Sphinx's Queen (14 page)

“And Amenophis,” Nava added.

“Yes. Always.” Amenophis’s voice sounded low in my ear. I whirled around to face him. “I heard what you said, Nefertiti,” he told me. “I only said ‘What?’ because I wanted—I
want
to hear you say those words again.”

I set the hunting bow aside and let my arms slide around his waist and rested my head on his chest. It was the most natural thing in the world for me to do. “I love you.” I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper. I felt as if the two of us were standing in the presence of something greater, more humbling, more mysterious than the Great Sphinx of my dreams.

“I can’t—I can’t believe it.” The words rasped from his throat. “How can this be real? You’re so lovely, and I’m nothing but—Ow!” He jerked to one side, and both of us looked down to see Nava’s ferocious scowl. “Did you just
pinch
me?” Amenophis demanded.

“I had to,” Nava told him. “You were going to say something stupid. I’m
happy
that Nefertiti loves you. Why do you want to ruin it with a lot of silly questions?”

Amenophis inclined his head solemnly. “Your words are wise and true, O little biting flea. I’m going to tell my father to make you one of his counselors.”

“I accept,” Nava said just as solemnly, and the three of us burst into laughter.

With a kiss from Nava on my cheek and an even sweeter one from Amenophis on my lips, I left the cave to find us food and water. I kept my word about walking carefully. I really had no other choice: My feet were sore from all of the marching we’d done to reach our hillside shelter. Scratches and blisters crisscrossed and dotted the soles of my feet. I would have given the best jewels I owned for those mouse-fur sandals Amenophis had joked about.

At first I retraced the narrow trail we’d used to reach the cave, descending the hill.
If I can backtrack on this path, maybe I can find that stream again. We came across it the day before we found the cave … I think. Or was it two days’ walk before that?
I paused and surveyed my surroundings.
I should be going uphill, not down
, I decided, tilting my head back to look at the top of the nearest cliff.
From up there, I’ll have a better view. I might see some greenery—that is, if it would
look
green by moonlight
.

All of those days on the march had made me stronger. I wasn’t even breathing hard when I got to the summit. The moon was not full but still shed generous light over the land. I remembered the story Mery told to Bit-Bit and me about how the moon was one of the eyes of the god Horus, the hawk-headed son of Isis and Osiris. It held less light than the sun because wicked Set had struck it cruelly when Horus fought him to avenge Osiris’s murder.

O Horus, give me a hawk’s keen eyes tonight! Let me see the way to bringing fresh water and food back to save my dear ones
. I prayed from the heart, my arms and face raised to the star-strewn night sky.

What was that in the distance? I gazed into the silvered dark, and a cluster of squarish shapes drew my attention. I caught my breath: houses! They were houses! I hadn’t seen them right away because they were small, humble dwellings built out of mud bricks. Even in daylight, their color would blend in with the land.

Who lives out here?
I wondered.
There are no fields to plow, no crops to harvest. I don’t know how far it is to the sacred river
. Then I remembered where I was: in the land of the dead, where the rulers of the Black Land needed workmen close at hand to create and adorn their houses of eternity.

When I’d lived in the royal palace, I often heard two of my maids talking about their families. One of them spoke about a cousin of hers, a master painter whose wall paintings were highly prized:
“Pharaoh himself has commanded him to decorate the walls and ceiling of the royal tomb! We’re all very proud of him, but it’s such a shame that all his best work is sealed away. We were very close as children, so I miss seeing him, but he has to live across the river in the village of the tomb workers. I hear there are almost forty families out there, maybe more, and their houses are made of whitewashed brick, all very fine. Of course, when he’s called to work on a wall painting, he has to spend his nights in—”

—a simple house like one of those
, I thought.
Not as fine as his home in the village, but closer to the valley of the kings
.

I started down the rocky slope, turning my steps in the direction of the houses. Would I find them occupied or empty? I prayed that the houses sheltered enough tomb craftsmen for there to be plentiful supplies of food and water on hand. I prayed even more fervently that there would be few enough workers around so that I could avoid them easily. How could I explain my presence if they discovered me? How would they react if I told them I was seeking food and water for Amenophis? “So you say Pharaoh’s son is just on the other side of that hill, starving in a cave? Oh, yes, we believe you—that happens every other day around here!” They’d think I was a lunatic. Then they’d turn me in to the authorities. I had Thutmose’s bow and arrows for protection, but how could I use them against innocent, honest men?

