Part 9 (1/2)
”She told me,” Hori answered simply, ”because I asked her.”
Sheritra shuddered. ”How dreadful” she exclaimed ”Poor Tbubui!”
Khaemwaset gently took her wrist. ”So you are going into the city with Harmin tomorrow,” he said. The young man had taken him aside earlier and had coolly requested his permission. Khaemwaset had gladly given it. ”You must of course take Amek and a soldier with you,” he insisted to Sheritra, ”and be home in time for dinner.”
”Of course I will!” she replied impatiently. ”Do not fuss so, Father. Now I will change my linens before we eat.” She disengaged herself, shouting for Bakmut, and went into the house. Hori had already wandered off, Antef appearing from the rear garden to meet him. Khaemwaset and Nubnofret looked at each other.
”She is going to fall hard,” Khaemwaset said slowly. ”I don't know what that young man has said to her, but already she has changed.”
”I see it too,” Nubnofret agreed. ”But I am full of fear for her, my husband. What can he possibly see in her? He is new to Memphis. She is the first girl he has met here. He will discard her when his social life becomes more varied. Sheritra is too sensitive to handle such a crus.h.i.+ng rejection.”
”As usual, you give her no credit,” Khaemwaset responded angrily, feeling as though his wife had attacked Tbubui herself. ”Why is it not possible for Harmin to appreciate all the qualities in Sheritra that are not visible? And why do you immediately presume that he is merely dallying and will desert her? Let us at least give both of them the compliment of optimism.”
”You always were blind to everyone's faults but mine!” Nubnofret snapped back bitterly, and turning on her heel she stalked away across the darkening lawn, her linen floating wraithlike behind her in the gloom.
By the time they sat down together for the final meal of the day, her anger had lessened to a stiff formality. Khaemwaset deliberately set himself to making her smile, and in the end succeeded. They drank their last cups of wine sitting side by side on the watersteps that still held the warmth of day, knee to knee, watching the barely perceptible flow of the quiet water. In the end, Nubnofret put her head on his shoulder.
For a while he let it rest there, inhaling the aroma of her tumultous hair, loosely holding her hand, but then a mild desire woke in him. ”Come,” he whispered, and rising he led her in under the tangled shrubbery beside the steps and made love to her.
But as he did so a distaste for his wife began to rise under his s.e.xual urgency, a repugnance for her large, soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the spread of her ample, pliant hips, the wideness of her generous mouth now parted in pleasure. There was nothing hard, spare, driving about Nubnofret, and by the time Khaemwaset rolled from her and felt the dry gra.s.ses and twigs dig into his back, he knew that he would rather have been making love with Tbubui.
SHERITRA TRIED not to break into a run as she saw Harmin smile a greeting from his vantage point in the bow of his barge. For a fleeting moment her defences came up and she wished with all her heart to be safely in her room talking with Bakmut, far away from this sudden complication, this enormous risk. But soon the shrinking was replaced by a feeling of happy recklessness new to her. Forcing her shoulders back she walked towards him with all the grace she could muster, Amek and his soldier behind. Harmin bowed as she negotiated the ramp and she bid him a good morning, thus giving him the freedom to speak. not to break into a run as she saw Harmin smile a greeting from his vantage point in the bow of his barge. For a fleeting moment her defences came up and she wished with all her heart to be safely in her room talking with Bakmut, far away from this sudden complication, this enormous risk. But soon the shrinking was replaced by a feeling of happy recklessness new to her. Forcing her shoulders back she walked towards him with all the grace she could muster, Amek and his soldier behind. Harmin bowed as she negotiated the ramp and she bid him a good morning, thus giving him the freedom to speak.
”Good morning, Princess,” he answered her gravely, signalling for the ramp to be drawn inboard. Amek and the other man took up their stations at either end of the craft, and Harmin drew Sheritra towards the cabin.
His family's barge was not as large nor as sumptuous as Khaemwaset's, but it was hung with pennants cut from a cloth of gold on which black Eyes of Horus had been painted. The curtains, tied back, were also cloth of gold, ta.s.selled in silver. Sheritra took the upholstered stool Harmin indicated, watching him covertly as he arranged cus.h.i.+ons for himself on the floor, then turned to offer her fresh water and slivers of cold beef marinated in garlic and wine.
He was dressed as simply as his barge, with a plain white kilt hugging his long thighs and stern leather sandals on his feet, but his belt was set with turquoise, as were his thick silver bracelets and the lightly linked pectoral lying against his brown chest. The amulet counterpoise nestled between his flexing shoulder-blades was a row of tiny gold baboons, symbols of Thoth, protecting the wearer from certain spells designed to pierce the victim from behind.
