Mara, Daughter of the Nile (9 page)

At first glimpse, Mara could not help smiling. Inanni was overfed and dumpy, with untidy brown curls clinging damply to her forehead and escaping here and there from the long shawl she wore over her head. Half smothered and sweating in her bulky woolen draperies, which swathed her from head to toe and were striped and embroidered all over in garish colors, she looked every inch the gawky barbarian. But her eyes moved Mara to sudden pity. They were enormous, timid, frightened dark eyes, and they stared at the Egyptian girl as they must have stared at countless strange faces and customs that had come up to bewilder her in this foreign land.

“Who are you?” she whispered helplessly.

“Your interpreter, Highness,” returned Mara in Babylonian, smiling more sympathetically this time, and dropping briefly to one knee.

Inanni’s relief, at hearing a familiar tongue spoken by one of these arrogant Egyptians, was pathetic. She gave a great sigh of pleasure, and turned excitedly to the dozen gaudily clad and perspiring serving-women who huddled behind her. “It is an interpreter! She speaks Babylonian!” she cried, as if they could not hear for themselves. And at that all the plump faces lighted up, and those who understood Babylonian turned to explain the joyful news to those who spoke only their local dialects, and for a while nothing at all could be heard except their excited jabbering.

At last, though, Inanni gestured them to silence and turned eagerly to Mara. “Oh, please,” she begged, “find out from that man there, who commands the ship, if we may leave this place soon and row on to Thebes! So long have we
been on this river—so many, many tiresome days, and no one explains anything—and a week now we have been in the temple yonder, while the priests mumble strange things over us, and make us wash and wash and wash until we are like to drown! What is it all for? Are we never to leave off traveling and washing?”

“Patience, my princess,” soothed Mara, stifling a grin. “I can answer your questions without talking to Saankh-Wen. Any foreigner journeying to pharaoh’s palace must undergo the ceremonies of purification. But it is over now. We leave immediately, and before another night and day we will moor in Thebes.”

“Ah, thanks be to the beautiful Ishtar! Thanks to Baal in his temple! Come, let us go in out of the sun, I am like to die of heat!”

Still chattering like a congregation of peahens, the women swarmed inside, and safe now from masculine eyes, began to shed their thick shawls and scarves and cloaks, and to fling themselves panting on couches.

“I shall never grow used to this climate!” groaned the princess, running her hand through her sweat-dampened hair. “And I’m told that it is far hotter in the season of flood! How do you live under such a sun?”

“We dress for it,” Mara pointed out in amusement. “We, too, would smother and gasp for air in those heavy woolens. We wear wool only at night, when the air is cold. You will find yourself more comfortable, my princess, when you possess an Egyptian wardrobe.”

Inanni glanced at Mara’s bare shoulders and sheer narrow garment and blushed crimson. “Oh, I could never wear those things!” she gasped. “Shocking! My brothers told me this was a dangerous and wicked land, for all that the temples are paved with silver!”

Mara laughed outright at this. “We are not wicked, only sensible. You may grow wise too, after a summer spent on the Nile!”

She refrained from adding that it would also be well for Inanni and her women to grow thinner, both for coolness’ and fashion’s sake. The vision of these fat Syrians in the narrow Egyptian sheaths filled her with mirth.

Almost at once they could hear Saankh-Wen’s bellowed orders and the bustle of casting off. In a short time the barge was maneuvered through the funereal traffic in the harbor, and as they picked up speed on the open river the cool north breeze began to drift through the pavilion. Most of the Syrians went gratefully to sleep, but for some time Inanni kept Mara busy with questions about Egypt, and the king, and the golden palace for which they were headed. Mara gave what answers she knew, and glibly invented the others. But finally the princess, too, dropped into uneasy slumber, and Mara rose and tiptoed out to the open deck. The fragrance of roasted meat from the attendant kitchen boat had warned her that noonday was near.

Standing at the prow shading her eyes against Ra’s dazzling beams, she soon located the
Silver Beetle
standing off the west bank. As she watched, the broad sail rose rib by rib, like a gigantic fin, and the vessel moved into the middle of the stream. The closer it came, the faster Mara’s heart pounded. She searched its trim decks, so familiar to her and yet somehow different and strange because she stood apart from them now; she spotted Nekonkh bellowing some order up into the rigging, and could almost feel the tug in her own body as the wind filled the sail.

