by D. J. Niko
She placed a hand on her mouth and looked down. She thought it best to stay quiet.
“Joab found me cowering behind the storage jars. I will never forget his words: ‘In the name of David, king of Judah, the seed of the Edomite king must perish.’ He pierced my side with his spear and left me for dead.”
A man on a blood mission was capable of anything. Nicaule knew he would kill her too, if she did not sympathize with him. “To slaughter a child is unthinkable. It is, perhaps, the gods’ justice that you lived.”
“The next morning at dawn, a passing caravan found me. I was the only one to survive the carnage. They nursed me to health and sold me as a slave to the Egyptians. The pharaoh took pity on me and raised me as his own. He showed me love, and I was loyal to him. But I always knew I would return to my homeland.” He spat on the ground. “I swore on my father’s memory I would smite David’s breed. Now his son will pay in blood for the massacre of my people.”
“I understand your plight. But Solomon is a formidable foe. Your band of outlaws does not stand a chance.”
“Our only hope is an ambush.” Hadad smirked. “I reckon you can help us. If yours is truly a marriage of convenience and your loyalty lies with Egypt, you should have no trouble betraying the Israelites.”
Nicaule swallowed hard. It seemed she would have to bargain for her freedom. “What is it you want of me?”
“There is a water shaft leading from the spring to the city. David used it to defeat the Jebusites and claim Jerusalem. We will enter the city using the same tunnel and attack Solomon as he sleeps.” He licked his lips. “I need to know where the entrance is. You tell me that, and you will be free to go. My men will escort you to the edge of Tanis.”
She shifted her gaze to the line of khopesh-wielding Edomites waiting for their leader’s command. The Israelites’ bodies littered the wilderness. She regarded her husband’s would-be assassin. “What if I do not know?”
He glared at her. “I think you do.”
She did know. But to betray Solomon to his death, to open the door wide to his enemy . . . No matter how she despised him, such an act would haunt her forever.
Hadad continued. “If you choose to keep silent, we will abandon you here. It’s a long way to Egypt when you do not know the way.”
Her eyes bulged. “But . . . I would be as good as dead. Why not kill me instead?”
“No Egyptian blood will be shed by my hand. When in service to Siamun, I took a vow. I cannot forsake that.”
Her decision amounted to this: her life or Solomon’s. Nicaule gripped her heart amulet. It felt cold and lifeless. She began to weep.
Hadad turned to his men. “On your mounts. We ride now to Jerusalem.” He addressed Nicaule. “We will find the entrance to the shaft another way. Give my regards to your father . . . if you make it to Tanis alive.”
She watched him walk toward his camel, his husky silhouette lined in silver beneath the moonlight. The rest of the men had lined up, ready to ride.
It’s a long way to Egypt when you do not know the way. A frigid sensation rippled down her spine. “Wait.”
Hadad turned to face her.
“There is a cave above the Kidron Valley, east of David’s city. That is all I know.”
He nodded, letting a moment pass. He called to his men. “Sair. Beor. Lead this woman to the Tanis border.”
Nicaule exhaled. She told herself what she did was preservation of self. To purposefully go to one’s death was the most heinous of sins, worse still than betraying another. Yes. It was what she had to do. It was what the gods wanted.
She watched absently as Sair and Beor took her saddlebag off the fallen camel and tacked it onto another, ensuring nothing was lost in the skirmish.
Yet so much was.
Hadad whipped his camel and shouted a string of profanities, goading the animal to a gallop. A thick cloud of dust rose beneath the beasts’ hooves as the band of Edomites rode in the direction of Jerusalem.
When the caravan crossed into Lower Egypt and the Nile Delta, Nicaule felt a knot rise to her throat. She did not realize until that moment how much she had missed her homeland.
Everything assaulted her senses, overwhelmed her: the clear, bright sunlight dancing upon the water, the fecundity of the orchards lining the riverbanks, the dulcet lament of the sacred hoopoe, the sweet scent of ripe dates.
