THE GOD'S WIFE (15 page)

“Deena, come here, please,” She looked over at her friend, who sat and embroidered a piece of cloth in the style of her homeland. Deena shoved the handiwork aside and rushed to Neferet’s side.

“Can you do my hair in a simple style? No wig?”

Deena nodded. This she understood well, for it seemed that hairstyling and design earned plaudits in the land of the Hittites. She herself had worn tightly curled styles that Neferet complimented, which caused Deena to turn a flattering shade of scarlet.

Deena grabbed a box of hairpins and began twisting and braiding Neferet’s natural hair into a style that became more complicated with each pass. The foreign princess performed this task with almost blinding speed, as she had done it on her own hair a thousand times. A priest’s servant came in to inquire about Neferet’s progress only once. By the time they sent him away, Deena had finished.

Neferet picked up a single diadem and placed it atop her head. The effect glowed about her head, simple and stunning. Deena brushed gold dust over Neferet’s face, hands, and feet. Now glorified, the God’s Wife reached over and gave Deena a quick kiss on the cheek.

“You’re a genius,” she said. Deena didn’t comprehend and turned a deep red again. “Thank you,” Neferet said, touching her hand to her heart. She grabbed her scepter and swept out the door.

#

The post-Heb Sed meal ranked a cut above the most. Not only did the cuisine taste finer than that at the announcement meal, and the anise and coriander filled the hall with ambrosial scents, but this time, the palace brought in dancers for the diners’ amusement. Neferet, who had been trained in dance at the harem, always was eager to watch masters of the art.

The young women spun about in the center of the room, nearly naked, wearing only jeweled belts about their waists. They undulated in and out of backbends and erotic stretches. Their education had been much more weighted in acrobatics than Neferet’s, and she watched in wonder as they flipped through the air or created human towers and pyramids. Their terpsichorean twirlings displayed great grace and smooth transitions, and the dances always followed the sinuous tones of the string and pipe musicians.

Neferet found herself drifting into a daydream in which she slipped gracefully into a backbend and saw Amun smile. As she moved, she imagined that the tiny sacred chamber opened up to become a vast auditorium filled with people, and Neferet danced a public performance. She thought she heard applause all around her and became disoriented. She bowed low to the audience and when she stood up she stared straight into the eyes of the Other. This time, the woman, her double, did not fade away. Instead, she took full form and began to speak:

Your gift is precious. You perform, and people are enthralled. Feel the power of giving joy. You are filled with grace and truth.
Neferet tried to answer her, but her lips refused to move.
Believe in yourself.
Then, the twin came closer to her, melding with her own skin. The two were joined as one. Neferet felt self-confidence course through her veins.

As quickly as it came upon her, the scene fell apart. The Other retreated, the scene dissipated, and Neferet shook her head and found herself back at the dinner, seated with the royal family as the dancers continued their show. Her heart beat faster than normal.
She spoke to me. She’s real.
She couldn’t believe what happened, but no one around her seemed alarmed. She returned her attention to the show and focused with a new interest in the intricacies of the art.
They, too, have the power to give joy.

Heart still racing, she watched with a trained eye. At one point, Neferet was so delighted with a gravity-defying move, in which a male dancer pulled a female in wide circles through the air, that she dropped her guard and began to cheer. Not monitoring her reactions, she found herself staring right into the eyes of Meryt, who smiled as if she had just plunged a knife in someone’s throat. Neferet flinched from the malevolent look and tried to sort out its meaning. Her mother had ignored her since the day Neferet defied her in the palace, and now suddenly, she smiled like a cobra. Neferet scalp and neck tingled.

The joy of the performance lay in shatters. She drank sweet wine and ate the persimmon left on her plate, while she watched with half an eye. She gazed around to see if Meryt still wore that ghoulish look, but her mother’s attention had moved on.

Neferet looked out into the crowd and caught the stare of a plump man dressed in foreign garb and sporting a prodigious beard. He looked over at Neferet and made a questioning face. Was he trying to get her attention? She looked closer, and he turned away. This dinner became odder by the minute.

