Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  The nobleman made several more attempts, but each was interrupted and expanded into a praise of the Aten. The man finally gave up, stiffly bowing his way out.

  “Continue,” Akhenaten said to the court, the waiting ambassadors and lords, whose initial enthusiasm had greatly waned. “Whom did I call on to report to me?”

  Wenaten rose, bowing. “Haii! Of course! Wenaten, tell me of your journey! Where are my cedars?” Akhenaten looked around, as though he expected Wenaten to have thrown a few over his shoulder and carried them in.

  “Aii, My Majesty, they are, unavoidably, delayed.”

  “How is that? Already you are years late.” The peaceful, gentle pharaoh vanished. Akhenaten sat forward, glaring. “I knew you were incompetent!”

  “They will be here in three weeks, My Majesty,” Wenaten said, though he wasn’t cowering as Cheftu would have expected.

  “A long time,” Pharaoh said curtly.

  “Many a setback I encountered,” Wenaten said. “All for the love of my country and liege.” He bowed.

  “Yet you do not return with the gold I sent, or with the cedars for the House of the Rejoicing to the Aten. Why is this?” Pharaoh demanded.

  Cheftu found himself under the gaze of penetrating, intensely dark eyes. Pharaoh might be mad, but he was intelligent. Akhenaten’s glance moved over Cheftu’s body, then returned to Wenaten.

  “I left with the blessings of A-Aten,” Wenaten said. “It was a simple enough journey, sailing from here to the land of the Pelesti, then on to Tsor for the cedars.”

  “A simple journey for a simpleton,” Akhenaten said, shifting on his throne.

  Cheftu’s gaze moved over the court, the women. Did he see Chloe? Would he recognize her if he did? He thought he looked the same, but then, he always had. Why was that? Why did she change bodies? RaEm said she was truly red haired and fair skinned. A quick glance showed him that if she were a redhead, she wasn’t here.

  I will know her, he thought. I will. My bones, my blood, will recognize her. Many a dark-eyed maid met his inquiring gaze, but no green-eyed ones.

  “Well, we landed in Ashqelon, and at some point in the night, one of the sailors took the gold you had given us for the lumber,” Wenaten continued in his explanation.

  “You were robbed by a Pelesti!” Akhenaten roared. “Where is Horemheb? We will sack this ungrateful city—”

  “Majesty, Majesty,” Wenaten soothed. “It was an Egyptian sailor who stole the gold.”

  Akhenaten was silent a moment. “You are certain?”

  “Quite.” Wenaten straightened his kilt and continued his story. “Naturally, I went to the ruler of the city, one Yamirdagon, demanding to receive my gold back. After all, it was stolen while in a Pelesti harbor.”

  Dagon! Cheftu’s attention was fully captured. Yamirdagon? Was that where Chloe was? Had he heard correctly?

  “I thought you said an Egyptian sailor stole it?”

  “He did.”

  Akhenaten frowned. “Did this Yamir give you the gold?”

  “Nay. He said that had a Pelesti done it, he would have compensated me for the loss. As it was, he would help me look for the thief, but he could not pay me back since I was robbed by a kinsman.”

  Dagon? Pelesti? Ashqelon? Was that where she was? Cheftu found himself craning forward for more of the story.

  “For nine days I tarried there, awaiting news from the ruler of the city about the search for the gold and the thieving sailor. Alas, none came. I prayed for a sign whether to go on or whether to return. That morning, during my prayers, a hawk with three wings flew over my head, then northward.”

  Cheftu’s heart was pounding in his throat. This must be why he’d been rescued by Wenaten! In order to find this dagon, this Yamir! When would the audience be over so that he could ask questions? Why had not Wenaten recognized the name dagon when Cheftu had asked?

  “This seemed a sign to continue onward,” Wenaten said. “Since I had the image, the gracious image, My Majesty, of the Aten with me, I knew I would be safe. Perhaps those people who were more civilized in other lands would listen and hear my tale. Perhaps they would be more willing to give credence to me, not to mention extend me credit, if they saw the majesty of the one god.”

  “But you had no gold.” Akhenaten wriggled on the throne. “Because you hired disloyal fools who took it from you.”

