Ooohh, pretty… she thought, smoothing the soft, fine-threaded linens, but the fascination lasted only for an instant. Light filtered in at her bare feet, glinting on her ankle bracelets. A coverlet lay out over her nakedness. Near her feet, her dance cloak was painstakingly and neatly folded beside her. Someone had taken great care not to pleat or wrinkle it. Gasping in horror, Naibe realized she was not alone. A sudden, horrible feeling rushed through her. She had fallen asleep with one man in her arms and wakened to find herself in the arms of another.
Her eyes looked up, as her thoughts cleared a little more and she began to study the calm, almost expressionless face looking down at her. She knew who it was. This man was Prince Maatkare Raemkai, the same man who had been celebrated last night. He was the one who had greedily spirited Deka away weeks before, but had not been above drunken antics with Ariennu at the party. Now, somehow, she and this prince were on a rather large and nicely outfitted boat being swiftly steered somewhere by many men. He was up on one arm, watching her the way an animal might study a bird or small animal it had trapped.
“Where’s Majesty? Where’s Kha-ket?” her first words leapt from her throat before she realized how much talking made her head hurt. The Child Stone in her brow whispered something she couldn’t quite understand.
“In his palace, I guess,” the prince’s voice steadied her unfocused thoughts a little more.
“Deka?” she tensed, worried. “Ari?” she struggled a little in fear even though she knew she shouldn’t.
“On the boat behind us, but they don’t matter to you now. I have you here and your look excites me.” He seized her hand and began to trace it over his hard, muscled chest down to his flat belly.
Naibe shut her eyes, tired and groaning, then fell back onto the cushioning. “My neck hurts,” she shut her eyes again, hoping the complaint would buy her at least enough time to get her bearings. She knew exactly what this man wanted of her and could barely contain her horrified astonishment.
Prince Maatkare Raemkai touched the lump at the base of Naibe’s neck to see what might have caused her pain.
“Bastards,” he whispered under his breath. What seemed to have been a sympathetic comment at first quickly turned into a chuckle of disbelief at his good fortune. “I’ll have to speak to them about how it’s done. They could have wounded you. Dizzy?” he asked, but didn’t wait for her answer. “Come here,” he helped her sit as he sat, then tilted her into one arm, placing her palm over his heart so she could stroke his chest and admire his muscles.
Instead, she bowed her head to his neck. But why have I been taken away? Why did Kha-ket Menkaure let me go? He was so very happy last night. He called me his goddess. He even cried in my arms… so very happy… her thoughts trailed. She had to have the answer. “But…” she protested, knowing all too painfully where any of the small talk she could muster as a spacer would eventually lead. “Where are you taking me?” she knew the man intended to force her if she didn’t comply. She’d heard enough rumors during her stay at the palace. Maybe if she could keep him talking she might learn what he liked. Maybe a way to escape would present itself if the idea was just too obnoxious.
This was already so terribly disgusting. Someone had knocked her senseless the moment the king slept, dumped her into this pretty cabin and into this man’s lap. Now that she had just come to her senses, he wanted to leap her. Her head was still spinning. She felt how aroused he was – he kept slyly working her hand to accidentally graze or touch him, to worship the size of his erection. Her stomach knotted in nausea.
“Little place called Qustul,” a frown spread over his face for just a moment, “but you don’t need to know that. You just need to know someone’s going to make you feel sooo good inside, just like Nefersekht Ntrt, just like your Red Sister,” he grinned.
“Qustul? Isn’t that almost a month away? You’ll be there for several months? That’s what the party was about last night. The party. The king. Kha-ket… Kha-ket, how could you let me go? You said you… Naibe-Ellit sat up and tried to pull away. Her heart hammered in panic as Maatkare’s grip on her hand tightened until she gasped. “No, you cannot force me. I don’t accept you. Would you rape me who is beloved of your king?” She took in a little breath, knowing she was strong enough to overcome a mere man. She struggled. To her shock, her strength had suddenly abandoned her. A silent sedateness stole through her brow, attempting to soothe her.
