Persian Rose (White Lotus Book 2) Page 5

  But when it all boils over, they’ll come for the Greeks, the moment Amasis is pulled from his throne…

  Iset roared with laughter at one of Sitmut’s jokes; Rhodopis looked around, smiling as if she’d heard the jest and understood it. She had not, of course. Nothing her companions said had penetrated the cloud of her bleak thoughts.

  “Don’t you wish it!” Iset howled, while the other girls giggled and shrieked. “Can’t you just picture Sitmut here, with her hair unbound and her breasts out in the wind, standing up there on the wall and shouting—”

  “Hush!” Nebetiah waved a hand frantically; the spinning circle fell silent. Nebetiah’s eyes widened; she nodded significantly toward the ornate doorway that led from the garden into the women’s quarters. “King’s guards,” she whispered.

  Rhodopis turned, as all the women did, to peer curiously at the pair of guards as they stepped out of the shaded portico. Bright sunlight bounced off the blue-and-white stripes of their kilts and glinted, cold and sharp, on the hilts of their sheathed blades. Both men were broad and vigorous as bulls. Armored pectorals, made from overlapping bronze scales, covered their chests, but the solid, blocky form of their muscles was evident through their stiff uniforms.

  “My, my,” Iset said appreciatively.

  “They’re looking for someone,” said Sitmut.

  “I hope it’s me.”

  “It’s not, Iset, so wring out your skirt and hang it up to dry.”

  “The chief wife?” Minneferet suggested.

  “Where is the chief wife?” Nebetiah peered around the circle, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

  “I saw her,” Minneferet said. “She was strolling in the garden, not an hour ago.”

  Iset grunted softly. “How pleasant for her.”

  “Iset’s jealous,” Sitmut said, laughing. “She wants to be the chief wife.”

  “May all the gods preserve me from such a fate. I’m too young yet to go sour.”

  “You’ve already gone sour, like goat’s milk in the sun.” Sitmut punctuated her comment with a loud, goatish bleat.

  At that moment, Khedeb-Netjer-Bona appeared, materializing among the lush flower beds like a mist, placid and drifting. The spinning circle silenced itself again; backs straightened and faces stilled, and the women’s spindles dropped and spun with renewed vigor. Rhodopis watched as Khedeb-Netjer-Bona approached the two guardsmen with her usual unflappable poise. The chief wife spoke to the guards—no more than a few words—then turned to look at the spinning circle. A definite frown creased her brow, shadowing her narrow features. Her sharp black eyes fastened on Rhodopis, and the frown deepened. An uneasy chill prickled down Rhodopis’ arms.

  “Rhodopis,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona called. “Come here, girl.”

  The thread slipped from Rhodopis’ fingers; her spindle dropped to the ground, clattering across the courtyard’s paving stones and rolling in the dust. She scrambled to pick it up with clumsy, tingling hands. The king’s guard—sent for her? It wasn’t unusual for Amasis to send for Rhodopis, of course, for she was his favorite, although the king had deprived himself of her entertainments while her injured feet were healing. He’s heard I can walk again, and wants to lie with me—that’s all. Again and again, Rhodopis tried to convince herself it was true. But something about the circumstances gnawed at her mind. It was mid-day, and Amasis preferred his affections at night. Something had changed. Something had disrupted the routine of the palace. Has it come so soon? Are the Egyptians clamoring round the outer gate? Are they calling for my death—for all the Greek pestilence to be stamped out?

  Rhodopis bit her lip as Minneferet helped her gather up the ruined thread and spindle. Don’t be a fool, she told herself sensibly. When the revolt against Amasis comes, you’ll hear the shouting outside the palace walls long before any guards come to take you. It was a comforting thought, though the gods knew such a possibility should have comforted no one. I’ve landed in a strange time, a strange place. Wonder if I’ll ever find my way out again, into a world that’s safe and makes sense, the way any world ought to do.

  Rhodopis hurried to Khedeb-Netjer-Bona and bowed low. “How can I be of service, Chief Wife?”

  “It seems you’re wanted in the Pharaoh’s audience hall.”

  “His hall? Not his bed chamber?” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona cleared her throat, and Rhodopis blushed. “I… I’m sorry, Chief Wife. That was not discreet.”