  Wenaten colored but answered only part of the query. “I had no gold, nothing. However, the god provided me a chance, while docked in Yaffo, to regain silver in place of the gold that had been stolen.”

  Though Cheftu flinched at the idea of stealing, the rest of the court shrugged along. Foreigners were foreigners. Unwashed, uncivilized, uncouth. The god would not condemn a man for taking from a foreigner.

  “I arrived in Tsor, that miserable little island kingdom. The king refused to see me. In fact, daily he sent a slave to bid me good journey home. For fifteen days and nights I pleaded with him for an audience. I have come to buy cedar for the god! I say. But will he see me? Nay!” Wenaten shook his head, discouraged.

  “Can you blame him?” Pharaoh asked, drawing a titter from the crowd. He was biting, Cheftu thought. What happened to the “love your neighbor” philosophy from a moment before?

  “There is no help for it; I load the idol and my belongings to return to Egypt. By this time, since you know I left two months before the flooding, I have less than a month to get home before the winds are impossible and I am stranded with foreigners until spring.”

  Akhenaten was listening, as was the court.

  “The day I am boarding the ship to come home—that very day!—this king sends a man to me, to take me to audience. I remonstrate with the servant, for I am certain he is sent to distract me so they can steal the statue I have and the rest of my meager belongings. I express my concerns, and the king bids the ship to stay in port. When I open audience with the king, who to his own people is Zakar Ba’al, master of all, I ask why he has taken so long and why today, of all days, he has deigned to see me.”

  Wenaten spoke in a deep voice, imitating Zakar Ba’al. “ ‘A Canani tzadik, a holy man, told me to bring you up here,’ he said, gesturing to his palace. It stands on a cliff overlooking the Great Green, which that far north is even greener. The hills of the mainland are covered in cedars, some bigger than an ox is wide, others with no more substance than my arm. He asks abruptly how long I have been gone from Egypt’s shores. Five months, I say.” Wenaten paused, refreshing himself with a beer.

  “I tell him I am anxious to return home. I share with him the curse this journey has been.”

  Cheftu listened as Wenaten told Pharaoh how Zakar Ba’al had demanded proof of his mission in the form of letters, letters that Wenaten had erroneously left in Egypt for safekeeping. Then the Tsori king had derided Egyptian seamanship. “He told me of two Egyptian envoys who had traveled to see him years before, told me he could show me their graves. I was sore afraid. I begged him, on the basis of honor, integrity, a worshipful heart, honesty, graciousness, hospitality, all of these things, to let me have the cedars for the house of the god.”

  Wenaten looked down, shoulders sagging. “Alas, only when I mentioned returning and sending ships back filled with the fripperies he deemed important, did he reason with me.”

  Akhenaten’s nostrils flared in anger, but he gestured for Wenaten to continue. After a moment Wenaten told how he had set sail from Tsor, but the ship had been wrecked on the isle of the Kefti.

  Akhenaten suddenly rose, cocked his head, and left the room. No words, no dismissal, nothing. The crowd hurriedly dropped to their faces until the door slammed shut.

  Cheftu leaned against a shaded column, listening to the envoys and the nobles pour out frustration over the situation, waiting for Wenaten to finish talking to the scribe. According to the gossip in this chamber, whole sections of the country were without food—the local priesthood had been disbanded—leaving too many fields for the small villages to harvest. Yet now the
villagers had new shrines to the Aten and new priests who demanded their attendance. Priest-soldiers, a new invention of Pharaoh, searched the peasants’ homes, to check and see if any other gods or goddesses were being honored. The penalty could range from slavery to death.

  In similar circumstances France had revolted against her king, eliminated the aristocracy, and made men equal.

  The Egyptians had no concept of equality, nor did they have the rigid social structure of eighteenth-century France. One thing was immutable, though: Theology told them Pharaoh was king, the god divine; to go against his word was to break the balance of Ma’at.

  Cheftu’s heart grew heavy; Egypt was dying. Neglect was as certain an assassin as invasion—perhaps more devastating because it also tore at the soul of the country. The people’s faith in their gods, their king, was put to the test.

  Cheftu feared Akhenaten was failing that test. He was assisting in the destruction of his people, just as surely as if he ripped their beating hearts from their chests. How Hatshepsut would mourn if she knew.

