Save yourself, Nefertiti! came the answer, and I woke with a start on my mat.
The buzzing was still there. I lay very still, listening. It was coming from the far side of my prison, where the high, narrow window framed a small piece of the midnight sky. By the light of my lamp I saw a leather sack in the shadows. The sizzling sound was coming from it. As I sat very slowly on my mat, I saw the folds of leather stir, and a small, pear-shaped head with prominent black eyes lifted itself clear of the bag. The snake paused for a moment, tongue flickering, then poured itself onto the floor, draping its pale brown, rust-and white-patterned body into curves.
I knew what it was: a viper, and one of the most deadly in the Black Land. I remembered traveling from Akhmin into the countryside with Mery, to visit relatives of hers who farmed the land. When we reached their village, we found them in mourning, and I saw the corpse of exactly such a snake laid out beside the body of Mery’s cousin. He was young and strong, but the snake’s bite had killed him.
Time stopped. My thoughts became remarkably sharp and clear, like a shard of shattered crystal: I should call for help. Wait. No, not that. Someone threw that bag into my room. This place stands alone; no one can approach it without the guards hearing them. So the guards must know. They won’t help me. They might even burst in here and do something to make sure the serpent bites me. Very well, then. I’m all the help I’ll have.
I continued to eye the snake. I was astonished at how calm I felt. I was looking at death; if I couldn’t escape it, what good would it do me to panic? The creature swung its head back and forth, then stopped, black eyes glittering at me. Did it see me or did it sense my presence some other way? It began to move its coils together quickly, rubbing its scales against one another, and the strident buzzing sound was back.
Save yourself, Nefertiti!
The sphinx’s words echoed in my ears. I searched the room. There was no way out, nowhere to hide, no place high enough to climb that would take me out of reach of those venomous fangs. I couldn’t run.
I wouldn’t run. I would fight.
The snake sprang toward me. I grabbed my dress with both hands and threw it like a net. The viper’s body tangled in the folds of sheer linen and the creature thrashed wildly, trying to get free. The buzzing of scales scraping together grew louder and angrier. The snub-nosed head poked out from beneath the edge of the cloth, but too late: I had my scribe’s palette in a tight grip and I brought it down hard again and again on the viper’s skull.
The day was only a pale hint of brightness in my window when Thutmose came barging into my room the next morning. He greeted the guards cheerfully a moment before he threw the door wide open, and I seized that moment as time enough to sprawl on my mat with my one remaining dress covering my body and my eyes staring glassily at the ceiling. I was very proud of the way I held that pose when he bent over me and smiled.
I wish I could have shifted my gaze a little, just to be able to see his expression when he spotted the smashed snake wrapped in my ruined gown, but dead people don’t do that. I had to content myself with hearing him gasp and splutter with confusion.
I sat up, grinned right into his shocked, bone-white face, and chirped: “Good morning, my prince. I slept so well last night, thanks to whatever that was in my beer, but I had the funniest dream and now—isn’t it awful?—I’m going to need a new dress.”
He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I rolled back and forth on my mat, laughing so hard that I almost couldn’t hear the sound of Thutmose bawling out my guards.
After a while, I heard him stomp away, cursing. The door opened and one of the guards came in looking like a whipped dog. Without a word, he bundled up my dress and the dead snake. “Maybe you should have warned Prince Thutmose about what he was going to find in here this morning!” I called after him. “He could’ve prepared himself for disappointment.”
“Shut up,” the guard muttered, closing the door.
I just laughed some more. I had no qualms about mocking him or his partner. Even if they hadn’t been the ones who dropped that leather bag into my room last night, they’d certainly been in on it. “I know you heard the racket I made killing the viper,” I shouted at the door. “You could’ve peeked in after things got quiet, just to see who’d won, me or the snake, but you stayed put. Cowards!”
“I said shut up!” the guard bellowed back. “Shut up or I’ll come in there and—”
“And I’ll give you what I gave that snake!”
The silence that followed was as sweet to me as a mouthful of honey.
Later on, I ate every bite of my breakfast. I wasn’t being foolhardy. When the servant who brought it set the dishes on the floor, he managed to murmur for my ears alone, “With the compliments of Princess Sitamun.” He was wearing a pair of gold earrings that looked much too fine for a person of his rank.
I looked forward to seeing Sitamun, to thank her for looking out for me, but the day went on and she didn’t come. The guards changed shifts and the afternoon was nearly gone before my prison door opened again and Nava came in with her harp, alone.