Ariennu gently pushed Naibe-Ellit into Marai’s waiting arms, as if she were passing him a sleeping child.
His almost boyish smile flashed back at her, so proud that she had spoken for him. So much passion surfaced in that glance that Ari wanted to stay by the well with them forever.
By this time, only the proprietor remained outside. He had successfully urged the rest of the crowd away from the well area. They had drifted back to their tents to lie down for a few moments before the sunlight emerged over the flat land on the road ahead of them. It was doubtful any would sleep but they were being given the chance. Soon, the travelers would have to think about breaking camp and moving on, not what two lovers had been doing in the night.
“It’s alright, Shh...” Marai turned his attention to Naibe-Ellit, cuddling her and whispering into her hair. He had disappeared into joyous oblivion again. In her arms, all of his sensibilities fled. He didn’t care that the entire known world might have watched them.
Ariennu continued her experiment in sending thoughts to the proprietor.
This is a holy thing, holy...You really need to leave...She tried again.
“So...” The wadi man paced back and forth. He knew the three remaining travelers at the well wanted him to stop asking questions so they could try to get some sleep. He knew, he had witnessed so much more than a simple noisy tryst and wanted an explanation. The little man bent closer to check Naibe’s expression, but found himself gasping and drawing back, hand in front of his face when he made brief eye-contact with her...“Oh...Forgive me...I didn’t know...” he suddenly tensed, as if slapped, and backed away.
“It’s alright...I bless you...I bless you...” The young woman in Marai’s arms sighed, beaming happily, not certain exactly what the man had seen in her face.
Marai sweetly touched his brow to Naibe-Ellit’s. He laughed just enough to let the wadi man know there was nothing on earth he could do or say to move any of them from the place at the well until they were ready to go. The shepherd and his beloved sat with Ariennu for a moment, nuzzling and kissing like truest lovers, oblivious to all else.
A tiny thought entered Marai’s heart. The story of this night would go around the known world for years. Young men would tell the story, implying that they had done the deed with his goddess-woman. Women might explain how they were visited in the night by a god who looked like he was made of copper and silver.
Legends. It’s how they are born! The shepherd smiled again at the wadi host.
Marai knew the man was, in reality, delighted and reverently awed. He felt he had witnessed some kind of magical thing and understood much more than he wanted to know about his guests through Ariennu’s efforts. He just couldn’t put it into words.
Marai shivered in delight at the memory of her passionate torment. He pressed her, feeling her begin to writhe eagerly in his grip.
He wants us to stop? This? the shepherd was beginning to see the immense hilarity of the situation, and even felt the swellings of self-amazed pride. I think I’d rather not! he thought even more incredulously.
Every man who watched tonight would have gladly cut off his balls and have them preserved in cedar sap, that nothing in the future pollute the memory of such joy, had he been blessed like me!..Many children will be born this year because they saw us, maybe even mine! He buried his face in the young woman’s flowing, still damp hair, suppressing a very loud and mocking “Ha!”
The goddess could bear him skyward now. It was even alright if his life ended tonight. His dreams, after all these years, had come true. His beloved goddess had really, truly liked him.
“I’ve seen many things out here at the edge of the road.” The wadi man shrugged, starting to laugh, still insistent on an explanation.
It struck Ariennu odd that his demeanor shifted for the third time. He had been angry, then reverent. Now he was brotherly and jovial.
What a slippery little fraud! Why is he still talking? she thought as the little man kept addressing Marai.
“But that....thing...? Like the King Dumuzi of legend? Who did you say you two were, anyway?” he shook his head. “Go on then...”
Marai distinctly heard the man think to himself. That was amazing...Fifty times you rocked her if you did it once...and you keeping pace with it too! That’s not normal...
“Anyway...” he was clearing his throat while Ariennu, having heard the same thing in her own thoughts was straining not to burst. “You’d better get some rest, if you’re going to look sharp at gates...You should find the river by evening.” The owner beckoned Marai and Ariennu to gather the things they brought. Then he gestured to Marai and Naibe-Ellit, with his hands in the pose of an open bowl, Bless me with another child too...a good and healthy one not likely to waste away!. He bowed when Marai tipped and instinctive salute as he walked backward a few steps.
