THE GOD'S WIFE (10 page)

“We won’t be having a romance, that’s for sure,” Rebecca said with a wink. Randy winked back.

“Okay, it’s decided,” he said, slapping his hand down on the desk. “You’ll come back to me if anything gets worse, but right now, the production is going beautifully. I can tell my financial backers they have a winner,” he said, holding up a palm for a high five. Rebecca’s palm met his, and Randy gave her a searching look. “You are coming to the dinner tonight, aren’t you?”

“Dinner?” Rebecca wracked her mind for any miscellaneous memos she may have missed. “I’m afraid I wasn’t invited.”

“Not invited? That’s absurd. You’re the star of the show, of course, you are invited. Didn’t you hear anyone talking about it? Someone must have been messing with the company mailboxes.” He bit his lower lip. She could tell he suspected Lenore. “Well, it would be a rush, but can you come tonight? It’s at eight at the studio.”

“I don’t have a formal gown, Randy,” she said, her mind racing. “But, uh, sure. I probably can come up with something. May I take Jonas?”

“With my blessings, my dear. I’ve got to show you off, and when you’re with your lover, you bloom like a precious flower.”

Rebecca felt her face heat up, and she bowed a little as she stood to go, as if she were leaving a master class. With a start, she glanced at the clock and saw the hour was almost up. She’d missed ballet entirely.

“You’ll tell Buckley I have an excused absence, won’t you?”

“Him? Oh, God, yes. He’s such a pain in the ass. You’re fine. Fine.”

She backed out the door and then hurried toward the front exit. A formal dinner in just a few hours. How to pull that off ? She needed to get Jonas on the cell phone pronto. She raced outdoors where she could get better reception.

The conversation sizzled, popped and filled with cutoff sentences and cell phone stutters. But the gist of the noise meant her beleaguered boyfriend had to work late. She’d have to go to the dinner alone.

She rang off and stood on the street, nearly mauled by rush-hour pedestrians in a panic to make their trains. Imagining going to the fancy soirée, she clambered down the subway stairs and tried to dream up sparkling conversation while jammed next to a man with an umbrella that kept hitting her in the rear.

Released from the misery of the train, the walk up the street to her apartment filled her with a trepidation she didn’t understand. How many times had she gone down these tree-lined city streets, greeting the neighbors or tossing a ball back to the kids playing in the street? What was up? Certainly her nerves were tingling. She dug her keys from her purse and stumbled into her front vestibule, then fished the mail from her slot. No invitation. She started climbing the upstairs when she heard a loud male voice arguing with Greta and Alison.

“Yes. She must be here,” a voice that pulled her insides rigid said. “I’m taking her to a dinner …”

Rebecca ran upstairs, slipped behind the interloper and her roommates, and threw her dance bag down to break up the argument. Sharif, dressed for a formal occasion in a designer tuxedo, turned to face her, looking like an imp who had been caught mid-prank.

“Sharif ?” Rebecca said, flustered and not a little disturbed. “What plans do you have this time?”

Neferet was too frightened to accept the offer of mere escort service and increased security at her apartments at Karnak. Instead, she slept that night at the palace on a small bed offered by Kamose’s sentry. The guard would be up all night, anyway, and she couldn’t imagine navigating the dangerous road home. Staying with Kamose was the most dangerous of any of her options, so she drifted in and out of a fitful sleep in the soldier’s little cot until dawn.

The narrow cot was filled with straw instead of the down she was accustomed to, and nightmares interrupted her sleep. She spent most of the night, itchy, restless and irritable, eager to get on with her business.

As soon as light began burnishing the tiny room’s walls, she arose, rearranged her sheath dress, fixed her wig and set out — although not without rewarding the sentry with a deben of gold. He was a sweet young man, and she knew he could prove useful in the future, with so many enemies around.

