Sphinx's Princess (9 page)

But Father didn’t laugh with me—he scowled—and Mery shifted uneasily in her chair. When their eyes met, they exchanged a look that sent prickles rushing up the nape of my neck.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“If I don’t start getting you ready for the dance, you’re going to be late, that’s what’s wrong,” Mery said briskly, rising from her place and taking me by the wrist. “You have to wash and perfume yourself, then I have to paint your face, help you into your dress, put on your jewelry …”

I jerked my hand free. “
What
is
wrong?
”

This time, Father did laugh. “What have I always said about this one, Mery? When she’s determined to know something, my little kitten is too smart to be deceived and too alert to be distracted.” He looked at me with a rueful smile. “Your sister has the gift of prophecy as well as song. I’ve already had to hear one marriage proposal for you.”

I was astounded. “Someone asked to marry me?
Who?
”

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “You will not marry him. I sent him away.”

Bit-Bit groaned dramatically. “Father, how
could
you? What if Nefertiti’s in
love
with him?”

Father pursed his lips. “Bit-Bit, a
good
marriage begins with the man asking the woman, not her father. Now, Nefertiti, are you in love with anyone?” I shook my head, still stunned. “Then you don’t have to worry about this. I promise you, when you find the right young man, one who will recognize what a treasure the gods have given to him, one who treats you like his second self and cherishes you for who you are, I won’t stand in your way.” He chuckled. “And if you love him that much as well, I’ll get
out
of your way before I’m trampled into the dust. Now go with your mother and get ready.”

With Mery’s help I was soon ready to leave the house for the temple of Isis. Bit-Bit watched the whole process
avidly, sometimes helping, sometimes getting underfoot. She held the alabaster jar of perfumed skin cream while Mery applied it to my arms and legs, to keep them soft and glowing in spite of the strong sun, and happily ran to fetch the smaller ivory container of red ocher mixed with fat, for staining my lips. But when Mery painted my eyelids green with powdered malachite, sacred to Hathor, Bit-Bit clamored so loudly to have her eyelids painted too that her mother lost more time arguing with her than she gained by not doing it.

After much wrangling, Mery decreed, “Come here and I’ll outline your eyes with kohl just like Nefertiti’s, but that’s all.”

Bit-Bit wasn’t satisfied. “That’s nothing special. You do that for me every day!”

“And I always will. It protects you from the evil eye and the demons of the Red Land. I’ll do more when it’s
your
special day. Today belongs to your sister.”

While Mery drew an elegant black line all around Bit-Bit’s eyes, I combed my hair and put on her best bracelets, earrings, and necklace. They were extremely heavy, but I’d practiced my dance at home while wearing them, so I was used to their weight.

When it was time for Mery to place her jeweled wig on my head, we hit a wall. I no longer had my head shaved like a child’s, so the bulky wig wouldn’t sit securely. “I don’t know why you insist on keeping your hair,” Mery said. “It’s easier to stay clean without it.”

“I like it,” I replied. “I wash it every day. And I never liked how itchy my scalp felt every time you shaved it.”

“Hmph. Children.” Mery snorted, but she found another gold collar in her jewelry chest and anchored it to my hair with slender bone pins. “It almost looks like it was made to be a crown,” she said, pleased with the effect. “Just make sure you don’t lose it when you dance!”

I left the house alone, hurrying to the temple of Isis ahead of the rest of my family. The other dancers were already gathered in the shade of the wall that faced the river. There were nine of us, all daughters of the most important families in Akhmin. Our musicians were there as well, four girls who were temple slaves. One held a small tambourine that would help us keep our steps to the music’s beat. One played the double flute, and two were harpers, including the littlest one of the group. She couldn’t have been more than seven years old, yet her skilled fingers made the harp sing sweetly.

As I approached the other dancers, the oldest gave me a disdainful look. “Well, look who decided to show up: our little princess. What’s
that
on your head? It looks like a collar. What are you, stupid?” She laughed raucously.

“Don’t pick on Nefertiti,” another girl spoke up. “She doesn’t have to be smart; she’s beee-yooo-teee-ful.” She drew out the word until it was twisted and ugly.

A third cackled: “So what? The high priest’s son would have asked to marry her even if she looked like a squashed dung beetle. His father made him do it. Anything to tie a rope around the jackal’s jaws.”

So
that’s
where my marriage offer came from
, I thought.
And as for the jackal …
“You’d better not be talking about my father,” I said, closing in on the girl.

“Or what will you do about it?” she taunted. “Hit me? Then I won’t be able to dance, and Isis will be angry. Even if your father is Pharaoh’s pet, he won’t be able to save you from punishment for
blasphemy
.” She grinned brazenly.

I fought back my fury. She was right: I couldn’t touch her.
Where did all this spite come from?
I wondered.
These girls were always friendly to me before today. Why are they suddenly being so mean?

My answer came from a fourth girl, sharp-faced, tall, and gawky, but the best dancer of us all. “Shut up, you miserable swarm of locusts! You’re all just jealous because the high priest’s son wouldn’t ask any
of you
to be his wife even if his father commanded it! He’d sooner throw himself into the river and let the crocodiles have him.”

The four remaining girls gathered around me and joined their voices in agreement with my defender until the three who’d spit their venom at me retreated to one corner of the dancing ground, grumbling and making rude gestures. “Oh, I’m sure Isis likes
that
kind of behavior,” the tall dancer sneered.

