by Wilbur Smith
Watching from the roof of the western enclosure, Taita saw the river change color and shuddered with a sense of foreboding. It seemed that for a moment the sun darkened in the tall Egyptian sky while the blue waters took on the color of blood. But when he looked up there was no cloud, no passing flock of birds to dull its rays, and when he looked down the waters were once more cerulean blue.
“Now Naja is of the blood royal, and Nefer is stripped of even that protection. I am the only shield he has, and I am one man and old. Will my powers be enough to turn away the cobra from the fledgling falcon? Give me your strength, divine Horus. You have been my buckler and my lance down all the years. Do not forsake me now, mighty god.”
Lord Naja and his two new wives rode back in splendor down the sacred avenue guarded by the ranks of granite lions to the palace gates. There they dismounted and went in procession through the gardens to the banquet hall. Most of the guests had arrived ahead of them, and had been sampling the wine from the vineyards of the temple of Osiris. The commotion as the wedding party entered was deafening. Naja led a new young wife on each hand. The trio processed with dignity through the throng and briefly inspected the heaps of gifts stacked in the center of the banquet hall, which were fitting to such a momentous occasion. Apepi had sent a chariot covered in gold leaf. It was so brilliant that even in the dimly lit hall it was difficult to look at it directly. From Babylon King Sargon had sent a hundred slaves, each bearing a sandalwood chest filled with jewelry, precious stones or golden vessels. They knelt before the Regent and offered their burdens. Naja touched each as a sign of acceptance. Pharaoh Nefer Seti, at the suggestion of Lord Naja, had deeded to his new brother-in-law five expansive estates on the riverbank. The scribes had calculated that all these treasures were worth upward of three lakhs of pure gold. The Regent had become almost as rich as his pharaoh.
When the connubial trio took their seats at the head of the wedding board, the palace cooks laid a feast before them and their guests that consisted of forty different dishes served by a thousand slaves. There were trunks of elephants, tongues of the buffalo and fillets of Nubian mountain goat, the flesh of wild boar and warthog, gazelle and Nubian ibex, of monitor lizard and python, of crocodile and hippopotamus, oxen and sheep. Every type of Nile fish was served, from bar-belled catfish, whose flesh ran with rich yellow fat, to white-fleshed perch and bream. From the northern sea there was tuna, shark, grouper, crayfish and crab, sent up by fast river galley from the delta. The birds of the air, including mute swans, three types of goose, numerous varieties of duck, and lark, bustard, partridge and quail, were roasted, baked or grilled, marinated in wine or wild honey or stuffed with herbs and spices from the Orient. The aromatic smoke from the fires and the smell of cooking was savored by the crowds of beggars and commoners at the palace gates, and by those who lined the far bank of the river, or filled the feluccas in mid-stream all vying for a closer view of the festivities.
To entertain the guests there were musicians and jugglers, acrobats and animal trainers. Maddened by the uproar, one of the huge brown bears broke its chain and escaped. A party of Hyksosian nobles, led by Lord Trok, pursued it through the gardens with drunken shouts and slew the cringing animal on the riverbank.
King Apepi was titillated by the suppleness and athleticism of two of the Assyrian female acrobats: so he picked up one under each arm and carried them, kicking and squealing, from the dance floor into the private quarters of the palace. When he returned he confided to Taita, “One of them, the pretty one with long curls, was a boy. I was so surprised when I discovered what he had between his legs that I almost let him escape.” He roared with laughter. “Luckily I did not, for he was by far the most succulent of the two.”
By nightfall most of the guests were drunk or so stuffed with food that few could stand when Lord Naja and his brides retired. As soon as they were in the private apartments Naja called for the nursemaids to take Merykara to her own quarters. “Treat her gently,” he warned them. “The poor child is asleep on her feet.”
Then he took Heseret by the hand and led her to his own sumptuous apartments, which overlooked the river. The Nile’s dark waters were spangled with the reflection of the golden stars.
As soon as they entered the chamber, Heseret’s handmaidens took her behind the screen of bamboo to remove her wedding dress and jewelry.
