Sunrise on the Mediterranean Page 7

  “Who is consort?” RaEm asked.

  Cheftu could see the wheels of her greed spinning. “Aii, used to be Nerfertiti. What a woman… .” Wenaten drifted off, a dazed expression on his face. “She even looked like a woman. Alas, she was banished. Even shipped across the Great Green, I think. Her face was lovely enough to inspire a thousand ships to set sail.” He sighed again.

  Cheftu’s skin prickled. When would these men share water? His tongue was swollen.

  “If she is gone, then who rules beside Akhenaten?” RaEm purred at the spindly ambassador.

  “No one for long. Pharaoh has married each of his daughters, attempting to whelp a son, an heir to the throne.” The little Egyptian wiped his nose on his palm. “It’s been two Inundations since I set foot in Egypt. I will know nothing more until we arrive in the Delta.”

  A shout made them turn, and Wenaten crowed with delight that the ship was now in the waters beside the islet. “Aii, I appreciate your allowing me to rest in your home,” Wenaten said, bowing. “The Aten blesses you.”

  “Wait!” RaEm shouted. “You cannot leave us here! We have nothing!”

  “You should have considered that when you married this long-haired fop. What do you do?” Wenaten asked Cheftu.

  “We’re not married,” Cheftu said through gritted teeth. “And I’m a … royal adviser,” he said, ignoring RaEm’s snort.

  Wenaten stopped and glared at him. “Then why are you naked? Sitting out here, with your bride, and not even married! What kind of adviser are you when there is no king around!” He looked over Cheftu’s shoulder. “Is there a king around?”

  “I didn’t—there isn’t—” Cheftu began, then gave up, chasing after Wenaten as the small man boarded the skiff. “My lord, we are not married. We do not live here. We are stranded.”

  “Take us home to Egypt,” RaEm wailed. “Please, for the love of the gods. We are Egyptians!”

  Wenaten stopped, looking from one to the other. “Why did you not say so at the start? Fool thing to move here, middle of nowhere, nothing to plant,” he muttered. He shouted to a sailor, told him to prepare two more sleeping pallets, threw Cheftu a cloak, then sat down in the skiff.

  “I hope he remembers to send it back for us,” Cheftu murmured, watching the smaller vessel, feeling the warmth of heavy linen around his body again. The little Egyptian was hauled up the side of the ship like a parcel, then the boat was rowed back to Cheftu and RaEm.

  They exchanged a relieved smile when they were both aboard—probably the first noncombative action of the past week. Cheftu looked around at the full daylight. It was a miracle that they had been rescued.

  They arrived beside the ship and waited for the rope to be dropped down. Then they waited longer. The cry to weigh anchor floated above them and RaEm launched herself at the ship, banging on it, screaming.

  The two sailors shook their heads at each other. Neither had spoken, and Cheftu noted they were not Egyptians, nor were they dressed as Egyptians. If Akhenaten was the dis-avowed pharaoh of Egypt, who was his father? How had he come to worship the Aten? The three men watched RaEm wage battle with the side of the ship.

  “What’s all that caterwauling?” Wenaten bellowed, looking over the side.

  “My lord! Please, take us to Egypt!” Cheftu shouted up, over RaEm’s head and vocals.

  A rope tumbled down, and Cheftu tugged against it, starting to pull himself up. RaEm draped herself across his back, and he almost lost his balance. “Don’t think you are getting rid of me this easily,” she said quickly. “I’m right here.”

  “Aye,” Cheftu said through gritted teeth. Being with RaEm made his jaw ache. Perpetually. “You are on my back. I can’t climb with the extra weight, RaEm.”

  “You think I’m too fat?” she said, the pouting audible in her tone.

  In fact, she was skeletally thin, her body stripped of all femininity. “Not too—”

  “Come along, you fop!” Wenaten called from above. “Quit cuddling that doxy and climb up here like a man!”

  The sailors were laughing, smothering their guffaws beneath their hands. Wishing both RaEm and Wenaten at the bottom of the sea, Cheftu hauled himself and RaEm up the side of the ship. He fell onto the deck, gasping for water.

  The next morning, after a small meal with fruit and a limited supply of water, so as not to make them ill, Cheftu watched the waves lap against the hull. This was a Tsori ship, built by Zakar Ba’al himself, Wenaten claimed.

