“What, are you going so soon, Sister? I wished to tell you the story about those Israelites, and especially of the maid whose name is—what was her name, Ana?”
“Merapi, Moon of Israel, Prince,” I added with a groan.
“About the maid called Merapi, Moon of Israel, I think the sweetest that ever I have looked upon, whose father the dead captain murdered in my sight.”
“So there is a woman in the business? Well, I guessed it.”
“In what business is there not a woman, Userti, even in that of a message from Pharaoh. Pambasa, Pambasa, escort the Princess and summon her servants, women everyone of them, unless my senses mock me. Good-night to you, O Sister and Lady of the Two Lands, and forgive me—that coronet of yours is somewhat awry.”
At last she was gone and I rose, wiping my brow with a corner of my robe, and looking at the Prince who stood before the fire laughing softly.
“Make a note of all this talk, Ana,” he said; “there is more in it than meets the ear.”
“I need no note, Prince,” I answered; “every word is burnt upon my mind as a hot iron burns a tablet of wood. With reason too, since now her Highness will hate me for all her life.”
“Much better so, Ana, than that she should pretend to love you, which she never would have done while you are my friend. Women oftimes respect those whom they hate and even will advance them because of policy, but let those whom they pretend to love beware. The time may come when you will yet be Userti’s most trusted councillor.”
Now here I, Ana the Scribe, will state that in after days, when this same queen was the wife of Pharaoh Saptah, I did, as it chanced, become her most trusted councillor. Moreover, in those times, yes, and even in the hour of her death, she swore from the moment her eyes first fell on me she had known me to be true-hearted and held me in esteem as no self-seeker. More, I think she believed what she said, having forgotten that once she looked upon me as her enemy. This indeed I never was, who always held her in high regard and honour as a great lady who loved her country, though one who sometimes was not wise. But as I could not foresee these things on that night of long ago, I only stared at the Prince and said:
“Oh! why did you not allow me to depart as your Highness said I might at the beginning? Soon or late my head will pay the price of this night’s work.”
“Then she must take mine with it. Listen, Ana. I kept you here, not to vex the Princess or you, but for a good reason. You know that it is the custom of the royal dynasties of Egypt for kings, or those who will be kings, to wed their near kin in order that the blood may remain the purer.”
“Yes, Prince, and not only among those who are royal. Still, I think it an evil custom.”
“As I do, since the race wherein it is practised grows ever weaker in body and in mind; which is why, perhaps, my father is not what his father was and I am not what my father is.”
“Also, Prince, it is hard to mingle the love of the sister and of the wife.”
“Very hard, Ana; so hard that when it is attempted both are apt to vanish. Well, our mothers having been true royal wives, though hers died before mine was wedded by my father, Pharaoh desires that I should marry my half-sister, Userti, and what is worse, she desires it also. Moreover, the people, who fear trouble ahead in Egypt if we, who alone are left of the true royal race born of queens, remain apart and she takes another lord, or I take another wife, demand that it should be brought about, since they believe that whoever calls Userti the Strong his spouse will one day rule the land.”
“Why does the Princess wish it—that she may be a queen?”
“Yes, Ana, though were she to wed my cousin, Amenmeses, the son of Pharaoh’s elder brother Khaemuas, she might still be a queen, if I chose to stand aside as I would not be loth to do.”
“Would Egypt suffer this, Prince?”
“I do not know, nor does it matter since she hates Amenmeses, who is strong-willed and ambitious, and will have none of him. Also he is already married.”
“Is there no other royal one whom she might take, Prince?”
“None. Moreover she wishes me alone.”
“Why, Prince?”
“Because of ancient custom which she worships. Also because she knows me well and in her fashion is fond of me, whom she believes to be a gentle-minded dreamer that she can rule. Lastly, because I am the lawful heir to the Crown and without me to share it, she thinks that she would never be safe upon the Throne, especially if I should marry some other woman, of whom she would be jealous. It is the Throne she desires and would wed, not the Prince Seti, her half-brother, whom she takes with it to be in name her husband, as Pharaoh commands that she should do. Love plays no part in Userti’s breast, Ana, which makes her the more dangerous, since what she seeks with a cold heart of policy, that she will surely find.”
“Then it would seem, Prince, that the cage is built about you. After all it is a very splendid cage and made of gold.”
“Yes, Ana, yet not one in which I would live. Still, except by death how can I escape from the threefold chain of the will of Pharaoh, of Egypt, and of Userti? Oh!” he went on in a new voice, one that had in it both sorrow and passion, “this is a matter in which I would have chosen for myself who in all others must be a servant. And I may not choose!”
“Is there perchance some other lady, Prince?”
“None! By Hathor, none—at least I think not. Yet I would have been free to search for such a one and take her when I found her, if she were but a fishergirl.”
“The Kings of Egypt can have large households, Prince.”
“I know it. Are there not still scores whom I should call aunt and uncle? I think that my grandsire, Rameses, blessed Egypt with quite three hundred children, and in so doing in a way was wise, since thus he might be sure that, while the world endures, in it will flow some the blood that once was his.”
“Yet in life or death how will that help him, Prince? Some must beget the multitudes of the earth, what does it matter who these may have been?”
“Nothing at all, Ana, since by good or evil fortune they are born. Therefore, why talk of large households? Though, like any man who can pay for it, Pharaoh may have a large household, I seek a queen who shall reign in my heart as well as on my throne, not a ‘large household,’ Ana. Oh! I am weary. Pambasa, come hither and conduct my secretary, Ana, to the empty room that is next to my own, the painted chamber which looks toward the north, and bid my slaves attend to all his wants as they would to mine.”
“Why did you tell me you were a scribe, my lord Ana?” asked Pambasa, as he led me to my beautiful sleeping-place.
“Because that is my trade, Chamberlain.”
He looked at me, shaking his great head till the long white beard waved across his breast like a temple banner in the faint evening breeze, and answered:
“You are no scribe, you are a magician who can win the love and favour of his Highness in an hour which others cannot do between two risings of the Nile. Had you said so at once, you would have been differently treated yonder in the hall of waiting. Forgive me therefore what I did in ignorance, and, my lord, I pray it may please you not to melt away in the night, lest my feet should answer for it beneath the sticks.”
It was the fourth hour from sunrise of the following day that, for the first time in my life