Sunrise on the Mediterranean (40 page)

I reached the bottom step, blinking in the darkness. I knew by the sound of water that the well was here. Women before me
in line filled their jars. I could barely see them since the room was lit by only two torches. We danced around each other
as each group or person filled their jars, then climbed back up the stairs.

A Jebusi soldier, seated comfortably beside the well, whittled away, sparing us the occasional glance. The lazy weasel!

As my eyes adjusted, I saw the layout. A platform of wood, approximately two feet by four feet, capped the well. This wooden
cover was fixed into the stone with copper bolts as thick as my wrists. Within the framework of the large wooden covering,
a smaller aperture was cut—the hole for drawing water. You could close this opening and never know there was a well.

The really bad news was that the inside space was maybe eight inches square—even a healthy rat couldn’t make it through that!
I noticed that there was a separate bucket for drawing water, then you poured it into your receptacle of choice before hauling
it upstairs.

There was no way someone could get up from the water source into the city.

I was a dead woman.

My eyes filled with tears as I thought of how I’d have no choices—I had to go to Midian, meet up with Cheftu there. I had
to sneak out tonight, before they knew what I was up to. Oh God; I set my jar down before I dropped it.

The girl standing in line ahead of me was about six months pregnant. I watched her struggle with the jar, but her belly was
too big to hoist it. The other women ignored her, which angered me. I stepped forward and picked it up, groaning as I helped
her adjust it on her shoulder.

“Todah,”
she whispered, not meeting my gaze.

I murmured that it was nothing and edged out of her way. The townswomen had fallen silent, watching us. My heart was in shock;
my arms already hurt. I just kept staring at the small opening; this was the entryway? Even if I dieted for a year, I wouldn’t
fit through. The desire to wail was almost uncontrollable. Wacky as it was, I’d almost talked myself into thinking I could
do this, invade the city.

Laboriously I filled my jar, bucket by bucket. As I had seen women do and as I had practiced, I knelt on one knee, my back
straight. Then I edged the jar up my arm and onto my shoulder. Forcing my knees not to buckle, I got to my feet.

This was only half-full? I staggered away from the well. This was agony.

I hoped my copious sweating didn’t melt my disguise off, literally. Not that it mattered.

I was a dead woman.

AKHETATEN

T
HE PRIEST STOOD
before Smenkhare again: the high priest of an outlawed god, the god who ironically was going to outlive them all. Things
had changed so quickly. Plague, ostensibly, had taken away the high priest of Aten and also Akhenaten’s granddaughter, who
had been borne by his daughter.

These double deaths, so close to Pharaoh, had convinced even the most loyal followers of the Aten that Akhenaten had offended
the sun god. This city in the plain was emptying like water trickling from a cracked jar. Each time one looked up, there were
fewer citizens than before. RaEm’s beloved’s dream was dying; Pharaoh was killing her dreams also.

The priest was here. Time was running down.

“What lies do you come to spew this time, Horetaten?” RaEm knew he hated when she changed the nomen in his name from Horetamun
to a more fitting name for this court: Horetaten. However, it was a more realistic way for her to behave with an audience
of courtiers.

“I see my”—he cleared his throat—“Lord Smenkhare is as gracious and forgiving as ever.”

“What part of my ruling and reigning as co-regent of Egypt, living in the light of the Aten forever! does your feeble brain
fail to comprehend? Address me properly, Horetaten.”

He bowed his head. “My Majesty. I see the Aten has blessed your nature so that you are even more compassionate than I recalled.”

“Should you ever seek forgiveness, you might find me so. Why are you here?”

“You know the seasons. Pharaoh, officially, should prepare to sail the barque down for the god’s holiday.”

RaEm glanced at the courtiers and nobles, all bored, watching this scene that they had seen many a time with priest after
priest. The former religions of Egypt had not ceased in trying to lobby for their deities as consorts, or courtiers, of the
Aten. RaEm wished for wine. “He no longer acknowledges that god.”

