Chapter 6
VEILED AS ECLIPSE
Mid-evening, sixteen days after encountering Khufu by chance at the garden door, Theormi heard her name called from the outside the harem.
“Prepare for the God-king.”
From the lobby’s golden divan, she stood, body erect and eyes wide. Other harem women just returning from palace duties sneered at her or poked up their noses as they headed over the plush carpets to their rooms deeper in the harem. In the harem due to Queen Meritates’ desire for foreign attendants, Theormi had fulfilled the usual duties—until now.
She moved into the courtyard near that fateful door to the garden. Chamberlain Ramose waited at attention. “Me?”
“Do not question. Here’s what you will ask. Ask for poetry.”
“Poetry?”
Ramose withdrew three precise steps. She hesitated.
Over the past ten days, Ramose had escorted one harem woman after another to the God-king’s chambers. But Theormi knew that a King’s sexual relations were usually confined to the Queen or secondary wives. Peculiar as well, each harem woman returned from her visit moaning lengthy accounts of “sublime” encounters that were, nevertheless, lacking in detail, no matter how many questions they were asked. Theormi concluded that the women had invented their stories—and the moans. Still, if nothing occurred, why were the women summoned?
She re-entered the harem, dropped her cloth and donned a gown from the cedar wardrobe. Viewed in a four-foot polished silver mirror, the sheer fabric shaded where her dark skin sloped against it. Its wide shoulder straps pressed tightly over her breasts. The mirror also reflected the envious eyes of two harem women. Theormi met their gaze. They looked away.
Throughout their garden walk, the God-king and she had spoken easily. Khufu attended to her, even charmed her. Cautioned by these harem women to fear him, she realized that, simply, she liked him.
Theormi revolved her back to the mirror. There, the gown’s low-cut back revealed two five-inch scars crossing her spine. She recalled the whip that caused them—in a similar palace where she served as a special object of scorn. Of that time, she remembered little else.
“I will escort you now,” the chamberlain said through the portal.
“Tu.” Theormi popped into her mouth a fingertip of honey.
Walking with Ramose through the palace corridors to the God-king, Theormi’s heart hammered and her lips stuck dry. Her leather sandals ignored her efforts to soften their clacking on the tiles. She spotted Prince Merhet shadowing them, ducking behind pillars, but was too involved with her own direction to concern herself with his.
Once at Khufu’s silver door, the chamberlain warned, “You will not say his name.”
“You mean his secret name?”
“What? How do you know about his secret na—never mind. That name you will never learn. No, don’t say ‘Khufu.’”
“But—”
She was about to inform Ramose that Khufu had given to her his permission to say his name, but he prodded her inside the suite. Before she knew, Theormi stood alone in Khufu’s foyer separated from the God-king’s bedroom by golden curtains. She wondered whether she should wait there.
Her reflex answered for her. She swept aside the curtains and poked her head through. She found there a room larger than any Per-O chamber except for the Hall of Pillars. Torchlight sputtered onto lotus flowers floating in a stone pond. Theormi surveyed the suite’s limestone vases, alabaster lamps, huge papyrus books, the canopied bed, and her God-king.
While she measured the God-king’s suite, he had looked on.
“You no longer fear me, maiden?”
“No, Majesty.”
Eyeing her, Khufu lifted to his lips a ladle of water from a vase, drinking slowly. As in their first meeting, Theormi didn’t so much see Khufu as feel him; his feet seemed to bear a weight greater than that of his body alone.
“Feel at ease, Theormi.”
“Sire, may I address you by name?”
“I granted that, haven’t I?” Khufu’s low voice strummed warmth through her.
She thankfully needn’t resist the urge to say his name. “Thank you, good King Khufu.” Letting go of the curtain, Theormi stepped into the suite, her sandals tapping on the turquoise tiles.
To Khufu, her strides like those of a panther commanded the ground.
To Theormi, his eyes painted their color on hers.
