“See now… This one has learned quickly,” he remarked in a momentary but uncharacteristic devotion. Ariennu’s eyes became irritated slits, but he made little of her attitude. “Through this door behind me, on the other side of the passageway you’ll notice a shaded court. There’s a deep tub to bathe in. Old wizard Akaru’s gone into the southern hills early this year… to his retreat in New Qustul and Buhen… like the true and pampered coward he is, until he finds the ‘stars’ are more favorable,” the prince scoffed. “He knew we were coming back tonight and yet he ran off, refusing to give us any courtesy, and with such a lame excuse as the stars. At least he’s left some of his servants to feed us and tend to us.” Maatkare stepped to one side with a magnanimous gesture. “We eat first, out in the courtyard. You two bathe first after we take our meal. Then,” he ordered Ari, “sister, you get our young friend cleaned up and sweet again. The Lady Nefersekht and I will follow when you have finished and are resting for the evening.”
Ari made a sneaky attempt to steal Maatkare’s thoughts, by bowing her head and gently rubbing her right temple. She was dumbfounded by the prince’s sudden reserved manner. So you train us like dogs all the way up the river and suddenly we get to bathe in more than a squat pan? This isn’t just you being kind, neither is your getting us to go to the water first. You’re up to something. And if Naibe is--. She noticed his eyes glimmering a little. He read her suspicions. She sighed, then tensed because she the prince had almost broken through her sheltered thoughts. Deka’s teaching him to read us better after all, damn.
“Is what?” the prince stepped toward the russet-haired woman. One sharply angled brow raised, inquisitively.
Ariennu coughed and turned affectionately toward Naibe beside her, clapping an arm around her.
“Sick with a fever, Highness. I hope it’s just from weariness and not black water fever. We passed much marsh and stand water on the way up. If she has it, then we’ll all come to know it.”
“Then fix her. And don’t lie to me about her illnesses. I know you all have power to heal yourself with your Ntr stones. I’ve seen it when I’ve allowed your strength to come up a little. You know the herbs, too, so use them. Sick… she says,” he turned his back and kicked an uneven place in the woven straw matting on the floor as if the young woman’s illness was a planned trick. “Ask me if I believe a word that comes out of your mouth…”
“MaMa. I’m fine now. Tired is all,” Naibe nodded. She stretched tall and seductively, but punctuated her movements with a yawn. Be careful, Ari. Her thoughts hushed her elder.
“Sure. I’ll cure us… of you.” She nodded into the young woman and led her past the prince and Deka, muttering: “You are lucky I haven’t come after you while you lay drunk, cut it off, stuffed it, and used it for a wand of joy.”
The prince’s arm snatched out and pulled her close in a grip. The spark from the palm of his hand shivered up into her neck. His lips grazed that spot at the base of her throat again. Ari suddenly had no will to fight. She let the pleasure take her for an instant.
“Oh? You might think about it… until you remember how much you suffer for it when it’s properly attached,” the prince breathed. “So you disrespect me again, even though you promised me obedience to get me to save our young girlie here. Still, it amuses me to see how you thrash about so mightily at the very thought of being owned.”
Ari’s head snapped around to show him her displeasure, but she couldn’t bury the smirk that had come to her lips. For a brief instant she forgot herself: “True, but if I had been born here and not in Tyre and if I’d been by myself when we met, I’d have you trained to eat out of my hand by this time. I’d have kept you as king of my pleasure. But that’s what Princess Meryt thought to do, didn’t she?” Ariennu froze, realizing she had said far too much. Naibe gasped in horror and Deka closed her eyes, knowing Ari’s talk had drifted into the forbidden.
Even though Ariennu stood facing the prince while his hand stayed her arm, she felt the growl and the hot breath of the black wolf spirit just behind her left shoulder. She turned to see if the prince had dared to create the wolf image with his men standing in the next room, but her arm instantly filled with gooseflesh. There was no man behind her. A fully formed black wolf-dog sulked behind her, head down and growling as if he was looking for her weaknesses before lunging at her. She froze.
No. Don’t come at me, her thoughts cried. Don’t. Bastard.
