Sarai (Jill Eileen Smith) (18 page)

Hagar awoke, missing her soft bed, and prayed to Bastet for an escape from this place. The new foreign wife Sarai had barely allowed her a moment’s peace, pestering her with constant questions of what her father liked and didn’t like, just as her mother would want her to do, only Hagar had chosen to speak truth to Sarai, disdaining her mother’s wishes. Still, she had wearied of her servant’s clothes and the restrictions the role placed on her. She missed the pool in her mother’s apartments and Nitianu’s kind smile.

Ra had yet to brighten the eastern sky as Hagar rose quietly and slipped from the servants’ quarters. She listened for any sound of movement, paused briefly at Sarai’s door, and was met only with the blessed sound of her heavy breathing. Holding her own breath, she moved to the door and stepped into the hall. She would send another servant to attend Sarai today, while she allowed herself one full day to take her rightful place as daughter to the king.

Once out of earshot, she hummed a soft tune, trying to mimic the melody the flute player had used a week ago as she’d dangled her feet in her mother’s pool. Someday, when she had her own set of rooms, she would hire a whole cast of musicians to entertain as she ate and played. She smiled at the thought, but her joy quickly waned at the realization that at sixteen summers, she should have already wed a prince. Surely her mother and the pharaoh would recognize her maturity soon.

She turned at a bend in the hall. Distant groaning—or was it murmuring?—met her ear, and she paused, trying to discern from where the sound came. Somewhere in the apartment of one of the more favored concubines. Was someone hurt? But the sound faded, and Hagar continued through the Hall of Queens, past gardens and pools and twenty-seven apartments before she at last stopped before the carved image of Bastet, the cat goddess of protection, guarding her mother’s rooms. Nabirye, her mother, remained the only one of Pharaoh’s many concubines who had borne him five daughters, including two sets of twins. That feat, amazing though it was, had resulted in a loss of status in Pharaoh’s eyes, since she had not produced sons.

Hagar stared at the glassy eyes of the bronze sculptured cat, wondering not for the first time how an inanimate object could protect them from anything. The goddess had done nothing to protect her from suffering the fate of least favored one, caught between two sets of twin sisters. If only she too had been a twin. If only she had been beautiful like Jamila or outspoken like Kamilah. She could not even measure up to soft-spoken Kakra or mimic Jendayi’s enthusiasm for living. Her only good seemed to come from the information she could gather from her father’s newest harem conquests to satisfy her mother’s jealousies.

Hagar touched the latch and pushed open the ornate door. Cool air greeted her in the entryway, where running water poured through the mouth of an obsidian frog into a small pool. The rich, intoxicating scent of lotus and chamomile blossoms filled her nostrils, but silence met her ear. The normal strains of the single flute that came from the other side of a painted screen weren’t there. Strange. Mother never went a moment without music unless she was ill . . .

She whisked off her confining wig, relieved of the servant’s headdress, as sudden fear taunted her. She hurried into the spacious sitting rooms. No sign of her mother or sisters. She raced down the hall to her own private chambers and stopped short at the sight of Jamila curled on her bed, moaning.

“What are you doing in my room?” Anger surged through her at the invasion of privacy. She had so little to call her own. But as she moved closer, her heart skipped a beat. “What’s wrong?” She touched Jamila’s forehead, then her cheek. “You’re feverish.” Fear turned a knot in her middle. “Why aren’t you in your chamber? Where are the servants? Where’s Mother?”

Jamila shivered and looked at Hagar with glassy eyes. “I’m cold.”

Hagar stared at her, uncertain what to do. She snatched a thin covering from the end of her bed and placed it around Jamila’s shoulders. “I’ll be right back.” She darted back the way she had come, her long legs nearly tripping over themselves in her haste.

There was no sign of life by the pool or in the courtyard beyond. Incense cones still burned before the shrine to Bastet, the one her mother kept near the gardens, but as Hagar moved through the cooking and feasting rooms, she found them eerily quiet.

Alarmed now, she ran down the halls to the sleeping chambers of her sisters. She opened the door without knocking and found Kakra and Kamilah both curled on their sides, moaning. She whirled on her heel and ran to the other side of the apartment to her mother’s receiving chambers. The door stood ajar, and muffled chanted prayers came from the other side of the room. Hagar’s feet were like clay, unwilling to obey her commands.

“Mother?” The word echoed too loud in the quiet room, but no one seemed to notice. A cloying, sour smell turned her stomach while the light from several oil lamps produced a gray smoke in the room. Desperate for fresh air, Hagar forced her feet to move and walked to the shuttered window, throwing it open. Light and cool air filtered in, and Hagar drew in a breath before turning to her mother’s bed.

“Mother?” she said again as she approached a huddled form on the bed. No, not one form but two. Her mother lay with Hagar’s youngest sister, Jendayi, tucked in her arms while trusted servant Nitianu placed a cool cloth on Jendayi’s forehead.

“What’s wrong? Why is everyone sick?” Had someone poisoned her family?

“Hagar? Is that you?” Her mother lifted her head for the slightest moment, then let it fall back among the cushions.

