Chapter Twenty

It was a dream Neferet didn’t want to leave. She had been dancing, not the sort of ritual dance she performed for Amun but a wild, abandoned movement that sent her flying toward the constellations. All the while, that person, the Other, stood behind her shoulder. The dance made her stronger with each leap, and soon, she spiraled through the heavens, nearing Sopdet, the sacred star where the souls of the gods lived.

Tiny bits of light poured forth, liberated from the first gleam of Ra’s birth. They swirled in a field of flashing effervescence, eternally young, moving in an instant. She dashed among them, and they sat on her hair, her shoulders, her arms until she felt ignited with starlight.

She awoke invincible, and when she pondered the events of the day before, she knew that anything could be overcome — even Zayem and his nasty plans. She threw off her sheets and arose from bed, still moving in the dance of the dream.

In a bubble of joy, she dressed herself and entered her living area where a servant had prepared a breakfast of breads and various cheeses. She selected the goat cheese and thought of how she would soon alarm the priestly community, telling them Zayem had returned. Even Meryt could not stand up to the might of the priests of Karnak.

As she nibbled on a crust of sesame-flavored bread, a servant appeared with news of a palace messenger at the door.

Not again. Neferet indicated he should step forward, and the youth in the royal uniform produced a papyrus scroll with the seal of the palace on it. Neferet recognized the seal as Meryt’s. She let out an audible sigh, tipped the messenger a deben and, when alone, broke the wax seal.

Inside lay a letter in demotic, a casual script that developed from formal hieroglyphics and the priests’ hieratic writing. Trained in the classical tradition, Neferet had trouble with demotic, especially when the handwriting straggled in every direction as did Meryt’s poor penmanship. Her mother had no ability to draw the beautiful, symbolic characters of hieroglyphics and settled on demotic as her easiest of form of expression. It was a mess to look at.

Neferet blew a puff of air as she began to decipher the first few lines of the missive.

“Daughter,

The conversation and events in yesterday’s throne room disturbed me greatly.”

Neferet looked up. It disturbed her, did it? She read on in annoyance.

“I’m the one who put you in the role of God’s Wife after the untimely death of Maya. I could have chosen someone else quite easily, but I felt that my own daughter would be dutiful to me in all ways.”

The handwriting became more haphazard and Neferet had to sound out the letters to make sense of the note.

“Your arrogance shocks me. If I could take the appointment back from you, I would. But the priests are insistent that you stay. If you are to remain in my good graces and in my protection, and should anything happen to your father, you will heed my orders.”

If anything should happen to father? Is that some kind of threat? Neferet put down her sesame bread and held the note with both shaking hands.

“I now proclaim that Zayem will be your escort. It is important to form an alliance with him at this time. He will be waiting for you at your apartments this afternoon. Please give him all the love a sister owes him.

Your mother”

A cartouche of her mother’s name stood out, impressed on the letter, most certainly from Meryt’s own royal ring. Neferet threw the letter on the table, troubled by things unwritten: Menace against her father, another command that she should unite with Zayem — probably in marriage — and a lingering sensation that what happened to Maya could happen to her. What had happened to her father to make him looked so sickly yesterday? Meryt’s plans were about to rock the whole kingdom.

Neferet put her head between her hands and tried to clear her head. What had happened to Maya? It certainly looked like murder.

Maya had been another of Neferet’s half-sisters, this one the daughter of a foreign princess sent to Pharaoh as tribute. He considered Maya not politically important, for he neglected her mother — not out of spite, but merely disinterest. She wasted away in the vast palace harem. Still, Meryt named Maya as God’s Wife when Neferet was fifteen. Was she just a placeholder, always meant to die when Neferet came of age? Neferet rocked her head. Even she could not see her mother acting with such viciousness. However, the crime made sense when lined up in time to Neferet’s own rape. Zayem had created the false entrance to the Holy of Holies by that time. It would have been easy for him to slip in and snap Maya’s neck.

Neferet shivered and went back to eating. The force of her dream filled her body again, and she decided to fight back the only way she knew how.

#

Several palace girls stood in a group at Neferet’s front door, insisting to the servants that they be allowed access. Young priestesses in training hardly ever encountered her anymore, yet she had been one once. She missed the company, so Neferet called out to the servants to let the girls come forward.

They climbed the stairs to the formal living area, giggling among themselves, moving as one being. After much whispered argument between them, one girl stepped forward and explained their visit.

