Alta

“But we knew if we made a fuss, we would be watched like vials of saffron, but if we acted happy about it—which we did—we’d be allowed to do anything we pleased. So we acted like children given sticks of honey,” said Marit. Her nose wrinkled with scorn. “Everyone must think we’re brainless, or that we’re frantic to get any husband. Or else that we’re so desperate to get back in the succession that we’d willingly marry the sacred baboons. Nofret made sure of that, by babbling about how honored and thankful she was and hanging all over that repulsive reptile they betrothed her to as if he was a god, and when I figured out what she was doing, I just did the same.”

“Oh, yes.” Nofret smiled cynically. “I was full of questions for the Great Ladies afterward. How quickly could we be married, would we have our places back in the order of precedence, how soon could our husbands be confirmed in the succession, when we were wedded would we get to wear the Lesser Crowns, would we have our own set of ladies and attendants suitable to our station—I think I was being so greedy there at the end that even the Great Ladies were beginning to wonder if this had been a good idea after all.”

Marit tilted her head to one side, knowingly. “Serves them right. There were a lot of honors we could have claimed that we didn’t because Toreth and Kaleth couldn’t be bothered with court functions. I started talking about having a Lesser Court of our own. That made them really nervous.”

“And they should be,” said Heklatis, slipping into the room behind them like a ghost. “I wonder if the Great Ones will ever realize that the moment you wed, their days are numbered?”

No one even jumped. They were all so used to Heklatis coming and going silently that they just nodded at him.

“Perhaps the Ladies will,” Nofret replied. “We certainly did our best to put the idea in their heads with our questions. Hello, Heklatis. We’ve run away.”

“So I gathered. And since there is no hue and cry being raised across the First Canal, I assume you found a way to do so without raising suspicion?” Heklatis said easily, taking a place next to Kiron, and looking around at them all. “Hello, Kiron, did you like my little gift? I left one for Aket-ten, too, just now. Hermia, Goddess of the Hearth. I never much cared for that image; a little too placid and bovine for my taste. You can claim she’s At-thera, your cow goddess; the wet-nurse to the god Haras, if I recall. I’m sure our friend will find that to be a suitably appropriate and pious image for a proper young lady to worship.” He sniggered.

Aket-ten scowled, but didn’t immediately reply, since Nofret was already talking. “We’re officially on religious retreat in the Temple of At-thera, as a matter of fact,” Nofret told them. “And it wasn’t even our idea! Our original plan was to be such a plague that the Great Ladies would send us to father’s country estate, but this was even better.”

Marit chuckled. “After we began asking all those questions, the Great Ladies suddenly recalled that when a new royal clan marries into the succession, the brides must spend a moon in religious retreat and instruction in a temple of their choice before the wedding. Of course, we have never heard of anything of the sort, but we agreed to it with some pouting, and chose the Goddess At-thera because they haven’t got one single priestess of noble blood there. And it’s brilliant, it couldn’t fit any better with our plans; we were supposed to leave all our attendants behind, be escorted by Royal Guards to whom one lady looks like every other lady, and live as the priestesses do.”

“So they won’t know that the Nofret and Marit that left the palace in their rain capes and with their escort are not us,” said Nofret. “All that they will see is a pair of twins.”

“Right, I’ve got that part,” said Kiron. “But where did you find substitutes?”

She sighed heavily. “Do you have any idea how often someone thinks that a clever gift for twins is a pair of twin body slaves? We just looked through our handmaidens until we found the ones we thought stood the best chance of carrying off the deception. We explained the situation to them, and divided our jewels with them—which, after two sets of betrothal gifts in addition to what we already owned, is more than we could carry anyway. They’ll be under guard, of course, which will give us at least a few days and possibly a week or two before they escape and run away.”

Well, that explained the plain linen shifts and horse-hair wigs. Marit wrung out the hem of her shift, and added, “Of course, they won’t be in any danger of being caught, because the Great Ones and the Magi will be looking for Nofret and Marit, not a pair of escaped slaves.”

“And ‘Marit and Nofret’ ordered the two ‘slaves’ here as a gift for Aket-ten, so they won’t even be missing from our entourage at the palace.” Nofret smiled in triumph, and Kiron didn’t blame her; the plan was very, very clever.