CHAPTER 4: QUSTUL
The women’s tent had been set up. Ariennu lay looking up at the place where the poles converged and took in the airy beauty of the canvas extending from the center. Big. Better than Nahab’s nasty old tents. Even better than the one Marai… she paused, curious that the mention of his name grabbed her as if it had been part of an incantation to make him return from the Land of the Dead. The one the Children of Stone made from thought and air when he was on their vessel. She heard the men tidy the encampment and arrange weapons and equipment outside after the early foray. They were mumbling about something until a third man told them to hush.
Maybe these dreams about what I’ve become will leave me alone, now that we’re outside Qustul and staying on land, she hoped.
Prepare, Ariennu of Tyre
You will see something this night
Learn something
A secret to keep.
The tiny chorus of spirit voices whispered through the stone and in to her thoughts.
Oh, something more than Highness’ needs? Then why are you always replaying the moment when I finally knew I was trapped by this monster and his damned spells? Ruins my sleep. You enjoy it or something?
This afternoon, Deka rested with her.
Like the old days, eh Bone Woman? We use and get used. Another day, another pig to keep us in his pen. Good while it lasted, I guess. None of the changes made in us are any good now except that we don’t age or grow ugly. If this is going to last forever… Ariennu shut her eyes and swallowed hard at the thought of such a fruitless immortality that was already, in her opinion, a curse.
As if Deka sensed Ari’s continued hopelessness, the Ta-Seti woman began to hum her calming tune.
There you go with the Hagore neter whatever… Keep on singing it, sister, but you know you’re not any more important to him than me or Little One. Ariennu silently reminded the woman, but more than that she tried to convince herself of that reality.
On the surface, Maatkare Raemkai disrespected all of them equally, but the elder woman knew something else was at work between him and Deka. His cruelty to her was never as sincere as it was with them. She had been the first he snared but it was more than that. He valued her differently.
Deka didn’t respond.
Ari knew the biggest change had come the night Naibe tried to get away. After that, she gave up. Go ahead, she said to herself. Pretend your wits are holding back your words. I’m starting not to care.
She remembered being held in the cell while Maatkare’s guards took turns with her as their promised reward. She had flown away in her heart, only thankful that they let her eat and drink a little something first. Somewhere out on the river, men were looking for Naibe, whistling, calling, and waving torches over the water. Ari was numb; having become a self-preserving animal. She couldn’t think about the youngest of the women or of how her own antics with the prince and his men had been enough of a distraction that Naibe decided to escape to Khmenu, even if it failed. She went back to that moment over and over, reliving the way she tried to bury herself in the momentary glimmers of unwilling pleasure with the guards and tried to block out Deka’s wounded spirit as it cried out.
Please, beloved one, for me… Find my sister.
“Too late. You know she has drowned by this time, the fool. Let her go to Lord Sebek then, the faithless wretch. Let him drag her to the bottom.” Maatkare’s voice barked back, even though he knew Deka was too far away to hear his spoken words. “This has taken too much time. Push on, by my order,” his voice rose in command. The men moved to their positions and waited for the drum signal to start.
When Ariennu heard those words and felt the boat lurch forward, her emotions broke into words.
“No! You bastard. It’s your damned fault. You go get her. I told you I would do what you want. I told you…” she screamed, struggling in the arms of the first guard who had just finished and still grappled with her, stunned that his efforts with her had meant so little.
“Then you join her… sick of you both.” Ari heard the prince stomping across the deck over her head. For a moment, she thought he would come down the steps to pitch her overboard himself.
Calm. The children whispered. There is no death.
“Noooo…” Ari moaned as the first guard gripped her harder for a moment. “No more voices in my head. No,” she felt the man shrug, then mutter something unsavory about her lack of interest and quit her. The other guard moved in, but paused. Ariennu felt her body trembling, but not in pleasure. The shakes… like I’ve been on a bad drunk… like it was when I was getting sick. Had to be drunk to keep my guts in place. Goddess… no voices…
“There,” someone called, accompanied by other shouts. “Something floating out there…”
“Aahhh! Babe…” Ari screamed, struggling out of the second guard’s grip.