  The ambassador had been on a mission for Pharaoh and was returning to court two years later than anticipated. Cheftu watched as RaEm licked her healing lips at the thought of gold, court, and nobles. Wenaten’s ship’s navigator had died a month after setting sail, and they had been trying to find their way back to Egypt ever since.

  None of the men agreed on which direction to go, hence the type of sailing Cheftu and RaEm had seen: moving first in one direction for half a mile, then rethinking and going back to where they’d started, but not ever being sure. Cheftu had a decent idea where they were, so he suggested they sail southeast.

  After much pursing of his lips and frowning, Wenaten gave the order. The Tsori exchanged glances with each other, then reluctantly raised the sails and repeated the order in their own language: “The old fool has figured how to get home. Set sail while we come up with another plan.”

  Suddenly furious, Cheftu called out in their tongue, “Setting sail, southeast to Egypt, is your sole plan.” The sailors froze, staring at him in shock. “We should arrive in Egypt by dusk of the third day.”

  Wenaten and RaEm were watching him and the sailors as though it were a tennis match. Cheftu’s gaze homed in on the boatswain. “My lord,” said the wily Tsori, “we are far at sea; it has taken us months to get here. I fear it will take months to return us to the Nile, even knowing which direction to go.”

  Cheftu crossed the deck to the man, until they were standing nose to nose. “What takes weeks and months of travel going north, takes only three days moving southward,” he stated flatly. “I know. I’ve done it before.”

  The Tsori blanched, dropping his gaze. “You have deceived the ambassador,” Cheftu said in the boatswain’s language. “Do not think you will do so with me.” My wife awaits me, he thought. Your plotting will not prevent my seeing her. “Test me on this, and you will know my wrath.” Cheftu stared into the man’s eyes, challenging him. “The appropriate response is, ‘Aye, my lord.’ ”

  The man said nothing, but insurrection gleamed in his eyes.

  Cheftu stepped back, calling to two of the men, strapping fellows with dark, quick eyes and beaky noses. “Relieve this man of his duty,” he instructed them. “Confine him to the ship’s hold until we arrive in Kemt.”

  “My lord—,” the boatswain protested.

  “Now,” Cheftu commanded.

  Sheepishly the sailors took their superior below deck. Cheftu beckoned to RaEm. She crossed the deck, her body brazenly displayed. Cheftu spoke to her in a whisper. “We cannot trust that the boatswain is safely locked away,” he said. “Follow them to be certain.” She nodded once. “Remember, RaEm, if they mutiny, you will never see Egypt again, nor will you meet Pharaoh.”

  “Can I beat him?” she asked, her lips parted.

  Cheftu looked out at the water, while his blood ran cold. “Don’t leave him in need of medical care. I have no desire to nurse him to health.” Her breath was heavy, her pupils dilating. “Don’t betray me, RaEm,” he said. “Or I will teach you the true meaning of pain. Now go,” he said, not looking at her again.

  The sailors were frozen, staring at him. One by one Cheftu met their gazes. “This ship is Lord Wenaten’s. You are also his, a gift from your own king.” His voice carried up into the waiting silence. “You have played my lord for a fool, but no more.” He licked his lips, hating that he had to threaten them. However, they would not yield. Perhaps they had been told to lose the ambassador at sea? “We will arrive in Egypt within this week, which allows for foul weath
er, or you will begin to pay for these poor directions with your very lives.”

  They squirmed. Good, Cheftu thought. “Already your boatswain is enduring discipline. It would be a pity for more of you to experience that.” Especially since RaEm would whip them until she was frenzied. Cheftu shuddered. “Sail southwest to Egypt. Now!”

  The Tsori ran, releasing sails, starting the beat for the oarsmen, scrambling up the ropes, and moving down the deck. Within moments the ship was under way, the sails fat with air, the oarsmen keeping a pleasant, productive pace. Wenaten met Cheftu in the middle of the deck.

  “Masterfully done, my lord,” he said without preamble. “I am honored to have you aboard.”

  Cheftu bowed his head, his anger dissipated. “It is vital to me to arrive in Egypt soon.”

  “Does Pharaoh expect you? Are you a gift to the throne? How did you come to be in the sea like that? And what is your name?” Wenaten was more respectful, but also showing more wit than Cheftu had credited him.

