“In the name of Ra the Shining One and of my father, whose royal will decreed it, I claim my heritage as pharaoh of the Two Lands and sole ruler of Egypt!”
CHAPTER 25
The Street of Sycamores
Outside, the night was soft, the air dark and cool and fragrant. Mara walked with Sheftu past the archers guarding the entrance, across the stone drive, and through the gate of the lotus garden. There Sheftu stopped at once, and took her with infinite care into his arms. He kissed her lingeringly, in silence, then tilted her chin and looked down into her face.
“Sheftu,” she whispered, “it’s all over.”
“Nay, little one. It’s just beginning. Many things are beginning.”
With one arm still about her waist, he led her on across the dewy grass, and with every step Mara’s heart grew lighter until even the pain in her torn shoulders seemed a thing of the past.
“Where are we going?” she asked presently. “To find the physician?”
“My lovely Mara, the physician about to be lifted above his station in life will come to you—and relate to his grandchildren how he did so.”
Mara laughed softly, delightedly. “And he must be the best in Thebes—you heard pharaoh’s order. Then I suppose we are going to my room with the butterflies, which I never thought to see again. . . . Aye, of course! I must wake my princess and tell her! You will send her home, Sheftu, as you promised? Without her help I could never have—”
“Hush. We’ll tell her tomorrow, and she may sail as far as she likes. But we are not going to her now, little one—you’re going home with me. For the rest of your life.”
“Sheftu! Is it true? I can scarce believe it.” Mara stopped walking and looked at him wonderingly. “You’re a count now. And I a free maid.”
“A free maid—and about to become a countess.” Sheftu grinned down at her. “I trust,” he added, “that you will remember to keep your sandals on.”
“And if I choose not to?” she retorted.
He laughed softly, taking her face between his hands. “Then you shall go barefoot. Who shall dare cross the will of the countess—except the count?” He dropped a kiss on her lips, then his smile faded, and his arms went around her as if never to let her go. “Oh Mara, Mara. . . . Nay, I’m hurting you. We must go on, beloved.”
A countess, thought Mara dreamily as they moved across the grass, into the Avenue of Rams, and on toward the palace stables. I shall be a countess and possess anything I like, and eat roasted waterfowl every day, and wear rings on my fingers and have lotuses, always a fresh one, for my hair—all just as I boasted to Teta. Except it will be better than that—oh, much better—for I shall be with Sheftu. . . .
They had reached the stables, and Sheftu was rapping out orders that produced hasty activity among the grooms. Soon a wide door opened and four Nubians hurried out, bearing a canopied litter far grander than those Mara had made way for so often in the streets of Menfe.
“I am glad,” she murmured, “that it is not a chariot!”
She was beginning to feel like a countess already as she stepped into the litter and eased her sore shoulders back against its luxurious cushions. Ai, surely I was destined for this at birth! she thought, trailing her fingers along the rich carving of the armrest and crossing her ankles in exquisite imitation of Zasha’s lady. If Teta could see me now! Why, I will soon forget I was ever a slave in my life, and no one else will know. I shall wear royal linen and perhaps a blue wig.
She extended a gracious hand to Sheftu as he sank down beside her, and to her delight he bent over it gallantly.
“And now, Count Sheftu,” she inquired, “could you describe me as a guttersnipe?”
“To be sure,” he said pleasantly.
She sat bolt upright. “Sheftu!”
He was laughing under his breath as he lifted her hand again to his lips. “A countess-guttersnipe,” he amended. “Far more interesting, Lotus-Eyed One, than a lady born— See now, you were too impulsive. You have hurt your shoulders.”
He eased her back against the cushions, one arm about her. The chair lifted, moved at a swift but gentle jog down the long avenue, through the tall main gate, and into streets beginning to gray with the first light of morning. For a time Mara was content with silence and blissful comfort. But a thought was stirring in the back of her mind which she could not put away.
“Sheftu,” she said, “when I am your countess, may I have anything I want?”
“Anything, little one.” He glanced at her, then added, “Within reason.”
Mara grinned, savoring again the flavor of their old dueling at the Falcon. “I only want you to buy me a slave.”
“A slave?”
“Aye. One called Teta—who was left one day in Menfe with a basket of unironed shentis she did not deserve.”
“You shall have her, Blue-Eyed One. But my villa is full of slaves. What do you want of another?”
“I want to free her.”
Sheftu smiled, took her hand and settled back beside her. “So be it. That is a small matter, to free a slave. Have we not freed a king?” A moment later he dropped her hand to point: “Look, Mara! Ahead there. Those are our gates.”
Eagerly Mara sat erect and peered through the swaying curtains. They were moving down a broad street lined with sycamores, toward the imposing gates of a great white wall. Beyond the wall she could see groves and a spreading roof, the plumes of tall palms waving in the breeze. And still beyond, over all, shone the clear, pink sky of morning. . . .
Even as the chair passed under the last sycamore and through the gates, a great procession of chanting, scarlet-robed priests was winding up the East Avenue toward the palace, trailing the fragrance of myrrh. Nuit, the Great Mother, making her stately way westward to the dark of the underworld, paused at the perfume and the joyous noise, and glanced over a starry shoulder. Something unusual was happening in the Black Land; but her duties were over and she was sleepy. She moved away, blinking, as the great doors of the throne room were thrown open and the procession passed inside, followed by a throng of cheering, white-clad Thebans who filled the streets and ferries and wharfs as far back as she could see.
Then the stars went out, for the bark of Ra, in fiery splendor, burst out of the East. Sunshine flooded the wide desert and the long, green valley of the Nile. The night was over; a new day had dawned for the land of Egypt.
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Mara, Daughter of the Nile Page 28