Persian Rose (White Lotus Book 2) Page 2

  “I’m sorry,” Rhodopis said hastily. She had gained some skill with the Egyptian tongue since coming to Memphis, but she still spoke it with a noticeable accent. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

  Now that the music had swelled to fill the great hall, the women in the gallery were free to speak to one another. Minneferet, seated to Nebetiah’s right, blinked in a mocking way and imitated Rhodopis’ accent. “I’m sor-ree. I did-ent mean to off-fent.” She nudged Nebetiah with her elbow. “Don’t fret over this one, Nebet. She isn’t worth your worry. If Khedeb-Netjer-Bona tries to punish her, the Pharaoh will fight off his own chief wife with his crook and flail.”

  Rhodopis blushed.

  “There go her cheeks again,” Minneferet said. “Red as carnelians.”

  “How very charming,” said Iset drily. She was seated to Nebetiah’s other side, and had already reached the bottom of her cup, as was her habit. She raised it, drawing the eye of the servant with the wine pitcher. The servant filled it dutifully and backed away. “Turn back around,” Iset said to Rhodopis. “My wine isn’t as entertaining as the dancers.”

  Minneferet said slyly, “It is very fascinating, though, how quickly you can drain a cup.”

  Henuttawy, a regally self-possessed woman in her late thirties—of an age with the chief wife—sat to Rhodopis’ left, at the front of the gallery. It was she whom Rhodopis had displaced in the king’s favor. Henuttawy seemed remarkably unaffected by the change, giving no outward indication that her place in the world had shifted like dunes before a strong wind. She ignored Rhodopis as completely as she ever had, but she could not ignore the bantering of the young women behind her. She turned her head only a fraction and said, just loudly enough to be heard, “Be quiet, all of you. I’m in no mood to listen to the hissing of a flock of ill-behaved she-geese.”

  Minneferet sighed and leaned back in her chair, arms folded below her bare breasts. “It’s all one to me. I’m in no mood to hiss, anyway, except at Rhodopis.”

  “That’s a fact.” Iset stared gloomily into her cup. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Rhodopis watching her, and kicked her chair as Nebetiah had done.

  Rhodopis turned to face the feast hall, and picked up her own wine cup, taking the tiniest of sips. She allowed her eyes to unfocus—giving all appearance of watching the dancers, but seeing nothing of their performance. All her attention remained fixed on the women behind her, who had gone on speaking quietly as the servants presented the first course.

  “Things have gone from bad to worse,” Nebetiah said. “It almost seems an affront to the gods to sit here, feasting as if everything is well, when there are riots out there in the city.”

  “The riots are none of our doing,” Minneferet said. “Why should we feel guilty, and deprive ourselves of a rare joy?” But despite her words, she sounded as grim as the others. Rhodopis resisted the urge to turn in her seat again, to read the expression on Minneferet’s face.

  “None of our doing,” Iset agreed. “But do you suppose that matters to the gods?”

  “It’s not the gods I’m worried about,” Nebetiah said.

  “More fool you.”

  Nebetiah went on as if she hadn’t heard Iset. “It’s the ordinary people that concern me—our fellow Kmetu.” Rhodopis blinked; it was the native word for Egyptians. “It seems an effrontery, doesn’t it, to be here in the palace, feasting as if nothing in the world is wrong, when we all know too well that everything is wrong.”

  “I wouldn’t say everything,” Minneferet muttered. “Always so dramatic, this one.”

  “I’m not dramatizing,” Nebetiah said patiently. “You’d agree with me, if you paid more attention to what happens beyond the palace walls.”

  “Go ahead, then; enlighten me.” The words should have been light and playful, but Minneferet’s voice was dull, as if she dreaded what Nebetiah might say.

  “My mother wrote me again this morning,” Nebetiah began. “There has been another riot. One of the largest yet, I am sorry to say.”

  “How many is that, now?”

  “Seven since the start of the year. But the number hardly matters; even one is too many. There hasn’t been unrest of this sort for more than a hundred and forty years.”

  “Thoth Incarnate,” Iset said, poking fun at Nebetiah. “Behold her majesty; she knows all.”

