Sunrise on the Mediterranean Page 12

  “Can’t I hide here?” Cheftu asked. He had no valuables, no way to buy passage anywhere. He needed to check with the stones, be certain Chloe wasn’t here. Or was this what he was supposed to follow?

  “Nay, everyone will be looking for you. You didn’t watch the sun, you turned away.”

  Don’t watch the idol, the stones had said. The idol was the sun! “Where was Yamir-dagon?” Cheftu asked. “Tell me that.”

  “With the Pelesti. Go now.”

  “Thank you,” Cheftu said again. “If I can—”

  The voice cut him off. “You did, by getting me home.” Wenaten gripped his shoulder. Cheftu winced as his burned skin was pressed. “No more. Go!”

  Adrenaline cleared Cheftu’s head as he slipped into the shadows, careful to keep an eye on the street and the tenemos walls of the temple. If Akhetaten was built like any other Egyptian city, the Way of the Nobles would be the large houses right on the edge of the Nile. The river was his thoroughfare out of here. Once on the other side, or on a boat, he would ask the stones how to get to Chloe. Whom or what he should follow.

  Carefully he picked his way from black shadow to gray shade, for it was a full moon. Finally he stood on the dock alone. No sailors loitered around, lousy with beer. People weren’t allowed on the streets after dark, for to spend time in darkness was perceived as embracing the enemy of the Aten. At the Nile’s edge were boats, some awaiting a boatwright’s attention, some already repaired, all bobbing in the shallow water. He slipped the stones from his sash and tossed them. “Where is Chloe?”

  “G-o.”

  “Is she here?” he asked them, squinting to see the letters through his sore eyes.

  “G-o.”

  “Am I going to get any other answers?” he asked angrily. “G-o-n-o-w.”

  He put them back in his sash. Gritting his teeth against the necessity of stealing, Cheftu selected the smallest of the rowboats and stepped in.

  Fumbling for oars at the bottom, he pushed away from shore and paddled like a madman to get away from the city before the break of dawn. He would never return to this cursed place where the prayers of God were used in manipulation of a people. Pharaoh cared nothing for the land.

  As the muscles in his shoulders pulled, as his eyes teared in the dawn, as his skin burned in the morning light, he knew it didn’t matter. He was leaving Egypt. Chloe was waiting for him.

  He abandoned the skiff on the eastern side of the Nile, just south of Khumnu, the Middle Kingdom capital of the Hare Nome. The town had been mostly abandoned. The temple of Thoth was closed off. Even this far north Cheftu saw the stele of Akhenaten, marking the border of Akhetaten. Uncertain if priest-soldiers would be tracking him, Cheftu walked into the desert, then doubled back. For the night’s stay and three days’ provisions he fell back on his skills as a physician and delivered a baby. It was a boy child, whom they wanted to name after him. Impulsively Cheftu gave them the name Nacht-met. It was a good, solid name meaning “One who could see” and was completely unlinked with him. He could leave no tracks.

  Cheftu walked out of town as the women of the village were tying amulets onto the infant’s arms, protecting him against the many evils in the air, the night, and the water.

  Those provisions kept Cheftu as he walked next to the Nile, through field after field, north. The stones were silent; all he had to go on was dagon and Pelesti. He walked onward. Priest-soldiers sailed up and down the river, harassing fishermen, stopping in villages to be certain the temples were closed, that only the Aten was being worshiped.

  In Akoris he heard rumors of a dangerous felon who had fled Akhetaten. Cheftu was shaken to hear his own description given, quite accurately.

  That night, under the cover of darkness, he crept to the ruined step pyramid where a wisewoman was rumored to dwell. From her, for the price of clearing away the mouth to a cave, he bought a drug that would disguise his appearance. Then he continued north.

  In Per Medjet, where fish were worshiped in addition to the Aten, he sewed up a barber’s daughter’s flesh wound in exchange for provisions, a homespun kilt, and skin-darkening paste to protect against further sunburn as well as misrepresent his appearance.