“We were here when Maya served as God’s Wife,” the stoutest girl, with a loud voice and a peculiar way of jutting her chin forward as she talked, said. “We knew her and knew her habits — even though she stayed with us only a few weeks.”

Neferet nodded. The girl rushed on.

“She had been given didi by the temple priests before each audience with Amun, but on the night she died, the Great Wife herself arrived there to offer the drinking bowl.”

“The Great Wife? She has no business at the ceremony.”

“We wondered, as well. Maya also looked extremely flushed after drinking the drug. We all wondered,” she turned as if to urge on her fellows for support. “We wondered if there was something else in it.”

Neferet nodded. Priests created didi by combining distilled lotus lilies and mandrake root. Get the proportions incorrect, and put in too much mandrake, and the result can be deadly. But, even so, the drug alone would have taken hours to kill Maya.

“There’s more,” the large girl said, her eyes opening wide, almost like a comic actor’s. “Before the ceremony, several of us saw Zayem, the half-prince, lurking about the sanctuary. One of the priests told him to get out, but he just lost himself in the columns.” She was referring to the hypostyle hall, where dozens of painted columns took on the shade of opened and budding lotus blooms and of tall papyrus stalks.

A light-haired girl called from the back of the crowd.

“I saw him go back into the Holy of Holies and enter a small little door. No one would believe me, but I’m sure he hid in there when Maya made her entrance.”

Neferet looked at the young novices and felt her brows pinch. “Why did you not tell us this before? Maya has been dead several months.”

“You know how it is,” the loud-voiced girl said. “They don’t listen to us. We are just students — and female. But we know what we saw. We felt you would listen to us, having been a student here yourself.”

“Also,” the breathless voice of a petite girl said. “We heard the priests are contemplating charges. We will speak out in court.” She looked as if she was going to faint after uttering those courageous words.

Neferet thanked the entourage and asked them to make sure to tell her if any new memories bubbled to the surface. Then with much pushing and giggling, the nubile girls vanished through her front door.

#

Nebhotep stood before the full complement of Karnak priests and listened as Neferet, dressed in full God’s Wife regalia, told him of Zayem’s return. She didn’t have to spell out the crimes he had committed; that was known to all. She explained he was hiding behind his mother’s skirts. Now Meryt was trying to impose his companionship upon her under the guise of escort service. Neferet bowed low before the priests and asked that he administer the justice of Ma’at, the restoration of order and peace. The law of Ma’at was simple: The wrong should be punished, and the innocent repaid for the sins against them.

The priests began to murmur among themselves until Nebhotep held up his hand.

“To accuse a prince, even a half-prince, is a dangerous thing,” he warned. He turned to the other priests who stood in a semicircle around him. Some nodded. One lifted his voice.

“Ma’at must be served, regardless of the person who has done evil. Desecrating Amun’s shrine, attacking and raping the God’s Wife, possible murder … these are horrible crimes.”

Neferet raised her chin and added a new charge.

“I also believe he killed Maya,” she said, as several priests stepped back in horror. “The opening in the shrine was there when someone murdered her. The method of intrusion matched the way Zayem attacked me.” She told them of the testimony of the temple girls. “I feel he must be questioned about this.”

A louder commotion went up among the priests of Amun, and finally, Nebhotep’s querulous voice rose above the others.

“We would not spare a non-royal criminal, so I believe we must not spare Zayem,” he said, lowering his eyes as if he hated to make the pronouncement. “This has been brewing for months. If we don’t act, we lose all respect among the people we serve. Let us go to the palace and demand justice.”

A cheer went up from the clerics, and they hurried about, putting away prayer scrolls and snuffing incense. They assembled in the rear of the palace in order of rank and readied themselves for an unprecedented march to the Pharaoh’s residence. A messenger scurried ahead to warn the Grand Vizier that the priests were converging on the palace.

Neferet held her head high, with both plumes of her feathered headdress catching the Nile breeze, which became the sweet breath of justice in her mind. She took her place at the front of the line of baldheaded men and, with grave ceremony, led the file of holy men to accuse Zayem.

They reached the steps of the grand residence and the Grand Vizier hurried down to meet them. He drew Neferet and Nebhotep aside.

“Do you have any idea of what you’re doing?” he demanded, hugging his cloak around him. His eyes were wild as if he had just been arguing with someone fierce. Neferet had no difficulty figuring out who that might be.