  “You’d know a thing or two, if you ever took your nose out of the wine jug and put it in a scroll instead. I tell you, these riots should trouble all of us. Riots aren’t maat.”

  Even before she had come to live in the Pharaoh’s palace, Rhodopis had understood maat. It was the Egyptian word for sacred order, the perfect balance of all things the gods had made. Egyptians held maat in the highest regard. If ever the righteous balance was disturbed—if any aspect of life were not maat—then chaos would be sure to follow. She swallowed the stewed apricot she’d been chewing with a painful gulp.

  “Where was this riot, and when?” Minneferet said.

  “Last night. It was just below the north side of the city, near that big market square. You know the one, don’t you?”

  “I think I know. Near that Greek fellow’s place, is that it?”

  “Which Greek fellow?” Iset interjected wryly. “Memphis is crawling with them, worse than lice on a Canaanite.”

  “The one who owns all those prostitutes,” Nebetiah said.

  Their conversation died in a sudden hush. An itch tingled between Rhodopis’ shoulder blades. She could feel the women’s eyes on her back, could feel their silent judgment, the laughter they barely kept in check. She spooned up another apricot, slowly and gracefully, waiting for its juice to cease dripping from the bottom of the spoon—as if she hadn’t heard a word the women had said.

  After a moment, Nebetiah resumed her story. “That’s why Mother wrote to me; she didn’t want me to fear. This riot came closer to their estate than any has before. My family has always lived on the north side, you know.”

  “Yes, we know,” Minneferet said. “You’ve said as much before, any number of times.”

  “More people were killed in this riot than any before,” Nebetiah went on. “These eruptions are growing more violent all the time. I tell you, Kmet is heading toward darkness. I’ve no idea how we might find the light again.”

  Rhodopis set her spoon aside. What little appetite she’d had fled from her now. So a riot had finally reached Xanthes’ very doorstep. Vividly, she recalled the panicked moment when she and Xanthes’ other girls had thought a riot was about to encircle their master’s estate. Her heart pounded; her skin flushed at the memory. She wondered distantly how the girls of the Stable had fared. Surely they had survived—or so Rhodopis hoped. Xanthes’ wall was impressive, his guardsmen plentiful and strong—the best money could buy. Bastet, Persephone, Callisto… they had never been her friends, but she had lived side by side with them, had shared with them a life most other women could never understand. Fate had forged a bond among the girls of the Stable. Rhodopis could not bring herself to wish them ill.

  She blinked, trying to dispel a sudden mist from her eyes. Through the blur of unshed tears, she watched the dancers whirl and sway, the bright tassels of their belts spinning gaily to music that now seemed obscene in its joyfulness.

  Egypt is heading into darkness. And I’ve no way out, no way to save myself.

  Rhodopis looked to the Pharaoh again. He came sharply into focus, leaning casually in his throne, surrounded by the naïveté of his feast, his pointlessly glad celebration. In the aging stoop of his shoulders, Rhodopis seemed to see the whole of his nation, the whole of his world. Egypt was little more than a crumbling façade now—a shadow of the astonishing empire it once had been. In the streets of Memphis, when Rhodopis had been free enough that she could speak to the city’s influential men, virtually all of them had agreed: Amasis was at best a disappointing king—at worst, a catastrophe poised to befall the nation. Egypt wavered on the knife’s edge. Who could restore the balance of maat? Who woul
d restore it, with Amasis on the throne, with all the vast power of Egypt’s gods and armies in his uncaring hands?

  Rhodopis forced herself away from such dark thoughts. They would not help her now. Returning as she often did to the careful training Aesop had given her, she calmed herself and sharpened her ears, listening once again to the women’s conversation.

  “Well, you can only expect riots,” Minneferet was saying, “when there’s so much disparity. Outrageous wealth for some—”

  “And nearly all of them Greeks,” Iset interjected.

  “While others have fallen into poverty.”