No need.
Peaceful be.
To instruct.
To calm.
To learn
Her child stone assured her. The voice inside it sounded wrong though, tentative, as if it was giving her a hint. That, and the fact that she couldn’t budge her hand, worried her. But why? “You’re hurting me!” she pushed at his chest with the heel of her hand in vain.
“You know why,” he replied quickly; his lips at her brow. “Because you’re not supposed to say no… or even think it. I can hear your thoughts, you know, every one of them.” He wrestled her hand from his chest and brought it to his penis. “See? Nice, eh?”
Naibe fought the little smirk of subconscious pleasure that squirmed around under her lips. He was delicious looking, but it didn’t make him any more appealing to her. She remembered before she had been changed by the Children of Stone that she would have tried to trip up a man of such excellent form and endowment, then crawl over him, tearing joyously into him like a starving beast. It was different for her now. If there was sex, and often there was not, it was a sharing thing that loved heartily and demanded that love would be returned. If it could not be – if there was no warmth – then there was nothing. She knew if she relaxed and didn’t resist him, he would certainly take her to some kind of gasping, wicked pleasure, but it would be nothing to her after the sensations faded. The first seventeen years of her life had been about craving the sex, and she didn’t need or want that now.
Through Marai and then through Wserkaf, she had learned that the goddess she thought she called down had always been inside of her, even from her birth. It was the goddess of all love, not just the physical. Because of the stone in her brow that constantly whispered to her and taught her, she had learned to accept that gift. She sent love out to surround and fill a man like the light of a billion stars; to nourish and heal him with her love. That was the gift she had given Shepseskaf and then King Menkaure, and it was another reason why being with this prince at this moment made no sense at all.
In just a flash of memory, she remembered her evening with the king:
Naibe-Ellit slowly circled the pink and white throne one more time. Her sheerest gauze veils and garlands lay loosely at her feet. So much joy had come through her during the dance that she could not contain her gasping and gentle sighing, even though the dance had ended. She had planned to fade into the crowd of prophetesses, who had clustered at one side of the onlookers. Among them, she would seek the protection of the women’s area, but the thought to go to them wouldn’t stay. She quietly sagged, winded, joyous, and gleaming with sweat at the foot of the throne.
Her hands gently caressed her own breasts, offering them in sudden grief remembered. “Oh Marai, Marai my love…” she had quietly mouthed, “come back to me.” She remembered feeling herself being lifted from the floor, but she was too dazzled to see who picked her up with strong, but trembling arms.
Many women’s hands touched and blessed her as she was carried past them. They had gently wept in what sounded like joy as if they finally understood her dance and why she had come to them. She had been the beloved of a dead man, but in this dance, she came to give herself to a god. They had trembled in awe, as she was borne past them and up the stairs.
“Majesty…” she had heard another voice protest. It had been the old priest.
“No, Uncle, not this time,” the voice of the king had spoken. Naibe recalled feeling fretful, but the king’s attention turned to her. “Shhh. I’ve got you. Your king has you, sweet one,” the sparkly glass-beaded curtain ha
d tinkled past their shoulders as he carried her into his bedchamber.
She had been in that room often during the week, but she had always been with Ariennu. Together they had spoken to him and consoled him in the evening. Sometimes she had sang. That night the room seemed strange and different, with the flowers and the little lights everywhere as if they were stars greeting them. It had become part of another world.
Oh, he trembles at the sight and touch of me, she had almost opened her eyes as he set her down. The touch reminded her of Him. “Mar…” she began as she was placed, ever so gently, on the king’s wide, dark, and soft couch. The last of her veils and garlands had slipped from her body as she was carried.
Menkaure cared for her then as she had once cared for him.
“Ohhh…” she had opened her eyes, fixing them on his gold and indigo nemes, the serpent at his brow, and finally his gentle hazel brown eyes, which stared back at her in the soft flickering lighting of all of the lamps and candles spread throughout the room.
