Men dead? Maatkare pressed Deka close for a moment, then rose with her from their place on his rumpled bed. He seized his robe and threw it on, placed his simple khat on his head, then tossed Deka her cape. With an impassive glance, the prince watched her wrap herself in it. He grabbed his mirror for a quick glance to see if he was presentable. Making his way to the flap, he let her out first. That was when he saw the two blood-spattered soldiers milling outside. He sealed his lips in trained hardness so he would not betray his absolute shock and embarrassment. With all of his magical energy he has not sensed a thing but interest in morning joy with the Ta-Seti woman.
What the… a rebellion and where was I? Bewitched? Second time this has happened. It’s not a good look. He remembered the time on the boat when he had been delighting himself with the ‘correction’ of Ariennu for plotting escapes when the woman Naibe almost got herself drowned.
“Most Noble One,” the scribe intoned, “not an hour ago a band of Ta-Seti and what looked like a Wawat or two raided the north side of the camp. It was only our advanced preparedness which allowed us to settle the matter with little noise. We killed many and took the rest for you to admonish. We thought, perhaps, Qustul had risen against us until we found the leader was not one of the Akaru’s men.”
“I see,” Maatkare mused in puzzled wonder. Northern perimeter? That’s not far. I should have heard men fighting even through the heka web. You are a spider, Nefira… his thoughts hissed.
“What did they have to say for themselves… the captives?” he asked, still perplexed. His new grooms arrived, ready to wash and shave him, but he waved them away.
“It was on the night patrol in the far north sector, the rock outc ropping almost at the dust flat,” the scribe related as a physician approached to see if the returning men needed aid. “Some of them jumped us but they didn’t see the other flank you instructed to be on patrol. If the first had been alone, they may have taken us. We surprised them and signaled even more behind us. We took the leader, a half-blood Kemet peasant, but he will say nothing to us…”
“The leader is still alive?” Maatkare asked, a slow smile finding the edge of his lips.
“We are holding him for you, Lord, tied to the outside of the ladder stand you had us put in the hills just last night. What fortune that the gods let you know we would need it so soon.” the man bowed and backed away a little while the prince stood, chin in his hand and thought about everything that had been said.
“Bring him and the others to me at the midday hour after the sun has cooked and thirsted them some. The hunt was poor yesterday,” the prince hissed. “Set up my midday meal… for two, today.” his glance shot in the direction of the women’s tent. I would have the Ta-Seti woman attend me and share it with me while I question them.” He beckoned his grooms. “Then, too, have the other women brought to watch the discipline. He’ll talk, eventually, before I tear out his tongue and make him swallow it.” Maatkare’s mouth twisted into a peculiar grin, his eyes flashing for an instant like lightning sending its green fork of light through a storm.
Deka glanced side to side at the clot of men forming outside the prince’s tent. She pushed past them as she returned to her own tent that morning. Although she and the prince had slept little, and the quitting of shared passion had been abrupt, she felt highly energized because of the scent of battle that now reached her. She had seen battle before, hunts where men had been injured, but it had never been like this. She turned once she was inside, then stared out of the tent flap to watch as the wounded arrived from the hills.
“Deka. What’s going on?” she heard Naibe ask, but she didn’t turn or answer her.
Some of the men’s kilts were stained with blood. One man, naked and limping from a free-bleeding knife wound on his thigh leaned heavily on another man.
They need to put some moss and honey in that and bind it before the fever comes. Deka thought, the physics know this. Why do I concern myself? Prince Maatkare emerged to talk to more of the returning men. She knew he was angry even though he hid his rage well. She wanted to rage for him, because she had felt unusually close to him this morning. It would have been splendid, but… Must have been a bad fight, she thought, and the north ridge? Who would come from there?
