Sphinx's Princess (37 page)

Sitamun and Nava came to see me at noon. Once again they’d brought the leather bag, and I couldn’t help being curious about what it might hold this time. Nava also brought her harp, and while she played and sang strange songs in the Habiru tongue, I found the opportunity to slip Sitamun my question. She read it, crushed the scrap into a ball in one fist, and said, “Even a blind hawk sometimes catches his rabbit. You will be kept here until my parents return.”

“So he told me the truth about that?” I raised my eyebrows. “Now I’ve witnessed a miracle.”

“Not a very big one. It was Father’s vizier who persuaded the others to delay your … fate.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Rumors fly through this palace like bats. But that isn’t all.” Her mouth became a flat line. “He did his best to hide his feelings, but my brother was
not
pleased when the vizier was able to sway things your way. Oh, Thutmose’s tame priests put up a token argument, but then the vizier asked, ‘Shall I tell Pharaoh that
you
take full responsibility for this—’ ” She glanced at Nava and her voice dropped to a whisper. “ ‘—this death?’ That was when the chief priest solemnly pronounced that the gods were eternal and could wait to see justice done.”

I studied my friend’s face. “So I’m safe here for now. Shouldn’t you look happier?”

“My brother was
not
pleased,” Sitamun repeated. “And you have nowhere to run.”

That was true. “You think that Thutmose would—?” I said.

“I don’t know. He’s my brother, and I love him, but I don’t recognize him anymore. With every year that passes, the sickness in his mind grows worse, and he becomes more and more of a stranger to me. What will become of him, Nefertiti? Who will he be when he finally stands before Osiris and Anubis weighs the sins in his heart?” She was on the point of tears.

“Sitamun, I promise you this: When Thutmose faces
the gods, his heart won’t be weighed down by my blood. I can’t wager my life on guessing what his sickness will make him do, or spend my days just
wishing
he won’t touch me before your parents return. I’m getting out of here.”

“How?”

I had to answer honestly: “I don’t know. I don’t even know where I’ll go once I get out, but maybe Isis will come to me in my dreams and lend me a little of her cleverness.” I gave her a weak smile. “It’s my only hope.”

Sitamun embraced me. “Not while you have friends.”

We spent the rest of our time together that day proposing ideas for how to get me out of my prison, out of the palace, out of Thebes, where I should go once I had my freedom, and how to transport me there. While we whispered together, we had Nava sing and play her harp as loudly as she could to keep the guards in ignorance. She gleefully obeyed. What child wouldn’t welcome the chance to make as much noise as possible, especially one who’d been silent for so long?

“You could go home,” Sitamun said. “Your family will protect you.”

“That’s the trouble,” I replied. “Father would die to defend me, but until my name is cleared, he’d be shielding a criminal. His enemies and mine would be justified in punishing our whole family. I won’t do that to them.” I thought about my choices some more, then said: “Dendera. I won’t wait for Pharaoh to come back here, I’ll take my case to him.”

“Good idea.” Sitamun touched the gold necklace she
wore. “This will buy a boatman to take you downriver. I’ll take care of that. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get you
to
the boat.”

“Details, details,” I said, smiling.

“I’m going to speak with Master Henenu and Amenophis about this,” Sitamun said. “They may have some good ideas.”

“Not Amenophis.” I raised my hands. “He mustn’t be involved. If Thutmose found out, he’d have him convicted of treachery.”

“But he wouldn’t dare execute him for it.”

“He can’t do that to me, either, and yet we both know I’m still in danger. Keep Amenophis out of this. Please.”

Before Sitamun and Nava left, my little friend told me, “I brought you a present, Nefertiti.” She opened the leather bag and handed me a large clay bottle.

“This is a
lot
of perfume,” I joked.

“It’s not perfume,” Nava said. “It’s oil for your lamp. Lady Sitamun got it, but it was my idea. I don’t want you to be alone in the dark. You might be afraid.”

I gave her a hug. “Isis bless you, Nava.”

