House of Dreams (38 page)

For one horrible moment I seemed to be outside myself, hovering somewhere close to the ceiling of the great room and peering down at the slight figure on the bed bending naked over the other sprawling, obese figure, with the Butler standing immobile against the wall and the body servants clustered like equally insubstantial ghosts at the far end of the room. I wanted to stay there and watch. I did not want to feel the King’s mouth, his soft body, his questing hands, but I returned to myself as rapidly and painfully as I had left.

Ramses’ lips were hot and quivering. His tongue poked at my teeth. Fiercely I tried to enter into the experience, to conjure up in my mind a vision of Hui’s kiss, of Prince Ramses’ magnificent body, but the present was too immediate and my distaste too real. As Pharaoh twisted, rolling me onto my back, his mouth firmly clamped to mine as his hands sought my breasts, I became entirely cold. Again I fought that coldness, for I knew that beneath the thin armour of my virginity lay a nature both sensual and passionate and it should not matter what mouth, what hands, what body stirred it into life, but try as I might I could not drown myself in sensation alone. I hate you, I found myself thinking as the King parted my legs and thrust his fingers into me. I hate you for taking this away from me and I hate Hui for making me a whore and I hate the Prince for giving me a glimpse of what I can never have. I wish you all dead.

From that cold place my reason reasserted itself. As Ramses entered me at last with a crow of triumph and delight and I bit my lip so as not to recoil from the sudden pain, I vowed that he would pay, that somehow this would be made worthwhile. Grimly I waited, twining my arms about him, gripping his fat buttocks while he pumped. Then he ejaculated with another wild cry and collapsed upon me, his sweat oiling my skin. He lay quiescent for a moment then rolled away and propped himself on one elbow, smiling down into my face. “Now you are mine forever, little scorpion,” he panted, and even as I smiled back I thought savagely, no. You are my captive though you do not know it yet. “Paibekamun!” Ramses called. “Bring wine!” I extricated myself from his embrace and sat up.

“I suggest that you do without the wine, Majesty,” I said resolutely, “unless you want your headache to return. Have I not been enough stimulation for one night?” Kissing his forehead I left the couch. As I stepped into the circle of my discarded sheath and began to pull it back on I felt something hot running down my legs. I replaced my jewellery with calm deliberation, reached for my wig, put the mortar back in my box. “Will your Majesty dismiss me so that he may go to sleep?” He lay there staring at me, perplexed, then gradually his bright button eyes began to fill with a shrewd understanding. He started to chuckle and then to laugh, great full-bodied guffaws that rang to the roof.

“Oh, Thu!” he choked. “Well have I named you scorpion! But stay with me a little longer. We will have beer instead of wine, if you wish, and garlic steeped in juniper oil. Stay and talk to me.” It was not a plea, of course. Kings did not plead. And yet in that moment I knew that one day the begging would come. I was tempted to comply, to jump back onto the couch like the girl I really was, and settle against the cushions, and we would prattle away to each other like old friends. But the liquid on my legs had trickled to my ankles, dark red and distasteful, making me shudder. I merely stood there, the box in my arms, and at last he grimaced. “Go then,” he commanded, and I bowed and left him. The servant on the door by which I had entered opened it for me and went swiftly ahead, back along the short avenue now nothing more than a broad paleness beneath me, through the gate, across the dense darkness of the main path, and at last into the courtyard of my building. Here he bowed and vanished into the night.

The fountain gurgled and splashed silvery water into its grey basin. The stars’ faint light made long shadows snake over the deserted grass. My footfalls seemed loud on the stone fronting the cells as I approached my own haven. One lamp was burning. Hunro was asleep. Disenk was there, waiting for me, her face drawn with weariness. She rose from the mat as I entered, and without a word began to quickly undress me. She did not comment on the sight of the blood. When I was naked she hesitated and I shook my head. “No, Disenk,” I whispered. “I do not want to wash tonight. I am too tired.” She nodded and held back the sheets for me. I fell between them, and she covered me and stole away.

I drew up my besmirched knees and put my hands over my face. I was cold and exhausted and utterly drained. I had succeeded. He would send for me the following evening, I knew it, but the knowledge was as ashes in my mouth. “I hate you,” I murmured, no longer really meaning it, no longer caring about anything, and from that despair I toppled into a heavy sleep.