She sensed energy pulsing in the air around her. Is this his energy I feel? Is it a different thing? No. It’s he who is watching me, the way he always has watched me. It’s been so long. I remember. Men would come home bloody like this, but soon the drinking and carousing would begin. Someone would take me and then I didn’t have to think about the seeing the blood any more. This is different. Something’s coming. Something’s looking for me that has always lurked near my heart. It almost found me in Little Kina-Ahna when the priest levied the spell on us. Wise MaMa held it off, then. She never believes how strong she is. Today is different. She’s not doing it today, because she despises me. I cannot blame her. Today, it knows me.
Deka very dimly recalled being dragged along as a fast-trick seer by the Kush fortune teller who eventually became Nahab’s executioner. I can’t place his name any more. It’s just as well. He had no soul, so why would he have a name? “Pepep” maybe? Like Apep? I was not Deka or Nefira then. I was Bone Woman. Nefira Sekht, Raem calls me. She almost giggled at the thought of his odd speech impediment that made his “r” sound come out like “wr”. Nefiwra. Someone here knows my name, her thoughts drifted as she stared outside the tent, unaware that Ariennu stood beside her, watching and sensing.
I remember more now. Almost everything has come back to me. I have so few memories left from before and in the in-between-time. It’s always the same. I wake up. There’s so much pain and sickness. There is a river into the trees. Is it the great river we sailed on or a smaller one? Different now. They took me and tied me up, put me on a boat. They made me scrub and wash things. I couldn’t talk any more. It was hard to walk because something healed wrong. I said “De-Ka” or “Ta” but my thoughts cried Deka, and I cried back Ta -Te. It was too hard. I stopped trying. Men with sickness to want an ugly thing like me raped me and beat me and kicked me. I would lie there and let them do what they wanted. I was invisible. I was on the shore again, thrown out as garbage and left to die. Pepep found me that time. He didn’t care that I was ugly. I made trade goods for him by being ‘an oracle’ even though I knew I was not one of the divine. We came to N’ahab-Atall. Wise MaMa was there.
Deka paused. She looked to her side and her glance met Ariennu’s hardened eyes, but the woman tore her gaze away as if she had learned too much.
The men were still milling outside. More wounded had come. Physicians were packing wounds, but Deka couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.
“What do you see out there?” Ari demanded. “Move over. My thoughts are screaming. You let me in there,” the elder woman pushed her into the tent flap.
“And what do you feel?” Deka turned, suspicious. Naibe had risen and was making her way to the tent flap.
“Something in my heart,” Naibe offered. “It makes me dizzy, light…”
“You ate,” Ariennu snapped. “Are you still sick?”
“He said there was an attack on the north ridge and they took men. In a while he will have them brought here.” Deka answered, her thoughts racing and conflicted.
“Oh, that,” Ari’s voice sank, emotionless. “I suppose he’ll torture them and make us look at it. You know that. You both do. You remember N’ahab and me and how… ” Ari reminded them, then added, “he’ll do the leader last, save the worst for him unless he goes to his knees and begs early on.”
Deka saw Ari’s lips tighten, but felt the need to send her a mental reminder.
You used to be the one. It was you, Wise MaMa, who trained me, but I never hated you for it. Now you hate me because you have to let Raem train you, she scoffed. She remembered Ariennu’s fists and the broken faces she could give the women who either didn’t open their legs or screamed too loud and struggled too much. Though she could
n’t speak well because of her deafness, she let any women or girl know they would be killed if they didn’t settle. N’ahab never killed a woman for refusing, though. A resistant one was simply held down and raped by everyone in the camp until it didn’t matter to her any more or until she took her own life.
The Ta-Seti woman watched Maatkare as he paced and decided what he would do. Then, he turned and fully entered his tent. This time her thoughts were of Marai. It was as if he stood near her and tried to tell her he was alive.
Like a ghost of something so big and powerful from a long, long time ago; a king perhaps. You helped me see the place by the river and how I looked. You didn’t want to use us either. You were above these things of Earth until the night with Naibe -Ellit. Something broke loose in me that night. It whispered to my heart “Not for You. Not until you find a king.” It whispered to me every time I thought about you – of nestling close in your arms like a child. I loved you Marai. You knew that, but then you died.