The weight of a kingdom lined the king’s slightly plump face as he had sat there by her. He smoothed her hair with the back of his hand, then reached to remove her ribbon circlet. For a moment he pondered the blue stone it had tightly covered, then soothed the place at her brow, wondering if she had hurt herself somehow.
“Sweet goddess,” he began.
She sensed his tears forming and knew her dance had opened his old and deepest wounds.
He had been thinking of those who had gone before, just as she had danced for a man who had gone. “You have found me in your Underworld of sorrow,” he whispered, moving to stretch out on his couch beside her.
When he touched her face, Naibe lifted her hand to offer him the same gesture.
“I said on the day you came into my house that one day I would come to you to give you the honor of my body; that I would come to you as a god.” He had removed his nemes.
Naibe saw in her memory reaching up to mark the slight red indentation where it had pressed into to his brow. She had blinked her quiet eyes and listened as he continued.
“But my sad heart has now met your sad heart and it begs that you honor me instead, for without worship of you I have no honor.”
She had whimpered just a little, as if the thought of lying with an actual king who was a god might be fearsome. Even though she had seen him at his weakest just some days earlier, her lips trembled. Tears had filled her eyes, but his fingertips hushed her. She reveled in his worship.
“You still weep for him, your best beloved. Your dance was for him, too, pretty Kina-Ahn? I can see it was,” he lowered his eyes. “Perhaps I will meet such a god of men when I go into the West. We will sail the stars together, brother with brother. I think it will be soon, my goddess.”
The corners of Naibe’s mouth had twitched, because she knew he was speaking of his own death. She nodded, averting her eyes slightly as he sat and eased her gently onto his lap. He had gently kissed the surface of her lips then, respecting her entirely as she wrapped her arms around him and looked up into his eyes.
Naibe gently breathed into his mouth, giving him her sweetness as if it had been the last act of her dance of love. She had whispered, “we must let our sad hearts touch each other and heal our hurts and sorrows together while we live.”
That was why women feared her and men went to their knees and crawled across the burning sand for her. She brought love into men and drew it from them again in a way few wives or concubines could ever learn. That was her gift. That was also why none of this day or her being on this boat with this man made any sense.
“Uh-huh,” she smiled a little, albeit falsely this time at the haughty creature bending over her. She tried not to feel lost and helpless. Had she been used and abandoned? Had she been harshly stolen? Was there some other reason for her painful separation from yet another man which she could not understand? These questions all swirled in Naibe’s mind. She knew, though, that if she could only get the glimmer in her thoughts started just once more, perhaps she could draw out the real reason why she was here. Hoping it would come through and dispel this shadow of confusion, she relaxed enough to deal with whatever she had to in the meantime while she waited for the answer to come.
CHAPTER 29: CROSSING AT NIGHT
Marai breathed out heavily and woke himself. He sat quietly and contemplated everything he had seen in altered time that evening, marveling at the way the scenes and events had played in his thoughts as if they had been a tale told by a seasoned storyteller. His emotions lodged somewhere between personal agony and quiet disgust as he waited for Wserkaf to rise from the low wall where they both sat.
“Are you well? You look…” the inspector glanced at the big man as he shook out his arms and legs.
“Tired, perhaps ill now, but it doesn’t matter. If you saw what I saw, then you know I have to go to them. Doesn’t matter to me any more if it’s a bad idea or if I have to kill. I just wish I had time to visit something on Hordjedtef first.”
Wserkaf nodded that he understood. “You don’t bother with him. He’s protected. Even if you were to destroy his body, your victory would be short-lived. His soul is a mighty one, and not so easily undone.” The inspector knew Marai would be better off concentrating on the rout of Maatkare Raemkai. He had little doubt the big man could best the young general. Marai was at least a head taller, with mighty chest, arms, and legs. Size alone would give him advantage. He recognized, though, that Marai was still a gentle shepherd who had come from the Sin-Ai Wild Land so long ago, but he carried a wisdom uncommon in peasants. He would study the habits of the man carefully before attempting any rescue of his wives unless they were in immediate danger. The hesitation would return the advantage to the prince who was notorious for his dirty tricks, brutality and manipulation of those around him. He was a younger more physical version of the Great One.
