Sphinx's Princess (7 page)

Bit-Bit burrowed her face against my chest. I felt her
small body shiver. “Bit-Bit, everything’s all right between us. Why are you crying
now?
” I asked a little impatiently.

“You’re not mad at me, but what about Anat?”

“Anat?” I was bewildered. “Who’s Anat?”

Bit-Bit ignored my question. “You won’t punish her, will you? You mustn’t blame her for letting me run back into the garden. She’s very old, and her bones hurt her all the time now, and …”

And then I knew who Anat was. She was the old slave I’d told to keep Bit-Bit busy during my lessons with Henenu. I hadn’t thought about her at all until this moment, and now I realized that I’d never known her name. Yet here was my little sister, crying because she didn’t want any harm to come to the old woman.

A woman
, I thought.
An old woman with her own name and her own troubles. A woman, not a
thing.

We’d always had slaves in our house, the way we’d always had food and clothing and furniture. They were simply …
there
, like Mery’s care or Father’s love. Why would I ever stop to question something I took for granted?

I didn’t
, I thought.
But I should
.

I promised Bit-Bit that I wouldn’t let anyone punish Anat. She was comforted, although she still insisted on sharing my bed for the rest of the night. “I
do
have bad dreams,” she admitted.

“I know what that’s like,” I whispered back, but she was already asleep, her thumb in her mouth.

I rested poorly, scarcely sleeping. Long before the divine Aten sun-disk showed himself on the horizon, I slipped away from my sleeping sister, threw on my dress,
and padded through the house to the kitchen. Our slaves and servants were already awake and working hard. I found Anat making bread for our breakfast, scooping dough out of a big bowl and forming it into loaves for baking. When she caught sight of me, she flinched.

She must think I’m going to punish her for letting Bit-Bit get away from her yesterday
, I thought.
No servants ever fear me. And why should they? They’re free to come and go as they please, free to complain to Father or Mery if I even raise my voice to them! Our cook is so valued that I think
he
has the authority to hit
me
if I interfere with anything in this kitchen. Even though I had to bribe her to keep Bit-Bit out of my way when I had my lessons with Henenu, she’s still afraid of my displeasure
.

“Anat—” I began, approaching her. It was the first time I’d bothered to use her name. She refused to meet my eyes, so I said, “Look at me, Anat.” Though I spoke gently, it was still an order to a slave. She had to obey. “I just wanted to tell you that everything’s all right. I’m not upset that you lost track of Bit-Bit yesterday.”

She lowered her eyelids. “My young mistress is gracious,” she murmured. I heard relief in her voice, but no true gratitude.

And why should she be grateful to me? Even if it’s not my fault that she’s a slave, she’s still my family’s property. Who could ever be thankful for that?

“Anat—” It was still a strange new thing, calling her by name. “Anat, can I help you make the bread?”

“As my young mistress wishes.” The old woman shrugged and waved her hands over the dough before going back to her task.

I helped myself to a handful of the sticky, floury mass. I tried to make a loaf that looked like the neat, identical shapes that came from the old woman’s hands, but I couldn’t get the raw dough off my fingers. In the time it took me to make one lopsided loaf, Anat had turned out five perfect ones.

“I’m sorry, it’s a mess,” I said, smiling at her. “Can you show me how you do it?”

She didn’t smile back. “If my young mistress commands, I will stop my work and show you now. But the master will be wanting his breakfast soon.”

“Oh.” Suddenly I saw that my weak attempt at “helping” Anat was worse than no help at all. I was only getting in the way, keeping her from finishing her work. “Not now. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

She gave me a funny look. “Sorry, mistress? You?” Now she did smile. “You are kind. I am the one to ask your pardon.”

“You didn’t do—” I began.

“For being as touchy as a sunburned dog. I always had a bad temper, even when I was a little girl, back home in Ebla. I am afraid that I woke up this morning with the boneache, which only makes it worse.” She rested both hands on the small of her back and winced. “I will teach you how to make bread another time, young mistress, I promise.”

I gazed at Anat with fresh awareness, seeing her as she was—gnarled hands, bent backbone, and careworn face, a stranger in our land, an old woman who would never be able to smile and declare:
That’s enough work for me now. I’m tired and I’m going to rest
.

I remembered another of the texts Henenu had given me to copy. It was a song where the poet wrote about seeing his childhood playmate and suddenly realizing that he loved her.
The gods who give blindness and sight have opened my eyes to your beauty. They have given a new light to my eyes. I see you as never before
. My eyes were newly opened, too, but when I turned them to see the way I’d treated Anat and the other slaves—the other people in our home—I didn’t like what I saw. I wanted to say more to her, as if my words would be enough to sweeten the life she led in our household. I couldn’t think of a single thing to tell her that could do that, except—

“You’re free,” I murmured under my breath.

“Mistress?” Anat was old, but her ears were keen. She blinked at me, confused by what she’d heard.

“Nothing.” I didn’t have the right to give her the one thing she should have before all others. Suddenly I wanted that power more than anything in the world. I stood before her, twisting my fingers, helpless and miserable.

“Mistress, I must get back to my work.”

I nodded and left the kitchen, but I couldn’t go back to my bed. Instead, I made my way into the garden. It was still dark, but dawn was coming. The fresh air carried the juicy green scent of reeds and papyrus plants from the river. I moved carefully along the path until I found the statue of Isis.

When I was younger, the goddess towered over me. As much as I loved Isis, I was always a little afraid of her, too. Wise, kind, and loving, she was also capable of unleashing the destructive might of magic against her enemies. Now,
however, I’d grown tall enough to look the goddess in the eyes. The goddess herself was only as tall as Bit-Bit when she’d been two years old. The rest of the statue’s height was its limestone pedestal, all four surfaces covered with prayers and praises for Isis.

