Mara, Daughter of the Nile: Part II

Menfe’s three great pyramids dwindled into sharp triangles of sun and shadow as the Silver Beetle left the harbor behind her.

He flashed her his disarming smile and gestured smoothly.

“I am apprentice to a scribe in Thebes,” he lied glibly.

She reached into her sash and produced the last two honey cakes she had filched from the baker’s boy earlier that day.

She offered one to Sheftu, who took it with thanks, hiding his mirth.

“Perhaps.” She raised her vivid eyes to his face. They were skeptical.
“You have no faith in magic?”
“I have little faith in anything,” she said carelessly.

Sheftu made use of the moment to study her profile intently.

Her cheeks were sloping and shadowed, thin with years of hunger; her chin was obstinate and her mouth had a sardonic curve, as though it had learned well to lie.

But there was an elusive quality of wistfulness about it that fascinated Sheftu.

He found himself wishing that this Mara, this waif, this runaway, did not have to pass so soon out of his life.

Except, he mused, someone from the outside, unknown to king and queen alike and therefore apparently a partisan of neither....

He knew nothing of her, except that her welcome from Thutmose, who would never dream of marrying her, would be chilly indeed. Such a snub would hardly arouse in her undying loyalty toward the king!

When she and Sheftu were together, he was always somewhere in the background, standing about aimlessly or absorbed in unconvincing duties which invariably happened to lead him within watching distance of his passengers.

“Aye, so do I wonder!” grunted Nekonkh, so vehemently that it surprised her.

He played unimaginatively but well, and he knew the gambits thoroughly.

In the end it was by sheer audacity that she inveigled his three last dogs into a position where she could capture them all and jump her sole remaining one into the “royal" square.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he told her imperturbably.

He subjected her to that cold scrutiny a moment longer, then slowly relaxed, easing one elbow against the rail.

Was she so repulsive? So ill favored? So shrewish?

“There is no such place. You’re too credulous!”

The captain had at last been goaded into that private conversation.

Even more convenient is the stream of gold and silver that pours into my hands from the palace treasury. Aye, Her Majesty distributes bribes as lavishly as she does everything else!

“Nay, our guest! How can you be so inhospitable, Captain? Give the maid a stool, she seems pale.”

But she was hard put to it to hide her elation, the sudden return of all her old brash confidence.

“Why as a barbarian?” murmured Mara demurely.

Mara summoned all her audacity.

“But would he talk later? He’s a garrulous sort, especially in his cups.”

Perhaps a soft glance and a glib tongue would be of more use here than bribery. If a man is bribed, and feels guilty later, he can blame those who bribed him. But if he is led to substitute one interpreter for another because blandishments sound sweet to his ear—whom can he blame later but himself?

Lest you be wondering, it will not be feasible to slip away from me in Abydos, to sell my ring, or to do anything at all save what we have planned.

"Aye...but I think he loves Egypt even more. To my notion that’s what makes him throw away his gold and his life like this, and use men as if they were tools. That’s why he holds a bludgeon over the head of even a friendless maid like you, little one, and turns your wits to his own purpose, and takes chances that could end in murder...."

Saankh-Wen was now sitting on a folding stool on the deck of the princess’ barge, staring apathetically at the cooks moving about on the attendant kitchen boat, which was moored nearby.

Mara gave him a perfunctory smile, careful neither to offend nor encourage him.

She stepped quietly about the place, examining with curiosity and not a little revulsion the strange possessions of these barbarians.

The jewelry was crude and tasteless, the boxes uncarved, and the scattered clothing so vulgar in its gaudy colors that Mara’s civilized Egyptian nose wrinkled disdainfully.

Hastily groping for her sandals, Mara listened as the hubbub reached the water’s edge.

Saankh-Wen barked an order, evidently for the bearers to set down the litters and allow the women to emerge, for in a moment the air was filled with the sibilant mumble of Babylonian.

Half smothered and sweating in her bulky woolen draperies, which swathed her from head to toe and were striped and embroidered all over in garish colors, she looked every inch the gawky barbarian.

She gave a great sigh of pleasure, and turned excitedly to the dozen gaudily clad and perspiring serving-women who huddled behind her.

“Patience, my princess,” soothed Mara, stifling a grin.

Then slowly the distance widened as the Beetle gathered speed and drew ahead of the more ponderous barge.