I glowered at him. “Did I ask for your opinions, you pair of squashed beetles? I know what’s best for my son. The eyes of the dead see more clearly than the eyes of the living. I tell you, if Ikeni is married to this worthless creature for a day—no, for even part of a day!—I will take a hideous vengeance. My spirit will curse everyone and everything in this house. You will ache with hunger and burn with thirst! Your feet will turn to stone, your hands to mud, your livers will swell, your blood will slake the thirst of poisonous serpents, and your manhood will be—”
I struck one final pose, gave the shivering boys a dire look, then uttered a tiny sob and fell into the best faint I could fake. As I lay in a heap at their feet, I heard Deep Voice ask: “Is she dead?”
“Of course she’s dead! Old Mistress has been dead for years.” A sharp slap rang out and Reedy Voice added: “Ow. Why’d you do that?”
“Because you’re as stupid as Iken—I mean, you’re just stupid. Is the girl dead?”
“I don’t think so. I see her breathing.” There was a pause. Then Reedy Voice spoke again: “We have to tell Master about all this. If he hears about the curse—”
Deep Voice cut him off with a snort. “You really are a bonehead. We both know Master never listened to his wife when she was alive. We have to get her out of here.”
“But if we do that, Master will punish us!”
“Which would you rather have, one of his beatings or your feet turning to stone, your hands to mud, your manhood to—well, she fell over before she could say what would happen to our manhoods, but it’s probably something awful. A curse is a curse.”
Reedy Voice sighed. The next thing I knew, one of them hooked his hands under my armpits, the other grabbed my ankles, and the pair of them ran swiftly and silently through the priest’s house while I jounced and swung between them like a goatskin filled with water. I kept my eyes closed and my body limp, but in my heart I was doing a dance of uncontrollable joy.
At last I felt fresh air on my face and knew we’d reached the street. They set me down with a wall pressed against my right side. I had no idea where I was but I didn’t care. I was out.
“Do you think she’ll be all right here?” Reedy Voice asked.
Deep Voice answered: “The sun will be up soon. People will come out and find her. She’ll be fine. Come on, let’s go back inside. We’ve got to think up a good story to tell Master when he asks where she is.”
I hope it’s as good as the Tale of the High Priest’s Vengeful Dead Wife, I thought and risked a smile. Bit-Bit’s going to love this one.
As soon as I heard the last of their departing footsteps, I sat up, brushed myself off, and hurried home as fast as if there really were an angry spirit flying after me.
I let myself in by the garden gate, went inside, and found the house in an uproar. Bit-Bit was wailing, Mery was praying frantically, and Father was nowhere to be seen. Had something evil happened to him?
“Mother, where’s Father?” I cried, rushing in.
“Oh! The gods be thanked!” Mery clutched me to her so hard it hurt.
“I couldn’t find you in our room after dinner,” Bit-Bit said, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “I thought you’d gone up on the roof or out into the garden, so I went to sleep. But when I woke up in the middle of the night you still weren’t there, or on the roof, or in the garden, or anywhere. So I told Father.”
“He’s been searching the whole city for you,” Mery said. “Where have you been?”
I took a deep breath. “You’re not going to like this.…”
I was right; she didn’t. Neither did Father, after Mery sent one of the servants to find him and fetch him back. I got such a scolding that my ears burned.
“What were you thinking?” Father shouted. “I never expected something like this from you, Nefertiti. You’ve always been so shy, so quiet, so sensible. Do you know how much trouble you could have caused? This isn’t like you at all. My Nefertiti would never do such a rash, heedless, dangerous thing.”
But I did do it, Father, I thought. I chose to do it, and I don’t regret anything except that it was too late to save that poor slave girl’s life. You see only the risk I ran, not my reasons for deciding it was a risk worth taking. Oh, Father, you look at me and see your Nefertiti, but that’s not who I am.
Of course I didn’t share my thoughts with Father. I was exhausted after my nightlong captivity, so I prostrated myself before my parents and begged their pardon for how much I’d worried them.
“I forgive you, little kitten.” Father knelt and raised me back to my feet. “But for the next ten days you’ll stay in this house. You can go into the garden, if you like, but not the street. Understand?”
“If that’s my punishment …,” I began.
“It’s not so much a punishment as a precaution,” he replied. “The townsfolk are already talking about what happened to you at the Inundation, and if I know the high priest, he’ll be sowing ugly rumors about you today. The crocodile doesn’t like having prey slip out of his jaws. He’ll do whatever he can to hurt you, even if it’s only with words. If you stay inside, the gossip won’t have a visible target. It doesn’t matter how much dung people throw if there’s no wall for it to stick to.”
“Listen to your father, Nefertiti,” Mery said gently. “He loves you.”
Yes, but he doesn’t know me, I thought.
Father went to sleep even though it was morning. He was exhausted after his desperate search for me. Mery saw to it that I was given a breakfast that was more like the Inundation feast I’d missed. I ate ravenously. The last meal I’d had was also breakfast, a day ago. While I filled my belly, Mery and Bit-Bit left the house to go to the market. I was left to myself.