you tell me to say such a ridiculous thing? I cannot teach a goat to talk. No man can teach a goat to talk!’
‘You’re still alive. You’ve got a year,’ said the Eloquent Peasant. ‘A lot may happen in a year. You might die. The goat might die. The king might die. The goat might talk!’
‘That is a heartening proverb, Ptah-hotep,’ I added.
‘It is,’ he agreed.
It was getting dark. The sun was sinking. The ornaments of the king’s house were all gone, and it must be truly cold and empty in the palace of women. I was glad I was not there.
Kheperren and I assembled a feast for the evening meal. Meryt as her last gift had left a lot of food prepared and waiting: a stack of flat bread, oiled meats, fine vegetables and fruits and a whole cheese in its web. I found myself hungry, which was surprising, and we dined well on Nubian food and Tashery wine, always the best in the Black Land. We had to find something to talk about, and Ptah-hotep was drawn like a fine wire.
‘Do you remember, my heart, lying in the reeds with me, swimming in the sacred lake when we were boys, before the flail descended on your shoulders?’ asked Kheperren.
Ptah-hotep looked at him over his wine cup and said, ‘I remember. We were going to have a hut in the reeds and a dog called Wolf on guard. That will not happen now,’ he said, and gulped more wine. Reminiscence was not going to assist us to while away the night.
‘Do you remember lying with me on the night of Isis and Osiris?’ I asked.
Ptah-hotep nodded and said, ‘We were possessed by the gods, and that proves that they still exist. Isis was in you, lady, and Osiris in me. And tomorrow I will be burned to death, and there will be no meeting for us, never again.’
This sounded like settled despair and Kheperren knelt beside Ptah-hotep and took him by the shoulders.
‘Who is to say that your belief is correct?’ he said desperately in earnest. ‘Who is to say that we do not all blow out like candle flame or all go into union with the Aten? It’s just stories, ’Hotep, just tales that men make to ward off the dark.’
‘No one has come back,’ I added, joining Kheperren on the floor, ‘to prove or disprove. No ghost has come to tell us that unless the body is preserved the soul is lost. How could Amen-Re allow such a good soul to be destroyed in such an act? You will live, you will live, you will live.’
‘I am so afraid,’ he confessed at last, and we carried him down into our arms, on the floor, on the Nubian blanket let fall by an overburdened child.
I had not known if they would exclude me, these two who had been lovers for years before I came into their life, but they did not. Both pairs of arms reached for me, both mouths touched mine. Kheperren stripped Ptah-hotep of his clothes and his jewels, and I stood up to remove all that I wore, then tugged at the soldier’s loincloth. I undid the knots and it came free, revealing a phallus coming into erection slowly, still soft to my hand, hardening under my touch.
We stripped away even the wig which all men of any standing wore, freeing Ptah-hotep’s own hair from its plait, scattering ribbons and feathers and mirrors. I found perfumed oil and sprinkled us all, so that we smelt of the divine fragrance, of frankincense which had once been the perfumed breath of Osiris and Isis and their son Horus, the Revenger.
If Ptah-hotep was Osiris, I was Isis, and Kheperren was Horus. I spoke and named us and consecrated us to the gods of the dead while I still had language, for this love-making quickly passed beyond speech. We sighed together, all on one note. I felt my body relaxing, anticipating pleasure, my emotions with my Ptah-hotep but also with Kheperren. I wanted it to last forever, in a charmed sphere such as magicians make to protect themselves from demons they have raised.
A mouth was on my breast, tonguing a nipple until it was hard. A hand was cupping my sisters, the two lips which guard the sheath of Hathor, cupping and then stroking between. I held and sucked, so slowly, a phallus such as that of Min who is fertility; while over my head I heard the slap