Persian Rose (White Lotus Book 2) Read online

  Khedeb-Netjer-Bona fell silent, but her sharp black eyes locked with Rhodopis’ own. She stared, and the quiet of the audience hall seemed to draw around them like a thick cloak, stifling and dense, isolating the two of them from the rest of the world. Rhodopis saw an image of her present reality emerge from the depths of the chief wife’s gaze. She could read that vision, that inescapable truth, like one of the picture-stories painted on the palace walls. Every conversation she’d had with Khedeb-Netjer-Bona, ever since the day the chief wife had sent the physician to tend her feet, resolved before her mind’s eye with sickening clarity. It all made sudden, heart-shivering sense: the chief wife’s praise for Rhodopis’ skills of observation; her idle wondering what Rhodopis would do with those skills.

  The royal family of Egypt had a task for Rhodopis—and she had no power to refuse. She would be expected to work on behalf of the Egyptian throne, and if she did not do her work well—flawlessly—she would find herself on the sharp end of a Persian spear.

  Rhodopis could no longer suppress her trembling. “My lady, I—”

  “You’ll never hear me say it about another Greek,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona broke in coolly, “but you can be useful, Rhodopis. I, too, have pondered over the omen of the falcon. Many times, I’ve wondered why the gods would send you into my husband’s heart, into his life. But now we know, don’t we? Now we see Lord Horus’ purpose.”

  Rhodopis shook her head, a desperate denial. “I’m not fit for the task. I—”

  “Nonsense. Who better? This unassuming slip of a girl—Pharaoh’s daughter, small and delicate and charming. No one will suspect you; you’re clever enough to be make sure of that. And it will remove you from the harem. I cannot say what Persia is like; you may find more freedom out there, in Cambyses’ lands, than you could ever hope for here in the harem. You may even find more latitude than you would have attained here in Memphis, as a freed entertainer.”

  Tears stung Rhodopis’ eyes. She blinked them away before the chief wife could notice. “P’raps I’ll find less freedom,” she muttered.

  “And,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona added with dark emphasis, “there is no Psamtik in Persia.”

  “There might be someone worse than Psamtik. Who can say what dangers wait in Persia, my lady? It’s so far away, so different…”

  “The gods will protect you,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona insisted. Rhodopis wished she could feel a fraction of the chief wife’s confidence. “They have chosen you for this task. It is what you must do. What’s more, you will do it; I command it of you. Your king commands it.”

  Rhodopis could no longer keep the tears at bay. She sniffed, surreptitiously at first, but louder as the burning intensified behind her eyelids. One hot tear spilled down her cheek, then another. She knew Khedeb-Netjer-Bona was right; she could not refuse the Pharaoh’s direct command. I’m still as much a slave as ever I was. Gods of the earth and sky, will I ever be free?

  “Don’t cry,” Khedeb-Netjer-Bona said. But she sounded satisfied, as if she’d been waiting for Rhodopis to break, to reveal her weakness and vulnerability. The chief wife rose from the dais and extended her hand. After a moment, Rhodopis took it, and Khedeb-Netjer-Bona pulled her to her feet. “You said yourself: weeping seldom helps.”

  Rhodopis nodded. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. She had shown the chief wife enough weakness, enough insecurity. She followed Khedeb-Netjer-Bona back across the audience hall, and did not allow another tear to fall.

  6

  The Lion in the Night

  In the dimness of her chamber, Rhodopis sat alone on her bed, listening to the falling, mournful call of a night bird through the garden window. A small lamp burned on her table, casting a fitful light over stacks of chests and cedar crates, over a small mountain of rush baskets with their lids tied shut. In a matter of hours, the harem apartment had been transformed from home to a foreign place, filled with unfamiliar shapes and faint, shadowy echoes. Khedeb-Netjer-Bona had ordered a cadre of servants to pack up all of the Greek girl’s belongings the moment she’d secured Rhodopis’ assent to embark on the dangerous mission to Persia—not that assent had been necessary. It was, Rhodopis knew, merely a formality, a way for the Pharaoh to soothe his conscience and comfort his turmoil at sending his favorite away.

