Authors: Carol Thurston
“Is that what you think?”
“No,” she admitted with a funny little smile.
“Oohhh?” I dragged it out. “Why not?”
“Did you think I could not see the hungry look in your eyes when you forgot to hide it? How you watched me when you thought I was not looking? What happens to your body when
you look at my breasts?” She turned to me finally. “I tried to be patient, to wait for you to speak first, but—”
“I have thirty-nine years to your seventeen! Have you considered that?”
“Between some people, age counts as nothing. You and Senmut, for instance.” She was right. That I follow a different path than most physicians has more to do with my natural inclination than age or experience. And Senmut’s approach to the causes of sickness, not only his impatience with unsatisfactory answers to old questions, mirrors my own. That is why he was drawn to Mena.
“I spoke of our mortal bodies, not how or what we think,” I replied, trying to say what my
ka
told me to even if my heart refused to believe it. “What if in five years I am no longer able to satisfy the yearnings of your flesh?”
“Not if you teach me how to please you.”
Pagosh was at the stern talking with the man who navigated our course, so no one was close enough to hear us. I curled an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “We will teach each other,” I murmured, against her soft curls. I wore a long-sleeved tunic and kilt, while she had wrapped a woolen shawl around her shoulders, for the wind never ceases on the river, and it is cool at this time of year even with Aten high in the sky. That I touched no bare skin made me even more aware of the way her smaller body aligned with mine—how her head fit under my chin and her breasts in the hollow below mine, while her pelvis cradled my genitals.
My bliss was short-lived, however, for she leaned away to look into my face. “Is that why you insisted there be no mention of adultery in the marriage contract?” I shrugged, but her eyes held mine. “We are different in more than age, Tenre. Some ways I cannot change, so it is more likely that you will tire of me.”
I turned, enclosing her in my arms. “Never. I vow to keep you by me until Re sails across the sky for the last time, or Isis ceases to weep for Osiris, whichever comes first.”
“Truly?” Her lips moved against my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. And more. I moved my hips against hers to let her know I cherish her in that way, too, and that reading about a man’s rising organ in my medical scrolls or even seeing it under his kilt, is not the same as taking it into her body. In part I did it to arouse her curiosity, but also to change possibility to probability in her thoughts, which in turn can provoke sexual desire. By full dark I wanted her as eager for that experience as I already was.
Our felucca carried cargo beneath a second deck across the belly of the boat, offering protection from the sun and any spray that might come over the side, yet it was not so large as to call attention to our passing. Our cargo consisted of baskets and chests packed with clothing and other personal things, a supply of herbs and medicinal extracts from the Eye of Horus, and enough bread to feed us all for several days. When midday drew near, Aset and I sat cross-legged on this higher deck to share the meal Nofret had pressed into our hands when we left.
“It is too salty,” I commented after a taste of the roasted goose.
“Probably from Nofret’s tears,” Aset returned. “Want some of these?” she asked, offering me the basket of dates just as a spray of water hit her in the face. Startled, her arm jerked, sending the dates flying over the side into the river. “Oops! We just made an offering to Hapi.” She grinned, glanced at me, and burst out laughing.
“What is so funny?”
“You! Your face,” she sputtered.
“Were you on your way north as your father wished, you would be moving with the current rather than fighting it,” I pointed out, for we had to dodge the spray every time the captain tacked across the current, to keep the sail filled with wind.
“Better to get wet than go to the High Priest of Ptah.”
“You find my face funny?”
“You have a wonderful, beautiful face.” Reaching out her
hand, hesitant at first, she smoothed the lines between my eyes, then let her finger slide down my nose, over the end to my upper lip. “And lips,” she murmured. “Did you know that I can read what you think in the way you hold your lips?”
“Can you?” I whispered, hardly daring to breathe. She nodded, cupped my face in her palm, and stroked her thumb across my cheekbone.
“One morning I opened my eyes and there you were, sitting beside my couch, waiting for me to wake. From that day to this, whenever the terrible sadness comes to me in the dark, I close my eyes and see you smiling at me, just as you did then.” I turned my mouth into her hand and touched my lips to her warm palm.
