Sphinx's Princess (23 page)

She pointed at her messenger. “Take them out of my sight! Let no one know they’re here.” The woman bowed and ushered everyone else away. The look of stark terror in their eyes was appalling. I saw Berett press both hands to her mouth, as if to make doubly sure that no sound would escape her lips.

“Aunt Tiye, what’s wrong?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Is that so?” She mocked me. “But you’re such an
intelligent
girl, so talented, so perfect to become the next Great Royal Wife. So why aren’t you intelligent enough to remember that everything you are or ever hope to be, you owe to
me
? Why have you decided to reward all I’ve done for you with
treachery
?”

“What treachery?” I asked, unable to believe my ears. “I’m your niece, not your enemy. If I’ve done anything to offend you, I apologize, but I don’t see how I’ve—”

“You were with
them!
” Aunt Tiye’s teeth clashed together in her fury. “You shared food and drink and laughter with the women who’d like nothing better than to steal our rightful thrones from my son and me!”

“The Mitanni princesses?” So that was it. “All we did was—”

“I know what you did. How could you even think of befriending the very people who want to destroy your family? Does loyalty mean nothing to you? Are you so stupid that you’d betray the ties of blood between us for a mouthful of cake and wine? Do you love those foreign dogs so much that you’d gladly cover yourself with their fleas?”

I held up my hands in surrender. “Aunt Tiye, I swear by
Ma’at that I would never side against you with any of the other royal women.”

“
Royal
women,” she repeated scornfully, then narrowed her eyes. “Prove it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Forget your foolish reluctance to do what you know you must, sooner or later. Marry Thutmose now.” She was smiling again, a thin, disturbing smile.

I shook my head. “Not yet,” I said. “Ask anything else but not that. Not yet. He’s still a stranger to me.”

The queen’s smile blinked out. “You have too many scruples for somebody who’s entitled to none. If I say you will marry my boy today—”

“You took an oath before Amun,” I reminded her. “There were witnesses. If you break it, the gods will be angry.”

“I would risk that for my son’s future,” she said. I could tell she meant it.

“What if they didn’t punish
you
for oath-breaking?” I asked, desperate to turn her thoughts aside from forcing me into that unwanted marriage. “What if they punish
him
?”

I saw her face grow pale. I’d reached her. “Don’t even say such things! Niece or not, princess or not, you can still be punished for ill-wishing Pharaoh’s son.”

“I wish Thutmose well,” I said. “Just as I wish you and all my kin well. No matter what you think of me, I’m loyal to my family. But I can’t marry Thutmose yet. Please, Aunt Tiye, honor your oath to Amun.”

The sly smile crept back across her lips. “Will
you
take an oath of your own to prove your words, Nefertiti? Will
you swear before Ma’at or Amun or any of the gods that from now on, you will have
nothing
to do with any of those devious little vipers in the women’s quarters?”

“Why must I—?”

“Or will I need to show you that bad choices yield worse consequences? I promise you, the next time word reaches me that you’ve done more than exchange a nod or a greeting with any of Pharaoh’s women, I will take one of your servants and see to it that she suffers for your selfishness and disloyalty. I hope it won’t take you four lessons to learn that I’m in earnest about this.”

Four—? Berett!
I didn’t want my aunt to harm Kepi or the other maids, but the very idea of her taking out her mad spite on Berett made me tremble down to the marrow of my bones.

“You won’t need to teach me anything,” I said, standing tall and holding the queen’s gaze. I refused to let her see how distraught her threats had made me. It would give her a fresh advantage over me. “I swear by Isis, I won’t have anything more to do with your rivals.” And then, because I was so angry at my aunt for how she’d cut me off from any friendships, I added: “I hate to see you so afraid.”

I turned my back on her and left, not even waiting for her messenger to bring back Berett, Kepi, and the others.
She knows I care about their fate or she never would have tried to control me through them, but she doesn’t know how
much
I care
, I thought.
My words stung her—I saw it—but if she takes it out on them, she’ll be tossing away all of the playing pieces she’s got. Aunt Tiye’s too good a player to do something that brash over such a little barb
.