“Certainly,” Nebhotep said. “The laws of Ma’at —”

“Ma’at doesn’t hold any sway here, not in the palace. Not with …” he turned to see if anyone spied on them. “Not with certain people so close to the throne.”

Neferet studied him with her deepest gaze, and he stepped back a little. She pushed past him as if he didn’t tower over her by an arm’s length and led the procession up the grand stairway and through the entrance. She, rather than Nebhotep, demanded entrance to the throne room. Confronted with the most influential priests in the land, the sentries stepped aside, and the parade of clerics made their way into the hall of audiences.

Meryt rose in indignation when they approached, but no matter how many times she flapped open her mouth, she didn’t utter a word. The gray-faced Pharaoh was leaning on one hand, as if nodding out during the uncommon proceedings. The Grand Vizier had hurried to stand back behind the Pharaoh and whispered in his ear. Neferet noticed her father sported bags under his eyes and appeared worse than yesterday. His chest sagged. If anything, he gave the impression of being lethargic through and through — nothing like the spirited man she knew.

Nebhotep started to speak, but Neferet took charge. She explained the temple’s charges and described the desecration of the shrine of Amun, the assault and the rape and the possible murder of Maya. For these crimes, the temple retinue demanded Zayem be tried in their court.

After her speech, Zayem rushed out from behind a curtain and screamed at the priests.

“You can’t treat me like a common criminal,” he said. “I’m not like a thief stealing bread from a baker. I’m not the kind of man to be tried in a temple court.”

At this, the courtiers gaped. Everyone knew there existed no difference between a crime against man and a crime against the gods. Religion and the state were the same. Zayem, if guilty as charged, stood no higher than a criminal who stole gold bangles from the marketplace.

“You may not have him,” Meryt said, sitting on her throne and thrusting out her breasts. They didn’t make for much of a show.

“Ma’at does not hold here?” Nebhotep asked, in a quivering voice.

The Pharaoh stirred and conferred with the Vizier. Then he turned to his daughter.

“If it goes to the courts of the temple, it will eventually come back to me. I am the ultimate authority, the last judge in Kemet,” the Pharaoh said, slumping, exhausted by his own speech. “Leave him to me, and I’ll question him.”

“About everything?” Neferet demanded. “Even the murder?”

“Everything. Now, please, make your way back to your offerings and prayers. This is no place for priests.” He put his head back on the headrest of his throne as if spent. No place for priests? Everywhere in the kingdom is a place for priests. What is he talking about?

“Very well, my father’s word is a good as the word of the gods,” Neferet said. She swirled her robes and turned, catching a glimpse of Zayem in the corner of her eye. He no longer leered or smirked. His expression betrayed abject fear.

She and Nebhotep headed back to Karnak, followed by the same baldheaded brigade. The aged chief priest kept muttering that nothing happened, but Neferet thought plenty of work was underway. Zayem now stood under official suspicion and everyone forgot that detested escort service. The Vizier probably drew up plans at this moment to deal with Zayem.

She also had scrutinized her father and knew someone was drugging or possibly poisoning him. She needed to get a spy into the palace to prove it. If luck was with them, their spy could stop any further deterioration. Firm resistance met Meryt’s battle of wits, and with enough pressure, the Great Wife would be forced to break down.

Now that Kamose was on the march, she had to find a spy on her own, but she knew the boys he’d been paying to find information. She busied herself on the long walk back to the temple with figuring how she would contact an informant and where she would meet him.

When she parted company with Nebhotep and returned to her apartments, the servants groveled on their knees.

“Men came while you were gone,” one servant cried. “Big, angry men, some of them foreign.” She had a red bruise on her face, which would surely turn purple by evening.

“They took her,” she continued. “She’s gone.”

“Who?” Neferet asked. Her head spun at the rapidity of Zayem’s retort. While the holy priests shuffled from the palace, the half-prince’s men had raced to the temple to exact revenge.

“Deena, my lady,” the head servant said, tears dripping from her eyes, causing tracks of kohl to wash down her cheeks. “They tied her hands and led her away.”

Neferet took in the room — familiar, comfortable — and again transgressed by violence. How could this be a place where Deena didn’t enjoy safety? Neferet stumbled, and a sturdy servant ran to lead her to a chair.

“My friend …” Neferet said, and her thoughts were lost in images of the horrible things Zayem could exact on her favored houseguest. Again, Zayem raised the stakes.