Sita blushed at the wordpleasure, as if Nebet had somehow seen the images of Femi floating through her mind. “But Bast is the goddess of pleasure,” she replied, recalling the lithe cat-headed woman she’d seen on scrolls and palace walls. “The more we celebrate, the more we honor her, isn’t that right?”
“It is,” Nebet agreed. “She sees our music, our dancing, and our celebrations as a testament to life, and she rewards us with her protection. But has your tutor not taught you Bast’s other name?”
Sita’s brow furrowed. Nebet was a very devout woman. Sita’s bedtime stories, in addition to the one about her birth, had always been about the gods and their adventures, and Nebet never once forgot to make her daily offerings. So Sita wasn’t surprised by the question, but she was a little embarrassed that she didn’t know the answer.
“I guess he hasn’t,” she admitted.
Nebet sucked her teeth. “We insult Bast with this harmless vision of her power. Imagine, a cat with no claws! You cannot shine a light on one side of something without casting darkness on the other.”
Sita was taken aback by the sudden the passion in the woman’s voice. Nebet was usually so soft-spoken, so tender. “What do you mean? What is Bast’s other name?”
Nebet stopped her braiding and glanced up, meeting Sita’s eyes in the mirror. “She is the Lady of slaughter. Defender of the innocent, avenger of the wronged.”
Sita swallowed.
“It is she who protects a home from evil spirits,” Nebet went on, pulling the brush through Sita’s hair a little too roughly. “Spirits like the one that sickens your father. You would do well,my girl, as you dance and drink tonight, to pray to the goddess to deliver him from that demon, before… before…”
“Before what?”
Nebet was silent for several moments. Her face had gone pale.
“I apologize, Princess,” she said, laying a hand on Sita’s shoulder. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ve been overcome by this terrible feeling lately… this dread. But it’s no excuse. I’ve overstepped my bounds. If you want to dismiss me, I’d understand.”
“No, no, it’s all right,” Sita quickly replied, putting her hand over Nebet’s. She didn’t like the deference in her attendant’s voice. “You’re only trying to help. I would never send you away, not for anything. I promise to do my best to honor the goddess, for Father’s sake.”
“And for yours,” Nebet added quietly. “It’s you I care about the most.”
Just then, the other attendants returned. “Your dress, Princess Sitamun,” one of them said.
Sita stood, wearing nothing except the Isis knot and scarab amulets, while the girls draped a sheath of gossamer white linen over her head. The fabric was so thin that the shadow of her naked body was still visible beneath it. Over that, the girls slipped an elaborate bead-net dress that reached all the way to her ankles, made up of thousands of red, blue, and black ceramic beads arranged in a diamond pattern. Next, they latched a wide beaded collar, featuring a golden scarab, around her neck—along with a golden cuff for each wrist. While one of the girls fitted two golden hoops into her ears, the other painted her eyes with kohl and her lips and cheeks with red ochre.
Nebet stood back from the flurry of activity, her arms crossed over her chest, only stepping in to adjust a plait here, a fold there.
“You’re sure this is what you want to wear tonight, Sitamun?” Nebet asked. “It is lovely, but a bit…”
“I’m seventeen now, Nebet,” Sita replied, tilting up her chin. “I shall dress as the woman I am.”
“As you wish,” Nebet replied softly.
She was touching Sita’s temples and the hollow of her throat with rose petal oil when the blade of a shadow sliced across the floor from the direction of the corridor.
Sita turned to see a man leaning against the doorway, the blaze of the setting sun at his back. He wore a white knee-length schenti, belted with an ornamental pendant that hung between his legs. The finely crafted pendant was made from the same obsidian and ostrich-shell beads that decorated his collar, which he wore over a sheer, loose-fitting blouse that revealed his bare chest underneath. His hair, like Sita’s own, was thick and black, and fell to his shoulders in shining waves. He regarded her with eyes not unlike the ones she’d been staring at in the mirror a moment before. Eyes full of fire and mischief, just as they had been since they were both babes in arms.
“Greetings, sister,” Meryamun said, his voice honey smooth and honey sweet. “Are you ready to go?”
Sita stood, her golden plaits tinkling like bells. Her attendants moved away, their heads bowed. Sita stole a look back at Nebet. The older woman returned it with a small smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“The goddess awaits us,” the prince said.
Sita grinned, her excitement overtaking her annoyance at having a guardian, and the wary feeling that clung to her since the strange encounter with her father. Was she ready to leap into the night? Into whatever wild and delicious wonders the festival might bring? Was she ready to drink this life until it ran over her lips and down her throat and spread like fire across her skin? Was she ready to abandon herself? To forget her manners, to fall into the arms of a lover, to scream into the sky, to dance until dawn?
“Yes!” she exclaimed.
“Well then…” Mery crooked his arm toward her.
Sita stepped into her golden sandals and out the door.
2