Covering the marriage bed was a sheepskin that had been bleached shining white. Lord Naja inspected it carefully, and when he was assured of its perfection he went out on to the terrace and inhaled deeply the cool river air. A slave brought him a bowl of spiced wine, and he sipped appreciatively. It was the first he had allowed himself all evening. Naja knew that one of the most vital secrets of survival was to keep his wits clear in the presence of his enemies. He had watched all the other guests drink themselves into a pitiful state. Even Trok, in whom he placed so much trust and confidence, had succumbed to his animal nature—Naja had last seen him puking copiously into a bowl held for him by a pretty Libyan slave girl. When he had finished, Trok had wiped his mouth on the girl’s skirts, then lifted them over her head, pushed her down on the grassy sward and mounted her from behind. Naja’s fastidious nature had been offended by this display.
He returned to the chamber as two slaves staggered in, bearing between them a cauldron of hot water, in which floated lotus petals. Naja set aside the wine bowl and went to bathe. One of the slaves dried and braided his hair, while the other brought him a clean white robe. He dismissed them and returned to the marriage bed. He lay upon it, stretched out his long, elegant limbs and rested his braided head on the gold-inlaid ivory headrest.
From the far end of the chamber came the rustle of clothing and feminine whispers. Once he recognized Heseret’s giggle and the sound aroused him. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked across at the bamboo screen. The gaps in it were just large enough to afford him tantalizing glimpses of pale smooth skin.
Power and political aspiration were the main reasons for this marriage, but they were not the only ones. Although he was a warrior by trade and an adventurer by disposition, Naja had a voluptuous and sensual nature. For years he had watched Heseret surreptitiously, and his interest had increased at each stage in her journey toward womanhood; from infancy through gawky girlhood, and then that tantalizing period when her breast buds had bloomed and the puppy fat had melted away, to leave her body delicate and graceful. The smell of her had changed too: whenever she was close he had detected the faint sweet musk of womanhood, which enthralled him.
Once when out hawking Naja had come across Heseret and two of her friends collecting lotus blooms to plait into garlands. She had looked up at him as he stood above her on the riverbank, and her wet skirts had clung to her legs so the skin shone through the fine linen. She had brushed the hair off her cheeks with an innocent gesture that was nevertheless intensely erotic. Even though her expression had remained serious and chaste, the slanted eyes had hinted at a sly, lascivious streak in her that had fascinated him. This revelation had lasted only a moment before she had called to her friends and splashed to the bank, then raced away across the grassy field toward the palace. He had watched her long wet legs glinting, the round buttocks oscillating and changing shape beneath the linen skirt, and suddenly his breath had come short and fast.
At the memory his loins stirred and quickened. He longed for her to come out from behind the screen, but perversely he wanted to delay the moment so that he could savor the anticipation to the full. It happened at last. Two of the handmaidens led her out, then slipped away quietly leaving her standing alone in the middle of the floor.
Her nightrobe fell from her throat to her ankles. It was of a rare and precious silk from the eastern lands, creamy in color and so fine that it seemed to float around her like river mist, stirring with every breath she took. There was an oil lamp on a tripod in the corner behind her, and the soft yellow light shone through the silk, highlighting the curves of her hips and shoulders so they shone so
ftly as polished ivory. Her bare feet and her hands were dyed with henna. Her face had been washed clean of makeup so the young blood beneath the flawless skin delicately rouged her cheeks, and her lips trembled as though she were on the point of tears. She hung her head in an appealingly girlish manner and looked up at him from under lowered lashes. Her eyes were green, and his blood thrilled again as he detected that same wicked glint in them that had originally intrigued him.
“Turn round,” he said gently, but his throat was as dry as if he had sucked the juice from a green persimmon. She obeyed him, but with a dream-slow movement, rolling her hips, her belly gleaming softly through the silk. Her buttocks undulated, round and lustrous as ostrich eggs, and the shining tresses of her hair swayed.
“You are beautiful.” His voice caught. Now a hint of a smile lifted the corners of her lips, and she wet them with the tip of a tongue that was as pink as that of a kitten. “I am glad that my lord Regent finds me so.”
