Persian Rose (White Lotus Book 2)

by Libbie Hawker

  The welcoming feast stretched far too late into the night. By the time she and Amtes stumbled back to the vast chamber, Rhodopis felt weak from too much dancing. Her head was light and dizzy from the wine; her cheeks ached from hours of immoderate laughter. Long after moonrise, she had finally managed to convince Cambyses’ wives and concubines that she could stand no more celebration. “The journey was too long,” she said apologetically, turning away another round of sweet cakes and yet another full cup of wine. “If I don’t find my bed soon, I’ll fall down dead from exhaustion.”

  Amtes yawned, rubbing her eyes as she shoved open the heavy door to Rhodopis’ three fine rooms. There they found the lamps burning, the whole lavish place dancing with light. It gleamed on the brightly tiled walls, illuminated the sheen of silk on every cushioned chair and long, stuffed couch. The servants had made quick work of the dowry; everything had been unpacked and put neatly away. Someone—Naramsin, perhaps—had delivered a polished table with a row of tiny drawers along its lower edge. It stood against the wall opposite Rhodopis’ bed, crowned by a great, round electrum mirror. Every pot and vial of Rhodopis’ cosmetics stood in orderly rows across the table’s surface.

  “At least we don’t have to do the work of unpacking,” Amtes said, her jaws cracking with another long yawn. “Nor must we put away all those fine things sent along from Egypt.”

  “We don’t know where anything is, either,” Rhodopis pointed out. “And it’s cold; never would I have thought the desert could be so cold. It wasn’t like this on the journey over, I swear.”

  “Wintertime is coming. The desert is bitterly cold at night in the winter, or so I hear. Oh, these Persians make much of their River Purattu, but it’s nothing like our river back home. The Iteru takes the edge off the cold on winter nights, so it stays warm—more or less—throughout the season. It keeps the valley cooler than it ought to be on summer days, too.” Amtes added with a mocking wink, “That’s how you know the gods of Kmet are the true gods, and love the Kmetu best of all people.”

  Rhodopis wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. “I wish for a hundred of our rivers now, then; I’ll freeze in another minute. Help me find something warm to wear in bed.”

  The two young women searched fruitlessly through closets carved with eagles and she-cattle until at last they found Rhodopis’ warmest robes in a trunk of simple cedar, strapped with bronze. Rhodopis pulled out a plain green smock made of thick wool. She pressed the cloth to her face. A sweet, camphoraceous scent—the wood of the chest—clung to the wool. She breathed it in deeply.

  “Dress quick, Mistress,” Amtes said. “It is cold, and the sooner we’re both in our beds, the happier we’ll be.”

  Once Rhodopis was dressed in the wool smock, Amtes sat her on a little stool before the new cosmetics table. She combed out Rhodopis’ hair, inspecting it carefully. “We must dye your hair again soon. Tomorrow or the day after, assuming those wild girls leave you along long enough, and we can have a bit of privacy.”

  “I’ll see to it that I am left alone,” Rhodopis promised. “If these ladies of the harem won’t leave me to my own devices, I’ll make them believe I’m sick from my monthly flux. That should buy us an hour or two alone, at the very least.” She paused. “But it was a good time, wasn’t it? I’ve never had so much fun at a feast before.”

  Amtes laid the comb aside and squeezed Rhodopis’ shoulder. The two women looked at one another in the mirror’s surface. “You did well today,” Amtes said. “You are young, but now I understand why the chief wife chose you. You’re quick.” Amtes tapped Rhodopis’ chest, just over her heart—the place where all Egyptians believed thought and emotion resided.

  Rhodopis smiled at her handmaid’s reflection. “Thank you.”

  “The servants made a little bed for me in that room—there, to the left of the window. If you need me, come and wake me. Now—into bed with you, or you really will die of exhaustion.”

  Rhodopis climbed into her bed. It was so soft and warm, she groaned aloud with relief; every muscle and bone in her body seemed to melt into the mattress like soft cheese in the sun. Amtes blew out the nearest lamp, then made her way across the chamber, snuffing each lamp as she came to it. The great chamber sank into peaceful darkness.

