Carnelian

by B. Kristin McMichael

  I wrapped my arms around him and savored the kiss. I had been waiting weeks to feel him beside me again, and now here he was kissing me. His warmth and love was all around me. The tingles from my hand filled my body. This was the meeting I imagined. Seth pulled back after a short while and shook his head.

  “I can’t believe you’re a Nahrin Princess,” Seth added.

  “Or so you father says. But it doesn’t matter unless they can prove it,” I tried. I wasn’t about to believe it either. How could my mother keep something like that from me for my whole life? It didn’t seem possible. She had to have lived a lie for eighteen years. Suddenly a new thought hit me. “Would that make a difference to your family accepting me?”

  “I don’t know,” Seth replied. Apparently he hadn’t thought about it either. This was a new adventure we’d have to figure out. “I need to think. There might be a way. But I need to do this now. I still can’t tell my father about us knowing each other. We can’t let my father know that I care for you. If he does, I’m sure he will keep me away from you. I haven’t been back even more than a day, and he has told me who he wants me to marry. Until we know who your father is, we can’t let him push the issue forward of my marriage. If your father isn’t an enemy, then they might consider you a great match.”

  “You have a fiancée?” I asked, defeated. The whole point of going back to the past was to be with him.

  “Not someone I want to marry. Someone my father thinks I should marry,” Seth told me. That didn’t make it any better in my eyes. He was already being promised to someone. Someone that could spend her life with him. I really didn’t have a chance. I wasn’t comparable. “It isn’t really an option to go against your parents in this time, especially when your father not only employs you, but is the head of the military. I have no intention of marrying the woman my father likes,” Seth tried to reassure me. He jumped back at me as soon as someone appeared from the trees we were hidden behind.

  Dee stood by the trees and stared at me. He didn’t say anything, just stared. After a moment he shook his head and turned to Seth.

  “The general sent me to get you.” Dee bowed his head as he spoke. This was not the defiant Dee from my time. This Dee was younger, and more docile.

  “Stay here with Mari, Nadim,” Seth replied, before standing. He still kept his distance before he walked away, but he was planning something. Seth winked at me before leaving me in my secluded spot with Dee.

  “Is it really you?” Dee asked, sitting beside me.

  “Um, yes,” I replied. Who else would I be?

  “I keep playing all those memories in my mind. I had just about convinced myself it was a dream. Cars, football, college, they don’t have a place here, and there’s no way to describe them or even imagine they are real. I figured I had to have hurt my head majorly or something. That it couldn’t be real. But it was real, wasn’t it?” Dee asked. While Seth looked and sounded exactly the same as when I last saw him, Dee did not. Dee seemed younger than I remembered. A lot less confident and assured of himself.

  “If it wasn’t real, then I would have to doubt this time is real,” I answered. “Because, to me, this is the weird world.”

  Dee sat a few more moments thinking before he replied. “You came back for him, didn’t you?”

  I was unsure how to reply. Seth didn’t say anything to Dee before he left us alone, and I didn’t know what it meant. Was Dee more loyal to the general or to Seth? Was this Dee really that different than the Dee from my time? Dee was Seth’s chariot driver, but I was unsure how far that bond went now.

  “You’re right, don’t answer that,” Dee quickly said before I could answer. “I don’t want to know. Well, I do, or I wouldn’t have asked, but I don’t because I don’t want to be the one to get Seth into trouble.” That answered that for me.

  “Can I ask you what is going on here? Or can you not tell me?” I tried to change the subject.

  “We returned two days ago to the army. No time had passed beyond the night we left. We are exactly where we were three years ago, about to go to war again. This has been a long campaign, and I can’t wait to go home. Leaving your time was about getting back here, but I had hoped the war would be done by now. We made a run east with the guys you see here to check out a scouting party that had been reported. We are now heading back to the rest of the army to march to meet up with the Pharaoh. Then we will attack to get back the recent loss of land. We once held the lands all the way to Kadesh, and now we would be happy with just half that back under our control. We will probably have to push further a few cities before we head back to Kemet.” Dee watched the trees, waiting for Seth.