He rose from the bed and went to her. He took her hand, which was warm and soft in his. He led her to the bed, and she followed him without hesitation. She knelt upon the white sheepskin and hung her head so that her hair veiled her face. He stood over her and leaned forward until his lips touched it. She exuded the elusive fragrance of a healthy young woman in the first flush of physical arousal. He stroked her hair and she looked up at him through the dark curtain. Then he parted the tresses and cupped her chin with one hand. Slowly, teasing himself, he lifted her face.
“You have eyes like Ikona,” she whispered. Ikona was his tame leopard: the beast had always frightened and fascinated her. She felt those same emotions now, for he was as sleek and feline as the great cat, his eyes yellow and implacable. With a woman’s instinct she sensed the cruelty and ruthlessness in them, which evoked in her emotions that she had never before experienced. “You also are beautiful,” she whispered, and it was true. In this moment she realized that he was the most beautiful creature she had ever known.
He kissed her and his mouth startled her. It tasted of some ripe fruit she had never eaten before, and quite naturally she opened her own mouth to savor it. His tongue was as flickeringly quick as a snake’s, but it did not revolt her. She closed her eyes and touched it with her own. Then he placed one of his hands behind her head and pressed his mouth harder against hers. She was so lost in his kiss that when his hand closed over her breast she was unprepared. Her eyes flew open and she gasped. She tried to pull away, but he held her, and now he caressed her with a gentle but skilful touch that stilled her fears. He teased out her nipple, and the sensation flowed through her body, rippling down her arms to her fingertips. She felt a sharp disappointment when he took away his hand. He lifted her to her feet so she stood on the sheepskin above him with her breasts at the level of his face.
With a single movement he swept off her silken robe and let it fall to the floor. Then, as he sucked her engorged nipple deep into his mouth, she cried aloud. At the same time one of his hands came up between her thighs and cupped the soft nest of dark fluff.
She had not the slightest inclination to resist what he was doing to her. Instead she surrendered herself to it. From what her slave girls had told her she had been terrified that he might hurt her, but his hands, though swift and strong, were gentle. He seemed to know her body better than she did herself, and he played upon it with such skill that she found herself drawn deeper and deeper, faster and faster beneath the surface, sinking away and drowning in this sea of new sensations.
She surfaced only once more when suddenly she opened her eyes and found that his own robe was gone, and that he stood over her naked. She remembered the dream in which he had had the same thing down there as Stargazer, the stallion. She looked down in trepidation, but it was nothing like the dream: it was smooth and rosy, yet hard as bone, perfect and clean in form as a temple column. Her fears evaporated and once again she surrendered herself to his hands and his mouth. There was only one sharp moment of stinging pain, but that was much later, and it was fleeting, replaced almost as swiftly by an unaccustomed but wonderful feeling of fullness. Then later still she heard him cry out above her. The sound triggered something in her own body, turning almost unbearable pleasure into its own kind of pain, and she held him with all the strength of her encircling arms and legs and cried out with him.
Twice more during that too-short enchanted night he forced her to cry out in that same frenzy of pleasure, and when the dawn suffused the chamber with its rose and silver light she lay still in his arms. She felt as though the life force had been drawn out of her, as though her bones had turned soft and malleable as river clay, and there was a soft ache deep in her belly that she savored.
He slipped out of her arms and she just had the strength left to protest, “Don’t go. Oh! Please don’t go, my lord. My beautiful lord.”
“Not for long,” he whispered and gently drew out the sheepskin from under her. She saw the stains upon the snowy fleece, the blood bright as the petals of a rose. She had experienced only that brief pain at the piercing of her womanhood.
He carried the fleece to the terrace and she watched him through the doorway as he hung it over the parapet wall. From far below there came the faint sound of cheering as the citizens waiting below saw this proof of her virginity displayed. She cared nothing for the approbation of the peasant hordes, but watched the naked back of her new husband and felt her chest and her aching womb swell with love for him. As he came back to her she held out both arms to him.
“You are magnificent,” she whispered, and fell asleep in his arms. Much later she came gradually awake and found that her whole being was filled with a lightness and a feeling of joy that she had never known before. At first she was not certain of the source of her well-being. Then she felt his hard muscular warmth stir in her arms.