“Yes, your movement. The Gods created a dancer in you.” Khufu’s throat parched despite his just drinking.
Theormi settled near the pond, an arm’s length from the God-king. She swore that the heat she felt across her body stemmed from him. “Senbeb, your Majesty.”
Through her honeyed breath, Khufu isolated her sex’s aroma—figs boiling in cream. “Would you care for wine?” Khufu stepped toward her and held out a goblet. “I steeped in it a lotus flower.”
Taking the goblet, Theormi worried whether she could swallow.
“Since you’re such an eager reader, you may know that the blue lotus is Egypt’s symbol—the union of Lower and Upper Egypt. And every union.” Khufu’s smile balled his cheeks and inclined the outer corners of his eyes. Khufu felt such comfort and ease in Theormi’s presence. Again. “I’ve waited thirty-three years—since Ka’ab’s birth. I waited for you.”
“Majesty?”
“Since our walk in the garden, I’ve understood my need. I seek one to love.”
Theormi pulled back to read the God-king’s eyes. “The harem women for ten days. You waited through them until ... me.” Her fingers and toes tingled. “You chose me.” In her sight, Khufu’s every edge sharpened. Her eyes saw him with clarity she’d never known.
“Your eyes are as clear as faith. I see there a sparkling brook where thoughts dart like tigerfish.”
Theormi felt his heartbeat rap into her chest.
“Each God is matched with a Goddess.”
Theormi flinched. What could he mean?
“Come, sweet one—to the roof with us.” Khufu grabbed Theormi’s elbow and tugged her to the rear of the chamber.
Theormi’s mind in a jumble, they whisked up a ramp, through a trap door and onto the roof, the air light and fresh. Above them, stars embedded in a black loam sky. Her mind cleared. “Khufu, it’s beautiful.”
From this summit, the two viewed all of Annu—tiered officials’ homes, blockish winepress, granary, and sweeping Ra Temple. Behind the palace, the canal shimmered among shadows, flowing west from Khufu’s lake toward the Nile.
“This is the same sky,” Khufu said, scanning the night, “seen by nobles and commoners, lonely or loved.” He took Theormi’s hand and entwined his fingers with hers. “They all hope to escape loneliness by coupling with something larger than themselves.”
“For example, their God-king?”
Scanning Theormi’s face, Khufu paused a moment, remembering. “I told you how honey bees learn the direction to nectar by brushing against the scout bee as he dances.” Khufu looked out to the night. “The citizens must know my dance. Through the spectacle of my pyramid, they see me when they work, when they love, when they watch the sky. Through it, we combine in the heavens like the pyramid’s faces.”
“Imagine the connection.”
“See that bright light there?” Khufu asked, pointing into the sky. “That light is Sba aabti, the planet that moves forward but comes back. And there?” He pointed in another direction. “That’s Sba amenti, the bull’s heaven.”
“They shine differently than the stars.”
“Exactly. That’s why I brought you up here. Unique lights—one for each of us.”
“Am I the bull, then?”
Khufu smiled. He strode the last step to her, touching belly to belly.
Theormi’s throat clenched. She worried whether a queen shouldn’t be in her place, and sought a way to slow him. “Poetry, my God-king—may I hear your poetry?”
“Ah,” he said, smiling, “my chamberlain.” His eyebrows hiked up. “I write in
my poetry book mostly to watch and feel the words form in their lines and curves across the paper. They come to life like animals against the landscape.”
“Like Gods’ words.”
“Tu.” Khufu thought a moment. “Very well.”
Perfume of the blue lotus
alights upon us like mist
Drops of our love-making
dapple sycamores outdoors
Theormi caught Khufu’s scent of burning hemp. Had his body heat caused her sudden fever? Chasing after his hemp scent, no longer wondering over her place, Theormi reached her arms beneath his, extending her palms to the backs of his shoulders. She fingered the shapes of his back.
Khufu embraced her, her cheek coming to rest on his chest. “I’m hungry for your eagerness.”
