by Nell Gavin
I knelt before my executioner and was blindfolded. All was black. I pressed my eyes closed and prayed while the remarks and catcalls hushed to deathly silence, unearthly still.
In the midst of this, I heard a bird sing then heard its wings flap as it flew away. Would the crowd be watching it now? Forgetting me? I pretended this was so.
I resolved to follow the bird to a better place, away from here. We would leave this earth together, the bird and I, and would never, ever look behind us.
My last living thought, as it happened, was a cheerful one. In my mind, I called out to the bird to wait for me and, in my mind, it did. It circled back—one friend after all—to carry me on its wings to God. I might lose my life, I promised myself, but I was neither crushed nor truly broken. Like a bird, I was merely poised for flight.
“Where is my sword?” the executioner shouted. As he swung it into position to strike, the air whipped against my skin. I could feel it.
“To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesu receive my soul–”
PART 7
Choice and Circumstance
Egypt, 2437BC
Chapter 1
•~۞~•
I am making flour, grinding barley between two large, smooth stones, while the two little ones play with pebbles on the dirt floor. I occasionally stop to go and pry these same pebbles out of the younger child’s mouth, scolding her. My thoughts wander no further than the narrow boundaries of my life and, in the midst of this, I am shocked to attention by running footsteps and shouts outside my dwelling. Startled, I look up to see a small figure in the doorway, a boy of about 10. He bursts in and screams that my husband has fallen, and is being carried back from the construction site. I leap to my feet and run into the street, terrified.
I can see a stranger in the distance, pushing through the merchants and villagers. He carries my husband across his shoulders, arms dangling and useless, eyes closed.
There is still hope. Perhaps my husband has merely had the air knocked out of him and will recover. Perhaps if a bone is broken, it will not set crooked. I squint, trying to force my eyes to see farther and to diagnose the injuries.
He looks as if he might be dead, I think. If he is dead I might still marry. There are certainly those who would keep me; I could easily find another man. A worse fate would be impairment. Even if his injury keeps him in bed for a time, we will suffer. If he is permanently crippled, he cannot work, I cannot remarry, and I cannot eat or feed my children.
After considering the possibilities, I select the one that suits me best, and softly plead to the gods that he is dead.
Perhaps we will not go hungry. Perhaps we will not all die as a result of this.
I stand in the street, absently caressing the heads of the little ones who toddled after me, and watch the man approach with my husband. The smaller girl pulls at my tunic, and says her word for milk. I lift her up and press her to my breast where she suckles, as oblivious to these events as I am oblivious to her. The older girl clings to my leg and sucks her thumb, whining softly about something I do not bother to take note of.
I know the older girl. It is Mother. I know the younger girl. It is Katherine.
Furthermore, I know my husband. He is Sir Thomas Wyatt from the court of Henry VIII, the passionate, persistent suitor whom I rejected. He is not as fond of me here, in fact, he thinks of me as only barely human. I am his woman, nothing more. He beds me, and eats what I feed him, and beats me when his mood is foul. I carry bruises, for his mood is not often good. He also beats the children: tiny girls aged one and two who know more of how to cower than to hug.
Aye, but that is what men do to their women to keep them in line. They all do. I am grateful he has not sold the babies or me into slavery. He has not yet gotten that tired of us.
The man who is carrying my husband catches my eye, but says nothing. I motion him into our dwelling, and he stands, waiting for me to show him where my husband will go.
My husband’s bed is a low cot made of leather straps that are interwoven and strung across a wooden frame. It has a half-circle wooden neck rest that protrudes, like a wishbone, from the head of it.
I think he might do better if he lies flat, so I spread my reed mat upon the floor. If my husband were conscious, he would protest the insult of being laid upon a woman’s bed, but I do not bother for his concerns. At the moment, his concerns are not my concerns, for he is near death.
The man sets my husband down, not altogether gently, nods at me, then pulls out a pouch and gives me a small, polished lapis figure of the god Horus. He suggests I trade it for some food, then leaves while I stand there motionless, still in shock, clutching the figure in my fingers. Tears spring to my eyes at his kindness, and I race out to the street to shout thanks toward his retreating figure, but he quickly disappears into the crowd, and I do not know if he has heard.
I turn back, uncertain, and examine my husband’s injuries. I discover the broken bone is in his shoulder, and I wince. This does not bode well for us. He has an enormous lump on his head with a trickle of blood running from it, and this I wipe clean, not suspecting that the greater damage was done here, rather than to the shoulder. The babies study him and touch him gingerly, unafraid when he is like this, but hesitant nonetheless.
I do not know what to do.
I go out again into the street, call aside a boy, and plead for him to find someone to help me. I cannot pay, I tell him. He gives me a contemptuous look and disappears.
I try again, and then again, weeping now, but all brush me aside. They do not like my husband, and view that as good reason to push his wife away. Finally an old woman agrees to come, and enters our home with darting looks as if she is searching for something to steal. I send her away with a curse, and she curses back at me and spits.