  Anxiety still gnawed at Rhodopis’ mind—how not, now that she was in the belly of the lion? But the day had been so thoroughly exhausting that sleep claimed her almost at once. The green wool robe and the lavish silk covers draping her bed were warm enough to wrap her in a sense of luxurious comfort; her eyes closed heavily and her breathing deepened the moment her head found a cushion.

  A knock on her chamber door jerked her from the peaceful realms of half-sleep. She stared into the darkness of her chamber, straining every nerve and sense, wondering whether she had truly heard it, or whether it had been the misty beginnings of a dream. But then the knock came again, cracking through the lightless chamber, short and terse—and all too real.

  Rhodopis cowered, pulling her covers up to her chin. She waited for Amtes to rise from her own bed in the far adjoining chamber, but there was no shuffling of blankets, no footstep on the carpeted floor. A moment later, Rhodopis heard her maid’s soft but emphatic snore.

  Blast it all, she thought petulantly. She wanted sleep—more desperately than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. And she had no desire to face whatever grim surprises the Persian night might offer up—whether it was an assassin’s long knife or another cup of wine and a round of dancing from the harem women.

  Again, the rapping sounded… and still Amtes slept on.

  No choice but to face whoever’s out there, Rhodopis thought, her belly going sour with fear. Best get it over with, if I’m ever to sleep… and no matter now whether I sleep in my bed or in my grave.

  She slid from beneath the silk covers, into the cold night air, and groped for a moment near her bed for her sippers. They were nowhere to be found; she abandoned them altogether, padding across the chamber on bare feet. Just enough starlight seeped in through her window to limn the brass handle of her door; it offered a pale glimmer, guiding Rhodopis through the darkness to whatever fate the gods had prepared. She drew a deep breath and twisted the handle before fear could overwhelm her and send her back to cower in her bed. The door creaked open, barely wide enough for Rhodopis to peek out into the corridor.

  Phanes stood before her. In one hand, he carried a small oil lamp, hanging from a short wooden dowel. The lamp was suspended by three slim chains; it swung side to side in the space between Rhodopis and her visitor, causing a patch of orange light to slide across Phanes’ face and retreat again, leaving him in darkness. His visage appeared and disappeared rhythmically, first visible, then not. The effect was otherworldly; when Rhodopis shivered, it had nothing to do with the winter’s cold.

  “Can… can I be of some aid?” Rhodopis asked, faltering.

  “May I come in, my lady?”

  She pushed the door further shut; only one eye peered out at him. “How can you ask such a thing? It is not appropriate! I’m the wife of the king!”

  The swinging lamp slowed. She could read Phanes’ expression for longer, now. There was a certain forbidding stillness to his features, yet his tiny smiled seemed almost wry. “My lady, every person in Babylon knows the king trusts me more than any man in his service. No one will suspect any disloyalty from either of us. And I swear by all the gods—of Egypt and Haxamanishiya—that I have no designs on you.”

  Rhodopis did not open the door one hair’s breadth wider. She prayed frantically that Amtes would wake and come to her aid, but an abrupt snort from the maid’s chamber, followed by the resumed purr of her sleeping, proved that prayer was not to be answered.

  “Very well, then,” Phanes said coolly. “If you will not let me in, then I shall cut right to the matter—out here in the corridor, where anyone may hear my words. Who are you truly? I will know, for if you are a danger to the king, I shall see to it personally that you never approa
ch him again.”

  Rhodopis’ face burned like a forge-fire. All at once she was grateful for the cold air; without the winter night to cool her, she felt she might actually have burst into flames. She pulled the door open wide enough to admit Phanes, grabbed him by one arm, and hauled him quickly inside. Then she closed the door quietly behind him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rhodopis whispered. “I’m Nitetis, of course—daughter of Amasis, king of all Egypt.”

  Phanes tipped his head to one side, fixing Rhodopis with a dry, judgmental stare. Clearly, he was not convinced, but she couldn’t disavow her claim. Any admission that she was not the Pharaoh’s daughter would mean immediate death. The cold of the room receded; a strange warmth of certainty, of ominous acceptance, enfolded her. She hadn’t expected to survive this mad gamble—not truly—but she had never imagined the end would come so soon.

  “You are not Egyptian,” Phanes said. “I can tell by the way you speak. You’re Greek, aren’t you?”

