Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,107
object of my profound desire, had had no training in love poetry—when he took my hand and said in his clear, precise voice:
Ask of the lotus, what say you?
My petals are her skin,
And my scent her scent.
This was a variant of a word game I had played as a child. It was a riddle game. “What says the wood? My arms are folded” for instance, meant a shut door. The drunken woman cheered and others leaned closer to hear what Ptah-hotep would say next.
Ask of the net, what say you?
I am my lady’s hair, ensnaring her lover.
‘Very good, very good!’ enthused the audience. ‘More wine and more words of love! Your turn, lady Mutnodjme.’
So I obliged:
Ask of the sycamore tree, what say you?
I am a young man’s arms, strong and supple.
Ptah-hotep lifted a hand to my breast and cupped it very gently, yet I could feel the whorls on each finger’s end, and said:
Ask of the pomegranate, what say you?
My pips are her teeth, my fruit her breasts.
The Nubian dancers had gone and the whole court was gathered around us, waiting to hear what Ptah-hotep and Mutnodjme would invent next. It was my turn again:
Ask of the cat, what say you?
I am his strong spine, his hidden claws.
Ptah-hotep continued:
Ask of the night, what say you?
I am her beginning and her ending,
I am her musk and her mystery.
Nefertiti filled my wine cup again, and Ptah-hotep leaned on my shoulder, fatigued by love and poetry.
My lord Akhnaten dropped a golden arm ring into my lap and another into Ptah-hotep’s hand. He smiled down on us, the vague and misty smile of a prophet.
‘You are well-matched,’ he told us.
I tasted the herb menhep in the wine. It was a known aphrodisiac, not that we needed it.
What was the King trying to do? Were we all to couple on the floor, as the peasants did at the festival of two gods in which he no longer believed?
I resolved at least to find a suitable corner for myself and my lover if we were overcome by lust.
When we were overcome by lust; there was no if. My blood was heated by the wine and the proximity of my lover and the music, which was now sinuous and erotic, the marriage music of the Black Land.
The heset raised her voice again, cutting through the babble of people calling for more wine or bread, to sing:
When I see your eyes shine
When I press close to look at you
Oh my beloved
Ruler of my heart!
The guests had begun to dance, not step dances but the marriage dances usually performed in private. The air in the hall was hot. My perfume cone had melted into my wig. Over my shoulders and down my breasts trickled cooling oil which tickled and made my skin shine. The same phenomenon emphasised all the muscles in the chest of Ptah-hotep the scribe.
The king and all the royal household were dancing. Pannefer and Huy were on their feet, mostly naked and smeared with oil, and their wives with them, giggling like children, as the Singer of Hathor continued.
This hour is happy
As you lie between my thighs
May this hour of bliss
Last forever, forever…
People were already seeking corners so that they could lie down with their chosen lovers. The drunken woman seized a passing servant and pulled his head down to her breast, spilling the ewer of wine which he had been carrying. I began to be afraid that I could not contain my lust much longer. The music was wild, shrilling over a grumble of fast-beating drums.
‘Something is happening,’ Ptah-hotep pulled away from my caress. ‘My love, my heart, wait a little longer, I must see…’
I ground my teeth in frustration, dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand and saw that trays were being carried amongst the guests by clean kitchen servants. I saw roasted flesh laid out as always, but the source of the flesh turned me sick with revulsion instead of lust.
This is what it was; it was all the venerated animals of Egypt, cooked. Yet there was nothing wrong with the way they had been cooked, dog and ibis and cat and crocodile. They smelt appetising and everyone was eating, snatching pieces of holy flesh, tearing the carcasses apart.
‘We will have to eat,’ I whispered.
‘Take a piece of the ibis for me,’ he said, and we bit and swallowed the white cooked flesh of the avatar of Thoth, god of wisdom and writing, judge of the netherworld, Ptah-hotep’s god.