Sphinx's Princess (5 page)

Whenever Henenu was in Akhmin, he came to our house frequently to give me lessons and check on my progress. When he left to rejoin Pharaoh’s court, he gave me plenty of work to do to fill the time until our next meeting, along with words of approval, of criticism, and … of warning: “Remember, Nefertiti, these lessons are our secret. Your parents don’t need to hear about them.”

“But why not?” I asked. I was proud of my achievement and, to be honest, I was also greedy for praise. I wanted Father and Mery to know how well I was mastering our complicated system of language. I wanted Henenu to tell them what he often told me, that he wished the boys he taught were even half as good at reading and writing as I was.

“Because I say so and I am your teacher,” Henenu snapped. I was shocked. I wasn’t used to getting such curt treatment from my friend. Usually he welcomed my questions during our lessons. He said that they kept his mind from sinking into complacency, like a fat hippo settling to the bottom of a river. But this was different. “Now you can choose: Either you honor my decision and we say no more about it, or you keep pecking at me like a plover at the crocodile’s teeth and we end our lessons forever. Well?” He crossed his arms.

My choice was no choice. I wanted to learn. If the price of learning was silence, so be it. I gave in.

Henenu did his part to keep our lessons hidden. The
two of us shared a remarkable sense of timing: I was always within earshot of our home’s entryway whenever he came by and he always seemed to show up when Father was occupied with official business, either at home or out in the city, and Mery had her hands full taking care of the household. No matter how busy they were, there was never any question of asking him to come back later. That would have been a great offense to an honored guest, to say nothing of an insult to a dear friend of the family.

Every time, the little scribe resolved the problem with the same solution: “Well, if you really don’t mind, why don’t I just go into your beautiful garden for a while? It’s such a tranquil refuge. As much as I love my own family, our home can be a little rowdy. I won’t be bored: I’ve got a number of official documents that I must review before amending for the royal court.” He patted the always-full case at his belt that held a bunch of rolled-up papyrus scrolls.

Father and Mery were happy to consent. They went back to their work, Henenu toddled off into the garden, and I stole after him as soon as I could. I don’t know how he managed it, but I was grateful for his cleverness. It gave us the time we needed to pursue my studies undisturbed.

There was only one problem: Bit-Bit. The older she got, the more time she wanted to spend with me. I loved her dearly, but I was jealous of the lesson time I had with Henenu. Every time we met, he showed me fresh treasures—new words, new ways to use them, new papyrus scrolls containing stories of the gods and goddesses, of pharaohs and queens from distant times, of love and adventure, even of the world that lay beyond the borders of the Black Land!
There was always something exciting to learn from the little scribe, whereas Bit-Bit—

Bit-Bit was Bit-Bit: always wanting to play the same games, sing the same songs, dance the same dances with me. If I tried to distract her with some new pastime, she turned up her nose and began wheedling for us to play “the
right
way.” At best it was boring, at worst it was annoying, and trying to evade her when I had a lesson with Henenu was a challenge.

I admit it: I bribed one of the slaves to keep my little sister busy whenever Henenu came to visit. The slave was an old woman who’d been in our household for as long as I could remember. I didn’t bother learning her name, or even if she had one. Slaves were slaves; they didn’t have to be spoken to the same way as servants. They were something we owned, there to do a job for us, like a chair or a bowl or a pot of kohl. I didn’t know how they’d come into our household, and if any of them died, it didn’t affect me.

One day, in the year I reached my tenth birthday, everything changed.

I will never forget that morning. Bit-Bit and I were dancing in the garden. I loved to dance almost as much as I loved to write, and in my heart I cherished the secret ambition to dance at one of the great temple festivals with all of Akhmin looking on. I didn’t even care which god I’d honor with my dancing, as long as the priests chose me. It was a great honor, because only the best dancers could be trusted to keep their steps and movements perfect. Anything less might anger the gods.