I’d gambled well: Before I’d gone half the length of the hall, I heard a patter of many feet and I was surrounded by my girls.

The days that came after my clash with Aunt Tiye were doubly lonely. Since that dawn-light meeting, my servants did their scant few chores in a state of jangled nerves, even Kepi. She and I used to share funny stories about my life back in Akhmin and her own experiences growing up as the daughter of a wine merchant, but Aunt Tiye’s threats had opened up a canyon of silence and fear between us. It didn’t matter that she and the others had been taken out of the room when the queen and I tangled; there were always ears and eyes and eager lips to carry news of supposed “secrets” through the palace.

I thanked Isis that no such gap had yawned between Berett and me. She’d endured worse ordeals of terror in her short life. My aunt’s attempt to tighten the reins on me by menacing her and the rest was just a passing shadow to Berett. I was glad of that but regretted that the one person in my immediate household who wasn’t afraid to talk to me couldn’t do so.

The situation grew worse. The Mitanni princesses and the other women who’d joined me in that happy dance were taken aback when we crossed paths and I only spoke a word or two to them. Their expressions went from surprised to hurt to resentful, and I heard their whispers behind my back, calling me proud, arrogant, two-faced, high and mighty, cold. Any child of the women’s quarters who took so much as a step in my direction was grabbed away by his or her mother as if I had leprosy. I couldn’t set foot out of
my rooms without overhearing cruel jibes. So what if they weren’t true? They still had the power to draw blood.

I tried to take refuge in my friendship with Sitamun. Our morning lessons became my only diversion, but they weren’t enough to chase away the full measure of my loneliness.

“Why do you look so glum lately?” Sitamun asked. “Something’s eating at you. Tell me.”

“It’s nothing.” I wasn’t brave enough to confide in her fully. I was afraid that if I told her about what her mother had done, she’d confront her. Sitamun had a bold heart, but I knew she didn’t have the power to protect Berett and the others if she made her mother mad. “Just some bad dreams,” I replied.

“Lions?” She winked, trying to cheer me with our old joke.

“Lions.” I bent over my work, unsmiling, and focused on the papyrus, the pen, and the words.

Henenu joined us, but he had little to offer me. All of his attention had shifted to teaching Berett how to read and write. It was anyone’s guess how well she could read, since there was no chance of having her do it out loud, but he assured us that she managed to let him know, in her own way, that she understood the symbols he placed before her. As for her writing, her rapid achievements sent the little scribe into gleeful ecstasies.

“Why are all of my best students
girls
?”he exclaimed. It wasn’t a complaint at all.

I was pleased for Berett’s sake. The child now had something more with which to fill her days when she
wasn’t playing the harp. When we weren’t on the rooftop with Sitamun and Henenu, she reviewed her lessons with a waxed tablet I’d given to her, just like the one I’d once used. I was very serious with her when I explained why she couldn’t practice her writing on shards of pottery, like Henenu’s official students did. One of the servants might find them. Even if the maid didn’t understand exactly
what
she’d discovered, she would know it was something out of the ordinary. She might go running to tattle about it to Aunt Tiye, in hopes of buying herself the queen’s protection.

“So you see why this must stay a secret,” I told Berett. She looked solemn and nodded. Unfortunately I’d stressed the need for secrecy too well. There were many days when my little musician would grab her tablet and vanish from dawn to dusk, holed up somewhere in the palace where she could practice her beloved new skill, safe from spying eyes.

So Berett’s days were occupied, but what about mine? I was left behind, alone more often than not. The women’s quarters held nothing for me but sneering looks and hostile whispers, so I wandered aimlessly through the palace, looking for nothing except a way to make the hours pass until dinner and bed.

On a cool day toward the end of the season of Emergence, my wanderings brought me to an open space planted with tall palm trees, a terrace with a sweeping view of the sacred river. I looked across the water to the western bank and the yellow cliffs in the distance. When I turned back, I almost walked right into Thutmose. I let out a small yelp of alarm and jumped, but he stood unruffled, studying me in that unnerving, detached way of his.