  “Or into low-class whoring,” Iset said. “If you want to know why I drink so much, here’s the reason for it: two of my cousins have turned to that sort of work, if you take my meaning. It’s bad enough that anyone from our family should resort to such a thing, but two…! We may not be from the north side of Memphis, but mine is the wealthiest family in Annu, with a long and respectable history. And yet here we are, with minor daughters of a noble house forced into men’s beds for silver. I swear to Hathor, it’s fortunate each of us was born when she was—first daughters of our families, or near enough to first. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been sent off to Amasis, would we? We might very well have found ourselves facing the same choice, but instead we’re protected, and want for nothing, even if our days do get rather dull.”

  “Don’t be so certain a whore could never find her way to the Pharaoh’s harem,” Minneferet muttered.

  Rhodopis didn’t like the edge of humor in her voice. The spot between her shoulders itched and prickled again.

  “You’re right about the disparity,” Nebetiah said. “There has never been a time before, you know, when we’ve stood so far apart.”

  “When who has stood apart?”

  “The rich and the poor.”

  “Surely that can’t be true.”

  “But it is. I’ve read all about it,” Nebetiah insisted.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Iset said with a delicate snort. “Thoth Incarnate.”

  “Not even when the Assyrians invaded. Nor even long, long before, when the heretic king Akhenaten ruled. We’ve never seen a Kmet like this one. Only the gods know what we should expect. Anything may happen—anything at all.”

  “I fear violence,” Iset said darkly. “Worse than we’ve already seen. What’s coming is sure to make the riots feel like a day on a pleasure barge by comparison.”

  Minneferet said, “I doubt that. This king can’t last much longer—the gods won’t allow it.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Iset warned. “The chief wife will punish all three of us if she hears you say such things!”

  Minneferet did lower her voice, but she went on doggedly. “Once the gods set things right, and settle old Amasis in his tomb, then we’ll have Psamtik on the throne. He’ll put Kmet to rights, and no mistake.”

  At mention of the Pharaoh’s eldest son, Rhodopis glanced across the feast hall to where Psamtik stood, leaning one shoulder casually against a pillar. Her eyes fastened on the heir instantaneously, as if, like some shy, tiny creature cowering in the undergrowth, every unconscious instinct made her aware of the hunter’s presence. Psamtik had made Rhodopis feel wary and insecure since she had first arrived in the palace, though he had never deigned to speak to her. He didn’t need to speak; he had looked at her often enough, more often than Rhodopis could stand. His gaze was always intrusive. No, it was more than intrusive, worse. It was possessive. Psamtik made little effort to conceal his contempt for Rhodopis—for all Greeks, perhaps—and there was something starkly predacious in his eyes whenever he sized her up with one of his lazy, condescending stares.

  Psamtik bent over a nearby table of guests, making to join their conversation. But he broke off suddenly and looked up, as if he could feel Rhodopis’ eyes upon him. She looked away quickly, lifting her wine cup to her lips, feigning unconcern. But she found herself taking a long, deep draft from the cup, drinking more than was prudent. She hoped it would calm her unsettled nerves, or at least deaden the crawling sensation that chilled her skin.

  Unrest on the northern side of the city—all I can do is pray it won’t touch Iadmon’s house, and Aesop and the rest of his household.

  Did Aesop know about last night’s riot? Surely he must. Rhodopis gritted her teeth, fighting down another swell of bitterness. If only she could be of some use here in the harem—if she could extend the Pharaoh’s protection over Iadmon’s household…. But it was useless to even to think of it. She was powerless here, a bird in a cage. She was weaker and more helpless than she’d ever been before.

  The music reached its end; the king’s dancers spun to their final positions and held graceful poses, regally still while shouts and applause thundered all around them. Rhodopis set down her wine cup and applauded dutifully, but her gaze strayed back to Psamtik. He was watching her from across the hall, arms folded, baring his teeth in a stiff, malicious grin.

  Rhodopis shut her eyes and prayed until the servants carried out the second course.

  2

  Dancing in the Dark

  The feast stretched late into the night. Long before the king rose from his throne, dismissing his guests and his women, Rhodopis’ back had begun to ache from the strain of sitting still and upright on her hard, wooden chair. If only she could have danced…! It would have been a welcome relief to remove herself from the women’s gallery, for when the Pharaoh’s concubines were not murmuring about the riots in the city, they lapsed into an icy silence. The back of Rhodopis’ neck never ceased to tingle with the sickening certainty that they were casting evil thoughts in her direction. She could feel their hostility like the prick of a poisoned needle, small and cold and subtle, but no less dangerous for that.

