Persian Rose (White Lotus Book 2) Read online

  Persian Rose

  Part 2 of the White Lotus Trilogy

  Libbie Hawker

  Running Rabbit Editions

  Contents

  Introduction

  Pharaoh’s Daughter

  1. Raised Up

  2. Dancing in the Dark

  3. Gossip

  4. A Gift of Brides

  5. The Falcon’s Purpose

  6. The Lion in the Night

  7. Lady Nitetis

  8. Babylon

  9. A Turn of Fate

  10. Behind the Lion Door

  11. Ishtar’s Reply

  12. Phanes’ Lamp

  13. The Point of the Sword

  Watcher

  14. Eulalia in Memphis

  15. An Unexpected Appearance

  16. Another Startling Reunion

  17. The Pirate of Samos

  18. The Old Name

  19. Now

  20. Power in Her Hand

  21. A Distasteful Errand

  22. Confession

  23. At Moonrise

  Also by Libbie Hawker

  About the Author

  Introduction

  In the fifth century BCE, Egypt is the greatest civilization known to mankind. But with a foolish king on its throne, the Nile Valley is ripe for conquering.

  Amid this climate of danger and strife, in the alleys and brothels of Memphis, an extraordinary young woman comes of age. To spare her siblings from starvation, Doricha is sold into prostitution. But she has gifts beyond mere beauty. Through wit and determination, she works her way into the realm of the hetaerae—courtesans of exceptional refinement.

  As a hetaera, Doricha has access to the schemes and negotiations that shape the world. But the rich and powerful also have access to her, and Doricha soon finds herself in the Pharaoh’s harem, caught up in his reckless schemes. When the Pharaoh sends her off to his fiercest enemy, thinly cloaked by a dangerous ruse, Doricha must become a double agent if she hopes to survive. Caught between the Pharaoh and the Persian king Cambyses, it is Doricha—once a slave, now a woman of great but secret power—who will determine Egypt’s fate.

  Persian Rose is Part 2 of the White Lotus trilogy.

  I

  Pharaoh’s Daughter

  1

  Raised Up

  “Rhodopis, come forward.”

  Pentu’s voice was pitched low—calculated to carry just above the rumble of conversation in the feast hall, and to travel no farther. The Pharaoh’s chief steward was ever deliberate, always precise, and his sharp black eyes missed nothing. By the dim, guttering light of a single clay lamp—the only light to illuminate the chamber behind the feast hall, where the Pharaoh’s women waited—Rhodopis could see the sharp pinch of impatience on Pentu’s face. She stepped out from behind the last concubine in the queue and hurried toward him, the linen of her pleated gown rustling softly, a trail of whispers following her down the length of the chamber.

  The private chamber was separated from the festival hall by a dark, heavy drape, thickly woven of char-black wool, embroidered all its great length with blue-winged scarabs and the spikes of red lotus flowers. The drape reached up to the soaring, wood-beamed ceiling of the palace and touched the painted pillars that stood either side; the curtain’s folds shut out the light of the feast hall completely, but not the scents and sounds of the Pharaoh’s grand party. Laughter and conversation filled the room beyond, underscored by the gentle plucking of a three-stringed lute. Sweet cinnamon mingled with the smell of rich roasted onions, overpowering even the perfumes of the Pharaoh’s women. The smell made Rhodopis’ mouth water.

  She lowered her face humbly when she reached Pentu, waiting for his instructions.

  “Fourth place in line,” the steward said, making no effort to soften his snappish tone.

  Rhodopis was grateful for the dim amber light; none of the Pharaoh’s women could see how her cheeks reddened. It was not a blush of pleasure, but rather the hectic heat of embarrassment—or perhaps fear. Murmurs of protest rose from the line behind her, but Rhodopis did as Pentu directed, and took the fourth position in the queue of immaculately dressed women and girls. She stood just behind the king’s chief wife, Khedeb-Netjer-Bona, and her two young daughters. By custom, the women of the king’s household entered the feast hall in order of their favor, so those dearest to the king’s heart were also closest to his hand. Rhodopis did not need to look at the chief wife to know that her back was straight, her shoulders stiff with offense. She could all but feel the sickening quiver of Khedeb-Netjer-Bona’s outrage. She was grateful she could not see the faces of the women behind her—Amasis’ minor wives and concubines, all of them no doubt glaring their hatred at Rhodopis that very minute.

