THE SUN WAS SETTING SLOWLY BEHIND THE hills to the west, and long gray shadows were beginning to crawl along the dusty yellow streets of Thebes. The heat still lingered in the avenues and mud-brick walls of the shops and houses, but with evening came the breeze that lifted at last off the Nile and brought a welcome coolness to Tia’s young face. She stood drinking in that coolness, standing in the shadow of her doorway, waiting for her brother the priest.

This was the sun as she loved him best, as Aton, old and mellow, his day’s journey almost done. Soon he would sink under the edge of the west to engage in his night of struggles and tribulations with what lay in the darkness below, but Tia had perfect faith in her gods, and knew that he would emerge victorious as ever. She wished she could say the same for herself.

But already here was Kheneb, her elder brother, striding across from the shade of the other side of the street with his priestly staff in his hand, his white robe adorned with a turquoise cloth across his shoulders. He was arrayed in a fine panoply of jewelry, which explained the four armed temple servants who accompanied him a respectful three paces behind. There were always thieves about, and a priest at night was no safer than a pharaoh’s tomb.

“Good evening to you, my little sister. You are all ready, then?” he asked. His eyes glowed with affection, but he only allowed himself the faintest smile. Kheneb was a powerful priest at the temple of Hathor, and he knew how to maintain a suitably grave and pious face in public.

Tia nodded her head in a small, polite bow, then smoothed her black hair back from her face. “As my elder brother wishes.”

He smiled at her formal greeting and looked her over critically—her spotless white gown, the string of turquoise around her neck, the bracelets on her arms. She was pleased that he approved of how she looked, though it did little to allay the growing nervousness in her stomach. She was not really frightened, just a bit anxious about what lay ahead.

The town was coming alive in the cool of the evening, some shops closing for the day while others were just opening. The tavern owners were raising the reed shades that kept out the daytime flies and heat, sweeping the sand and dust from their establishments, setting out their signs and banners. Two boys herded a flock of geese into the shade across the road while a third led two mud-spattered oxen back from the fields by the river, giving the priest and his party a wide berth. This was a favorite time to shop and socialize, in the cool of the evening before full darkness fell, and already people were emerging from their houses, dressed in their fine linen skirts and gowns.

Out came the fine ladies of the evening, too, perfumed and oiled so that their skin gleamed, their mascara perfect, and Tia watched them as she always did, seeking to learn the secrets of their grace and charm. Tia knew how men loved beauty, and these women had that beauty that went deeper than just appearance. They moved with the grace of the river, the mysteries of the gods in them, and Tia envied them deeply.

Tonight she looked fine, as well. Her black hair had been dressed in the Hathor manner: parted in the middle and brushed out with a bit of sweet oil until it positively gleamed. The hairdressers had seen to her makeup, too, lining her large, dark eyes with powdered malachite, also sacred to the goddess, and coloring her lips with the juice of the pomegranate. Her robe was new, of the finest linen, and so were the sandals on her feet. Kheneb had even purchased jewelry for her, the first she had ever owned, and she was sinfully proud of the necklace, bracelets and earrings of turquoise and gold, colors also favored by Hathor. As the daughter of a powerful and well-placed priest, Tia had never been poor, but tonight she was dressed as beautifully as the wealthiest lady in Thebes, and for the first time her brother had to treat her as a woman and not a child. It amused her to see him struggle with this change in her, but he had no choice. The foreign goddess would only accept women as priestesses; she had no interest in flighty little girls.

It was not far from here that Tia had first known the pleasure of a man’s embrace with a handsome young captain from Pharaoh’s guard. Pharaoh had come down to the river to bless the Nile at harvest, and the celebration had been grand. There’d been musicians and dancing and the gods had been paraded. Beer was consumed in wild abandon and even Mother Nile had her fill. Pharaoh was magnificent and so were his guards, and Tia had been swept up in the excitement, literally, and had found herself then in Setka’s chariot, held between his strong arms, racing through the streets as he lashed his horses.

And then she knew not what happened. His lips were on the back of her neck as he drove and his hands were on her breasts and she felt the hardness of his groin pressing against her. She, Tianefhet, had aroused this handsome captain of Amenhotep’s guard, and he pressed her against him and his lips found hers, his hand went between her legs—and who was she to refuse him on this joyous day? His chariot left the procession and turned off into the high reeds that grew along the Nile, and even as she heard the brass trumpets sounding Pharaoh’s return to the great Double House, Setka’s lips were on her breasts and all around her was the green of the reeds and she was swooning under his touch.

His chest was broad and his belly hard as marble as Tia sank to her knees and worshipped him like a god, taking him into her mouth and sucking him like a starving child. Setka groaned and guided her, filling his hands with her hair and thrusting his lean hips with selfish urgency until Tia felt faint with desire to know him this way. But Setka was determined to have her as a man has a woman, and he made them a hurried bed of his soldier’s cloak and quickly stripped her naked of her simple linen gown. How his eyes had glowed when he looked at her lying there in the reeds, open and waiting for him! He hurt her when he entered her, but only for a moment, and then she closed about him and held him tight with legs and arms as Setka used his strength to take her. He rode her as he rode his chariot, high and proud and fierce in his desire, his strong arms planted on either side of her shoulders, his loins slapping against her with such force that Tia cried out as if lashed with a golden whip. She’d never known such joy and it was indeed as if she were his vehicle of pleasure, taking him exactly where he wanted to go, higher and higher and faster and faster until the very earth fell away and it was just she and Setka and the green fire of the sun in the reeds. Then suddenly he had rolled them over and Tia was on top of him, on top of her magnificent lover, and it was as if she were a woman possessed, as if the horse had taken control of the chariot.

Even now she blushed to remember it, how she couldn’t control her hips or the sounds that spilled from her open mouth. She’d spread her hands wide on the broad muscles of his chest and began to move with a hunger she didn’t know she possessed, fucking him with a savagery that shocked them both. Setka raised his head and looked down to where his cock disappeared into her. He put his hands on her thighs and began to work her up and back, sliding her on his thick flesh, moving her like a child’s toy, and Tia groaned, falling down over him and seeking blindly for his mouth, for the comfort of his kiss. It was madness divine, as if the gods themselves touched her. It picked her up and shook her to the core so that she wasn’t herself and that was all she could think of, that she wasn’t herself, but someone else.

The next thing she knew, she was on her back again and Setka was slamming into her, sweat dripping from his body onto her breasts as he pulled her to him. Tia could hardly breathe. She was digging her nails into the muscles of his ass and her pleasure was breaking over her in a blinding wave like Ra breaking through the morning mists, and she burned with the holy fire of the gods. She cried out and clung to him as his full body went rigid, and then he was moaning and growling, emptying himself into her, and she knew then something of what the gods must surely know, and Tia the girl became Tia the woman once and for all time.

The captain had been good to her and gentle, but she saw in the way he quickly gathered himself up to go that she’d surprised him, shocked him even. He left her alone and lonely, though by no means sorry for what she’d done. And she’d been curious ever since, certain that the gods were involved in this kind of love between a man and a woman, but not sure just how, and aching to find out. She didn’t dare ask her brother—he’d never understand—but Tia knew the gods had touched her that day and she wanted to know more. She burned to know more.

