— with amazement.
She understood what he was thinking and she continued her enticement. “I see you enjoying a song, and neglecting your work,” she said.
A look of denial appeared on his face, and he pointed to the picture he had engraved and mumbled, “Look.”
The picture had become a beautiful face, almost lifelike. “How gifted you are, Benamun,” she said in admiration.
He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, my lady.”
Then, steering the conversation toward her intention, she said, “But you have been cruel to me, Benamun.”
“I? How my lady?”
“You have made me look oppressive,” she said, “and I so wanted to look like a dove.”
He was silent, and did not say a word. She interpreted his silence to suit her purpose, and said, “Did I not say you have been cruel to me? How do you see me, Benamun? Oppressive, cruel, and beautiful as in this image you have made? What a picture it is. I am amazed how the stone speaks. But you imagine that my heart does not feel, just like this stone, do you not? Do not deny it. That is your belief. But why, Benamun?”
He did not know what to say. Silence overcame him. She was putting her ideas into his mind, and he believed them and was drawn toward her as he grew more muddled and confused.
“Why do you think I am cruel, Benamun?” she went on. “You believe in appearances, because by your nature you cannot conceal that which stirs in your breast. I have read your face like the page of an open book. But we possess another nature, and openness loses us the sweet taste of victory, and spoils the most beautiful things the gods have created for us.”
Young Benamun asked himself in bewilderment what she could possibly mean, and whether or not he should understand from her speech what her words actually implied. Had she not been sitting there before him every day, her eyes and mind forever distracted? She had not sensed the fire raging in his being then. What had made her change? Why was she saying these delicious words to him? Why was she coming so near the sweet secrets that burned in his heart? Did she really mean — what she was saying, did she really mean what he had understood her words to mean?
Rhadopis moved another step forward. “Ah, Benamun,” she said. “You are being cruel to me. It is clear from the silence — with which you answer me.”
He gazed at her in bewilderment and tears of joy almost flooded his eyes. He knew for certain his thoughts had been correct. “There are not enough — words in the — world to express — what I feel,” he said in a trembling voice.
She breathed a sigh of relief that she had loosened the knot on his tongue, and said dreamily, “What need have you of words? You will not say anything I do not know. Let us ask the summer room, for she has seen us for months and we have left in her body a trace of our hearts forever. Yes, here you have learned a solemn secret.”
She looked into his face for a short moment then she said, “Do you know, Benamun, how I learned the secret of my heart? It was by way of a surprising coincidence. I have a personal letter I want to send to someone in a distant place, and to send it with a messenger I can rely on, someone my heart trusts. I was sitting alone, reviewing in my mind different people, men and women, slaves and freemen, and at each one I would feel uneasy, that they were not right for the task, then, I do not know why, my mind wandered to this room, and all of a sudden I remembered you, Benamun. My mind was assured and my heart at peace. Indeed, I felt something even deeper than that. Thus did I learn the secret of my heart.”
The young man's face was awash with joy and he felt happiness almost to the point of delirium. He dropped to his knees before her and cried out from the depths of his heart, “My lady.”
And placing her hand on his head she said tenderly, “That is how I knew the secret of my heart. I wonder how I did not know it from long ago.”
“My lady,” said Benamun, lost in his trancelike state, “I swear the night witnessed me convulsed with anguish, and now the dawn is here, greeting me with a breeze of sweet-scented joy. The words you have uttered have brought me out of darkness into light, transported me from the gloomy depths of despair to a magical sensation of happiness. I can love myself again after I was on the brink of perdition. You are my happiness, my dream, my hope.”
She listened to him, sad and silent. She felt he was reciting a fervent prayer, as though he were floating in an ignorance of naive, sacred dream. She was quiet for a while, feeling some pain and regret, but she did not give in to the emotions he had stirred in her heart with his rapture, and deviously she said, “I am surprised that I did not know my heart for so long, and I wonder at the coincidences that did not apprise me of its secret until I needed to send you on a mission far away. It is as if they led me to you, and deprived me of you at one and the same time.”
“I will do whatever you will with my heart and soul,” he said in a tone that was like worship.
After a moment's hesitation she asked, “Even if what I want is for you to travel to a land you will only reach with great difficulty?
“The only difficult thing will be not seeing you every morning.”
“Let it be a temporary absence. I will give you a letter you will keep by your breast. You will go to the governor of the island with a word from me. He will direct you on your way and smooth out any difficulties.
“You will travel with a caravan, not a single one of whom shall know what is by your breast until you reach the governor of Nubia and deliver the dispatch into his hand. Then come back to me.”
Benamun felt a new joy mingled with feelings of dignity and pride. Her hand was nearby and he fell upon it with his mouth and kissed it passionately. She saw him tremble violently when his lips touched her hand.
On her way back, the feeling of sadness returned, and she asked herself, “Would it not have been more merciful to let His Majesty choose the messenger than for me to play with the heart of this boy?” Nevertheless, he was happy. Her lying words had made him so. Indeed, he was in a state that even the happiest of people would envy. She need not be sad as long as he did not know the truth, until, that was, she tired of resorting to falsehood.
The letter
That same evening, Pharaoh came waving a folded letter in his hand, his face beaming with satisfaction. As she looked curiously at it, she wondered if it would bring her idea to a successful conclusion and direct events in accordance with her dreams. The king unfolded the letter and read it out with a happy glint in his eye. It was addressed to Prince Kaneferu the governor of Nubia, from his cousin, the pharaoh of Egypt. In it he explained his troubles and his desire to muster a huge army without arousing the suspicions or fears of the clergy. He requested the prince to send to Egypt a letter with a trustworthy messenger, calling for urgent assistance to defend the borders of the southern provinces and to suppress an imaginary rebellion, claiming it was the Maasayu tribes who had stoked its fires and swept through the towns and villages.
Rhadopis folded it up again and said, “The messenger is ready.”
The king smiled. “The letter is prepared.”
She was lost in thought for a moment, then asked, “I wonder how they will receive Kaneferu's letter?”
“It will shake all their hearts,” said the king in a tone of conviction. “It will shake the hearts of the priests themselves and the governors will call for the conscription of men from every corner of the land, and soon enough the army our hope depends on will come to us, fully mustered and equipped.”
She was delighted, and impatiently she asked him, “Shall we wait long?”
“We have a month to wait while the messenger makes the journey and returns.”
She thought for a moment, and counted on her fingers, then said, “If your reckoning is correct, his return will coincide with the festival of the Nile.”
The king laughed. “That is a good omen, Rhadopis, for the festival of the Nile is the anniversary of our love. It shall be an occasion of victory and reassurance.”