“And may the One bless you, too,” she said, her small face the image of adult solemnity.

“The one what, dear?” I asked, so distracted by my plight that, for a moment, I forgot that Nava worshipped only one god.

She looked at me as if I’d asked if water was wet. “The
One,”
she said again. “When I pray, I ask Him to—”

“I hear the guards changing shifts. The new ones will be poking their noses in here any moment. If we linger too
long, they’ll report it to Thutmose. We’d better go,” Sitamun said, interrupting Nava, and leaving me behind.

I was deeply grateful to Nava for her gift. It took me a long time to fall asleep that night, what with my mind whirling over possible escape plans, so it was comforting to have a lasting light to keep the demons of doubt at bay. When the third day of my captivity came, she and Sitamun arrived even earlier than before, with fresh lamp oil and a different kind of gift.

“Here,” Sitamun said. She took my hands and closed them around a bronze pin adorned with a scarab.

“Thank you, it’s very pretty,” I said, turning it in the light.

“It’s better than pretty, it’s—Nava, dear, sing a little
louder
for us, won’t you?—it’s part of your escape. May Bes give his blessing to Master Henenu, our teacher is as wise as Thoth. ‘Don’t underrate Nefertiti,’ he said when I told him where Thutmose is keeping you. ‘You talk as if we need an army to rescue her when all
she
really needs is this.’ ” Sitamun pointed at the bronze pin.

“Oh, it’s a
magic
pin,” I said dryly.

She giggled. “It’s a pin you’ll use to secure your dress so that once you get out of this room all you’ll have to do is climb a wall and make your way to the river, where a boat will be waiting. ‘She can do that in her sleep,’ he said. ‘She’s a dancer, strong and nimble, but more importantly, she’s brave.’ ”

“I’ll have to be invisible, too,” I said. “If—
when
—I escape this prison, how do I reach that wall without being seen?”

“Don’t worry about your guards. Master Henenu has plans for them.”

“What about anyone else I might meet while I’m trying to reach that wall?”

Sitamun tilted her head. “You really don’t know where you are, do you?”

“Only that it’s quiet.”

“Your prison is an outbuilding that stands alone in what used to be a part of the old servant’s quarters. I think it was once surrounded by a vegetable garden, but in any case, once you’re out, you won’t have to worry about passing through any part of the palace. The wall between you and the river is just a little way outside that door.”

We parted a little after noon, with Sitamun’s pledge to do everything she could to arrange things with Henenu that would hasten the day of my escape. “The longer we wait, the greater the risk that some ‘accident’ will befall you.”

I cast a leery glance at the remains of my latest meal. “Maybe you should bring me my food from now on,” I suggested.

She shook her head. “If your food was tainted, the crime would be examined much too closely for my brother’s comfort. If he does intend to be rid of you, poison never looks like an accident.”

Thutmose didn’t come to visit me that day. I was just as glad to have him leave me alone. It was tiring, pretending that everything was the same between us, and how would I react if he kissed me again?

I didn’t waste my hours: I danced. I didn’t want to grow soft by just lying on my mat all day, especially not when my
escape was going to depend on how fast and how easily I’d be able to get over a wall. When I wasn’t dancing to keep myself fit, I worked at finding the best way to pin up my dress so that it wouldn’t come loose and entangle my legs midclimb. I was so focused that I was almost caught at it when the servant brought my dinner.

I tried to eat, but I kept remembering Thutmose. When I looked at the food, all I could think was
What if-—? What if-—? What if-—?
Since I couldn’t eat, I decided that at least I ought to drink something, but when I served myself some beer, it smelled strange. I poured it into my toilet stool, covered the pot to hide the faintly flowery scent, and tore up the rest of my dinner to make it look like I’d eaten something when the servant came back to take away the dishes. I stripped off my dress, placed it with my scribe’s kit beside my mat, and lay down to sleep.

