Reflections in the Nile

by J. Suzanne Frank

  Thut's lips drew into a fine line. “My esteemed aunt desires peace above everything. She would rather have fewer slaves than have a curse laid upon the land every ten days. I am the one in power here. I have decided.” He turned on his heel, exiting.

  The old priest followed him, his thin, failing body wrapped in cubits of linen, the leopard skin of his office draped over the whole ensemble. The group began to break up, priests dispersing to Lower Egypt's various temples.

  Chloe slipped out beside a side column and noted with surprise that Ra was almost gone. The air was thick with buzzing, and she half ran to her apartments, the flies stinging through her linen wrappings. She was cursing with itchy frustration as she rounded the bend leading to her rooms. The guards who customarily watched every gateway were gone, and she got a few more bites as she glanced down and noticed her sandal was untied. I'll be inside in a matter of minutes, she thought hurriedly.

  And promptly tripped. The tightly wrapped garments prevented her from catching herself in time, so she fell on her face. Chloe rolled over immediately, trying to avoid the fly-covered ground, trying to keep the nasty bugs out of her eyes. Swearing volubly, she got to her feet, testing ankles and arms to see that nothing was damaged. Then, frowning with gritted teeth, she turned around.

  Nesbek stood before her, his rotund body wrapped in the rich red of which he was so fond. Chloe snarled, too angry to be afraid.

  “My lady.”

  She did not shout, but her scathing words cut. “I am not your lady. Get away from me, you son of a kheft! I do not know what secrets you hold over my head, but I am finished with you! Your presence is a stench in my nostrils! Your lifestyle repulses me almost as much as your appearance.” She smiled, enjoying the release after months of playing the simpering, ineffectual priestess. “Should you ever touch me or attempt to contact me again, I will see you impaled!”

  His face purpled with emotion, and he raised a hand to strike her, “Aye, RaEm! You have returned to me!” Suddenly she didn't give a damn who saw her or what they thought of her actions. She threw off her robe.

  Chloe deflected his wrist and circled him, ignoring the flies and the falling darkness. Her hands went up in a defensive posture as he leapt at her. She sidestepped neatly, and Nesbek fell hard on the fly-covered ground. He stood up, frowning slightly. “I like your new game, RaEm. Is the loser the victor in this one also?”

  “What?” His words made no sense.

  He turned back to her, and she saw with a vague degree of alarm that he now held a jewel-hilted dagger in his hand. “Big stakes, Lotus.”

  She narrowed her focus. He rushed at her, dagger arm raised. She dodged the knife and stepped aside, grabbing his arm as she flipped him over her shoulder. He landed flat, the wind knocked from his lungs, his knife out of reach. She retrieved it while Nesbek lay panting for air.

  “I will keep this,” she said. “If you ever come near me again, I will sink it into your…” Chloe trailed off but stared pointedly at Nesbek's kilt. “As for whatever you think you know about me, you will forget it. The RaEm you would have married is dead.”

  His eyes bulged. “RaEm? What do you—”

  “Our engagement is finished. Agree to this or I will go to the prince regent himself and share how you entertain. He is a sophisticated man, but decent, I think. I am certain he would be appalled at your tastes. I know Pharaoh would separate your head and shoulders for it.” She knelt beside him, holding the knife to his face, which was a sickly grayish yellow, his eyes dark reflective pools in the failing light With a poisonous smile she said, “Do we understand each other?”

  NESBEK GRUNTED AGREEMENT, afraid to move his head in case she decided to enact Hatshepsut's punishment for him right now. What had happened? Where was his adventurous, risqué fiancée? RaEm stood, tucked the dagger into the sash around her waist, picked up her cloak, and walked to her garden gate.

  He lay on the ground, getting his breath back, confusion and anger surging through his veins. He felt a shadow and looked up to Lord Cheftu. The hemu neter's face was shadowed but his sibilant whisper was as easy to understand as the sword Cheftu held poised over Nesbek's privates.

  Nesbek braced himself and felt the prickling of cold sweat break out across his body. He had been surprised by RaEm's behavior and more than a little aroused Perhaps it was another game?… They'd played with knives, flails, whips, and slaves, yet he couldn't imagine how this fit in. She sounded adamant. Was she teasing him? Priming him? Perhaps she didn't mean it.