The shepherd struggled to his feet with a sigh, lifting Naibe high into his arms and annointing her face with more sweet kisses.
So he thinks we can bless him with good luck…he grinned into her calm, and lovely face as it stared up into his own. That’s faith you are my goddess…The shepherd thought, then reflected I’m the lucky one, though… All the songs...all my dreams tonight...all...he shook his head, carrying Naibe.
Ariennu quietly tagged along behind them, but went to the women’s side of the tent, knowing the evening was only partway over and that sleep was the furthest thing from either of their thoughts.
Inside the tent, Marai lay her gently on his woven straw-filled pallet, but, in the same moment, she drew his head down and hungrily tongued his throat.
“Oh sweet Lady of Heaven inside me Marai, what have you done to me?!” She gasped, exhausted but eager and brimming with more passion.
“My honey-man, my honey-man sweetens me always.
My lord, the honey-man of the gods,
He is the one my womb loves best.”
Naibe-Ellit smiled up at him, giggling a little. “I think that’s how it goes...I remember it so long ago, beloved, ..and I waited...”
My beloved, the delight of my eyes, met me
We rejoiced together
He took his pleasure of me
He brought me into his house
He laid me down on the fragrant honey-bed.
My sweet love, lying by my heart,
Tongue-playing, one by one,
My fair Dumuzi did so fifty times.
Now, my sweet love is sated.
Marai felt a grin spreading all over his body but he also felt an unmistakable, aching need resurfacing. He sagged to her, clawing her hastily thrown on clothing away, kissing her mouth and working his way down her belly to lift her eager mound to his mouth.
At that moment, however, the shepherd sensed a flash of light. It might have been distant heat lightning rippling in the sky, but at that moment he didn’t care if the world caught fire and burned itself to a cinder along with both of them. Even the dreadful high-pitched, shrieks of agony seemed to be in another part of the universe from he and the woman of unearthly beauty in his arms. He sat on his heels and lovingly hoisted his new found goddess so that her thighs could flank his waist and she could lean back effortlessly into his arms to enjoy his caress.
They shared love again like those who would never know sunrise.
Fifty? The s shepherd laughed to himself Only that many? No fifty times fifty...Or how about this is all I do for the rest of time...forget Ineb-Hedj...
“Lady...I need you so much...” he whispered again and again into her breathless joy.
Outside, the gibbering screams of panic grew louder.
Sounds of footsteps on the packed earth of the way station were peppered by Ariennu’s cursing:
“Damn this, I hate this! The cursed fool...He needs to suffer!”
Marai stilled Naibe-Ellit, who was senseless with pleasure. Gently pulling her up into his arms, he looked to the dividing drape between the two rooms in the tent. A hand parted the two sides and Ariennu’s hea
d poked in.
“Marai...” Her face and eyes strained backward in the direction of the approaching commotion. Her gesturing hands told him what he had begun to sense.
The crowd of travelers, this time with angrier voices, were growing closer.
“I’m going to have to start killing some of them this time if...” The elder woman’s voice sucked in breathlessly. “It’s that boy that came in with the ones a week ago.” She stepped inside Marai’s area. “I knew he was going to try this as soon as he got the chance. Now he’s really done it!” she hung her head, waiting for the shepherd to speak.
Naibe-Ellit began to whimper like a disappointed child until she felt, through Ariennu’s thoughts, that they had been most monstrously robbed. When Marai’s head whipped around to the place on the floor where the elder woman was pointing, he saw that the basket where the satchel of stones were hidden lay empty. The leather purse containing the Children of Stone was nowhere in sight.
“The fool saw you were outside, and grabbed the first shiny thing that wasn’t tied down in here. The Children must have burned him when he opened the bag!” Ariennu’s usually low, often metal-hard voice muttered.
Someone outside the tent called.
“That’s theirs, over there!”