Kheneb took her arm and they began walking down the street, the bodyguards falling in behind them. She could tell her brother had been cautious in choosing the number of his retinue. This was a delicate mission, and he obviously wanted to be impressive but not intimidating. He had mentioned taking sedan chairs—hence the four guards—but decided against it. Walking was more egalitarian, and they didn’t have far to go.

“Stand erect, child. Don’t slump like a sack of barley,” he said, stopping to push on her shoulders. “Straighten your back. You want pride, little sister. You’re a lovely girl, Tianefhet, and you must learn to be proud of yourself, especially tonight. This is truly a remarkable offer.”

“Yes, my brother.” She drew herself up and stood erect, and Kheneb looked away uneasily as her breasts came into prominence.

She did feel proud, but along with the pride was fear, even a mild dread. She knew and loved the gods of her Egypt, but this strange goddess was no one she knew, and she had the vague feeling of betraying her people. It didn’t help that Kheneb was uncharacteristically nervous, as well. It was very much unlike him.

They turned a corner and came out into a plaza of food sellers. The yeasty smell of beer and the aroma of grilled fish was in the air, mingled with the earthy smell of the river carried in on the warm and fitful breeze.

“Now tell me once again,” Kheneb said, deftly plucking a fresh fig from a fruit vendor’s table as they walked past. The vendor looked up in reproach, but seeing that Kheneb was a priest, he lowered his eyes and said nothing. “What is the goddess’s name?”

“Kheneb, really—”

“Now, now. Answer me, little sister. We want no mistakes, no slips of the tongue.”

Tia sighed. They walked in the middle of the street now, and she was aware of the stares of both men and women, some who knew her, others who didn’t, but all wondering what this special occasion might be that a fine lady walked in the street with a high priest and an armed escort.

“Her name is Astarte, my brother, though her worshippers often just call her the Great Lady.”

“And who is she?”

“She is a goddess of the Mitanni, the hairy people of the east,” Tia said, remembering to keep her back erect as they walked. “She is a goddess of love and war, and some would call her Isis, but she is not Isis.”

“Just leave Isis out of this,” Kheneb said testily. “This goddess is the same as Hathor. Anyone can see that. That’s what this is all about—to show that this Astarte is Hathor, the Mistress of Joy, the Golden One.”

“Yes, my brother,” Tia said gravely. She knew how he felt about competing goddesses and had said it partly to tease him and distract him from his nervousness. “But how one goddess can embody both love and the violence of war, I’m afraid I won’t ever understand.”

“Understanding will come with time, once you’re accepted into the temple,” Kheneb said. “And that’s what we must concentrate on now. I do hope you will keep in mind what an honor this is, Tia, and how important it is to us, and to all of Egypt. I’ve worked very hard to get you this appointment. It’s almost certain now that Great Pharaoh will have Prince Nekhet marry the Mitanni princess to cement the two lands’ alliance, and so Pharaoh has set his mind on making a home for this princess in Egypt, and that means a home for her gods as well, though I hear the funds for her new temple are not quite flowing as freely as could be wished, what with all the other building he is doing. In any case, it’s very important that you be accepted into this temple, and that we establish once and for all that this foreign goddess—this Astarte—is our Hathor, not Isis. You know how I feel about Isis.”

“Yes, Kheneb.”

“I mean, I have nothing against her. Nothing at all. But she is not Hathor, and I will not have anyone confusing the two, least of all my little sister. How would that look?”

Tia didn’t understand this rivalry between the gods, but then she took a much simpler view of their religion than did her learned brother. In her mind, Hathor was the goddess of joy and fulfillment, the goddess of happiness, just as Kheneb had always taught her. Isis embodied something completely different, a more troubling mixture of love and loss, altogether more human. Whereas Hathor was joy and beauty, Isis was grace and mercy. Both goddesses were ancient, and, of course, as a priest Kheneb honored them both, but Tia knew that he always thought of Isis as being something of an upstart.

“Now,” Kheneb said, clearing his throat and drawing himself up. “As for the role of hierodule or sacred prostitute, we shall most certainly have to make some arrangements about that. Such barbarian practices are foreign to us Egyptians, we who dwell in the Happy Land. It’s quite unacceptable. And I won’t have you doing anything you don’t want to do, or anything that will bring shame upon our family.”

Tia felt a little surge of excitement in her stomach. In truth, this was the crux of the entire matter and what made her so nervous and yet strangely excited. Sacred prostitution was the rule with the goddess Astarte; Tia had known this since she was a girl, and that was already long after the time when soldiers from the army of Thutmose the Third had brought back tales of the practice. She and her friends used to tease and scandalize each other with the idea of giving oneself away to a strange man for a night. And in the name of what was holy, too! But that had been in the days before the foreign goddess had been brought to Egypt itself, back when her worshippers were still strangers far away in a faraway land. Now that she might serve as a temple prostitute herself, Tia wasn’t sure if there wasn’t something wonderfully exciting about it in a wicked sort of way. On the one hand she was horrified, but on the other…to be the conduit of a goddess, to feel her power and beauty in your own body—that was something she was frankly quite curious about. She didn’t reject it out of hand as Kheneb thought she did.

Now, walking along with her noble elder brother, dressed in her new things and made up by Hathor’s own priests, she felt very beautiful and desirable. Cosmetics and perfume were also sacred to Hathor, and there was no doubt in Tia’s mind that she was one of the most beautiful women in the entire town. The thought of a tryst with a total stranger—someone strong and handsome and exotic—was not unappealing.

She knew the rumors: as temple prostitute she would have her pick of the supplicants who came begging for her services, spying on them in private as they presented themselves. Only the ones she approved of would be brought to her, bathed and perfumed and blindfolded. They would be brought to her chambers where she would recline, dressed in fine robes, and there they would make love to her, treating her as a goddess, caressing her with lips and hands and body, using all their skills to please her. And if they did, if she found them entirely to her liking, only then would Tia assent to their embrace and let them come to her. Only then, and only if she were certain of the approval of the goddess within her would she open herself to them and take them, and in so doing know a pleasure few mortal women could even imagine.

Could any young woman seriously refuse serving the gods in such a way?

They turned off the side street and headed west toward the Avenue of Osiris that ran along the banks of the Nile, just in time to see the last edge of the sun sink below the vividly green palms on the far side of the river, flooding the facades of the buildings with fiery light. The moment of sundown always moved an Egyptian’s heart, and the party paused while Kheneb pronounced a quick thanksgiving and a prayer for the safe journey of Ra through the subterranean land of Duad below their feet. As always, darkness fell as quickly as the sun, and before they had gone very far, two of the guards trotted off into a beer shop to borrow a flame for the lamps they carried.

“Tia,” Kheneb said tenderly. “You do not have to do anything you don’t want to do. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, my brother.”

He stared at her, apparently waiting for her to tell him that she was unwilling to go through with this, but Tia just looked with perfect equanimity across the tops of the palm trees to the broad swath of the Nile, where a royal barge painted in blue and gold could now be seen racing downriver, brightly lit with numerous lanterns. From the sound of their laughter Tia knew the rowers could not be slaves. So most likely it was one of Pharaoh’s sons, perhaps Nekhet himself, who, as the prospective betrothed of the Mitanni princess, was overseeing the building of Astarte’s temple. He was reputed to be a dashing and fearless young man, given to acts of valor and gallantry and known for the reckless way he handled a chariot, as well as for taking his barque racing along the Nile. Tia watched the barge for a while, but she could not make out who was at the helm. She waited, enjoying her brother’s discomfiture at her silence.