  Cheftu, however, was an excellent sportsman and had been RaEm's betrothed. Now he was her personal physician and from what Nesbek could see, was still attached to her.

  “I believe our Lady RaEmhetepet has had enough of your attentions, my lord” Cheftu said quietly. “While I think the punishments she has suggested for your future are appropriate, I would relish delivering them myself.”

  He crouched beside Nesbek, whose eyes were screwed shut in apprehension. Cheftu's cool hauteur was replaced with marrow-freezing venom. “If you so much as look in the lady's direction while you still draw breath, I will personally send you on a barque through the underworld.”

  Nesbek recoiled from Cheftu. He wanted to reply but very much feared that would be Cheftu's excuse.

  As if he could read Nesbek's mind, Cheftu spoke. “By the gods! I hope to see you creeping along this garden wall tonight, so I can leave your body for the flies.”

  Nesbek's stomach roiled.

  “Do you know what flies can do to a dead body? I doubt Osiris himself would welcome your stinking, infested flesh. How could you let your own betrothed be dumped by the road like refuse? What river scum are you?” Cheftu placed the knife at Nesbek's throat. “What have you to say for yourself?”

  Nesbek swallowed, wincing as he felt the sharp blade slice his skin. He was getting hard.

  “Speak, you river rat!”

  “It was not my fault! The crowd, they were angry, disappointed. Too much to drink.”

  “And?” Cheftu moved the knife to new skin. Nesbek felt icy sweat under his kilt, and his genuine fear of this powerful lord suddenly killed all passion.

  “I got her away before the whipping began. I took her to your Israelite's village.” He winced as he felt more sticky blood trickle behind his ear. “I knew you would find her.”

  Cheftu was motionless. “So you left her in the hopes of saving your own yellow-skinned neck? What if she had died?”

  “I… I had someone watching to make sure she was found. I could not let it get out she had been with me. My sister would cut off—”

  The golden lord chuckled, low and nasty. “Your bloodsucking allowance? Or that impotence that hangs between your legs?” Cheftu stood up, sniffing Nesbek's blood on the knife. “You stink of coward down to the drivel that runs through your veins. Get away from here and never approach RaEm again. If you do, I wonder how your sister will respond to the letter I will write?”

  Nesbek sat up. “Please, my lord, RaEm is the only one who understands that I need to hurt… it's the only way—”

  Cheftu kicked him lightly in the chest, holding him to the fly-covered ground with one sandaled foot. “The only release you get is from hurting others. I have heard this about you. RaEm is no longer interested. Find yourself another victim.”

  He stepped on Nesbek, and for a second his full weight was on Nesbek's chest, a compression that felt too close to death. “You will return to me here before we see Ra crest the horizon. You will have all your miserable belongings and a reason for your departure that I can tell the prince. Or it will be the last sunrise you ever behold.”

  Nesbek scrambled away, fearful and angry but relieved to still be alive.

  Cheftu brushed flies away from his face and eyes and turned toward RaEm's apartments. He saw light glowing from within and wished he would be welcome, if for nothing more than a cup of wine and a game of senet. He would stay and watch for Nesbek all night. He didn't think Nesbek would hurt RaEm. He seemed
to care for her in a weak, self-centered way that made Cheftu's stomach burn. However, in the event that he was wrong…

  Drawing his linen cloak closer about him and waving away more flies, Cheftu sat on the ground, preparing for a long night. The moon rose, full and fat, its light lending a daytime brightness to the garden. Cheftu seated himself under one of the many sycamores and watched the climbing white flowers open and flood the air with their hauntingly sweet scent A night bird began singing, its notes climbing up and down the scale. After a while the flies didn't bother him.

  Cheftu cleared his mind carefully, relaxing the different muscles in his body, conquering the distress that had him taut as a bow, wishing the fire in his stomach would subside. He was fighting sleep when he saw RaEm's light extinguished. The flies were fewer.