She gazed at the slaves working by the river, their black, sweating skin glistening in the sun as they gathered mud to make bricks. When one moved a little too slowly, the Egyptian overseer hit him with a crop and shouted profanities. It was not a pleasant thing to watch, but neither was it unnecessary, for the lazy would always slacken their pace if left to their own devices.
The Egyptians were a productive lot and did not tolerate anything less from the inferior peoples. Justly so. What other nation had crafted pyramid tombs that soared to the sky? Or discovered the secrets of embalming the dead to preserve their bodies unto all eternity? Or was so accomplished in art and literacy and music? Her people had earned the right to command respect. Her chest swelled with pride.
The pharaoh’s palace came into view behind the rows of date palms. It was as if she had left a fortnight before; nothing had changed. Rising out of the river with great columns and chapiters, gates and pylons, and a courtyard profuse with orchards and reflecting pools, the compound radiated a pink hue in the midday sun. The flags whipped in a rogue breeze, welcoming her home. Thoughts of her carefree childhood inside those walls rushed to the forefront of her mind, and she came undone.
By the time they had reached the edge of the Nile, she had willed away all trace of sentiment. She did not want anyone from the court to see her tears, for in her country that was considered a sign of weakness.
She was met at the riverbanks by two handmaidens from the court, attendants to her father’s new wife. They would be appointed to her service for the next few days.
That was all she had—a few days—to win back Shoshenq and alter the route of destiny.
For some days, the pharaoh had been confined to the bed in his chamber. As a servant announced her, Nicaule stood at the doorway and watched her father’s reaction.
Psusennes turned his head slowly toward her and held out a hand. His voice was feeble as he said, “Come forth, my daughter.”
She approached and kneeled by his bed, as was the custom. She kissed his hand, surprised at how light it felt, like a boneless mass of desiccated, creased skin. “I bow before the Lord of the Two Lands,” she said, using the pharaoh’s formal title referring to Upper and Lower Egypt. “May the presence of this humble daughter please the king.” She rose and sat at the ivory-inlaid wood folding stool the servants had arranged for her.
Psusennes had aged a disproportionate number of years. His eyes had sunken within dark eye sockets, and the skin on his cheeks had sagged and grown pale. The hard lines of his bones were visible beneath the white linen sheets that covered his body. Lying on the ebony bed with lion’s claw feet and gilded likenesses of the gods carved into the headboard, he looked like a corpse in wait for an undertaker.
“My illness has robbed me of my strength,” he said. “Forgive me.”
“It pains me to see you like this, Father. What illness has taken such hold of you that the physicians cannot cure you?”
He swatted the air weakly. “They do not know anything. They say my lungs are withering to consumption, and there is no medicine for it. I say they are charlatans and we should call for the Greeks.” He coughed, and it was apparent his lungs were full of liquid. As he struggled to take a breath, the cough escalated into a whoop.
The nurses rushed to the pharaoh’s bedside with compresses soaked in herbs, which they placed over his air passages. After a while, he calmed down but was visibly weakened by the fit.
“Tell me, Daughter,” he croaked. “Have you come to bury me?”
She smiled. Even in his compromised state, he was blunt as ever. “I am here to nurse you to healt
h. Nothing more.”
He changed the subject. “I hear you and the Israelite king have children . . . a son.”
She swallowed hard. “Yes. A son was born unto me . . . and two daughters also.” She decided against telling him the whole truth.
“Splendid. Then it has been a happy union.”
“I hope it has produced fruit for Egypt likewise. That was the intention, was it not?”
He stared at her with obsidian eyes that looked too big for his gaunt face. “We have prospered from the alliance. But Israel has prospered far more. I fear someday it will overshadow Egypt.” He coughed again but got it under control that time. “Alas, I have grown too weak and Solomon too strong. Perhaps the next pharaoh will put the Hebrews in their place.”
