Sphinx's Princess (39 page)
Authors: Esther Friesner
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Historical, #Ancient Civilizations, #Girls & Women
There was a short delay in launching our boat. The ferryman seemed to be having an unusual amount of trouble getting his craft under way. I decided that he was probably either very old and feeble or very young and inexperienced, though I’d have to wait for a better look at him before I could tell which.
And then we were on the river. We had no sail, only the big steering oar and the current to take us where we were bound, downstream to Dendera. I noticed that the ferryman wasn’t merely allowing the boat to ride the river north but was working hard to steer the boat to the western bank as well.
“What a good idea, crossing the river,” I murmured to Nava. “That side’s where the royal tombs lie. We’ll have far less chance of being seen if we sail along that bank instead of the eastern one.”
“Do you think the bad prince will chase us?” Nava asked with a yawn. She’d had a busy day and was growing sleepy.
“Are you afraid he will?” I asked.
“No,” she said, though she didn’t sound confident. “I’m brave, remember?” She looked over the side of our boat at the dark water. “But I don’t like the river. It’s got
crocodiles and things, and it’s nighttime so we can’t see them if they sneak up on us. This boat is safe, yes? The crocodiles can’t knock it over?”
“If they try, I’ll take that big oar and knock some manners into their ugly heads,” I told her. “I’ll do the same to anybody Prince Thutmose sends after us, too.”
And he
will
do that
, I thought.
Once he learns I’ve escaped, he’ll want revenge. He doesn’t know where we’re going, but he’s got countless soldiers, officials, and servants to put to the task. He might even send word to the farming villages up and down the river. It’s very good we’re being ferried over to the western bank, where there are tombs instead of towns.
“Now don’t worry about the crocodiles anymore tonight,” I told her. Once we have this big river between us and Prince Thutmose, we’ll only sail during daylight, when we can see the crocodiles before they see us. Isn’t that right, Ferryman?” Our lone rower only grunted, but it was enough to satisfy Nava.
“Good,” she said. She curled up in the bottom of the boat like a little mouse in its nest and went to sleep. She didn’t wake when our boat reached the western shore and bumped and rolled in the reedy shallows. The ferryman had some trouble with a tangled line and made a huge splash when he finally heaved the stone anchor over the side. Drenched, Nava slept through that as well.
“Poor thing,” I said, kneeling to pick her up. Once I had her in my arms, I realized how difficult it would be to get out of the boat and wade to the bank while carrying the sleeping child in my arms. I stood in the prow, holding her to my chest, unsure of what to do.
The ferryman leaped into the water and came to my aid. The folds of his cloak that had been draped over his head fell back as he held out his arms. He said, “Give her to me, Nefertiti.” By the half-moon’s light, I saw Amenophis looking up at me.
“Sweet Isis, what are you doing here?” I cried.
“Helping you,” he said mildly. “Please give me Nava so I can get to the shore. I think the fish are starting to nibble on my ankles.”
I handed him the sleeping child and waded ashore after them. “Answer my question,” I said.
He did, but not until he’d given Nava back to me. I sat on the sandy ground, the child cradled in my lap, hearing him out while he went back and forth from the boat, unloading supplies. “I already told you: I’m helping you reach Dendera so that you can get Father’s protection. If you want to go by land, you’ll have to transport food and water and sometimes Nava. If you go by boat, you’ll need an extra pair of arms for the oar, and in case you run into a difficult stretch of river, or a bad-tempered bull hippo, or one of Nava’s crocodiles.”
“Or a school of those ankle-eating fish?” I said, with a little smile.
“Oh yes, they can be deadly,” he joked back. “You need someone to watch your back when my brother sends his underlings after you, someone to hunt and fish for you when your food runs out along the way, someone who’s
been
to Dendera, knows the way there, and knows where to find Pharaoh once we reach the city.” He placed the last bundle from the boat between us. “You need me.”
“But I didn’t want you mixed up in this! I told Sitamun that specifically”—I knit my brow—“and apparently she ignored my wishes. So did you.”
Amenophis sat down beside me. “Sitamun didn’t say one word to me about the arrangements for your escape. Thutmose banned me from visiting you, so I was going to my sister’s rooms to see if she could give me any news. I overheard her speaking with Henenu about the plan, I waylaid him when he left, and I made him see the wisdom of letting me be your ferryman. So you see”—he showed me his wonderful smile—“it was fated. Don’t blame Sitamun for my being here, Nefertiti. Blame the gods.”
“Thutmose will kill you when he finds out about this.”
Amenophis’s smile vanished. “Thutmose tried to kill
you.
”
“So you know about that. Rumor again?”
“The palace was humming with talk of how a viper got into your room when nobody’s ever seen so much as a harmless little sand snake inside the walls.”
“You also must have heard that I managed to deal with the serpent on my own?” I challenged him.
He leaned closer and looked intently into my eyes. “Nefertiti, I knew long ago that you can take care of yourself. All I’m saying is, you don’t
have
to do it alone. If you really count me as your friend, then let me share this with you. Please.”
I could see that there would be no arguing with him. “Stubborn donkey,” I muttered.
In my lap, Nava stirred and woke up. “Donkey?” she said drowsily. “Where?”
“Nowhere, dear one, go back to sleep,” I said.
“I can’t. I don’t want to. I had a bad dream.” She put her arms around me. “There was a lion.”