  “Thracian,” Rhodopis said shortly. Again, she cursed Khedeb-Netjer-Bona—but what could she do, other than sling her useless imprecations up toward the gods? There was no hiding the truth from Phanes.

  “Thracian—yes, I can see it now. That hair color—yours by nature, or a dye?”

  Rhodopis lifted her chin defiantly. She would not answer his question.

  “Tell me who you really are,” Phanes said.

  She replied flatly, “I’m the Pharaoh’s daughter.” Her voice was far steadier than her legs; they trembled with fear and sudden weakness, but somehow she remained standing, uncomfortably and absurdly aware of her bare feet, their vulnerability.

  Phanes stared at her a moment longer, hard-faced, searching. She thought he would shout for guards, thought she’d be hauled away to some terrible confinement and questioned—or put to the sword at once, without even a chance to defend herself. But then, in the next heartbeat, Phanes’ stern countenance crumbled. He sighed, shutting his eyes briefly in a manner that almost implied relief. He turned, set the lamp carefully on one of Rhodopis’ tables.

  “Let me tell you,” he said quietly, “how I came to be here in Haxamanishiya. Perhaps my story will give you the courage to tell me the truth. Look at me, Nitetis—or whatever your true name may be. Look, truly look, though I know the light is dim. If I were to shave off this Haxamani beard, and let these made-up curls out of my hair… if I were to dress only in a pleated white kilt, would I not look rather…”

  “Egyptian,” Rhodopis said. Of course. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Phanes had all the features of a native Egyptian—dark skin, broad nose, obsidian-black hair—but they were masked by his Babylonian style. She should have known—should have suspected, when he spoke the Egyptian tongue so flawlessly at their first meeting.

  “I haven’t always been Phanes,” he said. “My mother named me Udjahorresnet. I was born in Halicarnassus, far to the west of here, and across the Great Sea from the Nile Delta, but family was Egyptian. My father was a trader; his outpost in Halicarnassus was a good one, very profitable, but he was Kmetu through and through. He kept the faith of the true Egyptian gods, and raised me to know the Two Lands before ever I set foot there. When I was old enough to be educated, he sent me back to Egypt to live with his cousin; my father wouldn’t see me brought up in the Greek traditions—no, not for all the silver in the world. And so, I went to Memphis as a boy, to learn Kmetu ways. My father hoped I would rejoin him in the north, and take up his trade. Before I reached manhood, though, both my father and my mother fell victim to a terrible plague, and I was left alone in the homeland.

  “But my father had been a man of means, and I received the best schooling his wealth could buy. First I learned the scribe’s arts. Then, when I knew I was an orphan and had no family to return to, I chose to stay on in Memphis for more education. I turned my attention to medicine; I apprenticed myself to the best physician in the city, and from him I learned how to combat all manner of disease—especially the illness that had claimed my parents’ lives.

  “I was dedicated to my art, and developed something of a reputation, even from a young age. When Amasis was newly come to the throne, he heard of my skill and appointed me to serve with the army. Not as a soldier, you understand—I have no skills of that sort, thank the gods—but as a healer and surgeon, caring for the sick and injured on the king’s campaigns. I served for several years in Amasis’ fleet, tending to the health of all the men who manned the Pharaoh’s ships and fought at his command. Dangerous work it was, too.

  “But after a time, the Pharaoh ceased campaigning. There were fewer battles—again, I thank the gods—and less use for a man like me. I though perhaps I would go south to Waset, the old capital, and take up work there as a physician. But Amasis heard tell of my dedication and skill; he brought me to the palace to serve the royal family instead. I welcomed the stability, for I was eager to start a family of my own, and I wished to provide for them as well as my father had provided for me.

  “I soon saw that wish granted.” Phanes smiled, though a veil of sorrow darkened his face. “I fell in love with a young woman from a noble family—Muyet is her name, though I suppose she is young no longer—nor am I. She will always be a young and lovely girl in my mind, though… in my memory. She was beautiful, intelligent, sweet-tempered, with a laugh like music… everything a man could desire. Everything any man could desire, including the king.