She sat up straighter. “And have you named a successor?”
“It is not a matter I can discuss with anyone but my closest advisors. He who will be named pharaoh upon my death has been informed. That is all I will say.”
“What can I do to make you feel better, Father?”
He thought for a moment. “Rub my feet.”
She nodded and went to the other end of the bed, which was elevated slightly higher than the head. A female attendant moved the stool and helped her sit, then brought a pan of warm water scented with aloe vera.
Nicaule lifted the white linen and exposed Psusennes’ wrinkled soles. She was repulsed but dutifully did what he asked. She soaked a cloth in the water and washed his feet twice, then dried them with fresh linen and went to work. First she squeezed the feet, reviving circulation. She pressed on points she knew would relieve tension and watched her father’s pained expression fade. With long, gentle strokes she relaxed him further until he finally fell asleep.
She covered his feet and stood. She watched his chest rise and fall with strained effort and heard the froth gurgling in his lungs. His death was close at hand.
For three days Nicaule went to her father’s bedside and did little else. She suffered through the ennui, waiting for word of Shoshenq’s arrival from the Upper Nile Valley, where he and a small regiment had gone to recruit new soldiers among the villages. When she asked about the company’s arrival, she was told, “Tomorrow.” But tomorrow had come and gone without sign of him.
When the rooster crowed before dawn on the fourth day, Nicaule woke with a sense of clarity. She knew what she had to do.
She sprang from bed and dressed in a hurry. She wanted to be out of the palace before the morning’s commotion began.
It had been a long time since she’d seen Anippe. She had sought the seer’s advice years ago, when she’d first met Shoshenq. Anippe had confirmed what Nicaule had known in her heart: she and the army captain were destined to be together. Anippe had foreseen a marriage to a king and two children, one of whom would bear a queen. At the time, Nicaule believed it to be a prophecy: before their union, Shoshenq would hold the crook and flail of the pharaoh. She never imagined a different marriage or a different king.
She slipped on a glossy black wig and a simple ribbon headband that would not betray her social standing. She swung a mantle around her shoulders and slipped out the door.
Nothing stirred in the city save for a few old women doling out feed to their animals. A chill in the early morning air carried the promise of peret—the emergence. Soon the waters of the Nile would retreat, leaving behind the fertile soil her people would plant for their yearly crops. It was her favorite time of year: a quiet time of sowing and nurturing, of waiting for the harvest.
Anippe’s home was at the far end of town among the hovels of the poor. The seer lived alone; she’d never taken a husband, nor did she wish to. Men were too much trouble, she had always said; they clouded the clarity of her oracular powers. The truth was, men stayed away from her. They thought her dangerous, said madness dwelled in her.
The campaign to defame her began years before, when Anippe—without being consulted—publicly predicted the fall of a Theban regiment that had launched an offensive into Meroë. It happened as she said it would, but instead of celebrating the oracle, the stricken military men viewed it as a curse.
For her part, Nicaule dismissed the accusations. It was in the interest of Egypt’s most powerful men to contain seeing powers within the priesthood, where they could be manipulated. A gifted woman who spoke her mind had no place in that world.
Nicaule stood outside the one-room mud-brick house, hesitating. A part of her was afraid of receiving bad news. She sighed and rapped lightly on the door.
The lady of the house opened right away. She had aged considerably in the years since their last encounter. Her hair, which she did not bother to cover with a wig, was cut short, disheveled, and streaked with ribbons of gray. Her clothing was that of a pauper, draped so loosely it hid her figure and made her gender ambiguous. She greeted her guest with a subtle smile of recognition.
“Hello, old friend,” Nicaule said. The two women grasped each other’s arms and touched foreheads.
Anippe closed the door. “Much has happened since we last met. Life has not taken the direction you expected.”
Nicaule was surprised at how quickly the familiar choke hold of emotion overtook her. Tears welled in her eyes. She could not utter a word.
