V
The king was the last to learn that Princess Makitatona was with child. She confessed it to him herself, but did not say who the man was and so implored him not to ask her that he had pity and reassured her:
"Don't tell me if you don't want to; you will tell me when you feel that you can."
He blamed himself for everything: "If I loved her more, this would not have happened!" He was doing himself injustice: he loved all his daughters and Maki more than the rest.
He thought the queen knew, but she did not. The princess's nurse, old Asa, may have suspected something, but she would rather have had her tongue cut off than said anything.
There were strange rumours in the town: it was said that the princess had been seduced by a tramp, a runaway slave or, perhaps, by the Jew Iserker himself; it would not have been very difficult, because the king's daughters were not properly looked after; Princess Makitatona had been seen to go out alone into the desert through the secret gate in the Maru-Aton garden wall. And people added, not without malice, that the Jews were highly delighted, for they thought that the princess would give birth to their Messiah.
The dwarf, Lagu, was brought one day to the palace half dead: he had had a fight with a crowd of street ruffians who were gazing at a charcoal drawing of the princesses made on the wall with an indecent inscription beneath it.
The king allowed Maki to live in retirement in the Maru-Aton palace until her confinement. She spent the days there in a perfectly dark room with the shutters closed and the windows curtained: she could not bear the light. She had had attacks of this disease before: daylight seemed to stab not only her eyes, but her whole body as with a knife; if a ray of sunshine penetrated into the room, she cried and groaned as with intolerable pain.
The eldest princess, Meritatona, or Rita, Saakera's wife, was inseparable from Maki. There was a year's difference between the sisters—one was fifteen, the other fourteen; they loved each other tenderly though they were as different as day and night.
Maki had been betrothed to Saakera, who was passionately in love with her; she loved him, too, but renounced him for Rita's sake and made a vow of virginity to the god Attis. The god's chapel was in the hilly desert not far from Maru-Aton. The droning of the eunuchs engaged in their devotions sounded like jackals howling in the night.
Some ten days after Saakera's feast Maki and Rita were sitting at Maru-Aton late one evening in a long and narrow Water House, supported by palm-shaped pillars with a labyrinth of eleven ornamental pools. Their slanting walls were covered with paintings of water plants, lotoses and papyrus, that seemed to be growing out of water; above them were painted pomegranate bushes and clumps of vine. Beds of living flowers were all round.
Rita and Maki were reclining on pillows by the water's edge, under bushes of white, pink, and red roses.
"Why didn't you tell sooner, you silly? We could have arranged things, and now look at yourself: it is too late," said Rita, feeling Maki's body as an experienced midwife. Pregnancy seemed monstrous in a little creature like Maki, almost a child.
"Saakera's Ethiopian has some stuff. Shall I ask her? Perhaps it could still be done...."
"Oh, Rita, don't speak of it, please don't!"
"Very well, don't whine.... What was I talking about? Yes, about Ankhi. She wants to run away and join Tuta. The rascals did not stay long in prison—they escaped to Nut-Amon; I expect they'll stir up a rising there. No, I would not have let them off: they ought to have been killed on the spot. But our courtiers are all traitors and scoundrels."
She spoke listlessly, evidently thinking of something else. Suddenly she smiled, as though recalling something funny.
"Shiha is a clever man! Do you know what he says of Enra?" Shiha was the high priest and eunuch of the god Attis.
"What?" Maki asked. She started slightly at the name of Shiha and Rita noticed it.
"He says Enra lives as though all were well with the world; but all is not well!"
"All is not well?" Maki repeated, frowning with the childish effort to understand.
"Do you remember Yuma's death?" Rita went on. Yuma was a little black slave who died of a tarantula sting.
"She turned greyish-white all over, just like an autumn fly covered with mildew, and a smell of corruption came from her before she died. And the day before yesterday someone had attacked a little girl of five by the very walls of Aton's temple, strangled her and thrown the body to the pigs. Is that well? And Enra lives as though none of these things happened. Perhaps all is well for God, but Enra is not God; people say he is, but he himself knows he isn't."
She pondered for a while and began again:
"He does not know how to cry, but one cannot live without tears; nothing is sweeter than tears..."
"Does Shiha say that?" Maki asked.
"No, I say it .... or perhaps Shiha, I don't remember.... What is Aton, the Sun? A spark in darkness: death will blow and the sun will be extinguished. Darkness is more than light; first there was darkness and then light. Maybe God dwells in darkness."