  Seth returned to usher me to his chariot. We had hours to go to make it back to the army the men left behind. By the time we made it back to the army, it was already getting near dusk. We entered the camp, and I was surprised by the amount of people I saw. I don’t know how I would have pictured an ancient army, but the thousands of people dotting the hillside they were camped on was not it. The sheer size made me wonder how they even traveled. As we passed further into the group, I realized it was all neatly divided into groups, which had to help. The groups actually looked a bit alike as we made it further into the camp.

  “We hire people from the other cities and countries to fight on campaigns along with native Egyptians,” Seth explained, his breath warm on my shoulder. My ride back had been between Seth and Dee on their chariot. They were the only two in the group that could spare having extra weight on their chariot.

  “Those men there,” Seth pointed to the light-brown-haired men that all had similar tightly-cropped hair that included bangs. “They come from across the sea. We pay for them, and they come as already trained soldiers. Good soldiers.” Seth led me through more crowds on foot now, keeping close by.

  We weaved between more men, some already lying down and others that had begun drinking. Off to the side a group of men were cheering and watching a fight between one man and a group. The one man was getting beaten badly, but he continued to get back up. Again he was knocked down. More cheers went up.

  “Is someone going to stop that?” I asked Seth.

  “No, that’s punishment. He must have done something wrong,” Seth replied, leading the way.

  “Punishment?” I asked. By now the man was bleeding not just from his face, but all around his head. It even looked like his ear was partially torn. Some sort of punishment. “Remind me not to do anything wrong,” I replied.

  Seth smiled at me. “If anything goes wrong, you wouldn’t be punished. As a potential princess, my father wouldn’t risk upsetting your cousin who’s in charge.”

  We stopped near a fire where mats were laid down and men were talking softly. They were not halfway as rambunctious as the men we already passed. It might have been the age, most of the men being twice as old as those we passed, or it might have been the general standing with them. He gave an air of someone that you didn’t disturb with chatter. Seth motioned for me to sit near his father. I sat silently and watched as Seth nodded to his father and walked away.

  “I am sorry, Princess, that we do not have more to offer you at this point. We should be by a town in a day or two after meeting up with the Pharaoh. Until then you’ll have to make do with what we have to offer,” the general said to me. He pointed to a guy some distance behind us, and the man approached.

  I wanted to jump up at the sight of him and hug him, but I did not. Something about how he walked and held himself told me not to. Ty was standing before me, handing me something to eat with his head bowed. Ty moved back to where he was before and didn’t meet any of the eyes of the men around the fire. Not that it mattered. None of them were paying any attention to him, either. I stared at him, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  “You like that one?” the general asked me.

  “One what?” I asked in reply.

  “Our slave over there. I got him on a campaign to Nubia and brought him home with us. He’s Seti’s persona
l slave. Seti trained him, and he’s a better fighter than half the people we have here. It’s nice to have someone well trained to watch over Seti,” the general replied. Seth had mentioned Ty was his slave, but it didn’t register when I was back in my time period. Ty stood there as we talked about him. Spoils of war and slaves were beyond me. Seth was right. I wasn’t prepared for this time period. I should have read more during the weeks I spent searching for the chalcedony.

  Seth returned to our side, and Ty brought him food likewise. It wasn’t much. From what I could tell it was bread and something meat, dried and leathery. I took a bite of the leathery stuff and tried to chew on it. I doubted this was much substance for an army, although no one seemed to mind. Everyone conversed around me, but I didn’t pay much attention until Seth spoke.

  “Father, can we speak alone with the princess?” Seth asked. The general nodded. Seth stood and offered me his hand to join him. We walked into one of the few tents on the hillside. Inside was sparsely furnished, but enough to give me sense that it was the general’s tent.

  “Father, is it your intention to give the princess back to her cousin?” Seth asked.