The inspector watched the boatmen put away their game and get ready to launch. That so little time had passed again astonished him.
A crewman went to the back of the boat to position himself by the large helm oar. Two other men sat in the front to power the boat. There were two more oars in case greater speed was needed.
Normally, the inspector didn’t row, but the hour was late and so without words he and Marai understood they would help. When everyone was seated, the inspector leaned to Marai. “Even if these men promise to say nothing of this evening, when Hordjedtef finds out they took you over the water, he will reach into their hearts for the memory of it and if they are stubborn, he’ll harry their wives and children until someone speaks. They need to remember nothing.”
Marai nodded. If Wserkaf himself admitted the Great One could access a skilled man’s thoughts, it would be no challenge at all for him to lay bare the thoughts of a simple boatman. Now, in addition to slowing time, he would have to erase everything from these men’s thoughts except that they had been gambling and playing senet all night while they waited for customers that never came. He made a face, then raised his forefinger, pointing at the steersman who lifted the great oar.
“From now.” He smiled cryptically, then turned to the other two men, repeating the phrase. Then he sent the thought to Wserkaf: When you have regained this side of the river whisper the words “’til then, the in-between is hidden” Understand me?
The men paused, as if concerned, but then pushed the boat out silently. As they did, Marai studied the way they tested each glide stroke for depth on three sides of the wooden craft. The crescent moon was higher now, but in the darkness of the low-lit river very little of the water glimmered. The five men were crossing by sound and feel.
For a moment before he began to row, Marai drew into his thoughts and gently stroked the bag of Child Stones Wserkaf had given him. “Ariennu, sweet Ari…” Marai breathed sadly, his lips gently grazing the bag in a kiss. He bowed his head, knowing she must have sensed the dire nature of everyone’s existence in Ineb Hedj quite early if she had handed off the eight far-seeing ston
es to Wserkaf. That action had thwarted much of the thought-linking ability of the stones. It assisted the veil of secrecy she cast. Marai wondered, for a moment, if that assistance had been the real reason he had been unable to contact the women after he left the tomb instead of some heka from the Great One.
“So, when you let Ari take your wdjat as a trade before you left for your duty, what did your mentor say when he noticed?” Marai asked, absently tapping his forehead with the small bag of stones until he felt a slight squirming thrill issuing from inside.
“He was furious with me,” Wserkaf answered. “He railed at me it that I had disappointed him once again and that the wdjat was no mere trinket to be palmed off on a mere sojourned handmaiden as he called Lady Ariennu,” the inspector noticed the big man seemed distracted, so he stopped talking for a moment. Marai gently opened the bag in his lap. When he did, Wserkaf sensed greater light than he actually saw. The gentlest of lights shimmered up into Marai’s face. Orbs of light streamed forth, illuminating the man with rainbow-filled shimmers. Its loveliness caused the inspector to gasp involuntarily because for a moment, he felt their energy radiate through his thoughts.
“I know, little ones, I know. We’ll find them… ” he whispered to them like a father consoling frightened children. “I miss them too.”
The rush of pleasure and passion Wserkaf felt reminded him of Naibe-Ellit and the sensation of her breath as it rushed up into his face.
Marai drew the bag shut and tucked it in his belt. He stared up at the moon, pulled the hood on his cloak tighter up over his head. Just the edge of his silvery beard and hawk-like nose showed. He began to solemnly row with the other men.
As the rudder man eased the boat out onto the open and deeper water of the great river, wavelets lapped at its sides. Marai sensed the wind over the great river stirring just a little as if it, too, marked the somber first night of mourning for the king. Something was there, watching again. The sojourner felt the familiar dark that had entered him when he had raged at the knowledge of all that had transpired why he lay in the tomb. He knew men seldom put boats on the water in the dark for fear of being trapped on silt ridges.
Going Forth By Day Page 39