Feet scampered. The boat leaned a little as rowers paused and began to obey the turn of the helm oar.
Ari collapsed into the guard’s arms at first, but pushed away.
“Let me loose. I have to…”
The second man lost all interest. He found Ari’s dance shawl and helped her stand while she shakily wrapped it around her hips.
By the time she stumbled back up the steps and to the rail, the prince was kneeling on a bound raft and paddling out on the dark river at heart bursting speed.
In the background amid the clamor, Ari heard Deka’s thoughts plead from the rail of the boat behind them directing and begging.
Don’t kill her. She’s just a child… always so heart-young. You need…
Silence. Ari felt Maatkare’s snarling thoughts answer the Ta-Seti woman. Hold back from my thoughts. You don’t own a thing. I let you think it… Hold back! Out on the water, a man’s howl that imitated a wolf became much less human.
Afternoon and he wants a woman, Ari’s thoughts returned to the present time. She had spent much of her time in the past week curled up in a ball on her mat, drawing a blankness into herself. I’ve become like Deka when she was with Nahab and the rest of us raiders. Beat us, use us, mock us, but we prevail. We grow numb. Not enough sleep, even with this rest. I don’t care. At least when I do sleep I don’t have nightmares about storms coming like poor Naibe does. Ari half-snickered to herself. Just daymares of my rage while I’m lying here contemplating your displeasure, Highness. She reflected a little longer, sitting and pretending to nod to the dark woman’s song.
Maybe this is what guilt it like. Guilt. It’s this damned stone in my head that’s made all these feelings grow; this guilt. I never had regrets over anything I did before it was there.
She folded the thin netting that served as a coverlet and straightened her skirt. A trade, I guess. I loved Marai more than myself, but he died. So that’s it. I got soft enough to fall in love, lost him, and remained soft enough to let regret grow in my heart. I need to stop all of that and get myself back again. I don’t like being this way.
“I understand, Wise MaMa.” Deka spoke aloud. “Sometimes I’m sorry I had to accept you both. It would be easier for me if Raem were mine alone.”
“Had to?” Ari rose from her mat, noticing Deka had used the prince’s familiar name, a thing forbidden her and Naibe. “Then why in seventy devils didn’t you speak to him so he would let us go to the king again?” Ari folded her arms.
In the nearly two months on the way to Qustul, it had never occurred to the elder woman to ask her why. She’d been too angry at first. Deka had been remote, but that was nothing new. She had always been distant, even when Marai had been alive. It had been just this last week of the journey, after the night they almost lost Naibe, that Ari even felt like asking her anything.
Ariennu’s memory flashed again, replaying the image of Maatkare fishing the youngest woman out of the river and placing her face down over his knees as he paddled back to the prison boat. She had looked so pale when the men hauled her up to the deck.
“Dead? Goddess…” Ari bent forward, despite the guards rea
ching to stop her. She was cold. “Dead? You let her die?” she choked.
“You stay off her, or she will be,” the prince snapped and knelt by Naibe. The guards struggled to hold Ariennu back.
“She just wanted to get away. She’s not like me. She can’t take this,” Ari almost sobbed, struggling from the arms of the guards.
Ari was still haunted by the memory of the coldness in the prince’s hard, yellow wolf-eyes gleaming from his human face. Only a hint of natural olive green color burned in them. His eyes said that if the young woman died, he would take it as a personal affront. He couldn’t allow her to choose her own destiny in that way.
Startled, Ariennu stopped wrestling free of the two guards. Maatkare boosted Naibe’s still form up so that her belly lay over his knees. He gestured to the guard who had just released Ari to lift the young woman’s arms over her head. Oddly, Ari thought, the prince showed no anger. He seemed almost tender as he pressed on Naibe’s upper back, then whispered some kind of spell that still contained the first part of the Child Stone control Eeeen Tjoad, young honey, Eeeen Tjoad.