“The Children...” he frowned. The shepherd knew nothing had happened to the shining crystalline pieces housed in the bag. He also doubted they had caused the havoc. That wasn’t the problem.
“The fool’s told everyone that they’re yours and that you cast a curse of hurt on him. “Hear that?” Ariennu fretted. “Bastards on their way...” She turned at the flap of the tent, ready to challenge anyone who came to them herself as she raised it.
“See?”
Marai saw and sensed enough movement outside the tent that he sighed, disgusted at the intrusion.
Naibe lowered her eyes, burying her face in Marai’s chest for just a moment before giving him her silent consent. She felt enough of her own rage rising that she was about to disperse the crowd herself.
Oh do see to them, my sweet... They won’t like my answer. She kissed the tip of his nose, then patted his tensing shoulder. And then you’d better hurry back to me again.
“He shouldn’t have stolen them...” Marai snapped, readying himself to face his accusers. “If he did, then what’s the crowd here for? They know what the boy deserves!”
Ariennu felt the younger woman’s rage starting and knew it would be best for the young woman to stay put for now.
Marai and Ariennu emerged from their black wool tent, silently understanding that the younger woman’s heightened emotions could easily flip into something as cold and dark as anything that ever lived in the storms that scared her.
The Children? Again? The shepherd waited in front of his tent, not wanting to accept the reality of what had just happened He sensed a man he barely recognized as one of the newer members of the travelers headed to Kemet moving forward with a look of regret on his face.
The man gingerly and very warily handed forward the leather sack of “stones” for Marai to take back.
Snatching it from the man’s hands, Marai quickly opened the sack. Nothing was missing.
That would be the boy’s father. The shepherd mused, trying to decide what he should do next. He knows I’m within my rights to punish his son. he thought but even the crime of having the Children scattered and mishandled couldn’t distract him from thoughts of a certain beautiful woman waiting in his tent for his return.
Marai felt the memory of his and Naibe’s radiance coursing through each other like lights, stars and prisms of color that twisted into honeycomb shapes. Each sensation lifted them to other worlds, sating them but transmitting through them such awe that words and even thoughts could not express anything close to the pleasure they felt. He thought the children had told him that they were so weak from working the transformations and from being gripped by that brief onslaught of the unknowable dark that they needed to rest.
Rest? Marai asked himself. Tonight they were suddenly strong enough to give a long-sought gift to him and the woman of all his dreams. Now, they had also punished a thief.
“His hands must be burnt to the bone, I’m sure of it” Ariennu grabbed the shepherd’s arm, the way a chief wife would take her husband’s arm. She whispered to him as the father of the youth waited warily. “They will want to know how it happened...We’ve got to say something...anything...”
Marai felt a cold, disgusted ire beginning to flood his spirit. He didn’t owe this man or anyone else in the encampment an explanation. The Children of Stone owed him one about this ongoing skill of self-defense. The Children’s “interventions” were stunningly unpredictable. If he, the women, and the children were “becoming one in thought and will”, why did they seem to be evolving so independently Hadn’t the children repeatedly implied he would soon learn to know all of their thoughts and anticipate each of their acts? Hadn’t they claimed they were unable to function independently outside the vessel? Wasn’t that the reason he and the women each had a Child Stone fixed in their brows?
As he lay with beautiful Naibe tonight, the boy stole what he presumed were unpolished gems from them. That boy could have carried the Children all around the Great Green Sea and back again before the shepherd ever noticed they were gone. He had only been hurt because he opened the bag to take a peek at his prize.
The shepherd looked into the father’s eyes and saw a man like so many others who had run out of luck and out of options. The boy was enterprising and bright, but knowledge that Marai had “jewels” combined with his own family’s poverty had tempted him too greatly. Now the family would continue into Kemet, but the boy wouldbe useless. With such injuries, he never be able to work. The punishment was no longer just now that the Children of Stone had been returned unharmed.
Marai? Ariennu’s thought broke through his own when she saw his vexed, almost snarling face. Her gaze narrowed as she perceived a gleam of madness start to flicker in his eyes.
