‘Come closer, Goddess,’ King Khufu said.
His voice was higher pitched than she would have guessed. It clanged against her ears like copper upon granite.
‘Let me see you in the light.’
He was perhaps twice Kiya’s age, but unusually well-preserved. His pleated white wrap was tied smartly about his waist, its front knot concealed by a square blue sash. Above the sash small ripples of naked flesh gradually expanded into a solid brown chest. Several golden necklaces lay heavily upon that swath of flesh, including a looped ankh cross inlaid with beautiful carnelian stones. His shoulders were broad, and they extended into thick upper arms adorned with bracelets.
Kiya took a deep breath, then stepped out of the shadows. She kept her eyes on the ground, careful not to trip upon the soft linen gown that dragged luxuriantly behind her. Neferdula had taken the garment from her own closet and added embellishments of moonstone and turquoise along the seams.
‘It is just a lounging dress,’ Neferdula had told Kiya kindly. ‘I will not miss it.’
Neferdula’s demeanour had changed once she had set upon the task of painting Kiya. With the concentration of an artist Neferdula had dipped her paintbrushes into tiny cups containing the colours of the earth: red, brown, green and gold. Kiya had noticed tiny golden flakes inside the cup of gold.
‘Yes, that is real gold,’ Neferdula had said flatly, ‘so that you may sparkle before the King.’
Neferdula had scolded Kiya several times for not holding her position, and had cursed when one of her painted spirals had come out as oblong instead of round. After many hours of effort, Neferdula had dabbed a sweet-smelling resin upon Kiya’s neck. She had held a brass mirror before Kiya and proclaimed simply, ‘You are my best work.’
Kiya had not recognised herself in the reflection. The black lines encircling her eyes made them seem both larger and deeper somehow, and her skin exuded its own special light. Her long, luxuriant wig and ruby-red lips completed the vision, which was nothing like how Kiya really looked. She was, Kiya reluctantly admitted, quite beautiful.
As Kiya approached the King now he set his golden goblet aside. His eyes grew wide. ‘I did not think it was possible for you to be more beautiful. Neferdula has outdone herself.’
‘I am honoured, My King,’ Kiya said with assurance, but her hands were shaking and she could not control her breaths. She was in the presence of the Living God. She was not prepared for this. She was not worthy of this.
She dropped to her knees as Neferdula had instructed and bowed her head.
The King rushed to her side and lifted her gently by the arm. ‘That is not necessary, My Goddess. We are alone. We can dispense with ceremony. Besides, I should be the one kneeling before you.’
Kiya stared in wonder at the man who held Khemet in the palm of his hand, who had built the most glorious tomb the world had ever known, whose ka was so exalted it was said that he whispered to the Gods.
And yet he was just a man.
The King reached for the pitcher and poured Kiya a goblet of wine. ‘What is that sweet smell you wear? Lily? Myrrh?’
‘Forgive me, My Lord, I do not know.’
‘I think it is something exotic,’ said the King. ‘Or perhaps it is just...you.’ He handed her the goblet. ‘When the Gods told me to come to Abu I had no idea I would find Hathor Incarnate here. Now I see their plan more clearly than ever before.’
The King took his own goblet and clinked it against hers and they drank.
‘Tell me, Hathor, am I pleasing to you?’
Kiya was so surprised by the question that she almost spat the tart liquid upon the floor. Am I pleasing to you? Was that what he had asked? Was that what the Living God wanted to know? Perhaps Neferdula had cast some strange spell upon Kiya’s ears. Or maybe she had inhaled too much incense and the smoke had clouded her mind.
The King studied her, earnestly awaiting her answer.
‘I do not know you,’ she said at length, ‘so I cannot yet say.’
The King raised a single brow, then looked away. She realised suddenly that she had insulted him.
‘Apologies, My King, I did not mean what I said—’
‘Of course you meant it,’ the King said. Then a smile of delight broke across his cleanly shaven jaw. He took a loaf of bread from a platter and divided it in two, giving one half to Kiya. ‘And it is exhilarating to experience such honesty. You do not know me, so how do you know if I please you or not? Ha! It appears that you are as wise as you are beautiful. But, tell me, am I pleasing to your eyes?’