For a time, then, we talked about what might await us in Aniba. I asked if she would teach Senmut’s outline scribes how to paint maps like the ones she draws for me, but she only shrugged and continued to gaze at the passing scene. Still, I hope the idea will take root and grow, to displace any urge to continue with her story-scrolls.
All around us on shore we could see men working the shaduf, dipping the leather buckets attached to the end of a wooden beam—which can be swung in a circle from the point where it rests on three legs—into the river. Afterward the stone counterweight lifts the filled bucket, which then is tipped into canals that carry water to the upper fields.
“Since the shaduf we get two harvests a year from the freshened fields,” I said, changing the subject, “and can count on at least one from the higher areas where the flood rarely reaches, the reason more land is under cultivation. Did you know that?”
She nodded. “It is such a simple thing. We have lived with Mother River from the beginning of time, yet the idea came to us from the people who live between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Why do you suppose we did not think of it?”
It is never
how
with her, always why. “Do you remember the first time we played Jackals and Hounds?” I asked, for
surely there can be no answer to such a question. She nodded. “And afterward, sitting atop your father’s villa?” When she looked at me I saw the curious little girl she had been then, blue eyes bright with hope and expectation. “You captured my heart even then, with just one word. Why.”
She laughed with delight, that soft gurgling sound that bubbles from her throat, and squeezed my hand in understanding.
A little later, while she talked with Pagosh, my thoughts returned to that day again, and the way she had tested me with the field of blue lotus. There is evidence aplenty that she possesses her mother’s skill at bewitching men, but the Beautiful One’s eyes lie hooded and still, like a serpent’s, while Aset’s leap with joy and curiosity. More than that, Aset possesses an innate love for others—Tuli, Pagosh and Khary, Ruka and Resh, and many more. Surely those are the true reasons other men worship my wife. The little goddess with dirty feet. I looked to the west, suddenly impatient to be alone with her, and found Re’s bright orb beginning to turn orange. Another hour or two, at least, before we would stop for the night.
Pagosh came forward soon after, leaving Aset talking with the man who steered our course. “We are little more than an hour from Edfu,” he informed me, “and will put in there for the night.”
“A propitious place, surely,” I replied, “since it is home to the sacred temple of Isis built on the site of Horus’s victory over Set—by Imhotep, the greatest physician and architect of all time.”
“The boatmen and I will go ashore to replenish our supply of water in the town, and afterward spread our pallets on the bank of the river. That way we can be on our way at first light.” He gave me a second look. “Unless you fear riding at anchor alone?”
“I will not be alone.” He nodded. “Thanks to you,” I added. The white scar on his cheek stood out against his ruddy skin, the effect of the chilly wind, I suppose, and his
eyes were hard as ever. I had much to thank him for and nothing to give him but words. And words have never counted for much with Pagosh. I put a hand on his shoulder. “I am fortunate indeed to have such a friend.”
Startled, he blinked at me, then muttered, “As you have been to me. But it is your wife you should thank for refusing every other man her father proposed.”
Without another word he began moving away, leaving me shaking my head. “Pagosh?” I called. He turned around. “Could you persuade Tuli to go ashore, too?”
A glint of humor came into his eyes. “That depends on your wife”—he let me dangle a moment—“whether she trusts you enough to let him go.”
When finally we had the boat to ourselves I could find no words to breach the unfamiliar silence between Aset and me. She proceeded to spread our pallets, assuming the work of a servant as if born to it. For a time I stood watching her place them side by side and edge to edge—the only way they fit the space just forward of the raised cargo deck—before moving to help her. Too late. But I got a smile for my trouble, and then an invitation.
“Come sit by me out of the wind and we will drink a cup of wine in celebration of this new beginning.”
“W-wine?” I stammered.
She motioned to the clay flask wedged into the narrow space where the sides of the boat form the pointed prow. “A gift from Pagosh, along with a rare piece of advice.”