  They were ushered out of the room like so much cattle, then herded to the walkway to the Temple of the Rising of the Aten, with no chance of independent thought or action. Despite the heat and his concerns about Egypt, his heart felt lighter. Soon he would talk to Wenaten, find out more about this dagon, where he was, how to get there. Chloe, I come for you, he thought.

  Perhaps the “follow” was to follow Wenaten’s original journey and sail for Tsor?

  Once they were inside the temple, joining thousands upon thousands of people, soldier-priests closed the doors. They were trapped in the heat of the afternoon to worship. Egyptian and foreigner alike raised their bared heads to the sun in adoration until dusk.

  Cheftu stared into the sun, closing his eyes when they began to burn. His thoughts were on Chloe, lulled by Akhenaten’s remarkable voice intoning the wonders of peace, love, and the power of the sun.

  Hands grabbed him, while another hand muffled his protests. Cheftu was dragged backward through the crowd, the people parting to make way for him, never glancing at him. He was thrown into a pit, the sun blazing on him, beating off the walls of the enclosure, scorching his feet through his new sandals.

  “Who are you?” a voice asked. Cheftu looked up but could see nothing besides the glare of the Aten. Two figures stood at the edge of the pit, visible only in silhouette.

  “Ch-Chavsha, scribe of Wenaten,” he responded quickly. It wouldn’t do to give these men his real name. With one’s actual name, evil could be wrought. This was as true in France as it was in Egypt.

  “You closed your eyes to the glory of the Aten,” the other man said. “You have broken the law.”

  It was against the law to close one’s eyes? “I did not want to go blind,” Cheftu said. “I was merely … taking a while to blink.”

  “Blindness gives us true sight,” the first man said. “Only when we are not distracted by vision do we see what we really are, what we really have. Blindness is a gift of the Aten.”

  Cheftu was speechless. They wanted him to go blind? Staring up at them this way, he might be able to grant their wish, and soon. Sweat trickled down Cheftu’s back, sticking clothing to skin. “Your penalty is to worship from now until you are freed. Close your eyes for more than a moment and we will remove them. Blindness brings true clarity.”

  Sweet Isis, Cheftu thought. Someone, help me.

  THE PALACE OF TSOR STOOD ON A wave-washed hill, tiers of stairs linking the white cubed blocks together. Atop the mass was an enormous mosaic floor, sometimes sheltered, other times not. Banners of a blue so vibrant that it hurt the viewers’ eyes waved in the wild winds above the crenellated walls.

  Below the floor, whose curious tiled figures rotated in a twelve-part circle, were chambers and hallways, staircases and lightwells. Men and women lived here: women who wove and men who sailed.

  The lower floors were partitioned into audience halls and gathering chambers. The walls were plain, only inlaid with seashells or washed with color. Outside the many squared-off doors were gardens with cedars and bougainvillea growing side by side. In the waters beside the gardens, dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of ships anchored. The dock ran the length of the island; in fact, the dock was the island. The only part that was not dock was palace.

  On the island of Tsor there was no need for family housing. Each man was gone the six sailing months of the year, each woman spun and wove for six; then together they walked to the lowest level of the palace, the pits, and dyed for the winter six.

  It was said that even the sea in Tsor was a darker blue.

  On the mainland, the residents lived in carved-out caves overshadowed by trees that grew so tall, they almost blocked out the sun. The men there were craftsmen, whittling at wood to shape the winged lions Zakar Ba’al, the master of Tsor, so greatly loved.

  They carved Ashterty trees, symbols of the goddess’s fertility. They built temples far and wide. Each three-chambered building was hewn of wood already prepared in Tsor, then attached to the local stone with the master’s shamir—a wondrous, magical tool—in a soundless, scarless fashion. Only those sworn to the secrecy of being a mnason could learn the master’s powers of pouring rock, shaping stone, and transforming. The others were carpenters, hewing the wood and never setting sail. In Tsor, each person wanted to own himself fully.