  “It is a long tale,” he said. And I have yet to form it. “I am weary, actually.” And I fear to give you my real name. “Chavsha,” Cheftu said, “is how you can call me.” The names were close enough in meaning that there was not much deception.

  Wenaten clapped his hands, summoning slaves. “Rest in my chambers, my lord Chavsha. I will wake you to eat.”

  A scream rose from beneath the deck. The sailors paused for a moment, then moved even faster. Cheftu allowed himself to be guided to Wenaten’s chamber. No sooner had the door closed than it opened again, admitting RaEm. Had Wenaten forgotten they were not married? Another chance for Cheftu to ask the stones what to do was ruined.

  Did they still work in this time period?

  Would they give him the answers he wanted?

  Aii, Chloe, where are you, my love? Could he travel forward to her time? Learn to ride an airplane? Watch the teevee? Eat at McDonald’s? Each nugget of information he’d learned about Chloe’s world fed his hunger for her and staved off the maddening fear that maybe their last farewell had been the final one.

  When Cheftu awoke the next day, he saw the sails were swollen with wind, the sailors sleeping, playing dice with each other, or attending to the busywork of being shipboard. Inside the covered cabin, Cheftu saw the shadow of Wenaten bent over a desk. Was he preparing the papyri documents that would grant them entrance to sail up the Nile to Akhetaten? RaEm had left their couch already; he saw her sitting by the prow, the wind blowing her burned hair. She made quite a picture for the sailors.

  Akhenaten. The name meant nothing to Cheftu. Did Wenaten know of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, the wise leader under whom Cheftu had been a courtier? Or had her successor Thutmosis kept his vow and stricken her from all records? What of the-Most-Splendid, her mortuary temple on the west bank of the Nile? It had survived until Chloe’s time; was it just ignored now? The sun began to rise, and Cheftu’s mind raced faster. Pharaoh sounded quite mad. Was Chloe in that court?

  “Dreaming of your lover again?” RaEm asked. She’d crept up on him; he must still be exhausted not to have heard her.

  He ignored her query. “What will you do when we arrive?” he asked, noting that most of the damage sustained in the eruption to the black-haired, copper-skinned body she wore was healing. At least nothing had happened to the face she was wearing.

  “A pharaoh currently without wife, and you ask that?” RaEm laughed, and Cheftu noticed the sailors glance her way. Though they were beneath her notice, she was not beneath theirs. However, the lashing she had given their senior tinted those gazes with fear and respect, in addition to lust. They followed her with their eyes as she slinked along the deck, her shoulders brazenly displayed even in the winter weather. It was acceptable dress and behavior in Egypt; alas, the oarsmen were Tsori. To them she was less clothed than their whores. Cheftu had suggested a cloak, but RaEm had laughed at him, grateful to be out of Levi’s and Vic’s Secret contraptions, she said.

  “What will you do?” she asked. “ ‘Adviser to royalty’? When did you learn to speak the tongue of these people? How can you take these things so calmly?” Though her tone was teasing, Cheftu felt wary. RaEm was self-centered to a fault; she was also vain. But he must never forget that she was clever, wickedly so.

  “Offer my services to Pharaoh, of course.” Perhaps he could win a position high enough that he could find Chloe?

  Or she could find him? That assumed she had left her twentieth-century world again. Could she do that? Had she?

  He must ask the stones at the earliest possible moment.

  “Aye, I forget you are the nobleman who is so noble, he cannot bear to spend time with anyone other than the rich and titled,” RaEm said to his silence.

  He opened his mouth to protest, then shut it. What value to argue with RaEm? Maybe if he said nothing, he would be allowed to enjoy the sunrise in peace. Would he see Chloe in days? Was she in this Akhetaten?

  Wenaten bustled through to them. “Aii, greetings of the morning goddess to you.” He slapped a hand over his mouth. “May Aten forgive me! Greetings of the one god Aten to you,” he said. “I really must recall the proper way to greet people! Isis—umm, Aten help me!” He walked over to the timekeeper.

  “What do you make of this worshiping this Aten?” RaEm asked in a whisper.