Theormi too marveled at her nerve. That a mere serving girl asserted herself in a queen’s position shocked her as much as if she had suddenly spoken a new language. One movement simply tumbled into the next.
Khufu savored the glide of her fingernails. They dissolved an ancient solitude like a casing of amber that began with his birth as the future God-king. Walls fell and sensations wakened raw. “I’ve forgotten such curiosity. A woman showing her need.”
As if in free fall, they drew together, their lips parting.
Then, the sound of feet, many feet, rapping on the ramp to the roof halted them. Apparently seeing something behind Theormi, Khufu dropped his smile. “Cover yourself; a chill wind blows.”
Theormi moved to escape.
“Stay,” Khufu said.
Twenty servants assumed the Queen’s stately pace, requiring several minutes to snake themselves to Khufu and Theormi. Several coiled around the harem woman. Then, her Majesty Queen Meritates bristled forward.
Khufu said, “Stealth just isn’t your way, is it, dear?”
“Majesty,” said Meritates, her voice calm and immaculate as a desert, “if you have terminated your diversion,” glancing at Theormi, “matters of State require our presence.”
“You are the diversion.”
“We have the matter with the Keben King awaiting at this moment for our royal greeting in the King of Egypt’s Throne Room. He has especially rescheduled his time with you to this hour.”
“Ah, you mean you changed his appointment time.”
“How long will you tarry with your … sport?”
“Until a stay in the desert warmed you.”
The Queen sniffed. “Shall I inform our guest that you refuse to see him?”
“You’ve said enough to him, I’m certain.” Khufu turned to Theormi. “I’ll join the King presently.”
Meritates sniffed and turned on her heels. She minced out the door, her retinue behind following like a tail.
After the Queen’s departure, Theormi said, “She is amazing. She never alters.”
“She’s a kantharit.”
“The love potion?”
“Made of dead beetles. However seductive, there is still the taste of death.”
“Should you see to the king?”
“Yes, Keben timber.” The God-king strode to his pond and plucked out a lotus blossom. “This evening, wear the lotus.”
Invited to an evening “Adoration of Hathor” celebration, Mehi visited the estate of An-khi’s esteemed mother Heria and father Governor Paser.
A guard checked a papyrus list to clear him to pass the towered gateway. He crossed a row of fig and date palm trees that obscured a seven-foot high wall surrounding the estate. The breeze seemed fresher here than in Mehi’s home. Nearly two weeks since Sebek left, his mother rarely spoke, his father often gone.
Mehi followed a sycamore-lined path, lit by standing torches, past a private chapel larger than his parent’s home, to the courtyard of the sharp-cornered, two-story manor. Its ten or more rooms reminded Mehi of his mother’s lessons: “Behave justly toward the Gods, God-king, superiors and attendants; you will enjoy long life, health and respect.” His mother had always assured him that this belief would lead him to a life as noble as Paser’s.
That Horemheb occupied himself with little but scowling and that Khety not only managed the home but also worked the village fields, Mehi saw how work define some people. Already Mehi belonged on the pyramid, the most noble of mansions.
High-pitched chatter and low chortles from behind the manor warned Mehi of a large gathering there. Walking through the courtyard onto the grounds past long cages in which orange-striped cats sprawled, Mehi came upon clumps of about seventy-five or so guests gathered around a formal pool. To Mehi its water gleamed like liquid lapis lazuli. Lotus blossoms floated on its gemlike surface. Relieved that no one gave him any notice, he spied An-khi in the midst of several bright-robed young men. By her lips’ crinkling, brows’ twitches and eyes’ sheen, he guessed what she was saying. He may not know anybody here or wear tunics as rich as theirs—Mehi was bare above the waist—but a woman who loved him belonged here.
An-khi beckoned him to her circle of friends.
Instead, Mehi closed his eyes and imagined her touching his lips, belly and hands, revealing herself to him alone. Her caresses uplifted him as when he mounted the pyramid—uniting with a holy body grander than himself.
