The messenger
The next morning broke and the air was cold. The sky was wrapped in robes of cloud, white and incandescent above the source of the sun, like an innocent face — whose expression announces the inner thoughts, — while the distant horizon — was darker as if the tails of night lingered still as it withdrew.
A great task awaited her, but her heart was not inclined toward it, nor was the purification she had undergone that day at the temple pleased with it. Had she not sworn to wash away the past — with all its stains? And here she — was, — waiting to deceive Benamun, and to play with his emotions in order to serve her love and bring her goal to fruition. She did not hesitate in the slightest though, for she was in a race against time. Her love meant more to her than anything else and she was prepared to use bitter cruelty for its sake. She left her chamber for the summer room, supremely confident. It would not require much guile to seduce Benamun. It would be easy.
She walked in on her tiptoes and found him looking at her picture, singing a song that she used to sing on evenings long ago:
She was taken aback by his singing, but she made use of the opportunity and sang the rest of the verse:
The young man turned to her, startled, bewitched. She met him with a sweet laugh and said, “You have a beautiful voice. How have you managed to hide it from me all these days?”
The blood rushed to his cheeks, and his lips trembled with consternation as he reacted to her kind affection — with amazement.
She understood what he was thinking and she continued her enticement. “I see you enjoying a song, and neglecting your work,” she said.
A look of denial appeared on his face, and he pointed to the picture he had engraved and mumbled, “Look.”
The picture had become a beautiful face, almost lifelike. “How gifted you are, Benamun,” she said in admiration.
He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, my lady.”
Then, steering the conversation toward her intention, she said, “But you have been cruel to me, Benamun.”
“I? How my lady?”
“You have made me look oppressive,” she said, “and I so wanted to look like a dove.”
He was silent, and did not say a word. She interpreted his silence to suit her purpose, and said, “Did I not say you have been cruel to me? How do you see me, Benamun? Oppressive, cruel, and beautiful as in this image you have made? What a picture it is. I am amazed how the stone speaks. But you imagine that my heart does not feel, just like this stone, do you not? Do not deny it. That is your belief. But why, Benamun?”
He did not know what to say. Silence overcame him. She was putting her ideas into his mind, and he believed them and was drawn toward her as he grew more muddled and confused.
“Why do you think I am cruel, Benamun?” she went on. “You believe in appearances, because by your nature you cannot conceal that which stirs in your breast. I have read your face like the page of an open book. But we possess another nature, and openness loses us the sweet taste of victory, and spoils the most beautiful things the gods have created for us.”
Young Benamun asked himself in bewilderment what she could possibly mean, and whether or not he should understand from her speech what her words actually implied. Had she not been sitting there before him every day, her eyes and mind forever distracted? She had not sensed the fire raging in his being then. What had made her change? Why was she saying these delicious words to him? Why was she coming so near the sweet secrets that burned in his heart? Did she really mean — what she was saying, did she really mean what he had understood her words to mean?
Rhadopis moved another step forward. “Ah, Benamun,” she said. “You are being cruel to me. It is clear from the silence — with which you answer me.”
He gazed at her in bewilderment and tears of joy almost flooded his eyes. He knew for certain his thoughts had been correct. “There are not enough — words in the — world to express — what I feel,” he said in a trembling voice.
She breathed a sigh of relief that she had loosened the knot on his tongue, and said dreamily, “What need have you of words? You will not say anything I do not know. Let us ask the summer room, for she has seen us for months and we have left in her body a trace of our hearts forever. Yes, here you have learned a solemn secret.”
She looked into his face for a short moment then she said, “Do you know, Benamun, how I learned the secret of my heart? It was by way of a surprising coincidence. I have a personal letter I want to send to someone in a distant place, and to send it with a messenger I can rely on, someone my heart trusts. I was sitting alone, reviewing in my mind different people, men and women, slaves and freemen, and at each one I would feel uneasy, that they were not right for the task, then, I do not know why, my mind wandered to this room, and all of a sudden I remembered you, Benamun. My mind was assured and my heart at peace. Indeed, I felt something even deeper than that. Thus did I learn the secret of my heart.”
The young man's face was awash with joy and he felt happiness almost to the point of delirium. He dropped to his knees before her and cried out from the depths of his heart, “My lady.”
And placing her hand on his head she said tenderly, “That is how I knew the secret of my heart. I wonder how I did not know it from long ago.”
“My lady,” said Benamun, lost in his trancelike state, “I swear the night witnessed me convulsed with anguish, and now the dawn is here, greeting me with a breeze of sweet-scented joy. The words you have uttered have brought me out of darkness into light, transported me from the gloomy depths of despair to a magical sensation of happiness. I can love myself again after I was on the brink of perdition. You are my happiness, my dream, my hope.”
She listened to him, sad and silent. She felt he was reciting a fervent prayer, as though he were floating in an ignorance of naive, sacred dream. She was quiet for a while, feeling some pain and regret, but she did not give in to the emotions he had stirred in her heart with his rapture, and deviously she said, “I am surprised that I did not know my heart for so long, and I wonder at the coincidences that did not apprise me of its secret until I needed to send you on a mission far away. It is as if they led me to you, and deprived me of you at one and the same time.”
“I will do whatever you will with my heart and soul,” he said in a tone that was like worship.
After a moment's hesitation she asked, “Even if what I want is for you to travel to a land you will only reach with great difficulty?
“The only difficult thing will be not seeing you every morning.”
“Let it be a temporary absence. I will give you a letter you will keep by your breast. You will go to the governor of the island with a word from me. He will direct you on your way and smooth out any difficulties.
“You will travel with a caravan, not a single one of whom shall know what is by your breast until you reach the governor of Nubia and deliver the dispatch into his hand. Then come back to me.”
Benamun felt a new joy mingled with feelings of dignity and pride. Her hand was nearby and he fell upon it with his mouth and kissed it passionately. She saw him tremble violently when his lips touched her hand.