THE GOD'S WIFE (18 page)

“Why? What’s your reason for messing with my life?”

He continued to fiddle with the engine and didn’t glance her way.

“Because I can, Rebecca. Because I can.”

With that, the engine roared to life. Neither one spoke as the crippled boat made its halting way back to the harbor. Sharif ’s terrible last words repeated in Rebecca’s mind, terrifying her. She looked at the dark water and wondered whether to jump in just to escape this mad man.

When Sharif handed her back onto the dock, she headed off toward the city streets at a brisk pace without looking back. He didn’t try to call after her. She walked and half-ran to a cab that was parked at the Montrose Harbor entrance. Seeing it empty, she hopped inside.

“Where to?” the cabbie asked, adjusting the news radio show so he could hear her. Where indeed? Jonas’ place? Home? A quiet ride along the lakefront?

“The Riverfront Dance Company. six-fourteen Kinzie St.,” she said. Randy. He had to hear the story. He had to believe her.

She looked back and realized Sharif ’s boat was impossible to pick out in the fog. It was as if it had never been there at all.

#

“Do you honestly think this is all about you?”

Randy folded and unfolded his hands, the only sure sign of his irritation. He’d been working since early in the morning on “Aïda,” and now, way past dinnertime, he had given Rebecca a hearing. His bloodshot eyes spoke of a frustrating day. His linen suit rumpled like a flour sack. Rebecca felt an urge to flee, as if she had made some horrible mistake in coming to his office. However, she knew she had to warn Randy about Sharif. It wasn’t just about her own stardom; it concerned the entire company.

“Look, I didn’t tell you all this just to ruin your day or prop up my ego. This man is a danger to the production, and you have to realize that. He’s not even a real Egyptologist. Jonas found that out.”

Randy stood up and paced behind his desk. His cell phone bleated, but he ignored it. He stopped to say something several times then shut his mouth and continued pacing. Rebecca squirmed in her seat.

He stopped and bored into her eyes with an unflinching gaze.

“There’s a lot more to this than you know,” he said, clenching his jaw after he spoke. “The part about Lenore — you must have all thought I was mad to take away the understudy role from Raven.” He looked down at his desk. “It’s a lot more complicated than it seems. There’s money involved.”

“Money?” Rebecca tried to fit this into Sharif ’s story and realized someone must be lying. “He said it was just part of the promise he made to Lenore in exchange for a green card.”

“Lenore,” Randy said the hated name and threw up his hands. “You think she makes the decisions around here? No. I do.” He stared at Rebecca without compromise. All she could do was nod in accord.

“He offered the board a sizable sum. Sizable. All we had to do was give Lenore the understudy role and the money was ours. You know what we bought with that little bonus? The scenery. The airfare to Europe. It even defrayed our huge costume budget.” Randy was on a roll now and talking nonstop. “He saved us, Rebecca, because those donors weren’t ponying up the way we expected them to. And all this time, I thought you were the angel who reeled him in for us. Now you’re telling me he has to go, because he’s going to ruin your career.”

His voice became shrill, and she knew it was starting to carry throughout the theater. Well, who could be listening?

“I’ll be damned if we are ruined financially because of your hurt feelings,” he continued, ranting now, face red.

She held her hand up in a gesture of peace.

“I’m talking about the company, Randy. What happens when he pulls me out as he plans, and the London critics get a load of Lenore as the lead? They’ll laugh us back across the Atlantic.”

“Well, it won’t come to that, will it?” His eyes pierced her now. “You will
not
be giving up.”

Rebecca shivered from the air conditioning. If it was only as easy as Randy suggested.

“Sharif says he will make sure I step down, but I have no idea how he intends to do that.”

Randy wheeled around and leaned across his desk, facing Rebecca closer than he ever had in the past.

“Then don’t do it. Just say no. That’s an order. I simply will not have some kind of mystical pseudo-Egyptologist’s mumbo jumbo turn you into a zombie before we open in London. Have you got it?”

He hurt her clear to the bone. Randy appeared ready to toss away any vestige of friendship over the issue of money. Where had this strutting martinet come from?

“Yes, I’ve got it. In other words, it’s my problem.” She picked up her things and moved for the door.