What other choice do I have except to be a thief?
I thought sadly as every step I took brought me closer to the rough brown walls.

Shame at what I was about to do made me careless. I was less than ten paces from the doorway of the closest house when voices from just around the corner took me by surprise. They rang out loud and clear, though sometimes they went from low, threatening growls to sharp, indignant tones. I dropped into a crouch and listened attentively. There were at least three distinct speakers, all of them male. Should I try to get away before the speakers knew I was there?

“—beg of you, don’t force me to do this! What you’re asking is sacrilege. It will destroy my soul!”

I turned to stone, transfixed by the sound of that piteous voice. Then a reply came, and the casual callousness of the second speaker made the hair rise at the back of my neck.

“No one is forcing you to show us the way to Lord Iritsen’s tomb, Samut. Go home and keep your soul pure.”

“And what about my son?” Samut wailed. “What about my precious child? Where have you hidden him?”

“Keep your voice down, Samut. You’ll rouse a witness.”

Jackals’ laughter filled the night. “What witness?” A third voice, nasal and shrill, sneered. “This place is deserted. The workers are all back in the village, waiting for their next round of tasks. Why d’you think we’re here, having our little … 
talk
with Samut?”

“Please—” Samut sounded on the point of tears or madness.
“Please
give me back my boy. His mother is dead; he’s my only child. Listen, you don’t need to rob Lord Iritsen’s tomb. I have some jewelry and a gold image of Lord Osiris as big as my middle finger. You can have that. You can have anything else I own. Come into my house and take whatever you want, but please don’t make me despoil the dead!”

“Did you hear that?” the nasal-voiced one cried with mock joy. “A gold statue as big as his middle finger! Who needs old Iritsen’s rooms full of treasure if we can have
that
, hey? And you know how we’re going to reward your generosity, Samut? We’re going to give you what you want: You’ll have your son back tomorrow.” I could picture the ugly grin twisting the speaker’s lips as he toyed with the heartbroken father. “Most of him.”

“Monster!”

I heard a scuffle, curses, then a merciless beating, and Samut moaning with pain. Suddenly it stopped and the cold voice declared, “All right, that’s enough. You don’t teach a man to hold his tongue by breaking his jaw. If we snap his bones, who’s going to show us the way to that tomb?”

“He wasn’t the only one who worked on Iritsen’s burial,” the nasal voice whined. “Why don’t we just get rid of him and his brat and find someone else to get us inside?”

“Because I don’t want to waste any more time, that’s why! You know how long it took to get that little boy to trust me enough so he’d come away peaceably? Hey, you! Samut! I’ll keep it simple for you: Either you come back here tomorrow night, ready to take us into Iritsen’s tomb, or you can start carving out one for your boy.”

I slipped into the shelter of an empty house as the four tomb robbers strode past my hiding place. When they were well away, I went looking for Samut. He was lying curled up on his side, tears pouring from his eyes, his face and body bruised and bleeding. One eye was already swelling shut, but he could still see me kneeling by him.

“Gracious Isis, why have you come for me?” he whispered. “Am I dead?”

“Nava, if you keep on eating like that, you’ll get sick.” I tried to take away the figs that the Habiru child had piled in front of her, but she threw her small body over them protectively and looked at me as if I were the most heartless person in the world. All her fuss disturbed Ta-Miu, who had been enjoying a piece of dried fish. The cat decided I was to blame for her interrupted treat and uttered a sharp, scolding mew.

“See?” Nava proclaimed. “Even Ta-Miu thinks you’re wrong.”

“Ta-Miu doesn’t have to nurse you through a bellyache,” I replied.

“Let the little one eat.” Samut sat cross-legged on the floor next to me and gazed wistfully at the child. “My boy loves figs, too.”

Amenophis swallowed the mouthful of fresh bread he’d been chewing. “You’ll share a plate of figs with your son again soon,” he said. “You’ll see.”

