Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

Silence stayed the queen's tongue. She felt utter despair and her pride was deeply wounded. She could see no point in remaining any longer, and she rose to her feet and turning her back to the woman, she went on her way, pained, sad, and so furious that she could hardly see the way in front of her.

Rhadopis gulped for air, and leaned her spinning head on her palm, lost in sad and apprehensive thoughts.

A glimmer of light

Rhadopis sighed from deep in her — wounded heart, and said to herself, “How I regret that I have become heedless of the — world. But still it refuses to forget me or to leave me at peace now that I am cleansed of my past and those hordes of men.” Dear Lord, were the priests really accusing her palace of consuming their stolen wealth? Were they really scourging her love with tongues of flame? She had huddled inside her palace contentedly, lost touch with everyone, and never stepped outside into the real world. She had no idea that her name was bandied about with such resentment on the tongues of these zealots who were using her as a ladder to reach up high enough to touch her worshipful lover. She did not think the queen was exaggerating, even if more than one motive had driven her to speak, for she had known for some time that the priests were concerned that Pharaoh would seize their lands, and she had heard with her own ears at the festival of the Nile those people shouting the name of Khnumhotep. There was no doubt that beyond the quiet, beautiful world that she inhabited was another more clamorous world, in which cauldrons were bubbling with affliction and resentment. She felt gloomy after long months of peace and serenity the like of which she had never experienced in her entire life. She felt her ribs curving compassionately around her lover, streaming with love and affection, and out of the depths of this sudden and unexpected grief that had come upon her, she remembered what Ani had said one day about the pharaonic guard being the only force the king could rely on, and how she had asked herself in alarm why His Sacred Majesty did not conscript soldiers, or mobilize a strong and powerful army.

She spent the whole day in her chamber, depressed, and did not go to the summer room as was her wont to sit for the sculptor, Benamun. She could not bear the thought of meeting anybody, nor sitting motionless in front of the young man's insatiable eyes. She saw no one until evening time, and she did not taste rest until she saw her — worshipped lover come through the door of her bedchamber, trailing his flowing garments. She sighed from the depths of her heart as she opened her arms and he hugged her to his broad chest as he did every time, and planted on her face the happy kiss of greeting. Then he sat down by her side on the couch and waxed lyrical about the beautiful memories the view of the Nile had brought back to his mind as it had borne his barge just a moment earlier.

“Where is the beautiful summer?” he said to her. “Where are those nights spent awake, when the barge cuts through the dark still brow of night, when we lie in the cabin and succumb to passion in the cool breeze, listening to the music of the songstresses and watching with dreamy eyes the graceful movements of the dancers?”

She was unable to keep up with his reminiscences, but she did not want him to feel alone in an emotion or a thought and she said, “Do not rush, my darling. Beauty is not in the summer, nor in the winter, but in our love, and you will find the winter warm and gentle so long as the flame of our love burns.”

He laughed his raucous laugh, and his face and body shook. “What a beautiful thing to say. My heart desires such wit more than all the glory in the world. But tell me, what do you think about some hunting? We shall go out into the mountains tomorrow and run after the gazelles, and amuse ourselves until our ravenous spirits are sated.”

Her mind had begun to wander. “May your will be done, my darling.”

He looked at her carefully, and realized at once that her tongue was speaking to him but her heart wandered far away.

“Rhadopis,” he said, “I swear to you by the falcon that brought our hearts together, some thought steals your mind from me today.”

She looked at him through two sad eyes, unable to say a word. Concern came over his face and he said, “My intuition was correct. Your eyes do not lie. But what is it you are holding back from me?”

She sighed from the depths of her heart, and as her right hand played unwittingly with his cloak, she said softly, “I wonder at our life. How much we are oblivious to what is around us, as if we were living in a deserted and uninhabited world.”

“We are well to do so, my darling. What is the world to us other than endless noise and false glory? We were lost for so long before love guided us. What is it that unsettles you?”

She sighed again and said sadly, “What use is sleep to us if all around people are awake and cannot close their eyes.”