Persian Rose (White Lotus Book 2)

by Libbie Hawker

  Rhodopis pushed herself away from the door. Her small bronze ember box was glowing faintly on the table, the carefully packed wood-coal within twinkling through delicate piercework holes. She flipped back the box’s hot lid with deft fingers and touched a dry reed to the coal, then carried the tiny flame to the wick of her oil lamp. The sweet oil caught at once; a rose of light blossomed and unfolded, filling the chamber with cheer.

  By the dancing lamp-flame, Rhodopis worked her fingers into the tight knots that held her Egyptian gown in place. She wrenched at them until they gave way. The linen dropped to the floor, and Rhodopis left it lying where it fell. The chamber servants would tend to it in the morning when they brought her breakfast. She removed her jewels with greater care, laying the necklace and bracelets aside on her dressing table. The carnelian set had been a gift from Amasis—and although she felt no particular affection for the Pharaoh, she was always cognizant of the great honor he’d done her, in raising her up from bondage in Xanthes’ household. Amasis was a complicated, sometimes infuriating man, but he had always been kind and generous to Rhodopis. She thought she could have mustered genuine respect for him, if his frequent lapses in judgment had not confounded and frightened her so.

  Blessedly naked in the warm air, Rhodopis stood for a moment beside the garden window, allowing the gentle, scented breezes to cool the light sheen of sweat from her skin. She drank in the heady scents of night-blooming jasmine and the yellow, star-like flowers the harem women called “moth blossoms,” for they attracted flitting, white-winged insects that danced dizzily in the moonlight. The soft whisper of a breeze among the garden leaves soothed her. The tension she felt around the king’s other women always affected Rhodopis, souring her stomach and setting a hard lump in her throat. She did her best to disguise her discomfiture, though, denying the other girls petty victory. But no matter how she tried to prevent the women’s hostility from clouding her mind, she could never quite escape it.

  Reckon there’s no hope of avoiding it now, she thought morosely. Now that he’s gone and made me favorite. Gods help me; he’s raised me up almost as high as his chief wife!

  Suddenly she was overcome by restlessness, a need to move—to shake off and outpace the pained, tense silence of the feast, of the women’s hall behind her, where she could still feel the disapproval of the wives and concubines weighing her down like a cloak of wet and stinking wool. A walk in the garden—alone, of course—would be just the thing to settle her mind and loosen the knots from her limbs. She found a simple linen tunic in one of her trunks, pulled it on and belted it, then shook down her hair until it tumbled around her shoulders in rose-gold waves. Briefly, Rhodopis considered going back through the quarters to the proper garden door, but almost at once she rejected the idea. She had no desire to show herself in the corridor now—to hear the whispers and hisses as she passed by the other women. The window was plenty wide enough to admit her, and its stone lip was smooth and cool. She vaulted up to it, turned about carefully on her bottom, and paused for a moment, swinging her legs in the pale-blue starlight. Then she dropped down to the flower bed below.

  Rhodopis crouched among the tangled jasmine vines, listening and waiting. The garden was perfectly still, save for the insects and frogs that trilled, endless, high, and monotonous, within its shadowed depths. The bleak mood that had dominated the women’s quarters—a mood that had no doubt been helped along by Rhodopis’ unexpected promotion—seemed to discourage the wives and concubines from venturing out tonight. Perfect peace beckoned, a solitude unspoiled. She struck out into the garden, grateful for the chance to be both alone and uninhibited in her movements. It was a pleasure she hadn’t enjoyed for far too long. The paths lay silvered by starlight, and every sweet flower stood out in sharp relief against the darkness, nodding and luminous on their slender stems. Here and there the pale moths fluttered in clouds, brushing Rhodopis lightly with their powdery wings as she moved among them. The churring of frogs took the shape of music in her head, revealing to her rhythms and melodies she alone could hear. She danced along the garden path, stretching and reaching, turning and bending in time, allowing her fears and anxieties to slide away while she gave into that fleeting moment of joy.