  She understood the women’s indignation. She had lived among them, an ornament in the king’s harem, for merely three months. Why should a newcomer to the harem be placed so well? And why should a Greek stand so high in the king’s regard? The harem was populated by true Egyptian women, the daughters of ancient families, whose blood could be traced back more than three thousand years to the court of the first Pharaoh. For countless generations, those noble houses had supported the throne by giving a daughter to the king. Yet now this interloper—this jumped-up foreign courtesan, who had draped herself across the couches and beds of countless rich men—thought to supplant them.

  It isn’t my doing. Rhodopis desperately wished she could tell the women as much, but Pentu’s eyes were upon her, and if she spoke out of turn, no doubt Khedeb-Netjer-Bona would slap her for the impropriety. I’ve no control over the king’s whims. He only likes me because I’m Greek… can’t you see it? He would dote just the same on any girl, so long as she came from Thrace or Athens or Lesvos.

  The women waited. Pentu listened for his signal. Rhodopis did her best to remain still, though the urge to fret and fidget was almost irresistible. Would this sudden rise in status prove dangerous? The king’s women carried themselves with great dignity; they were the most elevated women in Egypt. She doubted the Pharaoh’s concubines would lower themselves to the hardscrabble tactics of the girls in Xanthes’ Stable. Violence seemed unlikely—nor were the women likely to mock her openly or treat her with overt cruelty. Such pettiness was beneath them. But that was not to say the women were friendly. Rhodopis was no fool: she knew there were dangers besides flailing fists or knives in the dark. It had been three months since she had presented the rose-gold slipper to Amasis in the market square—three months since he had whisked her away from Xanthes, away from an increasingly grim life among the hetaerae. But she felt little safer here, in the Pharaoh’s palace, than she had felt in the Stable.

  No sense in trying to fool myself. The gods intend me to be here. Why else did they send the king’s falcon to take my slipper? But just what they mean by putting me here—among all these women who’d rather see me vanished like a puff of dust on a breeze than let the hem of their dresses brush my own—I’m sure I can’t begin to guess.

  The sharp, observant Pentu nodded briefly to himself; he had detected the signal he’d been waiting for. With a quick motion, he flicked the heavy drapery aside with no more effort than if it had been made of the finest, sheerest linen. Light from the feast hall—from its dozens of large lamps—flooded into the chamber. Rhodopis blinked in the sudden glare.

  “You may enter now, my lady,” Pentu said to Khedeb-Netjer-Bona. But the chief wife was already moving, sweeping into the hall with her head high, allowing the bright light to glitter across the golden, downward pointed wings of her traditional vulture crown.

  The file of women followed the chief wife to their gallery, a painted platform near the king’s dais. There they would s
it slightly higher than the Pharaoh’s guests, but not as high as the king. It was not the first time Rhodopis had climbed the steps to the women’s gallery, but never before had she felt so thoroughly displayed. The sudden increase in status removed her from the rear of the gallery, in its most shadowed and inconspicuous corner, placing her squarely before the eyes of every noble and servant in the hall. There was no escaping their scrutiny.

  Isn’t that the point, and all? Rhodopis thought as she sank quietly into the scooped seat of her wooden chair, smoothing her linen dress across her thighs. Most women in the harem held the official title “Ornament of the King.” They were little more than pretty baubles to King Amasis, symbols of his wealth and power. Their chief purpose was to be seen—to be displayed, quiet and complacent, beautiful and envied.