  After picking at a supper she was too anxious to eat, Rhodopis had studied the baskets and boxes for well over an hour, pondering over what goods they might hold. There were far too many of them stacked and stuffed in the small apartment. Rhodopis had received plenty of gifts from Amasis, and had kept most of the goods she had earned as a hetaera—the necklaces and bracelets, the jeweled baubles that would have bought her freedom, had she remained in Xanthes’ Stable. But she knew her small fortune would never have filled so many crates. Khedeb-Netjer-Bona must have increased Rhodopis’ modest wealth tenfold at least, adding fine gowns, jewelry, unguents and perfumes to the holding. There were likely several small pieces of furniture packed in the crates, too—footstools and tables, tripods for lamps and incense braziers. Any why not? Rhodopis would not go to Cambyses as a Greek girl, a jumped-up whore who had landed, by chance or by whim of the gods, in the Pharaoh’s harem. She would go to Cambyses cloaked in Khedeb-Netjer-Bona’s lie: as a King’s Daughter of Egypt. And surely a King’s Daughter of Egypt was entitled to a magnificent dowry.

  A short refrain of song drifted near Rhodopis’ apartment door. The voice was high and sweet—Minneferet, she thought, or perhaps even Iset, who could sing beautifully when she was not drowning in a jug of wine. The song passed quickly, losing itself in the deep, sonorous murmur of the women’s quarters, the low voices engaged in gossip, the melodious laughter of women accustomed to a soft and easy life. Rhodopis sighed. Never had she felt so distant from the women of the harem, not even when she had first come to live among them. And never, not even during her first weeks in Egypt, had she longed so desperately to feel at home.

  Couldn’t I have stayed yet a while longer? she silently pleaded of the gods—whichever gods deigned to listen. Only it’s all so sudden, and just when I was finding my place, too. She wondered despondently what would become of the Persian sisters, the Pharaoh’s new brides. Would the harem girls treat them kindly, or would they offer the same brusque dismissal they’d initially given Rhodopis? She hoped the harem girls would be kinder to the Persians. Rhodopis liked Ninsina, and thought she could come to like Shamiram, given enough time. Who will be their friend now that I’m going away? Who will make them feel safe and welcome in a foreign land?

  Come to think of it, who will make me feel safe and welcome in a foreign land?

  No—she pushed her thoughts firmly back from that terrifying precipice. She would go to Cambyses’ court. Whether it was the will of the gods or of the chief wife made little difference to Rhodopis; she had no power to alter her fate, either way. Khedeb-Netjer-Bona had already found a companion of sorts to accompany Rhodopis on the journey—a girl fluent in the Persian tongue, and sufficiently educated to write out the messages Rhodopis must send back to Egypt. That girl would pose as handmaid to the King’s Daughter; hers would no doubt be the only companionship Rhodopis would enjoy. I must hope for the best, that’s all—and pray my handmaid is a friendly sort, and not a boor like Iset or a treacherous thing of Archidike’s sort.

  Rhodopis hadn’t the first or faintest idea what she might expect from Persia itself. Her conversation with Shamiram and Ninsina had revealed only the smallest and most rudimentary details. This apartment—the Pharaoh’s palace—indeed, the whole of Egypt was not her true home, yet a terrible pang of homesickness wracked her all the same. If she succeeded in her mission, she would spend the rest of her life in Persia, tied forever to the Egyptian throne as its secret eyes and ears. If she failed, she would die—Rhodopis was clever enough to understand that there could be no other consequence for failure.

  It’s Amasis and Cambyses who will say whether I live or die—and if I live, Amasis has already decreed that I must be
forever alone and unhappy. A swell of resentment soured her stomach; the smell of burning lamp oil was suddenly too close, too thick and choking. And before Amasis and Cambyses, it was Xanthes who determined my fate, and before him, Iadmon.

  When, she wondered hopelessly, would the gods relent? When would they allow Rhodopis to become the mistress of her own life, her own destiny? She saw no end to the pattern that seemed to spread itself out before her: one wealthy, powerful man after another forever controlling her freedom, her body—her very life. That bleak future stretched before her mind’s eye like a featureless path paved with identical stones.

