Sphinx's Princess (28 page)

When it was time for me to go, the same well-dressed official who’d brought me into Pharaoh’s presence came to escort me back to the women’s quarters. Since Pharaoh hadn’t called for him, I assumed that the length of my visit had been decided in advance. I was glad that it had gone well and that Amenophis’s father and I got along when we could be ourselves. How awkward to be trapped for that long with a man whose company was an ordeal!

On the other hand, it would have been good practice for being married to Thutmose
, I told myself grimly as I left the private audience chamber.
I can’t go through with it. I have to find a way to get my freedom back, a way that won’t let Aunt Tiye retaliate.

The weeks passed and the season of the Inundation came, bringing great rejoicing. Pharaoh Amenhotep appeared before the people, performing all of his ceremonial duties with a firm step and steady hands. I stood with the rest of the royal family and watched, amazed to see him in such robust health. The vigorous king I saw offering gold and incense to the god Hapy made me wonder if the ailing man I’d visited had been part of a dream.

Maybe he really
is
a god on earth
, I thought. I admit that I’d never truly believed that about Pharaoh. I felt guilty for
my doubts, and I never dared to mention them to anyone. They came to me when I saw how wan and wasted Pharaoh looked. Gods were supposed to be powerful, greater than we mortals could ever hope to be or even to imagine, and yet …

And yet when I’d looked into Pharaoh’s face, I’d seen nothing but a badly weakened, ailing man.

That year, the sacred river rose to the perfect level—deep enough to enrich the farthest fields but not so deep that Hapy’s waters could wash away the people’s homes. It was an unmistakable sign that Pharaoh Amenhotep continued to enjoy the favor of the gods. The Pharaoh and his land were bonded in ways that ordinary people could never hope to understand. (So we were told many, many times.) Pharaoh’s health was the same as the health of the Black Land, and the other way around, so nearly all of the Theban priesthoods lifted their voices in hymns of praise for Pharaoh’s strength and songs of thanksgiving for his influence with the gods.

Only the priests of Amun kept all of their praises for the god they served, parading images of Amun through the streets daily. Nava, Sitamun, and I liked to watch their processions from one of the palace rooftops. More than once we recognized Thutmose in their midst.

“Why is he with them?” I asked.

Sitamun shrugged. “He told Father that he had a dream where Amun personally demanded that he serve him as faithfully and frequently as he could. Father wasn’t happy.

He’s been trying his best to curb the priests’ sway over his kingdom, and now they’ve got his oldest son under their influence.”

Or the other way around
, I thought, remembering what Thutmose had told me about making the powerful Amun priests his allies.

“Anyway, whether Father likes it or not, he can’t interfere. It’s impossible to argue with the commands of a god.”

Even where you’re supposed to be a god yourself?
I wondered.

The Inundation celebration in Thebes went on for many more days than they had in Akhmin. Pharaoh made an appearance as part of both the solemn rituals and the merry festivities every day, in addition to entertaining his most highly placed nobles and important foreign guests each night. From my place with the other princesses, I saw how intently Aunt Tiye watched his every move. None of the guests would have been able to tell how nervous she was, but I was close enough to see it and to sense the tension leaping through her whole body if a piece of bread slipped form Pharaoh’s hand, if his wine goblet trembled, or if his laugh seemed to end with an unusually hoarse sound.

Aunt Tiye wasn’t the only one of Pharaoh’s wives who attended the Inundation banquets. He often invited a selection of his junior wives who were of royal birth, and sometimes even a few who weren’t but whose beauty blazed like the sun. Aunt Tiye’s face showed no emotion throughout those dinners, but her eyes reminded me of a dagger’s edge, glittering in the dark.