The animal looked up, but a human thought echoed through her.
Do you see the black dog? Do you see my dark heart? his expression warned her. The voice spoke from the opening of the door. Somehow, without her noticing it, he switched sides and shapes. The prince’s face darkened a little and his eyes glimmered a radiant yellow green. The growl merged with a low voiced hyena titter issued more from his chest than from his throat. His dog teeth were visible on his lips.
Ari quickly raised her hand and breathed in, visualizing the wall of prismatic light between her left shoulder and the animal behind her. Maatkare startled a little and stepped back.
“Juice from you still, red sister? A good defense. You just keep on. You know I will answer it well; that you already have come to crave the pain.”
She buried her own reflections and moved with Naibe out to the area where a low table had been set with a fragrant beef soup served in fine blue bowls. When she glanced back at the prince, his appearance had returned to a less threatening form. He stood with Deka by the nearly hidden pool in the low hall between pool, sleep areas, and the open plaza. She couldn’t sense what he was telling the cinnamon-skinned woman, but saw her melt into his arms, helpless once again.
CHAPTER 5: WSERKAF’S MESSAGE
After their silent, joyless bath Naibe-Ellit lay resting in Ariennu’s comforting arms. Deka sat in the same small room with them, anointing herself with perfumed oil and placing the peculiar gold circlet the prince had given her on her head. In a short while she planned to join the prince for their bath.
Wearing the little sun disc and the snake, I see. He wants her to play god’s wife tonight for some reason, Ari mused. So that’s what’s special… why we got good treatment and a bath. He’s giving her some kind of status above us. Likely because I told her she wasn’t so special and she complained about it to him.
Ari knew Deka was keeping her thoughts on the matter private. The secrets made Naibe fidget visibly because of her natural empathy and inquisitiveness.
Ari, hurry her up. The young woman’s thoughts urged. I can feel her drawing my attention. She wants to tell me something but she doesn’t dare.
Shhh, Ari cautioned.
Maatkare approached the doorway and stood, indicating he was waiting for Deka to join him. She noticed and rose from her mat, naked except for a cloak. The prince turned to Naibe and Ari as if he sensed the young woman’s unbeaten gentleness.
I could free your heart too, Highness… show you your soul so you could mend its hurts. Instead you will not accept it unless you steal it or hunt it like a small and fragile thing for you to eat. I see you. You are the eater of souls on the one hand like Ammit yet a guide to one’s true purpose, Naibe waited for her thought to resonate.
“I see you’ve thought it all out, then,” Maatkare Raemkai’s guttural voice whispered in answer to the thought he read. “You think too much. Maybe that’s what’s making you sick, eh?”
“Deka should go,” Naibe’s eyes lowered.
Ariennu knew the young woman was exhausted as she continued speaking to the prince. “I can’t bear her being here a moment longer. I’m going to burst. Not both of you at once,” her light brown eyes swept up toward Maatkare. “Please, Highness take her to bathe with you and then soothe her until you both can rest. Her thoughts are burning me. I can’t bear either of your eyes looking on me tonight,” she turned away from the young general’s mystified expression again.
At that moment, Deka moaned with a catlike keen, as if the young woman’s insult hurt her, then hurried t
o follow the prince to the bathing room.
Ari pressed Naibe again and moved to the bed, fluffed up the coverlet, and urged the girl to sit with her. She combed out Naibe’s damp hair, humming a little as if the young woman was the child she never raised. She had given birth to five babies and dispatched countless other womb-fruit with heart seeds before she implored the Children of Stone to make her sterile. For a moment, Ariennu thought of Marai and how she had wished to create a child for him.
“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?” the red-haired woman asked. “It’s making me think about him too.”
Naibe nodded against the elder woman’s leg. In the distance, they thought they heard Maatkare speaking gently to Deka. His deep-voiced titter floated over the empty space between the central room where they bathed and the sleeping rooms.
“I always do, MaMa,” she began. “This child in my belly, though… changes so many things.”
