Sphinx's Princess (24 page)

“All right, Thutmose,” I said, relenting. “Until tomorrow.”

I tried to resume my aimless exploration of the palace, but Thutmose wouldn’t leave me alone. He spent the rest of the day stuck to my side like a burr. There was no question about why he was doing it: He saw his mother’s spies everywhere and wanted them to report that he was doing everything he could to win my heart and hasten our marriage.

The next three days were filled with more of the same uncomfortable togetherness for Thutmose and me. We ate every meal together except for breakfast. I think we both liked those mealtimes best because we didn’t have to make conversation while we were drinking or chewing. Thutmose was perfectly polite when he did speak to me. His words were thickly laden with praise for my eyes, my skin, my mouth, my voice, every part of my body he could list. He even recited poems that claimed how deeply he adored me, how painfully he missed me when we were apart, how ardently he wished for my love. He sounded like he was counting the number of steps from one end of his room to the other.

I was polite, too. I never laughed at him once. Aunt Tiye
would have found out and she wouldn’t have liked it. Neither one of us wanted her to become cross enough to punish Thutmose through his innocent pet. It was the only thing we had in common.

So the days went by and I watched him kill whole flocks of wild ducks, watched him practice shooting the bow and arrow with the nobles’ sons, watched him throw hunting spears at straw targets, watched, watched,
watched
him until I closed my eyes and cried out from my soul,
O Isis, let Aunt Tiye give him back his cat already! And thank you for showing me that there are worse fates than always being alone
.

My prayer was heard. Thutmose and I were eating our midday meal together under the shade of a date palm when Amenophis came out of the palace with Ta-Miu in his arms. “Look who’s come to see you, brother!” he called out joyfully.

Thutmose was on his feet and across the garden in one bound. He plucked Ta-Miu out of his younger brother’s arms and lavished the cat with all kinds of affectionate babble. Then he carried her back to where the servants had set our table and began offering her tidbits. Amenophis and I might as well have been on the moon.

I reached over and tapped Thutmose on the arm. “Aren’t you going to thank your brother for bringing back your cat?”

Thutmose didn’t bother taking his eyes off his pet to answer me. “Why? He only did what Mother told him to do.” He tore off another shred of roasted goose and fed it to Ta-Miu.

I saw Amenophis turn to go, crestfallen.
That’s not right
, I thought, and ran from the table to stop him before he could leave. “Come and eat with us,” I said.

“I’m not hungry.” He sounded miserable. “I’m going to take a walk.”

“Then I’ll walk with you,” I said.

“Are you sure? Thutmose will—”

“Thutmose won’t notice, and if he notices, he won’t care.” I laid one hand on Amenophis’s scrawny arm. “Can you do me a favor? I’ve been blundering everywhere in this palace for months, but I’ve never been able to find that tiny garden where I met you. Can you take me there? Just so I don’t start believing it was a magician’s illusion.”

“I wouldn’t make a very good magician,” he said, with a faint smile. “I’ll show you how to find it.”

We walked through the palace together with Amenophis taking special care to point out landmarks along the way so that I’d be able to find my way to the hidden garden whenever I liked. “It’s a good place when you want to be alone, but you can’t do that if you need someone else to bring you here,” he said as we finally crossed the threshold into the garden.

“I don’t have to go somewhere special to be alone,” I replied, running my fingertips across the leaves of a fragrant shrub.

“Really? But the women’s quarters are so busy.” He pulled back the fronds of a very young date palm, revealing a stone bench, and motioned for me to sit down. Then he sat as well, though so far from me I thought he was going to fall off the edge and land in the dirt. “Haven’t any of the
ladies spoken to you?” he went on. “Are none of them willing to make friends?”

“A friendship takes two,” I replied dully. “It doesn’t work out so well when one of them doesn’t dare to talk to the other.”