We sat in our two separate groups until one of the temple priestesses came out and ordered us to prepare ourselves. The townsfolk were beginning to arrive, eager to honor Isis and be entertained at the same time. Our dancing space was a large, square platform of beaten earth atop a high stone wall at the river’s edge. It had steps leading down to the water, though at this time of year most of them were submerged. I wandered to the brink of the platform and enjoyed the fine view it gave me of the sacred river, with fine ships riding high on the current, smaller boats bobbing on
the water or tethered to the bank nearby, and dense, green stands of bulrushes where crocodiles might lurk on the far shore. I was busy composing a poem in my head for Hapy, the god who had given us such beauty and bounty, when the priestess called me back to the shadow of the temple. It was time to dance.

The slave girls in their meager loincloths struck up the melody. Singing and clapping our hands, we wove across the dancing ground in single file, our feet tracing the path of the sacred river, our arms waving to imitate reeds bending beside the water. We sang as we danced, our voices backed by a choir of temple priests and priestesses who stood under a gaily striped linen canopy with the high priest and his most honored guests, the senior priests of Hapy’s temple. The crowds of ordinary citizens didn’t get to watch us so comfortably. They packed the two open sides of the dancing ground, their faces aglow with joy even though Aten’s burning disk was already high enough in the sky to stripe their bodies with sweat.

We danced on, the music growing faster. Mery’s gold bracelets and collars were heavy, but I refused to let their weight hold me down. The more I danced, the less anything else mattered—not the heat, not the stinging words I’d had to hear before, nothing. When we opened our arms to the heavens, threw back our heads and began to spin like lotus flowers caught in a whirlpool, I imagined that I
was
the flower and that I was blissfully free, riding the sacred river far into the north, to unknown cities, to marvelous adventures, to where my guardian sphinx stood watch over all, even over dreams.

I became so caught up in the spell of song and swirling motion that I closed my eyes, wanting to become a part of the music. I’d studied the steps of our dance so diligently that I was certain I could perform them in my sleep. I lifted my feet high, happily dancing in my chosen darkness, and didn’t realize that I’d made a terrible misjudgment until I heard one of the other dancers shout my name. My eyes snapped open, but a step too late: I’d danced to the edge of the platform, one foot on the beaten earth, one on the air. I tried to pull back, flailing my arms to balance myself, but I forgot about my thick gold bracelets. Their weight threw me off-center, and with my next breath I was plunging over the edge of the dancing ground, into the depths of the river.

I hit the water hard. The impact struck the breath out of my body. I thrashed wildly, water filling my nostrils. Even with my eyes open, I could see only murky shadows. The sacred river was in full flood, carrying rich black silt out of the southern mountains. It fogged and darkened the bright blue water, blinding me.

O Isis, help me!
I prayed in terror.
I danced for
you.
Don’tlet me die. Great Sphinx, you saved me once. Help me now! Stretchout your mighty paw and draw me out of the water
.

I kicked as hard as I could. My legs tangled in my clinging linen dress, but somehow I found the strength to break the surface. I coughed, gasped, and gulped air, shaking water out of my eyes. With blurred, stinging eyes I looked all around, frantic to find the shore. My heart froze when I saw how far the current had carried me. I was well downstream from the thronged dancing ground, though I could still see
the horror-stricken faces of the people who were watching me be carried away.

Why are they just standing there?
I wondered desperately.
Why don’t they
do
something?
I was beginning to sink again, pulled down by my borrowed jewelry. I yanked off Mery’s bracelets and gave them to the river.
Take these, generous Hapy, and let me go!
I tried to give the god the collar around my neck as well, but my fingers fumbled over the fastening knot and I swallowed a fresh mouthful of the river. It was the same when I tried to tear off the gold collar I wore on my hair. Mery had anchored it too well. Choking on the muddy water, I lost my struggle to stay afloat. The sacred river closed over my head and I was submerged in darkness.

As my thoughts faded from panic to nothingness, something dug into my shoulder so painfully that it jerked me back from the brink of the underworld. The grip shifted from my shoulder to under my arm and I found myself being hauled back into the sweet, beautiful, precious air. My back scraped against something rough, I heard a loud
whoof!
in my ear, and then I was yanked out of the river entirely. I sprawled in the bottom of a small boat made from thick bundles of papyrus plants, a common vessel on the sacred river, but the face gazing down at me didn’t belong to a fisher man or a ferryman.

“Mistress, are you all right?” The temple slave who’d played the double flute for our dance sat on her heels beside me.

I tried to answer and wound up vomiting a huge measure of silt-laden water. I coughed so hard that I nearly
drowned a second time before I was able to whisper “thank you” to my rescuer. By then she was already paddling the little boat back to the shore. I sat up in time to see the crowd that was waiting to greet us on the bank downstream from Isis’s temple. The people gawked and clamored as we drew near, but no one came forward to help us land. I thought that was strange.

I saw the mob part as my family pushed their way through to the riverbank. Father waded out to us up to his waist into the shallows and I fell into his welcoming arms. Two other men, big and brawny, plunged past us as we came ashore. I looked back over Father’s shoulder and saw them take the slave girl out of the boat, carrying her between them. I smiled, happy to see my rescuer being given such kind treatment, until I got a closer look at the men’s faces. Scowling and cold-eyed, they dropped the girl to the ground as soon as they touched dry land, then got a fresh grip on her, dragging her away backward by the arms while she screamed and kicked in terror.

“No!” I cried, but my throat was raw from my ordeal and my protest was no more than a hoarse whisper. I dug my fingers into Father’s arms, pleading silently for him to
do
something. Didn’t he understand that I owed my life to that slave girl? Didn’t he care?

“Hush, my dearest, hush,” he murmured in my ear. “It can’t be helped. It can’t. She’s going to die. It’s the will of the gods.”

I don’t know how I came home again. Father must have carried me, even though I was much too big for that. I know I didn’t cry. What roused me from my shock was the touch of Bit-Bit’s hand ever so lightly on my cheek and her soft little voice whispering, “No tears. She hasn’t shed a single tear, Mother.”