“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.”