Kheneb finally made a sound of exasperation and turned away. More than she, he was of two minds about this arrangement. He wanted the political victory that would come of allying the new goddess with Hathor, and yet he feared entrusting his little sister to the barely civilized influences of the foreign goddess. He loved her dearly.

The guards came back, bearing their lamps on poles, and the little party started out again.

“Now, you will let me do the talking,” Kheneb said, bending close to her in a final inspection. “And you will remember to sit or stand erect and not fidget. The priestess’s name is Illana, and she speaks fine Egyptian like a normal human being, not all that coughing and throat clearing of the Mitanni. She was brought to Egypt as a child, and has served Great Pharaoh’s ministers as an interpreter and counselor. She knows many in the great Double House herself and is not without considerable influence. She is also a consecrated priestess of the foreign goddess, so don’t fail to show her respect.”

They at last stepped out into the wide Avenue of Osiris, the finest in the city, running along the banks of the Nile and fronted on both sides by stone temples and the buildings of Pharaoh’s government. There was a ceremony going on in the great Temple of Amun, the Hidden One, and the glow from many oil lamps spilled through the maze of pillars and out into the street where a loose crowd of undesirables milled about, not allowed in the temple, but eager for the god’s blessing. The sight of the golden lamplight among the blue and purple shadows stirred Tia’s heart. Kheneb ceased his brotherly chatter and drew himself up into his priestly posture once again, taking a moment to arrange the heavy jewelry around his neck. He glanced into the Temple of Amun with professional interest as they passed, gauging the size of the crowd and nodding to a priestly acquaintance on the steps, then fixed his eyes ahead. They were almost there.

Work had already begun on the promised Temple to Astarte on a patch of ground overlooking the river, but it was proceeding slowly, funds being as tight as Kheneb had said. The pillars were erect and the stairs half-finished, but the wooden scaffolding of the stone masons was still in place and there was as yet no roof, making it hard to visualize the finished structure. While the temple was being built, the foreign goddess was being worshipped in a large yet simple mud-brick temple close by. An older woman and a girl of Tia’s age or less stood with two servants outside the gate waiting for them.

“That is she,” Kheneb whispered out of the side of his mouth. “The girl must be from the Temple of Isis.”

“I bid you good evening, your sacred lordship,” the woman said as they approached, and she bowed gracefully. The two servants dropped to their knees in the Mitanni fashion.

“The blessings of all the gods upon you and your people,” Kheneb said, switching to the hieratic tongue used by the priests. “And upon your noble temple. How fine it is looking!”

“And so this is Tianefhet,” the woman said, smiling. “What a lovely creature. A grace upon the earth.” She turned to the other girl, who was dressed in a simple robe trimmed with green, the color of Isis. “This is Hafertiri, our new novice. She comes to us from the Temple of Isis the Protectress.”

Tia made her bows, and looked up at the priestess Illana. She was a handsome woman of middle age, but younger than Tia had expected, and with an air of self-possession and composure that Tia had not thought a Mitanni capable of, they being such an excitable and uncivilized people. She had long hair that fell to her shoulders in the eastern fashion, in tight, crimpy waves, like ripples on shallow water, and her eyes were especially beautiful—dark and deep with long lashes, calm and knowing. She wore the clothes of an Egyptian, and in the darkness her white linen robe seemed to glow as if lit from within.

Hafertiri was smaller and, now that they could see her, obviously younger than Tia, not as womanly, and indeed seeming to violate the principle that a priestess of Astarte be a fully developed woman, for she was still given to inappropriate giggling. Her hair was plaited into braids and hung with precious stones in the Isis manner, and the diadem of the Wife of Osiris circled her brows. She had an elfin face and seemed to have some trouble holding still. Her eyes invited Tia to share her private joke, but Tia was not going to be bated. She was more mature than that.

“Please, my lord,” Illana said to Kheneb, “let us go within. I must ask your pardon for this simple dwelling, but it is only temporary while the new temple is being built.” Kheneb gave her some conciliatory words, and they proceeded into the temple, followed by Hafertiri and Tia, leaving the servants to wait outside. Inside, Illana dismissed Hafertiri, sending her up to her room in the gatehouse now that the introductions had been made.

The temple had apparently once been a noble house, for the trees and vines that grew around the pond in the courtyard were well-tended and mature, and the garden itself redolent with the smells of hibiscus and water lotus in bloom, as well as the fragrance of ripe grape and orange blossom. Tia glanced into the still waters of the pond and saw the fish there stirring slowly among the stands of papyrus and water lily, and then her eyes were drawn to the back of the temple, where the actual sanctuary of the goddess stood. The building had been modified, the roofline lifted to well over twice the height of a man, and through the widened doorway she could see a portion of the large image of Astarte, the foreign goddess, standing behind a deep blue veil of the sheerest fabric and illuminated by the orange-yellow glow of oil lamps.

“On behalf of the priests and the clergy of the great goddess Hathor,” Kheneb said, beginning his formal introduction and prepared speech. But Illana’s eyes were on Tia, watching her intently, and she gently silenced him, holding up her hand. Kheneb followed her gaze and they both watched Tia, who was walking toward the image of the goddess as if drawn to it, her eyes wide, her hands unmoving at her sides.

The goddess was half again as large as a person, and commanded the space within the sanctuary. Her bodice was open, and her perfectly spherical breasts bulged forth, obviously gorged with milk. She held her hands at shoulder level, and in each was the figure of a writhing snake.

But it was her face that drew Tia. The nose of the goddess was long and Semitic and she had the same tightly waved hair as her priestess, but her eyes were soft and knowing, and much more human than the eyes of the gods and goddesses that Tia knew, the neter of Egypt. She stood on an altar of plain mud brick and looked down benevolently at Tia. The goddess’s lips were full and sensual, but with a smile upon them; a smile both simple and subtle, a smile of indulgence or perhaps forgiveness, and yet one promising pleasure, too—the expression of a woman who knew the ways of the world and the human heart. It was a very human smile—surprisingly human to Tia, whose own native gods never smiled—and it immediately made her feel akin to this foreign goddess, as if they shared some secret between them.

Tia stared into that face, the face of a goddess, and yet a woman not unlike herself. The idea that a god or goddess could smile captivated her, and she searched the image’s face for an explanation. Astarte had perhaps known pain and loss and love, too, like Isis, but obviously she was no stranger to joy, to the happiness and completeness of spirit associated with Hathor. Most of all, she saw on Astarte’s face a look of reassurance. The goddess had triumphed over all and held out to Tia the promise that she might triumph, as well. It was an intoxicating look, and Tia was intensely curious and deeply moved.

“She looks so familiar,” she said aloud.

“Tia, you forget yourself…” Kheneb said. He started forward, embarrassed, but Illana laid her hand on his arm and held him back. She raised her finger to her lips for silence, never taking her eyes from Tia.

“There is incense at your feet,” Illana said softly, and Tia looked down at the faience jar standing at the foot of the idol, containing a mixture of resin, cedarwood and rose petals.