When the dancers took their bows, a figure appeared in front of her, and Neferet looked up to see Kamose.

“I have much to tell you,” he said, speaking low. His face gleamed, and he radiated secrets he wished to share. “My informants have been busy. Zayem hasn’t shown up.” He had a smoky look in his eyes. She could sense how much he wanted her, and her inner body leapt to attention.

“It’s too dangerous, Kamose. Meryt is onto something.”

“With all these people around, all the dignitaries and emissaries … I think we can risk it.” He grabbed her hand and gave a gentle squeeze. “Be at the palace tonight. I’ll wait for you.”

In spite of her fears, Neferet felt the longing surge inside of her, and she nodded her assent. When he moved away, she wondered if her agreement had been wise.

When the meal had ended and all the speeches were declaimed, Neferet grabbed her ceremonial staff and set off for the far door, the one not crowded by ambassadors and royal guests. Peering in all directions to make sure the royal guards were posted along the road, she made sure she felt safe before she took off. She still hummed the tune from the dance and skipped a bit as she tried to mimic some of the dancers’ movements.

She pressed her way out onto the street, feeling free, but soon, she found herself shoulder to shoulder with the strange foreign man from the dinner, dressed in a heavy blue robe with a gilt sash. She didn’t recognize the country he represented and stopped in her tracks.

“Is it true,” the man began in a guttural approximation of her language, “that women of your station may walk alone at night? Is there no need for a royal escort?” The man, dark-complected, short and fleshy mumbled through his overgrown black beard.

Neferet wondered at this effrontery. How dare he approach the God’s Wife this way? No citizen of Kemet would have tried it. She lifted her face high before replying.

“You know little of our customs, sir.” She began to move on. Her curt answer only set him to chatting again. Although she was about to pass him by, he stepped right into her path, making himself unavoidable.

“It would seem someone of your status would fear being alone in the night when reckless youths could kidnap you. The Pharaoh would pay many gold debens to have you returned if someone were to spirit you away. Don’t think people haven’t talked about it. A woman needs to be careful. In my country —”

“Wherever that is,” Neferet interrupted. “It sounds like your women are nothing but slaves.” She punctuated her words by stomping on the ground with her scepter.

“No, not slaves, but well protected, like the treasures that they are,” the man said, his voice agitated. She must have offended him, but she didn’t care a whit. She tried again to dodge him, but he was faster than he looked.

“We women in Kemet are the freest women in the world,” she said with a self-satisfied bob of the head. “And I, as God’s Wife of Amun, have no enemies. No one would dare to upset the god by assaulting me. No, sir, whoever you are, I am quite unafraid.” She tried not to think back to the Zayem’s attack in the Holy of Holies, which made her words ring hollow.

The man stopped to bow low and introduced himself as a delegate from the land of Kush, a country far to the south. All she knew of it was that elephants lived there and it blazed fiercely hot. It must be a barbarous land, she thought.

“We know of your role as God’s Wife,” he added. “We have nothing like it in our society, but it intrigues me.” He walked even closer to her, smelling strongly of treacle-sweet incense, and whispered in a wheezy voice.

“It is said that many men will want to make liaisons with you …”

Neferet had just about enough of his insolence and stood still in her tracks.

“What of it?”

“Well, a man who forms a match with you is joined to the royal blood, am I not correct?”

Neferet just stared with black hatred pouring from her eyes. The cheek of this man!

“So, I would watch the corners and the dark alleys, and I’d think twice about with whom I associate, if I were you,” he continued. “Many fights may break out over your hand. And someone may try to take you by force.”

“Are you threatening me?” She let out a tight laugh that sounded a bit her mother’s laugh, clipped and derisive. Neferet astonished herself to hear it emanate from her own throat. “Anyway, what difference does my marriage make when I am the final one to choose my mate?”

“Are you?” The man said with a hint of a leer. “We watched you speak to the prince Kamose, and bets were laid as to whether he will win the battle.”

“What battle?” she said, irritation now turning her face hot. She couldn’t believe people in the crowd were watching her conversation with Kamose. Were people studying everything she did? “And what do you know or care of the Prince Kamose?”

