Prologue
Paws
The cat’s belly was heavy with the night’s kill. She padded across the palace’s polished floor, wet paw prints shining in her wake. Her tail flicked irritably. She’d been hunting in the garden when the storm hit, sudden and fierce, catching her just as she’d pounced on her prey. True, the mouse had satisfied her appetite, but her fur was soaked. Aside from falling into the river or having her tail pulled by one of the toddling palace nunus, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
Outside, the storm continued to batter the palace walls, the sound not unlike theshhhof the khamasin wind blowing through papyrus reeds. For the third time, the cat stopped to shake herself from nose to tail, annoyed to be subjected to such discomfort. Damp air flowed through the corridor, and the torchlight danced. It illuminated scenes pictured on the walls, giving the impression that the kings painted there moved of their own volition—hunting and worshipping in colors bright with yellow ochre, umber, and malachite.
The cat remembered several of the painted pharaohs—the scowling one with the big ears, who’d had a voice like a guinea fowl; the one crowned as a boy, who’d never lived to become a man. She’d known them both, flattening her ears against the squawking commands of the former, taking bits of meat under the table from the fingers of the latter.
After that came the previous king, pictured with his weapon arm raised to smite the enemy kneeling at his feet. The palace had been loud and crowded during his reign. Her tail had been trod upon by pounding feet more than once, and everyone was too preoccupied to pay her any heed. But then he, too, was gone.
The new king hadn’t been around for very long, but the cat already liked him better than his predecessor. He’d bent to pet her once, and often left out half-eaten plates of food for others to clean up behind him.
The cat was only too happy to oblige.
Sometimes, she wondered if she’d lived too long. Every time the palace filled with a new king and his servants and family, she stopped to wonder if, in all the excitement, she’d forgotten to die. Then again, no one seemed to have a problem with her continued presence. On the contrary, they treated the cat as if she were a god. The people even threw a special festival every year in her honor. There was music and dancing in the streets, and servants brought great steaming platters of meat for her to sample.
It was really quite nice.
One day, she’d sniffed at the garland of fresh flowers a priest had placed around her neck and thought:Maybe I am a god.After so many years of worship, it was easy to believe it was true.
In the corridor, she paused at her own image on the wall. The cat knew it was her because they’d painted her wearing her favorite gold-beaded collar. In the portrait, she was frozen in theact of catching a bird in the marshes, rearing up on her hind legs, her mouth open to catch and to bite.
It’s a fine likeness, she thought.Noble. Impressive. But are my stripes still so black? My teeth so sharp?
Perhaps time had caught up with her, after all.
The cat sighed. She was wet, cold, and tired. The mice, it seemed, got faster with every passing season. And hadn’t the multiplicity of kings already given her all this place had to offer? What good was it to be a weary god in a tedious world?
Feeling sorry for herself, she continued on her way, off to find a soft place to lick the rain from her body.
She was turning toward the servants’ quarters when a high, primal keening echoed through the corridor. The sound stopped for a moment, as if to breathe, and then began again, the same as before.
The cat’s ears swiveled, listening. She desperately longed for the warm crook of a maidservant’s legs, her preferred resting place for the night. But that sound…it called to her. Finally succumbing to her curious nature, she crept on silent paws toward the fearsome lamentation.
She followed the shrieks to a portal covered with a blousy curtain, firelight leaking through the thin fabric. Within, other voices, hushed with worry, joined the keening cry. The cat slipped through, barely disturbing the curtain as she went.
The heat inside the chamber was oppressive, the air salty with sweat. There was a table, and a low bed painted in gold. In the center of the chamber, a naked woman squatted on two large bricks placed hip’s width apart on the tile floor. Her copper skin glistened. Attendants in white sheath dresses flanked her on either side, mopping her brow as she cried out with that unearthly noise. Her belly hung between her legs, as large and round as the moon.
One of the attendants nodded rhythmically, murmuring, “Make strong her heart, and keep safe the child. Make strong her heart, and keep safe the child…”
The other attendant was silent, her eyes flicking back and forth between her lady and the door. She was a solid girl, her thick, calloused hands supporting the woman’s body with unwavering strength.
As the naked woman’s cry faded to silence, the attendant took a deep breath. “Your vapors have gone cold, my queen,” she said, indicating the dish of water positioned between the birthing bricks. “Shall I fetch you more hot water? Perhaps it will ease your suffering.”
The queen panted, a single bead of sweat clinging to the tip of her nose. “The only thing that will ease my suffering,” she growled, “is the arrival of my nurse. Where is she, Nebet? Where are the priests? It’s an ill omen for a child to be born without the gods’ words in his ears, but I cannot wait much longer.”
Nebet looked desperate. “I don’t know, my queen. This storm is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Even for the growing season. Perhaps the nurse and the others are caught in its grip and have been delayed—”
“Delayed?” the queen moaned as her labor pains intensified. “For the birth of a king? They had better bedead!” Her face twisted in agony, and she began to wail once more. Nebet and the other attendant winced and held the queen’s arms tighter as the pain crested, then ebbed.
Once she could speak again, the queen gasped, “Open the curtain! I cannot breathe!”
“But the storm!” the other attendant protested.
“Curse the storm,” the queen spat. “Open it now!”
“Yes, Queen Bintanath.”