  Aching, he got to his feet when he saw RaEm's garden door open and a white-clad figure slip out. It was RaEm, her drifting walk now filled with purpose. She headed straight for the river, and he followed close behind. Periodically she stopped and listened, then continued on her way. Upon reaching the deserted bank, she sat on a mud-brick wall. From inside her cloak she brought out three sticks tied to form a triangle, with a stick behind it, on which the whole thing rested. She laid a piece of papyrus across it and began to mix ink.

  She's drawing again, he thought. He had become familiar with her nocturnal habit while they were on the Nile. He'd thought it strange, but then again, she'd been so sick during the day that it was her only form of entertainment. He'd certainly been an ass. Yet here, in the middle of a plague, in the middle of the night, after holding a knife to the throat of the murderer of her baby, she was drawing again. He watched as her few quick strokes re-created the present scene, almost as if this moment had been frozen in time. Obviously this was more than a casual hobby. Would she ever make sense to him?

  He was confused by the contradictions that constituted RaEmhetepet, and his confusion increased exponentially as he watched her. He would have thought her heartless had he not been the one to cradle her when she'd realized her child was gone. Had he not heard the anguish in her voice, he would have classed her as a heartless snake tonight. However, since he did know those things, the effort, energy, and resilience she was exhibiting left him in awe.

  Moonlight caressed her short black hair, gave her large green eyes a catlike glow, and kissed her full lips. He felt a tightening in his body, a blinding rush. He was used to his physical reaction to RaEm, but he also felt his heart tighten as he thought about the tenacity of this woman. Had he ever really known her? She had been a child, really, that night he'd crept out of Pharaoh's harem and met her in the garden. She had been beautiful and fragile, but so fearful of everything. Now the memory of her kiss on the Pyramid obliterated those faded moments and added to the already uncomfortable pressure beneath his kilt.

  What had happened to that young girl? What had caused the corruption? It was too easy to blame Nesbek or Pakab. There had to be an internal reason that made her seek the forbidden. How could he know what it was? He hadn't seen her for years, until they were formally introduced at Hat's festival and RaEm had invited him to her estate in Goshen. Would he ever know? He leaned against one of the many trees lining the bank and, keeping RaEm in full view, nodded off.

  CHLOE LOOKED AT THE DRAWING. It was difficult without a finer tip, but she had captured the moon's path across the Nile, rising above the clusters of trees. Sighing contentedly, she packed up her ink brushes and folded up her makeshift easel. Holding her still-drying work in one hand and her full linen pouch in the other, she began to walk back to the palace. The eastern horizon was already fading to gray.

  The sight of a hand lying in the grass was almost her undoing. The early dawn highlighted it, etching the square-cut fingers in ivory, firing the tiger's-eye scarab ring with a demonic glow. Chloe stifled a scream and dropped her things. Cautiously she walked around the back of the tree.

  Cheftu.

  Blood drained from her face and she fell on her knees, covering his face with kisses, her throat half-choked with sobs before she realized he was warm and breathing.

  And now awake. Very awake.

  His strong arms encircled her, pulling her onto him, to his hungry lips and night-blackened eyes. She felt blood pounding in her temples and nervously licked her bottom lip, staring at Cheftu. It was the wrong thing to do. His gaze flickered to her lips. She hung there in the air above him, caught like a hare in a snare, frozen.

  He reached up with a finger and traced her lips oh so slowly. Taking her lips’ moisture onto his slightly trembling finger, he licked it slowly, his heavy-lidded gaze searing hers. Chloe gasped. His bare chest and legs scorched her, and she moved toward him, crazed thoughts careening through her mind. Damn, she thought dazedly. For the first time the fact that he had been dead and buried for thousands of years before she was even conceived didn't matter a jot. What mattered was the heat coursing through her, the heaviness in her breasts, the pulsing in her body.

  She lowered her face as Cheftu glanced up. Abruptly he sat up, his head colliding with hers. Painfully.

  “RaEm,” he said hurriedly, confusedly, “it is almost first light. I must be on my way… I… have an appointment.”

  Chloe, hand still rubbing her jarred jaw, noticed that he refused to meet her gaze and leapt to his feet with more speed than grace.