An-khi excused herself from her guests to join him. “Why didn’t you come over?”
“I wanted to watch you.”
“Yes, and I like seeing those bare shoulders.” She clapped her hand to his right shoulder. Then An-khi pulled him away. “Now, be sure, when my father asks his questions, don’t tell him your father’s name or even that he’s a stonecutter.”
“I don’t think your father knows about the tomb-robbery.”
“He’s the governor; he knows. And I know you. You’ll want to answer with the truth. This one time, be sly.”
“It’s our secret.” Mehi kissed An-khi. On the lips. It was the one thing he’d come to the estate to do. “Our secret.”
She paused a moment and smiled. “As you can tell, my mother is serious on the subject of cats. When you meet her, talk about cats and clothes.” An-khi patted his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. I must greet more neighbors.”
Alone, Mehi toured beyond where the guests were gathered to the estate’s beds of peas and leeks. Sunbirds rustled among the orange dates of a palm tree. At a well patio, in which steps led down to a platform, a servant drew up water by rope and bucket. Paser had his own well. Further exploration brought Mehi to servants’ quarters, kitchen, stables and a cattle yard. Mehi thought he’d known how much Egypt had to offer, but this estate’s revelation whirled in his mind like a fly cooped up in his parents’ back room.
Wishing to escape more discoveries about how differently he and An-khi lived, Mehi returned to the party. As he did, a woman two or three years older than Mehi squiggled through a pack of guests toward him. Her thin pale lips sliced across her thin pale face. “You must be Mehi,” she said even before she arrived, barely checking Mehi’s eyes before she surveyed others nearby. “I’m An-khi’s sister. Snebtisi? I’m sure she’s mentioned me. I’m the oldest, you know. It’s odd you haven’t been here earlier. It’s almost like she’s hiding you from us. Why is that? I wished to meet you to see for myself what was wrong with you. You seem plain enough though, I must say.” She glanced back at him and then continued her survey.
He squeezed in his “Senbeb” greeting before Snebtisi continued on.
“They’re continually calling me ‘The White One’ and said that An-khi would marry before me because she is so, so lovely.” Snebtisi coughed while managing to wheeze out her next words. “Yet, it’s not coming out like that because I’m moving into an enormous new home with my own mate very, very soon. We’ll have an enormous wedding. Bigger than any person in this little town ever saw.”
“Congratulations,” Mehi said as Snebtisi waved to a guest. “Is he here today?”
“Hmn, yes. There he is. He’s that quite tall, dignified fellow at the beer bowls.”
Mehi couldn’t decide which man
at the bowls was tall or dignified before Snebtisi coughed again and gushed on. Her cough reminded Mehi of the “flying sand” disease one of his neighbors had. But it didn’t affect rich people.
“Do you enjoy my earrings? Father got them in Annu. You can’t get them in any street market in this area, you understand. Pardon me.”
Seconds passed before Mehi realized Snebtisi had departed. His mind shook at her whir of words. An-khi’s complaints about her sister might be justified, but Mehi had said similar things about Sebek and still missed him.
Mehi wandered back to the manor’s courtyard. Marveling at the palm and the balcony it shaded, he dodged a servant hurrying out a tray of food. “Usheb na.”
He leaned inside the front doorway, peeking for anyone who could spot him, before he stepped in. One step. His feet found not packed earth but yellow glazed tiles, bone-hard and cool. Behind a pair of four-foot, azure pots in the foyer, spread carpets, pillows—and even chairs, not stools—in a chamber large enough to require six columns. The orange columns towered twenty feet to the ceiling where paintings of sparrows on a grape trellis sang muted love songs.
On the grounds again, Mehi sidled to a buffet of pumpkins, radishes, lentils, roasted oryx and ibex, date-sweetened wine and red beer. Carrying his meal and seeking a place to eat, he watched An-khi pour water for an elderly guest. At that moment, he collided into An-khi’s mother. As Heria was saying, “This is what they wear in Annu,” Mehi knocked into her so hard that they both grunted and the wine in her goblet spilled fully onto her sandals. His body stuck against her for an awkward moment.