Nevertheless, I had instructed Disenk to rouse me at the usual time and sluggish and fatigued though I was, I forced myself through my routine of cleansing and exercise. Hunro joined me on the grass and afterwards in the pool. She began to question me closely, almost anxiously, about my night, but I was loath to discuss it then, and I put her off with abrupt answers. That it had gone well there was no doubt, but it had left me with an unexpected feeling of humiliation. The thought that I was now fully a woman brought me no pride, and before I could reassure Hunro, my shame had to fade.

In the afternoon Neferabu came and told me that Pharaoh demanded my company again that evening. I received the news calmly, dressed a small wound on one of the children who had cut himself when he had tripped on a stone, ate a light meal sitting in the shade outside my cell, and as the day faltered into sunset I submitted to Disenk’s ministrations once more.

I had decided to go to Ramses this time as the white-clad girl he had expected before. Disenk wove ribbons into my loose hair, kohled my eyes very lightly, and dressed me in a modest sheath that covered me from unadorned neck to naked ankles. She did, however, rub yellow saffron oil into my skin so that at every move I exuded an aroma of sensual promise. I wanted to keep the King off guard. Last night I had been the autocratic physician melting into an inexperienced child. Tonight I would send a message of purity overlying a hint of knowing decadence. I left my box behind. I did not intend to exhaust the game of patient and physician. It had months of possibility in it.

The same palace servant came to escort me into the royal presence and I followed him without the trepidation of the night before. The same guards were on the gate into the gardens and on the doors of the bedchamber. Once again they graced me with keen glances as I passed between them. The doors were closed behind me.

This time the haze of recently burned incense hung in Pharaoh’s room, bluish and sweet, and as I paused to perform my obeisance, a priest flanked by two little acolytes was just closing the ornate household shrine that stood in the far corner. They turned and bowed to Ramses, smoking censers still in their hands, and backed out of the main doors. Pharaoh acknowledged them then turned eagerly to me, bidding me rise.

“But where is our noble physician today?” he said jovially, taking my hand and leading me to the couch. “Is she perhaps ministering to some unfortunate and so had to send this charming substitute? I do not know whether to be insulted or gratified!” He was certainly gratified. His round face was flushed and his eyes sparkled in anticipation. I smiled back demurely, eyes lowered.

“She is indeed here, Great Horus,” I answered, “but she has no interest in medicine this night. She has had a taste of other skills, and wishes to learn more.” Do not flatter him, Hunro had warned. All the little girls flatter him, and he is astute enough to recognize their insincerity and be insulted by it. He is not a stupid man. He shot me a piercing glance.

“Hmm,” he said. “Is that a mild sting from the scorpion’s tail or a pat from a kitten whose claws are still inside? Come and sit by me, Thu. You look delicious without all the trappings. Will you take wine? Paibekamun, pour for us!” As the ever-present butler glided to obey, Ramses settled himself beside me on the couch, grinning impishly. “What?” he went on. “The physician will not protest when her God wishes to imbibe the fruit of his vineyards?”

I returned his smile. “The physician is not here,” I answered softly, “and Thu, your lover, will take wine with you gladly.”

“Drink then,” he offered, handing me the brimming cup, and together we sipped the dark red liquid. “I dreamed of you last night,” he said, his brown eyes tender over the rim of his goblet, “and when I awoke I wished that you were lying beside me. Is that not strange?” I answered carefully, aware that I was treading on dangerous ground.

“I am honoured that Your Majesty should consider me worth both desire and dream,” I responded soberly. “I am Your Majesty’s loyal servant.” He must have expected more. He was obviously waiting for me to go on, his head cocked to one side, the smile holding on his face, and it came to me suddenly that I had answered cautiously and well, for his words had been some sort of a test. A fleeting throb of pity for him brushed me and was gone.

“You are wise far beyond your years, Thu,” he said flatly, “and wisdom combined with beauty and extreme youth can be perilous.” Impulsively I laid a hand against his full cheek.

“O Mighty Pharaoh,” I whispered, “If those things are cemented together by an honest heart, how can there be any threat?”

