27Neff
Neff took no rest that night.
She sat in her chambers through the hours of thick darkness, working at the table by lamplight. She sliced strings of woven sinew and packed the pieces into a tiny linen bag along with splinters of birchwood, then tied it tightly with twine.
Next, she dropped twigs from a juniper tree into an alabaster bowl, along with pebbles of myrrh resin, four drops of wine, and a swirl of honey. That done, she used the lamp to set the mixture aflame, letting it all burn to ash. When it was cool, she poured the contents into a tiny clay jar and sealed it.
She referred to the Book of the Red Lady often, checking and rechecking her work to ensure perfect accuracy. She would have liked to look over her notes as well, but she’d not seen them since returning to the palace. Before her abduction, she’d copied nearly the entire contents of the scroll in her own hand—both to help her memorize it and to add notes and questions in the margins. It was frustrating that her copy was missing, but then again, herchambers were in total disarray. There was no time to look further, so she made do with the original.
Every detail of every quiet hour that passed felt significant. The dry scrape of her finger against the scroll as she read. The purr of the cat as she dozed nearby. The slow gray creep of morning as sunlight poured over the horizon. Neff peered out the window to watch the coming of day and wondered if it might be her last.
***
Neff intended to visit Sitamun’s chambers as soon as she finished her morning meal, before her attendants arrived to dress her for the king’s ritual at the Thonis fortress. She hadn’t had enough time the day before to share the details of their plan, and she wanted to prepare the princess to act in concert with her, Kenna, Raetawy, and the rebels. Being that the palace was a flurry of activity, Rae brought her tray a bit later than usual. The rebel-in-disguise looked as if she hadn’t slept either, but there was an excitement radiating from her too.
“Everything ready?” Rae asked when she set down the food.
“Yes, and you?”
Rae nodded grimly. “For Khetara,” she said.
“For Khetara.”
Neff didn’t have much of an appetite, but she managed to eat a little bread and beer, which reminded her of home.What will Mamet and Yati think if I die today? Will they hear my story and think me a traitor? Will Yati’s pride turn to shame? Will he be driven out of the market, out of Bubas, because of me?
She spared a moment to send two prayers to the gods. One to Bast, to ask for protection for her home and her mother; and another to Maat, to beg the goddess of justice to carry the truth to her father’s ears.May he know everything I do, I do in your service.
She left the rest of her breakfast for the cat.
After ensuring that the materials she’d prepared in the night were safely hidden away, Neff pushed through the door covering and nearly ran straight into someone on the other side.
Her heart leaped into her throat.
“Greetings to you, Nefermaat,” said Meryamun. His voice was as gentle as a caress. “It seems you’ve made a miraculous recovery. Thanks be to Amun.”
“Thanks be to Amun,” Neff repeated, and bowed her head. She’d only seen the king briefly upon her return to the palace. The Festival of Renenutet and Princess Sitamun’s appearance quickly overshadowed her arrival, preventing Meryamun or anyone else from asking too many questions. As they’d agreed, Rae and the other servant—whose real name was Tamerit—had left Neff bound and blindfolded outside the gates of the palace the night before, so that she would be found in the daylight. When the guards discovered and questioned her, Neff told them a story about how the Low Khetaran rebels had released her in order to prevent another day of slaughter in Sakesh, and that they’d kept her blindfolded for the entire duration of her captivity, so she never once saw their faces or knew the location of their camp.
She made the most of her injuries and had feigned weakness to avoid further interrogation from the king’s men. They sent a messenger to bring a healer from the temple, and one of the guards had transported her to her chambers.
Meryamun intercepted them when news of her reappearance reached him. “I knew you would be returned to me,” he’d said. “I always knew.”
Neff had hoped to avoid seeing him again until the ritual began, but apparently Meryamun had other plans.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“I wanted to take a short walk in the pleasure garden,” Neffanswered. “My legs are still stiff from being tied up for so long.” The second part, at least, was true.
“Of course.” His gaze poked and prodded her much like the healer had, testing her, seeing what made her flinch. “You shouldn’t tire yourself though. You have a big day ahead of you.”
Neff remembered Kenna appearing shortly after Mery’s healer had bandaged her neck, and how he’d thrown the poor man out, saying he would attend to her himself. Despite Kenna’s calm demeanor, his trembling hands had betrayed him. He’d been so frightened that the story of her abduction had been a fabrication, that Mery had found out about Neff’s plans to curse him and killed her. It haunted him that the last words they’d shared had been in anger.
“Tomorrow is our last chance to stop him,” she’d told the prince.
“I know,” Kenna had replied.
And so, they’d made new plans in hurried detail until Sitamun arrived.
It was all coming together, just as the oracle said it would.