  As the Pharaoh departed from the feast hall, his cadre of stewards and guards fluttering around him, the women of the harem seemed as eager to leave as Rhodopis. Khedeb-Netjer-Bona stood abruptly, allowing her linen napkin to slide from her lap to the floor. The rest of the women rose with equal readiness. None of them could enjoy a celebration when Memphis wavered on the verge of chaos, and maat was nowhere to be found. In a quick rustle of gowns and a cloud of myrrh-sweet perfume, the women shuffled impatiently behind the railing of the gallery, waiting for their chance to step down and follow Khedeb-Netjer-Bona from the great hall.

  Never had the walk through the night-time corridors felt so long, so oppressively dim. Rhodopis had seen these walls, these pillars, countless times before; she knew each turn of the route she traveled. Yet the bright murals and long, brick-floored corridors seemed to meld into one—an endless monotony of stone and lamplight, of the same stiff, painted figures staring down from every wall. For all Rhodopis could tell, she walked forever through the unchanging endlessness of Hades’ realm—as if the gods had condemned her to trudge eternally in that file of Egyptian women, never escaping the anger and hatred of those behind her, seeing nothing but the stoically turned backs of Khedeb-Netjer-Bona and her two daughters at the fore.

  When the high, familiar, green-and-blue arch of women’s corridor stretched overhead, Rhodopis sighed with relief, not caring a speck who heard. The line disintegrated; the women’s ceremonial silence was replaced by growing murmurs as they sorted themselves into groups of friends. The corridor filled with motion and color as the Pharaoh’s wives and concubines hurried toward the leisure rooms or the welcoming sanctuary of the communal bath.

  Rhodopis knew better than to try to join any of the women for a game of senet or invite herself into the bath. At the best of times, none of the girls were enthusiastic about her presence. But now, newly raised to fourth among all women, she knew it would be especially foolish to try. Instead, she slipped quietly through the crowd with her eyes fixed on the floor, heading for the seclusion of her private room. Its stillness and simple comforts would make a welcome change from the noise and tension of the feast. She hurried along the corridor, past a series of painted arches, each leading to the var
ious common spaces—the game room, the music room, a quiet library whose shelves were stacked with scrolls—until at last, she reached the door to her small chamber. She pushed it open, edged around the gap, and shut it as forcefully as she dared, leaning her back against the door as if her slight weight could bar all the women’s seething disapproval from flooding in after her.

  When she had first arrived in the palace, Pentu had admitted to Rhodopis that this chamber was one of the smallest and meanest in the women’s wing. “There is nothing to be done about it,” he’d said briskly, as if expecting that Rhodopis would complain. “No other room is available at present. You’re lucky any room was free; otherwise, you would have been sent off to one of the Pharaoh’s harem-houses in another city. Best to be satisfied with what you’ve got here, if you want my advice.”

  Rhodopis had not asked for Pentu’s advice in the matter, but the smallness of the apartment made no difference to her. In fact, she had quite liked it from the start. After the tiny sleeping alcove she’d had at the Stable, this chamber seemed a palace all its own. It was several times larger than her room at Iadmon’s had been; the furnishings were a good deal less impressive than those the other women enjoyed—Rhodopis had caught glimpses of their lavish accommodations through open doors—but the simple, sensible things the king had provided were comfortable enough to please a Thracian farm girl.

  She sighed again, deeply, alone in the dusky dimness of her private sanctuary. She leaned her head back against the door, squeezing her eyes shut. Amasis, what were you thinking?

  The air still seemed to crackle around her with the affronted silence of the concubines. No doubt the bath would soon be boiling with the heat of the women’s anger. Rhodopis pictured them floating about the sunken stone tub like a lot of par-cooked fish in a simmering stew. She could have laughed at the image, but the memory of their silent anger was still too near.

  And now what am I to do about living among them? Reckon it was bad enough before, when they just didn’t like me because I’m Greek. Now they purely hate me. It’s just about enough to make me wish for Vélona and the Stable again.