“Besides, why bother learning how to use a tool when you can force someone else to be your tool?” Father said bitterly. “It didn’t take long for Tiye to use your mother. My sister doesn’t trust anyone outside of the family, so when she heard I’d married a skilled scribe, she praised the gods for giving her the perfect gift. My Seshat had to be ready at any time of the day or night to serve the queen. Even when she was expecting your birth and needed her rest, she had to rush to Tiye’s side whenever she was summoned. It weakened her, and when we were commanded to accompany the king and queen on their journey to visit Khufu’s Horizon—”
“The great pyramid?” I put in. “But—but you told me that Mother was the one who wanted to go!”
“Ah, so you remember that story?” Father’s smile was thin and sad. “You were so small, so frightened by bad dreams. I had to tell you something that would comfort you, even if it meant twisting the truth. May Ma’at forgive me.”
I remembered what Henenu had said to me not so long ago about the power, beauty, and danger of the truth. I walked across the floor to put my arms around Father’s shoulders and kiss his forehead. “I know she will,” I said. “But please, tell me the truth now.”
“The truth is brief and ugly. One night during our journey when your mother was hurrying to answer Tiye’s summons, she missed her footing and took a hard fall. The accident brought on your early birth. My Seshat was terrified that you wouldn’t survive. How she smiled when you were first laid in her arms and she gave you your name! But then she closed her eyes, and—” His voice caught. “We never should have traveled. I should have stood up to my sister and told her to find someone else to take Seshat’s place, but in those days, both your mother and I were afraid of her.”
“And now?” I asked.
“I won’t lie to you again: I still am,” Father replied. “I’m not proud of it.”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed, either,” Henenu said. “Pharaoh adores her and the passing years have brought her more and more power. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid of Queen Tiye.” He turned to me. “When your mother died, Tiye lost a valuable strand in her web of secrets. At last, one of her own daughters mastered the scribal arts, but the queen finds Princess Sitamun to be a poor substitute for your mother. The princess has a life and a mind of her own and isn’t willing to drop everything else the instant Queen Tiye demands her help. The queen can’t bully her as effectively as she could bully—”
“—me.” I finished the thought for him. “If she knew I could read and write, she’d use me the way she used my mother.”
“You see, Henenu?” My father glared at the dwarf. “Even the child recognizes the danger she’s in, thanks to your lessons!”
“What danger?” Henenu countered. “Until today, she and I were the only two people under the sky who knew about them. You’re wary of your sister—good!—but you’ve let it get out of hand. She’s controlling your life as successfully as though you’d never left the court. And the lives of your daughters! What next, Ay? Will you seal the girls inside your house with bricks to guarantee that Queen Tiye can never touch them?”
Father pushed himself out of the chair so violently that it crashed backward to the floor. “If I do, it’s my house and they are my daughters!” he shouted. “And you won’t see any of them again!”
“Father, no!” I cried, grabbing his arm. “He’s your friend and he’s done nothing wrong. Don’t send him away because of me.”
“This isn’t your choice, Nefertiti,” Father said. I’d never heard him use such a cold voice to me.
Maybe I couldn’t choose whether or not Father banished his boyhood friend forever, but I could make a different choice. I knelt on the stone before Father and stretched out my arms as if I were praying. “I swear by Ma’at and Isis, by the goddess Seshat and by my mother’s spirit, if Henenu stays welcome in our home, I will never have another lesson from him. Never!” I bowed forward until my palms and my forehead touched the ground.
I lay there like that for some time, nothing but stillness in my ears. I couldn’t even hear Father and Henenu breathing. At last, the faint brush of a footfall broke the silence and I heard my father’s weary voice say, “Get up, little kitten. You’ll ruin your dress and Mery will blame me.”
Slowly I raised my forehead from the floor. “So … you’ll forgive him?” I looked from Father to Henenu. The scribe’s expression was gloomy but resigned.
Father’s familiar smile brightened his face. “Why should I forgive him when, as you say, he’s done nothing wrong.” He turned to Henenu. “It’s you who should forgive me, my friend.” I watched, lighthearted, as the two men embraced and began trading jokes as though nothing had ever come between them.
Henenu dined with our family that evening. He and Father drank a lot of beer and acted like rowdy boys. Mery wore the flowers Bit-Bit had picked in the garden earlier that day and looked as beautiful and serene as Isis, even when Henenu and Father got into a loud contest to see which of them could do a better imitation of a baboon’s scream. Finally she tried to put an end to their nonsense by smoothly suggesting that Bit-Bit and I entertain everyone with a dance.
While Mery sang and the men clapped their hands, my sister and I danced. Bit-Bit forgot the steps three or four times, but as soon as I heard the music, it became a part of me and told my feet where to go, my arms how to gesture. I loved to dance, but that night my dancing was more than a pleasure: It was a refuge. It gave me a place to hide from the thought of everything I’d given up by making that promise to Father.
As I spun and leaped across the floor, I saw how happy he looked, laughing with his friend, and it made me smile. I did the right thing, I told myself. Why do I need to know how to read and write anyway? I’m only going to get married and have babies and keep a pretty house here in Akhmin because—because that’s all I want to do! It is! It is! And I danced faster before I had the chance to doubt it.