One night, after the last feast to welcome the new
season, I was walking by myself back through the women’s quarters when my sandal broke. I kicked it off and tried to slip my foot out of the other one, but my gown got in the way. It was a gift from Aunt Tiye, sent to me just that morning with a “suggestion” to wear it to the banquet. It turned out to be a poor fit, much too big, and the excess fabric tangled around my legs. I stumbled off to lean against a wall so that I could use both hands to remove my second sandal, and I left my little clay lamp on the floor next to my broken one, to make sure I didn’t accidentally set that accursed gown—and me!—on fire. Just as I pulled the unbroken sandal from my foot, a wayward breeze whisked past and blew out the lamp. I was left hugging the wall in the dark.

Well
, this
will teach me to have a servant escort me back to my rooms
, I thought sourly.
Now what? Do I blunder home in the dark?
I looked to the sky. It was a moonless night and thin clouds blurred the stars.
If I keep one hand on the wall, I can probably feel my way back without falling into one of the garden pools. Oh, it would be
so
much easier if I could get another lamp! I don’t see any lights burning nearby, but maybe someone is still awake in the next courtyard.
I edged slowly along the wall, looking for a speck of light, a sign of life.

I heard the two women’s voices before I saw the light of a lamp shining behind a mat-hung doorway. One sounded familiar but only vaguely so. The other was strange to me. I moved toward the glow, about to announce my presence, when the indistinct murmur of their voices suddenly sharpened into words that turned me to stone where I stood.

“—how can you guarantee that my son will be crowned once Pharaoh’s dead?” That was the voice I didn’t know,
shrill and nervous. “I hear that Prince Thutmose is protected by the priests of Amun, and as for that mother of his …! Ugh. She frightens me.”

“You jump when you see a mouse.” The voice I half-recognized was soft, caressing, and heavy with contempt. “I haven’t been wasting my time. I’ve made …
a friend
who’ll help us, a powerful nobleman whose wealth and connections can buy us more than enough armed men to defend your son’s claim if the queen or any of her pups try to make trouble. The priests of Amun are no fools. They flock to the strongest player in this game.”

“Well …” The first voice sounded uncertain. “And you’re
positive
you can get Pharaoh to name my boy crown prince instead of Thutmose?”

I heard a gusty sigh of exasperation, and then: “You wouldn’t question me if you could have seen the way the old man was looking at me tonight. He’s been my captive since the day I became his bride, and I won’t be asking him for anything alarming.”

Now I did recognize that voice. It belonged to one of the junior wives who’d been present at tonight’s banquet. The sound of her throaty laugh attracted my attention. I saw her chatting with one of the foreign ambassadors and remembered thinking,
She’s so beautiful, she’d make Hathor envious.

The plans I overheard, standing suspended in silence just outside that doorway, would have made the evil god Set envious, too. I listened for what felt like hours, until I heard a rustle of linen and the voice of the beauty saying, “I’d
better work fast. He’s getting sick again. If he dares to die before I’ve arranged things for your son, I might as well jump in the river, but once everything’s in place, I’ll be happy to push the old man into his tomb myself!” She yawned. “Good night.”

I moved as quietly as I could, creeping along the wall, then scrambling to hide myself behind a clump of shrubs. From there I saw her push back a door curtain and emerge, lamp in hand, before heading briskly for her own rooms.

As soon as she was out of sight, I moved as fast as I could in the dark until I stumbled back into a part of the palace where lights still burned for the servants who were carrying away the last traces of the feast.

I grabbed one man’s arm as he tramped past with an armful of chair cushions. “Take me to Queen Tiye’s apartments at once!”

“The Great Royal Wife has retired for the night,” he replied, looking at me in bewilderment. I realized what I must look like—my new gown filthy and my hair in disarray from my time crouched behind that shrub, but my body decked out with a fortune of gold ornaments. No wonder the poor man was confused.

“I am Princess Nefertiti, Queen Tiye’s niece,” I said. “I have news for her that can’t wait until morning.”

“My lady, I beg you to excuse me,” he pleaded. “You are not aware of the penalty for disturbing the Great Royal Wife at this hour.”

“And what’s the penalty for wishing that Pharaoh were dead?”