The man bowed again, as if to negate the ill will that streamed his way from Neferet.

“Much is known by many. We all wait to see if Kamose or the half-prince Zayem proves fittest in skill and political maneuvering.”

“Zayem? How do you know him?”

“Oh, I only know of him. I saw him not more than an hour ago. And I heard him say he would have you any way he can. But my bet is on Kamose.”

The man coughed, nodded a farewell and slipped off on the road to the right, near the dignitary’s lodgings. Neferet, noticing the gloom in the path ahead for the first time, stomped in anger. She continued forward, determined to find a messenger. The stranger had worked her suspicions into a frenzy. The spies must be working overtime, watching her every move. A trip to the palace was impossible, so she knew she wouldn’t be seeing Kamose tonight. Imaginary eyes followed her along the trail, but she lowered her head and barreled all the way home.

“What is this thing we’re going to do again?” Rebecca asked Jonas as they eased themselves into a lecture hall at DePaul University. People crowded the room and took nearly every available seat. She and Jonas ended up in front, in the area where no one ever wants to sit.

“A talk about physics. This one is about the concept of alternate universes.” His employer required Jonas to keep up with scientific studies and theories. This particular lecture looked like the only one that sounded vaguely interesting to Rebecca. At first, it had a science fiction feel to her ears, but then she started thinking of her blackouts. Another world other than the one she knew? A better one perhaps? The idea made her imagination spin elaborate webs.

“Oh, yeah. Right,” she said, remembering how she agreed to go to this event with eagerness at first. She fidgeted in the seat to make herself comfortable, wondering how long she would have to perch there.

The speaker strode onstage with calm self-assurance. He had a youthful face, appearing almost like a student. A shock of blond hair fell across his forehead when he leaned over to read his notes, and he hadn’t a shadow of a wrinkle.

“He’s cute,” Rebecca whispered to Jonas. He responded by giving her a fake punch on the thigh. “I thought he’d be wearing a pocket protector,” she added. Jonas gave her an eye roll.

Professor Phillips specialized in string theory, and he discussed at length an arrangement of quarks and quanta that began lulling Rebecca to sleep. Then he uttered something that jolted her eyes open.

“So, the mathematics simply don’t work unless we factor in the existence of ten alternate dimensions.” Phillips scribbled a complex set of equations on the blackboard behind him, and Rebecca had no idea of what it all meant.

The words “alternate dimensions” contained power, however, and she started listening in earnest.

“Stephen Hawking suggests there are more than ten dimensions — in fact, unlimited alternate universes,” Phillips said. “Now these theoretical universes could be tiny pockets of quanta that have a different polarity than our known universe. Or they could be full-scale replicas of what we live in now. They could contain a silicon-based life — like a certain ‘Star Trek’ episode so many of us love …”

Chuckles peppered throughout the audience. Even Rebecca had seen that TV episode, so she laughed, too.

“Or it could be a universe that runs parallel to ours, doing exactly what our universe does, only perhaps at a different rate of time. It could be the equivalent of 40,000 BCE there right now, because we know time is an extremely elastic dimension that can’t be measured in absolutes.”

Rebecca leaned forward in her seat, hoping for more, but the speaker veered off on a tangent about how universes could intersect via wormholes in space. He did more calculations on the board behind him.

A universe could be 40,000 years behind us. How about 4,000 years behind us, when Egypt was the most splendid civilization on earth?
She pondered the significance of two worlds in asynchronous time until her head began to ache.

“The theory remains unknowable — one of the great enigmas of science,” Phillips continued, brushing the hair from his blue eyes again. “So, I’m sure some of you will have questions.”

Rebecca’s hand shot up before she realized it. She could feel Jonas staring at her, probably wondering if she’d suddenly picked up quantum theory in her spare time. Phillips pointed at Rebecca. She coughed before asking her question, as if she had trouble forcing out the words.

“Is it possible, if two identical universes are running in, a-, asynchronous time, that there could be a point or maybe several points where beings become aware of each other? Sort of like times when they might collide or bump up against each other?”