He blurted, “Usheb na, usheb na.” Now surrounded by a gaggle of Heria’s intimates, each with aghast-opened mouths, he glimpsed An-khi thirty feet away grabbing her forehead at Mehi’s forceful introduction to her mother.
“You’re An-khi’s friend?” Heria asked, eyebrows arched, shaking her wet foot.
“I’m afraid so.”
Heria said, “Ladies, this is my An-khi’s little friend—Mehi.”
The others lit up. “Such a lovely child is An-khi,” said one lady. “Albeit lacking kohl.”
“You’re correct. My daughter is so lovely she needn’t wear the kohl as some women’s daughters do.” Heria’s smile exposed an inch of gum above her teeth.
Mehi knew that An-khi’s answer to why she didn’t wear kohl was a question: “Why shade the sun?”
“Mehi?” said a lady with a long nose. “That’s rather a child’s name, isn’t it, dear?”
“Not at all,” said Heria with a polite, high-pitched laugh. “It is a title for Osiris after all.”
“My mother wanted me to be a priest,” Mehi said.
“A priest? Then I must know your mother.”
For Mehi to aspire to the priesthood, this lady must expect his mother moves in the same well-to-do circle as herself. “My mother named me because she wanted it more than she believed it would happen.”
“Ah.” Her lips pursed. “I see.”
Heria drew up as stiff as a rod. Several ladies fidgeted, some cleared their throats.
Mehi dragged his mind for a way to escape gracefully. “You own so many beautiful cats, Madam Heria.”
Heria leaned back, pupils rolling up in her head until only the whites showed. She trilled, “My angels.” Mehi had found safe ground. She recited the history of her twelve beloved creatures, their special diets, select grooming and dire illnesses. Her speech ended with, “Doesn’t everyone love these elegant creatures?”
Considering this a test, Mehi said, “Everyone I know does.” That seemed wrong. “We—my mother—would envy ... I mean, she’d love these beautiful animals on your grounds.”
“Is that so? I’ll be pleased for you to select a darling for your dear mother.”
Afraid he’d rudely hinted that she should offer one of her pets, Mehi said, “No, no. Don’t do that.”
Heria braced up and seemed to grow several inches taller. “I shouldn’t offer a beloved pet to your family?” She squinted down her nose at Mehi. The other ladies again edged about for a better sightline of him. Sweat tickled his hairline.
Intending to explain he wasn’t this stupid, Mehi said, “No, I mean, you can, of course. What you want ...”
Heria’s nose aimed at him like an arrow on a drawn bow.
“I meant ...” Mehi had no idea what he meant. At last, he settled for his present humiliation and shut his mouth.
A few minutes later, An-khi put her hand on Mehi’s forearm. “How’d it go with my mother?”
Mehi paused. “Your sister isn’t much like you.”
“Oh, her. Father is sharp with her, being the elder daughter, especially when she’s sick.”
“Why when she’s sick?”
“Since she’s oldest. Should she marry, her husband could claim the estate, especially if she were to die.”
“That eldest daughter madness again.” He again shook his head.
“I’ll bring Father over to you.” Mehi’s heart jumped like a gigged toad. “Then you’ll have met them all.”
In a few moments, too few for Mehi, An-khi escorted toward him, arm-in-arm, a gentleman sporting a carved walking stick. Mehi tried to form a smile that was more mature than his childish grin.
“Father,” An-khi said, “this is the sweetest boy in all Egypt. You be nice to him or I’ll be upset with you.”
“Well, we can’t have that, can we? Pleased to make your acquaintance, young man.”
“An-khi speaks highly of you, Father.”
“We are fond of our An-khi.”
Strain in Mehi’s legs and arms began to subside. Paser was a cordial man, certainly a model student of the “Instruction of Wisdom.”