“Two days from the opening, and I have to deal with this shit,” Randy muttered. He waved her off without looking her in the eye. “Just do your job.”

#

The flowers flew from the wings, the front row of the audience, even from the catwalk high above the theater. Rebecca bowed and bowed, yet the audience kept calling her back for a standing ovation. When she finally broke from the stage, weeping with joy and relief, she ran straight into Jonas, who covered her with kisses. Allison and Greta appeared behind him and threw hugs around their friend.

When she caught her breath, Rebecca remarked that all they had to do now is to wait for the reviews.

“No worry there, honey,” a voice from the left said. Randy, completely transformed from their last interchange, stood grinning. He had poured himself into a tailored tuxedo with a shirt so starched it looked as if it had a life of its own. “Ray Brown of the Tribune ran beaming when he rushed off to make his deadline. The other critics could hardly restrain themselves from applauding.”

“Even sour old Melinda Hawkins?” Rebecca said, thinking of the alternative newspaper critic who disagreed with the daily newspapers on every production.

“She didn’t look disgusted,” Randy said with a laugh. “It must be the first time in decades.”

“Someone pulled that rod out of her butt,” a stagehand said. Randy continued roaring with glee.

Backstage, a party erupted with champagne flowing from bottles held by lighting technicians and prop managers. Someone wanted to lift Rebecca in the air and give her a taste of the mosh pit experience, but she pleaded that they spare her costume.

“Randy says it cost a fortune,’ she explained, giving him a hard glance. He looked away.

Raven appeared from the other side of the theater and threw her arms around the leading lady.

“We were marvelous foes,” she said.

“The prince didn’t stand a chance against women like us,” Rebecca crowed. Everyone joined in the laughter.

Something in the corner of her eye made Rebecca do a double take. Out there in the audience was a man who hadn’t left his place. He was all alone in a long-abandoned sea of seats.

“Who is that?” she asked Raven, indicating the man in a center middle row. They peered but couldn’t make out his features at that distance.

Then he smiled, and Rebecca felt as if a cold pail of water emptied over her head. Sharif sat staring at her, nodding and biding his time. He once again acted as the puppet master, waiting for the moment he would pull the strings on the entire production.

She turned away, but her moment of glory had just slipped away. How long before Sharif took all this joy from her? Amid the raucous celebration, she begged Jonas to take her home.

As the weather turned breezy, sending Neferet’s window hangings into a swirling frenzy, a servant announced a visitor.

“It’s the Grand Vizier, my lady.”

Neferet told her to show the official into her living area. The tall, elegant man stood at her father’s right-hand side as an advisor, but never had much interest in any of the Pharaoh’s offspring or the operations of the temple. She wondered what brought him to such foreign territory.

The drapery over the front door swung open, and the Vizier, who sported a long, ruby red cloak as the mark of his office, strode into Neferet’s room.

“My lady, God’s Wife,” he said, bowing and stretching out his arms.

“Vizier, I am pleased to see you,” Neferet said, although she didn’t feel that way at all. His appearance could only mean someone was reeling her into some power play at the palace.

“I am not here on an official visit,” he said, shifting from foot to foot while inspecting the furniture in her ornate room. “I have come as a friend of your father’s to explain some unusual happenings at court.”

Neferet suspected chicanery in this sudden show of familiarity. Her father trusted him, but how loyal would he be to her? However, she offered him a chair and called for the servants to bring him wine and refreshments. She pulled up an ebony seat beside him and sat down.

“There are rumblings at court,” the Vizier began, fussing with his numerous rings. “The rumor mill is always working, but this time, it’s particularly busy.”

She inclined her head, indicating he should continue.

“Well, the gossip involves you,” he said, a dark storm gathering on his face. “And Kamose.”

Neferet frowned and decided to feign ignorance. “What can they be saying about the prince and me? We have always had a warm relationship.”

“That’s the thing. Some see it as too close and are complaining to Pharaoh that Kamose intends to use you to vault over Zayem into direct succession to the throne.”

“He’s already in direct succession. He is the Pharaoh’s first-born son.”

“That’s not how the Great Wife sees it. She feels her son has as much a claim as Kamose.”

