Dendera … The name slipped into my mind unbidden. I can’t stay here. If I don’t move, I’ll die. If hunger and thirst don’t kill me, I’ll shrivel to dust in the sun or be found by some hungry beast that prowls the night. I must get up. I must go on. I have to reach Dendera.
“Dendera,” I whispered. “Yes. Nava and Amenophis risked—lost—their lives to save me from Thutmose’s plotting.” Fresh tears trickled from my eyes. I wiped them away and stood up. I knew with all my soul that if I didn’t go on, stand before Pharaoh, let him know the injustice that his crown prince had committed in his name, there would be more than my life at stake. Could someone like Thutmose be trusted to rule if he worshipped his own desires and scorned the goddess Ma’at’s holy truth? The gods would avenge it; all of the Black Land would suffer.
Pharaoh Amenhotep has many sons. A wicked, insinuating doubt disturbed my thoughts. Many, but only two are Tiye’s children. He adored her enough to raise her to the position of Great Royal Wife, even though she wasn’t nobly born. She still holds power over him. How will he react when he hears one of his favorite sons has been accused of so much wrongdoing and learns that the other died trying the save the accuser? More important than that, how will she react? Who will suffer then?
I clenched my hands, even though it made the pain worse. “No!” I shouted, stamping my foot. Wings whirred up out of the papyrus thicket, but I didn’t see the birds I’d startled with my outburst. “No, no, no!” I shook my head violently, my eyes squeezed shut, as if that would banish the evil whisper that I knew came from my own weakness. “I won’t turn back. I won’t run away.”
Why not? it came again, cajoling. Pharaoh has many sons, but you have only one life. Why gamble it when you could live it? You have a scribe’s skills, and cleverness, and you can dance as well as many of the girls who earn their bread by entertaining at banquets. Forget Dendera. Seek your fortune somewhere else, far from Dendera, from Thebes, from the royal court, from—
“Not from the gods,” I said quietly. “Not from Father, Mother, Bit-Bit, all that I love. Even if I’m punished for Amenophis’s death, I’ll see them again. No matter how enraged and vengeful Aunt Tiye will be, even she’s not cruel enough to deny me that.” I opened my eyes. “And even if she is so pitiless, I’m still going to Dendera.” I knew that I was alone on the riverbank, talking to the air, but it gave me courage.
The sacred river showed itself in lingering flashes of brilliance through the green thickets of fringe-topped papyrus plants. There were more boats sailing along its deep blue surface now, though none of them steered a course close to my side of the wide water. Would one of them come to help me if I could hail them loudly enough, or would they just sail on, indifferent?
Even if a boat answered my call, could I blindly trust my fate to whomever took me aboard? If all men’s hearts were good, upright, and honest, Lord Osiris wouldn’t need to keep ever-hungry Ammut at his side when he judged the dead. Better to walk than take that chance, I decided, and took the first steps of my renewed journey.
I headed inland first, seeking a clearer way, one where I wouldn’t have to push aside the plants that grew so thickly at the water’s edge. I was overjoyed when I happened upon an irrigation canal. Its banks would be well maintained, providing me with an easier path. It might also lead me to the farmers who used it to raise their crops. In any case, I’d never go thirsty as long as I could dip my hands into its sweet water.
Water alone wouldn’t sustain me. The western bank of the sacred river was where the sun sank into the dark land of many dangers. It was the place where generations of our pharaohs, their families, their highest-ranking and most honored nobles were entombed, an empire of the dead. The living dwelled here, too, but this side of the river wasn’t as thickly settled as the other. How far along the canal would I have to travel before I met another human being? If I was going to reach Dendera on my own, I had to find other people or I’d starve.
And what will you do once you find them? Oh, that horrible voice of doubt, haunting me! How will you persuade them to give you anything to eat? You’re no one to them, a stranger, a grubby beggar from who knows where!
Mery—my second mother—always gave bread to any beggar at our door, I thought, fighting back against my own misgivings.
She could afford to be charitable! She wasn’t a farmer’s wife with a brood of children to feed. It’s easy to give away a loaf of bread when you’ve got five on the table, ten more coming out of the oven, and thirty jars of grain in the storeroom!
I shook my head again, as if that would force out my troubling thoughts, and walked faster, following the line of the canal. As I strode along, I muttered prayers: “O Isis, have mercy. Let me meet another human being soon. I don’t dare stray too far from the river. If I lose my way and there’s no one to help me find it again … Goddess, please, don’t let that happen. Guide me. Help me. Hear me!”