And yet she hardly could believe that the day would pass. She had waited a month for the messenger to return and though the passing ofthat time had been grueling and intolerable, these few hours were cruder and more unsettling than anything she had experienced. Nevertheless, there was some relief mixed with her worry, and her fear was tempered by a touch of happiness. It was as if she wanted to pull the wool over Time's eyes and pretend the waiting did not exist. Her thoughts veered hither and thither until, in her wanderings, she alighted upon the lover kneeling in his temple, in the summer room. Benamun Ben Besar. How delicate he was, how sweet his presence, she mused, as she asked herself once again in dismay how she should reward him for the momentous service he had rendered her. He had flown on the wings of a dove to the farthest reaches of the South and had returned more swiftly than he went, borne by his passion, overcoming through it all obstacles along the way. At one point she had wondered in her confusion how she could get rid of him. But he had taught her — with his contentment a wondrous love that did not know egoism or possessiveness or greed. He was satisfied with dreams and fantasies, for he was an idealistic youth, unschooled in the ways of the world. If he had coveted a kiss for example, she would not have known how to refuse him, and she would surely have offered him her mouth. But he coveted nothing, as if afraid to touch her lest he be consumed in mysterious flames. Or perhaps he did not believe that she was something that could be touched and kissed at all. He did not look upon her with the eye of a human being and he could not see that she was human too. He desired only to live in the radiance of her splendor like the plants of the earth live by the sun as it floats through the heavens.
She sighed and said, “Truly the world of love is a marvelous place.” Her own love sprang exuberantly from the font of her being, for the force which attracted her to her lord was the very force of life itself, pristine and awesome. Benamun's love, however, was such as to shut out all reason for living, and he wandered astray, beyond sublime horizons, never announcing a trace of feeling save through his prodigious hands and sometimes on his hot and stumbling tongue. It was such a fragile love in some ways, moving like a phantom through a dream, and so strong in others, for it breathed life into solid rock. How could she contemplate getting rid of him when he did not bother her at all? She would leave him safe in his temple, depicting upon its silent walls the most beautiful embellishments to frame her ravishing face.
She cried out once again from the depths of her heart, “When is evening?” Damned Shayth. If she had stayed by her side she would have entertained her with her gossip and bawdy banter, but she had insisted on going to Abu to watch the pageant.
How beautiful memories can be. She remembered last year's festival, the day her luscious palanquin was born aloft and cut its way through the seething multitudes to see Pharaoh, the youth. When her eyes beheld him, he had moved her heart without her knowing it, and she had felt the sudden rush of love as something strange and unfamiliar, for so long had she lived with drought, that she thought it angry nervousness, or a spell breathed by a sorcerer. Then that eternal day, when the falcon soared off with her sandal, and the second day had hardly begun when Pharaoh visited her. From there, love had found its way into her heart. Her life had changed and the whole world had changed with it.
Now it was the second year, and here she was, holed up in her palace while the world feasted and made merry outside. She would not be destined to appear again except on the rarest of occasions, for Rhadopis was no longer the courtesan and dancer, but rather for a whole year now and forever after, she was the pulsating heart of Pharaoh. Her thoughts roamed here and there, but it was not long before they were inevitably drawn back to he who was uppermost in her mind, and she wondered what had happened at the extraordinary meeting that her lord had convened in order to have the message read out before it. Had the conference taken place and the assembled grandees rallied to the call, thereby bringing her cherished hope ever nearer to fulfillment? O Lord, when would evening come?
She grew tired of sitting and stood up to stretch her legs. She strolled over to the window that looked out upon the garden and cast her eyes over the spacious grounds. And there she remained until she heard a frenzied hand knocking on the door. With considerable irritation she turned round and saw her slave girl Shayth fling open the door and charge into the room, gasping for breath as her eyes darted back and forth and her chest rose and fell. Her face was pallid as if she had just risen from the bed of a long sickness. Rhadopis's heart beat faster and she was filled with dread as she asked her apprehensively, “Shayth, what is the matter?”
The slave tried to speak, but she burst into tears as she knelt in front of her lady, and clasping her hands to her breasts, she wept uncontrollably. Rhadopis was overcome with an intense perturbation, and she shouted, “What is wrong with you, Shayth?
“By God, speak woman! Do not leave me prey to confusion.
I have hopes and I fear they will be dashed by some malicious conspiracy.”
The woman breathed a deep sigh and, gulping for air as she spoke, said in a tearful sobbing voice, “My lady, my lady. They have flared up in open revolt.”
“Who have?”
“The people, my lady. They are screaming things, angry and insane. May the gods tear out their tongues.”
Her heart leapt into her mouth and in a trembling voice she said, “What are they saying, Shayth?”
“Alas, my lady, they have gone berserk and their poisonous tongues are ranting frightful things.”
Rhadopis was out of her mind with terror and she shouted out sternly, “Do not torment me, Shayth. Tell me honestly what they were saying. O Lord!”
“My lady, they mention you in a very unflattering way. What have you done, my lady, that you so deserve their wrath?”
Rhadopis clasped her hand to her breast. Her eyes were wide with panic as she said in a halting voice, “Me? Are the people angry with me? Could they find nothing on this sacred day to take their minds off me? Dear Lord! What did they say, Shayth? Tell me the truth, for my sake.”
The woman wept bitterly as she spoke. “The insane louts were crying out that you had made off with the money of the gods.”
She let out a gasp from her stricken breast, and muttered woefully, “Alas, my heart is plucked out and quakes in fear. What I dread most is that the victory we anticipated is lost amid the uproar and the cries of rage. Would it not have been more worthy of them to ignore me out of respect for their lord?”
The slave struck her breast with her fist and wailed, “Not even our lord himself escaped their venomous tongues.”
The terrified woman let out a scream of terror, and she felt a shudder rock the very foundations of her being. “What are you saying? Did they have the audacity to besmirch Pharaoh?”
“Yes my lady,” sobbed the woman. “O the pity of it. They said, ‘Pharaoh is frivolous. We want a serious king.’ “