Persian Rose (White Lotus Book 2) Read online

  “But neither could I serve a king who could do something so cruel,” Phanes said. “Nor could I serve a king who would destroy Egypt for the sake of his own idle interests. I knew if I did not report to the outpost at Siwa, word would eventually reach Amasis. I would be branded a traitor; I would never return to Egypt—never see my family again.

  “I lost all loyalty to the Egyptian throne in that moment, when Amasis passed his cruel sentence upon me. Oh, do not mistake me: I am loyal to Egypt itself—to Kmet, the Two Lands, my people. My father cultured that loyalty in me; it has never left my heart. But Amasis—bah! He is no king of mine. I knew it was true, knew it was my own personal maat, even as I stood before Amasis with my head bowed, listening to his decree that I should be cut off forever from my family.

  “I went, of course. I left Memphis, as the king directed. What else could I do? If I had refused his orders, I would have been killed. The king’s soldiers probably would have done the deed before the eyes of my wife and my infant sons. I couldn’t burden them with such a memory, so I went placidly enough, though inside I was afire with anger. I sailed north, but when I reached the small town where the caravans struck out west for Siwa, I boarded another ship and kept sailing.

  “By then, my resolve was set. I knew the Pharaoh had the power to separate me from my family, but he had no power to control me from afar. I could still be useful to Egypt; the gods imbued me with purpose, even if my role in this world was no longer that of a father and husband. I had learned enough of politics and war during my early years, caring for the Pharaoh’s soldiers; I knew Cambyses was the only man in the world who posed any real threat to Amasis—who could wrest him and his unworthy family from the throne. For if Kmet is ever to be restored, and heal from the damage that has been done already, the line of succession must be broken. An entirely new king must ascend to the throne.”

  Phanes lapsed into silence, but still he held Rhodopis’ gaze with his own—those fervent, fiery eyes. Both his passion and his sorrow seemed real enough. But Rhodopis did not know this man; she had no reason to place her very life in his hands. Awed as she was by Phanes’ gripping tale—and his willingness to share it with her, a perfect stranger—Rhodopis heeded the thrill of caution that tingled along her spine. Persia was unknown territory; even the friendliest-seeming companion could prove a deadly enemy. Until she found her feet in the palace, the city, the king’s esteem, she must presume danger at every turn. She must hear the threat hidden behind every kind and flattering word. Real as it all appeared, Phanes’ story could be a whole-cloth lie, calculated to entrap her. She would place no trust in this man—nor any other—until she had ample reason to do it.

  The silence stretched between them. “Tell me,” Phanes said at last, a conspiratorial light shining in his eye, “how did a young woman from Thrace come to be the Pharaoh’s daughter?”

  Rhodopis only shrugged with the fluid grace of a dancer. She blanked her face, giving Phanes nothing—no emotion to read, no meaning to mistake in her perfectly neutral features. If the physician was so clever, then let him puzzle out for himself how Rhodopis ended up the Pharaoh’s daughter. She hungered for freedom, for an easing of the terrible tension that squeezed like a fist around her, sleeping and waking, night and day. But she was not free—not yet. She was still duty-bound to the Egyptian throne, still haunted by the possibility that Khedeb-Netjer-Bona—or Amasis himself—might silence her forever if she did not deliver the information they expected.

  “Very well.” Phanes picked up his lamp; it swung again, sending its orange light flying about the room, a dizzying, disorienting flare. “You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t wish it. But know this, Nitetis: I will learn the truth sooner or later. I always do.”

  “And what will you do with the truth, once you learn it?” She did her best to sound flippant, unconcerned. But her throat was dry from fear, and her voice was as a shaky croak.

  Phanes stood in silence for a moment. Then he moved quietly toward the door. He paused with his hand on the latch, looking back at her, all the passion and sadness burned out of his eyes. There was nothing left but naked honesty. “That depends on what you intend to do—why you’re here, in Cambyses’ court. It all depends where your loyalties lie… Lady Nitetis.”

  He left her then. The door creaked as it opened; it swallowed the glow of his lamp. When it shut again, Rhodopis was plunged into darkness. She shivered in the winter’s cold.