“Shhh, it’s only a dream, it can’t hurt you. Look, sweetheart, our friend Amenophis is here now. You’re with us.” I touched his arm and smiled. “We’re not afraid of lions.”
In my previous books,
Nobody’s Princess
and
Nobody’s Prize
, I wrote about Helen of Troy, a woman of legendary beauty whose life was mythical but very well might have been historical, too. Many people believed that the Troy that Homer described in his epic poem
The Iliad
was purely the stuff of myth, until nineteenth-century amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann used that same epic poem to help him uncover the remains of a
real
Troy that had been attacked, conquered, and put to the torch at the time Helen would have been living.
Now I’m writing about Nefertiti, another beautiful woman, except this time she’s a historical person who very well might have been mythical!
There’s much that we know about Nefertiti and much that remains a mystery. One of the most wonderful parts of this puzzle is the world-famous statue of this fascinating Egyptian queen, a carved and painted bust that has
preserved her beauty through the centuries. Much of ancient Egyptian art depicting members of the royal family was formalized, which is to say that if Pharaoh or any of his relatives had physical imperfections, the artist did not show them. Think of it as the great-great-great-to-the-nth-degree-grandfather of Photoshopping.
Nefertiti lived during one of the most interesting and dangerous periods in ancient Egyptian history, the Amarna Period. It was a time of new ideas and concepts, which is especially exciting when you remember that we’re talking about a millennia-old civilization that did
not
handle change well (to put it mildly). One of the changes of the Amarna Period was Pharaoh Akhenaten’s decree that artists should portray him and his family realistically. This says a lot about Akhenaten, since his surviving statues show him with a potbelly, an oddly shaped head, and numerous other physical characteristics that might lead some people to describe him by saying, “But he has a
great
personality!”
It speaks highly of Akhenaten’s character that he was willing to be immortalized warts and all (even if he didn’t have warts). It also tells us something about Nefertiti: If the famous bust of this Egyptian queen shows us a beautiful woman, then she really
was
a beautiful woman. Amarna Period art was honest.
I suppose it was lucky for Nefertiti that she was beautiful, since her name means “The beautiful woman has come.” Imagine having to live up to a name like that! And everyone would know, because her name was in the language used throughout Egypt. Modern names have meanings, too, but they often come from foreign or dead
languages. If you’re named Hope or Brooke or Heather, everyone knows what your name means. But what about Alexandra (“man’s defender”) or Madison (“son [yes,
son!
] of the mighty warrior”) or Emma (“embracing everything”)?
Nefertiti was as beautiful as her name, but aside from that, we don’t know a lot about her before she became Egypt’s queen. The name of her father is known, as well as her stepmother’s and her half sister’s, but what was her
mother’s
name? There’s further debate about her ancestry, too. Did Nefertiti come from a purely Egyptian family, or was she of foreign blood? Was she born into the nobility, or was she a commoner?
We do know that there was more to her than just her looks, because she is portrayed many times on walls and monuments acting not merely as Pharaoh’s wife but as an independent ruler, a monarch in her own right. Some evidence suggests that she might have ruled Egypt for a time when her husband could no longer do so. What’s more, it’s theorized that she didn’t rule as regent but as Pharaoh, using a male name. There is even one carving that shows her destroying the enemies of Egypt with her own hands! (All right, maybe Amarna Period artists sometimes
did
stretch the truth just a bit.) But whether she acted alone or with her royal husband, she challenged many powerful men who didn’t want to give up even the smallest bit of their wealth and influence. Even for a queen, that took courage.
Then … she was gone.
There are no official records of her death. Her tomb has never been found. Recent discoveries in Egypt have
raised hopes that her mummy has finally been located, but this has not yet been confirmed to the point where we can say, “Yes, that’s Nefertiti, no doubt about it.”
That’s the historical Nefertiti, a flash of beauty, bravery, and wisdom who stepped out of the shadows of mystery and back again. We still don’t know where she came from or why she vanished, but we can look at the exquisitely painted image of The-beautiful-woman-has-come and let our imaginations supply those parts of her story that history still conceals.
Above all, we can remember that she was much more than just another pretty face.
Nebula Award winner
Esther Friesner
is the author of thirty-one novels and over 150 short stories, including “Thunderbolt” in Random House’s
Young Warriors
anthology, which led to her novels about Helen of Troy,
Nobody’s Princess
and
Nobody’s Prize.
She is also the editor of seven popular anthologies. Her work has been published in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Russia, France, Poland, and Italy. She is also a published poet and a playwright and once wrote an advice column, “Ask Auntie Esther.” Her articles on fiction writing have appeared in
Writer’s Market
and other Writer’s Digest Books.
Besides winning two Nebula Awards in succession for Best Short Story (1995 and 1996), she was a Nebula finalist three times, as well as a Hugo finalist. She received the Skylark Award from the New England Science Fiction Association and the award for Most Promising New Fantasy Writer of 1986 from
Romantic Times.
Ms. Friesner’s latest publications include the novel
Temping Fate;
a short-story collection,
Death and the Librarian and Other Stories;
and
Turn the Other Chick
, fifth in the popular Chicks in Chainmail series, which she created and edits. She is currently working on the sequel to
Sphinx’s Princess.
Educated at Vassar College, receiving a BA in both Spanish and drama, she went on to receive her MA and PhD in Spanish from Yale University, where she taught for a number of years. She is married and the mother of two, harbors cats, and lives in Connecticut.