  “Where are your materials?” he asked as he brushed dead flies from his kilt and cloak. Amazingly, there seemed to be no flies in the air.

  Chloe picked up her bag and carefully rolled up her drying papyrus, reluctant to have Cheftu learn more than he already had. She said nothing, ignoring the protests of her still-intrigued body and swearing at the comments from her bewildered brain. They started off at a brisk walk, avoiding all contact. A brush of arms and the air charged between them. Cheftu motioned for her to precede him, and they walked single file. Soon they were back at the garden gate. Cheftu opened it for her and she walked by, her head raised proudly, trying not to feel his rejection of her attempted kiss—or his lack of interest.

  “RaEm,” he said, his voice hoarse, “although other business takes precedence at this time, I hope we can continue our”—he stumbled for a moment—“conversation at a later point. This evening, perhaps?”

  Chloe, thoroughly stung by his explanation, kept her face averted. Conversation was the pseudonym he was using for their moonstruck behavior? She answered crisply, “I think not, my lord. What I was about to say has no bearing or significance.” Take that, she thought. “It would have been regretted instantly.”

  His granite grip on her arm forced her to look at him. “If you must again disembowel me before my death,” he growled, “have the decency to speak to my face, RaEm.”

  Chloe stared at his chest, feeling his anger. His long-fingered hands burned through the linen on her arms, and suddenly the tension, the timing, the excuses, did not matter. She didn't care about what he said or did… she wanted him. She wanted that tracing finger to touch her in magical ways and those sensual and well-cut lips to curl back in ultimate pleasure. Not to mention his body … well…

  Cheftu felt the change in her body. What had been resistant stone became molten metal, and RaEm surged into his hands. She raised blazing green eyes to him, and Cheftu's breath lodged in his throat. Purposefully and slowly she licked her full lower lip, and his stomach twisted as blood rushed away from his brain. He stood immobile. The invitation in her look was engraved with gold, but still he stood, hesitant to move forward yet wary of stepping back and seeing the door between them close.

  Involuntarily his hands clenched her arms tighter, and she moved closer within their embrace. He watched helplessly as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the pounding pulse in his throat. He heard a sharp intake of breath when she licked the spot, then opened her mouth wider to suck on it.

  Dazedly he realized the gasping breaths he heard were his. Of their own accord his hands roamed up and down her back, cupping her and press
ing her to him. She was like lightning, leaving every inch of his flesh alive and smoking.

  Shafts of morning sun were ignored as they sank to the ground, hands frantically caressing, lips frenetically exploring. Cheftu was still more observer than participator when a loud exclamation interrupted them.

  He crouched in front of RaEm, grasping both of her wrists in one of his hands, ready to protect her. Commander Ameni stood before them, his blue eyes quickly taking in RaEm's rosy-tipped breast and Cheftu's jutting kilt. Ameni looked embarrassed under his tan and fixed his eyes slightly to the side of Cheftu. He ignored RaEm completely.

  Cheftu looked around himself in disgust, seeing through the eyes of the soldiers. Every surface was covered with dead flies. They were both dirty, RaEm's gown was ripped almost to the waist, and the bags of her equipment were strewn across the fly-covered grass.

  He colored as he thought about the lack of restraint demonstrated, compared with the ideal for which all Egyptian men strove. To be in control, respectful, courteous, and above all never overcome by emotions and passions. He was appalled at himself. This was what he was going to do with the woman he loved? To take her like a rutting animal in the public park of a palace? Automatically he backed away from his thoughts, inquiring of the guards what they wanted.

  He accepted the cartouche-embellished note and waved away the soldiers with as much arrogance as he could afford. He watched them walk out of sight and turned to RaEm. The heat of passion was gone. She had covered herself and was looking at the flies with the same disgust he had.

  He got to his feet, arranging his kilt as best he could, and handed RaEm the missive. He plucked his crumpled cloak from the ground and brushed off the dead flies. Frowning, she gazed at the page and then dropped it as if it were a serpent.

  Cheftu picked it up. It was a letter from Hatshepsut, living forever! to Thutmosis: Cheftu's stomach burned as he read it.