“I’m certain that isn’t true, Princess,” Harsi replied with a good-natured chuckle. He popped a fig in his own mouth and chewed it with vigor, as if he wished it were something else. “And even if it is, you are young. Perhaps in time, you will find your courage, as your brother has done.”
Mery’s secret sat on the tip of her tongue, bitter and unmoved by the sweetness of the fruit. She could be free of it—all it would take was a few words to unburden herself. But it had seeded in her belly and grew there like an unwanted child. What chaos wouldshe bring into the world if she let it be born? And what tragedies would come if she didn’t?
The dancers continued to move in unison as the song went on—when one raised an arm, so did her reflection, and when she tilted her head toward the sky, her reflection did the same. And at the end of every phrase, the little bells chimed.
Sita considered Harsi’s words and the elusive nature of courage.
“Perhaps I will,” she said, uncertain. She could feel the force of Mery’s will tugging at her, willing her to get up and take her place by his side. Instead, she took up the shedeh jug and poured herself another drink with a trembling hand.
13
Neff
“Again.”
Neff rubbed her eyes. They were painfully dry, much like her throat, but there was no water in the House of Life. No sunlight either. Nothing that might damage the thousands of delicate papyri stored there. A few other scribes worked nearby, copying words from old papyri to fresh scrolls, either to protect the wisdom from deterioration or to send to another House of Life elsewhere in Khetara. They mumbled the words to themselves as they wrote, never looking up, almost as if they were in a trance. The walls of the chamber were honeycombed with apertures for storing papyri, each one marked with a short line of sacred text to identify the scroll within. It was a strange place, like a dark beehive, humming with concentrated activity.
She’d been spending endless hours in the subterranean chamber, being instructed on the gods’ words by the chief scribe. He stood beside her, his skin pale to the point of translucence, his thin body bent like a shepherd’s crook. He watched her read with round protuberant eyes, reminding Neff of a fish, or some other deep-sea creature who spurned the sun.
“Again,” the scribe repeated, tapping the top of her scroll with a skeletal finger. “From the beginning.”
Neff sighed. She stood at a waist-high wooden table, the papyri lit by several carefully tended oil lamps placed nearby. After introducing her to each of the gods’ words, their sound and meaning, and how to read them—“find a symbol with a face and read in that direction”—the chief scribe set her to reading simplepassages aloud. She’d been working on the one before her, “The Forty-Two Ideals of Maat,” for so long that she’d nearly memorized it.
When she’d first come across the symbol forMaat—an upright ostrich feather with a bent tip—she’d stopped.
“It’s like my name,” she’d said. “Nefermaat.”
Because she was already versed in the common script, learning the formal script came to her more quickly and easily than the chief scribe had expected. After all, the common was just a simplified version of the sacred language. Learning it was like moving in reverse, from the curving line she was familiar with back to the bird or the hand symbol it had once been. The chief scribe had nodded sagely at her observation about the ostrich feather and dipped his reed pen into the inkwell on his palette.
“Nefer,” he intoned, drawing a shape that reminded her of a lute, “Maat.” Next to the lute, he drew the feather. “That’s your name, written in the gods’ words.”
“Why a lute?” she’d asked.
“It is not a lute,” the chief scribe corrected her. “That is the heart and the windpipe that allows us to speak. It signifies the voice of the spirit. And the feather, of course, is the symbol for Maat—goddess of truth and justice. Her husband is Thoth, god of writing and lord of all knowledge. The two are inexorably joined. There is no knowledge without truth. That’s why you must learn to read, girl, if you are to correctly interpret the messages of the gods. Please continue.”
She’d passed several days that way, from dawn until dusk, leaving the House of Life only to take her midday meal in the temple garden with Prince Kenna. They’d eat in the shade of the pomegranate trees, and sometimes he’d tell her about embalming—how much natron it took to mummify a body, which organs were left inside and which were removed—and sometimes about Heka,but most of the time he preferred to listen. He’d sit on a rock with his bread, his legs folded neatly under him, attentive to her stories about the market in Bubas and her father’s wild schemes. So far, her company seemed to be all the prince required from his new “assistant,” and that was fine with Neff.
Thinking about food made her stomach rumble. Given the lack of natural light down in the House of Life, she had no idea when she’d be released for the midday meal, but she hoped it would be soon. Blinking her dry eyes, she prepared to read the “Ideals of Maat” for the third time that morning. Each of the forty-two ideals was a statement intended to be spoken to judges, both earthly and divine, attesting that the speaker was worthy enough to enter the Duat, where all good souls went after death. They were simple enough to read, but extremely repetitive.
She stifled a yawn and read the lines, which attested to various gods that she had not been guilty of sin, told lies, done any wicked magic against the pharaoh, or eavesdropped upon others, and many other transgressions. She always choked a little on the eavesdropping line, as she had listened in on quite a few conversations since she’d arrived at the temple. She was in the middle of the twenty-fifth ideal when she was interrupted.
“Excuse me, Chief Scribe?”
Neff and her teacher turned toward the door. Master Montuhotep hovered on the threshold, as if unwilling to enter the dusty chamber for fear of soiling his garments.
The chief scribe bowed his head in obeisance. “How may I help you, Master?” he asked.
“The girl is required at the palace,” Montuhotep said bluntly.
“By whom?”
Montuhotep sighed heavily, as if he was less than pleased about the answer. “The pharaoh has gotten wind of the girl’s… talents, and he wishes to meet her.”
The chief scribe’s eyes bulged, until Neff thought they might pop right out of his skull.
“Ah!” he chirped, nodding more than necessary. “Well! Indeed!” He picked up “The Forty-Two Ideals of Maat,” rolledit into a tight scroll, and slipped it back into its hole in the wall. “Return tomorrow and we will continue,” he said to Neff, patting her weakly on the shoulder.
Neff gave him a stiff little bow before turning away.Why would King Amunmose be interested in me?Obediently, she left the dim chamber and climbed the steps, squinting into the brightness of day. Montuhotep strode ahead, and she had to rush to catch up. The head of his leopard skin bobbed side to side as he walked, its ebony eyes glaring at her with disapproval.