She found her mat and sat to dream about the ‘now’ of her life. She pretended to rest. If she did that, it would keep Ari or Naibe from asking her too much. If prisoners were being handled later, she didn’t care. She would be with Maatkare. His fire would be without limit.
Prince Maatkare Raemkai… she didn’t know if she had become the luckiest woman on earth or the unluckiest. If she thought Marai had been the perfection of the tawny skinned Akkad, Raem was the perfection of the brown-skinned man of Kemet. He was ravenous, demanding, and exacting. Before this journey to Ta-Seti, she had lived at his home, but barely spoke to the actual wife, Sadeh, or his three children; a boy aged two and girl likely five and a boy a year older than that.
There had been a Princess Meryt, but something bad had happened. She went mad after a miscarriage and hanged herself from their porch one afternoon. That was all the wife ever said about it and she never said it in his presence, except that this was how she became the chief wife. Talk of it would send the prince into such a fierce rage that “bad things happened” she warned, so the subject never came up.
The first night they had been together, he struck her like lightning. Later, as he sat on his heels, arms folded across his chest, he watched her lie on his bed just trembling. He had been almost tender, touching her arm; almost. I remembered the grass and the river that night; other green eyes that had watched me like that. I understood that night that I would be his for a long time. The name came to me later: Nefersekht, Nefertfnt, Anatu the rain. Nefira… Menhit.
Other women? They don’t matter. I know his needs and understand his rights like no other, not even his ill-fated princess. This is Ta-Seti and Maatkare Raemkai has brought me here. I will reward him with my life. Her thoughts raced for a dreamy moment. He is so much like a young, wicked god. If we could impress the king, he might still be named as an heir. Ari and Baby One had to come only because of our link to the Children of Stone.
They will complete our path to power, but Ari hasn’t said where the missing eight are. Nothing has unlocked that secret from her, not Raem’s attention, not Baby One’s carrying the Inspector’s Child. I know. Raem knows too, but she doesn’t know we do. He will employ that knowledge when he best needs to. Deka lay back and looked at her hands.
We will conquer the fat kingdoms and return a sense of purpose and order to them. She knew she had done this and been this important to someone before… in someone’s strong arms. She could grow Maatkare into the perfect god-king where Marai had failed all of them by allowing himself to be killed.
Deka calmed herself a little as the three of them waited, but the thoughts Ari and Naibe exchanged invaded her privacy.
Do you feel it? Please say you do, Ari… or he has driven me mad. Naibe turned to Ari, hustling her to the other side of the tent. I don’t know why I feel it, though. Why now? Do you think it’s this little one causing me to see and hear his spirit?
I don’t know about you, Ari silently answered. I dreamed about him last night. He came and told me he was alive… alive…
One of the new grooms had come to the tent and stood outside. He made a light baying noise that sounded almost like a cat moan. His thick, black arm reached in and beckoned.
Deka sat up, distracted from listening to the other women’s thoughts. She quickly went to the opening.
Me? In to see Highness? she signed.
The groom nodded and she followed him as he led her to the prince’s tent. Once inside, she saw the other groom, his twin, shaving the prince close on the face and almost clean on his head so that thick black fuzz as short as dog hair was all that remained. She stood quietly and remained reverent while the man finished, taking in the intoxicating scent of the body oil they had rubbed on him. When he dismissed the grooms, Maatkare beckoned to her to come closer.
“You understand what I require of you?” he asked, the green glitter of his eyes harder than she had ever seen it before. To her, at that moment, his dispassion made it seem as if he was addressing the air.
“To be at your side as you…” she answered, nervous, then tried again. “To show support of you as you question the captives.”
He sat up a little more from his seemingly relaxed pose in his grooming chair, then extended one neatly manicured hand to her.
I was thinking of you while I was being prepared… the whole time.” He pulled her closer, but bent her hand until she knelt to keep it from hurting. She sagged to her knees, but refused to complain.
“See, you are getting stronger. You used to show pain when I did this to you. I need you to be very, very brave today; more than I have ever asked you to be before. I need for you to show no pity whatsoever for these men when I punish them, because they have killed some of our men. Let your sisters cry for them if they wish. Let them beg for my mercy.”
