Sunrise on the Mediterranean (38 page)

“My Majesty—”

RaEm turned toward the girl again. The grip on her hand had weakened. Sweat droplets moved across the newly fourteen-year-old’s
cheeks, and her forehead was scorchingly hot. For a moment RaEm felt real fear. Perhaps this was more than just Meryaten’s
imagination? “Touch her skin,” she commanded the physician.

He laid a wrinkled hand on her forehead. “
Ukhedu
,” he said dolefully. “The battle is strong.”

“What do you mean? What can be done?”

“
Aii! Ukhedu
has entered her body, it eats her up inside. We must pray and light incense.”

If Cheftu were here, he would have an actual medicament, RaEm couldn’t help but think. Strange that she would of a sudden
think of him. “Is there anything we could give her? An herb? A medicine?”

“
Aii
, since it is
ukhedu
, it is a spiritual battle. Best you inform Pharaoh, living forever! that the Aten needs to see to her needs, since only he
speaks to the god.”

RaEm couldn’t help but feel a challenge in the old man’s words. “You are dismissed,” she said through gritted teeth. Meryaten
screamed again, gripping RaEm’s hand so tightly that she winced.

Tiye came in a moment later, touching Meryaten’s forehead. “The child has been poisoned,” she proclaimed.

RaEm’s head snapped up. “What do you say, Mother?”

“Poisoned. Her belly is swollen but empty, her skin is hot and dry.” She turned to Meryaten. “Child, where does it hurt?”

“My … my belly,” Meryaten whispered. “They put a knife in me, to make me believe. I want the Aten, I want my father, I want
my mother.” Her voice was ragged, drifting in and out of RaEm’s understanding. Poisoned? Meryaten had been poisoned?

Akhenaten’s voice rang in her ears:
Keep my daughter happy.

“Make her vomit,” RaEm said, rising abruptly. “Whoever did this, his head will decorate my doorpost! She cannot die.”

Tiye looked up. “She already feels it. The poison has done its work, all that remains is—”

“Nay!” RaEm shouted. “She will not die! She cannot die! Either help me or leave!”

Tiye’s eyes narrowed. “You really do love her, don’t you, in your own, odd way?”

RaEm halted, realizing that her behavior fed the fiction that Meryaten was her beloved bride. “What did you think?” she snarled.
“Now get me something to make her vomit.”

“It is too late.”

RaEm strode to Meryaten’s couch, pulling the girl upright despite her whimpering. “Shush, my beloved. You are going to feel
worse, but then you will be all better. You have to trust me.”

“
Aii
, Smenkhare …” She sighed, leaning against RaEm’s linen-covered chest.

RaEm called for slaves, who held up the body of the child. With the girl’s head in her left hand, holding her mouth so she
wouldn’t be bitten, RaEm stuck her finger down Meryaten’s throat, gagging her.

At first Meryaten regurgitated only acid, but then came the food, masses of it. RaEm was disgusted but relieved. The girl
had suffered only from indigestion? What had possessed her to eat so much food? When Meryaten’s stomach was empty, the slaves
cleaned the couch and the floor, then RaEm laid the girl back down. She was weak now, but her body seemed to be cooler.

“What shall we do with, uh, this, My Majesty?” the chamberlain asked, gesturing to the pots with Meryaten’s stomach’s contents.

“Feed it to the dogs. See if they sicken.”

Tiye stepped to RaEm’s side. “Go and bathe, My Majesty,” RaEm’s deceived mother said. “Know that I have never seen a greater
display of filial love.” Her voice broke. “My mother’s heart swells with pride at your actions.”

RaEm escaped.

C
HEFTU LOOKED OVER
the port side, out at the wild expanse of Midian. They had been docked for days now, negotiating with the local shepherds
and merchants for the supplies to outfit the seventy for their journey to the mountain.

Har Horeb. Cheftu shook his head in chagrin. How his generation thought it knew everything, that no other minds had ever been
so advanced. What arrogance!

Having seen the Sinai, grasping the knowledge of how many people left Egypt with Moses, only a fool could imagine the Sinai
would offer enough food and camping ground. It was simply too small, too overrun with Egyptians, for a people who were fleeing.

The Sinai had at least twenty thousand slaves and probably another ten thousand soldiers, and that was now. Cheftu felt the
weight of dozens of gazes on his back. Those Egyptians were watching them closely. Would word get back to Pharaoh? How was
N’tan intending to get this gold back to Mamre?

Or would Dadua be in Jebus by then? Did he know the way to get into the city was through the
tzinor
? At least it was according to Scriptures—though no one knew how to exactly translate the term. Water spout? Sewer? Drain?
There was so much he didn’t know, couldn’t comprehend. What had the
tzadik
’s cryptic phrases meant? Why was it so vital to know Cheftu’s real name?

He rubbed his eyes and sighed. Ach,
Chloe, ma chère, are you still bored safely grinding grain?

“Egyptian!”

He turned at the word. N’tan refused to speak to him as anything other than slave or Egyptian, not even acknowledging the
name Chavsha. How Cheftu longed to be free again, to walk where he would. Perhaps the holes in his ears would heal, given
the chance. He loathed that sign of ownership on his body.

More, he loathed the ownership of his time.

N’tan beckoned, and Cheftu went to him. “We have the guides, the asses, the provisions now,” N’tan said. “We will go in three
different divisions.” He lowered his voice, looking over Cheftu’s shoulder. “I grow concerned that the sight of so much wealth
might cause one of the seventy to transgress.”

“A man’s heart is an uncertain thing,” Cheftu commented.

