THE GOD'S WIFE (21 page)

Neferet nodded. Priests created didi by combining distilled lotus lilies and mandrake root. Get the proportions incorrect, and put in too much mandrake, and the result can be deadly. But, even so, the drug alone would have taken hours to kill Maya.

“There’s more,” the large girl said, her eyes opening wide, almost like a comic actor’s. “Before the ceremony, several of us saw Zayem, the half-prince, lurking about the sanctuary. One of the priests told him to get out, but he just lost himself in the columns.” She was referring to the hypostyle hall, where dozens of painted columns took on the shade of opened and budding lotus blooms and of tall papyrus stalks.

A light-haired girl called from the back of the crowd.

“I saw him go back into the Holy of Holies and enter a small little door. No one would believe me, but I’m sure he hid in there when Maya made her entrance.”

Neferet looked at the young novices and felt her brows pinch. “Why did you not tell us this before? Maya has been dead several months.”

“You know how it is,” the loud-voiced girl said. “They don’t listen to us. We are just students — and female. But we know what we saw. We felt you would listen to us, having been a student here yourself.”

“Also,” the breathless voice of a petite girl said. “We heard the priests are contemplating charges. We will speak out in court.” She looked as if she was going to faint after uttering those courageous words.

Neferet thanked the entourage and asked them to make sure to tell her if any new memories bubbled to the surface. Then with much pushing and giggling, the nubile girls vanished through her front door.

#

Nebhotep stood before the full complement of Karnak priests and listened as Neferet, dressed in full God’s Wife regalia, told him of Zayem’s return. She didn’t have to spell out the crimes he had committed; that was known to all. She explained he was hiding behind his mother’s skirts. Now Meryt was trying to impose his companionship upon her under the guise of escort service. Neferet bowed low before the priests and asked that he administer the justice of Ma’at, the restoration of order and peace. The law of Ma’at was simple: The wrong should be punished, and the innocent repaid for the sins against them.

The priests began to murmur among themselves until Nebhotep held up his hand.

“To accuse a prince, even a half-prince, is a dangerous thing,” he warned. He turned to the other priests who stood in a semicircle around him. Some nodded. One lifted his voice.

“Ma’at must be served, regardless of the person who has done evil. Desecrating Amun’s shrine, attacking and raping the God’s Wife, possible murder … these are horrible crimes.”

Neferet raised her chin and added a new charge.

“I also believe he killed Maya,” she said, as several priests stepped back in horror. “The opening in the shrine was there when someone murdered her. The method of intrusion matched the way Zayem attacked me.” She told them of the testimony of the temple girls. “I feel he must be questioned about this.”

A louder commotion went up among the priests of Amun, and finally, Nebhotep’s querulous voice rose above the others.

“We would not spare a non-royal criminal, so I believe we must not spare Zayem,” he said, lowering his eyes as if he hated to make the pronouncement. “This has been brewing for months. If we don’t act, we lose all respect among the people we serve. Let us go to the palace and demand justice.”

A cheer went up from the clerics, and they hurried about, putting away prayer scrolls and snuffing incense. They assembled in the rear of the palace in order of rank and readied themselves for an unprecedented march to the Pharaoh’s residence. A messenger scurried ahead to warn the Grand Vizier that the priests were converging on the palace.

Neferet held her head high, with both plumes of her feathered headdress catching the Nile breeze, which became the sweet breath of justice in her mind. She took her place at the front of the line of baldheaded men and, with grave ceremony, led the file of holy men to accuse Zayem.

They reached the steps of the grand residence and the Grand Vizier hurried down to meet them. He drew Neferet and Nebhotep aside.

“Do you have any idea of what you’re doing?” he demanded, hugging his cloak around him. His eyes were wild as if he had just been arguing with someone fierce. Neferet had no difficulty figuring out who that might be.

“Certainly,” Nebhotep said. “The laws of Ma’at —”

“Ma’at doesn’t hold any sway here, not in the palace. Not with …” he turned to see if anyone spied on them. “Not with certain people so close to the throne.”

Neferet studied him with her deepest gaze, and he stepped back a little. She pushed past him as if he didn’t tower over her by an arm’s length and led the procession up the grand stairway and through the entrance. She, rather than Nebhotep, demanded entrance to the throne room. Confronted with the most influential priests in the land, the sentries stepped aside, and the parade of clerics made their way into the hall of audiences.