  In the morning, the guards would come for her baskets, the chests full of dresses, her jewelry and fine unguents, for all the dowry goods of the King’s Daughter. The guards would take her, too, bundled up like a woven rug or a basket of trinkets, down to the royal quay. There she would board one of the Pharaoh’s fine ships and sail north. North, and farther northward still, past the slow-moving waters of the lush green Delta, past the cities on the edge of the sea. She would take to the ocean waves again, just as she had done with her family, years ago on the trek from Thrace, but now she would track north and east along the coast, to the city of Gebal.

  Khedeb-Netjer-Bona had explained it all to Rhodopis, while the latter had sat stunned, still half disbelieving, on the edge of her bed, watching the chief wife’s servants sort and pack her things. From Gebal, Rhodopis and her false dowry would be borne by a caravan of camels along the ancient trade routes, through the great oasis of Tadmor, over the desert to Cambyses’ stronghold of Babylon. It was a very long journey, Khedeb-Netjer-Bona had assured her. It would surely be most trying.

  At that grim assertion, Rhodopis had only nodded silently. She had seen how the same trek had worn on the nerves of Shamiram and Ninsina. She had said nothing, only listened obediently as Khedeb-Netjer-Bona issued her instructions. But all the while, Rhodopis had fretted and quailed inside. She hadn’t been out of Egypt since she was ten years old. The prospect of venturing to a new land, leaving behind Memphis and the king’s palace—all that was familiar to her!—would have sickened her with dread, even if she hadn’t found herself pitched all at once straight into the mouth of danger.

  “Egypt.” Rhodopis said the word aloud, wondering at the aching, hollow feeling it made inside her chest. It was not her home… and yet, after so many years away from Thrace, Egypt was the only home she knew. For her, it had always been a place of great loneliness and uncertainty. But it was the place where she had found herself, the place where, like refuse on the river’s shore, she had washed up and stranded.

  This was the last night she would ever spend in Egypt. This was the last time she would hear the harem women murmuring beyond her door, the last time she would hear Iset or Minneferet sing. The next time she heard a night-bird’s call, the sad, repetitive sound would not come from the shady sycamore. She would never again hear the frogs call from the leisure pond, nor see exactly the same slant of starlight fall upon her window sill.

  All at once, the seclusion of her dim apartment was too much for Rhodopis to bear. She leaped up from her bed and hurried to the chamber door. The hall outside was bright with dozens of lamps; the sting of freshly burned myrrh was in the air, and a great gust of laughter spilled out from the game room, where the harem girls were arranged around their senet boards. The corridor, thank the gods, was empty.

  Rhodopis lifted her skirt above her ankles and ran through the hall, out beneath the garden portico, where the crisp bite of fresh night air greeted her. The open space of the garden soothed away some of her pain and emptiness—enough that she lingered there, leaning against one pillar, shutting her eyes tightly, breathing deep the rich, green smell of the garden and the wide river beyond. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the moon had just begun to rise. The barest glow of silvery light spread along the top of the palace wall; in a few moments more, the moon itself would edge into view.

  I’ll watch the moon rise one last time over Memphis, Rhodopis decided, or the king’s palace, at least, since it’s all of Memphis I can see. It would be one peaceful memory to carry with her into Persia—a land that could offer her nothing but a constant threat of death.

  Rhodopis drifted alone through the garden. Purple shadows enfolded her, but thought the night was cold and the sky seemed somehow vaster and more distant than it ever had before, she did not feel afraid. What fear could rival the danger she would soon face? What could be more terrible than Cambyses, the great conqueror who thought nothing of sending open threats of war to the king of Egypt? Nothing could touch her here, on this final night in her home-that-was-not-a-home—so long as she avoided the great stone urns and stayed within the safety of the women’s garden.

  It is often the case that, when we know ourselves to be in grave and unavoidable danger, the fog of panic dissipates, and we find ourselves looking upon our own circumstances more clearly than we ever have before. Such was the thoughtful stillness that descended upon Rhodopis. With her fate fixed before her like some blood-red star, she settled into the calm of acceptance. She began to think and plan as she wandered the garden paths in the spreading, pale light of the moon.