The royal palace was in an uproar, feet pounding back and forth through the halls, raised voices bellowing commands, the sound of shrieks and weeping coming from the women’s quarters. Through it all, I sat in the center of a tiny spot of calm in my aunt’s bedchamber, still in my stained, disheveled dress, my hair in tangles, my body smelling of garden soil, sweat, and the fast-souring remains of the perfumed oil I’d worn for that fateful banquet. I was worn out, desperate for a bath and a soft bed.
Why won’t she let me go?
I thought.
I warned her of the danger, I protected our family! Is
this
how she repays me?
My heart thudded wildly at each new tumult from outside.

What have I done?
I thought.
What have I done?

I was not alone. As soon as I’d told Aunt Tiye about the conversation I’d overheard that night, her first act was to summon all of her children to her side. Sitamun and her sisters could have spared themselves the trouble of coming; their mother had nothing to say to them once they arrived except, “There’s a plot against us. Stay here.” It was only when Thutmose and Amenophis arrived that she bothered to speak of the details, and then only to her elder son.

“Two of your father’s junior wives have conspired to rob you of your inheritance. One of them is an ugly sow from Ugarit, sent here twelve years ago as tribute. The gods alone know why your father didn’t just send her away to one of the rural places that house his surplus women. There are plenty of those scattered everywhere in this land, for his pleasure when he travels. I suppose it’s because she’s a
princess.”
Aunt Tiye’s tongue dripped scorn. “Anyway, the sow gave birth to a piglet right away—no threat to you until now.
Now
there’s a new gift from Ugarit under my roof, an ambitious little hyena who can’t give Pharaoh a son herself, so she’s joined forces with the sow. The hyena was going to convince your father that having two sons in line for his crown wasn’t enough. She’d persuade him to make a third crown prince out of the worthless piglet, and once that was accomplished …”

“Kill me?” Thutmose’s eyes were aflame, but his face was the color of ashes. Sitamun’s sisters gasped and mumbled prayers to avert evil.

“Or find a way to turn your father against you, to have you falsely accused of some crime, to have you exiled, and to do worse than that if nothing else worked. She thought she could. She believed she had the power to make him turn a piglet into a crown prince. And once the piglet had his crown, his mother would have to be regent but
she
would hold the real power. She’d even formed an alliance with one of your father’s most trusted and influential men, to guarantee there’d be swords to back up her scheme. Oh, the arrogance!”

“Did … did they plan to kill me as well?” Amenophis faltered.

“Why would they bother?” his brother snapped. “The idea of ruling the Black Land must leave you terrified. A child could push you aside. Haven’t you always told me that you don’t
want
the throne?”

“I only said I don’t want
your
throne,” Amenophis muttered.

“What?”
Thutmose stared at his brother like a hunting hound suddenly seeing an unexpected lion.

“Ignore him, Thutmose. This is no time for your bickering,” Aunt Tiye decreed, grabbing both of her sons by the wrist. “We are in
danger.
Do you understand that?”

“I—I—I don’t,” Amenophis admitted. “Their plans were discovered. Nefertiti warned us—” He gestured to where I sat all bent over on a low stool, hugging my knees and wishing I could block my ears against the sounds of chaos outside.

“Nefertiti is to
blame
for this!” Aunt Tiye cried. Sitamun’s sisters broke into shocked murmurings.

My head shot up.
“What did you say?”
I spoke so loudly that I silenced the whispering princesses.

“You can’t deny it,” Aunt Tiye said, her voice even colder than Thutmose’s. “Your selfishness has put us all at risk. If your father hadn’t spoiled you so badly, you would be a
proper
girl, listen to those who are wiser than you, and do what you’re told. Ah, but I’m not guiltless. I let my affection for my brother blind me. I thought there was no harm in taking the oath that gave you three years’ time to get over your silly reluctance to marry my son. I was so wrong, and now my son came far too close to paying the price for
your
stubbornness. If you’d married Thutmose at once, the gods would have blessed us with a son by now and my boy’s path to the throne would be secure!”