The King filled his chest with air. He looked at her sidelong.
Kiya stared at the King in confusion. Did the Lord of the Two Lands really want to know if she found him...appealing? She took a bite of her bread and chewed, trying to delay. She needed to get this answer right.
He was softer than Tahar, and rounder. His chest muscles were not as well defined, and nor did his stomach end like Tahar’s did in that fascinating ripple of strength. Still, the King was solidly built. His wide chest and thick, powerful arms were not unappealing. His eyes had been kohled and his body shaved in the fashion of highborn Khemetian men.
Kiya chose her words carefully. ‘You are pleasing to my eye. You are both strong and soft.’
‘Hie!’ the King shouted, laughing. ‘Your honesty moves me.’
He finished the bread and swallowed the contents of his wine glass. Then he took Kiya’s arms and guided her down onto a large cushion. ‘And what think you of my face?’ he asked. ‘Pray, be specific...’
Kiya studied King Khufu’s face as he rested it against the large, soft cushion. ‘Your nose is like ancient King Sneferu’s Second Pyramid of Stone.’
‘How so?’
‘It is bent.’
‘Hazah!’ The King chortled. He grazed his fingers lightly across her arm. ‘What else?’
‘The shape of your face is as Thoth’s—pale and round and full.’
‘It is indeed,’ he said.
He patted her wig, placing a portion of her long black hair behind her ear. His eyes lingered uncomfortably on the length of her neck.
‘Your eyes are narrow, but they shine brightly,’ she added.
‘Do they?’
He moved his body closer to hers. He was lying so close to her now she began to fear what he might do next.
‘And your lips...’ Kiya paused. She thought of Tahar’s lips. So smart and well-defined. So certain. If she had not been discovered by the King she might be kissing those lips right now.
‘What about my lips?’ urged the King.
His arm reached around her waist and Kiya caught her breath. Your lips are pale and lifeless. They are nothing like Tahar’s.
‘Your lips are sacred. They confer with the Gods,’ she said.
‘Hem,’ said the King.
Kiya could feel him stiffen.
He pulled his hand from her waist and sat up. ‘My lips have not conferred with the Gods for a long while, for if they had the Great River’s blessed flood would be flowing across the land.’
Kiya felt her limbs relax. Her words had diverted the King from his path of lust. Imhoter would not be pleased, but Kiya was relieved.
‘Aye, the drought is a terrible hardship.’
‘Hardship?’ The King growled. ‘It threatens my reign. My very survival!’ He let out a breath. ‘I am sorry, dear Hathor. It is just—the drought makes me cross.’
‘I can only imagine how you must feel,’ Kiya said, her visions of a benevolent king shattering into a million shards. While the people of Khemet starved, King Khufu worried only about his reign! She sat up and drew her legs close. ‘Such threats should stay where they belong,’ she added, ‘in tales.’
‘Aye,’ said the King, lying back on the pillows. He ran his finger along Kiya’s arm, making her shiver. ‘Do you know many tales, Hathor?’
‘Yes, My King.’
‘Then tell me one of them. Tell me one and ease my weary mind.’
Kiya searched her mind. She had heard many tales, but never before had she actually told one. If only she were like her mother, who had always had a tale upon her lips worthy of a king’s ears.
In that instant Kiya grasped a truth so profound and shocking that she thought she might just sink through the floor of the King’s floating palace. Her mother had been King Sneferu’s concubine, and this man was King Sneferu’s legitimate son. She had to stop herself from laughing aloud. I am this man’s half-sister.
Careful not to stare, she stole another glance at His Majesty’s face. Though she did not share his bent nose and rounded profile, there was something in the shape of his eyes that matched her own—at least as they had appeared when Neferdula had held the mirror to her painted face.
This man and I share the same father.