  10

  Behind the Lion Door

  The days passed more easily than Rhodopis had imagined they would. As an agent of deception, embedded in Persia like a viper beneath the hot desert sand, she had small reason to hope for comfort. With Phanes suspecting her secret—or at least knowing she had a secret, however obscure—she was doubly certain of anxiety, of danger and strife. Yet life in the harem was unaccountably pleasant. Cambyses’ women welcomed her unstintingly, as her bathing companions had insisted they would. The women brought Rhodopis into their work, their gossip and their games as readily as if she’d been a distant cousin or a long-lost sister, forever remembered and cherished, yet seldom seen until now. Everyone in the king’s harem, from concubines and wives to industrious servants, took great pains to ease her transition into Persian culture. They were generous with their warmth, and even with their belongings, taking it in turns to dress her for each meal and social occasion, showing her how to affect a Haxamani style with shawl and perfume, paint pots and hair combs. If they laughed at her accent or her broken attempts to speak the Haxamani tongue, there was only warmth and encouragement in their amusement—nothing unkind.

  Rhodopis picked up the daily rhythm of harem life as quickly and naturally as she had learned to dance. There was a comforting simplicity to harem days. Each morning, Rhodopis rose with the sun and join the other women in the garden, where the sun-god Ahuru-Mazda—foremost deity of Haxamanishiya—received his due praise as he rose from the eastern horizon. Then Rhodopis dressed for the morning meal, which the women almost always took together in their private feast hall, a large room with communal tables, where all mingled freely, regardless of station or standing, gossiping and jesting over simple yet satisfying fare of bread, fruit, and spicy, smoked meats. As the sun climbed toward its peak, the women assembled in support of Cambyses, appearing in one great flock wherever the king’s duties took him on that day. It did not matter whether he sat in solemn judgment on his throne, hearing the petitions of his subjects and issuing decrees, or whether he wrestled in the courtyard with a friend, or trained with sword and spear. Every woman who was well enough to leave her bed—and not occupied with a new infant—attended Cambyses, each standing proud and confident in his presence, each a symbol of the king’s wealth and power.

  More than a week passed in this way. Although Rhodopis had yet to spend any time alone with her husband, through observation of the man in his element she came to know Cambyses’ temper and personality. Cambyses was not only physically strong and powerful of will—somewhere in his early forties, he was easily as vital as a man half his age—but the king was also wise and good. He was quick to laugh with everyone who stood before him, from generals and guards to women and eunuchs. Indeed, he even smiled at the meekest slaves who bowed low at his feet. When he was required to pass judgment on those who had violated Babylonian law, he did so with careful thought and deliberation. Never did he revel in the suffering of others—not even the basest criminals.

  As the days passed, Rhodopis began to realize (with no small measure of surprise) that she liked Cambyses. She tempered her instinctive pleasure in his presence with a healthy dose of caution and deliberate reserve. She may find his character appealing—what she had thus far seen of it—but still she knew almost nothing about the man. When the eyes of his women and subjects were not upon him, Cambyses might prove a very different king. Yet what she saw of his public persona fostered a genuine respect in the king’s newest bride. Comparing Cambyses to Amasis, Rhodopis often marveled at the differe
nces in their personalities and politics—even in their bearing. The gods had never made two kings as starkly dissimilar as Cambyses and soft, old Amasis.

  And of a certainty, Cambyses was nothing like Psamtik—nothing whatsoever.

  Throughout the week, after his unsettling visit to her chamber, Phanes took scrupulous care to avoid Rhodopis, despite Cambyses’ instructions that the physician must see to her every whim. Phanes’ absence suited Rhodopis well enough, for her strongest desire now was to avoid him. When the routine of the harem brought her near Phanes—when she passed him in the halls or when they stood at opposite ends of Cambyses’ throne room—she kept her eyes fixed on the floor and pretended with all her concentration that he did not exist, that she had never seen him before, that she had never admitted him into her chamber, nor listened to his disconcerting tale. She had mentioned his visit to no one, of course—not even Amtes. At the morning praises to Ahuru-Mazda, Rhodopis’ most oft-repeated prayer was that the god would never give her cause to speak to Phanes again… that he would forget about her entirely, allowing her to recede into the anonymity of the harem until she vanished from his memory.

