“And what do you suggest I should do?”
He clasped his hands together. “Escape, Rhadopis. Escape before you are carried off to the ruler's palace as a slave girl to be placed in one of his countless rooms where you would live in isolated servitude, waiting your turn once a year, spending the rest of your life in a sad paradise that is really a miserable prison. Were you created, Rhadopis, to live such a life?”
She revolted furiously at the thought of such an affront to her dignity and pride, and wondered if it might really be her misfortune to live such a miserable life.
Would it really be her destiny in the end — she, to whom the cream of Egypt's manhood flocked to woo — to compete with slave girls for the young pharaoh's affection, and content herself with a room in the royal harem? Did she want darkness after light, to be enveloped in destitution after glory, to be satisfied with bondage after complete and utter mastery? Alas, what an abominable thought, an unimaginable eventuality. But would she flee as Tahu wished? Would she be happy with flight? Would Rhadopis, whom they worshipped, whose beauty no other face possessed, and with whose magic no other body was endowed, flee from slavery? Who, then, would crave mastery and power over men's hearts?
Tahu stepped closer. “Rhadopis, what are you saying?” he implored.
She was angry again. “Are you not ashamed, Commander, to incite me to flee from the countenance of your lord?” she mocked.
Her biting sarcasm struck him deep in his heart, and he reeled from the shock. “My lord has not seen you yet, Rhadopis,” he blurted as he felt the bitterness rise in his throat. “As for me, my heart was wrested from me long ago. I am a prisoner of a turbulent love that knows no mercy, that leads me only to ruin and perdition, trampled under the feet of shame and degradation. My breast is a furnace of torment — which burns more fiercely at the thought of losing you forever. If then I urge you to flee, it is to defend my love, and not to betray His Sacred Majesty at all.”
She paid no heed to his complaints, nor to his protestations of loyalty to his lord. She was still angry for her pride, and so when he asked her what she intended to do, she shook her head violently as if to dislodge the malicious whisperings that had taken hold there, and in a cold voice full of confidence, she said, “I will not flee, Tahu.”
The man stood there, grave-faced, astonished, desperate. “Are you to be content with ignominy, prepared to accept humiliation?”
“Rhadopis will never taste humiliation,” she said with a smile on her lips.
Tahu was fuming. “Ah, I understand now. Your old devil has stirred. That devil of vanity and pride and power, that protects itself with the eternal coldness of your heart and relishes to see the pain and torment of others, and sits in judgment of men's fates. It heard Pharaoh's name and rebelled, and now it wishes to test its strength and power, and to prove the supremacy of its accursed beauty, without regard for the crippled hearts and broken spirits and shattered dreams it leaves in its demonic wake. Ah, why do I not put an end to this evil with a single thrust of this dagger?”
She regarded him with a look of composure in her eyes. “I have never denied you anything, and always have I warned you about temptation.”
“This dagger will suffice to calm my soul. What a fitting end it would be for Rhadopis.”
“What a sorry end it would be for Tahu, commander of the royal forces,” she said calmly.
His hard eyes looked at her for a long time. He felt, at that decisive moment, a sense of mortal despair and stifling loss, but he did not allow his anger to get the better of him, and in a cruel cold voice he said, “How ugly you are, Rhadopis. How repulsive and twisted an image you display. Whoever thinks you beautiful is blind, without vision. You are ugly because you are dead, and there is no beauty without life. Life has never flowed through your veins. Your heart has never been warm. You are a corpse with perfect features, but a corpse nevertheless. Compassion has not shone in your eyes, your lips have never parted in pain, nor has your heart felt pity. Your eyes are hard and your heart is made of stone. You are a corpse, damn you! I should hate you, and rue the day I ever loved you. I know well that you will dominate and control wherever your devil wishes you to. But one day you will be brought crashing to the ground, your soul shattered into many pieces. That is the end of everything. Why should I kill you then? Why should I carry the burden of murdering a corpse that is already dead?”
With these words Tahu departed.
Rhadopis listened to his heavy footfall until the silence of the night enveloped her. Then she went back to the window. The darkness was absolute and the stars looked down from their eternal banquet, and in the solemn all-encompassing silence, she thought she could hear secrets fluttering deep in her heart.
There was a power in her, violent with heat and unrest. She was alive, her body throbbing with life, not a dead corpse.
Pharaoh
She opened her eyes and saw darkness. It must still be night. How many hours had she been able to find sleep and tranquility? For a few moments she was not aware of anything at all, she could remember nothing, as if the past was unknown to her just as the future is unknown, and the pitch-black night had consumed her identity. For a — while she felt bewildered and — weary, but then her eyes grew used to the dark and she could perceive a faint light creeping in through the curtains. She could make out the shapes of the furniture and she saw the hanging lamp coated in gold. Her senses suddenly became sharper and she remembered that she had remained awake, her eyelids not tasting sleep until the gentle blue — waves of dawn washed over her. Then she had lain on her bed and sleep had carried her away from her emotions and her dreams. If that were so, it would be well into the next day, or even its evening.
She recalled the events of the previous night. The image of Tahu came back to her, fuming and raging, groaning with despair, threatening hatred and abomination. What a violent man he was, a bully with a brutal temper, madly infatuated. His only fault was that his love was stubborn and persistent, and he was deeply smitten. She sincerely hoped he would forget her or despise her. All she ever gained from love was pain. Everyone yearned for her heart and her heart remained unapproachable and aloof, like an untamed animal. How often she had been forced to plunge into disturbing scenarios and painful tragedies even though she hated it. But tragedy had followed her like a shadow, hovering around her like her deepest thoughts, spoiling her life with its cruelty and pain.
Then she remembered what Tahu had said about young Pharaoh and how he had desired to see the woman the sandal belonged to, and that he would summon her eventually to join his thriving harem. Ah, Pharaoh — was a young man — with fire in his blood and impetuosity in his mind, or so she had been told. It was no wonder Tahu had said what he had, and it was not impossible to believe it either, but she wondered whether events might not take a different course. Her faith in herself knew no bounds.
She heard a knock at the door. “Shayth,” she called lazily. “Come in.”
The slave opened the door and, stepping into the room with her familiar nimble gait, said, “Lord have mercy on you, my lady. You must be famished.”
Shayth opened the window. The light that came in was already fading. “The sun went down today without seeing you,” she laughed. “He wasted his journey to the earth.”
“Is it evening?” asked Rhadopis, stretching and yawning.
“Yes, my lady. Now, are you going to the perfumed water, or would you like to eat? It's a pity, but I know what kept you awake last night.”
“What was it, Shayth?” asked Rhadopis with interest.