“Well, you
are
a royal princess, betrothed to the next Pharaoh, so the concubines might be shy about approaching you, but the junior wives wouldn’t hesitate. Some of them are princesses in their own right, like the two Mitanni women Mother is always complaining about.”

“Your mother does more than complain about them,” I said, and to my surprise I began to tell Amenophis all about how my first tentative efforts to make friends in the women’s quarters had been yanked from my hands by Aunt Tiye and thrown to the winds. When I finished, he looked very uncomfortable.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Amenophis!” I exclaimed. “I shouldn’t speak ill of Aunt Tiye to you like this: She’s your mother. I’m—I’m sure she has very good reasons for acting the way she does. I shouldn’t speak ill of her at all, it’s just that I’m so
frustrated
. I’m not used to being so alone. I didn’t have any
close
friends in Akhmin, but I knew lots of other girls. We danced together and chattered about silly things and had a wonderful time. And at home, there was my little sister, Bit-Bit. She must have changed so much, even in the short time I’ve been here. I wish I knew how she’s getting on. I’d do anything to hear any news about her or my parents.”

Amenophis was puzzled. “Doesn’t your father write to you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He said he would, but he also said there was a chance that his words wouldn’t reach me because …” I stopped. I’d already embarrassed him by criticizing his mother once; it would be mean to do that to him again. “Because so many things can happen to a message between here and Akhmin.”

“I don’t understand. Father receives letters from as far away as the kingdom of the Mitanni to the north and the heart of Nubia.”

“My father isn’t Pharaoh. Nothing is at stake if his letters don’t arrive.” Before Amenophis could pursue the matter, I diverted him. “I shouldn’t complain. Henenu and Sitamun are good friends, but they’re both much older than I am. I don’t have anyone closer to my age that I can really talk to here.”

He mumbled something and looked away. When I touched his arm and asked him to speak up, he softly said, “You’ve got me.”

It was good to have a new friend. I enjoyed talking with Amenophis very much, and our conversations ranged over everything from the latest palace rumor to the news from other kingdoms allied to the Black Land to the problems the royal baboon-keeper was having training his newest animals to pick dates from the tallest palm trees.

“You should have seen it, Nefertiti! The creatures are supposed to pick the dates and throw them down to the men below who’re holding the catching cloth,” Amenophis told me as we walked along one of the palace rooftops, enjoying the view and the fresh air.

“But they ate the dates themselves?” I guessed.

“Yes, but that wouldn’t have been so bad. It’s what they threw
instead
of the dates that—”

“Ugh! Stop! That’s awful! Don’t tell me any more!” I said, laughing so hard that he knew I didn’t mean it. “Why can’t
I
ever see something that funny in this place?”

“It didn’t happen in the palace. It happened in the royal groves, past the farthest downstream limit of Thebes.”

“Oh.” I sighed. “All the best things lie beyond the palace walls.”

My friend looked concerned. “Haven’t you ever left the palace?”

“I can’t. I’ve tried. Whenever I go to one of the gateways, the guards are very respectful but they always turn me back, saying it’s forbidden.” I didn’t tell Amenophis that I’d flirted with the idea of sneaking out, only to set it aside. If I wasn’t careful enough, I’d be caught and Aunt Tiye would hear of it. I’d risk that if I were sure she’d punish me and only me, but I knew she was more likely to make someone innocent bear the penalty for my daring. I refused to gamble against those stakes.

“It’s not forbidden,” Amenophis said.

“What?” If he was teasing me …

“It’s only forbidden for you to leave the palace
alone
. You aren’t a prisoner here, after all; you’re family. You don’t know your way around Thebes, so you could get lost easily if you went into the city on your own, or worse.”

“Worse?”