“So you are here after all,” he remarked.

“What do you mean? You sound as if someone told you where to find me, but I didn’t even know where I was heading today.”

“You do that a lot, don’t you? Roam the palace? I don’t see why. You don’t even pay attention to where you’re going. Yesterday you nearly walked out one of the side gateways, into the city.”

“I wish I’d known,” I said bitterly. “I would have kept going.”

“No, that would not have been permitted.”

“How do you know so much about my comings and goings?” I asked, suspicious. The obvious answer came to me almost before I finished the question. “I’m being watched, amn’t I?”

His eyebrows rose sharply. “You didn’t know that? You must be joking.”

“It’s true? I’m spied on all the time?”

“You are being
looked after
,” he corrected me. “You should be grateful that someone thinks you’re valuable enough to deserve so much attention. And no, not
all
the time. Don’t flatter yourself. Not even I am that important.”

The way he spoke—as if losing your freedom to privacy was a privilege and not an assault—made my skin crawl. I decided to change the subject.

“You have a very light step, Thutmose, very soft and graceful,” I said, trying to turn our conversation into something more pleasant by flattering him. “Did your cat teach you to move so silently?”

His face lit up with a smile so natural and unexpected,
it was startling. “My beautiful Ta-Miu! She’s as unique as that white star on her brow. I’ve never seen another cat with such a mark, so it must come from the gods. No mere human can move as gracefully as she. She’s a shadow on the water, a wisp of cloud drifting across the sky. She steals through the house like twilight. The best dancer in all of Thebes would be a crippled hippo next to her.”

“Then I’d better not dance for you,” I said, pleased to see that there was some hope of human warmth from the crown prince. “I don’t want to know what
I’d
look like in comparison to your cat.” I glanced around. “By the way, isn’t she with you?”

His smile died. “She’s with Mother. She’ll be given back to me in three days, provided that I earn her return.” He looked at me as if I were a cup of sour wine, but only until he forcefully twitched the corners of his lips back up again. “My beautiful Nefertiti, forgive me for having neglected you for so long. Tomorrow I’m going hunting on the river. It would make me very happy to spend that time with you. Please join me.”

Isis help me, she
made
him do this
, I realized.
Aunt Tiye took his beloved pet to make him woo me. Am I that repulsive or is he simply that indifferent to me? But if neither one of us wants this marriage—

“Thutmose?” I said. “Thutmose, if you could marry anyone under the sky, who would you choose?”

His forehead creased. “Why do you ask such a question?”

“Your mother would be happy if you married soon and had a son of your own, but I’m not ready for marriage or
motherhood yet. Why not take the wife that
you
want now? That would please everyone.”

“You mean it would please
you
.” I didn’t think it was possible for Thutmose to become even colder toward me, but he proved me wrong. “Who put that question in your mouth? The Mitanni worms?
You
will be my wife; none other.”

“No one told me to ask you anything,” I argued. “If you don’t want to marry anyone except me, so be it.”

“If I
want
to marry you?” he echoed. “You don’t
know
what I want.”

“You could tell me.”

His laugh was a slap. “And then what? Will you bring me my heart’s desire freely, asking nothing for yourself in return? Or will you play the same games with me that they all do? This for that, that for this, keeping a handful of game pieces hidden or shaving the toss-bones so they show the numbers
you
need in order to win?”

“I only asked a simple question,” I said, feeling my temper slipping out of my control. “I didn’t want to upset you like this.”

“There are no simple questions inside these walls, Nefertiti,” he told me. “If you ask me whom I’d rather marry than you, it means that there’s someone
you’d
rather marry than me.”

“No, it doesn’t, I swear by—”

“Stop. I hear too many oaths, too many promises. Let’s forget you ever asked me anything. I would rather have your answer.”

“To what?”

He made a small sound of exasperation. “To my invitation. I’m going hunting for birds in the marshes tomorrow and it would make me deeply happy if you’d come along.”

“Thank you, but I’d rather—”

“
Please
, Nefertiti.” Thutmose’s mask slipped and I was looking into the eyes of a young man who had lost the one thing he actually cared about.