  Rhodopis gazed rather dully down the length of the feasting-hall. How its grandeur had awed her, on that first fateful day when Amasis had claimed her in the name of the god Horus, and she had stepped inside the palace for the first time! Then, the ranks of pillars—fat near the ground, but slender as the boles of young trees where they touched the ceiling—had sent a thrill up her spine, for they had reminded her of giant soldiers standing at attention, awaiting the command of the king. The hall’s smooth polished floor was as dark as Nile water, and a thick spice of incense smoke had flavored the air, though Rhodopis had seen no censers burning. It was the perfume of ages she had smelled—the echoes of innumerable feasts and festivals, stretching back through Egypt’s long history to its distant, shadowed past.

  Now, though, the feast hall no longer excited her. In three short months, she had come to realize that the room, like most of the Pharaoh’s palace, was a tedious and disappointing place. As an Ornament of the King, her status was even higher than that of any hetaera. Far from enjoying the autonomy of a freed courtesan, Rhodopis soon learned that her life was more restricted than ever before. She was no longer a slave, yet she longed for freedom. She sighed softly, watching the guests laugh and raise their cups; she laced her fingers together in her lap so she would not give in to the temptation to lean her elbows on her small table like a wistful, brooding shepherdess. Khedeb-Netjer-Bona would not be impressed with such carelessness, and Rhodopis was already treading on dangerous ground where the chief wife was concerned.

  But how she hungered for freedom—for any small measure of it! Even the opportunity to drift from table to table, as a hetaera might do, would be a welcome novelty now. How she yearned to talk to the men at Amasis’ feasts—to engage with them on unexpected topics, to make them laugh with delight as she slipped another of Aesop’s clever talking-animal tales into the conversation. She would have gladly brushed elbows with the women, too. Amasis still made some effort—nominal though it may be—to keep up old Egyptian ways, and so the feast hall held almost as many women as men. Wives and daughters of the Pharaoh’s esteemed guests, they moved at will through the crowd, conversing with the men, laughing and singing, entirely at ease. There was no andron here, no gynaeceum—no separation of the sexes. Separation was a Greek custom, through and through.

  Wonder what the women talk about, when they’re right there alongside the men. Do they know as much about the world as their husbands and fathers do?

  And might those Egyptian women hold the key to some crucial knowledge, some unique perspective on Memphis—on the world—which Rhodopis had never thought to consider? The newness of it all called to her with a powerful voice, tantalizing with visions of all the intrigues she might learn… if only she could be down there, out of this gods-cursed gallery, among the guests in all their fascinating variety.

  Since coming to the king’s harem, there had been little opportunity for Rhodopis to learn, to expand her skills—to challenge herself as a conversationalist. For a young woman as bright and social as she, the seclusion and careful dignity of harem life were intolerable drudgeries. Worse still, she’d had little opportunity to dance. Oh, Amasis often asked her to dance privately for him, and his musicians were excellent. Practically the best in all the world, Rhodopis thought. But it wasn’t the same. Nothing Rhodopis had yet experienced could compare to the exhilaration of performing before an adoring audience. One man simply doesn’t count as an audience, no matter how much he might desire me. No, not even if he happens to be the king.

  Amasis sat alone on his high dais, lounging easily on his gilded throne, smiling down at the feast. He always seemed to smile, whenever ceremony didn’t demand a stern, noble countenance. From her days as a hetaera, Rhodopis knew well that many men took Amasis’ easy temper to be a sign of softness. To those who did not respect the Pharaoh, his smile was the brand of his weakness—an outer mark of all his inner failings. Rhodopis hadn’t yet decided whether the king’s detractors were correct. Perhaps, after all, he did lack fortitude—what else could lead him to disregard the greatness of his Egyptian people, and favor Greek culture instead? Perhaps, as his admirers said, he was forward-thinking, cleverer and more adaptive than any Pharaoh had been before. Only one thing was clear to Rhodopis: Amasis was an aging man, and therefore set in his ways, as all older people were. He was unlikely to change his heart or his habits now, no matter how his priests and nobles implored him. As he leaned from his throne to murmur some order in Pentu’s ear, the blue-and-saffron cloth folds of the Nemes crown slid over Amasis’ shoulders—shoulders that were still broad and strong, but spotted by the sun, and beginning to show the roundness, the subtle stoop of great age approaching.