  The man who entered the streets of Noph was vastly different from the one who had crept out of the streets of Akhenaten. The sun—and dye—had blackened his skin, his head was bare, his long hair shaved off and burned to ash somewhere in the desert. He wore a small goatee and mustache. However, the pièce de résistance was his eyes.

  Belladonna, purchased from the wisewoman, both protected his vision from the Aten’s punishing rays and dilated his pupils so much that the amber color of his irises was hidden.

  Cheftu didn’t recognize himself when he went to the temple; his only fear was that Chloe wouldn’t, either. Was she here? Still the stones said, “G-o.” A quick but necessary sacrifice to the Aten, then he would find his way farther north by ship.

  Due to great rejoicing throughout the kingdom, however, no ships were sailing. Smenkhare had arrived. In celebration, Egypt’s remaining stores of food would be open to the people for three days of rejoicing that Pharaoh’s brother—or cousin, no one was sure—had safely joined the court.

  For three days Cheftu sought passage north. A letter of passage from the petitioner’s local temple of the Aten was required for anyone seeking to leave Egypt. At first it seemed simple enough. Then he asked around, loosened tongues with beer, and learned that these letters were written on a special type of papyrus. A fraud would be recognized immediately.

  Cheftu cursed. Every night he rolled the stones. Go, go, go, they said. “I am trying!” he protested, frustrated. The streets were alive with tales about how Smenkhare had arrived.

  Some said she’d sailed up the Nile in a golden ship and was built like the old Nile god with both breasts and phallus. Others said he had appeared from the desert horizon, as fragile as mist, with an entourage of children. Everyone believed she was an incarnation of the goddess, any goddess, come to woo Egypt back from the sole control of the Aten. Having been Egyptian, Cheftu understood that just because they thought Smenkhare was male did not mean he could not also be a goddess. That anyone would be ruling Egypt instead of that siren-voiced misfit was cause for rejoicing!

  Did Akhenaten realize nothing of his land? Cheftu wondered as he mixed with the crowds, trying to find someone to sail him to the Great Green. Determined to get to Chloe, he bought provisions at the cost of an entire family’s cataract removals, then joined the merchants’ roads toward Canaan. Once across the wadi of Egypt, he would buy or barter passage to the Pelesti.

  He was on the third night of his journey through the sands when brigands set upon him. He didn’t hear them, didn’t see them, but once they were present, he smelled them. They lived with goats. They tore through his tent for gold, for jewels, furious that he had no wealth to easily trade, so they ate his food instead.

  Cheftu didn’t recognize their dialect, but one of them wanted to kill him. Fortunately the one holding the knife to his throat was more reasonable. They shackled him, then threw him on the sandy floor of his tent while they looked for something else to take or destroy.

  The stones! He had to hide them! But where? If they took his clothing, they would find the stones. He had no pouch, no secret location. Burying them in the sands here would be to lose them and their wisdom. He’d never find Chloe.

  Could he swallow them? They were too large; he would kill himself that way. That was to say nothing of how they would have to be retrieved.

  Un moment … Though it was distasteful, it might work.

  The shackles afforded him a lot of flexibility.

  When the brigands came to drag him to the rest of their captives, Cheftu was stripped bare. With quick movements they pierced his ears in the cartilage above the lobe, chaining him through those holes. Marking him forever as a slave.

  They marched north.

  PART II

  CHAPTER 4

  ASHQELON WAS BEING
OBSERVED: not overtly, but definitely someone was eyeballing us. I’d never lived in a war zone or been in danger of invasion before. The highlanders—as the Pelesti called the Israelis, or Israelites, or Jews, or what-ever—roamed the perimeters of the territory. We were under surveillance.

  Creepy.

  Wadia, Takala, and Yamir were in discussion with the serenim of the city. Like most significant business, this took place at the city gates.

  They weren’t gates that you opened and closed, but rather rooms built into each side of a massive switchback doorway. The actual entrance was narrow, hardly the space a man and donkey needed, and definitely not wide enough for a division to invade. Soldiers stood on either side, carefully monitoring those who came and went. The Pelesti were on alert, protecting their families, their livelihoods, and their fields.

  They were no different from any other people at any other time, really.