  “No, but I suppose it can be forgiven. It is no secret, what purpose you serve in the king’s household.”

  Rhodopis bowed again. She didn’t know what else to do, how she might respond. “I will go to the king at once, of course.”

  “I’ll come along,” the chief wife said. “Only to accompany you to the king’s door. My legs could use a stretch.” That, of course, was untrue. Khedeb-Netjer-Bona had been walking in the garden for the gods alone knew how long. She called out to the spinning circle, though her words were affectionate, not harsh. “The rest of you: back to work. Yes, I know you’re all trying to listen to our conversation. I’m well aware that you’re a pack of shameless gossips. The flax won’t spin itself.”

  The chief wife turned abruptly and headed for the portico. In the blink of an eye, she was lost amid the deep-blue shadows. Rhodopis and the two guards hurried to catch up with her. She may have been a small woman, but Khedeb-Netjer-Bona had as stride like a conquering general. Rhodopis positioned herself a modest half-pace behind the chief wife’s shoulder, but she nearly had to skip to maintain the woman’s stubborn pace. Quiet and obedient, Rhodopis rushed through the brightly painted passages of the harem. The only sound in the corridors was the rapid clip of Khedeb-Netjer-Bona’s hard-soled sandals against stone.

  When they had passed beyond the great green arch that marked the interior entry to the women’s quarters, Khedeb-Netjer-Bona spoke so suddenly that Rhodopis stifled a squeak of alarm.

  “Your feet seem to have healed well.” The chief wife did not look around as she spoke. Her dark, narrow eyes remained fixed on the gilded halls and pillars ahead.

  “Yes, my lady,” Rhodopis managed, “thanks to you.”

  “Thanks to the physician. I had nothing to do with it. Perhaps Amasis wants to see you dance now that you’ve mended.”

  “But he never sends for me when the sun is up. I don’t understand it. I wonder, Chief Wife, could something be amiss?”

  Khedeb-Netjer-Bona turned her head, just enough that Rhodopis could see the woman’s sparing, almost grudging half-smile. “You are a bright girl. I’ve noted that about you.”

  Rhodopis smiled tentatively.

  “This is a strange turn,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona said, “a disruption, an alteration of the king’s routine. Any disruption concerns me. I am sure I don’t need to tell you why.”

  Psamtik, waiting like a lion in the desert for his chance to leap and tear. No, the chief wife had no need to remind Rhodopis why she was unsettled. Rhodopis merely nodded.

  “That is why I’ve come with you to the king’s hall.”

  “You are the chief wife, and may go wherever you please, of course.”

  “Of course I may. I was not asking your leave, girl.”

  “No; I didn’t think…” Rhodopis fell silent again. She didn’t know how to speak to this woman—this greatest, most influential of women in the whole vast and ancient land of Egypt. Since the day when Khedeb-Netjer-Bona had come to her chamber and seen her wounded feet—since they had shared their mutual dislike of Psamtik—Rhodopis had sensed a subtle softening in the chief wife’s demeanor. She was under no illusion that Khedeb-Netjer-Bona liked her. But the almost imperceptible thawing of the chief wife’s habitual iciness might indicate something akin to respect. Was that enough? Could Rhodopis speak to the chief wife freely without fear of undue rebuke? The urge to explain herself swelled in Rhodopis’ chest, rising uncomfortably to her throat. She wanted only to unburden herself of the guilt that had hung so heavy on her heart since
the most recent feast. She took several deep breaths, intending to confess to Khedeb-Netjer-Bona everything that roiled in her mind, but the right words evaded her. Each time she opened her mouth, she could feel the chief wife’s sideways glance, could sense the woman’s growing expectation.

  “Let it out, girl,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona said shortly. “Whatever is plaguing your heart: speak.”

  “I didn’t mean to harm anyone, Chief Wife,” Rhodopis said in a rush, her words suddenly freed.

  “Harm?”

  “That is to say, I didn’t intend to set any woman back.”

  “Ah. You refer to your rapid rise as the king’s favorite.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Rhodopis murmured.

  Khedeb-Netjer-Bona strode on, quiet but thoughtful. Finally she said, “No; I don’t suppose you meant any harm. Some women would have intended great harm, you know. Some would have whispered in Amasis’ ear, convinced him to increase their fortunes at the expense of some harem rival. But you seem entirely too innocent for such scheming.” She fell silent again and directed the full force of her piercing stare at Rhodopis as they walked. Rhodopis’ face burned under the chief wife’s scrutiny.