Neferet waved her hand and laughed with scorn. “My mother can think what she wants, but the rules of succession don’t back her up.”

“Well, they may, and they may not,” the Vizier said, stroking his long chin. “It’s a curious thing, the issue of succession. Dynasties have risen and fallen due to the lack of a clear-cut royal prince. What we do know is that your ladyship is the only one with fully royal blood, both the Pharaoh’s and the Great Wife’s. That, along with your position as God’s Wife, makes you the key to the kingdom.”

“So I’ve heard. They’re making bets on who will win my hand.”

“There are more than bets being planned. I fear you may be a pawn in a much larger game of power.” He drank some wine and leaned over to her, close to her ear. “Did you know the Hyksos are making trouble on our borders? They see our little succession problem as an opportunity to find us off guard. Fortunately, our spies got wind of the plot early.”

Neferet looked up in shock, making the beads in her braided hair jingle like bells. “Right after their ambassador attended Heb Sed and ate in our grand dining room, enjoying our hospitality,” she said with scorn.

“The Great Wife wants Kamose to lead the army up there at the delta and put down the incursion.” The Vizier shifted in his seat, crossing his legs. He put his fingertips together in a tent position and looked over them at Neferet, just the way he posed before offering advice to the pharaoh. She shook her head in disbelief at her mother’s obvious method of undermining her affair with Kamose.

“The Pharaoh feels the way you do,” the Vizier continued. “And he has declared that he will lead the army if it comes to that. This was against my best advice. I feel that minor as this skirmish is, he’s afraid of losing his heir — or presumed heir. So, he’s decided to put himself in harm’s way instead.”

Neferet bit her lower lip. There was no easy way to prefer one over the other. Kamose was her lover and too valuable a soldier to waste on this Hyksos nonsense. Her father was less fit than Kamose, despite his Heb Sed triumph. Furthermore, the presence of Pharaoh himself at this conflict would put more importance on it than it deserved.

“Nonetheless, it has also come to my attention that Zayem, the half-prince who left the country for a time, has returned in secret,” the Vizier went on. “His mother wants him to be reinstated at the palace with no charges leveled by the Karnak priests.”

“You know he defiled Amun’s shrine.”

“Yes.” The Vizier’s eyes bore into her. She avoided the gaze and considered, while snatching a few grapes from the side table, the arrogance of Zayem’s sudden return. Without thinking, she squeezed one too much, and the blood red juice ran over the fruit bowl. The Vizier didn’t notice.

“Why would we drop the charges?”

“Zayem has said if the temple leaves him alone, he will stop pursuing you. At least, that’s what he told me.” Neferet glanced at the Vizier in surprise. He coughed at the indelicacy of the situation and continued. “Yes, I know he’s been a suitor of sorts — a rough suitor with few manners. But even if he lives up to this new promise, I doubt it will change your mother’s plans to marry you two.”

So the Vizier knew all about Meryt’s plan to marry Neferet off to her ill-bred son. She felt a touch relieved that someone else knew of this plot. At least, she wasn’t imagining it. “Why not send Zayem to the border with the Hyksos?” she said. “Maybe then we’ll drop the Amun issue.”

The Vizier smiled and lifted an eyebrow.

“It’s an idea,” he said. He sank into thought for a moment. “I’ll ponder this. The Great Wife will be furious, but my job is to serve and protect Pharaoh, and this may be the best way out for him.”

He took one last draught of wine. “Oh, by the way, I heard talk that Zayem may be challenging Kamose to a duel over you. I can’t be sure. My spies are not always accurate. Keep close watch.”

Neferet nodded and the Vizier stood and bowed, then swept out the door, off to more urgent official business. She now heard of a fight between her rivals for the second time. Kamose could flatten Zayem with one hand, so she wondered where this outlandish idea started. Maybe with all those foreign bettors who flooded the city during Heb Sed.

She sat down with her writing tablet and pondered before writing a coded message to Kamose with her reed pen. She proposed they meet when Ra began his afternoon descent to the West, when the dazzling heat began to recede. He needed to know things at court had become more intense than the sun, and their need to confer was paramount.

#

Kamose kicked at stones in the gravel path, thinking about what Neferet had just confided. Even under the cover of his heavy bangs, she could see his troubled brow.