Uni sighed. “This way, my lady.”
He brought me to one of the inner rooms of Thutmose’s apartments. As we walked, I noticed lights burning everywhere, a fortune in olive oil going up in flames, but when we came to the prince’s bedchamber, all was darkness. Uni positioned himself in the center of the doorway so that I had to stretch on tiptoe or duck my head to see around him, but it was all the same: I could peer into that room for as long as I wished and I’d still see nothing. It was so pitchy beyond the threshold that I couldn’t even make out the shape of a bed, a chest, a chair.
“My lord Prince Thutmose, I beg of you to forgive me for this intrusion,” Uni said in a wheedling, submissive tone. “There is one here—a young woman—who has insisted on seeing you. You have only to say the word and I will have her escorted from your apartments, but if there is some small chance that you might find her company agreeable—”
A dull, cold reply came from the blackness: “A young lady? Huh! Mother is getting creative. Give her a pair of gold earrings and send her away.”
“If I wanted a pair of gold earrings from you, Thutmose, I’d get them directly from Aunt Tiye and save time!” I called out over Uni’s shoulder.
“Nefertiti?” The dull voice sparked to life. “Oh, gods, I have lost my mind.”
I nudged Uni. “Bring a lamp into that room.”
“My lady, I can only heed my master. If you can persuade him to call for a light—”
I made an impatient sound and stalked over to the nearest lamp stand. Snatching one of the stone vessels, I cut past Uni into Thutmose’s lair. The lone flame was enough to illuminate that small space. While Ta-Miu wriggled in the crook of my arm, I looked around briefly, perplexed. The only piece of furniture I could see was a bed, and not even a bed fit for royalty, but a simple, undecorated wooden frame holding a thin mat of woven reeds. Thutmose lay on it, his gaze on the ceiling, his arms at his sides.
“So it is you,” he said without looking at me. The lamplight fell on his face, still extraordinarily handsome but now a little gaunt and haggard. His eyes were unpainted and red, his cheeks and scalp covered with stubble. “Why are you here? Don’t tell me you’ve come to gloat, not you, not the darling of Ma’at, the perfect girl, the pure, pure heart.”
“First tell me why you’re here, Thutmose,” I said.
“Me?” His laugh was ghastly. “Stupid question. In my bed, in my bedchamber, in my apartments—where else should I be after my own father ordered me sealed away as if I were already dead?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped. “This isn’t your bedchamber. It looks like it belongs to one of your servants.”
“Ha. Still so smart. Smarter than Uni.” Thutmose rolled onto his side and propped his head on one hand. “You hear that, Uni?” he shouted. “Maybe if you weren’t such a mealy-mouthed foot-kisser, you’d have had the intelligence to tell me my visitor’s name instead of letting me make a fool of myself.”
“Ah! Pardon me, my lord, pardon me.” A flutter of apologies came from the doorway. “I am your most unworthy servant. I will do better in the future, I swear by Ma’at that, uh, I mean, I swear by Amun—”
Thutmose laughed until he was wheezing. “Swear by Ma’at, if you like. Swear by a dog’s backside, for all I care. What does any of it matter? Vows, promises, oaths, they’re all dust and dung.” He let his head drop to the mat. “Go away, Uni. Go, and see to it that none of the other servants come anywhere near this room. If I catch the faintest whisper of their presence, I’ll whip them with my own hands and then I’ll guarantee that your career in the palace is over.”
“Ye-ye-yes, my lord prince! Just as you desire! At once!” I heard feet running away and the distant sound of a very harried Master of the Household yapping out commands to his underlings.
“Thutmose, why are you doing this to yourself?” I asked. “You aren’t a prisoner in these rooms any longer. Your father changed his mind; you have the freedom of the palace and you know it.”
“Scraps,” Thutmose rasped. “They give me scraps and they want me to pretend that it’s a banquet. Everything else has been taken away from me. Nothing to live on but scraps, until the day I die.” He closed his eyes. “Leave me alone, Nefertiti. I don’t want your company. Go throw your scraps somewhere else.”
I perched on the edge of his bed and braced myself for him to object, but he had sunk himself too deeply in his own misery to notice or care. A single tear trickled from the corner of his eye, a droplet that the lamplight turned to gold. I took a breath and was surprised to hear it turn into a tiny sob.
Am I crying for him? For Thutmose? Lord Thoth, give me wisdom: Why? I must be as mind-sick as he is. I let go of Ta-Miu so that I could wipe the tears from my own eyes and still hold on to the oil lamp. She leaped lightly onto the bed and planted all four paws on Thutmose’s chest, purring madly. With his eyes still closed, he reached up and began to pet the little cat with so much tenderness that it made me smile.
You do love her more than anything, Thutmose, I thought. When you forged charges of sacrilege against me, you created false evidence to show that I’d spilled her blood, but you refused to allow any real harm to come to her. A heartless man would have ordered one of his underlings to kill her outright. You kept her alive because you loved her, even though she was the living proof of my innocence.