I crossed my feet, bent my knees, and dropped down beside her. “He believes to mark the truly important events in our lives helps us to remember and cherish them in the years ahead.”
“Pagosh is a man of so few words I am inclined to listen when he speaks,” I said, watching her work the stopper from the flask. “What do you think?”
“I have always found him wise beyond measure.” She handed me two glazed cups, then tipped the flask to fill
them. Afterward I handed one back to her. “May your
ka
live on, Tenre, and your two eyes behold happiness forever.”
“And yours,” I whispered. We tilted our cups at the same time, watching each other’s lips. I have always been slow to produce words fitting to the occasion, needing time for deliberation and reflection, but I searched for a way to make my own contribution to mark this day.
“I came away unprepared and so have no gold or jewels to give you, but I am not entirely empty-handed.” I left her to search the chest I had filled with medical scrolls, including those I have written myself rather than leave such dangerous testimonials behind for others to come upon. But the scroll I wanted was soft to the touch from frequent handling.
“It is of no value, I fear,” I explained as I placed it in her hands, “except to assure you that I did not fall victim to your overbearing willfulness.” A spark of curiosity lit her eyes and I expected her to unroll it at once. Instead she asked, “What is it?”
“Verses. Mine.” Still she waited, watching my face. “In which I tried to describe the many ways I have loved you, from the day I became physician to your father’s household until now.” I smiled, remembering the night she chided me for not allowing my
ka
to speak, and how long I had worked over my first attempt, about possibility.
“Oh, Tenre, why did you never tell me?”
“How could I?” I asked, hoping she would understand that I, too, had been living only half a life.
She reached out to touch my face again and I put my hand over hers, to keep it there. “May I read a few of them now, just to myself?”
“As you wish.” I released her hand and lifted the flask to refill our cups while she held the scroll up to catch the last light from the gold-streaked sky. Watching her I knew which one she was reading, just from the way her eyebrows drew together, then from how her lips flirted with the beginnings of a smile, finally twitching with suppressed laughter. When
she straightened suddenly I wondered if something I had written shocked or offended her.
“What?” I asked. Instead of answering she put the scroll down and looked at me, not with the fleeting enthusiasm of a child but the abiding joy of a woman, a woman secure in the knowledge that she is deeply loved. It mattered not to me if I only imagined that her wonderful eyes were shining with love for me.
The sun died and night came with startling suddenness, stars springing to life in the vast darkness of the sky while we sat in silence, sipping our wine, watching the moonlight spread a silver path across the black river.
“To love is to believe in goddesses,’” she whispered, repeating a line from the verse I had written only two nights before. “Perhaps you have worried too long about my
ka,
husband, and so forget my
akh,
the spirit within me that quickens every time you enter the room. Sometimes when I looked up to find you walking toward me across the garden, my heart would thump so loud I could hardly hear what you said to me. I have a constant need to draw your brown eyes to mine, so I can watch them soften with the love you feel for me. Or to find some way to provoke that slow smile you give only to me and so experience the warm glow that invades my entire body, stealing both my wits and my will.”
How could I have been so blind?
I did not wonder for long, for I felt so alive at that moment, so full of love—and terror—that I thought my heart must burst. Instead, I took her in my arms and told her the truth as it came to me, letting the gods guide my hands and lips and body.
Only once did my thoughts cause my desire to falter, when I recalled the child whose feverish body I had tried to cool with water. In that moment it struck me as perverse that now I tried to arouse her until she burned with want—a want only I could satisfy. When I hesitated she stilled as well, and whispered, “Is it because of what that old crone did to me?”
I gathered her closer so she could feel the voice of my
pounding heart. “I am overcome with desire for you is all, and fear hurting you. Not only that, but I may reach my end before you if we continue without pause.”
“I am not a fragile thing to be protected from my own pleasure, Tenre. We promised to teach each other, remember?”
“Every word you uttered last night is engraved on my heart,” I replied. And so we continued as before, pausing from time to time only to make the end more intense when it did come.