Samut sighed. “You’re a very kind person, young master. You mean well, but what can you do? There are too many of them for you to—”

Nava tugged at my elbow and whispered, “Why is he calling Amenophis ‘young master’? Does he know he’s a prince? Did you tell him?”

“I didn’t even tell him our names,” I whispered back while Samut and Amenophis continued speaking. “And he hasn’t asked.”

Nava’s brows knitted. “Isn’t that strange?”

“He just might be the sort of person who respects another’s privacy. He probably thinks that we must have a good reason for not letting him know who we are. It doesn’t bother him too much because we’ve proved we’re not enemies.”

“Oh.” The Habiru child nodded. “Because you took care of him, right?”

“I didn’t do that much—just cleaned him up after that awful beating he got and bandaged a few of the worst scrapes. If he calls Amenophis ‘young master,’ he’s just showing respect. You didn’t argue about it when he called you ‘young lady,’ did you?”

She giggled and tried not to look
too
pleased with herself.

“—and I
am
strong enough to help you find your boy.” Amenophis’s voice rose, drawing my attention back to his conversation with Samut. “I’m in your debt for all this”—he indicated the food that Samut had given us so freely—“and I
will
pay it back! When you meet with those two vermin tomorrow night, I’ll be waiting with that bow and pick them off. Osiris will be sitting in judgment over their hearts before another dawn.”

“It’s not that simple, young master,” Samut said. “There are three of them, not two. They’ve hidden my child in a cave like this, somewhere in these hills, with their third partner holding him captive. He’ll be watching from hiding tomorrow night when I’m supposed to meet the other two, back at the empty houses, and he’ll have my boy with him. He’ll only bring him out into the open once I’ve given those sacrilegious beasts what they want—the location of Lord Iritsen’s tomb and help breaking into it. If an arrow were to come out of nowhere and kill one of that man’s partners, my son would be—would be—” He covered his face and sobbed.

Amenophis laid one hand on the weeping father’s back. “That won’t happen, Samut. I’ll find another way.”

“
We
will,” I said. “Whatever course we decide on to save Samut’s son, I’ll be a part of it.”

Samut lifted his chin and spoke to me in a faltering voice. “Oh, no, my lady, I couldn’t allow such a lovely girl to endanger herself!”

I smiled at him. “Not so long ago, you didn’t think I was a girl, lovely or not.”

He struggled to smile back. “If only you
were
Lady Isis. You could use your magic to make short work of those criminals.”

“Yes, if only. Maybe that would teach them to fear the gods.”

“Oh, but they do fear the gods, my lady!”

“Tomb robbers who fear the gods? They have a strange way of showing it,” Amenophis broke in.

“It’s true, young master.” Samut bobbed his head. “You see, I know these men. We grew up together, all of us the sons of tomb workmen. We were even friends once.” He sighed. “But they chose a bad path and became notorious rogues. They went swaggering through our village, refusing to learn their fathers’ honest trades, making fun of those of us who did. Finally they ran off, and the next any of us heard of them was word that they’d gone north, to seek their fortunes in Per-Bast.”

“Bast’s holy city? Why would they travel so far?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was the only way to outdistance some trouble they’d stirred up closer to home. Sometimes a traveler would bring messages to their families here—simple words, letting their mothers know they were alive and well—but when the travelers were asked for details, they always talked about how surprising it was to meet three men so devoted to the goddess of the city. My former friends might be criminals who scorn and defy the other gods, but they are Bast’s devoted worshippers.”

“That’s not so odd,” Amenophis said. “Lady Bast is a goddess of love and pleasure, but she’s also a terrifying avenger of wrongs, like Sekhmet.”

Nava gave me a puzzled look. She was still too young to know all the gods of the Black Land, so I explained, “Sekhmet is the goddess of war. You’ve seen her images. She’s a woman with the head of a lion.”

“And Bast is a cat, like Ta-Miu,” Nava said, nodding. She stretched out her hand to scratch Ta-Miu’s ears. “I wish you could go punish those bad men,” she told the pretty creature.

Her words struck me like cold water dashed in my face. My eyebrows shot up, my mouth fell open, and all I could say was, “Oh!”