Meryt rose in indignation when they approached, but no matter how many times she flapped open her mouth, she didn’t utter a word. The gray-faced Pharaoh was leaning on one hand, as if nodding out during the uncommon proceedings. The Grand Vizier had hurried to stand back behind the Pharaoh and whispered in his ear. Neferet noticed her father sported bags under his eyes and appeared worse than yesterday. His chest sagged. If anything, he gave the impression of being lethargic through and through — nothing like the spirited man she knew.

Nebhotep started to speak, but Neferet took charge. She explained the temple’s charges and described the desecration of the shrine of Amun, the assault and the rape and the possible murder of Maya. For these crimes, the temple retinue demanded Zayem be tried in their court.

After her speech, Zayem rushed out from behind a curtain and screamed at the priests.

“You can’t treat me like a common criminal,” he said. “I’m not like a thief stealing bread from a baker. I’m not the kind of man to be tried in a temple court.”

At this, the courtiers gaped. Everyone knew there existed no difference between a crime against man and a crime against the gods. Religion and the state were the same. Zayem, if guilty as charged, stood no higher than a criminal who stole gold bangles from the marketplace.

“You may not have him,” Meryt said, sitting on her throne and thrusting out her breasts. They didn’t make for much of a show.

“Ma’at does not hold here?” Nebhotep asked, in a quivering voice.

The Pharaoh stirred and conferred with the Vizier. Then he turned to his daughter.

“If it goes to the courts of the temple, it will eventually come back to me. I am the ultimate authority, the last judge in Kemet,” the Pharaoh said, slumping, exhausted by his own speech. “Leave him to me, and I’ll question him.”

“About everything?” Neferet demanded. “Even the murder?”

“Everything. Now, please, make your way back to your offerings and prayers. This is no place for priests.” He put his head back on the headrest of his throne as if spent. No place for priests? Everywhere in the kingdom is a place for priests. What is he talking about?

“Very well, my father’s word is a good as the word of the gods,” Neferet said. She swirled her robes and turned, catching a glimpse of Zayem in the corner of her eye. He no longer leered or smirked. His expression betrayed abject fear.

She and Nebhotep headed back to Karnak, followed by the same baldheaded brigade. The aged chief priest kept muttering that nothing happened, but Neferet thought plenty of work was underway. Zayem now stood under official suspicion and everyone forgot that detested escort service. The Vizier probably drew up plans at this moment to deal with Zayem.

She also had scrutinized her father and knew someone was drugging or possibly poisoning him. She needed to get a spy into the palace to prove it. If luck was with them, their spy could stop any further deterioration. Firm resistance met Meryt’s battle of wits, and with enough pressure, the Great Wife would be forced to break down.

Now that Kamose was on the march, she had to find a spy on her own, but she knew the boys he’d been paying to find information. She busied herself on the long walk back to the temple with figuring how she would contact an informant and where she would meet him.

When she parted company with Nebhotep and returned to her apartments, the servants groveled on their knees.

“Men came while you were gone,” one servant cried. “Big, angry men, some of them foreign.” She had a red bruise on her face, which would surely turn purple by evening.

“They took her,” she continued. “She’s gone.”

“Who?” Neferet asked. Her head spun at the rapidity of Zayem’s retort. While the holy priests shuffled from the palace, the half-prince’s men had raced to the temple to exact revenge.

“Deena, my lady,” the head servant said, tears dripping from her eyes, causing tracks of kohl to wash down her cheeks. “They tied her hands and led her away.”

Neferet took in the room — familiar, comfortable — and again transgressed by violence. How could this be a place where Deena didn’t enjoy safety? Neferet stumbled, and a sturdy servant ran to lead her to a chair.

“My friend …” Neferet said, and her thoughts were lost in images of the horrible things Zayem could exact on her favored houseguest. Again, Zayem raised the stakes.

A dim blue light bathed the back room when Raven finished tampering with the dance company’s rear lock and shoved the door wide open. Rebecca jumped back, frightened that the light might be connected to a burglar alarm.

