Sofkhatep eyed his colleague with a sly self-satisfied look, then said calmly, “Coincidence? Why, the very word, my lord, is seriously overused. It is taken to imply blind stumbling into the unexpected, yet nevertheless is invariably employed to explain the happiest encounters and the most glorious catastrophes. Nothing is left in the hands of the gods except the rarest minimum of logical events. It cannot, however, be so, my lord, for every event in this world is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, contrived by the will of a god or gods, and it is not possible that the gods would create any event, however great or paltry, in vain or jest.”
Tahu was furious, and scarcely managing to stem the flood of insane anger that threatened to scatter his composure in the presence of the king, he said to Sofkhatep in a tone displaying censure and rebuke, “Do you, mighty Sofkhatep, wish to occupy the mind of my lord at this most auspicious hour, with such nonsense?”
“Life is seriousness and jest,” said Sofkhatep quietly, “just as the day contains light and darkness. It is a wise man who in times of seriousness does not remember those things that bring him pleasure, and does not spoil the purity of his pleasure with matters of gravity. Who knows, great general, perhaps the gods have known all along about His Majesty's love of beauty and have sent to him this sandal at the hands of this wondrous falcon.”
The king looked into their faces and, in an effort to bring some levity to the proceedings, said, “Will the two of you never agree for once? Be it as you wish, but in Tahu the younger man, I would have thought to find one inciting me to love, and in Sofkhatep the elder, one discouraging me from it. In any case, I feel I must incline to Sofkhatep's views on love, as I incline to Tahu's views on politics.”
As the king rose, the two men stood up. He looked at the vast garden as it bade farewell to the sun dipping over the western horizon.
“We have a hard night's work ahead of us,” he said as he started to walk away. “Until tomorrow, and we shall see.”
Pharaoh departed with the sandal in his hand and the two men bowed reverently.
They found themselves alone once again facing each other — Tahu with his tall stature, broad chest, and steel muscles; and Sofkhatep, fine and slender with his deep, clear eyes and his great, beautiful smile.
Each of them knew what was going through the other's mind. Sofkhatep smiled and Tahu's brow knit into a frown, for the general could not take his leave of the chamberlain without saying something to unburden his troubled mind: “You have betrayed me, Sofkhatep, friend, after you could not confront me face-to-face.”
Sofkhatep raised his eyebrows in denial and said, “How far your words are from the truth, General. What do I know of love? Do you not know that I am a fading old man, and that my grandson Seneb is a student at the university in On?”
“How easy it is for you to weave words, my friend, but the truth scoffs at that wise old tongue of yours. Was not your young heart once enamored of Rhadopis? Did it not grieve you that she gave to me that affection you did not win?”
The old man raised his hands in protest at the general's words saying, “Your imagination is not any smaller than the muscles on your right forearm, and the truth is, that if my heart ever once inclined to that courtesan, it was in the way of the wise who do not know greed.”
“Would it not have been more becoming of you if you had not beguiled His Majesty's mind with her beauty out of respect for me?”
Sofkhatep looked surprised, and he spoke with true regret and concern, “Is it true that you find the matter so serious or have you had enough of my jesting?”
“Neither one nor the other, sir, but it grieves me that we always differ.”
The lord chamberlain smiled, and said with his characteristic stoicism, “We shall always be bound by one unbreakable tie: loyalty to he who sits upon the throne.”
The palace of Biga
Pharaoh's cortege drew out of sight. The statues of the kings of the Sixth Dynasty were removed and the people pushed forward from both sides of the road to converge like waves, their breaths mingling, as if they were the sea parted by Moses pouring down upon the heads of his enemies. Rhadopis ordered her slaves to return to the barge. The flush of excitement that had engulfed her heart when Pharaoh appeared remained like a flame, pumping hot blood all through her body. He was just as she had imagined, a fresh young man with proud eyes, lithe figure, and sinewy well-defined muscles.
She had seen him before, on the day of the grand coronation a few months previously. He was standing in his chariot as he had today, tall and exceedingly handsome as he gazed into the distant horizon. That day she had wished, as she had wished today, that his eye might fall upon her.
She wondered why. Was it because she longed for her beauty to win the honor and esteem it deserved, or was it because she wanted deep down inside to see him as a human being, after having beheld him in all the sacredness of the gods, as one deserving of her worship? How would one ever understand such a longing, and did it really matter? For whatever its true nature, she wished it honestly, and she wished it with sincerity and great desire.
The courtesan remained absorbed in her reverie for a while, blissfully unaware of her small entourage struggling to make its way through the heaving crowd, and paying not the slightest attention to the thousands who, greedily and with great savoring, almost swallowed her up. She was carried onto her barge and stepped off the palanquin and into the cabin, where she sat down upon her small throne as if in a trance, hearing but not listening, looking but not seeing. The boat slipped through the calm waters of the Nile until it berthed at the steps leading up into the garden of her white palace, the pearl of the island of Biga.
The palace could be seen at the far end of the lush garden, which stretched right down to the banks of the river. It was surrounded by sycamores, and tall palm trees swayed in the breeze above so that it looked like a white flower blossoming in a luxuriant bower. She walked down the gangplank and stepped on to the polished marble stairway that led up between two granite walls into the garden. On either side were high obelisks engraved with the fine poetry of Ramon Hotep. Finally she reached the velvet lawns of the garden.
She passed through a limestone gateway upon which her name was carved in the sacred language. Set in the middle was a life-size statue of herself, sculpted by Henfer. The time he had spent working on it had been the happiest days of his life. He had depicted her sitting upon her throne as she was wont to do when receiving her guests. He had brilliantly captured the extraordinary beauty of her face, the firmness of her breasts, and her delicate feet. She emerged on a path lined on either side with trees whose branches had met and intertwined to shade those strolling below from the sun with a ceiling of flowers and green leaves. The ground was covered with grass and herbs, and to the right and left, other paths of the same description led off, those on the right to the garden's south wall and those on the left to its north wall. The path she had taken led to a vineyard where grapes clambered over trellises set on marble columns. A wood of sycamore spread out to her right and a grove of palms to her left, wherein had been built here and there pens for monkeys and gazelles, while statues and obelisks stood all around the borders, which seemed to extend as far as the eye could see.
Finally her feet led her to a pool of clear water. Lotus plants grew around the edges, and geese and ducks glided across the surface, while birds sang in the trees and the sweet smell of perfume mingled in the air with the nightingale's song.