  “Innocent,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona said, musing, “and yet there is something shrewd about you. One doesn’t find such qualities often in girls of your age.”

  “I’ve never thought myself shrewd, Chief Wife.”

  “Perhaps it is not exactly the right word. Let me see… No, I’m not prepared to call you ‘calculating.’ That’s not the correct word, either. Watchful, perhaps. Yes. Observant.”

  Not knowing whether the chief wife was criticizing or complimenting her, Rhodopis said nothing.

  “I wonder,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona said, “what will you do with that talent?”

  “Talent? It’s not a talent, is it, to be observant?”

  “Indeed it is, girl. A rare and useful one, too.”

  “But what can I do, with this talent or any other, shut up in the harem as I am?”

  Khedeb-Netjer-Bona smiled tightly. “Doesn’t harem life suit you?”

  Rhodopis swallowed hard. She could think of no response that was both safe and honest.

  The chief wife shrugged lightly at Rhodopis’ silence. “You could gossip. A sharp-eyed thing like you, seeing and understanding even the smallest details of the most seemingly mundane exchanges… your tongue could be legendary. You could even put Sitmut to shame; the spinning circle would fall at your feet, Greek or no. Good gossip could make you popular with the other young women. Perhaps then you would no longer be so lonely.”

  They rounded a massive pillar and turned down an adjoining hall. There before them stood the door to the Pharaoh’s audience room. The likeness of a great winged scarab was carved into its surface. The beetle’s domed carapace was a brilliant lapis-blue; the angular forelegs were outstretched, rolling a gilded, glittering sun-disc across the flat cedar plane of the sky. There was no more time for conversation; they had reached their destination. The two soldiers guarding the scarab door straightened abruptly at sight of the chief wife; one turned and rapped on the door, and a moment later it swung open.

  On the threshold of the Pharaoh’s hall, Rhodopis paused, taking in the scene before her, wondering at Khedeb-Netjer-Bona’s sudden stillness. The chief wife had gone tense as a harp string the moment her sharp stare landed on the two young women who stood trembling before the Pharaoh’s throne.

  4

  A Gift of Brides

  Over the course of her three months in the Pharaoh’s harem, Rhodopis had fit together the history of Amasis, piece by piece. He had been born a common man in the southern territory of the Nile, but had risen to prominence in the army—first as a bowman, then as an officer, and finally, a trusted general of Ha’a-Ibre, the previous king and father of Khedeb-Netjer-Bona.

  From the beginning of his reign, Ha’a-Ibre had thrown his efforts into defending the farthest extremities of his empire—or what remained of it. The vast expanse of Egyptian power, conquered some fifty generations before by the sword of Thutmose the Third, had long since passed into history or legend. But Ha’a-Ibre was determined to retain the final outposts in Tehenu and Swenett, at all costs. He dreamed of restoring the empire, of taking back every land Thutmose the Third had once claimed, from those two precious strongholds to the reaches of the four horizons. But one Greek onslaught after another had proven more than Egypt could bear. Egypt’s army and wealth were, after all, still sadly depleted after rule by foreign Kushite kings, seventy-five years before Ha’a-Ibre’s time.

  Soon the depleted army realized that Ha’a-Ibre could not even retain his hold on nearby Tehenu and Swenett. Fueled by shame and anger, they turned on their king. When Ha’a-Ibre had fallen, the High Priest of Horus, the falcon-headed god of war, chose the general Amasis for Egypt’s throne.

  Amasis had been quite content with the role of general, or so the women of the harem had told Rhodopis. Never had he coveted the king’s power, nor dreamed of holding the throne. Despite his ferocity in battle, he was a humble man with simple, pure ambitions. He wanted only to live well and honestly, to protect what was his, and, upon his inevitable death, to pass with ease through the dark labyrinth of the Duat and stand untroubled before the gods of judgment.