  “Yes,” the general replied. Neither guy even looked at me as they talked about me.

  “Then can I make another proposition? Maybe one that would work better for us in the long run?” Seth asked. I still was invisible to the men. It was a bit frustrating.

  “You see a better way we can use her to our advantage?” The general was very interested.

  “Well, I was thinking that we don’t know exactly who her father was. It might be better to keep her with us for now. It could be that her father is from our country, and not the Nahrin. You did have a delegation escorting the princess for months before she ever disappeared. I’d be willing to marry Mari if need be to appease the Nahrin,” Seth offered like it would be a hardship for him. I slid my foot over a few inches, allowing me to step on his toes, but the ground was too soft to make it hurt.

  The general was smiling. He was actually grinning. “Now that is a good offer,” he replied. “They might not think as much since we are only a military family and not Pharaoh, but I am sure I can talk to Horemheb to get his support behind it. We could marry royalty into our family and link the Nahrin to us more.” The general paced a bit. Now I knew where Seth got that from. “This would all have to be because she wanted it, too. The Nahrin will not accept a marriage without her consent.” He still talked like I was not in the room. Both men finally turned to look to me.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for marriage,” I replied. It was the best answer I could give without being able to stick my tongue out at Seth. He stood slightly behind his father, and I could read the immediate agitation on his face. “I’d have to give up my people completely,” I contemplated. People that I didn’t even know I belonged to just hours before.

  “For an even greater people,” the general replied. He was apparently trying to butter me up to the idea. “The Nahrin are slowly fading. Even now there’s talk of it being split as Kemet was once. You’d be better off being with us. We are a wealthy family and hold several estates from years of service to the Pharaoh. Seti himself owns his own lands already. We are personal friends with the Pharaoh also. I promise you, we are as good as a family as you can get within Kemet without marrying into the Pharaoh’s family.” He was truly trying to sell me on it. I still didn’t want to give in easy with Seth suggesting that marrying me would be a hardship. The general looked between me and Seth. I could only look at the general, otherwise I’d be glaring at Seth. The general turned to Seth. “I’ll leave you to convince her, but the more I think about it, the better it sounds. Please, son, be on your best behavior. Prove to this girl you’re worthwhile.”

  The general left the tent and I stood alone facing Seth. He marched over to me, stopping only inches away. He was more frustrated than mad at this point.

  “I don’t get you. First you come all the way here to see me and then you don’t want to stay with me? You’d rather go off to a country you don’t even know?” Seth asked. Okay, maybe he was a little pissed.

  “Or, I’ll just go home,” I replied, matching anger with anger. Not the best solution, but I didn’t exactly like being treated like an invisible object that they could trade around. Seth had tried to warn me that his time period was different than mine, but I still didn’t like it.

  “Good luck on that, the goddess shrine is miles north in a secret spot. Without the stones kept there, you can’t go anywhere,” Seth replied, smiling a fake smile because he thought he had the upper hand.

  “I can come and go as I please. I don’t need stones or a shrine.” I pulled back the sleeve of my shirt and moved closer to the only light in the tent. Seth took my arm and looked at it. The lines were faint, but even I saw them in the dark.

  “What is that?” he asked, tenderly turning over my arm. His anger was gone.

  “The stone the goddess left on me to keep me from getting stuck anywhere,” I replied. My anger simmered down a bit.

  “You can leave any time?” Seth asked, disappointment laced his voice.

  “Yes, and if I’m such a burden to have to marry, I can leave sooner rather than later.” My anger was now turning into sulking. I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t sure if Seth saw me as a burden or not. I knew back in my time that he loved me, but I still wasn’t sure on where we stood in this time.

  “Seriously?” Seth asked as he laughed and wrapped his arms around me. I would have struggled if I could, but I couldn’t refuse his touch. “You’d really think I wanted you to leave? And what? Spend my days wondering why life just seems so less bright without you in it?”

