“We must talk, Mery. It’s urgent.”
His dazzling smile dimmed. “Oh, we’ll talk. We have much to discuss. There is greatness on the horizon for us, dear sister. Come to my chambers tonight after you’ve gotten yourself cleaned up and dressed in something decent. You smell like horse.”
Sita wanted to stop him from walking away, to command him to listen to all she’d planned to say, everything she’d rehearsed in her mind during those long, silent hours riding through the desert. Instead, she watched him pick up his basket of fruit and resume his prayer as the guards led her onto the Royal Road to the palace. After all that had happened, after all that she’d done to take control of her life, the familiar sense of powerlessness came over her again. She felt the old terror rising within her. The impulse to make it better, to make him happy.
No!she told herself.That’s not who I am anymore. I will make him listen, no matter what it takes.
Her traitorous heart, however, made no promises.
***
As Sita had hoped, news of her reappearance traveled fast. When she arrived at the palace, an attendant was already waiting for her.
“Nebet!” Sita exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her beloved nurse.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Nebet cried, kissing her on each cheek and on the backs of her hands, as if making up for lost time. “I prayed to Isis to bring you back to me, to bring you home, and she did. She did!”
She examined Sita all over. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Hungry?”
“Actually, yes. Famished.”
“Of course you are. I’ll have the servants bring a meal to your chambers. We’ll prepare a bath, a fresh dress, get your hair in order, and—”
“Nebet.” Sita knew that her attendant was happy to see her, but she didn’t have time for her ministrations. With a meaningful glance toward the guards hovering nearby, Sita whispered, “You are one of the few people I can trust. Walk with me. There are things I must ask of you.”
Nebet’s well-rehearsed smile didn’t falter. “I understand, my princess,” she said, and they began slowly making their way toward her rooms, nodding at inquisitive courtiers and officials who greeted the princess along the way.
On the surface, the palace hadn’t changed much since Sita left, but there was an undercurrent of tension and violence—like fingers wrapped around a throat—that pervaded the gilded halls. Mery’s influence, no doubt.
“Where is Femi?” she asked quietly. “Tell me he’s alive.”
Nebet cast a glance at the guards following behind them and said, “I can’t say for sure. I was told the king’s men were interrogating him for information about where you’d gone, and that afterward he fled and hasn’t been seen since. They said he must have had help getting away, but no one knows who it was.”
Sita nearly collapsed with relief. It was terrible to think what Mery might have done to him, but if Femi had been able to escape, she knew he’d be all right.What will I do if I see him again?she wondered. “And what of my mother?”
“The queen has not been the same since your father’s death,” Nebet said with sadness. “She has been spending a great deal oftime alone in the pleasure garden. According to the gardeners, she has developed a keen interest in plants. Perhaps it is her way of coping with the grief.”
That’s strange, Sita thought.Mother always hated anything involving dirt.Before she could inquire further, Nebet called out to two maidservants who were hurrying down the hall toward them with empty food trays in hand.
“Ah, Herit! Ahura! Just who I wanted to see. Quite a day we’re having—first one precious girl returned to us, now two!”
Sita didn’t recognize either of the servants, so they must have been new. The shorter one, a curvaceous young woman with curly black hair, paused before seeming to recognize who she was greeting.
“Princess Sitamun!” the woman exclaimed and dipped her head in a bow.
The other servant, who was unusually tall and broad, stared at Sita in astonishment. The shorter girl nudged her with an elbow several times before she too dropped into a clumsy bow. When she looked up again, it seemed like she wanted to speak but decided against it.
“Ahura, is it?” Sita asked. “Is everything all right?”
Ahura gripped the tray so hard that the muscles in her arms and shoulders flexed.
She looks more suited to wrestling lions than sweating over a washbasin, Sita thought. She’d never seen a more intimidating servant girl in her life.Strange, she’s not Mery’s type.
“It’s…good to have you back, um, Princess,” Ahura said.