”I have seen the Nile reflecting exactly the colours of your turquoise,” Sheritra remarked hesitantly, a shyness on her with the ritual of accepting food and drink. ”Those are very old, are they not? So often now the stones available are inferior. They are all blue, not the ancient greenish-blue Father finds so attractive.”
Harmin went into a crouch on the cus.h.i.+ons and grinned up at her, his kohled eyes glittering. ”You are right. They have been in my family for many hentis and they are supremely valuable. They will be pa.s.sed down to my oldest son.”
Sheritra felt her cheeks grow hot. ”I thought we were going to walk today,” she put in hurriedly, ”although drifting on the Nile is a great pleasure.” She took a gulp of water and the fire in her face began to ebb.
”We will indeed walk, and perhaps by the end of the day you will beg to be returned to the barge,” Harmin teased her. ”But I decided to save you the dust and heat of the river road into Memphis. Also, if we find the bazaars overcrowded or boring we can be back on board in a matter of minutes. Look! We are already pa.s.sing the ca.n.a.l to the old palace of Thothmes the First. I suppose you have been within it many times when your grandfather is in residence at Memphis.”
”Why yes, I have,” Sheritra began, and before she realized it, she was chatting about Ramses and his court, her father's political contacts, life as a princess. ”It is not as wonderful as you might think,” she said ruefully. ”My daily routine and my education were far more rigidly controlled than that of a daughter of the n.o.bility, and now that I have finished being tortured and you might think I am free, I face the prospect of being eventually betrothed to some hereditary erpa-ha to preserve Ramses family dynasty. I don't mind the idea of being married, of course, but I do mind the certainty that my future husband will not love me. How could he? I look more like a peasant's daughter than a princess!”
Her voice had gradually risen and she had become more and more agitated without realizing it, until Harmin put out a protesting hand and, coming to herself, she understood what she had said. Her hands flew to her face.
”Oh Harmin!” she cried out. ”I am so sorry. I have no idea why I am talking to you like this.”
”I know why,” he said calmly. ”There is something about me that made you trust me from the first, isn't there, Little Sun?”
”Only my father calls me that,” she said faintly.
”Do you mind if I do?”
She shook her head mutely.
”Good. For I feel that I have known you since my own school-days. I am easy with you, and you with me. I am your friend, Sheritra, and I could wish to be nowhere else today than here beside you with the sun beating on the water and the crowds kicking up sand on the bank.”
She was silent, her gaze ostensibly on the things he described while her thoughts played with his words. So far the only man she trusted was her father, and that was because he had earned her respect. The male faces who had appeared and as quickly disappeared from her life had earned nothing but her self-conscious scorn for their vapidity, their refusal to recognize her intelligence, their notquite-hidden contempt for her homeliness. She knew that she was perilously close to such strength of feeling for Harmin that her whole life would be engulfed, and she herself changed. She already respected him for his frankness, the genuine way he had casually dismissed her ex terior as of no account and had touched those chords in her that had so far vibrated only for Khaemwaset.
But friend. What did he mean by friend? Was his interest truly one of sharing minds? Well, it us all you can really hope for, she told herself sadly. But his next words caused her heart to pound.
”Your skin has the translucence of a pearl,” he whispered, and she turned abruptly to find his black eyes fixed on her. ”Your eyes. are full of life, Princess, full of vitality when you allow your ka to s.h.i.+ne through. Please hide no more.”
I capitulate, she thought, panic-stricken. My judgment is even now deserting me. But oh Harmin! For Hathor's sake stand steady on the rope! I am giving birth to the self I have fiercely protected all my life, and it is still half-blind and helpless under your strange gaze.
”Thank you, Harmin,” she replied steadily, and suddenly flashed him a bright grin. ”I will hide no more from you. I care nothing about the rest of Egypt.” He laughed and began to wolf down the cold beef, spearing it on a tiny silver-hafted dagger, occasionally holding bites to her mouth, and she, all at once ravenous, could not eat quickly enough.
They tied up at the southern docks on the outskirts of the foreign quarter, and instead of walking back through Peru-nefer to the central city, Harmin turned her south. Sheritra felt a tremor of concern. She had never plunged into this teeming life before, let alone on foot, and she was glad of Amek and his man's comforting bulk ahead and behind. But Harmin, tactfully guiding her with a touch on her elbow now and then and an encouraging smile, did not allow her to be jostled, and soon her fear evaporated.
As they ambled the donkey-choked, noisy streets she began to blossom under the cloak of anonymity and was soon exclaiming over the cascade of various nationalities flowing around her. Hurrians, Canaanites, Syrians, Semites, Dwellers of the Great Green exploded myriad bewildering languages in her ears. The bazaar stalls groaned under cloth of every grade and richness, gaudy jewellery, miniatures of the G.o.ds of every nation in every type of wood and stone and household items by the hundreds.