  “Seriously? You missed me?” I asked. I needed to be sure. This was crazy, considering marrying Seth and having a life here that I had not pictured having for at least another ten years. But somehow with Seth it just kind of seemed right. It seemed like I could fit into his world, if he wanted me there.

  “I’ve missed you from the moment we returned,” Seth replied, pulling me even tighter. All I could smell was the fresh linen scent that was Seth. I closed my eyes and inhaled again. I was truly in his arms. “It has been two days of torture wondering how I was to go on with life when I left the best part of it in the future, where I couldn’t reach her.”

  “You’re lucky,” I replied before kissing his chest. “I had to live through three weeks of you being gone.”

  “Really?” he asked, pulling me back to see his face. “I’m sorry. I should have taken you with me like you wanted. You were right. You belong here obviously, since your mother was from here. I get it now.”

  “Isn’t that something? There was a reason for us to meet. And if we hadn’t, I don’t know if my mother would have ever told me about it,” I replied. Seth let go of me and took my hand. He led me to one of the mats and sat down, pulling me onto his lap.

  “I was too worried about you being here and how you’d be treated. I figured my father would make you a slave or something, and I would have to marry someone else in front of you. I couldn’t stand to think I’d break your heart and have no control of it. Now though, you get to be mine,” Seth hugged me again. Reality was now setting in for him too.

  “If it came down to that, we would have found a way. Did you ever stop to think maybe the goddess wanted you to take me back here?” I replied as he began to kiss down my neck. I patted him away playfully. “We’re having a serious conversation here,” I complained.

  “I’m working on convincing you to be my wife, since you didn’t agree. I believe that’s why my father left me alone with an unmarried princess in his private tent. Let me try to convince you a bit.” Seth’s hands wandered down to my waist, gripping me as he laid back and pulled me on top of him.

  “And how do you plan to do that?” I asked from on top of him.

  “I don’t know. What would you suggest?” he asked, slowly untying some of the clothing. At least he was familiar with the ties since I had no clue wh
at I was even wearing or how I’d get out of it even if I wanted to.

  Someone from the tent entrance coughed. “The general sent these for you,” Ty said, holding glasses of some beverage. I was pretty sure it wasn’t water from the strong scent coming from it. From the amount of drunk men wandering around the camp as we arrived, I could only guess it was some sort of alcohol.

  Seth slid me off of him and stood to take the drinks from Ty. Ty nodded to me finally as I had stood to walk over to the guys who were now talking quietly.

  “Hi, Mari,” Ty said, just as quietly as when he had been talking with Seth.

  “Ty,” I began, but Seth put a hand up to stop me from talking more. He nodded to Ty, and Ty left.

  “Now where were we?” Seth asked, handing me a drink.

  “Why did you stop me from talking to Ty?” I asked.

  “Because he isn’t supposed to be talking back. I told you it was different here, and that’s one of the differences. Ty is a spoil of war. He’s to do what is asked and not speak. He can get in trouble just for speaking. You know that man we saw when we entered? I doubt his crime was as serious as speaking when he was not allowed to.” Yes, it was different here and it would take time to get used to if I got to stay with Seth.

  I looked at the flask and wondered if I should be drinking anything alcoholic since I wasn’t exactly sure how to do the time travel thing yet. It would really stink to be a little buzzed and end up in a different century.

  “Your father sent us some sort of alcohol to get drunk with?” I questioned Seth. “I’m guessing this is a backup plan to me not being convinced?” Seth shrugged, which was good as a yes.

  “Just try it,” Seth prompted. I took a small sip. The bitter taste was stronger than I expected, but drinkable. “Beer is a better option here than water sometimes. You can’t just drink water from anywhere and assume it to be safe. Now, beer…nothing contaminates beer.” I nodded. It made sense, but it would be something to get used to.

  “Where were we now? I was just trying to get a few more articles of clothing off before asking you to marry me, but I better get on with asking you now before my father comes back in for the night,” Seth explained, pulling me back to the mats.