Anippe put a hand on Nicaule’s head. “You are safe here. Be as a babe in its mother’s arms.”
With that permission, Nicaule lowered her head into her hands and felt her body quake with sobs.
“Someone so young should not be so troubled,” Anippe said. “Such is the cruelty of men.”
Nicaule looked up and dabbed her eyes with a linen handkerchief. “I beg you, old friend. Tell me what will become of me. For if my fate continues along this path, I surely will die of grief.”
Anippe brought down an alabaster jar from a shelf and sat on a floor cushion, gesturing to her guest to sit opposite her. “I will call upon the creatures of the Earth to divine the future. What do you wish to know?”
Nicaule sighed. “Does the man who owns my heart still love me?”
The seer lifted the lid of the jar and released thirteen black scarabs onto the floor. She waved a hand over them and chanted something in a tongue Nicaule did not understand. Bewildered by the light, the beetles scurried in circles, and then they fell into a curious formation, as if enchanted by Anippe’s voice. They held their places for a moment, then scattered.
Anippe turned to Nicaule. “It appears he still values you. There is something you have that no other can offer him.”
Nicaule let out a quiet gasp. In the depths of her heart, she knew it. “When will we be together?”
Anippe rubbed her hands for some time, then offered them to her guest. Nicaule was surprised at the heat they radiated; not warmth but a searing sensation that sent needles through her nerves to her spine. Though it was uncomfortable, Nicaule did not let go. Both women closed their eyes and bowed their heads.
There was a long silence. A spasm shook the left side of Anippe’s body. At last, she spoke. “He will come for you when the mountain burns and all dignity has passed from the Earth.”
Nicaule opened her eyes. “What does that mean?”
Anippe’s gaze was blank, unfocused. She appeared to dwell in another realm. “Those answers are not given to me. They are only made clear in time.”
“And what of Solomon, my husband?”
“It is up to a woman to tame a man and bend him to her will.”
“He is strong and obstinate. He does not bend easily.”
Anippe stood and walked to another shelf. She chose another jar and a juglet and placed both on a rough-hewn wood bench. She removed some of the jar’s contents and placed them on a linen square, then turned to Nicaule. “This will help you subdue his spirit.”
Nicaule walked to her. “What is it?”
“Dried petals of the blue lotus from the Upper Nile. You take three petals—only three—and soak them in his wine for exactly the time it takes to fill this juglet. Not more, not less. Wh
en he drinks of this wine, he will enter a state of such euphoria that he will not deny you a thing. But you must follow the directions exactly.”
Nicaule accepted the bundle. “I am in your debt.”
“Speak nothing of this, or I will be sent into exile . . . or worse. This must be our secret.”
She grasped the seer’s hands. “You have my word.”
Anippe’s gaze darkened. “My lady, this you must know: there is a price to making your own destiny.”
“What punishment can there be for one who loves so deeply? Surely the gods can forgive such transgressions when no less than the human heart is at stake.”
Anippe fell silent for a moment. She seemed to hold something back. “When you pray, offer tribute to Bastet—the cat goddess, she of dual nature. She will understand and protect you.”
Nicaule glanced out the window. The sun had come out in earnest, painting a golden morning. “I have to go.” She reached into her mantle and removed a purse full of coins. She placed it in the seer’s hands. “Thank you for your precious gift. I will not forget your kindness.”
Anippe bowed slightly and unlatched the door. “May the gods watch over you.”
Nicaule lifted her mantle over her head and exited into the light.
Psusennes’ bedchamber was a hive of activity. Nurses came and went, carrying vessels with compresses, jugs of sweet wine said to warm the body, herb potions for cough, and all manner of food that went mostly untouched. Three physicians tended to the pharaoh, each making his own proclamation about the state of the ailing man’s health.
Psusennes looked toward the door and spotted his daughter. “Ah, Nicaule. Come, dear girl.”