Without a thought she bent and took a pinch of incense in her fingers. She did not know the proper prayers, but something went up from her heart, and she knew that her offering would be accepted. She dropped the mixture onto the brass dish of glowing coals that sat at Astarte’s feet, but nothing happened.

Kheneb cleared his throat nervously. Tia didn’t know the prayers, was ignorant of the rituals and hadn’t even purified herself; it was almost blasphemous for her to make an offering like this, even one of incense. And now what had happened? Perhaps the coals had gone out, or Tia had missed them altogether. In any case, this wasn’t a good sign. The goddess had rejected her offering, and rightly so, Kheneb thought.

With a loud rush of sound the incense suddenly ignited, and a sharp tongue of orange-and-blue fire chased the shadows from the room. In the sudden brilliance, the smile on the goddess’s face could be seen to broaden into a look of fond acceptance as the light of the flame flickered on her face.

Kheneb had never himself seen such a clear and unmistakable portent, and his eyes widened in surprise as the smoke began to billow forth from the brazier in thick, intoxicating clouds. Illana gasped, as well, putting her fingers to her mouth in shock, but Tia just stood there gazing at the statue as the rich clouds of sweet and aromatic smoke surrounded her.

“My Lady, I apologize for my sister’s lack of manners. It is inexcusable, but the girl is nervous, so great is her zeal….”

Illana turned to Kheneb, her eyes glowing.

“If it is acceptable to Tia,” Illana said, “the Great Lady and I would be happy to have her serve as a novice in this, her new home in Egypt. Never have I seen such an auspicious omen. I no longer have any doubts. There is nothing more we need discuss.”

But in truth there was more to discuss, all of it tedious, about Tia’s service, and Kheneb and Illana retired to a room beside the goddess’s image to confer over wine and dates while Tia, uninterested in these particulars, wandered about the garden, studying the image of Astarte from varying angles. She had no doubt that this would be her new home, and the details of her service mattered little to her. There was something between the goddess and herself, something very personal that she had never felt with her native gods. She loved them, of course, but she loved them as a child loved a parent. Astarte was like the older sister she’d never had. Astarte was someone she could open her heart to, someone she could converse with, not just beseech.

And converse she did. The garden was lovely, but the figure of Astarte drew her back into the flickering oil lamps of the sanctuary, and she stood in front of the image for a long while, watching the play of light on her features. A goddess of love and war. How could that be?

Tia noticed something now about the goddess’s face. Perhaps it was the light, but within that enigmatic smile there was strength and wisdom and a patience of spirit that affected her greatly. The gods of Egypt were beyond time. They rode upon it like a boat on the Nile, barely touching it. But Astarte seemed to be of this world, swimming in the same water as Tia swam in. There were things she had to teach that Tia was suddenly very eager to learn.

Kheneb came out of the temple with Illana at last, laughing and shaking his head. It had obviously gone well and, as an unusually pragmatic type of priest, it always surprised her brother when things went smoothly. He was of course a believer, but still, when the gods actually seemed to step in and take a hand in the affairs of men, he always looked baffled.

Now that the business was concluded, he was very solicitous, and touched Tia fondly as she walked him to the gate, caressing her back and gazing into her eyes, clearly looking for any hidden signs of fear or reservation.

“I will visit you the day after tomorrow, darling sister,” he said. “Lady Illana and I have discussed it thoroughly, and she assures me that you are under no obligation to do anything you don’t want to do. So if at anytime there is ever anything you’re not comfortable with…”

“Brother, I am fine. This is where I want to be. I know things will be fine.”

Kheneb nodded, his eyes down. “Lady Illana seems eminently worthy and pure in sentiment, but still…”

“My dear brother. You worry entirely too much. I’m no longer a child.”

Kheneb’s eyes flicked up at her, and he nodded his head in understanding. He embraced her without a word, but when he turned from her he hid his emotions in a sudden irritability with his guards. “On your feet, you worthless toads! You’ve been drinking beer, I can smell it! Farewell for now, little sister. Lady Illana, a thousand thanks. The blessings of all the gods upon you both!”

Illana had been standing back between the gatehouses, giving them their privacy, but now she stepped forward. “And the blessing of all the gods and the Great Lady upon you and yours, too, Lord Priest.”

They watched them go, then Illana turned to Tia. “Come. There is much to discuss. You have much to learn.”

“Yes,” Tia said. “There is so much I want to know.”

Illana looked at her, her dark eyes meeting Tia’s. Something passed between them, something terribly intimate and honest, and then there was a burst of noise from the river—men’s laughter, some raucous joke.

Tia looked over to see that the royal barge she’d watched earlier, all its lamps blazing, was making fast to the quay right below the temple, where the stone steps of the levee reached down to the black face of the water. She could see the oarsmen standing in the prow, bright and flushed with wine, and she could see a man’s form as he stepped off the barge and trotted easily up the darkened stairs.

“Prince Nekhet,” Illana whispered to her. “He is our sponsor, and it is through his graciousness that we have our home here in this land.”

“Yes,” Tia said, straining to see through the trees. “I saw his barge earlier.”

Illana smiled. “I daresay you have. He has been rowing up and down all afternoon, eager to see our progress.”

She gave Tia a knowing look, but the girl’s eyes were on the stairs.

Nekhet emerged from the steps on the other side of the wide avenue. He was bare-chested, his body gleaming with a sheen of perspiration. No doubt he had been rowing, too, testing his strength against the current of the Nile, and the muscles of his wide shoulders were taut from the vigor of his exercise. Around his neck he wore a wide collar of dark blue lapis trimmed in gold, and a slim skirt of fine linen covered his loins, sheer enough that Tia could see the workings of his strong thighs as the light from the Temple of Amun shone through the fabric. He carried horsehair mounted in an ebony handle as a fly whisk and symbol of his royal authority, and he flicked it absently against his leg as he walked. As he approached, his brown eyes showed his noble blood, his ease with command, but there was nothing harsh or cruel in them. He was looking right at Tia, and there was a quiet expectancy in his gaze.

Tia drew herself up and surprised herself by staring right back at him. She knew he was coming for her. She knew it just as she’d known that Astarte had special things to tell her. She knew, too, that the goddess’s magic was already working on her—that she’d never been more beautiful, and with a thrill so deep it almost made her shudder she realized that somehow this prince of Egypt was hers for the taking. It was a moment of such intense and intimate certainty that she felt her nipples harden on her breasts in preparation for the feel of his lips and, remembering Kheneb’s words, she threw her shoulders back to show off her womanly form. She felt herself cast a spell upon him as a fisherman standing in the prow of his boat casts his net into the Nile.

“By the gods,” Illana whispered in her ear. “The Great Lady has taken a shine to you, Tia! Already she fills your spirit, doesn’t she?”

Tia didn’t answer. She felt a flood of heat as Nekhet approached her, as if she had walked out of the shadows and into the noontime glory of the Egyptian sun. She knew that the spark of Ra was in his eyes.

“Lady Illana,” he said, bowing his head slightly, a very unusual gesture to see from a prince of Egypt. As the fourth son of the Great Pharaoh, Nekhet was far removed from the throne, but he still bore the blood of the gods in his veins and need never incline his head to any mere human.

Lady Illana bowed, as well, and the fact that she didn’t get down on her knees and press her forehead into the dirt showed that there was a very special relationship between these two. Tia should have fallen to her knees, as well, but something prevented her, though at long last she did lower her head. It didn’t go down easily. Something had taken control of her and Illana was right—she was filled with a proud and rebellious spirit.

