Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

He frowned, and a fleeting light shone in his eyes, and he knew in his heart that something was bothering her. “What is it that saddens you, Rhadopis?” he asked worriedly. “Share your thoughts with me, for have we not talked enough about things other than love?”

“Today is not like yesterday,” she said. “Some of my slaves who were walking in the market related to me how they saw a group of angry people muttering that your wealth was being spent on this palace of mine.”

Pharaoh's face showed anger, and he saw the specter of Khnumhotep hovering over his calm and peaceful paradise, clouding its serenity and disturbing its security. His anger intensified and his face turned the color of the Nile during the inundation, and he said to her in a trembling voice, “Is that what troubles you, Rhadopis? Woe be unto those rebels if they do not cease their transgression. But do not let it spoil our happiness. Pay no attention to their wailing. Leave them be and think solely of me.”

He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently and she looked at him and said beseechingly, “I am worried and sad. It pains me that I should be a cause for people to denounce you. It is as if I feel a mysterious fear, the essence of which I cannot comprehend. A person in love, my lord, is quick to fear at the least cause.”

“How can you be afraid when you are in my arms?” he asked her unhappily.

“My lord, they eye our love with envy, and resent this palace for its love and tranquility and comfort. Often have I said to myself in my sadness and inquietude, ‘What has the gold that my lord lavishes upon me to do — with love?’ I will not deny to you that I have come to hate the gold that incites people against us. Do you not think that this palace will still be our paradise even if its floors were torn bare and its walls disfigured? If the glitter of gold will distract their eyes, Your Majesty, then fill their hands with it so that they go blind, swallowing their tongues.”

“Do not say such things, Rhadopis. You are reminding me of a matter I hate to hear about.”

“Your Majesty,” she pleaded, “it is about to envelop the sky of our happiness. Remove it with a single word.”

“And what word might that be?”

She thought he was beginning to yield and see sense. “To give them back their lands,” she said happily.

He shook his head violently. “You do not know anything about the matter, Rhadopis,” he insisted. “I spoke, but my word has not been respected; it has been implemented reluctantly, and they have not silenced their protests. They continue to threaten me and giving in to them is a defeat I will not accept. I would rather die than allow that. You do not know what defeat means to my soul. It is death. If they were victorious over me and took what they desired, you would find me a stranger, pathetic and pitiful, unable to live or to love.”

His words penetrated to her heart and she held his hands more tightly. She felt her body tremble. She could bear anything, but not that he be incapable of life or love. She relinquished her desire, and regretted her beseeching, and in a quivering voice she exclaimed, “You shall never be conquered. Never.”

He smiled at her tenderly. “Nor shall I err or falter, nor shall you be the fate that brings disgrace upon me.”

A hot tear slipped from beneath her trembling eyelids.

“You shall never be disgraced,” she said breathlessly, “you shall never be defeated.”

She leaned her head against his chest, and let herself be lulled to sleep by the beating of his heart. In her slumber she felt his fingers playing with her hair and her cheeks, but she did not find peace for long, for one of the thoughts that had darkened her day tugged at her mind, and she looked up at him with worried eyes.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

She hesitated before she spoke. “It is said that they are a strong party, with great sway over the hearts and minds of the people.”

He smiled: “But I am stronger.”

She paused a moment then said, “Why do you not conscript a powerful army that would be at your command?”

The king smiled and said, “I see that your misgivings are getting the better of you once again.”

She sighed with irritation, “Did it not reach my ear that people are whispering among themselves that Pharaoh takes the money of the gods and spends it on a dancer? When people come together their whisper becomes a loud cry; like evil it will flare up.”

“What a pessimist you are, seeing evil everywhere.”

But she asked him again, pleading, “Why do you not summon the soldiery?”

He looked at her for a long time, thinking, then said, “The army cannot be called up without a reason.”

He appeared angry and continued, “They are confused and misguided. They feel that I am displeased with them. If I announce conscription they will be alarmed. Maybe they would rise up desperately to defend themselves.”

She thought for a moment, then, in a dreamy voice, as if she were talking to herself, she said, “Make up a pretext and summon the army.”

“Pretexts make themselves up by themselves.”