Amun Sa and the Girl from the Desert Read online

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  They became lovers, of course. Ashayt supposed that her desire for Amun Sa had been naked on her face, in the way she moved, in the way she spoke. For his part, Amun Sa had never seemed to suffer from even a moment’s hesitation. He would tell her later that he had wanted her from the very moment he had helped her stand up in that dusty alley.

  They had not lain together that night, nor for weeks afterward, but he had been waiting for her at the market the next day, and the day after that. As he helped her sell her bread, they told each other of their lives. Ashayt learned that Amun Sa was twenty-six, and had been married to the daughter of a powerful governor since the age of fifteen. He and his wife hated each other, and they spent time together only when absolutely necessary.

  “She is an ill-bred, illiterate shrew that cares only for acquiring jewelry and stuffing her face with delicacies – while the people her father governs starve,” he told Ashayt one day as they walked along the river’s edge. Ashayt, who could not read herself and who had never tasted anything that might be described as a delicacy, had kept her mouth shut.

  “I wish so very much to be rid of her,” Amun Sa muttered, mostly to himself, as they walked along the river’s edge.

  “Could you not leave her and take for yourself … another woman?” Ashayt asked him, careful to keep her voice neutral.

  “I would do so gladly, but we were wed at the command of my King, and I have been forbidden to divorce.”

  “Yet you do not wish to be with her.”

  “I do not. She has taken command of my finances like a good wife, but wastes our income on nonsense. She has borne me but two children, and not because she is barren, but rather because it is an effort to kindle any desire for her, an effort to bring her to my bed, and an effort even more to convince her to perform her duties as a wife.”

  Ashayt, who at the time had only a vague notion of what those duties entailed, felt her cheeks warming. I would perform them for you, she thought. I would do whatever you asked.

  Amun Sa was looking at her now, and she could not meet his gaze, but she knew he must have guessed at some of these thoughts, for she heard him laugh quietly. He stopped walking and stood looking out at the expanse of blue water, typically so wide, but grown now sluggish and thin from drought. Ashayt stood next to him, also looking out, wondering why the Gods had put this man before her yet saddled him with an unbreakable marriage.

  “I should let you return to your family,” Amun Sa said after a time.

  “They will not miss me yet for a little while,” Ashayt said. It was not precisely the truth, but neither would her foster parents object if she returned home later than normal.

  “Yet I must let you go. I must, for both of our sakes.”

  “Why, my Lord?”

  “I fear that if I remain any longer in your presence, I will ask you to do things with me that men and women sometimes do, when they are free. When they wish to show that they care for each other. That they desire each other.”

  It was the most direct statement of his feelings for her that he had yet made, and Ashayt felt a rush of adrenaline at his words. She chose her response carefully.

  “My Lord Amun Sa, if you were to ask me to do these things with you, I would not refuse you.”

  “I am a married man and cannot take you for a wife. We could never be much more than ghosts, moving together in the dark but fleeing when the light comes, and if there are children, they will be the children of ghosts. They would have to live without knowing their father’s name. You should go and find another man, one who can make for you a proper husband, with a fortune for you to care for, who will be father to your children and—”

  Ashayt touched the fingers of her hand to his shoulder, and felt there flesh that was jerking, shaking. Goosebumps rippled across his skin as she stroked it, and Ashayt found herself fighting against the desire within her to press herself against him, force him to hold her, force him to make her his. She wanted to do this, but knew she must not. It must be his choice, his decision, his desire.

  “There is no other man,” she said. “Neither here in this city nor outside of its walls. There is no other and I would not wish it so even if I could. My Lord, you know what I will say, if you ask … but you must ask.”

  Amun Sa turned to look at her now, still trembling, his dark eyes almost black in the slowly setting sun. He reached his hand out and ran it once down the side of her face, his touch like a gentle summer breeze, and Ashayt closed her eyes.

  “Please ask,” she whispered.

  Amun Sa put his hands on her shoulders and was silent for a moment longer. Ashayt stood still, eyes closed, barely daring to breathe.

  When Amun Sa spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Ashayt, do you love me?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then tell me so.”

  “I …” Ashayt paused, not in doubt or fear, but simply because she had never said these words, and they felt new to her lips. She took a breath, looked into his eyes, nodded.

  “I love you, Amun Sa.”

  She could see his desire in his eyes and thought for a moment that he would sweep her from her feet right at this very spot, take her to him and kiss her, bring her to some secluded place and show her what it was to lie with a man. With a visible effort, he took hold of himself, and he smiled at her.

  “And I love you, Ashayt, so I ask you. Will you come to me tonight, and lie with me, and love me as I love you?”

  “I will. Only tell me where, and when, and I will come.”

  “There is a fisherman’s shack, not far from the market, on the western bank where two palm trees lean together to form a cross. The man who owns it does not use it during the night, and when we were young my friends and I would stay there sometimes, fishing for eels. There is a bed, and a place for a fire. I will be there when the moon comes above those trees, and I will wait there for you. I will wait until the sun rises, if I must.”

  “I will not make you wait,” Ashayt told him. “I will come to you when the moon is in the sky. I would … I would go with you now, if it was your wish.”

  Amun Sa smiled at her, leaned in and pressed his lips to the skin between her neck and shoulder, and whispered, “Do not tempt me.”

  Ashayt shivered, sighed, tried in vain to slow her beating heart. Never before had a man put his lips on her body in such a way, and the touch of them overwhelmed her, filled her with desire. The thought of what else might be in store, later that night, was nearly too much to bear.

  “Tonight, my love,” Amun Sa told her, and Ashayt nodded.

  “Yes, tonight. At the fisherman’s shack when the moon is above the two palm trees that form a cross. Yes.”

  Amun Sa looked into her eyes for another interminable moment, and Ashayt wished with all her heart that he would seal their arrangement with a kiss, but he turned instead and set off toward the city, and he did not look back.

  Ashayt closed her eyes and stood listening to the noise of water on stone, the rush of wind in the reeds, the call of birds in the palms. She smiled, and looked up at the sun still hanging so far above the horizon, and began her own journey home.