He drew me to him then, nuzzling into my neck, kissing my chin, his hands deep in my hair, and I responded deliberately, pressing against him and winding my arms around him. This time his mouth on mine was familiar and I felt the faintest stirring of pleasure. Yet I would not succumb to it. The key to keeping this man on fire was simple. Put off the moment when his flame would be extinguished for as long as possible. Surely in all the dozens of women at his beck and call there had been a few who realized this! But such manipulation required courage and confidence, the ability to walk the rim of the cliff that fell away into royal anger and thus oblivion. It also required intuition coupled with careful instruction, and I had the advantage of both Hui and Hunro’s cogent advice. I could not afford to enter into the hot, blind morass of Ramses’ lust, be carried with him into that unreasoning void. Not for months to come.

Many times that night I pulled him back from the edge and many times I lured him towards it until at last we toppled over, he in an explosion of prolonged sexual release, and I in a sweat-drenched exhaustion. Both of us were trembling and limp when I crawled out from under him and reached for the wine, holding it to his lips with an unsteady hand and seeing him gulp it down before I drained the cup myself.

“You are not a girl, you are a demon,” he croaked, the last words he said to me as I bowed to him, and clutching the limp folds of my linen around me, backed from the room. With my servant attendant I stumbled along the short passage, hurried past the gate guards, and sucked in great lungsful of the untainted pre-dawn air as I crossed to the harem.

Once my feet found the grass and I was alone I walked to the fountain and without pausing, knelt and plunged my face into the cool water, then I leaned on the basin’s rim and watched the troubled surface grow calm again. As it did so the light was strengthening. Ra was approaching. His new birth was imminent, and the vanguard of his coming was turning the darkness around me into a sullen, shadow-less grey.

My reflection became slowly visible in the rippling water, a blurred, ghostly shape with two black holes for eyes and a twisted, ever-moving slit of a mouth. “Not a girl, a demon,” I whispered to it. “A demon.” It leered back at me, its outline slowly heaving, its expression vacant. I pulled myself upright and made my way to my cell.

Disenk did not wake me and I slept as one dead until the daily bustle of the courtyard penetrated my dreams. Then I forced myself to the bath house, reviving like a wilted flower under the scented warm water Disenk poured over me and the perfumed oils the masseur pounded into my skin. Both the bath houses were full of chattering women at that time of the day and the massage area was choked with them too, slick naked bodies that gleamed like satin in the strong light and gave off a confusion of overpowering aromas that swirled around me and made me feel slightly ill. Some of the women greeted me but I was still the newcomer, the peculiar girl who dispensed medicine, and though I received many smiles, they were either wary or politely preoccupied. I was not sorry when, freshly washed and oiled, my wet hair coiled on my head, I went back to my quarters.

As I approached my door I saw a familiar figure standing outside, arms folded, eyes fixed with monumental indifference on the happy chaos before him. I began to run.

“Harshira!” I shouted as I came up to him. “It is so good to see you! Is all well?” He turned to me gravely and bowed.

“All is well, Thu. The Master is within.” I blinked.

“Here? Hui is here?” I burst over the threshold and threw myself into the arms of the white-bundled figure who was rising from the chair beside my couch. I hardly noticed Hunro, who touched my shoulder as she went out. “Hui!” I breathed, hugging him fiercely. “I have missed you so much! What are you doing here? Why have you sent me no word since I left home?” He returned my embrace and then set me away firmly in true Hui fashion, taking my chin in one gloved hand and turning my face to the light. He studied me for a moment and then let me go.

“You are different,” he said matter-of-factly. “You have changed, my Thu. Disenk, bring us food. Thu, tell me everything.” Feeling completely revitalized I clambered up onto my couch and found the words spilling out of me in a flood. I could not take my eyes from him as he sat there imperturbably and listened. Disenk returned with a tray of something which we ate but I had no idea what I put into my mouth between my rapid sentences.

When I began to describe the last two nights, Hui came alive, questioning me sharply as to what Pharaoh said and did and how I had behaved. I answered unselfconsciously. It was as though I had become Hui’s patient, telling him my symptoms for his diagnosis. “Good,” he said. “Very good. You have done well, my Thu. But you must not drink Pharaoh’s wine again. It is usual for Ramses to make exclusive use of a new concubine for a period of time, but if weeks go by and there is no sign that he is tiring of you, you will begin to attract much attention. Not all of it will be admiring. Be more careful!”