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Prologue

Paws

The cat’s belly was heavy with the night’s kill. She padded across the palace’s polished floor, wet paw prints shining in her wake. Her tail flicked irritably. She’d been hunting in the garden when the storm hit, sudden and fierce, catching her just as she’d pounced on her prey. True, the mouse had satisfied her appetite, but her fur was soaked. Aside from falling into the river or having her tail pulled by one of the toddling palace nunus, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

Outside, the storm continued to batter the palace walls, the sound not unlike the shhh of the khamasin wind blowing through papyrus reeds. For the third time, the cat stopped to shake herself from nose to tail, annoyed to be subjected to such discomfort. Damp air flowed through the corridor, and the torchlight danced. It illuminated scenes pictured on the walls, giving the impression that the kings painted there moved of their own volition—hunting and worshipping in colors bright with yellow ochre, umber, and malachite.

The cat remembered several of the painted pharaohs—the scowling one with the big ears, who’d had a voice like a guinea fowl; the one crowned as a boy, who’d never lived to become a man. She’d known them both, flattening her ears against the squawking commands of the former, taking bits of meat under the table from the fingers of the latter.

After that came the previous king, pictured with his weapon arm raised to smite the enemy kneeling at his feet. The palace had been loud and crowded during his reign. Her tail had been trod upon by pounding feet more than once, and everyone was too preoccupied to pay her any heed. But then he, too, was gone.

The new king hadn’t been around for very long, but the cat already liked him better than his predecessor. He’d bent to pet her once, and often left out half-eaten plates of food for others to clean up behind him.

The cat was only too happy to oblige.

Sometimes, she wondered if she’d lived too long. Every time the palace filled with a new king and his servants and family, she stopped to wonder if, in all the excitement, she’d forgotten to die. Then again, no one seemed to have a problem with her continued presence. On the contrary, they treated the cat as if she were a god. The people even threw a special festival every year in her honor. There was music and dancing in the streets, and servants brought great steaming platters of meat for her to sample.

It was really quite nice.

One day, she’d sniffed at the garland of fresh flowers a priest had placed around her neck and thought: Maybe I am a god. After so many years of worship, it was easy to believe it was true.

In the corridor, she paused at her own image on the wall. The cat knew it was her because they’d painted her wearing her favorite gold-beaded collar. In the portrait, she was frozen in the act of catching a bird in the marshes, rearing up on her hind legs, her mouth open to catch and to bite.

It’s a fine likeness , she thought. Noble. Impressive. But are my stripes still so black? My teeth so sharp?

Perhaps time had caught up with her, after all.

The cat sighed. She was wet, cold, and tired. The mice, it seemed, got faster with every passing season. And hadn’t the multiplicity of kings already given her all this place had to offer? What good was it to be a weary god in a tedious world?

Feeling sorry for herself, she continued on her way, off to find a soft place to lick the rain from her body.

She was turning toward the servants’ quarters when a high, primal keening echoed through the corridor. The sound stopped for a moment, as if to breathe, and then began again, the same as before.

The cat’s ears swiveled, listening. She desperately longed for the warm crook of a maidservant’s legs, her preferred resting place for the night. But that sound…it called to her. Finally succumbing to her curious nature, she crept on silent paws toward the fearsome lamentation.

She followed the shrieks to a portal covered with a blousy curtain, firelight leaking through the thin fabric. Within, other voices, hushed with worry, joined the keening cry. The cat slipped through, barely disturbing the curtain as she went.

The heat inside the chamber was oppressive, the air salty with sweat. There was a table, and a low bed painted in gold. In the center of the chamber, a naked woman squatted on two large bricks placed hip’s width apart on the tile floor. Her copper skin glistened. Attendants in white sheath dresses flanked her on either side, mopping her brow as she cried out with that unearthly noise. Her belly hung between her legs, as large and round as the moon.

One of the attendants nodded rhythmically, murmuring, “Make strong her heart, and keep safe the child. Make strong her heart, and keep safe the child…”

The other attendant was silent, her eyes flicking back and forth between her lady and the door. She was a solid girl, her thick, calloused hands supporting the woman’s body with unwavering strength.

