Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,161

did, not without a weapon. The phallus twitched and he began to seed me, and at the same time I shoved myself down on the spike and wrapped my legs around his waist. He was deeper inside me than anyone had ever been. I shuddered. He held me tight.

‘Mistress,’ he said into my neck, as I disentangled myself and stood up on weak legs. ‘My Mistress of the House Mutnodjme. Lady, you honour me.’

‘Lord,’ I agreed. I kissed his mouth again and picked up my brush, which I had let fall in an excess of passion. We were both covered in lather. ‘We are certainly the cleanest lovers in the palace of Amarna,’ I commented, wiping soap off my belly.

‘It reflects the purity of my passion for you,’ he said, and I laughed and resumed scrubbing.

My household had exerted themselves and I was very pleased with them. When I had eventually emerged from the washing-place with a very clean general, Ipuy and Kasa offered to massage him with perfumed oils and Ankherhau had found his best cloth. She had, without being ordered, shaken out the folds and mended a little tear in one corner.

Takhar was laying out plates for the feast on the low long table which the general had ordered especially built for his house. He often had secret conferences and preferred to serve himself and his guests from a selection of dishes on the table rather than have servants filling cups and supplying food who were also attending to his secrets.

‘Willing hands have listening ears attached,’ he remarked, a truly strange image, but I saw what he meant. Ears did come along with the usual human package.

Apart from Mou, who did us the honour of attending on the preparations, approving of the cuisine and making off with a large piece of roasted beef, I did not know who was attending the feast. Wab had made garlands for seven, as the general had said that there would be six and it was always the custom to make one extra. They were very good garlands, collars of little flowers which I had not seen before put together with skill and I commended her. She put one finger in her mouth and wriggled with pleasure at my praise. I supposed that she would grow out of this, for she was a good child, mostly.

‘Mistress, I had to use small flowers, because the lotus are scarce this year.’

‘But it’s Khoiak, Wab, there should be unnumbered lotus in the pools.’

‘No, Mistress, hardly any. The season has been bad and the flood failed again and now there are few lotus. The farmers are eating the lotus roots and making bread of the seeds.’

I patted Wab and gave her a honeycake, but this was bad news. I saw no need to tell the general—he undoubtedly already knew—and surveyed the table.

There were stewed pigeons and roasted quail, a huge roasted fish, and a dish of garlic, leeks and onions cooked with beans. The general had always liked beans. Bukentef was standing guard over his jars of beer and wine. He gave a jug to Ii, who was to greet the guests with wine while Kasa and Wab draped them in flowers and anointed them with oil. I had bought a set of wine cups, light pottery decorated with cornflowers, and they stood ready on a tray.

General Horemheb, the picture of a cared-for man, clean, satisfied, massaged and clad in an indigo-printed cloth, threw himself down in his chair of state and accepted a cup, tasted, and grinned.

‘I like having a household,’ he announced. Wab trotted over and put a garland around his neck and he patted her on the buttocks as she did so. She giggled.

Then Nebnakht opened the main door and announced, ‘Widow-Queen the lady Tiye, Mistress of Egypt, Menna and Harmose Scribes of the Pharaoh, General Khaemdua Ruler of the Hermotybies.’

Wab and Kasa distributed garlands, Ii presented filled cups, and the guests came in and were seated around the long table.

‘Lady,’ I said a little breathlessly, ‘I am so glad to see you.’

I knelt next to the red-headed woman Mistress of Egypt, and she cupped a hand under my chin.

‘I know that you came every day of my captivity and tried to get in, Mutnodjme,’ she said softly. ‘I know that of all of my friends you never forgot me. I know that you have married the general and he never forgot me either. If it had not been for you, lady, I would