“You’re two months gone. How could you let this happen? You knew…” Ari grumbled, but then she remembered no one had ever taught Naibe a thing about her body. When she had come to the thieves camp, she had been little better than a drooling idiot. During her moon time, she and Deka simply cleaned up after her and made the necessary offerings to the goddess for her. Even though the Children of Stone repaired her wits, it may have never occurred to them to see she had enough knowledge of pregnancy to end one before it started. It had been Marai who had convinced her to wait until he had seen the priests to bear him a child. He had tracked her fertility and had abstained from her when she was ripe. For Naibe, Ari knew, that had been the most grievous part of her heartache; that nothing of Marai remained of him but beautiful memory.
“I can see what the women here use if you want me to, but I don’t think the heart seeds work this late without making you sick as death and then who knows what Highness will think of that.”
“No, I didn’t mean…” Naibe almost laughed. “I believe it is my spirit friend who has come into my womb. I couldn’t…” her face turned away and she swallowed hard. “The goddess in me must have had other plans all along to make him come after Marai was…” her lips trembled “Was…”
Ari paused to tease out a tangle in the young woman’s hair, then smoothed it. She remembered the spirit child she had seen that evening had tawny, brasslike skin color and smooth yet wavy dark hair. He was slim and agile as if he could easily learn dances and leaping. Wserkaf was a dance and sacred movement master, but it didn’t mean the child was his. Naibe’s dances evoked passion in all who saw her move. The child’s lithe little body could easily come from either of them, or both.
“Then, if you’re bound to have it, we’ll have try to get away again. I don’t trust what Prince Maatkare would do. He’s already pushed you to the edge too many times and after you tried to swim to Khmenu, he’s acted like he owns your very life itself.”
Ari stopped combing, crawled to her basket and tossed the comb on top of the heap of clothing inside. When she loosened the rest of her own braids, she fluffed her hair until it sprawled and curled all around her shoulders in a dark ruddy mass.
As soon as she lay beside Naibe, Ariennu felt her thoughts transform into a strange vision. She saw Marai again when she concentrated on the memory their happy moments together. He reached out to her from a distant and dark place like a tomb. As usual, when she thought of reaching back she couldn’t find him. This time, the image of Prince Wserkaf formed over her thoughts.
“Wise Mama?” Naibe whispered, almost asleep.
“Mmm?” Ariennu answered, petting the young woman gently. “Feeling any better now?”
Naibe nodded, a wistful smile moving over her face once again. “I see something. The Children want us to know something, maybe. It’s coming through my stone. Want to share it with me?”
Ari didn’t have time to say yes.
Naibe’s soft hand wandered up to her elder sister’s brow to touch the stone so that they both sensed the same vision.
“The thing I see must have happened earlier today, in the afternoon I think. It was when I was with his Highness and it’s what made me cry when it came through. I made myself forget, but now…” Naibe-Ellit whispered.
“Sure,” Ari breathed, snuggling with the young woman on their shared mat. They lay face to face for a moment, kissed each other’s lips to soothe themselves then shared their thoughts. “Maybe they’ll tell us something nice for a change… or maybe they’ll say where this child in you came from.”
Ariennu breathed out as the vision cleared a little. She picked out a lush interior garden with plant jars, a room to one side and a nice sesen pond full of blossoms that slumbered just beneath the surface for the night.
“Babe. I don’t know about this place. It’s pretty, but…”
“Oh, I know where it is, Ari. I lived here first.” Naibe’s lyrical, low voice grew so soft that Ari stared at her wondering if she was making a sound at all. Everything about this vision was different than the ones she had of Marai. In this one, a sadness overshadowed all else; even the air felt sad.
“It’s Wse’s house, Wseriri, but it’s so sad now.” She whispered.
Ari nodded.
“Something’s wrong, Babe. It’s not the Children giving this feeling to us. Your Wse is doing this.”
Ari saw Wseriri, as Naibe called Inspector of the Ways Prince Wserkaf, sitting at the edge of his sesen pool with his feet dangling in the water.
My lady sweet goddess can you hear me? Naibe-Ellit, goddess whom I have loved. I conjure you to speak to me. Know that I felt your cry to me a quarter moon ago, but could not return it. Remember when we touched… our first time? I do. See that memory sweet one. Come to the place where it happened. See me there.
