remembering, Rameses can picture the words and sounds in his mind perfectly. He had a better memory than Moses, even. He held onto the lessons, the literature, the facts, and the grudges much longer. "'But make for me the six bushels into bread and beer for each of the days that I shall be on the road.' Then this peasant went down to Egypt after he had loaded his asses with all the good produce of—of Sechet-hemat." Moses stumbled, and Rameses tasted blood. Now, he can't remember what he bit—his cheek? his lip? his tongue? But he hasn't forgotten the bitter salt and warmth flooding his mouth, panic for Moses warring with panic for himself. No one had told him the son of a god could bleed.

"This peasant set out and journeyed southward to—Ehnas." Moses's high voice had shaken as he continued. He had held his own so far, but he never could get the next sentence right. "He came to a point—opposite—Pithom—"

Rameses heard the mistake and coughed, loud and hard, sending flecks of blood splattering across his ostracon. The droplets oozed down the slate, and at the sight, Rameses felt as though sand in his head and hands blocked thought, movement. Nebenteru, however, had seen the explosion of red coming from the royal prince's mouth and had cried out in alarm. The other boys craned their heads around, side braids whirling in unison as they stared, first at the tutor, then at Rameses, and it is only through hindsight that this particularly vivid memory sticks with him, because his vision had gone clouded at the time.

Moses had recounted how funny the other students looked later, in the privacy of their own room, after the servants and doctors had decided nothing was wrong except a cut—where had it been?—in the mouth, somewhere, and had departed. Rameses cannot remember what else Moses had said, if he remembers anything at all, because the twirling black braids is practically an organic memory now rather than a whisper from an excited little boy's lips. But Moses's grateful smile when Rameses said around a mouthful of medicine, "'He came to a point opposite Per-fefi,' you hippo," is clear in Rameses's mind now. That memory, at least, was not a fabrication.

Rameses remembers this with some measure of bitterness. It is an old memory, but more recent than those early years.

Moses was always ready to be goaded into such pranks. At six years old, he was a rambunctious child, vivacious and prone to sudden fits of laughter. His hair was curly—curlier, rather, than the black locks that made up Rameses's own side braid, and their mother and nurses had long ago given up trying to tame it. They kept his hair cropped short, and when Moses laughed, which was often, his whole face stretched to accommodate the force of his mirth, his ears prominent against his almost-bald scalp.

Rameses had not teased him about this, he knows. The temptation had arisen in their worse fights, and the ears were good to pull when Moses was being especially irritating and they were truly fighting. Moses was self-conscious about how different he looked with his unusual hairstyle all the same. Later, when he was older, he would be gifted a wig of straight black hair, and he would take it off only in the safety of Rameses's sole company. But Mehy and their half-siblings had no such scruples. Even the younger brothers joined in on occasion, following their role models. Moses bore it as well as he could, never crying, but often volleying such clever insults back at his half-siblings as to make them question who was really being picked on. Moses carried some weight as the second-born of the Great Royal Wife, and while he was certainly more than capable of defending himself by crying foul and tattling, he had proved himself precocious and tough enough with his words. Rameses had respected his brother's instinct for survival against unfavorable odds, and as a token of this respect, the bald head and prominent ears went unmentioned between the two of them.

He is too caught up in the details, now. This is not the memory.

They were always finding ways to make palace life more interesting. Some days, it was more exciting to sit, legs dangling over the balcony, and spit date pits over the edge, trying to aim for particular taskmasters' heads, blind to the slaves below. Other days, like this day, they discovered entertainment in the Temple of Ra.

What Rameses mainly remembers is telling Moses, in jest, that Sobek and Tawaret were almost the same god, both fertile and fertility-promoting. Moses was too young to understand why Rameses found this so dirty and hilarious, but he had always delighted in seeing Rameses laugh. Rameses, for his part, was in the middle of switching the heads on the statues of the vulture-headed goddess Mut, Lady of Heaven, with the snouted head of Seth. His younger brother, watching and laughing alongside him, trying to join in on the fun, reached for Sobek's crocodile head. Rameses watched, validating pleasure warming his chest, as Moses swapped the crocodile with Tawaret's hippo head, then the crocodile head with the falcon head of Ra before Rameses, mid-laugh, realized what was happening.

Hotep and Huy took that moment to appear. They were newly inducted priests in those days, and smugly serious about their task. Rameses had not yet begun to study the secrets of the priesthood in earnest, and the two knew it, lording over this small power they had over the royal prince. And then, catching Moses desecrating the Sun God's temple and the Sun God himself while said royal prince watched, was the perfect opportunity to cry blasphemy.