When she opened her eyes he was watching her with his strange yellow ones, and he smiled gently. “What a splendid queen you would make,” he said softly. This he meant sincerely. During the night he had discovered in her qualities that he had not before suspected. He sensed that he had found in her someone whose desires and instincts were in perfect harmony with his own.
“And what a splendid pharaoh you would make for this very Egypt.” She smiled back at him and stretched voluptuously. Then she laughed softly, reached up and touched his cheek. “But that could never happen.” She stopped smiling abruptly and asked softly, seriously, “Could it?”
“There is only one thing that stands in our way,” he answered. He did not have to say anything more, for he saw a sly acquisitive expression bloom in her eyes. She was entirely in step with him.
“You are the dagger, and I shall be the scabbard. No matter what you ask of me, I shall never fail you, my beautiful lord.”
He laid one finger on her lips, which were inflamed and swollen with his kisses. “I see clearly that there is little need of words between us, for our hearts beat in unison.”
King Apepi’s entourage remained in Thebes for almost a month after the wedding. They were the guests of Pharaoh Nefer Seti and of his regent, and were entertained in royal fashion. Taita encouraged this delay. He felt certain that Naja would take no action against Nefer while Apepi and his daughter were in Thebes.
The royal visitors spent their days hunting or hawking, visiting the numerous temples on both banks of the river dedicated to all the gods of Egypt or in tournaments between the regiments of the northern and southern kingdom. There were chariot races, archery contests and foot races. There were even swimming races, in which the chosen champions swam the full width of the Nile for a prize of a golden statue of Horus.
Out in the desert they hunted gazelle and oryx from speeding chariots, or hawked for the great bustards with the swift Sakers. No royal falcons remained in the palace mews, for they had been released into the wild during the funeral rites of Nefer’s father. Along the riverbank the guests hawked for herons and duck, and speared the huge whiskered catfish in the shallows. They hunted the river
horse, the mighty hippopotamus, from the fleet war galleys, with Nefer at the tiller of his own galley named the Eye of Horus. Princess Mintaka stood beside him and shrieked with excitement as the great beasts broke the surface, their backs studded with spears, and the waters turned pink with their blood.
During these days Mintaka was often at Nefer’s side. She rode in his chariot when they hunted and handed him the lance when they drove up alongside a galloping oryx. She carried her own falcon on her arm as they quartered the reed beds for heron. At the hunting picnics in the desert, she sat beside him and prepared little treats for him. She selected the sweetest grapes for him and peeled them with her long, tapered fingers and then popped them into his mouth.
Every evening there were banquets in the palace and there also she sat at his left side, the traditional place for a woman so that she never blocked her man’s sword arm. She made him laugh with her wry wit and she was a marvelous mimic: she imitated Heseret to perfection, simpering and rolling her eyes, and speaking of “my husband, the Regent of Egypt” in the portentous tones Heseret now employed.
Though they tried, they could never be completely alone. Naja and Apepi saw to that. When Nefer appealed to Taita for assistance, not even he could maneuver a secret meeting for them. It never occurred to Nefer that Taita did not exert himself to do so, or that he was as set on keeping them innocent as the others were. Long ago Taita had engineered a tryst for Tanus and his beloved Lostris, and the consequences still echoed like thunder down the years. When Nefer and Mintaka played bao there was always an audience of slave girls, while courtiers and the ubiquitous Lord Asmor hovered nearby. Nefer had learned his lesson well, and no longer underrated Mintaka’s skill on the board. He played against her as if he were matched against Taita. He came to learn her strengths, and to recognize her few weaknesses: she was always overprotective of her home castle, and if he pressed her hard in that quadrant she might sometimes offer an opening in her flanks. Twice he exploited this and broke up her defense, but the third time he discovered too late that she had anticipated his tactic and had laid a trap. When he had exposed his west castle she rammed a phalanx through the gap, and laughed so deliciously when he was forced to capitulate that he almost, but not quite, forgave her. Their bouts became ever more keenly contested and in the end were of epic proportions, so that even Taita spent hours watching them and occasionally nodding in approval or smiling his thin, ancient smile.