It is up to me, and I do not know what to do.
Chapter 2
•~۞~•
Whatever it was that I did, it was wrong. My husband healed crookedly with a protruding bone, and one useless arm. The pupil in his right eye became large and strange-looking because the blow to his head had been severe, even though the skull appeared intact. My efforts to clean the external wound did nothing to heal him internally.
Now, some time later, he seems normal on the surface, but can no longer control his temper even to the degree he had before. He still has one good arm with which to hit us, and a club to extend his reach, but he cannot perform his usual work, or any other kind of work that he is willing to do. The children and I live in terror and suffer in hunger, for he demands what few scraps I am able to find.
I take to nursing the older girl again, though she had been weaned. I suckle both children and beg on the streets for food for myself so that my milk will not dry up. I sometimes eat and sometimes do not. I have to be careful to spare a little of whatever I receive for my husband lest he grow discontented and violent, but I sometimes gobble crusts and scraps before returning home, then tell him there was none. He never believes me, and often draws blood when he beats me, but at least my hunger is sometimes quelled for a time.
I still have milk, but as I had feared, it begins to dry. I am concerned for the babies who are not growing as they should. They are very, very small, and somewhat listless. Their hair does not shine. I am afraid they will die.
I have been shown the next scene many times before. I am forced to view it again with each passing, for I have never been able to reconcile it in my heart and have often chosen badly as a result of it. It might have been a passage into understanding, but it was not, so I am left to watch it again. Perhaps this time, with this last passing, I learned.
I feel that this time, I have. I see it differently, now.
The girls need bread and fruit. I cannot continue to feed them through to adulthood on breast milk—can the milk even last another week? Still, I hesitate to use the lapis figurine. I will not part with it. I view it as a good luck charm, and a reminder of someone’s kindness. It has greater value to me th
an the little I would receive in exchange for it, so I continue to beg, keeping the figurine close to me in a small pouch tied under my tunic. I will carry it with me for the rest of my life: a small blue beacon, hidden in a leather pouch beneath my skirt.
Once again I hold out my hand. A man stops and looks me over, then laughs and grabs my breast. My stomach chooses that instant to growl, and in the desperateness of my situation, I do not pull away. Instead, I ask: “What will you give me?”
He takes a scarab ring from his finger and holds it up.
“Yes,” I say. I reach for the ring, and grab it. I already sense that you take payment first.
I know of a place where we can go. There is an area hidden behind a clump of palm trees, in an alley that has no traffic. I take him there, and spread palms upon the ground. I look around me, terrified that I will be seen or that my husband will find us, but no one passes.
I close my eyes tight, and think of food.
When he is finished, he stands up and leaves me there without another word. I start to weep with shame over what I have done, but I have the ring and I know that we will all eat well for a while. I stand up and dust myself off, wipe my eyes, then run to the market and exchange the ring for food, enough for a week.
My husband does not ask where the food comes from. In truth, he does not care.
When the food runs out, I find another man with another small treasure. This time I do not cry, afterwards. This time I do not wait for the food to run out before finding a third man. I leave at night when my family is asleep, and prowl the streets for soldiers. My husband does not know what I am doing, nor can I tell him.
I meet other women who are doing what I do, and they are kind to me. There is a sisterhood of sorts between the street whores who know they cannot count upon men, are scorned by women, and have only each other for support and solace. They teach me what to do and what to avoid and warn me to carry a dagger. They show me how to walk and how to look at a man to draw him over, and they describe certain acts that I must be willing to perform without revealing any revulsion or disgust. They give me advice in handling the drunken ones and the mean ones, and name certain men that I must never, ever go with at all, no matter what they offer.
I learn from these women that I can earn more if I ply my trade in the Valley of the Kings. It takes courage to go there, and I wrestle with mine for a long while before seriously considering the journey.
I have long heard about it. It is a village of tomb robbers and criminals who are not averse to also earning riches from prostitution. Over time, an area around this village grew into a notorious brothel with row upon row of tents that teem with teetering, drunken soldiers and wandering workmen. It is dangerous, the street whores say, and the women there are hardened and cruel. The very worst men I have seen on the streets are what I can expect to find in the Valley: drunken brutes, gangs of thieves, military misfits, and social pariahs . . .
There is construction going on in the Valley, as the pharaoh has commissioned a new pyramid. The women go where men are most apt to be found and, during any massive construction, there are always scores of men nearby who are anxious for entertainment.
For my entire life, there has been ongoing building, men who build, and women who follow them. The brothels seem as enduring as the structures that loom above them, and certainly as enduring as the thieves who plunder them. The Valley is a place where campfires burn until morning, where music is played, and women dance while fights break out around them. It bursts with life after sundown. The free men linger with their wages after the slaves have been led away at day’s end, and the rougher elements all find their way there. They pour vat after vat of fermented drink, and rut like animals among the women who are there to service them.
My father threatened me with the place when I was growing. It was, he said, where they send useless daughters. Now I am faced with going there of my own volition. I have no remaining family, and no other place offers me escape from my husband.
