Mahala and I both assured her that Henenu was not going to be carried halfway back to Memphis by his hapless driver. Then I asked the sisters, “How long have you been here in Thebes, and why didn’t you come to me in the palace?”
Nava didn’t know, but Mahala said, “We came as far as the gates, but when the guards heard who we were, they told us that there had been reports of a great sickness in Memphis—perhaps even plague—and no one who’d been there could enter. It wasn’t until later that I realized they hadn’t bothered to ask us if we’d come from Memphis; they just knew. Henenu grew angry and asserted his rank as a respected scribe. He demanded to speak with a higher authority. It didn’t do any good. We were brought to the house where you found us and were warned to stay away from the palace unless we wanted to see the inside of a prison cell. We had to give in.”
“I’m surprised Henenu never tried to send word about your situation.”
“He did! He wrote at least three messages each day and found reliable men to carry them to the palace. The local children used to fight each other for the job of getting him fresh papyrus for all of those letters. I know that at least some of them were meant for you. Didn’t you receive them?”
I hadn’t, and I knew whose hand had barred Henenu’s messages from reaching me. It was the same hand that had pushed my friends away from the palace gates with false reports of sickness in Memphis. It was the same hand that, until today, had kept me unaware that they were in the city, that had stood like a wall between me and Sitamun, that had curved itself around Amenophis to draw him far from me. It was probably the same hand that had crushed all letters between me and my family in Akhmin. Now, suddenly, those unyielding fingers had loosened their grip, letting my life come trickling back to me like a flow of golden sand.
I remembered the first lines of Sitamun’s message: Your words on my brother’s behalf have reached Father’s heart. Mother is satisfied.
She didn’t need to specify the source of Aunt Tiye’s contentment. It could only be the fulfillment of her dearest desire—to see Thutmose named crown prince once more.
It was early afternoon by the time we reached the palace. The first thing I did was bring Nava and Mahala to Thutmose’s rooms. Poor Nava! She found it impossible to accept that the “bad prince” of her nightmares had changed. She refused to cross his threshold.
“There are all sorts of healings, dear one,” her sister said, soothing the child’s fear. “How can you believe that the One has power to mend the body but not the spirit?”
“You never met Prince Thutmose,” Nava replied stubbornly, but she consented to enter his apartments if her sister and I promised to hold her hands the whole time.
It was a promise we didn’t need to keep for long. The first thing we all saw when Uni led us into Thutmose’s presence was Amenophis, sitting on the floor beside his brother’s bed and making Ta-Miu dance for a bunch of feathers on a string. Nava’s greeting struck him like a war-club blow. The cat rose straight up in the air, hissing, and shot out into the garden. Thutmose laughed so hard he complained he’d split open the bandages on his scraped leg.
“It’s not right for the crown prince of the Two Lands to tell lies,” I said primly, which made him laugh even more.
With Nava and Mahala in my household, my daily visits to cheer Thutmose’s convalescence became miniature parties. With Sitamun’s help, the Habiru sisters were provided with the musical instruments they played so well, and I could play the sistrum while I danced to their lively tunes. Ta-Miu often tried to be a part of our performance, and once she succeeded in catching my feet so that I hit the floor on my backside.
“Why couldn’t you do that during the race, you treacherous cat?” Thutmose joked. “You must suffer for your disloyalty! I condemn you to eat a plateful of fish and a cup of fresh milk at once!”
“You spoil her,” Amenophis said. “She’s getting as fat as a castor bean.”
“If you think I’m to blame for how fat she’s getting, we need to have a talk, brother,” Thutmose replied. He turned his face to Nava and said, “How would you like a kitten, little bird?” Her dance of joy was so boisterous that Uni came in to see if anything was wrong.
Nava was still bouncing madly as we returned to my apartments for the evening. All she could talk about was her kitten, what to name it, when she might have it. “The kittens aren’t even born yet, sweet one,” I told her. “Worry about tomorrow when the sun rises.”
I should have slept peacefully that night. My heart was filled with contentment; my life floated on calm waters. No doubt Aunt Tiye still resented me for not having been the docile little rag doll she thought she’d taken from Akhmin, but at least we were no longer at war. I was just as happy to have her ignore my existence as I would be to hear her offer a thousand words of thanks or apology. All that remained to make my joy complete was to be recognized as Amenophis’s bride. The royal brothers assured me that this would happen very soon, but I didn’t believe them. They were having too much fun conspiring over ways to outmaneuver their mother if she objected. Once their plot succeeded, the game would be over.
Was I being too greedy, wanting to have all of my wishes fulfilled? Was that what was disturbing my dreams? They were crowded with half-formed sounds and images, winding paths that turned into bottomless pits at my feet, skies that swirled with plumes of smoke that were either murky green or dull crimson, sinister whispers from unseen creatures in the branches of dead trees with twigs as white as bone. To escape those visions, I would have welcomed the return of the lions that had been my childhood nightmares, but I was held fast in their awful grip until dawn.