Armor your heart, she told herself, fists clenched at her sides.Remember why you’re here.
But when he stopped beside her, bending so that his luminous face was level with hers, and said, “Are you ready, little goddess?” Neff feared for her soul.
Lips trembling, she replied, “Yes, my prince.”
The crowd shifted as a flustered, disheveled man pushed through them.
“Prince Meryamun!” he exclaimed. Neff could hardly believe it when she saw the man was Master Montuhotep.
What in the world has happened to him?she wondered.
“I’ve brought the ceremonial mace,” he said quickly, lifting a weapon with a richly engraved pear-shaped head. “I would have been here sooner, but I was not summoned. There must have been a misunderstanding. Did your messengers not know where to find me? I’ve been managing the completion of your father’s tomb.”
“You were not summoned because you are not needed, High Priest,” Meryamun said mildly. “I thought I made that clear during our last meeting. Although I appreciate you bringing the mace. We will need it for the unification ritual.” He plucked the weapon from Montuhotep’s hand.
Montuhotep blinked several times, as if he’d been slapped.
“Not needed?” he repeated. “But my prince, as high priest, it is my duty to participate in the coronation. Your father—”
“My father,” the prince broke in, “is dead. As are his conventions. Today the sun sets on Amunmose’s Khetara.” He turned from the Master and toward Neff, placing the mace in her hands. “And rises on mine.”
Montuhotep stared at her, speechless.
As Neff followed the Heka priests and the prince toward the platform, her last glimpse of the high priest was of the big man standing alone, his face reddened with indignation.
Meryamun gestured for Neff to stand next to him behind the priests.
“It’s time,” he said to the waiting attendants, and with bowed heads, they pulled the curtains aside.
Neff gasped.
After her experience at the Bast Festival, she thought she’d seen it all. But nothing could have prepared her for the great roar that met her ears or the teeming multitude that flowed over the land in every direction.
Neff’s gaze flitted like a butterfly, unable to remain anywhere for more than an instant.
A sea of faces—men, women, children riding their fathers’ shoulders—their mouths open and hands outstretched.
Garlands of purple cornflower and creamy jasmine draped over every statue in sight.
Potted palms and huge burning braziers decorated the platform, where a group of musicians and the Wabet began to play and dance, their bodies sinuous and full of grace.
It was as if the entire kingdom had gathered there to celebrate, all of them crying out for their glorious godling to lead them into a shining tomorrow.
Neff’s attention was drawn to a face in the crowd. It seemed impossible to pick out a single person in the blurred masses, but she did. Maybe it was because everyone else was looking at the prince—but he was staring at her. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Yati?” she whispered.
When he caught her gaze, her father waved vigorously and shook Neff’s mother by the shoulder. “Ahura!” Neff saw him say.“She sees us!”
Neff watched her mother’s face light up as she began to wave too.
Shyly, Neff raised a hand and waved back, a swirl of emotionserupting within her. On one hand, the pride bursting from her father’s face was everything she’d ever wanted. She watched him elbow those standing nearby in the crowd, pointing her out to them. She watched his lips form the words over and over again.
“That’s my daughter! Do you see? That’s my girl!”
Her mother, however, didn’t look so well. She was gaunt, like a woman who had not eaten in weeks. She looked like she’d been deprived of the very thing that gave her life.
“Mamet,” Neff whispered, suddenly feeling like a child who wanted nothing more than to fall into her mother’s arms.