  Rhodopis went wherever the music of her heart directed. She followed the curves of lily beds, cartwheeled beneath trained arches dense with roses, and danced lightly at the edge of the lake, moving forward, then back along the brick retaining wall with deft, sure-footed steps, playing games with her pale reflection in the wind-stirred water. She sprang hand over foot across a lawn of plush grass, delighting in the tickle of the freshly cut, sap-scented blades against her palms and the soles of her bare feet. Rhodopis moved without regard for where she was—for the women’s garden was vast, and anyhow, a high, white-plastered wall circled the palace, its top patrolled by guards both day and night. She had nothing to fear.

  As she was kicking and twirling her way across a small, moonlit courtyard, a rough burst of laughter startled her to stillness. Breath heaving, Rhodopis stared wide-eyed around the dark garden, trying to find the interloper. The voice had been distinctly male, rough-edged and low. But it was not Amasis; Rhodopis knew that at once. There was always a certain gentleness, a deferent hesitation in the Pharaoh’s voice and manner. There had been nothing gentle or soft about the laugh she had heard.

  “Who’s there?” Rhodopis said, turning slowly in a circle. She gazed up at the wall—perhaps it had been a guard, looking down on her—but the wall was too far from where she now stood. There was no chance a guard’s voice would have sounded so disconcertingly near. “Show yourself at once!” Then, blushing, she realized she had been speaking Greek. She repeated the command in Egyptian.

  The tall, blocky shadow of a man stirred, shifting along one of the paths that radiated out from the courtyard. A chill settled in Rhodopis’ stomach. Even before he left the deeper shadows and stepped into honest moonlight, she recognized Psamtik, the king’s son—knew him by his slow, confident gait, by the starlight flashing off his teeth, bared like an animal’s in an arrogant and possessive grin.

  “Quite a dance, little Greek girl,” Psamtik said, amused.

  Rhodopis drew herself up, facing him squarely. He may be the king’s son, but she was the king’s favorite. She had no reason to fear him. “What are you doing in the women’s garden? You aren’t allowed here without guards to accompany you. No one but the Pharaoh is allowed.”

  Psamtik laughed again. “I’m not in the women’s garden. And neither are you.” He gave a short, directional nod.

  Though she didn’t like to turn her back on Psamtik, Rhodopis chanced a quick peek over her shoulder. There, flanking the widest path, stood the two great stone urns that marked the boundary between the women’s private gardens and the Pharaoh’s. She had wandered beyond her place. Wrapped in the ecstasy of dance, she hadn’t noticed the urns as she passed them.

  Rhodopis turned back to the king’s son, lowering her face contritely. Her cheeks flamed. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know. I… I shouldn’t have scolded you.”

  “Don’t be afraid, little Greek girl.” Psamtik chuckled deep in his throat. He slid closer. “I won’t hurt you. But you are charming, aren’t you, when you blush that way? I can see why my father likes you so well.”

  Not knowing how to answer—whether any response at all could be considered either safe or sensible—Rhodopis maintained her silence. But she would not allow Psamtik’s words to beguile her. He may be all smiles and quiet laughter now, but Rhodopis was no fool. Every bitter glare he’d ever cast in her direction repeated in her mind; the predatory glint in his dark eyes flashed at her, bright and cold as light on a sword’s edge.

  “What are you doing out at night, by yourself?” Psamtik asked casually.

  Rhodopis glanced behind once more, trying to work out exactly where she was in the garden, and how long it would take her to return to her chamber.

  Psamtik tried another approach. “You aren’t thinking of
flitting away, are you, when we’ve only just begun to talk? Why don’t you stay and keep me company? I hear you are well versed in the arts of entertaining men.”

  At once, Rhodopis turned her back on the heir and strode toward the twin shadows of the urns—and the women’s realm beyond. But a heartbeat later, Psamtik seized her hard by the upper arm; he spun her about roughly.

  “Don’t touch me,” Rhodopis spat.

  Before she could say more, Psamtik’s huge, hard hand closed painfully around her jaw. He lifted her face, forcing Rhodopis to look up into his eyes—and she stifled a gasp, for she saw the slow fire of an unpleasant promise there, the smoldering embers of cruelty. For the first time since that terrible night when she was caught out in the marketplace, alone and unprotected while the Egyptians and Greeks clashed around her, Rhodopis’ stomach churned with a cold, queasy wave of panic.