  “Given our host’s nervousness, I am uncertain,” Cheftu said. “Is he exaggerating the situation? I cannot imagine Egypt without the gods and goddesses. Just one god seems so little for such a rich land.”

  “Modern Egypt has only one god. A harsh, bloodthirsty god,” RaEm said. “He has little sense of beauty or grandeur; he cares only to rule as many as possible.”

  “Allah?” Cheftu asked.

  “Aye. Mohammed—”

  “Is his prophet.” Cheftu looked out across the water. Egypt was Mohammedan in his time also.

  “How did you know that?” RaEm asked, an edge of suspicion in her voice. “How did you know it was me in this body? How did you know Chloe’s language?” She laid a hand on his arm. “You travel through the portals also? You are of the twenty-third power?”

  Wenaten’s approach saved Cheftu from having to answer. “We will be in the blessed two lands by Ra—Aten’s zenith,” he said. “I have called for baths, razors, so we should be ready to present ourselves to the guard as Egyptians. Home again!” he sang, walking past them.

  “This man, he makes me dizzy,” RaEm said. The phrase sounded so much like Chloe that Cheftu almost laughed. He ran a hand over his bearded chin, noted that his hair still flowed down his back in the style of Aztlan. It was no wonder that Wenaten had dismissed him initially. I look about as Egyptian as a Philistine.

  “I will go first,” he said. “If that is well with you.” He didn’t know how to answer her questions. Information was a dangerous thing for this woman to have, for she had no limits. She wanted everything for herself. That, Cheftu thought, might be the deadliest ambition of any soul.

  RaEm looked him up and down. “Please do. I tire of looking at you that way. Also shave and perfume yourself. First impressions, you know.”

  He frowned and walked into the shaded area. A bath would be good, as would a shave. As would being back in Egypt. As would being back in Chloe. Aii! gods! However, he had another purpose in bathing.

  Once inside the tub, the cold water rinsing away the salt, he slipped the oracular stones into his palms. Each was an oblong, one black and one white, inscribed on both sides with letters. The carved scratches were painted in gold and silver, forming letters that would someday be recognized as most ancient Hebrew. The Urim and Thummim. The convoluted path that had followed to end in his ownership astounded Cheftu, but he knew their value.

  Even as he held them, one in each hand, he felt their life.

  Glancing over his shoulder nervously, he phrased his question. “Where am I?”

  He tossed the stones and they danced in the air, each spin illuminating a different character etched in their sides. “I-n w-a-t-e-r.
”

  Cheftu snatched them apart. Of course—how could he have forgotten how very literal these stones were?

  “Are you finished yet?” RaEm asked, not too far behind him.

  “Cannot a man have some privacy to bathe!” he bellowed, hiding the stones in his palms.

  Swearing at him, she stomped away. Cheftu waited until all was quiet again, then whispered the question of his heart to the stones. “How do I find Chloe?”

  “F-o-l-l-o-w.”

  Follow what? Follow where? Follow whom? Maybe he should start at the beginning. “Is Chloe here?”

  They were silent, an indication that the question wasn’t phrased properly. Cheftu had forgotten how irritating it was to deal with their oracular powers. “Is Chloe here, in this time period?”

  “A-y-e.”

  Joy surged through Cheftu. She was here! She was here! All he had to do was—

  “Don’t dirty the bath,” RaEm called.

  Cursing her, Cheftu bundled the stones away, tempted to urinate childishly in the water just because RaEm was such an annoyance. Instead he rose, dried himself, dressed, and strode off to meet with the barber. The stones were tucked safely in his waist sash once more: one on his left side, the other on his right.

  Chloe was here, somewhere in this time period. To get to her he needed only to figure out the first message. If he followed, he would find Chloe. Gratefully he submitted to the hot, steamy face cloths as he pondered the answer to his question. The stones were never wrong, but also they were rarely clear. He needed more direction in that response.

  However, she was here. The world wasn’t so big that he couldn’t find her. Remember your vow, he thought. I remember mine.

  Egypt. She stretched before them like a multifaceted jewel. The fields were green with growing grain, and the waters of the Nile reflected the blue sky. Cheftu touched his newly shaven chin, felt the winter wind whip at his legs, shielded by a long, heavily woven kilt. The tight dryness of kohl surrounded his eyes, and his neck was once more naked to the sun.