Father had been furious. It was not long before his two favored children stood before him, their eyes downcast and throats cold with fear. Even this flash of remembrance could always make Rameses feel hollow and ashamed. Moses had not once pinned blame on his brother, told the truth and said Rameses had begun swapping statues first. No, Father already knew, even in the face of Moses's loyal silence. What would it do to have two blasphemous sons? What would face them in the afterlife, their hearts heavy with the careless sins of childhood? And Rameses, he would face an even greater burden, held a greater responsibility. Was this to be Seti I's legacy? A spoiled, reckless, desecrating son?

Moses had waited for Father's rage to subside, then had dared to speak up. It had been he, Moses, who had taken the joke too far. Was Rameses at fault for the foolishness of the second-born?

Father had dismissed them in disgust, and after taking their leave, his sons had walked in silence down the alabaster halls. Out of sight of the guards, Moses reached for his hand.

Had Rameses taken it? He must have. He would not have let Moses suffer their father's punishment alone. His brother had taken responsibility, and Rameses knew he would bear the lesser blame because of it. Surely Rameses had not been so callous as to refuse the six-year-old's silent request for comfort. His own strength, he knows, comes from compassion, not solitude.

But the memory of this first of Father's disappointments sticks, acrid and heavy, all the same.

When Father had taken him along on his military campaigns as a teenager, his practice with Mehy had seemed so long ago. Now, it feels even longer. Mehy was overeager and carried his bow with him everywhere. Such impulsiveness would get him killed later. But for this instant, this moment, he was alive, and calling to Rameses to join him, to go to target practice, that Setau's mother had set up copper plates for them to shoot at.

Rameses had grabbed his own bow and had raced out of the kap, not even thinking to look for Moses. The excitement of the opportunity, the realization that his archery skills were good enough that he could best Mehy in front of his and Setau's mothers, sent him scrambling, his eleven-year-old legs carrying him out of the summer palace with an energy that only the young possess.

But Moses was there, waiting, a serious expression on his face as he strung his bow, an expression that brightened once he caught sight of his brother. Rameses remembers the shift in his brother's facial expression, the lightness in his own heart at the sight warring with the guilt at having forgotten him.

He does not remember the practice, now. He knows he did well. He remembers in fragments: Mehy's mother's tight smile when Rameses sent a copper plate Mehy had missed flying; the weight of the bow in his hand; a vague recollection that it had been especially hot that day; Moses struggling to keep tears at bay as Setau's mother bandaged his hand. It must have been an arrow, certainly not the giving-way of fatigued skin against the bow grip, but Rameses can no longer remember who shot the arrow that injured his brother. It was not him, for certain, and it was not a self-inflicted accident, because Rameses remembers turning on his half-siblings, Mehy and Setau among them, and roaring at them that he would have their heads.

What else does he remember? Moses laughing, a pinched sound, but it had distracted him. "The fearsome pharaoh, frightened by a wound on the second-born's hand," he'd mumbled, so only Rameses could hear, and not risk the half-siblings' mockery. The heat had left Rameses's head then, and he'd laughed, throwing his shoulders back and caution to the wind. He can still remember Mehy and Setau's wide eyes and tense, balled fists, wondering, no doubt, if the mad royal prince was really going to have them executed.

A memory he does not revisit, and one he cannot even should he wish to. His mother holding his thighs Rameses does not recall, and should he ever wonder why he seems to remember the feel of her fingers pressing in so odd a place, his mind shuts down instantly. It refuses to remember the doctor in front of him, also kneeling, the instruments prodding, pulling, cutting. His own muffled screaming. He will never remember this.

Rameses may, in the lonely and nostalgic corners of his mind late at night, think of the hours after. Those hours he spent lying on his bed healing, when Moses had finally crept in to visit him. His little brother had hummed one of the songs from their childhood, a pleasant thing from the wet nurse, perhaps. It was a sad but tuneful melody that Moses, now ten, had never forgotten and was fond of whistling.

"One day, this will be me lying in my bed, and you singing to me," Moses said softly once his song was finished. "One day soon." Then, a grin had split his face in two. "I'm a much better singer than you, however. I suppose I am much more of a comfort to you, thirteen years old, than you will be to me at this time. No one wants to hear a sixteen-year-old sing."

But this is not late at night. This is now. And Rameses does not think of this.