Kiya felt her limbs grow cold. What had Imhoter told her? He wishes to break bread with Hathor, Goddess of Love and Abundance, Mother of the Flood. If Kiya was to be half as clever as Imhoter believed, she knew she could not reveal her true identity to the King. The fragility of his pride told her that his disillusionment would quickly turn to wrath. Still, it was clear that he meant to bed her—and she could not allow that to happen either. Royal brothers and sisters often married, but it was well known that they did not share the same bed.
‘Well?’ the King added impatiently. ‘Any tale will do, Goddess. Share your wisdom with me.’
Kiya sat up, remembered her mother’s beautiful face, and began. ‘I would love to tell you a tale, Your Majesty.’ My Brother. ‘There was and there was not...a man who was visited by a god. And the God told him to make out of his own home a ship, for a great flood was coming...’
As Kiya recounted the old Sumerian tale the King listened closely, and when Kiya came to the end a single tear traced a path down his cheek.
‘Many people died in that great flood, did they not?’ Khufu asked.
‘Aye.’
‘The Gods did not help them?’
‘Nay—they helped just the man and his wife, to whom they granted immortality. The rest of the people turned to clay.’ Kiya paused. Her mother had once told her that the job of a storyteller was to cause pain and then to take it away. She had clearly caused the King pain. How was she to ease his mind? ‘My King, I have seen the Great River from above. It is much longer than I could have ever dreamed.’
‘Why do you tell me this, Hathor?’
‘I tell you this because I believe that we are smaller than we know. We are temporary. We are...whispers in the grass. The Gods are mighty, but they care little about us.’ Kiya blinked back a tear, remembering the moment Tahar had first uttered those words to her. ‘Therefore,’ she continued, ‘we must care about each other.’
The King stared at Kiya in wonder. ‘I have never met anyone like you in my life.’
‘I only wish to take away your pain, My King. But I have said too much—’
‘Nay, you speak your mind, and it is a beautiful mind.’ He took her hand in his and pressed his lips to it. ‘But I fear I am still in pain. What else can you tell me?’
What else? Her mother would know what to say. Concubines were trained for such moments. Kiya was not a concubine, however, and nor did she ever wish to be. What she wished was to return to shore, where she might wait for Tahar.
She would not coddle the King nor flatter him, therefore. He was her own half-brother, after all. She would simply tell him the truth. ‘I can tell you that the flood is coming,’ Kiya stated. ‘It will be here in a cycle of the moon. It will be late, but it will come.’
The King’s eyes lit up, then narrowed. ‘You are bold in making such a claim. You may be divine, but there are some things even the Gods cannot know. You overstep.’
‘Your Majesty, you may doubt me, but you cannot doubt the locusts, which swarm on the eastern sides of the dunes but do not fly. And you cannot doubt the breath of wind that has lately begun to whisper its way northward in the deepest part of night.’ Kiya lifted her wig and pulled out the seed that she had discovered in the sand so many days ago. ‘You cannot doubt that the acacia seeds that lay beneath the soil have begun to crack.’ She handed the seed to the King. ‘Hapi comes.’
The King’s mouth dropped open. He lowered his eyes. ‘Forgive me, Goddess,’ he said. ‘It is I who overstep.’ He raised himself upon his knees, then bowed to her. He lifted her hand and put his lips to it. ‘It is clear to me now that you have been sent by the Gods. You are Hathor, and you have come to bless Khemet and take away its pain. You bring beauty and fertility. You bring the flood.’
The King returned the seed to Kiya’s hand and eased her back onto the cushions. She pretended to relax. The King of Khemet, Horus Incarnate, believed her to be a goddess. Was he mad? Perhaps he was simply a man who thought himself a god and believed whatever he liked.
He stroked her wig, then let his hand glide slowly down the length of her back. He pulled her close. ‘Tell me, Hathor, do you believe me to be the incarnation of a god?’ he asked.
He pushed himself against her and a pang of terror catapulted through Kiya’s body. ‘My King, I believe...that you are and you are not.’
‘My darling,’ he said, smiling ruefully. ‘You are rarer than the rarest gem and a thousand times more precious.’
He traced her lips with his fingers and she could feel the warmth of his breath.
‘And to think I wished only to give you my seed.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘Hathor, my Goddess, I shall make you my wife.’