Hagar knelt at the side of the bed and touched Jendayi’s arm. “Yes, Mama, it’s me. What can I do? What has happened?”

“Tell your father—” Nabirye’s face paled, and she jerked up suddenly and retched into a basin on the opposite side of the bed before falling back among the cushions.

Hagar held a hand to her nose, fearing she too would be ill if she stayed. Nitianu turned to clean the basin, but Hagar pointed to another servant to handle the task and motioned for Nitianu to follow.

Outside in the hall once more, Hagar turned to face the motherly servant. “Tell me what happened.” She ran a hand through her short hair and forced her feet to stay still.

“It’s as if someone has poisoned them all at once. They have had no relief since yesterday at midday.”

“The servants are not affected?”

Nitianu shook her head.

“What of the other wives? What of my half sisters?”

Nitianu nodded. “There is talk among the servants that another god greater than our Bastet has placed a curse on the wives and daughters of Pharaoh.”

A chill raced up Hagar’s spine. “I must tell my father.” Though the thought terrified her. She had never approached his presence without a summons. Perhaps she should send a servant . . .

“Are you not stricken as well, my lady?” Nitianu’s arms fell to her sides, and her look held uncertainty. Or was it disapproval?

Hagar’s mind whirled as she tried to comprehend how best to answer the question. Her stomach lurched, but not with illness. Why should she be singled out? Would they think
she
had poisoned the wives and daughters of Pharaoh?

“I have been dressed as a servant, caring for the needs of my father’s newest wife for the past week. Perhaps the gods were fooled.”

Nitianu bobbed her head, and Hagar breathed a relieved sigh as the servant suddenly embraced her. “Of course, of course. The servants—they have been untouched.” She held Hagar at arm’s length. “But do not let the gods know the truth. Do not go back to your rooms or dress as pharaoh’s daughter lest the curse fall on you as well.” She urged Hagar to the entryway. “You must go back to the new wife, my lady. Pretend until the curse is passed.”

Hagar bristled at the thought. She had come home to rest by the pool, to be free of the confines of false servanthood. But her fear drove her forward. If someone had put a curse on her father’s wives and daughters . . .

At the door of her mother’s apartments, Hagar looked at the image of Bastet, then at Nitianu. “Whatever god did this, he is greater than Bastet, for Bastet did not protect my family as she is supposed to do.” She touched the servant’s arm and thanked the unknown god for sparing Nitianu. “Send someone to help Jamila and put an offering out to appease this god, whoever he is. Then send word to Osahar to meet me in the rooms of the new foreign wife. I will give him instructions on what to tell my father.”

“It will be as you say, Mistress Hagar.” Nitianu clung to her hand for the briefest moment. “Take care of yourself.”

Hagar blinked back the sudden sting of tears, then turned and ran back through the Hall of Queens.

14

Sarai walked beneath the columns of an elaborate garden portico, her feet skirting the edges of a circular blue pool. White and blue lotus blossoms floated on the surface, and tall sconces filled the air with perfumed smoke. Palm trees lined one wall, a barrier to hide a brick wall beyond, keeping her from wandering too far from this Hall of Queens. Tears pricked her eyes as she rounded a corner, finding guards posted outside her doors and the halls strangely quiet. Even Hagar had deserted her this day, leaving her with no one to talk to, no one to comfort her.

She lifted a fist to her mouth, quelling the emotion, and headed back to the set of rooms reserved for her. She turned at the sound of running feet to see Hagar rushing toward her. The servant paused at a marble column, gripped it for support, and dragged in air. Fear filled her dark, kohl-rimmed eyes.

Her gaze moved over Sarai as though she had never seen her before. “You are well?”

“Of course I am well. What could possibly happen to me in the short time you were gone?” Though she wondered at her own choice of words. Much had happened to her in the past week, which seemed a lifetime ago.

Hagar fidgeted and nodded. “Perhaps it is a sign.” She followed Sarai into the sitting room and paced, fluffing pillows and straightening cushions as she went. She stopped abruptly. “I will bring you something cool to drink.”

She hurried away as though chased.

“Wait.” Sarai’s thoughts grew anxious, matching Hagar’s mood.

Hagar whirled about, hands clasped in front of her.

“What do you mean, perhaps it is a sign? What sign?” Sarai studied the dark eyes and plain features, wondering why the girl acted so skittish.

“All of the wives and daughters of pharaoh have been afflicted by a sudden illness. That you are spared . . . perhaps the gods do not yet know that you now belong to the king. They do not see everything or everyone, so it is possible . . .” She twisted the sash of her narrow white linen skirt. “If there is nothing else . . .”

“All of the wives and daughters of pharaoh?”
Impossible!

Hagar nodded, then appeared to consider her words. “Almost all—more than should be. It is as though someone poisoned them at once.”

Sarai drew in a tight breath.
Poisoned?
“Are they . . . will they live?” Fear coiled in her middle, mingling with the already overpowering sense of despair. Would she be next? Would she die in this place too, abandoned by both Abram and his God?