"Of course," said Samlor, irriated at having been so tart a moment before.
The crowd cheered, and Ahwere glanced at her husband across the crying visage of their son.
CHAPTER 13
"WE'RE SO HONORED by the presence of your highness," said Tekhao's wife-for at least the third time during the course of the banquet-while her beaming husband served Samlor the dessert, a compote of limes and white grapes, with his own hands. The other priests, temple administrators, and wives watched the two couples at the high table with expressions of awe and envy as their temperaments dictated.
"Perhaps you can tell me, Tekhao," said Ahwere as she accepted the ladleful of fruit the chief priest was offering. "There's an odd-looking wall next to the dock. Well, near it. What do you use that for?"
Tekhao sat down and filled his own cup from the serving bowl. "An involved question, your highness," he answered with a smirk in his voice. "In a manner of speaking, we don't use it; but in another way it is the reason a temple of Tatenen is located here."
He had forgotten to serve his own wife. Her scowl was one that would wake thunder later when the couple was alone, but now she said sweetly to Samlor, "A child is always such a responsibility, Prince Nanefer, and for you, knowing that your lovely boy will succeed you as king, well. . The State is fortunate that such a responsibility is in hands so capable."
Samlor managed a smile. His mouth was full of fruit and his attention was focused on the explanation the priest was giving Ah were.
"You see, your highness," Tekhaosaid, "we didn't build the wall. That is, human beings didn't. It was placed on Earth by Tatenen himself when he created the cosmos."
Tekhao permitted himself a brief smile to indicate to his visitors that he was too sophisticated to believe such a myth-if they were-but without committing himself to heresy if Ah were and her husband took a rigidly accepting approach to their religion.
Ah were's nod was no certain indication either way, so the chief priest went on in factual neutrality. "The wall is only a hundred feet long, to be sure, but the stones in its fabric are of exceptional size. There are a few buildings in the capital as massively constructed, but nothing whatever here on the Lower River. And even in Napata, the close fit between the individual stones would be considered remarkable. It is-"
Tekhao paused to consider his words. "It is said," he continued, "that Tatenen made the stones soft for a moment after he put them in place, so that the surfaces flowed together. Despite weathering, there is no place in the wall that a knife will slip further than a fingertip between the layers."
"But there's a face on it, isn't there?" Ahwere asked. "Was that always there?"
Samlor couldn't tell whether Ahwere were just making conversation, or if she had a suspicion of what he intended-but would not ask her husband directly.
"Yes indeed, your highness," Tekhao said. "The face of Tatenen himself, ah-it is said. Stamped onto the stone with his, ah, seal ring as his final act of creation."
The chief priest's wife stood up and stumped heavily across the front of the table to reach the fruit compote. One of the servants standing behind the diners' chairs would have served her had she flicked a finger toward him-but that wouldn't have given her the opportunity to glare straight into her husband's eyes.
"There was once a ceremony," continued Tekhao. Only a tic of his right cheek betrayed his awareness of his wife's displeasure. "The Cleansing of the Face, it was called.
Every year the nearby villages brought offerings which they cast into the river, and they scrubbed the face clean. Horrible waste. Ah, the offerings, that is."
"Now the ceremony is held here in the temple," said Tekhao's wife brightly, joining the conversation as a better way of getting attention than glowering from her end of the table. "It's much nicer. Though still very colorful, of course."
"Ah, yes," agreed Tekhao with a hint of well-deserved embarrassment. "It seemed more fitting that the ceremony be held here in the temple enclosure. Of course, we know that Tatenen is everywhere, not in an idol or a, or a face on a wall. But it makes it easier for the common villagers to carry out their duties to the god if they associate him with the, ah, house where their offerings are deposited."
"The wall," said Samlor, "is thought to be the dam which Tatenen built to separate the realm of men from the realm of gods."
Tekhao blinked and turned to face Samlor. "Yes, your highness," he said. "That is said. Though-" his round face became as neutral as an expanse of flooring " – nothing is behind the stone except earth. There have been, ah, examinations. Muddy earth."
Samlor nodded calmly.
Ahwere was looking at him past the chief priest's head. Her face was gray with fear.
CHAPTER 14
MERIB WAS ASLEEP, but they could hear the nurse singing to him in the room beyond the doorway screened by reed matting.
Ahwere began to cry softly.
Samlor touched her shoulders from behind, then began to massage them gently as he moved closer.
She turned, throwing her arms around him and burying her face against his chest. "Oh, Nanefer," she said through her sobs. "My prince, my brother, my only love…"
"Don't be afraid," Samlor whispered, bending to kiss her forehead and eyelid. "There isn't anything to fear."
"We're going to enter the realm of the gods, aren't we?" she said, looking up at him. Her eyes, her jewels, and the tears on her cheeks were all that was visible in the screened moonlight.
"Yes," said Samlor simply. "I am. There's no need for you to go with me, though. Shay will do as I order, and-"
"Would you leave me behind then?" Ahwere demanded fiercely. "Watch you go off to die and never return? Is that what you want?" Fresh tears were welling up even though she was so angry that Samlor thought she might strike him.
"I'm not going to die, my darling," he said, trying to ease her close to him again. She resisted only for a moment. "I'm going to come back with the Book of Tatenen. I just don't want to force you to help me in this if you'd rather not."
"Rather leave you?" Ahwere said, but this time wijhra lilt of joyous remembrance in her voice. "The way I left you when our father would have married you to a governor's daughter and me to a general?"
Samlor smiled and quoted King Merneb, " 'Shall I marry my son to my daughter and risk all my happiness at once? No, I don't dare risk the gods' envy that way."
"And it was 1 who made him change his mind," said Ahwere, "so that you and I could find happiness with the only souls on earth who could make us happy. I will not leave you now."
They kissed. Lips still joined, they moved toward the bed, shedding their clothes with increasing urgency.
CHAPTER 15
SAMLOR WAS so engrossed that he did not notice when Ahwere entered his work area, the flat roof of one of the temple buildings-now screened so that direct sun would not melt the hard yellow wax. He had shaped a section of the bow and was reaching for another block of material when he realized that his wife was watching him with a slight smile.
He started, dropping the baton with which he formed the wax into a perfect simulacrum of a wood surface.
Ahwere's face clouded. "I'm sorry," she blurted, turning toward the stairs again. "I didn't mean-"
Samlor caught her in his arms. "No," he said, "don't go. You should see this, if you want to. 1 was just- concentrating on what I was doing."
The smile that returned was shaky, but Ahwere allowed herself to be drawn close to what Samlor was constructing.
It was a boat, small but otherwise similar to the vessel which was docked at the temple quay-except that this one was built of wax. Samlor had fitted the flat bottom, shaping the pyramidal cakes of wax into a perfect duplicate of irregular, pegged-together planks of sycamore wood. Now he was raising the slanting wales, starting from the bow.