I am terrified but I go, and I bring the children with me. It is a long walk, and takes two days. I struggle with one child strapped to my back, and the other led for short distances by the hand until she cries to be carried. At night we sleep in a doorway, and we stop to beg for food along the way. For the final leg of the journey, we ride on a donkey whose driver I pay with my body. My husband does not know why we have left, or if we will ever return. I slipped away while he slept.
When we arrive, it is nearing dusk and, shy and timid, I look about me. I feel out of place. I am a matron with two small children, primly watching from the periphery.
I am not a whore. I am not like these people. Surely they can see this. Surely no one suspects I have done this before. I will only stay until I earn enough money to live another way.
There are shouts already coming from a knot of men who are placing bets on a game of Senet. The players hurl the casting sticks, and their audience erupts into either triumph or frustration at the resulting throw, depending upon which player they have bet. The women are primping themselves and gossiping for a short time before nightfall when the workmen leave their shifts and their own day begins. Caravans of donkeys are arriving with water, food and drink, and urns are carried into tents while the drivers scream and haggle with a woman over price. Huge shiny-black Nubian guards wander back and forth with whips held and ready, weaving in and out of the growing crowd. Torches are lit, and a fire is built in the pit as the sun sinks. Men appear from nowhere, growing louder and louder as the first vat of drink is emptied. Someone has begun to bang a drum, and three women climb onto a low platform where they dance suggestively.
I find a woman who will let me use a tent for a price. I pay her in advance, then settle the children inside and stand in front of the tent to wait. It does not take long, and I have a customer whom I invite inside.
As we slip through the entrance of the tent, the children softly stir on the mat. Katherine opens her eyes and smiles at me before going back to sleep.
I cannot work in front of my babies. I had not given any thought to that before.
I tell the customer to wait, and I go back outside where I see a whore standing in front of the tent next to mine.
I ask if she knows of a place where children might be kept. She eyes me suspiciously and tosses her hair. I look at her closely and cannot immediately pinpoint what it is about her appearance that disturbs me, but I press on with my request. I have no time to search for someone else.
“Please,” I say. “They are babies. I have someone waiting for me, and he will pay me enough to feed them, if he doesn’t grow angry and walk off.”
“Leave them with me until you finish,” the whore says grudgingly. “I expect a slow night anyway.”
At the sound of the voice, I stare. It is a deep voice, a man’s voice. I realize this is not a woman, as I had first thought. I blush. He is merely dressed as a woman with kohl-painted eyes and earrings of gold. I have never encountered a man like this before, although I had heard that they exist.
It is Henry.
I cannot stop to think about what he does in his tent, or whether I should look for someone else. I have a customer and no time. As for Henry, he has offered to help me on an impulse, uncertain of why he should be generous to me, speaking the words without thought, regretting them as soon as he hears them spoken. We say nothing else about the agreement, and go through with it despite our misgivings.
I race back and grab both sleeping children at once. I hand Katherine to Henry, who holds her as if he has held little children before. He holds her as a mother would. I follow him into his tent with the larger child, and we lay them down side by side on his mat. I decide it is safe to leave them with him. I can see he will not molest them, for he is a fancy man, not a true one, and he holds Katherine gently, and with sureness I have never seen in a man. He will take care of them, and I know this. Had I any initial inclination to feel contempt toward him, those feelings are buried under gratitude.
I smile at him and whisper my thanks, then run back to my customer who is growing impatient.
When the customer leaves, I return to Henry’s tent and find him inside of it, squatting beside the mat, watching the girls with a soft, wistful look on his face. He pushes Katherine’s hair back with his finger, then starts upon seeing me. He quickly covers his gentle expression, and rises.
“You may leave them a little longer, if it suits you. But next time you will need to find another place for them so that I can work as well.” He walks toward the entrance of the tent with mincing hips, opens the flap and peers out. He turns back to me. “I can find you a small tent we can set up behind these. We can take turns watching the children when we aren’t busy. And when we both are, I have a friend who can stand guard.”
I am speechless. My inclination is to recoil from him, or even to curse him, but I am alone and afraid, and have already received glares from the other women who neither appreciate, nor do they admire my modesty and moral superiority. Plus, there is need. I have children, and I need someone’s help.
The gods sometimes send strange soldiers to protect us.
He is about the sort of soldier I might expect. I sigh.
“I will see to it tomorrow,” he continues.
The offer is selfish. He is one of those who feels he should have been born a woman, and has always dreamt of having a child as a woman would. Now, given an opportunity he never expected, he intends to steal secret moments when he can hold the girls and stroke them, and sing to them. He raised his younger sisters until he was driven from his home by his father when his taste for men became evident. Fathers drive out or kill sons such as he, and Henry left under threat of death. He misses those children, and misses having a child to tend.
He has considered the situation and views it as good fortune. He hides from me the excitement he feels, for if he shows me any, I might remove the children out of spite. He expects me to do this anyway, and thinks he is buying only a very short respite from his loneliness.