  “I’d heard rumors that Amasis had hoped Muyet’s family would dedicate her to his harem. But her parents never made mention of such plans; nor did Muyet express any desire for harem life. We were in love—madly and stupidly in love, for we both should have seen the danger; we both should have been more cautious. Ah, but young love is never cautious, is it? Nor is it wise. We were married as soon as the arrangements could be made. We went together to the Temple of Hathor and swore our love before the goddess. It was the gladdest day I’d ever known.

  “Amasis never mentioned Muyet to me—never rebuked me, nor treated me any differently. I had no reason to suspect the Pharaoh was displeased. Rumors continued to drift about Memphis—indeed, they circulated around the palace, too—the same old tale that Amasis had fallen in love with my wife, and wanted her for his own. I ignored the rumors; Amasis was always pleasant and fair to me. I enjoyed my life, and rejoiced in Muyet. We were happy together; indeed, I thought no man could be happier than I, until Muyet fell pregnant. Then I knew true joy.

  “From early in her pregnancy, it was clear to me that Muyet carried twins. She grew as large as the full moon.” He laughed fondly. “The day our sons were born, the midwives allowed me to help with the delivery. It’s a privilege men don’t often enjoy, but as I was a well-known physician, well…”

  He fell silent, smiling in a gentle, reminiscent way. But Rhodopis could sense the sadness hanging all about him. Drawn by the mystery of his sorrow, she said, “What happened?”

  “Well, my sons were born, of course. I’ve never felt so proud, in all my life. When I held my boys for the first time…” He shook his head, unable to speak on.

  A memory surfaced in Rhodopis’ mind, rising with painful force. She remembered the warm weight of Bolin and Belos, her twin brothers, as they lay in her thin, childish arms for the first time. She swallowed hard, willing away her tears.

  After a moment, Phanes resumed his story. His voice stronger now. “Our sons grew—they thrived like green shoots in the sun. But I soon noticed that Egypt was not thriving. Amasis’ love for Greek culture was like the weeds of the fields, or like a vine wrapping itself round a fig tree—choking and strangling, blotting out the true identity of Kmet. Memphis grew restless—even dangerous, as the Kmetu chafed under Amasis’ rule. I saw that unless the Pharaoh changed his course, soon the tree of Egypt would fruit no longer. It would wither slowly, dying a death by degrees, so incremental it would hardly be noticed by anyone, until it was too late to revive the blighted roots.

  “I was one of Amas
is’ most trusted advisors, and so I turned my hand to a new line of work. I tried to make Amasis see the folly of his ways—gently, you understand. One must always handle a king gently, even a king as pleasant and easy-going as Amasis. But I… I fear I over-stepped. In my desperation to save Egypt from its fate, I became too vocal an opponent of the Pharaoh’s policies. As carefully and conscientiously as I worked, still I was too dogged, and the Pharaoh soon realized I was trying to influence him. Amasis exiled me. Well—that is not exactly true. He did not exile me; he merely re-assigned me, sending me off to serve indefinitely at Shali. Do you know where Shali is?”

  Rhodopis shook her head.

  “It is far to the west of Memphis, over the barren desert of the Red Land. It’s a remote military outpost, a place barely clinging to life around the Siwa oasis. I wouldn’t have minded practicing medicine there, if Amasis hadn’t sent me off without my wife or children.” He paused and turned away, contemplating the flickering flame of his tiny lamp. “Amasis imposed on me a sentence of isolation and loneliness… an exceptionally cruel fate, to cut me off from my wife and children. I was powerless to stop him—what can a mere physician do when the Pharaoh has spoken?—and equally powerless to convince him to allow my family to come with me.

  “I knew then that the rumors had been true all along; Amasis had indeed wanted Muyet for his own, and had never forgiven me for marrying a woman he regarded as his by right. Perhaps he had only been waiting for an excuse, some reason to wreak his vengeance upon me.

  “Perhaps if I’d never meddled in his Greek affairs, I would still be happy with Muyet and our sons… I don’t know. It’s useless to speculate; I know that now. My fate is what it is. I cannot change it.”

  Phanes raised his head; he looked at Rhodopis directly, his eyes burning with sudden fire. So startling was the change in his mood that she nearly stepped back, unsure whether she was frightened or awed by the physician’s transformation.