“Well, what do we have here?” Henenu’s voice boomed through the sunlit air, such a big sound coming from such a small body. Bit-Bit and I stopped our dance and ran to greet him. The scribe was a great favorite with everyone in our family.

“What’s that, Henenu?” Bit-Bit asked, clinging to his left arm while pointing at the object he cradled to his chest with his right.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen my palette, little monkey?” he said, letting her get a good look at the long, narrow rectangle of polished slate with Thoth’s image carved just below the two oval wells to hold the black and red pigments. “See how cleverly it’s made. It even holds a small clay pot for water and a handful of the best reed pens, newly sharpened. If it only had a case for storing papyrus scrolls, I couldn’t ask for a better tool.”

“Oh.” Bit-Bit sounded disappointed. “You’re going to
work
. I thought you’d come to play with us. Does this mean we have to leave the garden?”

“Well …” Henenu gave me a conspiratorial look. This was my cue to find a way to send Bit-Bit elsewhere, so I could have a lesson.

“We can come back later,” I declared, taking Bit-Bit by the hand. “The sooner we leave Henenu in peace, the sooner he’ll finish his work. Then we can show him our new dance.” I steered her firmly back into the house.

Once indoors, it didn’t take me long to find an excuse for thrusting Bit-Bit into the old slave woman’s care and to rush back to Henenu. I only delayed my return long enough
to fetch my waxed tablet from its hiding place in my room. I found the little scribe seated under the tallest palm tree in the garden. Even though I was now old enough to wear a pleated linen sheath dress, I dropped cross-legged onto the dirt beside him. Mery would scold me for ruining my clothes, but I didn’t care. I’d sacrifice a dozen dresses to learn how to write a single new word.

“Look at what I’ve done, Henenu,” I said, eagerly holding out my waxed tablet. It was a surprise I’d been working on ever since our last lesson, something more than my usual practice lines. This time, instead of copying out someone else’s words over and over, I’d written my own.

The scribe’s brows drew together as he studied the lines I’d etched into the smooth wax. “This isn’t what I gave you to do.”

“No, it isn’t,” I said, grinning.

“In Thoth’s name,
why?
What ever made you want to copy
this
stuff?”

My grin was gone. “It’s—it’s not
stuff
. It’s a hymn in praise of Isis!”

“Yes, and every line of it seems to come from a different song. Here the goddess is soaring through the skies as a hawk,
here
she’s swimming along as part of the Nile’s waters, next she turns into a sacred cat for some reason, and the cat becomes a lion, and the lion decides it would rather be the moon!”

I felt as if he’d slapped my face. “Is it—is it
that
bad?”

“The pieces are all right by themselves—some even have a rough touch of beauty—but when they’re thrown together like this, it’s a worse horror than Ammut.” He
shuddered at the thought of the hippo-lion-crocodile monstrosity. “How did you find such a thing?”

I turned my face away from him. I wanted to crawl into a hole in the sand and die. “I wrote it.”

“You … ?” I heard Henenu make a very strange sound, a noise that was as much of a badly matched mix as my miserable poem. It was part snort, part chuckle, and partly a failed attempt to hold back his laughter.

Something flared inside me. My chin came up sharply and I glared at him. “I
know
it’s bad!” I shouted, slapping my hands on the earth. “You said so clearly enough! I won’t write anything of my own ever again, but you don’t have the right to laugh at me for trying!”

“Perhaps not. You’re braver than I, Nefertiti. I never dared try my hand at writing anything of my own. But still”—his eyes twinkled—“still, if you reread it, I think you’ll have to admit that it really is dreadful.”

“It is
not!
” My voice rose to a shriek. “Take that back! I wrote this for Isis and if you don’t apologize, she’ll curse you for—!”

“Nefertiti! Nefertiti! What’s the matter?” Bit-Bit came racing into the garden. She threw herself at me with such force that the two of us sprawled in the dirt. “I heard you yell! What’s wrong?”

