heedless of the — world. But still it refuses to forget me or to leave me at peace now that I am cleansed of my past and those hordes of men.” Dear Lord, were the priests really accusing her palace of consuming their stolen wealth? Were they really scourging her love with tongues of flame? She had huddled inside her palace contentedly, lost touch with everyone, and never stepped outside into the real world. She had no idea that her name was bandied about with such resentment on the tongues of these zealots who were using her as a ladder to reach up high enough to touch her worshipful lover. She did not think the queen was exaggerating, even if more than one motive had driven her to speak, for she had known for some time that the priests were concerned that Pharaoh would seize their lands, and she had heard with her own ears at the festival of the Nile those people shouting the name of Khnumhotep. There was no doubt that beyond the quiet, beautiful world that she inhabited was another more clamorous world, in which cauldrons were bubbling with affliction and resentment. She felt gloomy after long months of peace and serenity the like of which she had never experienced in her entire life. She felt her ribs curving compassionately around her lover, streaming with love and affection, and out of the depths of this sudden and unexpected grief that had come upon her, she remembered what Ani had said one day about the pharaonic guard being the only force the king could rely on, and how she had asked herself in alarm why His Sacred Majesty did not conscript soldiers, or mobilize a strong and powerful army.
She spent the whole day in her chamber, depressed, and did not go to the summer room as was her wont to sit for the sculptor, Benamun. She could not bear the thought of meeting anybody, nor sitting motionless in front of the young man's insatiable eyes. She saw no one until evening time, and she did not taste rest until she saw her — worshipped lover come through the door of her bedchamber, trailing his flowing garments. She sighed from the depths of her heart as she opened her arms and he hugged her to his broad chest as he did every time, and planted on her face the happy kiss of greeting. Then he sat down by her side on the couch and waxed lyrical about the beautiful memories the view of the Nile had brought back to his mind as it had borne his barge just a moment earlier.
“Where is the beautiful summer?” he said to her. “Where are those nights spent awake, when the barge cuts through the dark still brow of night, when we lie in the cabin and succumb to passion in the cool breeze, listening to the music of the songstresses and watching with dreamy eyes the graceful movements of the dancers?”
She was unable to keep up with his reminiscences, but she did not want him to feel alone in an emotion or a thought and she said, “Do not rush, my darling. Beauty is not in the summer, nor in the winter, but in our love, and you will find the winter warm and gentle so long as the flame of our love burns.”
He laughed his raucous laugh, and his face and body shook. “What a beautiful thing to say. My heart desires such wit more than all the glory in the world. But tell me, what do you think about some hunting? We shall go out into the mountains tomorrow and run after the gazelles, and amuse ourselves until our ravenous spirits are sated.”
Her mind had begun to wander. “May your will be done, my darling.”
He looked at her carefully, and realized at once that her tongue was speaking to him but her heart wandered far away.
“Rhadopis,” he said, “I swear to you by the falcon that brought our hearts together, some thought steals your mind from me today.”
She looked at him through two sad eyes, unable to say a word. Concern came over his face and he said, “My intuition was correct. Your eyes do not lie. But what is it you are holding back from me?”
She sighed from the depths of her heart, and as her right hand played unwittingly with his cloak, she said softly, “I wonder at our life. How much we are oblivious to what is around us, as if we were living in a deserted and uninhabited world.”
“We are well to do so, my darling. What is the world to us other than endless noise and false glory? We were lost for so long before love guided us. What is it that unsettles you?”
She sighed again and said sadly, “What use is sleep to us if all around people are awake and cannot close their eyes.”
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.”
