Sphinx's Princess (12 page)

I stood watch that night, holding on to my courage with both hands. Whenever I felt a twinge of doubt or hesitation, I thought of Bit-Bit.
I have such a wonderful story for you, little sister! Be patient. As soon as the right moment comes, I’ll tell it to you.
I didn’t dare to close my eyes until the high window showed that the night was fading. Dawn would come soon. It was time.

I stretched my arms and legs and body the way I did before a dance, happy to discover that my injured foot felt almost completely restored. I whispered a prayer to Isis for help and to Ma’at for forgiveness, then I threw myself backward onto the bed and began to thrash violently. Small, half-choked groans and whimpers poured from my lips, but I didn’t make
too
much noise. I didn’t want to attract the attention of every person in the house; just two.

The young priests-to-be tore the doorway curtain aside and burst into the room. Their faces looked white as sun-bleached bone in the lamplight. Before they could say a single word, I cried, “She’s here! The high priest’s wife is here! She’s holding me down!” I had my hands hooked to the sides of the bed, and I kicked my feet as if I were fighting against a great weight on my chest. “She’s trying to—” I made sounds like someone choking on a fish bone and did my best to look terrified.

The boys stood frozen in the doorway. “What did I tell you?” Deep Voice said, scared and triumphant at the same time. “It’s old Mistress’s spirit!”

“No, no, no, no, no, impossible.” Reedy Voice wasn’t ready to give up the argument. “She’s just having a—a fit or something.” He started toward me.

I sat up, transfixed with a look of blazing hatred. “How
dare
you!” I declared, pointing one finger at his heart. “How
dare
you try to touch your Mistress! In the name of Isis, if you lay one finger on me while I inhabit this miserable girl, your arm will wither, your skin will shrivel, your eyes will boil in your head, your—”

“All right, all right, I won’t touch you, I swear it!” Reedy
Voice backed away quickly, holding his hands up before his face. How they trembled! I could hardly believe it: My plan was working! I began to enjoy myself.

“Disrespect!” I thundered. “Did you speak to me in such a familiar way while I lived under this roof?”

“No! I mean—No, O Mistress.” Now Reedy Voice was completely a believer. When I rose from the bed, doing my best to look majestic and imposing, he fell to his knees and bowed at my feet.

Deep Voice was still standing like a statue, but his lips worked. “O Mistress, shall I—shall I fetch your husband?”

“Never!” I raised my arms high, my hands clenched. “After what he has dared to do to my precious son Ikeni, he doesn’t deserve to hear my voice in this world again.”

“I—I don’t think we do, either,” Reedy Voice muttered.

I ignored him. “He scorns my son, calls him stupid, wants to tie him in marriage to—to
this!
” Now I flung my arms wide and looked down at my own body in disgust.

“Um … what’s wrong with her?” Reedy Voice asked. “She’s really pretty.”

“And we were just talking with Ikeni before your husband summoned us,” Deep Voice added. “He’s in love. He
wants
to marry her.”

I glowered at him. “Did I ask for your opinions, you pair of squashed beetles? I know what’s best for my son. The eyes of the dead see more clearly than the eyes of the living. I tell you, if Ikeni is married to this worthless creature for a day—no, for even
part
of a day!—I will take a hideous vengeance. My spirit will curse everyone and everything in this house. You will ache with hunger and burn with thirst!
Your feet will turn to stone, your hands to mud, your livers will swell, your blood will slake the thirst of poisonous serpents, and your manhood will be—”

I struck one final pose, gave the shivering boys a dire look, then uttered a tiny sob and fell into the best faint I could fake. As I lay in a heap at their feet, I heard Deep Voice ask: “Is she dead?”

“Of course she’s dead! Old Mistress has been dead for years.” A sharp slap rang out and Reedy Voice added: “Ow. Why’d you do that?”

“Because you’re as stupid as Iken—I mean, you’re just stupid. Is the
girl
dead?”

