But the Pasha carelessly extended the flat box.
My wrist trembled under its weight. I assumed this was one of the heavy, gaudy ornaments on which the harem doted. “Thank you, Pasha,” I said. “I’ll open it in a minute—I’m a little tired.”
I’d never complained before. The Pasha looked sharply through the cloud of blue smoke at me. For once I understood—or thought I understood—what he wanted of me.
I reached for the box.
“No,” he said, taking it to set on a low table. “This can wait. You do look tired. Let’s have a truce while I tell you a story.” He puffed on the long pipe. “Like many rulers of Egypt, I wasn’t born here.”
I gazed at him in surprise, my weariness melting. I had heard that he never spoke of his past, and neither did his servants or his family. There was a wall of secrecy, either bidden or tacit, on the subject.
“I come from a country too small even for a scholar like you to know about,” he said. “Albania.”
“Albania’s in Europe, on the Adriatic Sea. It’s very mountainous.” I was reciting from memory. “Part of the Ottoman Turk Empire, the inhabitants are of the Islamic faith. Alexander the Great was born there—it was called Macedonia then.”
“You are well educated,” he said. “I, on the other hand, was forty before I had the time to learn to read.”
I gasped in amazement.
“That was five years ago,” he went on. “Until then I was kept too busy by my role of conqueror. And as a boy, I had to earn a living.”
“You worked? But Pasha—aren’t you of royal blood?”
“Exceptionally royal,” he said dryly. “You’ve told me often enough that men are born equal in America. Well, in Albania we have a similar situation. All Albanians are born royal. In such a regal country, take it from me, most royal heirs have to scratch to eat. You’re one of the few people who’s ever caught me out. Naksh, I am a merchant.” He paused. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this story. What if it ruins your preconceptions of me? What if you have one small reason not to think me a brutal tyrant?”
We exchanged glances that, for the first time, explicitly acknowledged his battering rage in the Ceremonial Alcove.
“Pasha,” I said quietly. “Please, go on.”
“There are a good many rumors about my youth. I was an assassin, a drummer boy, I sold tobacco, women. But it was coffee beans I sold. In the East boys are apprenticed early, and my father took me to his stall when I was five. He died before I was eleven. I was a skinny boy, small for my age. You know the type, always making jokes to draw attention away from my lack of height. Suddenly I was an undersized man, responsible for my mother and four sisters. I had to run the business or we’d starve. Shortly after my father’s death, a dealer came to the stall with beans from Mocha—that’s where the best coffee comes from. The dealer had shifty eyes, but his merchandise was cheap. Well, to make a long story short, Naksh, I invested our all. It turned out that the beans the shifty-eyed dealer showed me weren’t the same as he delivered in the sacks. The sacks were stale. Rancid coffee is impossible to sell. For the next few months—well, let’s not talk about the next few months. An unpleasant time. I ran errands, swept floors, cleaned out latrines. We went very hungry. But we pulled through. The lesson, though, has stayed with me all my life. A man can ill afford to make mistakes in judging people. Since then I’ve made very few such blunders.”
He took several puffs.
“The rest of the story,” he said, “takes place many, many years later, long after I entered the army. In fact, after my men defeated the British in Egypt. That job should have been done by the Mamelukes. For generations the Mameluke warlords were sent by the Sultan to guard Egypt. Instead, they robbed her people. I could tell unpleasant tales of hands covered with resin then set aflame like candles, of bodies slowly submerged in boiling liquid, until the tormented told where their money was hidden—or couldn’t tell, such as the case may have been. But let’s just say that as soon as the Egyptians asked me to take authority, I saw the Mamelukes must go. It was easy to defeat their regiments. They were soft, used only to robbing and torturing unarmed people. They sued for peace. I granted it. However, my spies soon warned me that the officers were plotting to assassinate me. I invited them all to a banquet here in the Citadel. They rode into that courtyard.”
I glanced in the direction of the vast entry. “There?”