An-khi left them. Then, Paser glared into Mehi’s eyes. “What do you mean to do with my daughter?”
“When?”
“Young man. Do you plan to settle her into your house?”
“I don’t have a house. Yet.”
Paser scowled. “Will you just throw a mud hut together like some commoner?”
“Houses aren’t easy to set up. Not like yours, anyway.”
“So, you depend upon her father to build it for you.”
“No, sir. My father is the best stonecutter in Mer.”
“Is he? What is his name?”
What a blunder. Mehi thought to escape this trap by using what had worked before. “All these beautiful cats on your estate, sir, you must really love them.”
“Hate ’em.”
Mehi gulped. “Uh, I understand congratulations are in order. Your daughter, Snebtisi, I mean. I understand she’s to be married.” He offered his forearm.
“What gave you that idea?”
Mehi’s forearm hovered in the air all alone. “Snebtisi told me, sir.”
Paser’s face flared up from a glower to wild-eyed anger. He snorted and marched off, cane stabbing the ground. When he tracked down Snebtisi at the far side of the gathering, he yelled loud enough for Mehi to hear but not make out. Snebtisi broke into tears and ran toward the mansion, Paser following, cane whipping in the air, guests giving way.
Mehi was glad he’d already gotten his kiss. He wouldn’t have the nerve now.
The next midnight, a full day for Khufu to stagnate due to the slow Inundation and Meritates’ dam against Theormi’s balm, he walked between the garden’s rose bushes and the greenhouse reflecting on their walk here. He reflected that when playing on a harp a melody that he’d committed to memory, his fingers plucked the proper strings, in proper order and in proper rhythm although he was unmindful of directing them. His fingers possessed their own memory. In this same way, Theormi sang in his muscles.
Delighted at the depth of feeling she cast in him, he looked up for Sba aabti. Before he could find the planet, the third-quarter moon hooked his eye. Its crescent shape seemed rent savagely as if by a crocodile. By the cold shiver up his spine, Khufu divined that he should go to the Throne Room.
There, the six royal officers
, eyes downcast and shoulders weighted, had already assembled on a bench twenty feet from the throne. Behind them, three black pillars with lotus capitals rose thirty feet to dark orange beams spanning the ceiling. Without a word, Khufu sat himself in his throne facing his princes. He posed deadly erect, rigid as the wrought gold lions of the throne’s arms.
Prince Hordedef reported it. He rose before the bench onto the whitewashed floor. “Sire, I apologize for this news. Vizier Shaf has directed me to inform you that ... the Hap Bull is dead.” Pampered in the Hituptah temple, the Hap Bull lived as the direct descendant of the divinity that suckled the child Horus, the patron god of kings. “And, Sire, quite violently done.”
“Murdered?” Khufu asked.
“Unquestionably, your Majesty.”
Khufu’s striped, gold-and-blue satin kerchief hung stiff. He bore his stony stare forward. On the blue and yellow walls, Khufu was depicted in various scenes among lions and eagles as a boy, young prince or king. Earlier in the night beside Theormi, he’d felt as expansive as these depictions, reclaiming the infinity he’d embraced when loving his Queen. But at this hour, that grace was slashed to shreds.
Finally, Khufu spoke. “The Ptah priests will claim of course that we are responsible. Not a bad plot on their part since we can’t prove otherwise. Hordedef, you will investigate.”
The prince bowed.
When a Hap died, the Gods ordained its successor by anointing a calf somewhere in Egypt with particular and sacramental markings, including the white triangle on its forehead. Across the nation, Egyptians scoured every corral, slaughterhouse and calf birth, vying to be first to discover it.
“The rest of you,” Khufu ordered, “locate the next Hap before the priests do, and we resolve this. Show that the Gods favor us.”
Vizier Shaf said, “I’ll search the south while Dedephor and Hordedef search the central area and the delta.”
“Why do you choose south, Shaf?” Hordedef asked.
Shaf’s eyes flickered. “Vizier insight.”