“I don’t think so. I see her breathing.” There was a pause. Then Reedy Voice spoke again: “We have to tell Master about all this. If he hears about the curse—”

Deep Voice cut him off with a snort. “You really are a bonehead. We both know Master never listened to his wife when she was alive. We have to get her out of here.”

“But if we do that, Master will punish us!”

“Which would you rather have, one of his beatings or your feet turning to stone, your hands to mud, your manhood to—well, she fell over before she could say what would happen to our manhoods, but it’s probably something awful. A curse is a curse.”

Reedy Voice sighed. The next thing I knew, one of them hooked his hands under my armpits, the other grabbed my ankles, and the pair of them ran swiftly and silently through the priest’s house while I jounced and swung between them like a goatskin filled with water. I kept my eyes closed and
my body limp, but in my heart I was doing a dance of uncontrollable joy.

At last I felt fresh air on my face and knew we’d reached the street. They set me down with a wall pressed against my right side. I had no idea where I was but I didn’t care. I was
out.

“Do you think she’ll be all right here?” Reedy Voice asked.

Deep Voice answered: “The sun will be up soon. People will come out and find her. She’ll be fine. Come on, let’s go back inside. We’ve got to think up a good story to tell Master when he asks where she is.”

I hope it’s as good as the Tale of the High Priest’s Vengeful Dead Wife
, I thought and risked a smile.
Bit-Bit’s going to love this one.

As soon as I heard the last of their departing footsteps, I sat up, brushed myself off, and hurried home as fast as if there really were an angry spirit flying after me.

I let myself in by the garden gate, went inside, and found the house in an uproar. Bit-Bit was wailing, Mery was praying frantically, and Father was nowhere to be seen. Had something evil happened to him?

“Mother, where’s Father?” I cried, rushing in.

“Oh! The gods be thanked!” Mery clutched me to her so hard it hurt.

“I couldn’t find you in our room after dinner,” Bit-Bit said, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “I thought you’d gone up on the roof or out into the garden, so I went to sleep. But when I woke up in the middle of the night you still weren’t there, or on the roof, or in the garden, or
anywhere.
So I told Father.”

“He’s been searching the whole city for you,” Mery said. “Where have you been?”

I took a deep breath. “You’re not going to like this.…”

I was right; she didn’t. Neither did Father, after Mery sent one of the servants to find him and fetch him back. I got such a scolding that my ears burned.

“What were you thinking?” Father shouted. “I never expected something like this
from you
, Nefertiti. You’ve always been so shy, so quiet, so
sensible.
Do you know how much trouble you could have caused? This isn’t like you at all. My Nefertiti would never do such a rash, heedless, dangerous thing.”

But I
did
do it, Father
, I thought.
I chose to do it, and I don’t regret anything except that it was too late to save that poor slave girl’s life. You see only the risk I ran, not my reasons for deciding it was a risk worth taking. Oh, Father, you look at me and see
your
Nefertiti, but that’s not who I am.

Of course I didn’t share my thoughts with Father. I was exhausted after my nightlong captivity, so I prostrated myself before my parents and begged their pardon for how much I’d worried them.

“I forgive you, little kitten.” Father knelt and raised me back to my feet. “But for the next ten days you’ll stay in this house. You can go into the garden, if you like, but not the street. Understand?”

“If that’s my punishment …,” I began.

“It’s not so much a punishment as a precaution,” he replied. “The townsfolk are already talking about what happened to you at the Inundation, and if I know the high priest, he’ll be sowing ugly rumors about you today. The crocodile doesn’t like having prey slip out of his jaws. He’ll do whatever he can to hurt you, even if it’s only with words.
If you stay inside, the gossip won’t have a visible target. It doesn’t matter how much dung people throw if there’s no wall for it to stick to.”

“Listen to your father, Nefertiti,” Mery said gently. “He loves you.”

Yes, but he doesn’t know me
, I thought.

