survey the copper-skinned warriors, bearing cow-hide shaped ingots of copper on their muscular shoulders. Around their loins was a fringed garment; otherwise they were bare and very beautiful, with long elaborately curled ebony ringlets.
‘Indeed, Lady Merope, they are the men of your island,’ agreed Khons. ‘But we cannot linger, we will come and look at them again,’ and he took the hand of the now-disconsolate Great Royal Wife and led her on after the guards and maidens who were escorting the King and Queen.
Merope was struggling to hold back tears. To distract her, I began to whisper to her; I thought it might comfort her to hear of the excellent results obtained by my sister and the pleasure she could expect from the love of the king, even though he was old. I kept my voice low and mentioned no names, because one never knows who is listening in a palace. Merope listened and forgot to cry.
Khons, who also may have caught what I was saying, looked away and did not comment.
Nefertiti and the King were close together. His arm was around her waist and he was smiling at her as though he thoroughly approved of her lying down with his father. This was strange, but presumably it had been explained to him by the alarming red-headed woman his mother, and he had accepted it.
I could not, in fact, imagine someone not accepting anything explained to them by Queen Tiye, who would have kept explaining until there was no alternative but to agree. Not that she would have overborne his will if he had been strongly opposed, but he had not been. I reasoned that he was not sexed, so why should he bother that his father was, and why should he grudge his spouse, whom he certainly seemed to love, such pleasure as the Divine Amenhotep could provide?
And there was no doubt that he had provided it. The arrangement was that Nefertiti should lie with the King every second night for a month. She told me that she was longing for the next time.
It was a puzzle.
Ptah-hotep
I woke the next morning with Meryt asleep beside me. Her coarse black hair strayed across my face and made me sneeze, and I awoke with such a feeling of pleasurable languor that I embraced her again for the pure luxury of touching a warm breathing living creature.
She murmured, and her half-asleep hand slid down my body, found and clasped the phallus, which was erect as it usually was at that hour. She made a complicated movement which entwined our legs and I was inside that female vessel, so soft and wet and strong. Four or five strokes, not more, and I was seeding her again. She was a little disappointed, I think, but she merely held me close and said nothing.
‘Well, Master, what of the love of women?’ she asked, disengaging our bodies and kneeling up to find her cloth, kissing my mouth in passing.
‘It is very fine,’ I said truthfully. I did not love Meryt as I loved my heart’s friend Kheperren, who reported that he was well, enjoying great favour from the captain Horemheb, and missing me beyond endurance. I did not yearn towards her as I yearned towards Kheperren. But I was delighted to find that I was potent with women and she pleased me in a purely animal way. I wondered how her other masters had used her. I asked.
‘Most do not desire black flesh, so I was not raped. When the house-steward bought me I was warranted virgin, though I was not. My people have a great feast at which all virgin girls are required to lie down with the King. Since that was my father I lay under my uncle, who was heavy. He did not hurt me but he did not please me, either. If you wish, Master, I will teach you the art of pleasing women. Then, if you marry, your wife will be happy.’
‘What we have done is not pleasing to you?’ I asked, getting off my bed.
‘Not precisely, Master, though it was not unpleasant. Some men have the skill of making a woman scream with joy; they are the ones surrounded by adoring maidens begging for their attentions.’
‘Like the Lord Amenhotep may he live?’ I sluiced my body down with cool water and dried my male parts with a linen towel. My phallus was a little reddened, but not sore.
‘Yes, he is the master of love-making, it is well-known,’ agreed Meryt. ‘I