“Get
off
, Bit-Bit,” I snapped, pushing her off me and sitting up. “Nothing’s the matter. Go away!”

“But I heard—” She stretched out her hands.

I slapped them aside. “I say
go away!
” I didn’t mean to treat my little sister that way, but I was blinded by anger. Henenu’s words wounded my pride so deeply that I lashed
out without thinking at any target that came too close. “Well? Why are you still sitting there?” I stood up, dragged her to her feet, and shoved her again. “Go, you stupid thing!
Go!
” She flew back into the house, crying.

Henenu looked at me wide-eyed. “Was that necessary, Nefertiti?” he said. “She only came running because she heard you making so much noise that she thought you were in trouble.”

“I don’t care,” I said, folding my arms. “I’m tired of having to look after her all the time. I want to be free to do what I want when I want to do it.”

The dwarf clicked his tongue. “And make everyone else dance to your music? You sound like your aunt Tiye. Unfortunately, she’s got the power to do it.”

“Good for her!” I wasn’t thinking about what I said. I was still seething over how he’d criticized my song. “If
she
wanted to learn how to read and write, she wouldn’t have to hide it, as if she was doing something wrong!”

Henenu’s face hardened. “With Queen Tiye, there is no right or wrong. There are only her wishes, her plans, and her desires.”

“And what’s so bad about
that?
I wish
I
had her power! I’d have
real
lessons, then, not just a few crumbs dribbled out whenever you come back to Akhmin!” I was shouting again, carried away by my anger. I wanted to fight the whole world.

“Nefertiti, lower your voice. You’ll draw attention.”

“From Bit-Bit again? So what? If she does come back out here, I’ll send her away again. What can she do about it?” I laughed and began to write
Bit-Bit is a jumping mouse
in the dirt. I couldn’t think of a more easily frightened creature.

A shadow fell over me as my finger traced the last symbol. “
What
are you doing, Nefertiti?” I looked up into Father’s stormy face.

Henenu and I stood in the cool shadows of the room where Father often met with the local priests and other important city officials. I didn’t know exactly what he did beyond the fact that he served Pharaoh, only that he had enough power in Akhmin to make great men bow to him, flatter him, and bring us gifts. He had left the house that morning in order to meet with the chief priest of the Isis temple. I thought he would be gone the whole day. How was I to know that his meeting would end early and that the first sight he’d encounter on his return home was Bit-Bit in tears, or that the next thing he’d hear would be me making such an angry uproar in the garden?

Now I waited to learn the price I’d have to pay for giving in to my temper. The secret between Henenu and me wasn’t a secret anymore. Father had caught me in the act of writing.

“Is
this
how you honor our friendship, Henenu?”
Father demanded. There were three comfortable chairs in the room, but no one made use of them. There was too much tension in the air for any of us to relax enough to sit down. Bit-Bit was the only one not standing. She huddled at Father’s feet, curled up in a shivering, runny-nosed ball. “Is
this
how you honor my wife’s memory?” Father held my practice tablet in one hand. He’d seized it out in the garden and now he waved the piece of wax-covered wood in the scribe’s face.

“Your wife, Ay?” Henenu repeated. “Your wife is alive.”

“Don’t try cheating me with your wordplay, scribe!” Father’s knuckles whitened as he grasped my tablet with both hands and flung it to the floor. The sound of wood striking stone was so loud it made Bit-Bit yelp in fright and fall backward. I ran to her side and helped her up, holding her close while Father ranted on. “You know I mean
her
mother.” He gestured at me. “Why have you been teaching her to read and write? Do you ever use that oversized head of yours to
think?
You know what Tiye will do if she finds out there’s a second Seshat for her to exploit.”

Seshat?
I knew her well. She was a goddess whose name itself meant She-who-writes, the wife of Thoth, who first brought the gift of writing to mortals. Why was Father invoking her now? What did the goddess have to do with my aunt Tiye?