Sunrise on the Mediterranean (14 page)

“No one knows,” Wenaten said.

“About?” she prompted.

“More about Smenkhare, save he—”

“Or she,” she said, ignoring Cheftu’s glance.

“Or she,” Wenaten said, “comes from Kush.”

“When will Smenkhare arrive?”

“He comes directly here, so perhaps a week. Maybe more or less.” They walked the rest of the way to the palace in silence.
RaEm didn’t notice her surroundings, save to see that Akhenaten had broken Ma’at in art. The figures no longer stood in pure
profile, with their faces and bodies perfection. Instead they looked … natural, though everyone’s face and appearance was
like that of her beloved Akhenaten. What magic was this?

Cheftu disappeared into a room, and RaEm pulled Wenaten aside, running her hands over his scrawny shoulders, smiling at him
from beneath her lashes. A week, RaEm thought. In ten days can I claim this destiny? “Where would I get a really strong blade?”
she asked.

“Why would you need a blade, safely here with Cheftu and me?”

“You know how weak Cheftu is,” she said confidingly. “He is the greatest fop alive. Not anything like you.” Wenaten squinted
at her, not exactly the response she’d hoped for. “Therefore, as a woman alone, it is of great concern to me.” She caressed
him on the arm as she spoke.

“You aren’t alone,” he said, placing his hand over hers on his arm. RaEm felt a moment of panic, then relaxed.

“You have a wife, a family, responsibilities,” she said. “And I,
aii
, I am not cut out to be anything save first wife.”

“Most wives wouldn’t care for that,” Wenaten said slowly. Thank the gods, RaEm thought. “You see my confusion? No matter how
strong and clever you are, it wouldn’t work, alas.” She looked away, her face pinched with just enough sorrow at the missed
opportunity of taking Wenaten to her couch. “Therefore I must be brave. So where can I get a blade?”

“You aren’t alone, because there are soldiers everywhere,” Wenaten said. “That is what I meant. Everywhere. You probably can’t
walk through the garden without stumbling on one.”

RaEm wanted to strike him, the dense man. Had he been playing with her? She crossed her arms over her chest. “Where can I
get a blade?”

Wenaten shrugged, then referred her to a smithy in the Pelesti quarter. “The Pelesti are the only ones with iron,” he said.
“But nothing cuts better. Straight through leather, wool, any manner of protection. Bronze doesn’t even dull it.”

She thanked him, though her words were said to his back since he just walked off. The idiot, she thought, slipping into her
room. But he would be a useful idiot; he knew the court, the nobles. She’d have to work on him more, learn about this strange
country where even the language sounded a bit different from the Egypt she’d known. Once the door was closed behind her, RaEm
bellowed for slaves. She needed a bath, food, and clothing, in that order.

He couldn’t resist her; no one ever had.

Cheftu lay on his couch, exhausted but unable to sleep. RaEm was up to something, but he didn’t know what and didn’t have
the energy to ponder the perversions of her mind right now.

What had he seen this afternoon?

Pharaoh leading his people in the mass climax simply by reading to them the words of the 104th Psalm? Where had Pharaoh gotten
it? Were the words of David, the author of the Psalms, not original? Had David reworked an old Egyptian hymn? Was it blasphemy
even to think such a thing? When was David in relation to this time period? Impossible; David was God’s favorite—he couldn’t
be a thief. Pharaoh must have stolen the words, though where had he gotten them? Cheftu’s thoughts had chased each other almost
into sleep, when he sat up with a jolt.

He was alone. He could ask the stones! Stumbling from the couch, he walked to the window, letting moonlight shine onto the
Urim and Thummim. His hands were trembling as he asked the question most pressing in his mind. “Is Chloe safe?”

“N-o-w.”

Now? Did that mean she hadn’t been before? Did it mean she wouldn’t be in the future?

“Where is she?”

“W-i-t-h D-a-g-o-n.”

Dagon? Who was Dagon? Was there a man in court named Dagon? Was he a god? A priest? A country? A ship? “How do I get to her?”

“D-o-n-o-t-w-a-t-c-h-t-h-e-i-d-o-l!”

The idol? “What idol?” Cheftu asked, but the stones lay motionless, mute. Frustrated and exhausted, he put them away. Obviously
they had answered all they could, or would, for the day. He’d try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow yielded no answers, or rather, the same answers. Cheftu gritted his teeth as he went through his day. He asked Wenaten
if he knew anyone named Dagon. “Sounds like a foreigner to me,” Wenaten blustered. Then he edged around questions concerning
RaEm. Cheftu recognized the signs: Wenaten was entranced with the time-traveling priestess. Consequently he was no longer
trustworthy.

Cheftu should know, since once he had been that bewitched. He’d neglected his responsibilities and ignored his head, listening
only to his heart, his lust. When RaEm smiled, it was as if the door to all potential for pleasure cracked open, allowing
a glimpse into anything a man could desire.

He’d been a fool. Only Hatshepsut, with her understanding of her friend RaEm and her sympathy for Cheftu—and her irritation
at his sloppy execution of his duties—had communicated to him what RaEm was truly like. He’d ignored his liege, only to have
his ego trampled, his heart bruised, and his soul screaming “Fool!”

Then he’d listened to Hat. “RaEm is a crocodile,” she’d said. “A crocodile has no knowledge of a world outside what it sees.
It is not a family animal, nor does it care for the continuation of its dynasty. Its concerns are its belly, its comfort,
and nothing else has any significance.” Hat had sipped from a golden goblet. “RaEm is a great priestess because her needs
are synonymous with HatHor’s. She will do anything necessary, even take a life, to maintain her comfort.”

“I wanted her to be comfortable,” Cheftu had protested. “I would build her a house, on the Nile—” He had fallen silent when
Hat raised her hand.