Horet dared to step closer to the throne, lowering his voice so that even the scribes couldn’t hear it. “Egypt will no longer
acknowledge him.” There was no venom in his gaze; instead his eyes were imploring. RaEm felt the blood in her body chilling.
Was this the day? Could nothing else be done?

She took a cup of wine and sipped, hoping the high priest was here for other reasons, not the one she feared. There had to
be more time; she didn’t know, she hadn’t found the answers they wanted!

Horetaten was unflappable. RaEm had a good mind to imprison him, just to see his color change. Such an action would be foolish,
petty even. She finished her wine, feeling it flood into her veins, ease her fury.

With a wave of her hand she dismissed the roomful of soldiers, nobles, maids, scribes, courtiers, and slaves.

“What do you seek, Horet?” She heard the edge of exhaustion in her tone. Indeed, between spending the night sating Akhenaten,
then rising at dawn for prayers to the Aten, before devoting the day to audiences in hopes of straightening out the kingdom,
interspersed with endless feasting, drinking, and carousing until Akhetaten returned her to bed for his pleasure, she spent
most days at tears’ edge.

The last thing she needed was more intrigue. The wives schemed, the children plotted, the soldiers had their motives and plans,
the nobles had theirs. Akhenaten remained a giant child, playing in the sand castle he’d built, with no understanding of how
his people loathed him. Nor did he care.

As a priestess in Hatshepsut’s Egypt she had thrived on the gossip and scheming of the court. Then, however, Egypt had been
healthy, at peace, rich beyond imagining, full of ideas, beautiful people, and power.

Now Egypt was riddled on every side with skirmishes, poor beyond bearing, tolerant of only one idea, and lacking beautiful
people. Power was an illusion. The sport of palace life was gone; all that remained were the realities of hunger, poverty,
and illness. “Why are you here?” she repeated.

“My Majesty,” he said, affording her the title she was due, the title for which she had paid blood, “Waset calls for a new
ruler, a new king to lift the burden of these poisonous years from us while yet there is time.”

No longer were his words couched; there was no delicacy in handling the situation now. RaEm felt her fear grow. She clenched
the crook and flail in her hands, forcing her breathing to be even.

Always, Waset had ruled Egypt. There dwelt the nobility from generations before. There resided the hundreds and thousands
of priests and soldiers. There were the temples laden with gold, filled with magic and secrets. There, the lifeblood of Egypt
flowed between the land of the living and the City of the Dead. Akhenaten hadn’t been able to change that, at least not for
long.

“I grieved for you at the death of Meryaten,” he said. RaEm shot him a quick look—did he guess? She bowed her head.

“It was a valiant, brave effort to extend the Aten’s reign,” he said. “But it failed. There were no children, and Egypt needs
new blood. Stronger, healthy blood.”

“There is only the boy,” RaEm said, weary beyond endurance. “With only his sister to wed.”

“How many years is he?”

“Seven.”

“She?”

“Eleven.”

Horet sighed. “I love Egypt, My Majesty. I was not one of those who fought when taxes to the temples were cut. Nor did I protest
when my brothers in the priesthood began spending more time at their homes instead of serving the god, because there were
no worshipers and no gold.” He crossed his arms. “The temples had grown too powerful. Decision making had been taken from
the court of Pharaoh and placed in the back gardens of the priests.” His brown eyes were open. “It was not right.” He glanced
up. “Amun sought for Ma’at to be restored.”

Horet gestured. “This pendulum swings to the north, then to the south, before centering on the navel of Geb, the earth.”

RaEm sipped from her glass, only to realize it was empty. “Pharaoh, living forever! swung too far,” Horet said, a little more
metal in his tone. “The time has come to center Egypt once more. She is ravaged.” He stepped forward, dropping to his knees,
bowing on his face as he should have done but had chosen not to. “I love these red and black lands more than any woman, more
than any god.” He looked up again, his cheeks wet with tears. “I would be nameless in the afterlife—”

RaEm gasped.