As the naked woman’s cry faded to silence, the attendant took a deep breath. “Your vapors have gone cold, my queen,” she said, indicating the dish of water positioned between the birthing bricks. “Shall I fetch you more hot water? Perhaps it will ease your suffering.”

The queen panted, a single bead of sweat clinging to the tip of her nose. “The only thing that will ease my suffering,” she growled, “is the arrival of my nurse. Where is she, Nebet? Where are the priests? It’s an ill omen for a child to be born without the gods’ words in his ears, but I cannot wait much longer.”

Nebet looked desperate. “I don’t know, my queen. This storm is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Even for the growing season. Perhaps the nurse and the others are caught in its grip and have been delayed—”

“Delayed?” the queen moaned as her labor pains intensified. “For the birth of a king? They had better be dead !” Her face twisted in agony, and she began to wail once more. Nebet and the other attendant winced and held the queen’s arms tighter as the pain crested, then ebbed.

Once she could speak again, the queen gasped, “Open the curtain! I cannot breathe!”

“But the storm!” the other attendant protested.

“Curse the storm,” the queen spat. “Open it now!”

“Yes, Queen Bintanath.”

The girl scurried to the window, leaving Nebet to support the queen alone. The attendant threw the window curtain aside, allowing a humid breeze to blow through the chamber. The queen sighed with relief, her body sagging heavily against Nebet, who struggled to hold her weight until the other girl resumed her post.

“Ah… that feels good,” the queen muttered.

Near the bed, the cat raised her pink nose to the air. She smelled something strange. Something beyond the scents of sand and stone, of green things pushing through the black earth. It was a smoky, burning smell, laden with honey and wine, juniper and myrrh. It rode the western wind, its origins unknown.

“Queen Bintanath…” Nebet said warily, after kneeling to peer between the woman’s legs.

“What? What is it?” the queen asked. Her eyelids drooped with exhaustion.

“I’m afraid I can see the baby’s head. There is no more time.”

The queen gritted her teeth. “No,” she said, a note of despair in her voice. “It can’t happen this way. It’s not right… A king needs his blessings—he needs his gods-given name! Where are they, Nebet?”

Nebet turned to look at the door once more, her eyes narrow, beseeching, as if she were manifesting a savior to walk through it by sheer force of will.

Another strong breeze blew into the chamber. It lifted the door curtain, sending it billowing into the corridor beyond. At the same moment, three women entered the room. Two were tall and willowy—one dark, one fair—their hair fashionably dyed deep blue. The third was short and sun-weathered, her mottled skin covered in warts. All three women wore long white gowns, belts of turquoise and lapis, and beaded headdresses over their plaited hair.

Queen Bintanath jerked up her head to look at them, her expression first of relief, then of confusion. “Who are you?” she demanded. “How dare you enter this chamber without my leave!”

“Calm yourself, dear lady,” the short one said, her voice low and graveled. Her right breast hung over the scoop of her gown and swung gently as she approached the queen. “We are here to help.”

The queen’s confusion only deepened. “Help? Did Nurse send you?”

The fair one smiled, her blue lotus–colored eyes crinkling. “We were sent, yes,” she said.

The queen looked from one woman to the other, still suspicious. “You don’t look like nurses…”

“My sister and I are mother to many children,” the dark one added softly. Despite the difference in their eyes—hers were obsidian black—the two women looked quite similar. “And our companion has attended innumerable births. We are but simple dancers, my lady, visiting from afar—but if you trust us, we will help you welcome your children to this world.”

“Children?” the queen asked, puzzled by the plurality.

The short one nodded. “Not one, but three.”

The queen opened her mouth, perhaps to deny this, but what came out instead was a deep moan. “It’s coming again,” she cried, “It’s happening too fast.” The pain drove whatever protest she might have made from her mind. “Yes, help me,” she begged them. “By the gods, help me!”

Without a word, the three women moved with graceful, practiced movements—the fair one before the queen, the dark one behind, like a shadow, and the short one positioned low, her leathery hands reaching between the laboring woman’s legs. Nebet and the other attendant backed away, wide-eyed and awed by the three strange dancers.