And at last she saw Sheftu, a still, sun-flooded figure with his face in shadow, leaning with that deceptive laziness near the great sweep at the stern. He gave no sign, nor did she, though for a moment they could almost have clasped hands over the narrow stretch of green water between them. Then slowly the distance widened as the
Beetle
gathered speed and drew ahead of the more ponderous barge.

Not until the sail grew small in the distance did Mara turn back to the shadowy pavilion, feeling lonely and unreasonably
depressed. Soon she would walk the gleaming pavements of the Golden House, pharaoh’s palace—but soon also she must face her second meeting with that new master.

The war hawk is coming
. It meant nothing to her, but no doubt it would to the granite-jawed one. Ah, gods of Egypt, what a little time Sheftu had to live!

Part III—The Palace

THE PRINCESS INANNI was in a sad state. After an entire Egyptian week—ten days—in the Golden House, she was still unable to conquer the awe and terror her new home inspired in her. She awoke, calling nervously for Mara, at the entrance of the first long-eyed Egyptian servant in the morning, and each evening had to be coaxed into the great golden, beast-headed couch that was her bed. The creature’s pink-ivory tongue and gleaming teeth terrified her; she could not,
could
not get comfortable on the exquisitely carved ebony headrest which was so much cooler than her hot Syrian pillow. And in-between waking and sleeping there were further ordeals—the cold bath twice daily, senseless torture which Egyptians accepted as a matter of course; the vigorous massaging afterward, the forcing of combs through her tangled, hip-length hair, her vain attempts to master the art of eating with a spoon instead of the fingers.

On top of all this, she had not yet so much as laid eyes on the queen, or on the young king she had traveled so far to marry. Her pride was outraged, she was in tears half a dozen times a day at this cavalier treatment—yet the magnificence of the palace so overawed her that she hardly dared touch the furnishings of her own apartments.

Mara really felt sorry for her.

She herself was drinking in the luxury as parched ground drinks the waters of the Nile. As Inanni’s closest companion—for the princess clung to her desperately as the one person who could and would explain away some of the countless bewilderments—she had actually been given a slave of her own, to bathe and dress her. She dined magnificently off roasted waterfowl and incredible pastries, she had shady gardens to walk in and fresh flowers for her hair and neck as many times a day as she desired.

True, she still kicked off those bothersome sandals whenever she had a chance, and had to keep sharp watch over her tongue lest it slip into the vocabulary of the streets. One highly colored phrase would give her away instantly to the palace servants, most of whom were free-born and as far above her in station as she pretended to be above them. Secretly she was a little in awe of them. It took self-control not to show it; it took gall to send them fetching and carrying as if she were some great lady.

But gall Mara had, in plenty, and Inanni’s helpless confusion was not hers. She had been a slave in luxurious houses, as Inanni had not; only the scale of this grandeur and her own changed role were new to her. Also, she was a natural mimic blessed with a sense of humor and a cool nerve—which Inanni certainly was not—and her precarious life had made her as adaptable as a chameleon. How often had she stood, ready with comb or fresh linen, beside Zasha’s lady’s dressing table! Now she was the one who snapped her fingers for others to obey—and she had not forgotten a single haughty gesture. She took mischievous delight in using them all.

Moreover, she had not yet caught a glimpse of her new master, or of Sheftu, either; therefore nothing whatever was required of her save luxurious lounging. Life was so perfect it was in danger of becoming monotonous.

On the eleventh morning after their arrival she was awakened,
as usual, by Inanni’s frightened call. Smiling through her yawn, Mara slipped from her couch and hurried into the adjoining room.

“Come now, my princess!” she soothed. “It is only the maidservant, to bring thy fruit and greet the day with thee. Cease thy cowering, or she will laugh about thee in the servants’ hall!”

Inanni reluctantly loosed her grasp on the bedclothes and sat up, still eyeing the maid with distrust. “She looks sidewise at me, down her nose, as if she were the queen herself!” she complained.