There was only one place where she could go now to stop Zayem’s madness and that was at the feet of the Pharaoh himself. The time to get to him was early, before Meryt commanded his attention. If the living quarters were still as she remembered, her father slept in his own wing, only inviting the Great Wife on occasion. It was a place where Neferet remembered playing with her father and the nursemaids. The royal chamber lay just off to the left of the vine-patterned corridor she hurried along. She walked barefoot, careful not to make a sound in this cavernous hallway, lest Meryt’s spies discover her. When she reached the royal lodgings, a guard recognized her at once and allowed passage. She leaned over and whispered in his ear. This was not a royal audience she sought but a simple meeting between father and daughter. The guard nodded and said a few things to a young man in fancy palace dress who practically leaped through the door toward the king’s chambers.

She waited, putting on her sandals and counting the number of renditions of the goddess Eset she saw painted on the tops of the walls. The goddess would watch over this encounter, yet Neferet wondered if her father would still act like an everyday parent and not a forbidding authority figure. Was he still the loving man she remembered? She thought of his smiles at last night’s state dinner. Four years away from him, living in the harem, had comprised a large part of her life, and she no longer could discern how distant he may have become. A ruler, considered by the entire country to be the living incarnation of god on earth, is a difficult image to snuggle.

Within minutes, the boy came bobbing back, bowed to Neferet and then beckoned her forward.

“We’ll be alone?” she asked. “Without the Great Wife?” The boy nodded with verve and urged Neferet into a luxurious room covered with wall tapestries and murals. On a simple ebony chair sat her father, bereft of crown or wig, looking fit for a man of forty-six years. When he saw his daughter, he gestured for her to come forward and offered her another chair. Delight danced in his dark eyes.

“I wanted to see you not as a royal subject but as your girl,” Neferet began. The Pharaoh just laughed and got up to kiss her forehead. A warm flush filled her face as she felt the joy of a father’s love re-discovered. He sat again, crossing his legs, looking rested and calm. Neferet felt anything but relaxed, but she sat at the edge of her chair.

“It’s been a long time since I could see you this way,” he said, looking almost wistful as he studied her face. “You have much of your mother in you, but I see myself in your eyes. In the expressions they make.”

Neferet dropped her head. “Then you must be seeing fear — and I never saw that in your eyes in my entire life.”

“Fear?”

“Father, there is so much to tell that a starting point is hard to find.” She looked up. “My mother must hear nothing of what I am going to tell you.”

“If you wish it, I won’t tell her a thing.”

The Pharaoh leaned forward as Neferet related the story of last night and the possible assassination attempt against Kamose. He’d been told of the break-in but little of the details. She explained her terror of going home and how she spent the night in the palace.

“Why would you be involved in this intrigue?” the Pharaoh asked.

“Kamose and I …” she looked off toward a window in her embarrassment. “Have become close.”

The Pharaoh responded by standing, pulling Neferet to her feet and throwing his gentle arms around her. He hadn’t hugged her like this since she was twelve years old, and the skin-on-skin sensation felt delicious.

“This is my greatest wish! Truly, the gods are smiling on my royal house and on me. My favorite son and my only daughter, the God’s Wife, are in love.”

What her father said rang with truth. She indeed had fallen in love. Just the thought of Kamose made her skin feel fresh, as if she were rising clean from the priest’s bathing pool.

Neferet backed away when her father released her from his happy embrace. She closed her eyes, feeling peril in what she was about to say.

“Father, there’s a problem. I’m afraid that Zayem is behind the attempts to kill Kamose. And, in addition to this madness, he wants to marry me. He has told me as much.”

Her father looked down at Neferet’s face, wearing the official dour look of state, sober and judging. It only took him seconds to lapse into this regal mode. Neferet rushed on, before he could say he didn’t believe her story. She told him of Zayem’s sacrilege in the temple, of his attack on her and his threats to tell Meryt that the God’s Wife wasn’t doing her duties. She ended when she told him it was Meryt’s plan to marry the two of them — Zayem and Neferet — to assure Zayem’s ascendancy to the throne.