As waves of agony crashed over the queen, unrelenting now, the short woman croaked a command:

“Push!”

The queen gripped the fair one’s arms, squeezed her eyes shut, and screamed.

Before and behind her, the sisters held her and swayed, whispering words unknowable.

“Push!”

The queen took a ragged breath and screamed again. Moments later, a small, fleshy bundle dropped into the short woman’s hands and let out a lusty cry. Taking a piece of sharpened flint from her belt, she cut the cord and handed the wet, squalling infant to the dark one.

“A boy,” the dark one said, gazing at the child with those flashing midnight eyes. “Meryamun—He Whose Face Is the Sun.”

The attendants gaped at each other in shock. To not only deliver the new king, but to name him? Everyone knew that honor was reserved for the high priest of Amun. Who were these women to demonstrate such brazen heresy?

But the queen, still in the throes of labor, gave no protest. “The pain, why has it not ceased?” she cried out instead.

The short one reached once more between the queen’s legs. “Because you are not done, my lady. Now, again—push!”

The queen roared and bore down, her toes curling into the bricks beneath her feet. Within moments, another baby was delivered into the short woman’s speckled hands. Cutting the cord, she handed the second child to the fair sister.

“A girl,” the fair one said, smiling as the baby cooed. “Sitamun, She Who Knows All the Names.”

The queen’s body went slack, and she crumpled. The two attendants rushed to her side, grasping her by the shoulders. They made to carry her toward the bed, but the short woman stopped them. “Not yet,” she said huskily. “There is one more.”

Queen Bintanath looked up and shook her head. “The pain is gone now. How can there be another?”

The short one shrugged. “Perhaps this one takes the pain onto himself.” Reluctantly, the queen stepped back onto the birthing bricks and resumed her position. “Please, my lady. Push.”

Still perplexed, Queen Bintanath closed her eyes and tensed.

The short one reached out just as a child, smaller than the first two, fell into her open palms. The infant was silent as she cut the cord.

“Is he all right?” the queen asked, peering down anxiously.

The short one gathered the small child into her own arms, giving him her finger to suckle. He gazed up at her with a tiny serious face. “He is fine. Another healthy boy. Bakenamun, He Whose Heart Is Hidden.”

The queen gave a deep sigh and smiled, contented. Outside, the driving rain washed the world clean and made it quiet with a mother’s hush .

***

When the nurse and priests—dripping and disheveled—came crashing into the chamber a little while later, primed with apologies, they found the queen tucked in bed with a babe nursing at each breast. Meryamun suckled hungrily, while Sitamun reached her tiny hands toward the flickering torchlight as she drank. The third child, Bakenamun, watched from the attendant’s arms, waiting patiently for his turn. Each child wore a necklace of twisted linen, strung with beads of carnelian and gold.

Nebet was busy gathering up the soiled cloth and closing the curtains against the rain, which had slowed to a diaphanous mist. Her eyes were wide and haunted, as if she’d witnessed something holy and inexplicable.

The dancers had vanished into the night.

The long-awaited nurse stood before the bed, penitent, her expression that of a dog expecting to be whipped.

“My queen,” she stammered, “We tried to reach the palace sooner, I swear to you. The temple road was flooded, and I—”

“Those women you sent me, the dancers,” the queen broke in, her voice unusually placid. “They were very good. Strange… but good.”

The nurse, who had sent no such dancers, blinked. Then, without missing a beat, she bowed her head. “I’m pleased you liked them, Queen Bintanath.” Something had diverted the queen’s wrath. It would not do to question it.

“Tell the king to come greet his sons and daughter,” Queen Bintanath commanded. “Surely he will be delighted to find them so numerous. The gods have blessed us today.”

“They certainly have, my queen,” the nurse agreed, and with a parting bow, she hurried through the corridor with the wind at her back.

The cat watched it all with interest, her golden eyes unblinking. She was warm and dry, and enlivened by the activity around her. Perhaps there is more to see here before I die , she thought. Perhaps I shall remain a while longer.

Winding delicately around the birthing blood still pooled on the tiles, she found her way to a pile of discarded linens, pawed it into a satisfactory shape, and began licking herself with a rough pink tongue.