Sita looked away. She felt sorry for Kenna. As the only daughter, she was granted a slice of the queen’s favor, even if Mery had the lion’s share. But their small quiet brother had never felt the warmth of their mother’s light shine on him, not ever. It was no wonder he preferred the shadows of the temple.
Just then, the hustle and bustle of the main hall seemed to slow. Queen Bintanath stopped, and Sita nearly ran into her.
“Well,” the queen said, “You bring up the cat and it comes jumping. Here’s your father now.”
Sita peered around her mother’s shoulder as the king’s palanquin approached. It was one of her father’s everyday palanquins—carried by four servants instead of the standard twelve he used for festival days—but it was still a chair fit for a pharaoh. Bedecked in gold, the sides of the throne were engraved with a parade of supplicants kneeling before Amun, and the armrests were the heads of two rearing cobras. King Amunmose reclined in the throne, his head resting on one fist. He wore a green pleated schenti andgold sandals, and had a leopard-skin pelt tossed over one shoulder. Sita saw that the leopard’s fur was patchy in places, and that the king’s clothes, which once stretched over a thick, well-fed body, now draped loosely over him. A simple gold circlet, embellished with a jeweled serpent’s head, fit over the green-and-gold-striped headdress that hung down either side of his face. His vivid garments were in sharp contrast to his sallow face, which the dark lines of kohl and green eye paint did little to improve.
He looked hollowed out, like a skin without a snake.
The change had happened gradually, and at first, she hadn’t noticed it. No one had. But soon it became more and more apparent, not only to her, but to everyone who laid eyes on him. Her father—who had last season been his portly, gregarious, and famously inappropriate self—was not well.
Despite his attempts to keep the illness a secret, whispers had spread through the palace corridors, growing louder and more numerous with each passing day. It was impossible to ignore his repeated absences from meals and social gatherings, the frequent visits from the physician-priests, or the increasing number of healing amulets strung around the king’s neck.
Just that morning, Sita had overheard her attendants talking quietly as they swept the floors of her bedchamber. “I heard Pharaoh is in the grip of a demon,” the girl had said. “I heard the priests have tried everything, and still, he gets worse and worse.”
Sita dismissed their idle talk. The servants loved nothing more than a good bit of gossip, though such blasphemy would have brought a whip to their backs if anyone besides Sita had overheard it. She saw no reason to report it herself, though. After all, the attendants were simply concerned.
Sita thought perhaps she should be worried too, but then again, she had no reason to doubt the power of the priests. They were the best in the world. Besides, it was ridiculous to thinkthat her father, the god-king of Khetara, would ever allow such a paltry thing as disease—demonic or not—to keep him from the throne.
So, Sita tried to ignore the way he looked, just as she tried to ignore the way he treated her, because that was what a good daughter was supposed to do.
Queen Bintanath leaned close to her husband. “Aren’t you meant to be meeting with the viziers about the grain tax?” She spoke quietly enough to keep the conversation private.
King Amunmose swatted at the half-moon-shaped fan that a servant was waving at him and looked at her with disinterest. “Greetings to you too, wife of mine. As a matter of fact, I just came from that meeting. It was very short. The viziers said, ‘My king, there is not enough grain,’ and I, in my great wisdom, told them—‘Then grow more.’” He glanced at a passing maidservant and winked.
Sita saw the muscles in Queen Bintanath’s jaw twitch. “Now, imi-ib,” the queen said sweetly. It was a term of endearment her mother often used when she was furious. “Far be it from me to contradict your judgment, but I have heard that the situation in Low Khetara grows more dire by the day. And things here in the north are hardly any better. My messengers tell me the village markets in Per-Amun and Menef are struggling, and Bubas follows right behind them. You should have seen the scant supplies I received from my last shipment coming upriver. Skinny cattle, uninspiring produce, and barely a dozen pots of ochre and bottles of oils to go around.”
The king’s eyebrow arched. “You’re telling me some limp lettuce is cause for alarm? My dear, I’m sorry the delicacies and eye makeup you ordered were not to your liking, but I’m not going to start a war over it.”
The queen closed her eyes, as if to summon the necessarystrength to continue. “I am not suggesting you start awar, my king,” she said, with exaggerated patience. “What I fear is that these issues are symptoms of a larger problem, a problem that could grow if left untreated. I am merely suggesting that, perhaps,a bit more consideration might be appropriate? After all, without the word of the pharaoh, the viziers are but legs without a head to lead them.”
“Perhaps,” the king replied, mimicking Queen Bintanath’s tone, “your ears should choose what they consume more carefully.” There was an edge to his voice. “The viziers are frightened of their own shadows. Low Khetara is under control. It has been so since the beginning of my reign, and it shall remain so until the end.” He spoke the last word with finality.
Then his expression softened, and he smiled. “Really, Binta, on the night of the Bast, this is your concern? Today is a day of worship! Of celebration!” He nudged one of the litter bearers with an elbow. “And for raising the skirts up! Isn’t that right, Tabu?”
The litter bearer smirked. “Yes, Pharaoh.”
“You see?” King Amunmose said heartily, slapping the man on the back. “Even Tabu knows what’s really important in life.And it’snotthe viziers and their cursed grain tax.”
Queen Bintanath closed her eyes, her lips pressed into a thin line. “As you say, my king.”
Her father’s gaze flicked to Sita. “I bet you’re looking forward to the day you’ll go to the festival. Isn’t that right, Sitamun?”
Sita blinked. “But I am attending the festival tonight, Father,” she said. “It will be my first time.”
The king stared back at her strangely, as if seeing her anew. “No,” he balked. “Is it possible so much time has passed already?” The words were nostalgic in meaning, but the tone behind them held something akin to dread. Sita had the feeling that her father wasn’t really thinking of Sita’s growth, but of the passage of his own life.
The king had never paid much attention to his children. He was usually too busy seeking out life’s various pleasures—food, drink, sport, women. Queen Bintanath was his Great Wife, it was true, but the palace was teeming with lesser wives, concubines, and the issues that came from his coupling with them all. He clearly enjoyed the women’s company, but dealing with their complaints was a task the king felt was better left to other people. So although Sita had the honor of being the single most important woman in the palace—the woman with the purest royal blood—even she rarely attracted her father’s interest.
“Yes, my brothers and I turned seventeen during Peret,” Sita said, before adding, “I pray that tonight I may honor the goddess and earn her favor.” She could at least put on the appearance of a proper daughter, even if her mind was busy with her own life’s pleasures—particularly those found in the garden.
The king eyes grew soft as he gazed into the past. “Ah, yes,” he mused. “I remember well the night you three were born. ‘And the storm turned the dry land into a sea, and the priests and nurse went through the flood on foot, and when they arrived at thepalace, they rejoiced in what they found there: not one child, but three, delivered to the kingdom from the hands of the gods.’”
Sita smiled at the familiar words of their birth story. Ever since she was a little girl, Nebet had regaled her with the tale of that night, when Khetara was struck by a storm unlike any other before or since. They’d come into the world at the beginning of her father’s reign, and the story had taken on a legendary quality—many believing the three dancers who’d helped their laboring mother were goddesses themselves. The whole kingdom fell in love with the triplets and their seemingly divine birth, which in turn, helped her father’s credibility considerably.
He’d needed it too. The previous king, the Great Sematawy, had united the Two Lands and died in battle—a hero with no living heirs. Her father had been Sematawy’s chief vizier, and although it made sense for him to take the throne, he had no royal blood. To follow a legend, Amunmose had needed a legend of his own.
The triplets gave him one.
