27
Neff
“Where are the Wabet?” Nehshi asked, exasperated.
Neff blinked up at the young priest, her face dripping with water from the basin. She was preparing for her morning chores when Nehshi appeared in her chambers, his face shiny with sweat.
“They all left early to continue preparations for the coronation,” she answered, drying her face with a clean cloth.
Nehshi moaned, a deep, lowing sound she’d heard him make so often that he might as well be a cow. “How am I supposed to perform the daily ritual without help? ‘Not now, Nehshi,’ they say, ‘I’m too busy withimportant mattersto deal with your problems, Nehshi. Ask someone else, Nehshi.’ But if Amun is angered by the lateness of his offerings, who will be to blame? Nehshi!”
Neff sighed and laid the folded cloth across the edge of the basin. She still felt a little guilty for manipulating the priest the day Karim had shown up at the temple. “I’ll help you, all right?”
Nehshi harrumphed. “What do you know about administering the daily ritual? Have you assisted with it before?”
“No, but I know enough,” Neff replied. “Besides, do you have a better offer?”
Nehshi stared at her, then reached down to stroke the golden buckle he’d attached to his belt. “I suppose if Montuhotep trusts you to chaperone his foreign guests, I can trust you to assist with one morning’s ritual.”
Neff smirked and followed him out of her chambers and through the Great Temple. She was pleased that Nehshi hadn’tfollowed up on her lie about the man from the Red Lands being a guest of Montuhotep—as she’d guessed, the priest was too worried about himself to ask questions. Her reputation was safe.
Still, she hadn’t stopped thinking about Karim since his departure. She’d never met a Red Lands tribesman before, no less had a lengthy conversation with one, and although she had the feeling he wasn’t being altogether honest with her, she’d liked him all the same. He’d spoken to her with respect and had a charming manner that was difficult to resist. And of course, he’d put a name to the vision that launched her on this journey: the Oracle of the Lamb. But with those answers came more questions. How were the four people—her, Karim, Princess Sitamun, and a mysterious farm girl from Low Khetara—connected? What were their roles in the days to come? And what exactly was coming?
Beware, for soon the Great River of Khetara will turn to blood.
Ever since Kenna uncovered the king’s murder, she’d been convinced that Meryamun’s ascension to the throne must be part of it. Not only had she seen the evidence in the embalming room when he made the discovery, but Kenna suggested that Sitamun had known that her father had been poisoned, and that her earlier visit to the temple had been a cry for help.
So, two of the four figures in the oracle were already involved in the conspiracy.
Lies will grow fruitful as wheat in the fields.
But Neff knew there was more at stake.
Karim had said that Setnakht, his missing pharaoh, was the key to unlocking the secrets of the oracle. Why else would fate have brought Karim to her? The letter they’d found in the House of Life made it clear that people had despised the heretical king—but that was a thousand years ago. Setnakht was long dead. What could he possibly have to do with what was unfolding in Khetaranow? She recalled another line from her vision, and wondered at its significance.
A secret shall rise from beneath the earth.
Neff shivered.
Despite not entirely understanding how all the pieces fit together, Neff could sense them falling into place and disaster rushing toward them on swift waters. But what could she do to alter such a course? She’d prayed to Bast for answers, but so far, the goddess had been silent.
She’d wanted to talk to Kenna about it, to tell him all that she knew, but after that morning in the embalming room, Kenna had locked himself in his chambers and refused visitors, including her. So she’d been forced to spend far too much time alone with her thoughts, haunted by ill portents she was powerless to avoid.
She and Nehshi walked through the courtyard. Some other Wab priests went about their business around them, quietly completing the everyday tasks of the temple. The sky was unusually overcast, turning everything a muted gray.
At the far end of the courtyard, they climbed a few steps and entered a large columned hall. This was followed by more steps, then another, smaller hall, just like the first. Then came more steps into the Hall of Offering, a chamber only big enough to fit half a dozen people. She’d been told that the temples were designed this way, with priests ascending steps into smaller and smaller chambers, so that as they approached the holy of holies, they’d feel as if they were rising into the heavens for a private audience with the divine.
Finally, they reached the door to the sanctuary. It was sealed with a wax-encrusted cord wrapped around the doorknobs.
“I’ll break the seal and bring the offerings,” Nehshi said, gesturing toward the materials laid out neatly on a table next to the door. “You carry the incense.”
Neff suddenly felt nervous.It’s a common ritual, she told herself,done three times a day. Nothing to worry about.Still, her hand shook as she set the resin inside the bronze censer aflame. Coils of fragrant smoke began to spill lazily from the censer’s head, quickly filling the small space. Through the haze, Neff watched the priest unwind the cord and open the door. She ascended the three steps first, swinging the incense before her, and found herself in the presence of Amun.
Being that he was the patron god of Thonis, the kingdom’s capital city, Amun’s statue was immense. Set on a tall pedestal, it was the height of three men and carved from white limestone. Not a drop of paint, nor any other stone or metal interrupted its purity save his eyes, which boasted pupils of the finest lapis, as blue as a summer sky. It made sense that he was unadorned. He was, after all, the Invisible One, God of the Unseen. He needed no embellishment. He was nothing and everything, nowhere and everywhere. In that space between ignorance and knowledge, Amun built a house called mystery and invited all to pass through its doors.
Neff lifted her eyes to his and felt a kinship there. Back at the market in Bubas, she’d often complained when people ignored her attempts to draw them to their stall. “It’s like they don’t even see me,” she’d told her father.
He’d tutted and given her a knowing look. “Ah, but there’s power in being invisible,” he’d said. “Invisibility creates opportunities. To observe, to learn, toact.No one is listening to you? Fine. You go listen to them, to their idle conversations, to their secrets. Find out what people really think, Neff, and you can change the world from the shadows.”