I sat in the dirt and leaned my head against the cool stone. I had to close my eyes tight or risk accidentally reading what was written on the base of Isis’s statue. I’d read those words many times before, when Henenu and I sometimes had our lessons in the goddess’s shadow, but I couldn’t do so ever again. I’d made a promise to Father and I had to honor it.

“O Isis, there’s so much I want to change, but—how can I? Help me be strong,” I whispered. I wanted to pray more eloquently, but I didn’t trust myself to find the right words.
Could
I pray for Anat’s freedom? What about the rest of our slaves, then, and the slaves that the other families of Akhmin owned, and those who were the property of the temples? The priest of Isis had at least twenty. If Isis hadn’t freed the slaves under her own roof, why would she do anything to help Anat?

Confusion set my mind whirling. Questions without answers made me so tired that I began to doze with the carved words praising Isis pressed against my cheek. I fell asleep where I sat.

Nefertiti, what was your promise?
A soft voice breathed in my ear, the words lilting, like a song.
What did you tell your father?

My eyes opened abruptly. I was still in the garden, but it looked different. The colors and edges of things were
blurred. Only the image of Isis, smiling down at me, seemed real. I raised my eyes to the goddess.

I promised him that I wouldn’t read and write anymore
, I replied.
I
swore
it!

Did you, my daughter?
The goddess’s face never moved, but I felt as if her smile grew a little wider.
Think, Nefertiti. Remember the words you
truly
spoke
.

And I did. As I sat at the feet of Isis, I saw the carvings on the base of her statue begin to writhe and shift shape, new words appearing out of the old, like a snake wriggling free of his former skin:
I swear by Ma’at and Isis, by the goddess Seshat and by my mother’s spirit, if Henenu stays welcome in our home, I will never have another lesson from him
.

From
him
! But that means—
The joy I felt was so sudden, so intense that I was breathless, my heart pounding.
O sweet Isis, thank you
. Thank
you!

For what?
The goddess sounded amused by my wild gratitude.
I’ve given you nothing. You are who and what you are, and if that means you must be She-who-writes, not even the greatest spell in my power can change it
.

I woke from my dream with Bit-Bit shaking me, then laughing when I turned my face to her. “Oh, Nefertiti, you’ve got
squiggles!
” she exclaimed, pointing. I raised my hand to my cheek and discovered that the carvings on the base of Isis’s image had left their mark on my skin.

I never did find out which words had marked me. The impressions faded before it was time to join Father and Mery for breakfast, but my memory of that vision of Isis never did. In the seasons that followed, I learned that the goddess spoke the truth: I was who and what I was, and that person was She-who-writes.

Whenever I left our house to accompany Father or Mery to the marketplaces or the temples, words were everywhere and I read them all. I couldn’t help it. Without Henenu’s lessons, I was famished for things to read. As for writing, I no longer had my practice tablet, but as long as I
had a twig or a bit of dried reed and a patch of ground, I did my best to trace what I’d read that day, relying on my memory. I always stole away to some deserted corner of our garden, even hiding from Bit-Bit so that I could concentrate completely on my beloved work. When I had no new lines to practice, I began making up my own. I got Father to tell me tales of his early life as a soldier in Pharaoh’s army, and I did my best to write them in the dust. The same happened with every housekeeping lesson Mery taught me, although I was often frustrated because I didn’t know how to write all of the words. I even made up stories of my own. I wrote them down, learned them by heart, wiped them away, then crept out of hiding to share them with Bit-Bit.

Father and Mery smiled proudly when Bit-Bit ran to tell them: “Nefertiti knows the
best
stories!” No one suspected that my stories were so good because I’d practiced “telling” them over and over in writing before I recited them to my sister. Bit-Bit also bragged about my stories to her friends, and soon I was very popular. Everyone wanted to hear the tale of the Cat Who Thought She Was a Falcon or the story of the Cursed Prince and the Clever Maiden. I enjoyed the attention so much that I would have told my stories from dawn to dusk and beyond, though my throat became sore and my lips as dry as the Red Land.

Luckily I had Bit-Bit to look out for me. When it came time for storytelling sessions with her friends, my little sister appointed herself my keeper. She was the one who declared when I was done for the day. “Enough is enough for now. Nefertiti and I have
other
things to do,” she’d say,
looking so businesslike and self-important that I nearly burst out laughing. “We have to go practice our dancing.”

Dancing! I loved it nearly as much as I loved reading, writing, and making my stories. When I danced, I felt free. I didn’t need to hide what I was trying to accomplish or worry about what Father would say if he found me creating a new pattern of steps, a new way of moving my arms, a new song. And so I reached my thirteenth year with my feet on two different paths—one I could follow openly, one that had to cling to the shadows—both that I loved with all my heart.

That year, shortly before the great Festival of the Inundation, my father invited the high priest of Isis to dine with us. He told the family about it five days before, so that Mery would have time to place a lavish dinner before our honored guest.

“The priest of Isis?” I was astonished. “Father, you’ve never invited any priest here before.”

“And with luck, I’ll never have to do so again,” Father muttered. “But it’s not my choice. Pharaoh wants me to begin looking into how the different priesthoods use the gifts they’re given by the people.”

“Why?” Bit-Bit piped up.

“Because that’s Father job,” I told her softly. “He serves Pharaoh by helping to stop any wrongdoing in Akhmin.” Over the years I’d come to learn what our father did for a living, but it was still a mystery to my little sister.

“You mean he chases
thieves?
” Her eyes grew wide.