by Suzanne Weyn
Her father often chided her for her distaste of everything to do with death. “It’s a change much like the shifting sands of the desert,” he tried to convince her. “Your ka, your spirit double, will roam after death. It may want to return for things it needed in this life. That’s why we must supply them.”
But she would have nothing to do with it. She loved this earth, the sun on her face, the call of birds, the smells of oils and burning lamps. She was too much of this world to ever want to leave it.
“My father is the best potter,” she agreed, shaking off the thoughts of death.
Ramose stepped closer to her. “I will enjoy spending time with you back in our village as we did when we were children.”
She was suddenly uncomfortable and turned to leave, but he held on to her wrist.
“Back then we liked each other, didn’t we?” he said.
She knew he meant more than mere childish liking. It was true. There had always been something unspoken between them. “But you went away and joined the army,” she reminded him.
“Strange,” he said, “back then I always had the feeling that you would go away and never return, leaving me to wonder what had happened to you. It was such a strong belief, yet it was based on nothing.”
“So you left instead?” she guessed.
“Yes. I left you before you could leave me. But I am grown now and no longer believe in such foolish premonitions. And now we have found each other again.”
She studied his face. It was handsome and strong. What was it that had bothered her about him before? She couldn’t remember. Had she thought he was too harsh, too cold? None of that was apparent now.
As a girl, she had been almost relieved when he’d left for the army, but now he was back and he interested her all over again.
Tetisheri held his eyes a few minutes more before sliding her wrist from his grip. “We will get to know each other again on our journey, and perhaps the past will reawaken,” she said.
The sun burned down on Nerfi’s shoulders as the group made its way through the desert sand on the trip back to Nakht’s manor. The ebony skin of the slave beside her glistened with sweat as he strained to pull the sled laden with their supplies. In her large basket, she carried the four canopic jars they had purchased from Tetisheri’s father. They would be home before Amun-Ra left the sky.
Just ahead, Tetisheri and Ramose walked along, talking together. Nerfi lifted a heavy jug of water from the slave’s sled and hurried ahead with it. “I have brought water for you,” she offered Ramose.
Ramose undid the flask tied to his sword belt and Nerfi poured water into it. Then she turned toward Tetisheri and stumbled. The heavy jug filled with water crashed onto Tetisheri’s foot. It cracked in half, making a puddle in the sand. Screaming with pain, Tetisheri teetered back a moment before collapsing onto the ground.
Nerfi threw herself onto the sand beside Tetisheri. “It is the heat,” she cried. “I am overcome from it. Do not punish me.”
Ramose scowled at her. “Get up, fool. You deserve to be whipped for such carelessness.”
“Leave her,” Tetisheri admonished. “I need your help.”
Ramose bandaged Tetisheri’s foot, which grew swollen almost instantly. He tied it up with linen from his army supply bag. Then he pushed aside supplies on the sled and made her a bed, commanding the slave to pull her the rest of the way home.
Tetisheri’s added weight slowed him down and he soon fell yards behind Ramose and Nerfi. The sun was growing lower in the sky. “We do not want to be stranded out here after dark,” Nerfi said to Ramose. “Perhaps we should hurry ahead to send back servants to assist the slave.”
“She’s right,” Tetisheri agreed when the cart had caught up to them. “Leave the slave behind with me. We will be all right until you return, and it will impress Nakht that we have stayed behind together without incident.”
Ramose unsheathed his sword and brought it to the slave’s face. “Do not even look at her,” he barked. “If I hear that you have done anything to worry her, I will gut you and throw your insides on the desert sand for the jackals to devour. No one will care. Keep pulling this sled. Do not rest for even a moment.”
The sled jutted forward and then stopped. Tetisheri turned onto her side and strained to see what had happened. The slave’s hands were bleeding, and the blood ran down the rope. He was on his knees, clutching his head.
How far ahead had Ramose and Nerfi traveled? They were specks in the distance. Good. This slave did not need Ramose’s fury laid upon his shoulders. How much pain could a human being endure?
Her past fear of the slave deserted her as she limped around to the front of the sled. In this condition, he posed little threat. “You are ill?” she asked.
He pressed his hand onto his forehead, his eyes clamped shut. She took some linen from the bag Ramose had left behind and wet it, then pressed it to his forehead. Her hands working quickly, she untied him from the sled. When he was free, he began to draw the Egyptian hieroglyph for sleep in the sand.
Nothing but sleep would staunch the agony of his pounding head.
Tetisheri recognized the symbol. “Yes, sleep if you must,” she agreed. “Go back on the sled. Sleep.” Staggering to the back, he curled into a ball and slept.
Tetisheri sat in the sand, her back supported by the bundles on the sled. Amun-Ra was preparing to depart, spinning orange and low in the sky, taking the worst of the extreme heat toward the ground in his descent.
When she tried to rotate her ankle, pain shot through her like a stabbing knife. It was more than physical agony that caused tears to jump to her eyes: How would she dance with a broken foot? Nakht and Renenutet would surely send her home now.