“Nonsense! Her father was likely a stonecutter, or at best a groom in the royal stables. What would thy brothers say?” Mara turned to the servant, who had set down her bowl of fruit and waited now for dismissal. It was true that her painted eyes held an insolent gleam—any Egyptian felt superior to a barbarian.

“Why are your hands at your sides?” inquired Mara coldly.

The servant’s eyes met hers and lost their mockery. Hastily her right hand went to her left shoulder.

“Better! It is possible I will not mention your miserable name to Hatshepsut the Glorious—provided you show proper deference to your princess after this.”

“Excellency, live forever!” gasped the girl, turning white. “You would not—I never meant—”

“Dismissed,” Mara cut her off. The servant prostrated herself and then fled.

Mara was inwardly convulsed. Oh, marvelously done! she thought. Did ever a slave so beautifully subdue a free maid? How she would rage if she knew who it is that plays the great lady!

She turned back to find Inanni regarding her with both gratitude and admiration. “Mara, what did you say to her?”

“Only that you are the Princess Inanni, and must be treated so. Do not think of her, she is as a beetle under your
sandal. Come, perfume your mouth with the figs and grapes she has brought you. It will soon be time for the bath.”

Inanni’s face fell dismally at the prospect. But she climbed down from her high couch, being careful to stay well away from the gleaming teeth of the beasts who supported it. A few minutes later she was hungrily eating a fig, and mourning the skimpiness of Egyptian breakfasts.

“Why, in my homeland we have bread, and good meat. Here, you do not even dignify it by the name of breakfast, but call it ‘the perfuming of the mouth!’ ”

“We do not think of it as a meal,” said Mara, smiling. “Lift up your head, Rose of Canaan, perhaps your summons from pharaoh will come today.”

“It should have come before! Have they forgotten they sent for me?”

“Nay, of course not! No doubt Her Majesty is allowing you time to recover from your journey. Now do not brood about it, we will do something different this morning. My little slave tells me there are gardens we have not yet visited, also that there is a pavilion on the roof, from which—” She stopped. The tapestry curtaining the doorway into her own bedchamber had stirred noticeably—and there was no draft. “—from which one can see the entire city,” she finished evenly. She put down a bunch of grapes, untasted. “Meanwhile, with your highness’ leave, I will retire to bathe and dress.”

Summoning two of the Syrian women to divert the princess, she walked to the curtained doorway and with a sudden motion pushed aside the hangings. The room was as empty as when she had left it. She stepped inside, letting the tapestry fall behind her. The bedclothes were still in a snarl on the lion-legged couch, the chest and littered dressing table stood, undisturbed, against the wall bright with painted golden butterflies. The doors to both bath chamber and hall were closed and blank.

Yet those hangings had moved.

She flung off her night robe, wondering why it had not occurred to her before that a spy might have been set to keep a watch on her. Sheftu had openly admitted that he trusted her no farther than tomorrow, and as for that stony-eyed master of hers …

She frowned, realized she had been rapidly putting on her own clothes.
Ast!
Was she trying to reveal herself for what she was? Just as rapidly, she stripped the garments off, put on her night robe again, and clapped her hands for her slave.

The little brown maiden flung open the hall door so promptly that Mara gave her a sharp look. Was she the spy, then? No, surely not. The child was no more than twelve years old, with a face as innocent as a flower. Mara pitied her suddenly, remembering how it felt, at twelve, to stand motionless for hours in some corridor, waiting for the clap of hands.

“Hast been impatient, little Nesi? Go, then, make ready my bath. We’ll soon be done here.”

When the girl had disappeared into the bath chamber, Mara glanced around once more, uneasily searching for some clue to her uninvited visitor. On a sudden thought she went to the little carved chest and raised its lid. At first she saw nothing amiss. Then she dropped to her knees, lifting with cautious fingers a fold of the topmost garment. Under it lay a common honey cake—the sort sold in the streets of Menfe by the bakers’ boys.

She picked it up, frowning. It had not been there before, of that she was certain. She turned it over, scanned it top and bottom, and finally broke it open. There in its flaky middle was a scrap of papyrus. In a trice she was reading the tiny hieroglyphs.

“A princess enjoys the lotus garden in the cool of the evening.”