Father went to sleep even though it was morning. He was exhausted after his desperate search for me. Mery saw to it that I was given a breakfast that was more like the Inundation feast I’d missed. I ate ravenously. The last meal I’d had was also breakfast, a day ago. While I filled my belly, Mery and Bit-Bit left the house to go to the market. I was left to myself.

I finished eating and went into the garden. Early morning light bathed the statue of Isis in a golden glow. I recalled all the riches I’d seen the night before in the house of her high priest.
How much of that wealth was taken from the goddess?
I wondered.
Does Isis live in such splendor within her temple walls? No one but the priests would ever know. They’re the only ones supposed to be pure enough to serve the gods face to face. That man, “pure”?
I shook my head, thinking of how the high priest had abused his authority, trying to take my life and break Father’s heart.
Isis, forgive me, but I can’t believe that we aren’t just as pure as your priests and just as worthy to stand before you.

I knelt before the goddess and gazed up into her serene face and spoke to her from my heart.

“O Isis, why can’t Father understand that I’ve changed? I don’t need to hide behind these walls, afraid of people’s stares or whispers. What do they matter? Mahala the
Habiru slave had worse to fear; she didn’t let that stop her from doing what was right. She had nothing—not even her own life—but she had courage. I can’t give back her life the way she gave back mine, but I can give her spirit a better gift than a little shrine, a saucer full of grain, and a dribble of wine.”

I went back into the house, to Father’s office, where I found a small piece of papyrus. Next I went to the kitchen yard and took a bit of charred wood from underneath the cooling bread oven. It took a lot of work to get a fine enough point on something so crumbly, but I managed, and soon I was back in the garden, placing the papyrus scrap between the goddess’s feet. If anyone in our house noticed it there, they wouldn’t dare disturb it. It was hers now.

“Great Isis, be my witness,” I said, weighing down the papyrus with a white stone. “This is my vow, my own words: I promise to live with the same bravery that Mahala taught me when she gave her life for mine. It’s not enough to be born free; I have to
live
my freedom! I swear to do this in honor of her memory, no matter how many battles I’ll have to fight. May you give me strength and blessing, and may Mahala’s spirit find rest.”

When I finished my prayer, I went straight to my bed and slept until it was time for dinner. The next morning I woke up at dawn and returned to the garden, expecting to find my small papyrus scrap gone, blown away on the night wind, but it was still there, at Isis’s feet. “A good omen,” I said with a smile.

The great sun-boat of Ra was only a sliver of gold in the east when the messenger arrived. We were eating breakfast,
and Father had just made a joke about how glad he was that this day couldn’t possibly be as bad as the past two. He was not pleased to have our meal disturbed when one of the servants brought the stranger in, but when the man bowed and stated his business, Father’s expression went from mild irritation to outright alarm.

“My lord Ay,” the messenger said solemnly. “I bring word from your august sister, Queen Tiye, Great Royal Wife of the divine Amenhotep, may he live a thousand years. You and all your family are commanded to travel to join her at Abydos, where it is her will to honor you as no servants of Pharaoh have ever been honored before. A ship awaits your pleasure.”

“My pleasure has nothing to do with my sister’s ship,” Father muttered. If the messenger heard, he gave no sign. Father raised his voice and said: “You are welcome in my house. Eat, drink, and rest. Then return to my sister and say that we will obey her …
invitation
at once. We’ll leave tomorrow at dawn.”

“So much delay, my lord?” The messenger looked nervous. “Queen Tiye won’t be pleased. She’s
very
eager for your arrival. If I go back without you …”

Father laughed mirthlessly. “Then you’ll go back
with
us. But we’re not going to undertake the journey in haste. Who knows how long my sister will want us to stay? I still have business to conduct on Pharaoh’s behalf. I have to make arrangements so that things here in Akhmin don’t suffer in my absence, and I am
not
going anywhere if it means leaving my house in disorder behind me. When we
reach Abydos, I’ll tell the queen that the holdup was all my fault. You won’t suffer for it.”