'Don't you stand there grinning at me!' she flared at me. 'I am so truly angry that I could order you flogged.' She stamped her foot again, and I felt the tiredness fall from my shoulders like a heavy load. Her mere presence had the power to revitalize me.
'My lady, what a wondrous role you played this night. It seemed to me and all who watched you that it was indeed the divine goddess that walked amongst us?'
'Don't you dare try your tricks with me.' She stamped for the third time, but without conviction. 'You'll not wriggle out of this so easily?'
'Truly, my lady, as I walked back from the temple through the crowded streets, your name was on every tongue. They said your singing was the finest they had ever heard, and had quite stolen every heart.'
'I believe not a word,' she declared, but she was clearly having difficulty sustaining her fury. 'In fact I thought my voice was awful this evening. I was flat at least once, and off-key on numerous?'
'I must contradict you, mistress. You were never better. And what beauty! It lit the whole temple.' She is not truly vain, my Lady Lostris, but she is a woman.
'You awful man!' she cried in exasperation. 'I was ready to have you flogged this time, I truly was. But come and sit beside me on the bed and tell me all about it. I am still so excited that I am sure I will not sleep for a week.' She took my hand and led me to the bed, babbling on happily about Tanus, and how he must have won every heart as well as Pharaoh's with his wonderful performance and fearless speech, and how the infant Horus had beshat her dress, and did I truly think that she had sung even passing well, and wasn't I just saying so?
At last I had to stop her. 'My lady, it is almost dawn and we must be ready to leave with all the court to accompany the king when he crosses the river to inspect his funerary temple and his tomb. You must get some sleep if you are to look your best on such an important state occasion.'
'I'm not sleepy, Taita,' she protested, and went chattering on, only to slump against my shoulder a few minutes later, fallen asleep in mid-sentence.
Gently, I slipped her head down on to the carved wooden headrest and covered her with a rug of colobus monkey furs. I could not bring myself to leave immediately but hovered beside her bed. At last I placed a gentle kiss upon her cheek. She did not open her eyes, but whispered sleepily, 'Do you think there will be an opportunity for me to speak to the king tomorrow? Only he will be able to prevent my father sending Tanus away.'
I could think of no ready answer for her, and while I still dithered, she fell fully asleep.
I COULD SCARCELY DRAG MYSELF FROM my couch at dawn, for I seemed barely to have closed my eyes to sleep before it was time to open them again. My reflection in the bronze mirror was haggard and my eyes were underscored in purple. Swiftly I touched on make-up to cover the worst of my sorry condition, enhancing the hollows of my eyes with kohl and my pale features with a brushing of antimony. Two of the slave boys combed out my hair and I was so pleased with the result that I felt almost cheerful as I hurried down to the grand vizier's private dock where the great state barge lay moored.
I was amongst the last to join the throng upon the quay, but no one seemed to notice my late arrival, not even my Lady Lostris who was already on the deck of the barge. I watched her for a while.
She had been invited to join the royal women. These comprised not only the king's wives, but his numerous- concubines and all his daughters. Of course these last were the cause of much of Pharaoh's unhappiness, a flock of them ranging in age from crawlers and toddlers to others of marriageable age, and not a son amongst them. How was Pharaoh's immortality to be maintained without a male line to carry it forward?
It was difficult to believe that, like me, Lostris had not slept more than an hour or two, for she seemed as sweet and fresh as one of the desert roses in my garden. Even in mat glittering array of feminine beauty that had been hand-picked by Pharaoh's factors or sent to him in tribute by his satraps at the ends of the empire, Lostris stood out like a swallow in a flock of drab little desert larks.
I looked for Tanus, but his squadron was already lying well upstream, ready to escort Pharaoh's crossing, and the reflection of the rising sun turned the surface of the river into a dazzling silver sheet that blinded the eye. I could not look into it.
At that moment there was the steady boom of a drum, and the populace craned to watch Pharaoh's stately progress down from the palace to the royal barge.
This morning he wore the light nemes crown of starched and folded linen, secured around his forehead with the gold band of the uraeus. The erect golden cobra, with its hood flared and its garnet eyes glittering, rose up from his brow. The cobra was the symbol of the powers of life and death that Pharaoh held over his subjects. The king was not carrying the crook and flail, only the golden sceptre. After the double crown itself, this was the most holy treasure of all the crown jewels and was reputed to be over a thousand years old.
Despite all the regalia and the ceremonial, Pharaoh wore no make-up. Under the direct rays of the early sun, and without make-up to disguise the fact, Mamose himself was unremarkable. Just a soft little godling of late middle age, with a small round paunch bulging over the waistband of his kilt and features intricately carved with lines of worry.
As he passed where I stood, it seemed he recognized me, for he nodded slightly. I immediately prostrated myself on the paving, and he paused and made a sign for me to approach. I crawled forward on hands and knees, and knocked my forehead three times on the ground at his feet.
'Are you not Taita, the poet?' he asked in that thin and petulant voice of his.
'I am Taita the slave, your Majesty,' I replied. There are times when a little humility is called for. 'But I am also a poor scribbler.'
'Well, Taita the slave, you scribbled to good effect last night. I have never been so well entertained by a pageant. I shall issue a royal edict declaring your poor scribblings to be the official version.'
He announced this loud enough for all the court to hear, and even my Lord Intef, who followed him closely, beamed with pleasure. As I was his slave, the honour belonged to him more than to me. However, Pharaoh was not finished with me yet.
'Tell me, Taita the slave, are you not also the same surgeon who recently prescribed to me?'
'Majesty, I am that same humble slave who has the temerity to practise a little medicine.'
"Then when shall your cure take effect?' He dropped his voice so that only I could hear the question.
'Majesty, the event wiE take place nine months after you have fulfilled all those conditions that I listed for you.' As we were now in a surgeon-and-patient relationship, I felt emboldened to add, 'Have you followed the diet I set you?'
'By Isis' bountiful breasts!' he exclaimed with an unexpected twinkle in his eye. 'I am so full of bull's balls, it is a wonder that I do not bellow when a herd of cows passes the palace.'
He was in such pleasant mood that I tried a little joke of my own. 'Has Pharaoh found the heifer I suggested?'
'Alas, doctor, it is not as simple as it would seem. The prettiest flowers are soonest visited by the bee. You did stipulate that she must be completely untouched, did you not?'