The trip back to her village had been disorienting. Ramose had returned as a hero. Tetisheri had been greeted as a sort of royal figure as well. Everyone assumed she would wed Ramose, even her parents, who were clearly delighted at the prospect. Somehow it seemed inevitable.
A mewing sound came from the covered basket sitting among the bundles at her back. Stretching around, she took it down and reached inside to check on the small black-and-orange wild kitten she had found during the visit home. The villagers enticed the feral cats with scraps of food so they would come to their yards to eat the rodents that decimated their grain stores. This little one had been wandering in her parents’ courtyard with no mother in sight.
Renenutet kept statues of Bast, the cat goddess with the feline head and the body of a woman, all over the house. Bast was a daughter of Osiris and Isis, the twin sister of Horus. She was the keeper of his sacred Eye. She was also the mother of the lion god, Mihos. Surely Renenutet was a lover of cats and wouldn’t object if Tetisheri brought this pet into the household.
Tetisheri reached into the basket to check on her new pet. The kitten clawed playfully at her hand, nipping her. “You’re a frisky baby,” she said. “Settle down. We’ll be home soon.” Taking it onto her lap, she stroked its soft fur until it purred.
In little more than fifteen minutes, the slave was up again. He bowed and began to tie himself to the sled. “Is your head better?” she asked as she returned the kitten to its basket.
Touching his forehead, he nodded. His eyes were bright, refreshed. She stopped and looked at his dark, desert-lined face and saw him as if for the first time. His face was not her idea of classic beauty, not like Ramose with his almond eyes and long, straight nose, but she saw something there that drew her.
“Sit with me a moment more,” she entreated him.
As he settled tentatively beside her, she drew in the sand the hieroglyph for peace.
It was unusual for anyone other than a priest, priestess, or royalty to be able to read or write, but she had learned a little from her father while working in his shop. They sometimes had to inscribe an urn, jar, vase, or canopic jar.
He nodded his agreement and responded with two hieroglyphs: No harm.
She smiled a little and he answered with an equa
lly slight smile.
How she wished he could speak. She wanted desperately to talk to him right then because she now felt the need to patch together the links that connected the information she already had. He was a captured soldier. He could write in Egyptian hieroglyphs. He had some illness that pained his head. And she had dreamed of him, dreamed of him so deeply that it was as if she had drunk in his spirit.
Was this the ka of which her father had spoken? Had their ka spirits met in the dreamtime, each clutching for the mysterious green jewel? Was that why the feeling of knowing him was now so strong?
Was it why she had feared him at first sight?
Was the fear warranted, an omen?
Were they destined to tumble down some endless tunnel together? In a flash, she saw the image again in her mind’s eye. A shudder of fear ran up her spine and made her shoulders quiver.
On impulse, she drew two stick figures in the sand. She depicted them tumbling from a cliff. She pointed to herself and to him.
He stared at her, his face filled with amazement. Then he nodded vigorously.
She drew the sign for sleep and gazed up at him with an inquiring expression.
Yes! Yes! He nodded and began to draw. He put together the pictures that made the sounds for dream.
He knew!
They had met in the dreamtime. She was sure of it now. He had experienced it, too.
He drew a circle between the two stick figures she’d drawn. “Amun-Ra?” she questioned, knowing it was the sign for the sun.
Shaking his head, he began to write in the hieratic script educated people used when not writing in formal hieroglyphics. She was able to read it, again because her father had taught her to write basic bills of sale.
He wrote: The green orb.
She nodded excitedly. “Yes! We both wanted the green, spinning jewel!”
Thrilled with their growing realization, they had drawn close to each other, their noses nearly touching.
But now they drew away from each other warily.
Something about the green orb had frightened them both.
Tetisheri didn’t know where to look. She could no longer meet his eyes.
He also looked away uneasily.
“Are you well enough to pull the sled now?” she asked, getting to her feet, the old stiffness returning to her voice. “Ramose will be angry if he returns to see that we have not moved.”
Still avoiding her eyes, the slave stood.
Tetisheri hobbled to the sled, settling back onto it. The throbbing in her foot resumed, white hot.
Silently, the slave re-roped himself to the sled’s handles and began to drag his burden through the sand.
Ramose waited and watched at the edge of the courtyard as Tetisheri finished her song. Nakht had thirteen other noblemen as guests this evening. They nodded appreciatively. In the weeks she’d been at the house, her lovely voice had grown stronger as her confidence had increased.
He was glad that he was stationed outside Luxor for the time being. It made it easy to come visit her. Nakht appreciated the service he had performed for him and made him welcome.
When she was finished, she bowed and limped from the courtyard. Her foot was nearly better, but she could not put her full weight on it. Ramose had brought her a cane with golden hieroglyphic engraving. She placed her hand on his arm and he guided her out to a bench in the garden.
“Your voice grows more beautiful every day,” he complimented. She thanked him and he moved closer. “I will have to return to Nubia soon,” he told her. “There are still pockets of rebels to be dealt with there. Before I go, I want to ask you to become my wife when I return.”
She did not smile in delight as he had hoped.
“Why not decide this after you return?” she suggested.
