“Why are all of my best students girls?”he exclaimed. It wasn’t a complaint at all.
I was pleased for Berett’s sake. The child now had something more with which to fill her days when she wasn’t playing the harp. When we weren’t on the rooftop with Sitamun and Henenu, she reviewed her lessons with a waxed tablet I’d given to her, just like the one I’d once used. I was very serious with her when I explained why she couldn’t practice her writing on shards of pottery, like Henenu’s official students did. One of the servants might find them. Even if the maid didn’t understand exactly what she’d discovered, she would know it was something out of the ordinary. She might go running to tattle about it to Aunt Tiye, in hopes of buying herself the queen’s protection.
“So you see why this must stay a secret,” I told Berett. She looked solemn and nodded. Unfortunately I’d stressed the need for secrecy too well. There were many days when my little musician would grab her tablet and vanish from dawn to dusk, holed up somewhere in the palace where she could practice her beloved new skill, safe from spying eyes.
So Berett’s days were occupied, but what about mine? I was left behind, alone more often than not. The women’s quarters held nothing for me but sneering looks and hostile whispers, so I wandered aimlessly through the palace, looking for nothing except a way to make the hours pass until dinner and bed.
On a cool day toward the end of the season of Emergence, my wanderings brought me to an open space planted with tall palm trees, a terrace with a sweeping view of the sacred river. I looked across the water to the western bank and the yellow cliffs in the distance. When I turned back, I almost walked right into Thutmose. I let out a small yelp of alarm and jumped, but he stood unruffled, studying me in that unnerving, detached way of his.
“So you are here after all,” he remarked.
“What do you mean? You sound as if someone told you where to find me, but I didn’t even know where I was heading today.”
“You do that a lot, don’t you? Roam the palace? I don’t see why. You don’t even pay attention to where you’re going. Yesterday you nearly walked out one of the side gateways, into the city.”
“I wish I’d known,” I said bitterly. “I would have kept going.”
“No, that would not have been permitted.”
“How do you know so much about my comings and goings?” I asked, suspicious. The obvious answer came to me almost before I finished the question. “I’m being watched, amn’t I?”
His eyebrows rose sharply. “You didn’t know that? You must be joking.”
“It’s true? I’m spied on all the time?”
“You are being looked after,” he corrected me. “You should be grateful that someone thinks you’re valuable enough to deserve so much attention. And no, not all the time. Don’t flatter yourself. Not even I am that important.”
The way he spoke—as if losing your freedom to privacy was a privilege and not an assault—made my skin crawl. I decided to change the subject.
“You have a very light step, Thutmose, very soft and graceful,” I said, trying to turn our conversation into something more pleasant by flattering him. “Did your cat teach you to move so silently?”
His face lit up with a smile so natural and unexpected,it was startling. “My beautiful Ta-Miu! She’s as unique as that white star on her brow. I’ve never seen another cat with such a mark, so it must come from the gods. No mere human can move as gracefully as she. She’s a shadow on the water, a wisp of cloud drifting across the sky. She steals through the house like twilight. The best dancer in all of Thebes would be a crippled hippo next to her.”
“Then I’d better not dance for you,” I said, pleased to see that there was some hope of human warmth from the crown prince. “I don’t want to know what I’d look like in comparison to your cat.” I glanced around. “By the way, isn’t she with you?”
His smile died. “She’s with Mother. She’ll be given back to me in three days, provided that I earn her return.” He looked at me as if I were a cup of sour wine, but only until he forcefully twitched the corners of his lips back up again. “My beautiful Nefertiti, forgive me for having neglected you for so long. Tomorrow I’m going hunting on the river. It would make me very happy to spend that time with you. Please join me.”
Isis help me, she made him do this, I realized. Aunt Tiye took his beloved pet to make him woo me. Am I that repulsive or is he simply that indifferent to me? But if neither one of us wants this marriage—
“Thutmose?” I said. “Thutmose, if you could marry anyone under the sky, who would you choose?”
His forehead creased. “Why do you ask such a question?”
“Your mother would be happy if you married soon and had a son of your own, but I’m not ready for marriage or motherhood yet. Why not take the wife that you want now? That would please everyone.”
“You mean it would please you.” I didn’t think it was possible for Thutmose to become even colder toward me, but he proved me wrong. “Who put that question in your mouth? The Mitanni worms? You will be my wife; none other.”
“No one told me to ask you anything,” I argued. “If you don’t want to marry anyone except me, so be it.”
“If I want to marry you?” he echoed. “You don’t know what I want.”
“You could tell me.”
His laugh was a slap. “And then what? Will you bring me my heart’s desire freely, asking nothing for yourself in return? Or will you play the same games with me that they all do? This for that, that for this, keeping a handful of game pieces hidden or shaving the toss-bones so they show the numbers you need in order to win?”