  “Smile,” Psamtik said smoothly. “You of all people should know that men like to talk to pretty girls who smile.”

  Rhodopis clenched her jaw. She stared at Psamtik levelly, giving him nothing, praying he would release his grip. Her legs screamed at her to run; her heart pounded with a fear that throbbed in her ears, but she forced herself to watch Psamtik’s face coolly, dispassionately.

  “You are pretty, even if you don’t smile.” He paused, but when Rhodopis remained unmoved, his voice slouched lower, an oily whisper. “What, don’t you like compliments? Kmetu women do. But maybe it’s different for you Greeks.” Suddenly, he shook Rhodopis hard; her neck tensed in resistance, and pain shot down her back and shoulders. She bit back a harsh cry. “But a Greek whore like you… maybe you only like one thing—maybe you only understand one thing.”

  He stepped back, toward the shadows of the garden, dragging Rhodopis along. “Just as well,” Psamtik said. “Perhaps my father’s not the fool I think him, after all. Perhaps he has the right idea. Kmetu women for good and honorable work, but for convenient usage… well, your kind will do.”

  Rhodopis seized his wrist, digging in with her nails, trying to break his grip on her face—but his arm was like the corded heft of a ship’s rope, too taut and cumbersome for her to move.

  He laughed at her struggle. “Of course, you’ve only been with old Amasis since coming here to the palace, haven’t you? Then you don’t know what a real Egyptian man feels like—a true Kmetu, blessed by the gods, not a limp old rag like my father. But you’ll know after tonight… what a real Kmetu man is, how powerful we are.”

  Beyond Psamtik’s thick shoulder, Rhodopis saw something pale and low resolve out of the darkness. The chill in her blood redoubled when she realized he was hauling her toward a stone garden bench. She mustn’t let him force her down on that bench—it would all be over, then. She rolled her eyes desperately toward the wall, pale and impossibly far off in the moonlight. Ought she to scream, and alert the guards? Would they even hear her, at this distance? And if they did… her heart leaped higher in her throat… even if they did hear, would they bother to come to her aid? The Pharaoh’s guards were all Egyptian, too—for prominent families were as eager to send their sons to the king’s service as they were to send their daughters to his harem. How could she expect an Egyptian man, a son of an old, noble, and thoroughly embittered family, to stop Psamtik from doing whatever he pleased? No—Rhodopis understood at once that an Egyptian guard would never lose a moment’s sleep over a Greek girl raped and defiled… even if she was the king’s favorite.

  I’m on my own, and no mistake, she thought frantically. She braced her bare feet against the courtyard stones, trying to resist, and bit back a whimper as Psamtik dragged her ever closer to the bench; the skin of her soles scraped away, stinging and bleeding. Gods preserve me… gods, give me some idea…!

  A memory flashed in her mind, bursting upon her so bright and clear that her head ached with its sudden vividness. She recalled dancing at Xanthes’ party—that first time, when she had still been with Iadmon. The Maiden of the Reeds. She remembered the slap of Iadmon’s hand against her cheek—could feel the sting even now, beneath Psamtik’s brutal grip. She saw the wash of moonlight in Xanthes’ courtyard, Iadmon’s litter vanishing through the vine-wrapped gate. And Archidike, her strange blue eyes intense in the darkness, her low voice murmuring. About knives.

  With a force of will she didn’t know she possessed, Rhodopis released her desperate grip on Psamtik’s arm. She fumbled her hands in her belt of her tunic, just long enough to be convincing. And then…

  Her hand shot toward Psamtik’s body with startling force. Her long, lacquered nail pressed hard into his rib; she bore her weight upon it, twisting. He paused, tensing, and stared at her wide-eyed.

  “I’ve got a knife,” Rhodopis gasped. “Release me, or I’ll spill your blood!”

  Psamtik let go of her jaw; he flinched back, recoiling instinctively. That brief moment was all Rhodopis needed. With a speed and deftness only a dancer could possess, she twisted and spun away from him, throwing herself beyond his reach. Then she pelted back along the path toward the two stone urns.

  “You gods-cursed slit!” Psamtik roared behind her. She could hear his pounding footsteps as he gave chase, could feel each leaping stride reverberating through the earth as he sprinted ever nearer.