Don’t even ask. He heaved a droll sigh, shaking his tousled silver head, Because I don’t know. Just another little surprise, I guess... I suppose I shouldn’t have any regrets. After all... He thought of Naibe and the awesome, godlike beauty of their hours together. The father was standing before them, still waiting for their response. Another pitiful cry of pain from a distant tent reminded him of the boy’s suffering.
“My things are back, and you’re apologizing...” The shepherd began, taking a step forward. More cries, this time weaker, drifted from the small, shabby tent on the other side of the encampment. “We’ll look at him for you.” He sighed, hoping it wouldn’t take too long. Ari silently gripped Marai’s arm. Taking a deep breath he and the elder woman made their way behind the man to the tent where the boy suffered.
Naibe-Ellit lay back on Marai’s pallet, stretching out and sighing. She giggled to herself that it was going to be quite impossible for either of them to break camp when the sun rose in an hour or two. Maybe she and Marai could get Ariennu and Deka to do their part just this once, while they rested in the shade of one of those squat palms by the water.
But, she sighed, now this with that miserable boy! Marai is such a kindly soul. Even though the boy deserves to lose his life, instead of just the use of his hands! She knew the shepherd would try to help him, perhaps even try to get the Children to reverse the wounds. Whatever he did, Naibe hoped her beloved could hurry back to her soon.
The wool cloth partition between the two rooms in the tent rustled a little. Deka stepped, almost delicately, into Marai’s side of the tent, moving stealthily toward the young woman, who lay resting and enraptured. She was bringing a wash pan, a jar of fresh water, and a linen cloth. Gesturing for Naibe to perhaps freshen up a little before sleep, she darted quickly to the women’s side, once more, for a smaller jar of vinegar, and a bottle of scented oil.
Naibe knew she should clean up then try to get some sleep. That was rational. Instead, she lay wide awake,
thinking about Marai. Every part of her body throbbed with desire. Reluctantly, since washing up meant a kind of closure to the evening, she sat and stretched again.
Deka silently poured the water into the shallower crockware basin for her.
As Naibe-Ellit bathed, Deka silently combed and twisted the young woman’s hair for daytime travel. Every place Naibe washed with the soft, wet cloth and anointed with scent, renewed the memory of Marai’s touch. She imagined, for a moment, that he was the one washing her with his tongue and lips. That thought became kindle that made her need of him explode into raging flame. She felt the misted wetness of their mouths, and tongues; the closeness of their breath together. Her entire body trembled, aching in pleasant, engulfing memory.
Deka noticed Naibe shivering and pulled a folded wool coverlet from Marai’s clothes basket. Thinking the pan bath had chilled the young woman, she gently arranged it over Naibe’s shoulders,
“Cold?” She asked, sitting closer behind the younger woman. She put her arm over Naibe’s back.
“This has never...” Naibe laughed, leaning affectionately against the woman beside her. She halted for a few moments, staring around the tent in a kind of disbelief. “I feel so...odd...” She fell back flat on Marai’s pallet again, still awash with passion and clawing at his bedding to stir up more of his scent.
“Mmmm...” she hummed amorously. His scent was sweet and different...milder,yet more intense in some ways. It resembled an almost rude, animal scent. At the same time, it was more like a simple spice, musk and sweat, than the scent of an ordinary man.
None of this was supposed to have happened! she smiled inwardly again. She had been lying awake earlier in the evening, thinking of making her move on the big man, fully expecting to be turned down. Ariennu, the most aggressive of the three of them was always politely rejected so the younger woman expected it too. Naibe had noticed how clear the sky was with the goddess star and the sliver of the moon blazing above. Because of that, she felt lucky.
It had been too easy to wake him and to lure him out to the semi-protected area by the well. They talked! Throughout this entire journey, Marai had always talked to Ariennu. Those two had always joked, acting more like brother and sister than a woman in pursuit of a man. Tonight he had tried to resist Naibe’s charms by showing her how his heart had broken so long ago. That had been his downfall.
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