“Who is this, then?” Nekhet asked, looking at Tia with eager curiosity.

“This is Tianefhet, sister of the Priest Kheneb of the temple of Hathor,” Lady Illana said. “She has come to serve as a novice priestess for the Great Lady.”

“Is that right?” he replied. “Now there are two, am I right? And they will both serve as you have told me? I’m interested in seeing your religion in practice.”

Illana bowed her head in agreement, but another question hung there between the three of them, unasked; they were all aware of it. He wanted to know if she was going to serve as a temple prostitute and open her thighs to any man who came along in the name of the foreign goddess. He had the courtesy and breeding not to give voice to his thoughts, but they all knew what he was thinking.

Tia felt an unexpected thrill of angry pride. She had been here but an hour or two, and yet already she knew that there was more to this than mere copulation, more to it than lying with a man like a beast of the field. He might be a prince of Egypt, but this was a holy precinct.

“Why don’t you say what you mean, my lord?” Tia heard herself ask.

The three of them were all too shocked to speak, Tia not least of all, but she stood her ground.

Nekhet stepped closer to her so that he could see her face in the torchlight. She could see the sinews in his shoulders and smell the scent of his sweat—salty and with a hint of the darkness of the river. Her heart beat so in her chest that she thought she might faint, but she kept her eyes level, so she couldn’t avoid seeing the whiteness of his teeth as his lips drew back in a wary grin.

“Is this what you mean by possession, Lady Illana?” he asked. “Where the Great Lady enters into her servants and makes them say foolish things? For a mere Egyptian girl would never speak to a prince of the Double House thus.”

Before Illana could answer, Tia felt her own mouth move and words issued forth before she could stop them. “Perhaps not, but a woman would speak to a man thus, would she not, oh, great Prince?”

There was a moment of stunned silence and then Nekhet laughed, and laughed again. He turned to Illana so that she was obligated to laugh, as well, and even Tia then joined in, shocked at her own outrageous boldness and relieved that the prince had dismissed it as a joke.

“Tomorrow is my birthday,” he said at last. He spoke to Lady Illana, though he was looking at Tia. “How long before this priestess is consecrated?”

“My lord, she is a novice. With training and prayer and preparation it would take weeks, and even then…”

“Tia, is it?” he asked. He looked over at where the temple was being built. With the builders’ scaffolding and piles of stone, it looked ugly and incomplete, like a ruin in the moonlight.

“They are about to lay the lintels,” he said. “The builders will be wanting stone, and money for stone. I can bring the gold tomorrow night, the night of my birthday, but only if Lady Tia is ready.”

Four of his crewmen from the barge, all of them noblemen’s sons, all stripped to the waist and drying off their perspiration with linen towels, now appeared on the levee and prepared to cross the avenue. They called to Nekhet and waved, impatient for him to rejoin them.

“As your lordship wishes,” Illana said, bowing deeply. “And if it is acceptable to the Great Lady.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Nekhet said, waving back at his friends. “She does desire a temple, doesn’t she? I’m sure she would make an exception for the sake of her temple.”

 

“Place the lamp there and sit down, Hafertiri. Do be quiet. This is for Tia, but you might as well listen, as long as you can keep still.” Illana smoothed her skirt and made herself comfortable in the chair, as comfortable as she could, given the sudden sense of urgency.

It could only be that the spirit of the goddess that had come over Tia. That was the only thing that would explain her shockingly forward behavior and rudeness in speaking as she had to Prince Nekhet. That the prince had only smiled and not had her head stricken from her body on the spot—which would have been entirely within his rights—was further proof that the Great Lady had plans for Tia and was therefore watching over her. That was the only reason Illana even attempted to instill in her now what should really take weeks or even months of instruction and preparation. This Egyptian girl had a connection to the goddess such as Illana had never seen before. It was uncanny. Almost frightening.

There was little time to go into the stories and mysteries of the goddess. The moon was already high in the sky and the entire city was well into its sleep. They sat in one of the small chambers that were reserved for the temple prostitutes and Illana spoke as a mother speaks to her daughters. The statue of the goddess could be seen through the doorway, facing outward as if protecting them, lit by the lamps that glowed at her feet.

“It is my prerogative to choose who has the honor of lying with a priestess of the Great Lady,” Illana told them. “Though, of course, you may refuse anyone I send to you. This is not done for sport or even for pleasure, but so that the worshipper can gain knowledge and experience of the goddess. For that to happen, her spirit must enter into you, and there it must stay. You yourselves will stay pure, unsullied though touched by man, or woman—for I must tell you that women may enjoy the favors of the goddess, as well, though that is not for you. Not yet.

“She is called the Great Lady because she is great above all mortal women, and yet she is a lady. She knows the secrets of being a woman and of all you might ever feel. To take her spirit inside you is to become one with all women who have ever lived, to feel yourself as the vessel of life and the bearer of kings. Remember that even our Great Pharaoh came through the gates of life, the gates that Astarte keeps.

“But you must tell me this, Tia—are you a virgin? Or have you known a man’s embrace?”

Tia just lowered her eyes, and Illana smiled indulgently at her.

“That’s just as well,” Illana said. “We don’t want any virgins here. The Great Lady doesn’t want your innocence—she wants your experience. We don’t want anyone falling in love like a foolish girl might. Remember, although the Lady uses your body, she maintains the purity of your spirit. There is nothing shameful in this. There must not be anything shameful in this.

“I cannot tell you what your experience will be like, Tia. My own relationship with the goddess is so very different from yours that I doubt my experiences would shed much light on what you may expect. I have never seen such astonishing signs and portents of the goddess’s favor. You are truly her chosen one. All we can do is trust to her wisdom.”

Down sank the moon toward the hour of the jackal, when the door between the worlds opened and the barque of Ra made its slow ascent into the land of the living once more. Through the crack between the worlds, the morning wind rustled the palms outside and the first fishermen and farmers began to stir. The lamp guttered and Lady Illana blew it out. Hafertiri had long since retired, and Tia lay asleep on the bed she would soon know as a priestess, as a prostitute and as an incarnation of the holy goddess.

 

Tia slept late the next day, not arising till the sun was high in the sky. Never had Khepri seemed like such a sluggard as he pushed the disc of the sun slowly across the vault of the heavens. Never had the noontime shadows seemed to move so slowly. Tia was allowed to idle the day away around the temple, and in the afternoon Illana made her lie down for a nap, but Tia was not used to sleeping in the daytime, and besides, her heart was high in her chest thinking about the coming evening. She kept on seeing Nekhet’s face, his warm eyes and broad shoulders, his air of command.

In the late afternoon she bathed, then sat in the light of the garden while Illana and Hafertiri combed out her lustrous black hair. Tia could see through the open gate, across the Avenue of Osiris and through the palms to a stretch of the Nile that was still brilliantly lit by the mellowing sun. She watched the barges plying up and down, and wondered what Nekhet was doing now, and whether he was thinking of her, as well.

“At some point the goddess will come to you,” Illana told her. “If she doesn’t, you must stop. Even if he is a prince of Egypt, you must. It is an abomination, a sin.”

“What does ‘sin’ mean?” Hafertiri asked her.