Her evasiveness angered him and he stood, scowling. “Because I want to know your feelings right now,” he insisted. He pulled a pouch from his sword belt and presented it her. “I have brought you this as a token of my pledge to you.”
She opened the pouch into her palm. It was an Eye of Horus pendant on a golden cord. Within the turquoise eye was set a multifaceted glittering green emerald. “The jewel is from the emerald mines of the south,” he told her.
From the admiring way she held the pendant, he could see how much she loved it. “Ramose, it is too beautiful,” she murmured, clearly awestruck by the gift.
“It suits you.”
She smiled lovingly down at the piece of green jewelry. But was the smile for him or his gift?
It had happened while Taharaq was feeding the geese. He had been told to cage one for the evening meal, and as he had seized it around the neck, the enraged goose nipped his hand hard.
A Nubian curse flew from his mouth as he pulled his hand back.
Sound.
The wound to his throat had healed.
Checking that there were no witnesses, he spoke a sentence in his native language. His voice was a low rasp — but it was a voice.
He closed his eyes to staunch tears of relief. This muteness had humiliated him. Now with a voice, he had acquired a secret weapon and he decided to keep it a secret. Better to be thought of as mute among these harsh people.
Feeling newly powerful, he grabbed the goose from behind. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to it as he slipped a cord muzzle over its beak. “But we are both slaves and I have no choice.”
Taharaq beheaded the goose and was bringing it into the kitchen when he noticed Nerfi idling near the chopping table, fingering the dinner linens absently. There was something about her he didn’t trust. Perhaps it was that strange red wig, but he suspected it was more her darting black eyes that put him on guard whenever she was near.
“I have been waiting here to ask you something,” she said in a sensuous, insinuating tone.
She glanced at old blind Seth who sat by the large baking oven, pounding on a round of dough. She nodded for Taharaq to follow her several feet farther away from him. “Do you want to go home?” she asked quietly.
His expression instantly registered interest in what she might propose, and she moved even closer to him. “I have met a boatman who will smuggle slaves back down the Nile. It will cost you. What have you to offer?”
Taharaq shook his head.
“I thought not,” Nerfi continued. “This house is full of valuable things. See what you can steal and then signal to me. I will sell it for you and buy your passage home.”
“I could go with you,” she said, rubbing up against him. “We could both be free and you would have me by your side.”
He saw what she was up to. She wanted him to risk stealing something valuable enough to buy them both passage to Nubia. If he got caught, it would be his hands on the chopping block, not hers. Once they were there she would no doubt desert him for a more prosperous suitor.
I am no thief, he thought contemptuously, nor does your shallow allure tempt me. It took all his discipline to keep silent.
Nerfi read his expression, however. “Or maybe you’d rather be a slave forever,” she suggested silkily. “It’s your decision.”
Tetisheri limped into the kitchen, aided by her cane. Nerfi’s eyes darted to the gorgeous green jeweled Eye of Horus she wore on a golden cord around her neck and then back to Taharaq.
He looked away.
“There you are, Nerfi,” Tetisheri said pleasantly. “Renenutet asks that you bring water to Nakht, who is in the study with his accounts.” Nerfi grabbed a water pitcher and began to pump water into it.
“Your head, how does it feel?” Tetisheri asked.
Taharaq nodded. He had not had one of his blistering headaches since their trip through the desert. He gestured toward her foot.
“It is getting better each day. Soon I won’t need this cane,” she answered the silent question. “I do not know what the hieroglyphics on it mean. I can read a little but not enough to tell what this says.”
He gestured for her to give it to him. Leaning against the nearby
chopping table, she handed it over. A quick look was all he required to decipher it.
It was a story about the construction of the pyramids at Giza over a thousand years ago, and how the high priests had studied the night sky and arranged for the three pyramids to align with certain stars. It was a story that had always fascinated him. He wondered why they had done this. Was this some sort of landing guide for gods who descended to visit them at some time in the past? It was a mystery lost to antiquity, but one that the people still pondered.
How could he silently convey this to her?
He checked on Nerfi’s whereabouts and found her hovering near the door with her jug, waiting to catch his eye. Seeing that she had it, she made a tiny but meaningful nod toward Tetisheri’s pendant, and then departed.
When he and Tetisheri were at last free of Nerfi, his mind raced, wondering if he could share his secret of new speech with her. He still had not made a decision when his mouth opened and words came out. “It tells of the pyramids,” he said with a quick glance at Seth, checking that the old man had not heard.
Mouth agape, Tetisheri stared at him.
He realized he had spoken in his own language. She had no idea what he’d told her, only that he’d spoken. Her amazement made him smile. “It returned just today,” he explained softly, this time speaking in Egyptian.
She returned his smile. “You are healing.”
He nodded. “Much better these days. Yes.”
They stood together and he felt as though they were enveloped in an invisible web, as though the ka life force that surrounded each person had formed one ka now containing both of them.
She felt it, too. Her face was unmistakably soft as she gazed into his eyes, seeking out some part of him that was hidden. Whatever she sought, he longed to reveal it, just as strongly as his physical body craved the touch of her golden skin.