“Yes, there,” he said. “They shone in their mail coats and their horses stamped. A glittering sight. And I didn’t feel the least remorse when my Albanian mountaineers, on the ramparts, fired down on them. Indeed, I experienced a sense of completion that life seldom supplies. The old wrong had been righted. The warlords, on a grand scale, had done what the shifty-eyed merchant had. Stolen from the weak and helpless.” He paused. “That revenge is what you heard about, of course.”
“I didn’t hear the whole truth.”
He blew smoke through his nostrils. “But it does capture precisely what the Christian world thinks of ours. I’ll warrant in America you never heard that I’ve set the price of grain so that the fellaheen no longer starve. Or that I’ve planted thirty thousand acacia trees so we can build our own ships—or that for the first time Egypt’s using hemp not to dull the senses but to weave sailcloth. In Fayum I’ve put in miles of olive trees to use for soap and oil. I’ve defended Mecca. And last year, when the cattle plague killed oxen, rather than pray to Allah—as more religious Pashas have done—I sent my cavalry horses to plow the land. But why should your country hear of such dull, mercantile matters, so unworthy of a true Oriental despot?”
I stared down at my ringless fingers. I was humbled by the Pasha’s deeds as I’d been by his legal reforms, yet on a purely emotional level, I wanted to weep for the skinny, illiterate undersized eleven-year-old’s bravery. He hadn’t let himself or his family be destroyed.
“Pasha …” I started. My voice caught and I couldn’t go on.
“I don’t care to discuss the story. Draw whatever conclusions you choose,” he said peremptorily.
What an enigma he was. Was there any way to predict whether he would be serious or teasing, kind or malicious? One facet of his character, however, was clear. If he considered himself wronged, his need for revenge was uncontrollable.
He leaned his long, slender pipe against the table, and picked up the leather jewel case. The lid sprang up. “Oh!” I whispered, pushing up on one elbow to stare.
The necklace shone like new, though by its style and craftsmanship it had to have been fashioned by a great master jeweler dead at least thirty-five centuries before.
Hundreds of elongated golden feathers were connected by golden wires to a falcon’s graceful body. This body, of green cloisonné, was engraved with hieroglyphs. Gold claws grasped a pair of luminous green circles.
“You told me you and your father were interested in our past,” he said. “Here’s a story prettier than the one I just told you. The antiquarian who sold this to me said it was a gift of Pharaoh Thutmose to—or from—his favorite wife.” He shrugged. “I don’t have to tell you that nobody can read the ancient writing. Or that nobody knows where the tomb of Thutmose is. So if you don’t care for the story, feel free to invent your own. Oh, and the antiquarian gave the piece a name. The Emerald Embrace.”
“The Emerald Embrace,” I repeated, tracing the mysterious hieroglyphs, exquisite flowers, snakes, birds, symbols. “Pasha, I can’t take this.”
“Why not?”
“A necklace in this perfect condition must be the most important find in decades.”
“Don’t let the name fool you. Those stones in the talons are just glass.”
“Of course they are!” I cried indignantly. “When the ancient Egyptians first learned to make glass, they considered it more precious than emeralds.”
He laughed. “It’s bought and paid for,” he said carelessly. “Who else can I palm it off on? There’s not another woman in my harem educated enough to prefer glass to emeralds. Na
ksh, put it on.”
So I fastened the lotus-shaped clasp. The feathered collar shaped itself to my shoulders and the falcon’s body touched the bared tops of my breasts. A peculiar vibrancy radiated through my blood, as if some never used gland within me were beginning to function.
Though the Pasha was being casual about his gift, he must have gone to considerable effort to find something that would so delight me.
“Thank you,” I said, reaching for his hand. But as I touched him, something made me pull away.
His eyes flickered over my face. Without a goodbye he got up and strode from the chamber.
By now I was used to his unceremonious comings and goings. I leaned back in the pillows, touching a delicately cast feather. The gold felt warm, as if it had become part of my flesh.
Fourteen
The woman, the physician and two temple slaves moved along the dark colonnades toward the Pharaoh’s apartments. Wherever torches cast their light, the woman’s pale hair shone so that any who saw her knew her to be the Lady Nefer: the other wives and concubines in the Golden House continually changed their fashionable blue wigs. The Lady Nefer alone wore her true hair in its unique yellow splendor.