She stood, shaking from the pain of the words, weeping from exhaustion, nauseated, and filled with humiliated rage. “I see what you’re doing. Marai brought Naibe back once like this.” She mumbled bitterly, then thought to herself. She fought the darkness when Wserkaf visited us in the old neighborhood. It that a skill or something? Do you even know what you’re doing? You don’t have a Child Stone. How could you?
Somehow, though, the two men were very different. Prince Maatkare possessed his own kind of instinct for healing and reviving. While she watched that night, she saw him caress Naibe’s brow then touch his leather hand piece to her stone, with another utterance. The young woman flinched, then began to cough and gasp. When she opened her eyes and discovered where she was, she wept bitterly.
With a few more words, Maatkare ordered men to guide Ari to the small straw boat he used when he sent for any of them. As the men readied it, Ari sensed something from the prince that wasn’t at all hard or cruel.
“How did you…” she turned to face him as he stayed with the youngest of the women.
“Stay away,” he warned, then spoke firmly to Naibe, who sat choking and shivering in front of him. “Naibe. Speak.” He ordered.
“I… I… Why save me? I need to be dead, if I cannot be free.”
He quietly nodded, reflecting on her words.
“It’s true. You need to die, but it’s not your night to take that journey. It will be another night. Stand then,” he stood and slowly helped Naibe rise. He wrapped his powerful arms around her, cradled her on his chest and spoke to her gently. “You hurt. I’ve seen it in your heart so many times. You want so much to be in the land that loves silence. But you see, young Inanna, your Dumuzi has sent you back to go forth to me now. Do not think of him again or whisper his name. Let him rest in the peace that he craves,” he guided her to Ariennu.
“Feed her when she is in the cabin with you. Give her what is left of the broths I’m sending to restore her wind. Sit with her. Hold her. I will not ask for her again until we arrive in Qustul,” the prince dryly addressed the elder of the two women. “And since you are on fire with a question for me, I will answer it. I do know how one walks between life and death; when the portal between worlds opens and when it does not. It was closed to her tonight. I knew I could bring her back. Simple as that.”
Pompous ass. You might have failed, her thoughts rioted for a moment then calmed.
At first, Ari hadn’t realized the prince had accepted Naibe’s near drowning as an attempt at suicide, because he had couched it in the Shinar legend of Inanna going to the Underworld to retrieve her dead lover Dumuzi, the shepherd. Later, as she fed and comforted the girl and even accepted Deka’s attempts at consoling her, she pondered the newly revealed depth in Maatkare’s character and the way he had been strangely and seductively tender.
She came back to the present moment in the women’s tent. Today, in the encampment near Qustul, he took Naibe as he promised he would.
“So, why didn’t you?” she continued her question to Deka. “You knew we were doing well at the palace.”
“You were doing too well. I knew Great One realized you and Little One were threats to him because King Menkaure loved you both and had begun to listen to you over him. I knew also that Raem needed to be given another chance to rule after the death of his first wife and unsuitability of his second wife. If he was not to be king in the north then I would honor him in the south which is the land of the gods. He is a warrior. I remember how to be the wife of one, to encourage his strength and virile power. I remember Ta-Te.”
Ariennu felt disgusted.
“This again. Whoever this Ta-Te was, he never loved you. He left you for dead and still you cling to some magic fable you’ve made up about him ascending on a column of fiery light and saying he would return for you.”
“I am here in Ta-Seti, am I not?” the dark woman re-fastened her hair in a thick braid.
Ariennu’s eyes bugged slightly. She started to say something about Deka being twice as cold as Maatkare Raemkai. Sorceress, she muttered inwardly. If all of this is a trick to get you to your beloved lost land, then you are well a match for him. You can stay here forever and turn our darling keeper into your new god-king, if you wish. Stones shared or not, I’m still going to get Little One and myself free of this, even if we have to wait until we are back in Ineb Hedj. She turned her attention to her afternoon chores.
Ari knew Prince Maatkare had visited with the governor of Qustul Amani in the early morning. She had heard his men say he was going to discuss trade and then, out of courtesy, he planned to hear the elder’s predictions for the coming arid season. When he returned to his encampment just after noon, he hadn’t even attempted to keep his irritation secret.