“Gold is enough to inspire covetousness and murder. And any manner of actions:
Avayra goreret avayra.
So: We must lessen the temptation for them.”

“Hence, we split them up?”

N’tan nodded, then shrugged. “It is the best plan I can fathom,” he said.

“Which division will I travel in?” Cheftu asked.

N’tan looked him over appraisingly. “You will lead the first group.”

Cheftu inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment though he never forgot this man was his owner. “
Todah rabah
, for your confidence in me.”

“Even if you are an idolater.”

Cheftu kept his gaze focused on the ground, unwilling to react despite the insult he felt. Why should N’tan say anything different,
from what he had seen? Cheftu knew
le bon Dieu
knew the truth; wasn’t that all that mattered? “Will we have a guide? Or should I know the way?”

“You worship many gods, Egyptian?” N’tan asked. Cheftu stood in stony silence, ignoring the
tzadik
’s gibes. N’tan sighed. “The guide will take you.”

“What if something should happen to him? If he should fall ill? Or run away?”

N’tan chuckled. “I assure you, nothing will happen.” Cheftu’s sense of foreboding grew. One should never make those types
of absolute statements. It was unlucky. “I would feel better knowing,” he said. “It—”

N’tan turned cold. “The guide will lead you, slave. You will leave at the new watch. We will join you, the first thirty-five
men, then the second thirty-five men, within the next two days.
Maspeak
!”

It was enough; the conversation was finished. Cheftu allowed himself to be dismissed, then stared into the desert from the
ship. He had the stones—from them he could learn whatever he needed to know. But he needed a blade. In order to get one he
would have to break one of the laws and steal one. However, if he didn’t, did he dare just go out there unprotected? Unwitting?

Were the stones enough?

AKHETATENN

R
A
E
M TUGGED ON HER MOURNING KILT
, staring for a moment at the way she was dressed. She was Smenkhare, the bereaved husband returned to Akhetaten to bury his
beloved. Damn Meryaten’s
ka
for her frailty. How many more days of grieving would RaEm have to endure for that weak, manipulative little child? At least
under the Aten it wasn’t as many days as under Amun-Ra. Soon the business of the court would start again.

She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees. The business of the court was an antic’s quip in the city of Akhetaten,
good only for a laugh.

The reality, RaEm had realized, was that Akhenaten never concentrated on business. He cared nothing for the country, only
his impersonal deity, the Aten. RaEm had read the letters from the outposts of the empire. For fourteen years they had pleaded
for intervention. Now it was too late; some new authority prowled the hills of Canaan. Egypt had lost her empire. The power
had shifted away from the red and black lands.

Though RaEm loved Pharaoh in a way she’d never felt about anyone, it pained her immeasurably to see Egypt dying. The agony
of watching all that Hatshepsut, her sole friend, and Hat’s father, Amenhotep, had gained slip through Akhenaten’s fingers
like Nile water was almost too much to bear. The position RaEm had fought and killed for would cease to exist.

Akhenaten cared about nothing outside this city; to him Akhetaten was the length and breadth of Egypt. He had declared that
there was no need to go beyond the cenotaphs he had set all around the city. Tiye did what she could in Waset to keep the
nobles on Pharaoh’s side, but it was better that he stayed in Akhetaten. Truthfully, he was not welcome anywhere else.

Outside of this enclave, Egypt had rejected her king. The populace was stricken with a pox, a plague that was killing in the
hundreds; Inundations had been poor; every border was struggling against marauding sand crossers. Egypt was dying. In the
Egyptians’ eyes Pharaoh was at fault; he was to blame. He’d turned his back on the gods.

It was bitter to realize that for all her scheming, now that RaEm had gotten here, sat on the throne, held the crook and flail,
it meant nothing, for now Egypt was nothing. May the gods curse Meryaten; she had died, making that avenue to the throne undependable.
Though Smenkhare was still coregent, even he was suspect with all of the bad fortune the country was experiencing.

RaEm threw off her crown. It was beautiful, but it was heavy. It left marks on her brow. What would Hatshepsut do in her position?
A country runs on goodwill and gold, her Pharaoh had ofttimes said. RaEm barked a laugh into the emptiness of her chamber—the
two things that Egypt didn’t have.

Heat beat against the walls. It was the Season of Growing, but already it was too hot. There was not enough water, and the
Aten had been too powerful. The emmer would die in the field, just like everything else. She put her head in her hands, the
fuzz of her shaved head ticklish against her palms.

Amun-Ra, have we offended thee? she prayed. Mother-Goddess HatHor, are you angry with us? These were words she dared not even
breathe aloud, for Akhenaten would turn from her. Without the delights of his voice, his body, she would die. Though the heat
of him was enough to scorch her to her roots, still she had never loved life more, never so wanted what she couldn’t have.
She craved the part of him that only the Aten possessed.

The Aten, an obscure god who cared nothing for agriculture or the state of the country; who was this god? Were the old gods
protesting the forgetfulness of the house of Thutmosis?

Gold and goodwill.

There was no repairing the rift between the house of Pharaoh and his people. Only his death would be an acceptable gift. There
was no goodwill on either side. Akhenaten considered them nothing, and they considered him a madman unworthy of the double
crown, as was anyone he selected.

However, if she didn’t rule, who would? Plenty stood in line for the throne of Egypt: Horemheb, the salivating Commander of
Ten Thousand; Ay, the overtly loyal servant to the throne; not counting assorted cousins whose palms itched to feel the flail.
But none of these cared for Akhenaten. Not a one would allow the Aten to continue. Even little Tuti, the rightful heir as
Akhenaten’s littlest half-brother, was less than faithful to the Aten and his brother’s vision.