  As the days shortened and nights grew longer and colder, Rhodopis took to walking on the women’s terrace, wrapped in her heaviest woolen shawl, alone with her thoughts and the ever-pressing weight of duty. One especially cold and windy evening, when the sun was just beginning to set, she stood at the terrace’s edge, watching Babylon glow with the final fire of day. Soon the shadows of night would fall across the city, blotting out color and damping down the faint sounds of industry and song that drifted up to her on the fitful breezes. An especially strong gust of wind caught her shawl and whipped it out behind her; the long, bright fringes tossed and tangled as she gathered it tightly round herself once more. What a beautiful place the city was, even in wintertime. Did she dare to hope that her unwanted duty to Egypt would never require her to return to Memphis? Perhaps, if she did her work well—if she gave enough information to satisfy Amasis—she would be freed from her task and abandoned here in Cambyses’ palace. It was expensive, after all, to travel across the desert. Surely the Pharaoh would prefer to leave her where she was. If she could only appease him with the right reports of Cambyses’ doings, his weaknesses—

  “Lady Nitetis.”

  Rhodopis jumped and spun away from the view. Guilt over her own treacherous thoughts heated her cheeks. Naramsin was coming toward her across the terrace, bundled as she was in a heavy shawl.

  “Yes?” she said, rather weakly, when Naramsin approached.

  “The king has sent for you. He wishes to see you alone.”

  Rhodopis’ stomach lurched with fear. Had her doom come, then? Had Phanes gone to the king, told him that he suspected the new Egyptian bride of some foul deception? Heart pounding, she nodded in a silent daze and went with Naramsin toward the women’s palace, her feet numb and clumsy.

  “You should beautify yourself, of course,” Naramsin said, “but don’t take too long, and don’t put too much effort in. Cambyses prefers a natural sort of beauty. If you would like my assistance, I stand ready. I do know what pleases the king best, of course.”

  She gave a small, shaky laugh of relief. Cambyses had not sent for Rhodopis to pass judgment—to condemn her for her crimes. He merely wished to bed his new wife. That’s work I can do well, and no mistake. A warm swell of confidence restored feeling to her limbs. The path ahead was so blessedly familiar that she felt positively giddy, eager to return to the hetaera’s trade.

  “Only tell me what I ought to wear,” she said to Naramsin, “and I’ll be most grateful.”

  Half an hour later, the sun had vanished in the west, leaving the first scattering of white stars to shine down upon Babylon. Rhodopis emerged from her chamber braced and ready, dressed as Naramsin suggested in a simple robe of red silk embroidered with golden vines at the hem. Her shawl was equally modest: white as a new lamb’s fleece with a pale-blue fringe. She had let down her hair, binding her forehead with a strip of beaded silk, after the Babylonian fashion, and had scented her body with Egyptian myrrh.

  Naramsin, waiting in the corridor, nodded his approval the moment he saw her. “You are sure to delight the king.”

  Rhodopis followed Naramsin out of the women’s quarters, into the palace proper, and up a ramp that led to the very apex of the structure. This was a part of the palace she had never seen before—the private quarters of the king, his haven from the trials and harsh obligations of rule. Images of Psamtik reared up in her mind, threatening to overwhelm her confidence and readiness. She banished those dark memories with a will. Cambyses was not like Psamtik. New to Babylon as she was, Rhodopis was certain of little—but she was certain that the king of Persia bore no resemblance to Psamtik, that cold-blooded creature with a hunter’s stare. To distract herself from all thought of that hateful beast, Rhodopis recalled the first time she had been obliged to lie with Xanthes. At worst, this encounter with Cambyses would be much like her time in Xanthes’ bed. How Xanthes had sweated and grunted, just like the girls of the Stable had said he would! Rhodopis had found that work easy enough, once she’d set to it. Xanthes had been no chore at all, except that she had struggled to keep herself from laughing. The memory was enough to conjure up a smile as she approached Cambyses’ door.

  But as she and Naramsin turned the final corner, the smile slid from Rhodopis’ face. There stood Phanes, stiff and sober as a proper guardsman in front of the king’s chamber. His hands were locked behind his hips, his back straight as an iron rod. He watched Rhodopis with sober, wary eyes. On the instant, her stomach turned to a mass of fluttering moths.