“I understand, beloved,” she whispered; her eyes cast down.
“Gods, I desire you,” he pulled her up to his mouth and kissed her hard. “If it were any other moment in time I would be inside you, you know that.” He broke away from her. “Dress as if you were my Great Wife, then. I’m having them brought down earlier; not in the later day. I want to take my time with them; find out if that lion man has sent them or if I need to return to Wawat lands with a bigger force.”
Deka knew exactly what the garment he requested meant. Trying not to think too much about the way he had been trembling with a combination of several kinds of lust when he gripped her, she opened the clothing chest and found a blood red shift and red printed cloak. When she put them on, she fastened her hair and donned the gold circlet with the disc he had given her before they bathed at Qustul Amani the week before.
I will be strong as I once was for my god and king Ta-Te, wherever his spirit is, she thought. I conjure it to come upon you, my love, so you do not waver in your cruelty.
When she had dressed, Deka turned and went to Maatkare, who seated her and painted the gold paint on her eyelids and deep red on her lips. I want you. His thoughts spoke to her. It was enough.
The guards hustled Ariennu and Naibe into the shaded opening of their tent, then tied up the side walls so the women could see everything that was about to take place.
Ari leaned toward Naibe when they saw Deka walk out beside the prince with her head held high. The elder woman’s eyes filled with disdain.
“There they go… and look at her acting like a make-believe queen.”
Maatkare settled with the Ta-Seti woman in one of the two chairs set on his audience dais. A light wind rustled through the brightly striped canopy over their heads.
“Doesn’t he look like he just came down from the sun? Pretty man. Wretched though,” Ariennu snorted quietly. “I might still take him from that proud kuna. All I have to do is try.” She studied Maatkare’s crisp indigo and white striped nemes; the gold banding of a prince pressing it onto his brow. His thin day coat illuminated every part of his finely chiseled body. A table in front of their chairs held a light meal of fruit and bread, as if they sat for a reg
al luncheon instead of a prisoner review.
Still excellent with a woman’s body though. Makes the thunder turn you inside out all night long and when you think you’re done, there’s more… Mmmm, Ari’s thoughts distracted her for a moment. She saw herself in Deka’s place, being fed pickled melon rind.
“There,” Naibe tugged Ari’s arm to get her attention. She pointed to a mat stretched out on one side of the dais, on which lay a collection of bronze and leather instruments of torture. A brazier was near the mat so these things could be heated.
“Uh, yeah I see them, Babe… the tools.” She put her hand over Naibe’s face and thought about the old days with N’ahab’s gang of thieves. Before, when N’ahab would hurt someone, Little One never had to watch. She always stayed in the hut. She was so simple then, I don’t think she would have even understood someone was getting hurt. The Children of Stone had un-muddied her thoughts, but she was still so innocent in her that Ari felt she needed to explain.
“He wants us to look, the bastard. It’s a test for Deka to see if she can take it, too. That’s what he’s doing to us. If you don’t want to see it, just go away in your thoughts. As for speaking thoughts the way we do, you already know he can hear and read them, so just be careful. Maybe he’ll be so wrapped up in what he’s doing, that he won’t notice.”
“I’m not as weak as you think, MaMa. I just know something’s not right about any of this,” Naibe grew silent and watchful, then made another surprised whimper.
Ari looked out of the tent to see the taller of the guards, whipping and marching a bedraggled group of young men out of the dusty field beyond the camp. Some were wounded and bloodstained. Every face reflected stoniness and horror of men who knew they were about to die.
The taller of the prince’s guards seized the young man on the end of the line, then systematically pushed each of the nine prisoners to their knees so that they were lined up before the dais.
“Was there not another?” she heard the prince ask. He shaded his eyes from the hot midday sun and pointed into the distance beyond the tent. “Aha! I see our newest men are bringing him in, still tied to the ladder where he belongs.”
Opener of the Sky Page 25