“Don’t worry. That’s Randy’s cheap-ass way of pretending he has some kind of security system.” Raven hit a button on the wall and the light went out. “Once,” she said, chuckling half to herself, “he had a recording of a dog barking that would go off if anyone touched the doors or windows. We never let him hear the end of that — Robo-pooch.” She inclined her head toward the long hallway through the center of the building. “Follow me.”

She stepped into the gray gloom of the empty studio, the way illuminated by Jonas’ flashlight. Rebecca counted doors until they reached Randy’s office. Rebecca tried the handle. Locked.

“Oh, he keeps that secured good and tight, but the records wouldn’t be there, anyway,” Raven said. She gestured to the room immediately to the left.

“A storeroom? He just keeps junk in there,” Rebecca said.

“That’s what he’d have you believe,” Raven said as she worked at the storeroom lock. The door was open in seconds. Nice work with those picklocks.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” Rebecca, impressed with her friend’s illegal skills, felt an absurd sense of pride.

“Brothers,” Raven and Jonas repeated together, he in a hushed reverence.

They entered the room, filled floor to ceiling with old costumes, wigs, boxes of papers, dozens of papier maché masks, scripts, toe shoes, bags of rosin, sheets of music, rolls of tickets and more assorted castoffs. Raven reached under a box of old programs and retrieved an accordion file.

“That’s it?” Jonas said.

Raven nodded, undistracted from her task, and skimmed through the S category looking for Lenore Still-man’s personal statistics. She paged through some papers and then stabbed at one page with a long fingernail.

“Here it is, Fifteen-fifteen N. Lake Shore Dr., Apt. thirty-two-A.”

“Lake Shore Drive? How can she afford that?” Rebecca said.

“You’re the one who told me she lives with Sharif.”

Rebecca nodded.
Of course. Part of their deal.
She scribbled the address and phone number down on a scrap of paper she found in her purse. As she wrote, a troubling thought zipped through her mind.

“They’ll have a doorman at a place like this,” she said. “We can’t just burst in.”

Jonas laughed. “Oh, I’ll just be the delivery man from a carryout restaurant.” Rebecca felt doubtful, lowering her eyebrows, while Raven pushed her out through the storeroom door.

“We’ll figure something on the drive over there. There are a million ways to get into Lenore’s place. I could fake a visit, for instance,” Raven said.

Rebecca didn’t feel any more reassured, but they scooted back into the night, now drizzling but not stormy, and drove off to the Gold Coast.

#

The watchman’s desk was bigger than Randy’s inlaid ebony and chestnut behemoth, and it intimidated Rebecca the moment she walked through the revolving door. She screwed up her courage and asked for Lenore Stillman. The watchman culled through his list of residents and came up smiling.

“The dancer?” he asked. Rebecca nodded and tapped her nails on the immaculate desk. “She expecting you?”

Rebecca searched in her head for an answer to this long-awaited and feared question. Lie? Admit the truth, but throw herself on his mercy? Say that Lenore would want to see her and risk her reaction? As she tore her mind from one solution to another, a large man in a security uniform came over and clapped the watchman on the back.

“Don’t you know who she is?” he asked his coworker, pointing at Rebecca. She quailed, stepping back. “The girl on the bus.”

Both men peered at her face, and she tried to smile back as if she understood.

“That’s you, girl? The one on the bus? I take it every day. And on those posters on Michigan Avenue?” The watchman’s voice went up a pitch. “Why, you a regular star. What’s that show again?”

“Aïda,” she said, feeling the flush on her face as she talked.

“Oh, so that’s how you say it, hmm,” the security guard said. “It’s like Ay-dah when you read it, you know? Ay-eedah. Huh. But isn’t it about an African girl? You’re white.” He grinned. “Tan, but white.”

Rebecca turned on her stage smile. “Oh, we are color-blind in our dance company. Everyone can dance any role, black, white, brown, whatever.”

“Brown. That’s what them Egyptians are,” the watchman said. “Not black Africans, but brown, like, like …” He stammered, considering the perplexities.

“Iraqis? Yeah, maybe, that’s it,” the guard said. “Anyways, you a star, girl. You go on up and see Ms. Lenore anytime you want. Apartment Thirty-two-A.”