  “I will see Lady Nitetis into the king’s presence,” Phanes said to Naramsin. “Thank you; you may go.”

  The eunuch turned away.

  “Wait,” Rhodopis cried impulsively, reaching out quickly to catch Naramsin by the arm.

  He paused. “Is there something else you need, my lady?”

  “She needs nothing,” Phanes said shortly. “Leave us, Naramsin.”

  Still Naramsin hesitated. Phanes stood high in the king’s regard, but his status gave him no authority over the chief eunuch of the harem. Naramsin’s meticulous brows raised in a silent question; he waited for Rhodopis to say more.

  What could she tell him? That Phanes had come to her room in the middle of the night and interrogated her—that he had guessed already that she was not who she claimed to be? There was nothing Rhodopis could say, nothing she could do to ward Phanes away. She forced herself to release Naramsin’s arm.

  “I am afraid,” she muttered, blushing. “I have never… never been with a man before.”

  Naramsin smiled. “There is nothing to fear. The king will be good to you; all the women agree on that point. The king is always good, and kind, and gentle.” He offered Rhodopis an encouraging pat on the shoulder, nodded to Phanes, and disappeared around the corner. Rhodopis was left alone in the corridor with the one man she had hoped never to speak to again.

  She swallowed hard. She could not bring herself to look Phanes in the eye. “What do you want with me?”

  Phanes turned aside from the great lion-marked door—the entry to the king’s chambers, Rhodopis assumed. He gestured to another, small and narrow as a closet’s opening, standing open across the hall. “Step inside.”

  Rhodopis balked at the close darkness in the tiny chamber. “I will not!”

  Phanes sighed. “We have visited this subject before, I think. I have no designs on you, Lady Nitetis. My only wish is to carry out the duties my king expects.”

  “I’ll call out to him; I’ll make him come and see that you intend to drag me alone into some dark, narrow room!”

  “Will you, truly?” Phanes lifted one brow. “Do you think the king will take your part—you, a newcomer to his palace—or mine?”

  Rhodopis glanced at the lion door, then at the narrow closet. She swallowed again.

  “Let us be done with this,” Phanes said.
“The sooner, the better.”

  “If you try to hurt me, I’ll—”

  “I will not hurt you. You have my word on that. If I try to do you any harm, you may scream all you like for the king; you have my blessing on that count.”

  Rhodopis clenched her jaw and stepped into the small room. She had no idea what purpose it served, unless it was a resting room for the king’s guards. A small, hard-looking, spartan bed took up most of the space; between bed and wall there was barely enough room for Rhodopis and Phanes to stand face-to-face without touching. Despite Phanes’ assurances that he had no interest in her body, the presence of the bed made her heart leap. With a sickening shiver, she remembered Psamtik’s hand clenched tight around her arm, his hot breath in her ear.

  “Raise your arms,” Phanes said.

  “There isn’t room enough. The wall—”

  “Do your best.”

  Rhodopis raised her arms reluctantly, holding them above her head at an awkward angle. Phanes moved her shawl aside and patted her with business-like abruptness, touching her ribs, her hips, the front and back of her. She jerked away from his hand when he felt her breasts through the red robe but his impatient sigh reconciled her to keep still.

  “What in all the gods’ names are you doing?” she said.

  “Checking you.”

  “For what?”

  “Weapons. Knives, daggers… weaving needles… whatever you might think to use.”

  “Use a weapon—on the king? Are you mad?”

  He looked up at her sharply. “Are you mad? You’re playing some game, Nitetis. We both know it’s true. I will not allow you into the king’s presence if there is any chance you will be a danger to him. You of all people know how important Cambyses is to me—how I’ve thrown in my lot with him. I won’t risk his downfall by some sly trick of the Pharaoh.”

  Rhodopis gave a disgusted grunt. “Amasis couldn’t dream up a sly trick if his life depended on it.”

  The physician pulled back suddenly, locking eyes with Rhodopis. She couldn’t look away from the intensity of his stare. “Then who?” Phanes said quietly. “Who, if not Amasis?”