“Never mind, never mind. There’s no word for it in your language,” Illana said. “Let us just say that it is a wrong against the goddess and it would displease her greatly. Now come inside. We must present you to the goddess and invoke her protection. There’s so little time.”

Tia paid little attention to the invocation and Lady Illana’s hurried prayers. As she had begun to find, when she was in the presence of the goddess, time ceased to exist in its normal sense, the sense she was used to, and she felt herself enfolded in a special, protective aura from which she viewed Illana’s subtle anxiety and Hafertiri’s nervous foolishness with detached equanimity and a little amusement. The goddess was already with her, and Tia knew she was safe.

It’s been so long since I’ve known the embrace of a man, Tia thought to herself, and knew that the words were the goddess’s, as well. Just as Astarte is a stranger in this land, so I am a stranger in her temple, and we both need to know the love of this Egyptian prince that we may both find our homes here.

Tia was aware that Lady Illana had lit the coals in the braziers, and was burning incense—myrrh and cassia wood soaked in oil of rose. She stood up at Illana’s urging and allowed the priestess to remove her robe, and she stood naked in the smoke of the incense as Lady Illana looked her up and down, and Hafertiri, leaning against the wall in the corner, did, as well. Illana was looking for some sign, some imperfection that would disqualify Tia from her role tonight, but she saw nothing but a girl’s body at the very peak of her sexual desirability, shaved absolutely clean in the Egyptian manner. Her skin was as smooth as the waters of the Nile in flood.

Illana ran her hands over Tia’s shoulders and down her arms, then took her breasts in her hands, feeling their sensual weight. She applied the juice of dates ground in oil to Tia’s nipples to make them sweet for her lover’s lips, then painted them with madder to bring out their coral hue. She sat Tia down and bent to her makeup, lining her eyes with malachite paste and painting her eyelids blue with pulverized turquoise. She dusted them with gold powder, then dabbed pomegranate juice on Tia’s full lips. Tia looked at herself in a polished bronze mirror and saw the face of a goddess looking back at her. She wasn’t surprised.

Illana had Tia stand while Hafertiri brought a special robe from the other room. Like the scrim curtain that hid the figure of the goddess in the temple, this robe was a deep sky-blue and yet so finely woven as to be transparent. Illana tied it around her waist with a sash of blue and gold, and then put all the combs and cosmetics away in their carved box, and she and Hafertiri left Tia alone with her thoughts.

Tia didn’t know how long she sat there basking in the presence of the goddess. She was an offering to Astarte. More than that, she was Astarte. She belonged to the goddess now, and that gave her a peace and quietness of spirit that finally banished all nervousness. She knew she was beautiful and desirable, and the knowledge gave her a feeling of wonderful power.

By the time she got up and walked into the garden, the moon had climbed into the sky—a sickle moon, horned like the goddess Hathor, symbol of a woman’s secret, the door of life. Illana had told her that Astarte often wore horns on her head as well, symbolic of the changing moon and thus sacred to all women. The breeze off the Nile cooled her face, and through the dancing fronds of the date palms she saw the flash of golden oars on the surface of the river as Nekhet came to keep his appointment.

Lady Illana came to watch with her and thought to speak but could find no suitable words.

Finally, she said, “Hafertiri and I will be in the gatehouse. The Great Lady will be with you, I am sure of it. She will see that nothing bad happens to you.”

“I have no doubt,” Tia said, and she meant it.

Nekhet came walking across the empty moonlit Avenue of Osiris, flanked by two of his friends. Tia watched them approach—nervous, unsure, like naughty children come to peek up a lady’s skirts. When they caught sight of Tia standing outside the gatehouse, poised like a statue in the night, they paused and abruptly stopped their foolishness.

Nekhet spoke to his companions as they stood there in the road, and they left him, walking back to the river with quick glances back over their shoulders. Nekhet wore a new linen skirt, the pleats sharp as knives. Around his neck was a necklace of jet, and he carried his fly whisk in one hand, a leather purse in the other. Without his friends, his step was measured and serious.

Tia felt his approach in the pit of her stomach, and felt as though she was pulling him toward her by the force of her beauty, a beauty to rival the night. Indeed, she felt that her beauty actually partook of the night and of the moon sailing through the starry heavens, for both were ruled by the goddess and surely the goddess had already taken control of this man. She could already feel the goddess standing huge and smiling behind her. The breeze blew through the fine weave of her robe, carrying it open and exposing part of one breast to the moonlight. She felt her nakedness like a delicious warmth, like a sexual aura about her, and she knew she was irresistible.

“Lady Tianefhet,” Nekhet said, clearing his throat.

Tia could have laughed with eager joy, seeing his sudden boyish nervousness, but instead she said, “My lord prince.”

“I have brought a purse for Lady Illana,” he said, holding out the leather bag. “For the stone. For the temple.”

“She is not here,” Tia said. “But I will give it to her.” Nekhet handed the purse over to Tia. It was very heavy.

“It’s more than I can carry, my lord. I am but a woman. Could you bring it into the temple?”

“By all means,” he said, anxious to have something to do.

Tia stood by the gate to let him precede her into the sacred precincts, and as he passed she leaned subtly forward so that the petal-soft buds of her nipples brushed against his naked arm. She felt him pause just momentarily, perhaps shocked by her boldness. He was scented, his chest anointed with oil in which she could detect the masculine odor of cedar and pine and muscle that had been working in the sun.

Once inside the gate she felt a passion take hold of her like a trembling hunger in her stomach. She walked in front of him, leading the way through the shadowy garden to the soft warm glow of the goddess’s sanctuary, yellow amidst the blue and deep purple shadows.

He was a prince of Egypt, and no matter how remote from the throne he might be, the air of royalty and divinity clung to him like a perfume. His father was Ra’s spirit on earth, the Righteous Bull of Truth, and some of that power surely ran in his veins. Tia knew he was to wed the foreign princess, but she also knew that such things meant nothing to the desires of the heart. Great Pharaoh married all his children to foreign princes and princesses; it was how he made alliances. The heart of Prince Nekhet did not belong to this princess, and Tia knew it had never belonged to any woman.

She could feel his eyes on her hips as she led the way through the fragrant garden. The robe she wore was all but invisible, and it was the goddess who made her roll her hips as she walked, of that she was certain. She was already damp with excitement and her breasts felt full and heavy, her nipples keenly aware of the sheer cloth against them.

She stopped at the door to the sanctuary and waited for him to enter, but he stopped.

“I have heard things about this goddess,” he said. “And about her priestesses.”

Tia bowed her head. “And what have you heard, my lord prince?”

He kept his eyes on her as he spoke. “I have heard that they sleep with men who come to her temple. Is this true?”

“It is as you say, my lord prince.” She said no more than that, although her face felt flushed and hot.

“How is this done?” he asked.

“Need you ask, my lord prince?”

He was discomfited, then laughed—a short nervous laugh. “No,” he said. “I mean, what ceremonies must be performed?”

“There are no ceremonies, my lord. Not this night. When the goddess enters a priestess, she becomes one with the Great Lady. You may take her then, but not before.”

For the space of two heartbeats he said nothing, then he raised his hand and laid it on her breast. Standing in the yellow light, his words were as soft as the moonlight on the plants in the garden. “Then let her take you, Lady Tia, that I may take you, as well.”