  It was a goal they all sought. The women worked, as women always do, maintaining the home, rearing the children: however, these women were also merchants. As a body they had called on the master, petitioning that his sailors trade for food with homegrown delicacies: a drink made from pine needles; the nuts from the inside of a pinecone; their embroidered, dyed cloths; and orphaned children, to the many courts and ports the sailors visited.

  The Tsori were a wealthy, wealthy people because of this merchandising. Zakar Ba’al was not alone in dining on gold plates, drinking wine from across the Sea, or playing dice with ivory-and-jade play pieces.

  The master fingered his playing pieces meditatively, staring from the island to the mainland. The coast was rugged and beautiful, the sea a shade of blue matched only in Tsori cloth. Trees and mountains, these with no fire, no molten lava, rose in the distance. Zakar Ba’al looked away, bored.

  He had two pathways leading from the splendors of Egypt, Kush and the jungles beyond, to the great civilizations north, Mitanni, Hattai, and hundred-gated Assyria. Beyond Assyria were the wonders of the East, with their elephants, slant-eyed men, and curiously spicy food.

  One of the pathways was via the sea. Sail south to Qiselee, Yaffo, Ashdod, Ashqelon, the Delta of Egypt, then through the throat of the Nile, to Noph, Waset, Simbel, Kush … then beyond.

  Or he could send a caravan of donkeys north, up through the Arava, mounting the hills to walk on the King’s Highway all the way to Assyria.

  Both thoroughfares were now blocked. Soon his people would be hungry, for the Tsori were not farmers; they traded for their foodstuffs.

  Tsidoni, the imbeciles, had declared war on Tsori ships. Already the master had lost a handful of vessels. There was no way to sail south without passing Ako, a Tsidoni port. Since Tsor wasn’t a battling country, she had no army. Retreat was the sole option.

  Then the King’s Highway, his back door of security, had been breached. Some new power prowled Canaan’s hills. A monarch unwilling to share in profit.

  That king just hasn’t been properly approached, the Zakar Ba’al thought. No one refused him.

  Then the years fell away, hundreds and hundreds of years, a millennium. One face remained forever etched in his memory. Once he had been refused, before he wore the name Hiram Zakar Ba’al, Shiva, Thor, or Dionysus. Only one man had he longed for, had he sought after to no avail. Only one man had been his equal. He had loved that way just once, giving his best, granting immortality, then letting the object of his passions leave him.

  The one man he’d wanted and never known.

  Cheftu sa’a Khamese. The Egyptian.


  CHEFTU WANTED TO WEEP WITH RELIEF when the sun finally left the sky. His head was throbbing, he was nauseated, and the spots before his eyes concerned him. He would not last many more days of this. Not survive and keep his eyesight.

  How to escape? Had anyone noticed he was missing? Wenaten probably wouldn’t notice if his own body were missing, much less Cheftu’s.

  The temple complex all but shut down with the setting of the sun; he’d had three days to observe it. The priests bade each other good night and left. A closed temple was something he’d never seen in the courts of Amun-Ra. However, he was beginning to believe that most of this was behavior he’d never seen in the courts of Amun-Ra. When had the Egyptian religion and its practices changed from being a personal choice to being a law? What perversion of faith was this?

  His eyes burned, his stomach cramped, and Cheftu wondered what he could do. Right now it was dark, so he couldn’t even see the stones to learn what the future held. Leaning against the cooling wall of the pit, he closed his eyes. He would rest for a moment.

  “Chavsha?” A whisper woke him.

  As he opened his eyes, the memory of the past three days engulfed him. Fighting the panic in his throat, he remained motionless.

  “Chavsha?” It was Wenaten’s voice. “Are you there?”

  “Aye,” he said. Cheftu heard rustling, then felt a rope hit him on the head.

  “Climb quickly. Guards will be reporting for duty in moments.”

  Though he was weak from hunger and heat, the very thought of being free was icy water to his soul. He jumped for the rope, checked the anchor, then pulled himself up, using the wall to speed him.

  Hands, hard with calluses, grabbed his arms, hauled him over the edge; Wenaten had assistance. Cheftu couldn’t see the face of his rescuer. “My undying gratitude,” he said in a rush. “I am indebted to you.”

  “Flee now. You will become a wanted man,” Wenaten said. “Egypt is not safe for you.”