  That humble demeanor was precisely what had caught the eye of the High Priest of Horus. Perhaps the priest believed Amasis’ earthy ways would make him the very best of kings, clear-headed and thorough in thought, with his ears always open to the hear voice of the people. Or it may have been as most of the harem women believed: that the god Horus truly had appeared to the High Priest, and called Amasis king. Perhaps (so Rhodopis had mused, the first time she’d heard the tale) the priest had assumed Amasis’ lack of personal ambition would make him easy to control, so that he and his fellow priests could manage Egypt’s affairs—and its great wealth—from the shadows. Whatever the High Priest had planned, he had announced the god’s will before the whole gathered army, and with so many witnesses to the word of Horus, the fates of both Amasis and Ha’a-Ibre were well and truly sealed.

  With a commoner’s unquestioning faith (and no small amount of superstitious awe), Amasis accepted the priest’s claim that Lord Horus himself had chosen him for the throne. Amasis led the army’s revolt against Ha’a-Ibre and, when Memphis fell easily before him, he gave the king a swift and dignified death. That same day, he’d married Tentu-Kheta, who had been the chief wife of Ha’a-Ibre, and later that year, he also wed the young King’s Daughter, Khedeb-Netjer-Bona. If Khedeb-Netjer-Bona had objected to Amasis’ coup, or to marrying her father’s killer, she gave no indication of distaste. Rhodopis had often wondered why. Perhaps the involvement of the High Priest—or of the god Horus himself—had put her mind at ease.

  But Amasis soon proved himself a poor choice as king, shattering whatever secret ambitions the Cult of Horus may had nurtured. During his many campaigns against Greek forces, Amasis had found ample opportunity to observe Egypt’s most problematic enemy. Years of fighting Greek soldiers, of devising tactics to counter their best generals, would have embittered most men, and made of them inveterate Greek-haters. Not so Amasis. Open and honest to a fault, he could only admire the organization and will, the remarkable precision of his opponents. Thus began the tide of Greeks, flowing like a second great river into Egypt—and the erosion of the Kmetu way of life.

  But the Nile rose admirably under Amasis’ reign, year upon year. The grain stores were always full to bursting, the valley rich and green. The gods were clearly pleased, and what Egyptian would risk opposing the will of a content and pacified god? A coup against one Pharaoh was terrible enough; to oust another, especially when the river rose and fell untroubled and the fields prospered, would surely defile maat.

  Rhodopis watched Amasis across the length of his audience hall; she could not help but see him through the prism of all she knew about him, his humble origins and his manufactured rise to power. He seemed to her a lap-cat resting in the
rightful place of a lion—well-intentioned and even sweet, but by his very nature hopelessly unfit for his position. Amasis looked up at the squeal of the scarab-door’s hinges. The ornaments of royalty—the tall, red-and-white double crown with its single curled plume; the falcon pectoral spread across his chest, glinting with the fire of gold and polished carnelians—lent him the imposing and dignified air one expected of a king. But he did not sit easily on the carved and gilded throne. He never did. It seemed even Lord Horus couldn’t make a king as easily as that. The kingly poise, the natural authority that should be a Pharaoh’s by right, were lacking entirely in Amasis. All one had to do was look past the gilded trappings, and his hesitant nature—his palpable unsuitability—were plain to be seen.

  A misty, half-sheepish, half-baffled expression hung across his face like a woman’s veil, but Amasis brightened when he saw Rhodopis standing in the doorway. “Ah! There she is. Come, Rhodopis.” He beckoned her forward.

  Rhodopis left Khedeb-Netjer-Bona standing near the scarab door. She moved carefully through the crowd that filled the audience hall, glancing about surreptitiously as she went. There were, of course, the usual contingent of stewards and ambassadors, nobles and petitioners to the throne, all thronged at the foot of the dais, shifting and jostling subtly in their attempts to maneuver themselves to the fore, where they could gain the king’s attention and his judgment. But as Rhodopis moved through the crowd, she noted that it was denser than usual. There were many more people gathered today than usually stood before the king’s seat. They parted to make way for her, stepping backward or sideways, and she glanced at each person’s garb as she passed. There were a great many people dressed in dark robes, long yet bulky, the cloth lacking the smooth, flowing quality and crisp pleats of Egyptian linen. Most of them had skin a paler shade of brown than she typically saw, too. Most of these people were foreigners, then—and by the simplicity and sameness of their robes, she determined that they must be servants or slaves.