  Pentu nodded at the king’s command, then stepped forward, raising his hands before him. The raucous din of the hall quieted a little; guests elbowed one another for silence or turned in their seats to watch the shaven-headed steward.

  “The Pharaoh calls for his dancers!” Pentu cried.

  Cheers flooded the hall; cups raised high above guests’ heads. Rhodopis sighed again. She bit her lip as a troop of dancers appeared through the hall’s massive doorway. They made their way along the aisles, weaving between the tables. The dancers ignored the shouts of acclaim that greeted them; they looked only at the king. This troop was composed of both men and women, each of them naked but for the traditional dancing belt, a slim bit of linen girding their groins and trailing the long, colorful tassels of their trade.

  What Rhodopis would have given to be among them! Gladly would she part with all the silk gowns in her dressing-chest, all the necklaces and bracelets of gold and silver, emerald and turquoise and bright, translucent carnelian. She would have surrendered every gem-studded belt, every rare purple sash—even her rose-gold slippers, if any of the trappings of a harem girl could buy the pure pleasure of dancing for an audience.

  Why did the gods send me here, if not to dance? For it’s sure I don’t do anything better than dance. I’m just about useless now, far as I can see. If the gods hadn’t intended her to dance in the king’s palace after all, then why had they subjected her to such danger? The threat she felt from the king’s other women may be vague, impossible to define… but it was no less real for that.

  Rhodopis glowered down at her fingers, still knotted tightly in her lap, as the dancing troop made their obeisance to the king. She could look at them no longer; the bitterness in her stomach was enough to choke her, and she had no desire to gag and retch there in the women’s gallery, before the eyes of every guest at the feast. Now that she had no duties, save for an occasional visit to Amasis’ bed—and nothing to occupy her mind, except learning to spin flax for weaving—Rhodopis found herself with ample time to languish in the garden, or in her private chamber, mulling endlessly and bitterly over her fate. Anger haunted her, day and night, but she could never quite decide why she felt so frustrated, nor could she say who was the focus of her anger. Was it the Pharaoh? He had swept her away, transporting her into a life that was supposed to be better than the one she’d lived before. Instead, he had all but abandoned her to the isolation of the harem, leaving her to stew in boredom and idleness. Was it the other women, the King’s Ornam
ents, who tormented her with their subtle stares, their whispers… who chilled her with their rejection? Perhaps it was Xanthes. Or Iadmon, who, after all, had plucked her from her family and transplanted her to this strange world, the very heights of Memphian society. The only thing Rhodopis could feel certain of was this: now, as an Ornament of the Harem, she was barred from every good thing she had ever known: dance; the freedom to move about, to speak with whom she pleased; the hope for a future she alone would control. And—the loss that still stung most painfully—Aesop, the only person who had ever been Rhodopis’ true friend.

  The music began with an upward rush from the reedy, nasal-toned pipes the Egyptians loved so well. Rhodopis kept her eyes fixed on Amasis, for she couldn’t bring herself to watch the dancers. The Pharaoh leaned against the backrest of his throne, smiling broadly. A familiar, distant softness clouded his eyes as he gave himself up entirely to the pleasure of the entertainment. His foot tapped inside its curved, golden shoe, keeping time with the music.

  Maybe it’s Egypt itself I’m so angry with, Rhodopis thought as the king beamed mildly down at his celebration. And why shouldn’t I be? Wasn’t it Egypt—all the great, disordered mess that it is these days—put me where I am now? Wasn’t it Egypt drove my family into poverty, and made a man desperate enough to kill my father, and made us all suffer from empty bellies and no hope to be had, no matter where we looked?

  Rhodopis felt a thump on underside of her chair’s seat. She glanced back over her shoulder, meeting the narrowed eyes of Nebetiah, a fellow Ornament.

  “Best wipe that scowl off your face before the Lady of Teeth and Claws sees it,” Nebetiah said, cutting a quick glance in Khedeb-Netjer-Bona’s direction. Nebetiah spoke in her native Egyptian, of course. No one in the harem dared to speak Greek—nor any other language—lest they incite the wrath of the chief wife.