“Comfort for RaEm means not only the ease of her flesh, but a constant source of new conquests.”

Cheftu had stiffened. RaEm had gone off with a new “conquest” while a household of guests awaited their marriage ceremony.

“A crocodile,” Hat had said, “is interested only in live bait, fresh blood. After the initial kill, the crocodile loses interest.
She wants fresher meat.” Hat’s dark eyes had met his. “One man will never sate RaEm. She must consume what she can, then leave
his husk behind her as she moves toward the next,
aii
, kill, shall we say?”

Cheftu’s
amour propre
was bent; it hurt worse that RaEm hadn’t even paused in her behavior, that he was that insignificant to her. Then he’d realized
that while his self-respect was wounded, his heart hadn’t been fully engaged.

“You were lucky to escape,” Hat had said. “The gods smiled on you.” She had set down her goblet and motioned for a slave.
“Now be a man, a lord of Egypt, and do as your liege demands. Forget this woman!” Then she had assigned him to the court of
Mitanni, to do just that.

Now, however, he recognized the same glazed, crazed look in Wenaten’s eyes. The expression that said he would do anything,
tell any lie, go to any length, for a smile for RaEm. How was it that she did this to men? After she’d left Cheftu, he’d watched
her work her way through the ranks of the army and the court. She was an enchantress, as deadly as any Circe, leaving a swath
of broken hearts and mangled men behind her.

She was up to something now. He knew it. He especially knew it when Wenaten coldly refused to answer his questions, denying
help to Cheftu in any way. The stones were silent, his host was abrupt. Chloe was not in danger now, but who knew when that
circumstance would change? What did the words of the stones mean? “Don’t watch the idol?” What idol? How would that help him
protect Chloe, get him to her side? Have faith, he admonished himself.
Le bon Dieu
had never failed them. Never.

As the days and weeks passed he didn’t see RaEm or Wenaten. Cheftu attended Aten’s worship services along with the rest of
the populace. He was almost frantic with concern for Chloe, but at a loss as to what to do. Time was moving too fast and too
slowly at the same time. The inactivity was about to drive him mad, but his terror of doing something wrong was even stronger.

He was standing on the step to Wenaten’s palace home when the door was wrenched open before him. Chaos greeted his gaze: barbers
stood at attention, brandishing the tools of their trade; slaves, draped with gold jewelry, held pressed kilts at the ready;
women were shrieking for baths, for cosmetics. In the middle stood Wenaten, his shoulders stooped, wringing his hands.

One glance and Cheftu knew that Wenaten had just realized he’d been deceived by RaEm.

“Pharaoh has agreed to see the ambassador!” the housekeeper said breathlessly. “Lady RaEm is missing, I fear.”

Cheftu’s eyes narrowed. “For how long?”

“I do not know how long he—”

“How long has RaEm been missing?” Cheftu clarified. The woman shrugged. “Almost a week?”

Cheftu pushed through the slaves, the barbers, and the frantic women. He put a hand on Wenaten’s arm. “What happened?”

“She’s taken everything,” he whispered. “She took my wife’s jewelry, she took my family’s funerary objects, the ones we’d
had made before I left.” His tone was dazed, his gaze flat.

She’s done worse to better men than you, Cheftu thought. He refrained from saying anything. “We go to court?”

“Aye, aye. Pharaoh will see us now.”

Perhaps this was his chance to see Chloe? Was she there, in the power of someone named Dagon? A foreigner? An envoy? “I will
escort you,” Cheftu said.

Wenaten, still distracted, agreed, allowing Cheftu to take charge of getting everything ready for the presentation.

He was waiting with Wenaten by the time Pharaoh sent a chariot for them. They boarded the vehicle, crammed in behind the driver.
Wenaten held on to his wig as they moved up the boulevard.

The ambassador fretted that he hadn’t seen his family in two years. He’d not even seen his own father’s tomb, for the man
had died while he was at sea. Now RaEm had stolen the most valuable things that went into it. Wenaten trembled at the thought
of telling his wife her jewelry had been stolen. Cheftu murmured his condolences, wondering who might bear the name Dagon.

The Great State Palace’s audience chamber was open to the sun’s rays, too, the rays of the Aten. Each little hand pounded
on those assembled. Almost every country was represented in Akhenaten’s court. Mutterings confirmed that some of these envoys
had been waiting for years to meet with Pharaoh. Some had been forbidden to return home without Egyptian escort. Wenaten was
right; the empire was slipping away.

The walls of the palace were strange for Egypt. No representations of Pharaoh vanquishing sand crossers, or reigning with
the gods. Instead Pharaoh cavorted with his children, his head misshapen, his body curved and full hipped like a woman’s.
He even had breasts!

Cheftu had to hide his amused surprise when he noticed that most of the courtiers wore padding beneath their kilts to affect
Akhenaten’s body shape. Flabby bellies hung over long kilts, and stubby false beards imitated Pharaoh’s lantern-jawed face.
Headclothes were padded to copy Akhenaten’s elongated head. The women were emaciated, their breasts flattened to resemble
Pharaoh’s, their hips draped to resemble the king’s, wearing the “Kushite” short wig. Which was which? Men and women were
hard to discern. The Egyptian court, male and female, looked like misfits.

All to match the leading misfit, Pharaoh. “All hail he who speaks to the Aten, he who praises the Aten, he who is one with
the Aten, the most high, most glorious Akhenaten!” the chamberlain cried. Every head touched the floor in obeisance, Cheftu’s
included.

“Rise, rise.” Akhenaten’s voice had the power to melt bones. His were the tones of a siren. Listening would be the path to
self-destruction, with no remorse. “Speak your business so I can continue the business of praise.”