Amenophis looked sheepish. “There are some parts of the city and some people that aren’t very … nice. We have plenty of police patrolling the streets—you can’t miss them, they’re all members of the Medjay tribe from Nubia—but they can’t be everywhere all the time. A beautiful girl like you, alone, unfamiliar with the city—”

“I’d be a target for thieves,” I finished for him. “Or worse. I know what you’re hinting at, Amenophis. We had
all sorts of crimes committed in Akhmin, too.” I sighed again, more deeply. “I wouldn’t have to worry if I could go into the city with some kind of weapon to protect myself—a club, a staff. But even if I did, I’m not strong enough to use it effectively. My arms are too soft. Prisoner or not, I’m trapped.”

“I don’t like seeing you so disappointed, Nefertiti,” Amenophis said. “Why don’t you ask Thutmose to take you for a chariot ride through Thebes? I’m sure he’d be happy to have the chance to show you the city.”

“I suppose,” I said, but in my mind my answer was:
Do you want to bet on that, my friend?

It was too bad that I didn’t make that wager with Amenophis; I would have won with ridiculous ease. That night we had one of those formal dinners to attend. I’d come to dread them. Aunt Tiye always made sure that I was seated next to Thutmose and kept a stern eye on both of us, to be certain we were speaking to one another. She’d never wanted to postpone our marriage and kept pushing us together, hoping that the more time I spent in the crown prince’s company, the faster I’d become enchanted with him.

It wasn’t working. Thutmose and I still talked like strangers, or the priests and priestesses who sometimes donned masks and acted out stories of the gods at festivals. He only spent time with me when Aunt Tiye insisted on it, and then he spent most of our visits playing with his cat. I doubted he’d jump at the chance to drive me through Thebes, and I was right.

“Why do you want to see Thebes all of a sudden? What
put that idea into your head?” he asked without bothering to look at me.

“It’s nothing new. I’ve wanted to see the city since I got here,” I responded. “The temples, the marketplaces, the people …”

“I thought you had such things in Akhmin.” He clicked his tongue. “Anyway, I can’t take you any time soon. I’m very busy. I’m spending a lot of time with the priests of Amun these days, learning how to serve the god so that when I rule, I’ll do it with his blessing.”

“How could I ever hope to compete with Amun?” I said dryly.

My sarcasm went right over the crown prince’s head. “I’m glad you understand.”

Amenophis was seated near enough to overhear our conversation. I gave him a look that said:
What did I tell you
? He replied with an apologetic expression, and the very next morning he sent a maidservant to invite me to join him for a tour of Thebes.

Berett was already up and gone, along with her writing-practice tablet. Ever since Henenu had begun giving her proper instruction, the child got into the habit of running ahead of me to our rooftop classroom in order to have extra time with the scribe. Once those two sunk themselves in the day’s lesson, they probably wouldn’t even notice that I wasn’t there.

Amenophis was waiting for me at the main gate of the palace. The guards didn’t even blink when he led me outside to where a blue and gold chariot waited. A groom stood holding the reins of a pair of magnificent horses with pure
white coats whose trappings matched the chariot. Ostrich plumes dyed red as pomegranate juice bobbed and nodded atop their heads.

“Will you be all right riding with me?” Amenophis asked anxiously. “We could walk, if you’d prefer.”

I remembered coming to the palace in a chariot so many months ago. At the time, my mind had been too preoccupied for me to enjoy the experience. I wasn’t going to make that mistake this time.

“I want to ride,” I said. “But only if you promise to drive
fast
.”

Amenophis looked dubious, but he gave me what I wanted. I held tight to the chariot rail as he slapped the reins crisply over the horses’ rumps and they took flight. He was a masterful driver. Those skinny arms of his were strong enough to steer the horses with precision, to slow them smoothly when we entered streets where speed would have been folly, to let them race like twin dragonflies skimming the surface of the sacred river. The wind of our ride whipped through my dress and sent my hair streaming behind me. I laughed aloud at the joy of being free.

Oh, how I hated it when he brought the horses down to a walk, then made them stop. I wanted to keep on flying! I wanted to outrun my own shadow, and the palace that we’d left behind, and the day when my three years of reprieve would be over and my aunt wouldn’t have to take “Not yet! Not yet!” for an answer.