  I must send a letter to Aesop, she decided, this very night, or early in the morning, before the Pharaoh’s men come to take me to the ship. If she was to leave Egypt with no hope of returning, she could only do so comfortably if she felt assured that Aesop, her one true friend, knew everything that had happened to her since the day they parted. She wrote with a poor hand, but she could scratch out enough to be understood in a pinch.

  Of course, she mustn’t tell Aesop anything about the Persian scheme. One of the king’s stewards, or perhaps Amasis himself, would read the letter; if it contained any hint of Khedeb-Netjer-Bona’s plot, it would never reach Aesop’s hands. She must tell him only that the Pharaoh had sent her away on an important mission, and that she must now serve Egypt from afar, never to return. Yes, she decided—that would suit. Aesop would know she was well, but it would leave him out of the danger. He would know, too, that Rhodopis was no longer in Egypt, so he would waste no time in looking for her. Perhaps if she dug one of her less ornate bracelets out of the dowry baskets tonight, she could use it to pay a messenger, and he could carry the letter the next morning—

  A rough hand closed around Rhodopis’ upper arm, biting into her flesh. In the moment of contact, she felt no urge to scream. Her body did not even jerk with involuntary fright. A cold, slick sensation of inevitability fell across her, sinking into her skin, turning her bones to ice. Somehow she knew—somehow, it made a mad, terrible, sickening kind of sense that the gods would not let her leave Egypt as easily as that. She turned in his grip, searching the darkness for the two stone urns, certain she must have wandered beyond them again in her state of distraction. But no—there the urns stood, still some distance ahead. The moon lined their dark curves with a glow whose very serenity mocked her. It was he who had violated the boundary this time—he who had come hunting, like a great fanged cat in the darkness.

  Psamtik wrenched at her arm, spinning Rhodopis around to face him. An improbable pulse of calmness beat smoothly against her rising fear. She sucked in a deep breath, filling her lungs to the bursting point, ready to unleash a loud and deliberate scream. But the moonlight flashed—a bolt of lightning flickering before her eyes, reflecting off the thing Psamtik clutched in his other fist—something smooth, hard. Metallic. A heartbeat later, the hot prick of the knife’s point settled against her throat. This was no trick, like the one she had employed against him. The blade was sharp, and all too real.

  “Not a sound, little lotus—not a sound.”

  Rhodopis closed her mouth.

  “Going away so soon?” Psamtik leaned close, whispering in her ear. “You’re off to Persia, I hear. But you won’t leave before I have a taste of you. No, not before.”

  She swallowed hard. Buoyed on the strange, cold calm that infused her, she spoke quietly, levelly, looking
straight into her captor’s eyes. “I’m part of the Pharaoh’s plans now. If you try it—if you hurt me—you’ll ruin everything. Amasis will never forgive you; it all must come off perfectly, or there’ll be war with Cambyses. You know Egypt can’t win if Persia attacks. Let me go now and I won’t scream; Amasis need never know what you’ve done.”

  Psamtik’s laugh was hoarse, carefully stifled so it carried no farther than Rhodopis’ own ears. “Do you think I care about the Pharaoh’s plans? My father is an old fool. Whatever scheme he’s concocted to handle Cambyses, it won’t come off, anyhow, whether your skin is intact or not.” The point of the knife pressed her throat again. “I’ll spill your blood without a second thought, you Greek bitch. And if my father objects, then I’ll kill him, too.”

  Rhodopis tried to speak again, but Psamtik twisted the knife. A streak of pain shot upward, burning the side of her face with its cruel fire. A hot trickle of blood ran down her neck, snaking over her collarbone and down the front of her dress. She shuddered; the strange illusion of her calm shattered in slow motion, the pieces dropping like winter leaves before her mind’s eye. She tried to cringe away.

  “Do you think any Kmetu will bat an eye if Amasis dies?” Psamtik hissed. “By the gods, every one of my father’s subjects would thank me! The priests would set the calendar with a new feast in commemoration. I’d be lauded as a hero throughout the Two Lands.”