Tia knew he could feel her heart, and she rang with a sudden nervousness. She knew he was hers, and that he would be powerless to resist her, and yet the goddess told her she wasn’t quite yet ready. With her eyes cast down to hide her own excitement, she could see his arousal already awake in the lift of his skirt and she felt her own answering wetness. And now she knew what she had to do. She took his hand—a strong hand, with long, sensitive fingers—and led him into the sanctuary, and she watched his face as she led him to the figure of the goddess.

He stood erect as he regarded the face of Astarte, and Tia regarded him. She bent and took a handful of incense and threw it down on the coals, then she turned her face to the goddess. As the smoke enveloped them, she saw the goddess’s smile and she felt a sudden surge of such need and wild passion that she almost cried out, almost fell against him. The goddess had entered her, and her need for this man suddenly overwhelmed her, sweeping all fear and reservations aside. She turned to him and put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. Of their own volition, her hips pressed against his and she felt his amazing hardness.

“Lady Tia,” he began, shocked at her boldness.

“Not Tia,” she breathed. “But a goddess for you.”

She reached up for his hair and pulled his face down to her kiss, and he stood there, stunned by her sudden hunger, feeling her feminine softness as she ground herself against his cock. His hands went around her and felt the catlike muscles in her back, her female strength, then slipped down to cup her ass through the delicate fabric. Her buttocks clenched as she shifted her weight and rolled her hips against him. Her mouth opened and her tongue sought refuge between his lips.

Nekhet kissed her back. He’d been caught off guard by her sudden assault, but he had known more than a few professional women in his time, the best Egypt had to offer from the Nile Delta to the Second Cataract, and he quickly regained his poise. However, Tia didn’t stop. There was nothing studied or contrived about what she did, or in the way she moved against him, and her breath was as hot as the smoke from the incense, hardly the cool breath of a harlot. She ground her breasts against him, her stiff nipples poking through the fabric of her gown and pressing like coals against his chest, and the way the muscles of her bottom tightened and relaxed in his hands, lewd and obscene, as if she were already trying to draw the seed from him, made him dizzy.

He knew how it went with a whore. After her first onslaught she would step away from him and make some teasing remark, then lead him to her bed and beguile him with her tricks and techniques. But no, it didn’t happen that way at all. Tia rocked back just far enough that she could grab his cock beneath his linen skirt, and the feel of her eager touch, her frantic need for him, made his own lust swell in his chest.

He felt hard and heavy, but her skin was wonderfully soft and velvety as she began to fuck him with her fist. Her touch wasn’t studied and contrived like a whore’s. It wasn’t expert and efficient. It was all hunger and raw passion, her fingers curling around him and squeezing with excitement, reaching under him to feel the potent weight of his balls as her kiss deepened in response to his rising excitement. She began to melt against him, as if just the feel of his virility made her weak and pliant.

Nekhet was not used to a woman taking the lead like this. Usually at this point they were on their backs, asking him what his pleasure was, eager to provide it, but Tia stood against him with no sign of surrender, one arm around his broad shoulders, shamelessly frigging his hard prick as her tongue fluttered in his mouth like a hummingbird lapping up dew.

Her hand was soft and cool, yet feverish in its ministrations. For one so small, she clung to him with wonderful strength. He had never felt such desire in a woman.

“Who are you?” he asked her at last, suddenly breaking away from her kiss.

But Tia didn’t answer. She was beyond speech, knowing only a terrible ache like an urgent thirst between her legs, a thirst that now crept up into her throat, as well. She sank to her knees before him, trailing her red lips down his chest, his stomach, kissing his hips, raking her nails over his muscular thighs. She impatiently threw his skirt aside and took his cock in her hand. He was shaved and hairless, as were all Egyptian men who could afford it, and she stared eye to eye with that powerful and angry rod of Seth. She tossed her hair back, opened her lips and swallowed him into her mouth.

“Ahhh—” Nekhet threw his head back in pleasure, then looked down to watch this remarkable girl on her knees at his feet as she sucked on his prick, pulling at him with her lips. She cradled his balls in her hand, hefting them.

Nekhet was beside himself. He was used to taking command, to telling his women what to do, but Tia was too fast and too excited for him, and there was a hunger in her like he had never sensed in a woman before, a desperation for him that made him tremble even as she bobbed her head slavishly over his loins. It was as if she were indeed a goddess, a goddess of desire, famished for him, refusing to be denied.

Finally she had to pull her face off him to breathe, gulping in air as she continued to stroke him. She was aware that she was out of control, but she also had never felt such delicious desire. She knew now how the Lady could claim both love and war as sacred to her spirit. Tia’s desires were warlike; there was that same high passion, that need to possess and conquer or be conquered.

“Come, come, to your feet,” Nekhet said, grabbing her elbow and pulling her off the ground. “Is this how a priestess acts?”

“Yes,” she said, wiping the saliva from her chin. “Yes, it is exactly how a priestess acts. I am all desire, my lord prince. I die for you. My life is in your hands.”

“Where is the nobility in this?” he asked her. “Where is the royalty of the goddess?”

At this, Tia’s passion seemed to quiet down. The flame became a steady glow, and she felt her womanly power flowing within her like the waters of the great river, calm yet powerful. She knew he would be hers. She knew he could not refuse her.

“Come with me,” she said. She took his hand and led him into the small bedchamber behind the statue of Astarte. She lowered the curtain, so that all the light they had came from one oil lamp and the moonlight that shone through the open window. In the starry silence she untied her sash and let the gown whisper to the floor and stood before Nekhet in all her naked excitement.

Her hips were generous, her thighs lean and her breasts rich and heavy, round like ripe fruit. But it was the way she trembled when she pressed her nakedness against him that made his blood rush hot in his body. He had seen deer tremble like that at the end of the hunt, when they knew their hour was up. It was her total surrender and it inflamed him.

“My lord, my lord,” she whispered as he laid her down on the bed. He kissed her mouth, her breasts, her belly, as she writhed beneath him, tugging at his skirt, her fingers anxious and confused and shaking with need. He stood and removed what clothes he wore, and Tia gasped when she saw his cock, even bigger and harder now than when she’d had him in her mouth, and more commanding now that he was naked.

She spread her legs; she spread her arms. She lay back against the cushions, her breasts heaving with her heavy breathing. She could feel the tickle of her own arousal creeping from her opening and she felt all liquid inside. She could feel the night upon her skin and the goddess moving through her flesh—the need, the hunger to be pierced and impaled and possessed.

Nekhet looked down at her and felt the surge of her excitement, as well. Perhaps she was possessed. She certainly seemed to be: she was the very incarnation of womanly passion. He realized now that this was not a goddess like the deities he knew, the neter of Egypt. This was a goddess who embodied all the qualities of human women, all that was divine and powerful about them: their beauty and their desire, their ability to weaken a man and make a slave of him. He felt her need for his hardness inside her. He looked down at her and marveled at the power in that frail body. She was so much like him, and yet so utterly different.

Tia watched and trembled as he climbed between her thighs, and she scrambled to get herself into position in the shadow of his covering body. He reached for his prick, but she was already ahead of him, and she took him in her small hand and guided him anxiously to her opening, her palm feverishly hot. She took him and rubbed the head of his cock salaciously up and down her moist slit, getting herself ready for him, gasping and whimpering with pleasure and impatience. Once she had him in place, she wrapped her legs around him and pulled him inside with her legs and her arms, trembling as if she were a warrior impaling herself on her own sword.