  I was waiting in the opposite chamber from where the discussions were taking place. Why was I here? Being a goddess was growing old. I couldn’t go anywhere alone, I couldn’t leave the city, and every action brought a wealth of questions.

  Unlike my concept of how you would treat a god who lived down the street—i.e., sending flowers, candy, and poetry so she wouldn’t strike you dead, then trying to stay out of her way as much as possible—they regarded me as an encyclopedia on the divine. And on almost everything else.

  Movement on the far hills caught my eye. The common understanding was that the highlanders would not attack on the plains. As long as the Pelesti stayed where they were, the city and its nearby fields, they would be fine. However, at some undefined time in the spring, battle would be engaged.

  After all, it was spring. These people couldn’t just dance around a pole and fool around in the bushes like the rest of us; no, they had to go to war.

  The really sobering thought was that if the leader of those highlanders was David, the sweet psalmist of Israel I’d heard so much about, then I was backing the wrong horse. The wrong horse and chariot.

  How was I supposed to get out of this alive?

  A ruckus outside drew my attention, so that I caught the very end of the epithet “—always have before!”

  “Well, not while I have been on duty,” the Pelesti soldier said.

  He was denying entry to this particular group of people, apparently. I looked beyond, instantly repelled. Men and women, shackled to each other, burned and peeling, stood in the shadow of the crenellated wall. They were slaves, immediately identifiable by the chains that ran through their upper ears. One yank and yeow!

  My ears ached in sympathy. “Sea-Mistress,” the guard said, seeing me. “Please, cast your eyes not on these unclean and unfortunate creatures.” He looked upset to see me there. “This man has been reprimanded for petitioning ha Hamishah, the five Pelesti cities of the plain.” He looked back at the trader, a thin man with greasy skin and grime-encrusted cloak.

  He wasn’t recognizable as any particular race, other than maybe the fraternity of crooks and two-legged roaches. The guard told him again to leave, that he wouldn’t be admitted. I looked back over the people, probably thirty in all, who were panting, sweating, and sunburned. They must have come through the desert, because the weather on the seaboard was balmy and beautiful.

  One of the men was helping a young woman. She was pregnant, her belly swollen, though the rest of her was rail thin. He dabbed at her forehead, whispered to her. Was he her husband?

  He looked up, straight at me, as though he felt my gaze.

  No, Chloe, he’s not her husband.

  He’s yours.

  “Do you see something you like, Sea-Mistress?” the slimy trader asked. I couldn’t look away. That was Cheftu: filthy, skinny, sunburned, and bearded, but it was Cheftu. My chest ached with the strength of my heart’s pounding.

  I was a late-twentieth-century American—slavery was only a theory to me. I’d grown up with servants all my life as part of the diplomatic package for living in other countries, but they weren’t slaves. Waking up in Egypt, I’d stepped into a world of slaves, but I’d always tried to treat them with respect. Especially since in the two ancient cultures I’d been in, slavery was more of a class rank. No one human owned another human in the fashion of plantations; in ancient times the slaves had simply been the lowest class of society.

  “Go on, leave this place,” the guard said to the trader. “Quit bothering the goddess with your questions.”

  “I see her eyes,” the trader said. He turned and looked at the group. They were slightly better than a chain of skeletons. “A young lady, perhaps? To fan you and ease the heat of these sultry nights?”

  My glance, I hoped, was vicious. Cheftu had turned back to help the young woman; didn’t he recognize me? “That man. How much?” The words coated my tongue like bile. How could I even ask?

  “Aii, the young man?”

  Did he have more than one? “The one with that girl.” “Aii, my apology, Sea-Mistress, but he is her husband.” For a moment my vision went snow white. Her husband? I dug my fingernails into my palm; chill, Chloe. You know that is impossible.

  The trader pointed to a small boy, probably not more than four, who was standing in the shade, docile and healthy. “That is one of his, a good boy. I really can’t let such a profitable stud go at the price of an ordinary male slave.”

  “He’s the, the father?” I stuttered out, livid at how this piece of trash was lying. About my husband?

  “Aye. Breeds them strong.”