  Would he follow her into the women’s garden? Rhodopis had no reason to believe Psamtik would respect the boundary of the urns. She would have to out-maneuver him if she hoped to remain free.

  Two years of dancing had made her body athletic and resilient; she was nimble, too, and as soon as she passed the stone urns, Rhodopis left the garden path and crashed through the flower beds, weaving and dodging around bushes and trees, slipping through narrow gaps between vine-covered trellises, seeking to put every obstacle she could find between herself and the beast who hunted her. Pain shrieked up from her injured soles with every desperate stride, but Rhodopis ignored it. She thought of nothing but Psamtik, lumbering and crashing as he tried to give chase through the thick, tangled beds of the garden.

  The windows of the women’s quarters came into view, glowing ember-red against the darkness. Psamtik’s sounds or pursuit faded, then stopped, and only his coarse, cruel laughter followed Rhodopis through the darkness.

  She didn’t stop running until she broke free of the last flower bed, the one that stood nearest the great door to the women’s wing. There she pulled up short, bracing her hands against her quivering knees, sobbing for breath. Nebetiah, Iset, and Minneferet were lounging on the short grass, enjoying the sweet breezes and the plate of honey cakes that lay between them. They broke off their conversation, staring up at Rhodopis in confusion and surprise.

  Rhodopis looked down at herself, the torn, stained tunic, her legs scratched by the thorns of the garden. Droplets of blood stood out clearly against her pale skin. She limped a few steps, strangling a cry of pain, then halted again and stood mutely before the women.

  “Mother Hathor save us,” Iset said. “What happened to you? You look like you’ve crawled up out of the Duat!”

  Nebetiah clambered to her feet. “We heard the running, but we thought some of the king’s hounds had got out and were chasing each other through the garden. Rhodopis, what’s the matter?”

  Rhodopis opened her mouth, prepared to tell them everything. The next moment, she shut it again decisively. The three women might believe her if she told them what had happened, but she was not confident they would feel any sympathy. She was the favorite, now, after all… surely they would find some opportunity in her misfortune and act upon it. What would Rhodopis do if they spread tales that she had enticed Psamtik in the garden? Easy enough to make me fall from my place, if anyone was to believe such a story. And who wouldn’t believe? I’m nothing but a Greek whore to these women. I don’t belong. They’d be glad to see me done in.

  She shook her head at the three women and limped past them. Nebetiah reached out for her, but Rhodopis flinched away from her hand. She slipped into the women’s hall and made her way painfully do
wn the corridor, heedless of the bloody footprints she left behind. The passage was empty, thank the gods; the rest of the women were still lounging in their baths, or, more likely, had gone off to their beds.

  Rhodopis found the door to her chamber and hid away in that private sanctuary for the second time that night. And for the second time, she leaned against the door from the inside, shuddering and weeping where no one else could see.

  3

  Gossip

  Rhodopis was surprised to find herself waking in a beam of morning light, for she had been certain she would never fall asleep—could never sleep again, for the darkness of her chamber seemed to hide the shape of the leering, laughing Psamtik in every corner and shadow. She had lain awake for hours, clutching the cover-sheet to her chin, straining to hear the crackle of twigs or a heavy footfall over the sound of night insects—any sign that might mean Psamtik was coming through the garden, pursuing her, hunting her. She groaned at the noise of two maids carrying her breakfast tray. Even their subdued chatter and soft laughter hurt her head, which felt as if it were stuffed full of wadded linen. The early light was intense on the window sill; its glare made Rhodopis squint and cringe. She raised a hand up to shield her eyes from the slashing light.

  “My lady,” one of the maids said, dropping the tray onto Rhodopis’ table with an unfortunate crash, “what in Sekhmet’s name has happened? Your feet—!”

  In her sleep, Rhodopis had kicked the sheets askew; now her battered feet lay exposed on the mattress. She tried to hide them again, but the sudden movement made her wince and hiss with pain.

  The maids edged closer to the bed. Both women eyed her bruised, bloody feet as if they were a pair of cobras coiled on the mattress.

  “Mistress Iset, have mercy,” the first said. “You’re hurt, my lady!”