Pouted and threw things like a child, he did! she laughed to herself. It had been hard for her to show no reaction to the man’s tantrum. He snarled and stuck his smoldering face through the tent flap to demand Naibe’s attention. The girl whimpered but stifled her regret and went to his tent.
Eh well. To work, old girl. He’ll want his ‘herbal’ after he’s achieved his ‘calmness of spirit’ with Baby One. I’m not hearing them, though, and she’s been with him a while. Ari sat, but ignored Deka’s hummed tune. Something didn’t seem right. She yawned and fetched herbs from a basket, then dumped them in a stone bowl. After she powdered them together with an aromatic healing oil which she would rub into his dark and powerful shoulders.
She had just finished making the preparation and set aside the bowl when she heard Naibe-Ellit, squawk and call out in misery, followed by the prince’s cursing. From the mumbling and fussing that followed it sounded as if Naibe had suddenly become nauseous and light-headed.
The prince marched her to the opening of the women’s tent and flung her through it in disgust, shouting: “I gave you a week! I didn’t speak a spell over you. Useless weakling!” Then he quickly sought the privacy of his tent again.
As soon as Naibe stumbled, naked and crying, through the tent flap, Ari scrambled to receive her. Deka, almost without looking up, stood regally and advanced to the opening, ushering herself to the royal tent. The ever-present guards stationed between the two tents lurked outside for a few moments, ready to report anything derogatory either of the women might utter about their general. Ariennu gathered the young woman into her arms, then cursed the guards just loudly enough to be heard.
“No. You stay out, you filthy mutts. I can hear you drooling for one of us from where I’m standing.” She hugged Naibe close, then led the girl to her mat, sat with her, and began to stroke her hair to calm her. As the young woman’s gasping and ragged breathing began to even out, Ari noticed the guards were still standing expectantly in the opening flap of the tent.
“What are you looking at?” She looked for one of her leather travel booties to hurl at them, even though she knew it was useless to show anger. She
spat at the ground, instead. The more aggressive of the two guards, started toward her with a clear thought of rape as discipline, but his partner stayed him.
“Ho, I see.” She grinned, then teased, pointing at the bulge in the man’s shendyt. “You’d like to make me take some of the pressure off… force me…”
Both men stared at the two women, a little awed and amused. Naibe cried harder. “You know, unless Highness makes me do it, you get nothing. So, stop acting like you have rights.”
“No I can’t, MaMa. No, no more.” young Naibe interrupted, burying her terrified face between Ari’s naked breasts. “I thought him leaving me alone this past week would be enough, but…”
As Ari handled the girl’s long and wavy black hair, she saw the red mark on Naibe’s throat.
“That bastard. I’ll--” the elder woman started but the second guard stepped into the tent. “Oh no you don’t…” Ari dragged Naibe backward as if she was prepared to fight both men by herself. “You get him to come in here or I will get louder. I want to know why…”
“Lady Arrenu:” the guard announced. “You’ve been granted a short while to make the young honey calm herself and then return her to his Highness. He remains… uncomfortable,” he held forward two dark bags in his hands. “When she achieves quiet, you will both wear these and return together. His Highness is troubled by the prediction and needs extra comfort. It’s important.”
Ariennu grumbled, nodding, yet intrigued. Extra comfort? A dog with such a mighty knot in his prong it takes all of us to beat it down? Now, a prisoner game? Please! The sepat chief must have given him a mighty curse, not a prediction.
“Yes, yes, I know. I will. He knows we submit. Just get out of here so I can work on her.” Ariennu got up and snatched the bags from the men, then folded her arms while she waited for them to leave. She returned to the mat where Naibe lay rocking in anguish, settled beside her and gathered her into her arms.
“What did he do to you this time, Baby; choke you out again?” Ariennu didn’t think Naibe would be able to bear returning to the prince in such a short while. Ari knew the prince had tried to drain her spirit again. He had been almost kind to her in the past week, but as they landed he made it clear that his good behavior toward her was over. If he expected to see her again so soon, judging from her anguish, Ari knew it would be too much for the young one.
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