The Pharaoh sat back in the chair and covered part of his face with a hand. Deep furrows showed on his brow, wrinkles that normally would be covered by his royal striped
nemes
scarf and crown of the Two Lands. She noticed for the first time that gray had started peppering through his short hair. It made her sorry she brought more discord to this powerful but beleaguered man — who just happened to be her father and protector.

“In a marriage like mine, the union of two powerful families, many concessions have to be made,” he said, lowering his hand and fixing her with a patient, but careworn, look. “I’m sure you’ve heard it was no love match between your mother and myself. She was married before and was not young when I entertained the idea of her as my Great Wife. It was a business transaction brought about by your grandparents. Meryt’s father, who makes most of the papyrus parchment in the kingdom and sells to the palace’s scribes at a discount. He also agreed to pay higher taxes to feed the army. In turn, I made Meryt the Great Wife, Queen of the Two Lands.”

Neferet listened as if hearing this for the first time. Certainly tales were told in school and in the women’s quarters of the coolness between the Pharaoh and his Great Wife. But she had never heard it explained quite like this — straight from the source. She tried to hide the prickly way it made her feel inside. It would be rude to pry any further, so she dropped her head.

“And my half-brother Zayem?” she asked as emotionless as possible, even though she still wanted to tear that toad to bits.

“He came along with the bargain, and I accepted him as if he were my own son,” her father said. “But, as you well know, he is not. And he is not in line to become the next Pharaoh, no matter what Meryt or anyone else thinks.” For emphasis, he banged his hand on the arm of the chair. Neferet knew she had touched a nerve but remained silent for a time. “If what you are telling me is true, Meryt has severely overstepped her bounds,” he continued. “If Zayem has turned into a would-be killer, we have a sensitive problem on our hands.”

He stood up and walked to the window. He stared out at the lands he governed as if trying to draw strength from the Great River itself. Neferet hated herself for having to speak again. But she knew this was her only chance.

“There’s more,” she said. She took a deep breath and told him of her first experience as God’s Wife and of the rape.

#

Ra had barely ridden to one quarter of the sky when Neferet left the palace and returned to her quarters near Karnak. A chaotic jumble of fabrics and overturned furniture met her when she stepped though her front door. Her main servant got on her knees, sobbing at Neferet’s feet. Several of the other servant girls worked picking up strewn clothing, broken chairs and slashed and ruined curtains.

“It happened in the middle of the night,” the servant said. “When we were sleeping, some men came through the windows. We could not stop them.”

The freed Hittite woman was crouching with the rest of the workers, picking up the mess. She could not speak the language, but she shot despairing glances Neferet’s way. Neferet knew her fright. She probably had thought she might be the victim of another raid. How much had that woman suffered? Neferet walked over to her and led her to an undamaged chair. The woman, now washed and wearing a proper linen sheath, trembled but sat at Neferet’s urging. The God’s Wife stroked the woman’s shoulders and spoke soothing words that she knew were not understood. Eventually, the tremors stopped.

Neferet turned to her head servant and asked if the priests had been alerted. As if on cue, chief priest Nebhotep appeared at the door, shielding his eyes from the disaster.

“I was just with the Pharaoh,” Nebhotep said. Neferet figured he must have been summoned when her own talk with her father had finished. The Pharaoh would honor his promise not to tell a word of Neferet’s story to her mother, but he needed to get facts straight with the head of Karnak temple. That much was clear. Nebhotep needed to report the damage to Neferet’s quarters. How was her father feeling now that the lodgings of his own daughter were ravaged? How much additional stress had she put on her father?

Neferet nodded at Nebhotep and beckoned him forward.

“This is the work of Zayem,” she told him. “Or his accomplices.”