“—rather than have her bleed further.”

“Do you know what curse you lay on yourself?” she whispered as she glanced into the shadowed corners of the room. “Nameless?”
It was the greatest fear of an Egyptian to have no name, no identity, before the gods. Nameless meant that one would be destroyed,
consumed by the Devourer. Then one’s deepest self would wander, weeping and lost, throughout eternity. It was a heinous end.

“I will do anything to turn Egypt from this cliff of destruction,” he said.

RaEm’s heart thudded in her breast. Egypt, the land of her roots, that she knew in her blood, whose soil she ate, or Akhenaten,
the man she adored, body, soul, and mind? “How much time?”

Horet looked away. “Months at best. The nobles have returned from Akhetaten to Waset. The power base of Pharaoh’s support
is gone.”

She agreed silently.

“There is one below me, an avaricious man whose hatred of Pharaoh knows no bounds. He would strike even at me, if he knew
I were here.”

She nodded once. “Would gold ease the pains?”

“Ease them only, My Majesty. It would only postpone the inevitable.”

“Aye, I understand, but we need the time for Tuti to grow, and perhaps—” However, RaEm realized, Akhenaten would never change.
There was no possibility of his becoming more rational, more reasoned.

Was there the chance that she could reign as Pharaoh alone?

He nodded thoughtfully. “Were they better fed, the diseases would not claim so many. Gold could also be used to restore some
of the smaller temples.”

“Aye, opening them again would soothe …” RaEm fell silent. Her very words were a betrayal of Akhenaten. But it must be done.
She closed her eyes, unable to stop the few tears. Horet waited in silence. She sniffed for a moment as she regained control.

“Gold could bandage many of Egypt’s wounds,” Horet said. “Where is it?”

RaEm sighed. As Sky TV would say, that was the million-dollar question. The mines were picked almost clean, and the gold in
the temples was not accessible. The treasury was empty, and no tributes had arrived, save piddling trinkets. Egypt had lost
her throne as a worthy power. For twenty years she had ignored the world.

So the world had moved on.

“I don’t have it yet.”

He threw up his hands in disgust. “I cannot hold back a tide of fury on mere promises!” He glared at her, stepping back and
pacing—daring to turn his back on her. “For a moment I thought you understood, that you agreed! That was our agreement,
haii?
Egypt is dying! Murdered by this, this …” He spun on his heel.

“The people are starving. The temples are ruins. We’ve lost sons and brothers and fathers to endless skirmishes that aren’t
even acknowledged as battles!” He turned to her. “I come to you, to plead for the land Pharaoh is sworn to consider above
all other concerns. And you mock me!” He was crying again, tears streaming unchecked down his cheeks. “It would mean my life
were I found here, speaking with you. I am the only pebble holding back the river, woman. Build me a corvée, or we will all
drown.”

RaEm got off the throne. Her kilt, carefully shaped to fit becomingly on the chair, fell into a mass of wrinkles with her
movement. She stepped down one step, a jeweled foot resting by her footstool.

Carefully she laid her more delicate versions of the crook and flail on the throne, then looked down into his eyes. “I will
get you gold. I do not know where, but I have heard rumors.” She ground her teeth. “More than you, if one word of this conversation
were repeated, then I would die. Drawn and quartered after spending a week in an ant pit, I assure you.” She stepped down
again, still taller than he. “Keep the river from overflowing for a few more months, I beg you. I will provide the gold.”

He looked at her; RaEm thought of the mess that tears could make of kohl and feared she looked more of a specter than a co-regent
of the living god. “Tuti’s marriage to Akhenespa’aten can be announced by time of flooding,” RaEm offered.

“It will not put off the need for gold,” he warned.

They stared at each other. He was a young man, though the lines of worry had creased his cheeks, drawn grooves along his forehead.
His brows were dark, as were his eyelashes. Again RaEm felt no personal interest emanating from this man. His gaze was limpid
and pure, that of a child’s.