She and Harmin wandered through it all, fingering, laughing, bargaining for fun, until Sheritra suddenly became aware that the human traffic had thinned and the street they were on could now be seen, a short stretch of dazzling whiteness ending in a mud wall and an open gate.
”What is that?” she asked curiously Harmin brushed a smear of dust from her temple.
”It is a shrine to the Canaanite G.o.ddess Astarte. Would you like to go in?”
Sheritra stared. ”Is it permitted?”
Harmin smiled. ”Of course. This is a shrine, not a temple. We may watch the wors.h.i.+ppers without having to pray ourselves. I believe Astarte has a mighty temple in Pi-Ramses with many priests and priestesses, but here she has a small staff and the shrine's routine is fairly simple.” As he was explaining to her, Harmin was ushering her forward. Together they entered through the open gate, finding themselves in an intimate outer court, unpaved and divided from the even tinier inner court by a waist-high mud wall.
Both courts were crowded with people praying or chanting, but as Sheritra approached the heart of the shrine the cheerful bustle died away. In the respectful s.p.a.ce surrounding the statue of the G.o.ddess a lone priestess was dancing, finger-cymbals clicking, hair ornaments jangling. She was naked and moved sinuously with eyes closed, thighs flexed, spine arched. Just beyond her was Astarte. Curious, Sheritra looked her over, both attracted and repelled by the full, upthrust b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the flaunting curve of the stone belly, the strong spread of the immodest legs that seemed to invite any who dared to stand within them. Sheritra glanced at Harmin, expecting his gaze to be on the dancer, but he was watching her. ”Astarte gives the pleasure of orgiastic s.e.x,” he told her. ”But she is also the G.o.ddess of all forms of pure love.”
”One would never know it to look at her!” Sheritra responded tartly. ”She reminds me of the wh.o.r.es infesting the Peru-nefer district. Our own Hathor is also G.o.ddess of love, but with more politeness and somehow more humanity.”
”I agree,” Harmin answered. ”Astarte really has no place in Egypt. She serves cruder, more barbaric races, which is why her shrines cl.u.s.ter in the foreigners' quarters of the cities. Still, she is probably older than Hathor.”
”Grandfather has much sympathy for the foreign G.o.ds,” Sheritra told him as they left the sacred premises. ”Because he has red hair and it runs in our family and we come from the home of the G.o.d Set, Ramses has made him his chief protector. He is Egyptian, of course, but Grandfather also wors.h.i.+ps his Canaanite counterpart, Baal, and regularly goes into the foreigner' temples. To me it is wrong.”
”To me also,” Harmin agreed quietly. ”I share your views and those of your father, that Egypt is slowly being debased by the free introduction of so many strangers, both G.o.ds and men. Soon Set himself will be confused with Baal, Hathor with Astarte. Then let Egypt beware, for her fall will be near.”
Impulsively Sheritra stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek. Behind her Amek coughed discreetly. ”Thank you for one of the most lovely days I have ever had,” she said fervently.
By the time Harmin emerged from the beer-shop with a flagon and four cups, Sheritra had found a small patch of tired gra.s.s under the shadow of a wall. Amek and the soldier bowed their thanks and drank quickly, standing up, but Harmin joined Sheritra where she had flung herself down, and for a long while they sipped and talked. The beer was strong and very dark, unlike the paler brew that appeared on her father's table each day, and her head was soon swimming, but the sensation was most agreeable.
Eventually Harmin returned the flagon and cups, helped her to her feet, and they made their way back to the barge and the drowsy sailors. The sun was lipping the horizon, seeping orange-yellow through the dust motes hanging in the air, tinging Sheritra's skin with a golden hue and becoming netted in her hair. She ascended the ramp, almost staggering to the cabin, and sank onto the pile of cus.h.i.+ons with a gusty sigh. Her legs ached pleasantly and she was beginning to be hungry. Soon Harmin joined her and the craft slipped away from its mooring and turned to the north. Sheritra sighed again. I feel almost beautiful, she thought happily. I feel carefree and frivolous and full of laughter. She turned to Harmin, who was beating the dust off his kilt and staring ruefully at his filthy feet. ”This has been wonderfull!” she said.
He agreed, half laughing, she knew, at her uncharacteristic enthusiasm, but she did not take offence. ”Today we did things of my choosing,” he said. ”Tomorrow I must attend to various duties at home, but the day after you may decide where we go.”
Her eyes widened. ”You want to spend yet another day with me?”