A rustling sound came from behind a pillar, and the little group halted. The shaven-headed physician like all of his calling was a priest of the goddess Sekhmet, and he gestured at the two temple slaves to see what had stirred. Nervously the pair circled the vast column. The Lady Nefer shivered. She had lived near the waters of the Nile long enough to know that whenever the Pharaoh, her beloved, sickened with one of his recurrent fevers, the palace air swarmed with intrigues.
The slaves returned, shaking their heads. The Lady Nefer’s green eyes remained wide with fear.
“Wake up,” the harsh voice was repeating. “Naksh, it’s all right.”
The Pasha stood over me. The small lamp he held shone on the triangle of muscular chest displayed by his open nightshirt. His pointed nose and lightly furrowed brow were thrown into sharp relief.
In the grip of terror, I was sobbing loudly. The Pasha set down the lamp, perching on the edge of the divan. I grasped his hand. His nearness and touch, upsetting before, now were infinitely comforting, but I didn’t consider that. I twined my fingers in his, pressing our palms together.
“What was it?” he asked. “A bad dream?”
“Not exactly a dream.”
“What then?”
“Everything was more real than a dream, and I wasn’t really part of it.” I gazed into the yellow heart of the flame. “A woman with blond hair, wearing one of the sheer, pleated dresses of ancient Egypt, was walking along a vast colonnade. It was a very hot night and they were going—”
“They?”
“She was with a doctor and his two slaves—the men wore ancient clothing, too. Pasha, I can remember every detail. Her sandals were fastened with a thong that cut between the big toe and the next, and the thong was decorated with lapis lazuli.”
“The fellaheen of Lower Egypt still wear that kind of sandal, without the jewels, of course. But why were you so afraid?”
“She was afraid.” I frowned. “I couldn’t exactly fathom her thoughts, but it had to do with another person. He was ill. Yes—that’s why she was taking the doctor to the Pharaoh’s apartments—”
“Pharaoh?”
“Did I say that?”
“You did. Naksh, see what comes of making women scholars? It addles their brains.” He was teasing me on our battleground of East versus West, but his eyes were kind. “Or maybe today wasn’t right for giving false emeralds.”
“The necklace wasn’t in the dream.” I shuddered. “Her terror was so real.”
“Naksh, I won’t argue with you, I’m not a pedagogue. But I do have the advantage of having lived here, and I can tell you one thing. Egyptian women don’t have blond hair.”
“I had the feeling she didn’t belong here at all.” And finally it occurred to me that he must have heard me crying. “Where were you?”
“Since you took over my alcove, I sleep across the hall.”
“Isn’t Uisha outside?”
“I told her not to get up. She needs her rest. Naksh, you take advantage of the poor mute’s loyalty. Well, now you’ve calmed down, I’ll get back to bed.”
I didn’t release his hand. “Stay,” I murmured.
He looked at our twined hands. “I’ve been afraid,” he admitted in a low voice.
“You? Pasha, why?”
“What happened in the Ceremonial Alcove,” he said. “I never meant to be so vicious. But you’d hurt me more than I thought myself capable of being hurt. All during your illness I’ve been positive you’d never willingly come near me.”
“Was that important to you?”
He gave me a sharp look. “Of course it’s not,” he said with muted bitterness. “I prefer my women to flinch when I touch them. It’s a taste cultivated by all of us Turk despots.”
From here on there is no logical explanation for my behavior. My carnal senses remained as mutilated as ever, the very thought of sex repelled me and had Stephen magically appeared in my bed, I couldn’t have welcomed him with physical love. How did it happen? The best way to put it is that another woman’s passion inhabited my flesh.
I held the Pasha’s hand to my lips, tenderly kissing the palm.
“Naksh,” he whispered. “Ah, Naksh.” He bent over me.
In the corner feet padded, the door opened and, with a sweep of draft that flickered the lamp, closed. I realized the Pasha had been soothing his slave girl’s night terror under the eyes of palace servants, notorious gossips all.