“He had a busy night then,” the old man said, surveying the disorder. “If this is Zayem’s doing, it is no wonder the Pharaoh looked so frustrated.” He looked at Neferet with those enigmatic, half-closed eyes of his. “How did you manage to escape?”

“I wasn’t here. I slept at the palace last night, in a sentry’s bunk.”

Nebhotep’s eyelids rose to almost wide open at that news, but he didn’t ask for an explanation. He turned and looked about and appeared to be tallying up the damage.

“What do you think it means, my child?”

Neferet straightened in irritation at the old man’s forgetfulness. She was not to be addressed as a mere student anymore. But she decided to let the gaffe slip for Nebhotep was off his bearings in this predicament. The old man probably never saw a break-in at the high temple. Who would dare it?

“I think it is a warning,” Neferet said, fingering a rare cedar chair, which remained intact. “Robbery was not the motive or many of these items would be gone, including my jewelry.”

A servant looked up. She was counting and hanging up each of Neferet’s priceless necklaces and bracelets. From the expression on her servant’s calm face, not a bracelet was missing.

“A warning? Why?”

“I think it’s a puzzle for me to figure out. All I need from you and the other priests are more guards.”

“Where were the bodyguards last night?” he asked.

Neferet shot an inquiring glance over to her workers.

“Drugged,” one said, her head bowed. “We found them outside, half asleep.”

“That means they knew the attackers well enough to accept an offering of wine,” Neferet said, contemplating the high priest. “They’d all know Zayem well enough to accept a bottle or two. Our new guards must not talk or socialize with anyone when on duty.”

“Yes, my lady,” he mumbled as he started to leave, then turned back to address her. “I’ll have a man come up and bring new bedding. And a man to fix the tables and chairs.”

“Thank you, Nebhotep. I’ll take care of the rest.”

She walked over to the Hittite woman again, wondering how to communicate with her. For some odd reason, she felt there was a connection between this displaced princess and herself. Perhaps she had seen something in the night and understood more than the servants.

Neferet placed her hand on her own chest.

“Neferet” she said, enunciating each syllable.

The woman stared in a confused manner for a second. Neferet tried again, saying her name slowly and touching her heart.

“Deena,” the woman said, making a similar gesture. “Deena.”

Neferet’s joy made her forget the destruction around her. She’d get that army captain over here and start teaching Deena the language of Kemet as soon as possible. Deena would be Neferet’s eyes and ears when she must be absent.

“Deena,” Neferet said, taking the woman’s hand. The woman let a slight smile work on her lips.

Then, there she heard it again. That buzz. Someone’s eyes were looking though Neferet’s own. She didn’t stand alone, and she knew this captive foreigner was of particular interest. Neferet felt a significant kindness in her heart when she beheld Deena now.
Get to know her.
The foreigner was a key — but to what? One thing was certain, she wasn’t going to let this mystery slip away unsolved. It was good for her heart and soul to solve the puzzle.

“Nef … Neferet,” Deena said. A real smile came out of hiding.

Neferet gazed at the Hittite in wonder. Out of the rubble, she had found a ruby.

#

In the cool palace gardens, fish swam in the fresh water pond as lilies shifted positions in the breeze. Neferet let her eyes rest on the water as she thought, wishing the goddess Eset would bring her a moment of inspiration. She knew she couldn’t go running to her father every time Zayem acted like a ruthless thug. This wasn’t going to be the first time he turned her life upside down.

She stood straighter and surveyed the world about her with a curious state of detachment. Ever since she first saw the world through those different, foreign eyes, she knew more magic existed in the world than she had guessed. Of course, she had learned about temple magic during her many years as a student. There were simple charms to overcome an enemy or produce more wheat. However, now she knew, thanks to her strange dreams, that there was a place somewhere where people talked to each other at great distances with little pieces of metal in their hands. It was a place where common citizens moved about in metal containers not pulled by animals of any kind. It was much like the priests’ tales of old Atlantis. A world of wonders.