Amun Sa and the Girl from the Desert Read online

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  She had first encountered the man whose face and body and hands would come to occupy her every waking thought in a small alley outside of the city’s market square. He had been chasing a pickpocket and was unable to stop in time when Ashayt stepped out from behind a wall, carrying her basket of bread and daydreaming. The thief had narrowly avoided her, and the man chasing him shouted in surprise and warning, but too late. He had collided with the dark-skinned girl, knocking her to the ground and scattering her bread around the alley.

  After taking a moment to ascertain that she was not badly hurt, Ashayt opened her eyes and saw standing above her a beautiful man, young and well built, with sun-bronzed skin the color of the sunset on a field of wheat and eyes like deep, dark pools. He was wearing an obviously expensive wig of human hair, the locks of which reached to his shoulders and were decorated with many beads. Her breath caught in her lungs, and for a moment she was unable to do anything more than stare at him.

  “You should have been more careful,” the man told her, and extended his hand to help her up. “Now you’ve lost your bread, and I’ve lost my thief so I won’t be able to pay you for it.”

  He smiled at her, and for Ashayt that was the end. All of her life before that moment seemed as if it belonged to someone else, some other girl. Now she was someone new, a woman whose only desire was to possess this man standing above her, and to be possessed by him. She reached out and took his outstretched hand, let him help her to her feet, stood staring at him.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, and Ashayt shook her head. No, she was not hurt. She was as far from hurt, it seemed, as it was possible to be. Every part of her body seemed to be singing in excitement and joy and desire.

  The man took her basket from the ground and, squatting, began to collect those loaves of bread that seemed like they might be salvaged. After a moment, Ashayt joined him. This alley was little-used, and that was a good thing. Some of the bread was broken and a few loaves more had landed in a puddle of what she thought was camel urine, but most were merely dusty and could still be sold.

  “Can you speak?” he asked after a time, and she nodded, but no words seemed to come to her lips, and so she continued to collect bread in silence. The man stopped and watched her, amused.

  “Do you speak?”

  Ashayt made an effort to find her voice and managed a single word. “Yes.”

  “You are not from here.”

  “No.”

  “What is your name? Where are you from?”

  “I am called Ashayt. I come from the south. From the deserts outside of Tjenu.”

  “Well, I cannot say it is good to meet you, my lady Ashayt, for it has cost me a sack of turquoise worth fifty deben, but neither can I say I am entirely unhappy with this event. I am called Amun Sa, son of Hêtshepsu, son of Nifé-en-Ankh. I am third-cousin by marriage to King Pepi, Lord of all the Earth and descendant of Ptah the Maker, may he rule forever.”

  Ashayt, confronted so suddenly with the knowledge that the man who stood before her was nobility, of a social standing so far above her own that it was inconceivable that he was even speaking with her, found herself again at a loss for words. She went immediately to her knees, bowing before him and putting her forehead to the sand. When at last she was able to speak, she began pouring forth a litany of apology, begging for forgiveness for her running into him.

  “Please, girl … Ashayt, stop. Enough. I beg you, I … Ptah have mercy upon me, in the name of the King, I command you to stop!”

  This last was delivered in such a tone that Ashayt understood that she was not to argue. She was only to obey. It was a tone that only a man of royal upbringing would have even known how to use, and she followed his command instinctively. She stopped apologizing, snapping her mouth shut, but continued to lie prostrate before him.

  “Well, that’s a start. Now, please, stand up. I see more of this already each day than I care to.”

  Ashayt did as he told her, keeping her gaze low, unable to meet his eyes.

  “Why won’t you look at me?” Amun Sa asked her and, after a moment, spoke again in that tone of command. “Answer me.”

  “It is not right, my Lord,” Ashayt answered. “I should not … I must not even speak to you. I do so now only because you command it.”

  “Why do you feel this way?”

  “You are cousin to the King!”

  “Third-cousin. By marriage. My father’s wife’s great-grandfather was the tenth son of the great King Teti of Seheteptawy, borne by his third wife, the Queen Khuit. I am just a scribe, and not a King.”

  “Yet you are of noble blood, my Lord, and I am nothing, a peasant girl from the desert and a baker of bread. I have cost you your jewels, and their worth is more than I could ever hope to pay back. Oh, please forgive my clumsiness and allow me to rid you of my presence.”

  Amun Sa studied her for some time, long enough that at last Ashayt was forced to look up and meet his eyes, if only for a moment, to confirm that he was still there. When she did this, she felt again that thrill of desire running like a bright streak through her, and a shiver went down the entire length of her spine. She quickly glanced back to the ground. At last Amun Sa spoke.

  “I give forgiveness for your clumsiness gladly, for truly I think the fault belongs to that damned pickpocket. As for ridding me of your presence, that I cannot allow. I find your presence pleasant.”

  Ashayt felt her cheeks warming, but she said nothing.

  “May I accompany you to the market, Ashayt-from-the-desert?”

  “If it would please you, my Lord,” Ashayt said.

  “Then let us be on our way, for it would please me very much.”

  Amun Sa bent, and picked up her basket, and started forth. Ashayt, confused and startled both by this stranger’s actions and by the overwhelming desire within her that she could not seem to force down, stared for a moment in surprise. Then, with no other options immediately available to her and no reason to search for any, she followed him.