“Are they gone?” I whispered.
“They better be or they’ll regret it.”
Caressing my cheek, he kissed my mouth. His kiss tasted of Latakia tobacco and lasted while he stretched under the silk coverlet. My lips opened, my tongue explored the soft smoothness inside his mouth, a liquid fire spread through me and my arms tightened about him. He returned my kiss. I was thinking, as if from remote memory, of a hawk-nosed man with skin the color of amber who had kissed me and held me thus, his fingertips teasing my nipples to wildly yearning sensations before he cupped my breasts, as the Pasha was doing. Somewhere in the ancient past I had caressed such hard neck tendons, my hand moving down a strongly muscled back.
“This is the first time we’ve been together,” a voice said against my ear. “I command that nothing before this night matters.”
The words made no sense, they were spoken in an incomprehensible language, but it wasn’t important for he was drawing up my silken night shift, caressing between my thighs. I gasped aloud in pleasure. Thus had the amber-colored fingers spread my private flesh. Then, as now, I had been drenched with honeyed moisture, every nerve had opened, aching for him. My fingers sought his throbbing erection, and I rose up to kiss the hot, sweet iron, my tongue caressing the smooth ridge.
With a deep, triumphant groan, he pressed me back onto the mattress, his hard, naked torso was heavy on me, his rough-haired thighs pressed between mine. Trembling violently, I clung to him, my voice whispering a wordless plea, begging until he thrust into me.
I cried out my joy.
It was different from the sweet, innocent love that I’d shared with Stephen. It was the ecstasy of a woman whose body was trained in the art of giving and receiving pleasure. It was the wild, untrammeled love of a woman who never once in her life has heard that the flesh is sinful, who has never felt the inhibiting restraints of modesty. I cannot believe that any woman today could experience this carnal rapture.
His embrace changed to a driving demand, and I dug my henna-tipped fingers into his hard shoulders. Passion radiated from the soft core of my body. In the eternal universe there was only this sweet, involuntary frenzy.
When, at last, it ended, I lay in the black night, kissing his neck. Soon, though, my inner flesh tightened about him. He was still hard. Again he led me into that ecstatic joy. I don’t know how often it happe
ned to me before he gave a shout and thrust deeper and harder into me. Pungent, aphrodisiac sweat drenched us both, and straining closer, we fell together. The ancient Citadel shook and trembled.
Afterward we lay still. My body glowed in memory of that inexplicable joy.
When finally the Pasha spoke, it was with a youthful wonder. “Naksh,” he said, kissing my dampened hair. “Truly, for me this was the first time. Before tonight there’s never been a woman who’s given me what I wanted and needed.”
Reason had returned. The Pasha’s flattering his new slave girl, I thought languorously.
My own unleashed responses puzzled me, but not for long, for in a few moments, I was asleep in my master’s arms.
Fifteen
The following weeks I shared the Pasha’s divan with him every night.
On a few of those nights that strange, vicarious desire overwhelmed me. Wantonly, ardently, I embraced the Pasha, and we were swept into physical bliss. The Pasha explained that the Eastern secret of imsak enabled him to maintain his erection for hours. Most of the nights, however, when he touched me a revulsion would ache inside me and I would have to muster every ounce of willpower not to flinch. Those nights he would raise an understanding eyebrow, grinning at me as if we shared a secret before he rolled, over to sleep.
I would lie awake and worry. The Pasha wasn’t one to accept a slight. Why didn’t he retaliate with his most malicious sarcasm? How could he take my awkward rebuffs with that understanding grin? Despite my unbidden ecstasy, the carnal side of a man’s nature remained shadowy to me. Was there some important fact I was meant to understand? More likely, I would tell myself, it was the Pasha I didn’t understand.
He was busy conferring with his advisers about his reformed judicial system. At odd moments he would drop by. These visits were flavored with an exhilarating irritation on my side, amusement on his. Ahmed and the Enlightened Ones might have saved their money as far as buying me to open the Pasha’s eyes. He knew enough about the West to demolish each argument I presented about our relative superiority. He taught me about the East.
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