This late afternoon the women saw a slim man wearing a strange and longer dark garment with a yellow sash draped across one shoulder and down to his golden belted waist. On his head he wore a simple, dark unadorned khat. They sensed it was some kind of formal garb. He was alone.
“I see him, Babe,” Ari whispered, continuing to stroke the young woman’s hair. “At his pool. Did you hear him say he knew you tried to reach him a week ago?” Ariennu felt the young woman nod, but both women sensed the quiet. There were no sounds of laughter in the house.
At that hour, in any wealthy home, servants would be cleaning and clattering to set the evening meal. Ever-present guests would be milling in the courtyard as they waited. Some of the younger maids would have been teasing and laughing as they did their last minute chores.
“Odd. It is quiet,” Naibe remarked. “Wonder where Princess Khentie and her maids are? Maybe he just returned from his duty in Khmenu and she’s still at her temple.”
“Maybe he just found out we’re not there,” Ari added. “Maybe he called out for you because he’s seeking us.”
Oh... Wseriri... Naibe’s eyes closed with a gentle, aching sigh. I’m here. I cried for you so much when we were taken and again last week when I tried to go to you, but you didn’t answer me.
This time he looked up briefly, as if he heard her, then trembled. The women saw his head tilt down again and his hand go up to his face to wipe his eyes. He was weeping.
Oh beloved one, Naibe’s thought reached out to him. Why are you so sad? Is it because we’re apart? You’ve returned from your duty to learn I am gone? She whispered into her vision. Oh, know that I miss you too.
He looked up again, understanding whose thoughts reached out to him. Sinking into a light trance, he breathed his answer into the late afternoon air.
Naibe, my sweet one, at last I hear your voice in my heart. So many things are changing just the way you told me they must, when we were together the last time.
The women sensed him staring into the empty plaza ahead of him as if he was watching her image float just above the pool.
Soon all Kemet will see what has been kept secret, and still must be a secret until the time is right. It just aches my heart to know as much as I do. He be
nt forward, his hand tracing gently through the water. In some small way he sensed her quizzing thought.
How so? Naibe asked, wanting to command the secret from him. She smiled a little. Ari sensed her commanding ‘Ashera’ voice going to him. In his thoughts her voice sounded ever gentle and seductive once again. All of the days they had been apart suddenly melted away.
There have been unbearable things, tragic things, my dear, dear lady… and on the heels of something unbelievable! He whispered, but didn’t have to send her the next thought.
She knew what had happened before he thought the words: Menkaure KhaKet...
“Oh no… not KhaKet. Dead? How could we not know it Ari? How?” Naibe’s voice sounded just above a whisper and her wide eyes teared instantly.
Wserkaf began to explain.
“They came to us from the palace in the hours just before the sun rose to tell us the news,” he whispered, no longer gazing out across the sesen pool. “They said that earlier that night, the king’s physicians had become concerned over Our Father’s recent behavior. First, they had sent word to his wife and she had summoned our brother Shepsisi and some others to be at his side. My brother was angry that his rest had been disturbed and said his majesty didn’t seem worse in health, just sad. He’d been sad and less in the public eye as the stars positioned themselves for the anniversary of his fate given at Buto six years ago. Then Shepsisi saw and knew the depth of his father’s suffering… how dearly he had struggled to look well. They spoke and he urged his father to continue for a little while longer, to conduct ordinary night business, then rest.”
Naibe sensed Wserkaf grow silent with emotion and wanted to somehow reach through the universe to ease his suffering and to place his head on her breasts until he calmed himself.
“He… just suddenly stopped speaking and his eyes grew wide. He was dying seated in his official stateroom chair and facing the night time stars through his wide open porch. Death seized his heart in sudden distress and his soul leapt into flight. It was so quick, so peaceful that my brother stated he didn’t have time to shout for the physicians already standing nearby. Our Father had just beckoned him close and with his last breath of earthly air he had smiled and whispered your name: Naibe, my goddess, I go to you. Did you not feel him fly to you sweet one? Did you not?” he implored.
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