The night wore on and I learned the hard lesson that an empty belly makes a bad mattress. No matter how still I lay, hoping for sleep, the rumbling of my cheated stomach kept me awake. I tried counting as high as I could go, then tried losing myself in the pattern of shadows on the ceiling cast by my flickering oil lamp. Once more I was thankful for Nava’s gift of extra oil. The only thing worse than lying awake and hungry in my prison would have been doing so in the dark.

As a last resort I tried closing my eyes and imitating the slow, regular breath of sleep. I don’t know if it worked. I
think
I dreamed, or maybe I was only in that peculiar place between sleep and waking where wandering thoughts sometimes counterfeit dreams. My mind drifted over the
wastes of the Red Land, the sandy stretches where my nightmare lions dwelled. I walked alone across barren ground, expecting to encounter them at any moment. My eyes swept the desert, waiting for the first telltale stirring of the sands before the monsters leaped out at me. Instead, all that I saw was an odd series of wavy tracks, and my ears echoed with a faint, unfamiliar sizzling sound.

Why are you wandering here, Nefertiti?
A great voice rolled across the desert. The air rippled with heat, and through the shimmering haze I saw a titanic figure striding toward me. The Great Sphinx’s lion-pawed stride devoured the distance between us and his human face was grim as death.
Why do you sleep while your enemies wake? Get up! Get up! Open your eyes while you can and—!
The rest of his words were drowned out as the buzzing noise surged louder and louder around us until the Red Land shook with it and the wavy tracks in the sand split open into a chasm at my feet. I plunged into the depths, crying out to my sphinx to save me, save me!

Save yourself, Nefertiti!
came the answer, and I woke with a start on my mat.

The buzzing was still there. I lay very still, listening. It was coming from the far side of my prison, where the high, narrow window framed a small piece of the midnight sky. By the light of my lamp I saw a leather sack in the shadows. The sizzling sound was coming from it. As I sat very slowly on my mat, I saw the folds of leather stir, and a small, pear-shaped head with prominent black eyes lifted itself clear of the bag. The snake paused for a moment, tongue flickering, then poured itself onto the floor,
draping its pale brown, rust- and white-patterned body into curves.

I knew what it was: a viper, and one of the most deadly in the Black Land. I remembered traveling from Akhmin into the countryside with Mery, to visit relatives of hers who farmed the land. When we reached their village, we found them in mourning, and I saw the corpse of exactly such a snake laid out beside the body of Mery’s cousin. He was young and strong, but the snake’s bite had killed him.

Time stopped. My thoughts became remarkably sharp and clear, like a shard of shattered crystal:
I should call for help. Wait. No, not that. Someone threw that bag into my room. This place stands alone; no one can approach it without the guards hearing them. So the guards must know. They won’t help me. They might even burst in here and do something to make sure the serpent bites me. Very well, then. I’m all the help I’ll have.

I continued to eye the snake. I was astonished at how calm I felt. I was looking at death; if I couldn’t escape it, what good would it do me to panic? The creature swung its head back and forth, then stopped, black eyes glittering at me. Did it see me or did it sense my presence some other way? It began to move its coils together quickly, rubbing its scales against one another, and the strident buzzing sound was back.

Save yourself, Nefertiti!

The sphinx’s words echoed in my ears. I searched the room. There was no way out, nowhere to hide, no place high enough to climb that would take me out of reach of those venomous fangs. I couldn’t run.

I wouldn’t run. I would fight.

The snake sprang toward me. I grabbed my dress with both hands and threw it like a net. The viper’s body tangled in the folds of sheer linen and the creature thrashed wildly, trying to get free. The buzzing of scales scraping together grew louder and angrier. The snub-nosed head poked out from beneath the edge of the cloth, but too late: I had my scribe’s palette in a tight grip and I brought it down hard again and again on the viper’s skull.

The day was only a pale hint of brightness in my window when Thutmose came barging into my room the next morning. He greeted the guards cheerfully a moment before he threw the door wide open, and I seized that moment as time enough to sprawl on my mat with my one remaining dress covering my body and my eyes staring glassily at the ceiling. I was very proud of the way I held that pose when he bent over me and smiled.