  Turning to the guard, I excused him back to his duties. Though it repelled me, I took the slimy trader’s arm, breathing through my mouth as I smiled at him. “As a goddess, I have need of a stud from time to time,” I said. “However, I would need to know if such a one were worthy of my attention.” I paused a moment, pressing my breast into his arm. “And my coin.” I wondered if the Pelesti had coins.

  His eyes narrowed to slits. “You honor me with your patronage,” he said. “If you were to, say, need an inspection in private, for an afternoon or so—”

  “An afternoon-long inspection will not make this sale,” I said. “Give me a day with him.”

  “A day?” he repeated, his eyes open again. “Ken. Should he please me, I will take his wife and child also. One would abhor his being lonely.” C’mon, you weasel, for the cost of one day you stand to make three sales! I had no idea where I would find the money or what form of currency these people had, but it didn’t matter. Cheftu, Cheftu alone mattered.

  The trader bowed. “Where shall I send him?”

  Send him? I want him now! “HaDerkato,” one of the priests called from the gate’s room, “we await your judgment.”

  I looked back at the trader. “We make deliveries,” he said. “It would give me a chance to clean and shave him.”

  I glanced over at Cheftu, who was still focused on the woman. He hadn’t looked up once. He was so thin, so beatup. “If there is one more mark on him, even a feather’s mark, I will have your head,” I said. “He is mine.”

  The trader bowed his head quickly. How could I be sure he wouldn’t vanish, taking Cheftu with him? With trembling hands I took off my earrings, stones of some sort with gold wiring. “This is a down payment.”

  He bowed from his waist, taking my jewelry in his dirty palm. I stepped backward, unwilling to look away from Cheftu. Would he still be here? I called the guard. “Under no circumstances, even if the highlanders pour from the hills like water, under no circumstances is this trader and his”— I choked on the word—“merchandise, to leave.”

  The guard watched me solemnly. I looked in his brown eyes. “Swear to me.”

  “By Ba’al,” he said, nervous. “It’s your head if they aren’t there when I get back,” I said. The priest had been calling for me. Now he came up to me, irritation on his face. “I’m coming,” I said, then followed him through the gate and into the room.

  Please let Cheftu still be there, I thought. Please, please, please.
Though I was trembling, fighting the urge to attack Cheftu here and now, despite any possible consequences, I had walked away. Tell me that was the right thing to do?

  EGYPT

  RAEM STRETCHED, feeling the aches and pains of Akhenaten’s lovemaking as he whispered in her ear. “You satisfy me, sister-brother Smenkhare. Open for me again.”

  For a moment RaEm considered telling him she was exhausted, sore, that she wanted a bath and food. However, he was Pharaoh. He could give her all the power and gold she had ever dreamed of. He would continue to worship her with his body, speak to her in his voice, if only she never said no.

  Though her arms throbbed, she rose up. He filled her instantly, fully, his hands tight on her waist, his nails digging into the bruised skin of her belly. The greater his tension grew, the harder he moved inside her. Tears streamed from her eyes as pleasure became pain. “I adore you,” he panted in a voice that brought her physical pleasure. “I love that you appear beside me as a man. But,” he said, emphasizing each word by striking her bottom, “I love that in my couch I rule you as a man.”

  The royal seed rushed through her, finding no home, no possibility of life. Akhenaten crushed down on her, instantly asleep, his handmarks on her body, her blood on his. She looked through the fence of his arms to the cartouche on his chair, the gold walls of his chamber, the linens so sheer they were as mist, and finally the crown of Pharaoh at war. The blue crown.

  She would wear that. She, RaEmhetepet, whose parents had never known her; whose sister-priestesses had never liked her; whose lovers had never sated her; she would rule Egypt.

  Akhenaten snored in her ear as his flaccid penis finally slipped from her body. She was right where she wanted to be: touched by this man, trusted by him. She would rule Akhenaten by the very crook and flail he had used to rule her. All it would take was time.

  TIME WAS A COMMODITY Zakar Ba’al never lacked. He could take what he wanted, he could wait out anything, for time was eternally his to manipulate. Others were not so fortunate, which was why the Tsori would one day rule the seas and the land.