They both cried out as he entered her and pushed her flesh aside as the prow of a boat cuts through the face of the waters—his a deep groan of pleasure and relief, hers a sharp cry of urgent fulfillment, loud enough to be heard in the gatehouse. It had been years since her one experience, and Tia was like a virgin again, was a virgin, in fact, when it came to making love, her one other session having been so short and hurried. Now she had time to feel his hardness going into her, stretching her open with his implacable masculine force, filling her aching emptiness with the heat and strength of his body. He touched her deep, touched her where her heart hammered in her chest, and it was better than water to a raging thirst. And, as if it were water, she lay there luxuriating in the feel of him, letting his hardness fill her.

She was certain the goddess had taken her. Certainly nothing had ever felt as divine, and what made it so good was that she was hardly herself. She had no thoughts for her dignity, her reputation, for what he would think of her when this was over. She was the incarnation of Astarte and not responsible for what she did, and so she was free—free to experience the glorious sensation of his godly prick inside her belly, the potency of this strong body on top of hers.

Nekhet twisted about, stirring his cock around inside her, and Tia responded with a loud gasp of pleasure. It hurt a bit, but wonderfully so, his cock so alive, filled with his divine essence, the semen of the son of the God-King. Excitement overtook her and she dug her heels into the bed and thrust up at him, lifting him from the bed in her sudden urge for more sensation.

“By all the gods!” he moaned as he felt her tight sheath slide over him. The girl had the strength of a lioness. She gripped him inside and squeezed him, reached for his mouth with hers and pulled his head down to her kiss. Nekhet got his knees under him and hung there suspended like the sky god, Shu, as Tia’s cunt reached to engulf him again and again in feverish spasms of pure lust. There was little he could do but kneel there over her as she serviced him, her pussy drawing at him like a wet silky fist, pulling the come from his balls, urging it out, begging for it.

His thumbs found the spiky buds of her nipples and caressed them, making Tia whine in her throat like an eager puppy at her master’s call. The speed of her hips increased so that the legs of the bed began to bang against the tiled floor, and Nekhet realized that this was no normal girl. He looked down at her face, clenched in erotic concentration, her fine features screwed into a mask of passionate lust, her lips swollen and parted, her breath hissing through her white teeth. He stared at her face and thought he had never seen a woman so beautiful, so transported by erotic pleasure. And then Tia opened her eyes and looked back at him.

Those eyes were sightless, dilated, seeing not him but something inside or beyond him, seeing through him and into the core of his masculine soul. It was the way the earth goddess, Geb, must have looked at Shu when he covered her and filled her with his semen, bringing forth the myriad forms of life that graced the earth. It was the look of the moon when it broke through the clouds. It was the look of the warrior with his sword held high when the enemy was in flight. It was the look of triumph in surrender, of feminine victory, and it seemed to draw him up out of himself when he felt his orgasm start, the tides of her body pulling the seed from him, from his very depths.

He was like a god reversed; the head of a man with a man’s tenderness and awe for her beauty, but an animal below as he fucked her savagely with the strength of a bull, spearing her deep, sending his cock into her depths, out of control in his need to possess her. And Tia now gave up her role as seductress and surrendered to his assault, flinging her legs wide and letting him use her for his pleasure.

Nekhet had a moment to rise up on his strong arms and arch his back into her as Tia writhed beneath him, her nails like the claws of a lioness dug into the clenched muscles of his ass, pulling him tight and deep, and then Nekhet exploded into her with the brilliance of a sunrise flooding the darkness with its glorious light.

His body froze with the force of his release and his semen jetted into her. He cried out in surprise at the intensity of his pleasure and his feeling of triumph as his prick spit inside her like some striking cobra, pouring his essence and his relief into her eagerly accepting body.

And Tia, feeling her lover orgasm inside her, seeing the look of awestruck rapture on his face and hearing his cry of male triumph, felt released of any last constraint. She had done the goddess’s work and she felt the divinity inside her reveling in Nekhet’s hot ejaculation, taking it up and bathing in it, drinking it into her. Her triumph filled Tia with a blazing joy and lifted her up, up into the air, into the realm of the gods, into a high place filled with light, and then Astarte let Tia go, let her fall into her own sea of physical pleasure, and Tia fell until she shattered into a thousand shards of liquid ecstasy, her body trembling as her pussy continued to suck his victorious cock and she knew no more than the animal joy of being alive.

A stillness took them as they lay entwined on the sweat-soaked sheets and they trembled like flowers of the field caught in the wind. The moon rode through the mansions of the night as Tia felt her desire blossom again, and Nekhet raised himself on one arm to stare into her face. “Who are you?” he asked her again.

On her hands and knees she took him next, during the very darkest hours of the night, the hour of the ape, with her back curved down, her breasts hanging beneath her and swaying with the force of her lover’s thrusts, her black hair curtaining her face, just as Seth had taken Horus in the swamp as they struggled for dominance before the gods, with Nekhet’s prick deep in her own swamp between her legs. Every time he touched her, every time his lips brushed hers or sought out the smoothness of her skin, Tia felt as though she’d been lashed with whips of pure pleasure, and the tears dried on her cheeks and were wet with fresh ones as the night proceeded—tears of joy, tears of a physical and spiritual pleasure almost too intense to bear.

At some time near the awful hour of the jackal her prince left her and stole away, back to where his barge floated idly in the river, the bargemen all asleep hours before. He cast off and they drifted downriver as Tia drifted on rivers of her own, asleep and alone in her empty bed. She didn’t awaken till Ra in the holy barque was well into the sky, now as Khepri, the sacred scarab, rolling the ball of godlike light through the dome of the heavens.

It was Kheneb who finally woke her, gently, his eyes wide with wonder. Illana stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at Tia with fear and concern in her eyes, wearing the long heavy dress of her native country, the goddess’s homeland.

“Tia, Tia!” Kheneb whispered, barely concealing the excitement in his voice, “What happened last night? What did you say to him?”

“Hush,” Lady Illana admonished. “She is not allowed to tell, nor are you permitted to ask! Such effrontery!”

Tia rolled over onto her elbow and stared about the room, now bright with sun. She was deliciously sore between her legs. Her hair was a mess and her lips felt tender and bruised, but wonderfully slaked and satisfied. She didn’t know what to say, especially to her elder brother, but she could see that Illana already knew, and that Illana would tell him in a language he could understand.

“Prince Nekhet has endowed the temple,” Kheneb said eagerly. “He has sworn to pay for the entire thing himself! There is to be a fine dedication, for which he is also paying. His messenger was just here—whatever did you say to him last night?”

Tia sat up, holding the sheet against her breasts, and gratefully took the jar of water that Illana held out for her.

“Never mind that now,” Lady Illana said. “The prince is coming back tonight. We must prepare you. It is already late. And you are the only one he will talk to about the new arrangements.”

Through the doorway Tia could see the image of the goddess, her arms raised, holding the snakes, her symbols of power, showing how she connected the earth and the sky, the world of the spirit and the world Tia lived in.

Tia only raised the water to her lips and felt her heart rise with it. She said a silent thanks to the Great Lady, and drank.