She laughed suddenly.
"You, too, are a sensible girl; you are afraid of light and love darkness. The daughter does not take after the father."
Maki listened greedily; sometimes she strove to say something, but words froze on her lips; she merely looked at her sister with wide open eyes and seemed like one bound hand and foot waiting for a blow.
"Well, that's enough moping, let us go! You must walk about, it is good for you," Rita said, lifting her with apparent roughness, but in reality with tender care, and led her into the garden.
It was dusk. The sky was clear, but mist was creeping over the ground. The water in the river had only just returned to its normal level; there were still pools of water about. Drops fell from the wet leaves. Frogs croaked ecstatically. The smell of the flowers was intoxicating. All at once the mist turned rosy from the moon that was rising invisibly.
They walked to the big pond where Maki's birch tree grew. It had never recovered after the scorching Sheheb. Everything round it was green and in flower, but it was dead and only on some of the bare branches a withered leaf showed black.
Maki put her arms round the pale, slender stem and pressed her cheek against it.
"Poor, poor darling!" she whispered tenderly as though saying good-bye to a friend who had died.
"A-ah, you remember the superstition!" Rita said, with a laugh. "If one plants a tree and it dies, the person who planted it will die also. Well, even if you do die, that's nothing very dreadful—you will have had a child anyway. To think of God sending such happiness to one who doesn't want it! Why, I would die ten times if I could only have a child."
After walking round the big pond, they came to the Lotos pond, with Aton's chapel on a little island and a small bridge leading to it. A huge lotos, not yet fully opened, showed white on the water. A boat was tied near by. Rita jumped into it, and seeing a garden knife at the bottom, took it to cut the lotos; she gave the flower to Maki and hid the knife in the bosom of her dress.
They went back to the Water-House and sat down in the old place.
"You haven't been to see Shiha for some time, have you?" Rita asked.
"No, I haven't."
"And I often go to him. It is interesting. A regular abode of love. All our dignitaries' wives keep going there. These eunuchs are excellent matchmakers. And they are themselves fond of women—and the women like it, of course. Shiha tempts me, too, with the god's marriage-bed: 'the god will come down to you in the night like a bridegroom to his bride,' he says. But I am not a fool to buy a pig in a poke. Instead of a god a slave or a dirty Jew may come and disgrace one..."
She paused and then spoke again, looking straight into Maki's eyes:
"Extraordinary! How is it possible not to find out who the father of your child is? Why, I would get the wretch from the bottom of the sea! But Shiha knows who came to you then. Would you like me to threaten him so that he should tell? ... Well, why are you silent? Do you want me to?"
"Do what you like, but don't torment, don't torment me so! Better make an end of it." Maki moaned, pale and trembling as though she were on the rack.
Rita drew back, and she trembled, too.
"Make an end of it? Do you think I know everything and merely tease you, play cat and mouse with you? Well, perhaps I do know.... What's the matter, why are you so frightened? Perhaps you know, too? A-ah, I've caught you! Speak, tell me, who is it? He?"
"Yes, he, Saakera," Maki answered, with apparent calm, looking straight into her eyes. "Well, kill me, I don't care..."
Rita brought the knife out of her bosom and flung it far away. She buried her face in her hands and sat for a few minutes without moving; then she drew her hands away from her face and put them on Maki's shoulders.
"There, it's a good thing you told me or very likely I would have killed you, really. Do you remember Ankhi's doll?"
When Rita and Ankhi were little they had once a fight over a clay doll, a hideous thing that they both loved passionately. Rita took it from her sister, who pulled it out of her hands, and broke it into bits against the wall. Then Rita fell upon Ankhi like a fury and bit her throat; the nurses had difficulty in dragging her off. And in the night she stole away into the garden and ate some poison berries, 'spiders' eggs'; she very nearly died.
"The devil entered into me then, and now, too. We have all taken after father—we are possessed.... Yes, it is a good thing you told me. All is well now—it's over! But I do wonder at myself: I thought I would kill you if you told me; and now I don't feel anything. Silly girls had a fight over a doll, but perhaps it was not worth while, after all. You know what a number of wives Saakera has. Sheep are in the stalls, fish in the hatchery and we in his palace. You and I are no better than the others. You gave me your betrothed, I gave you my husband, so we are quits and that's an end of it. We'll be friends as before, better than before. When the baby is born—it must be a boy, we don't want a girl—we'll look after it together.... What's the matter, why are you silent again? Don't you believe me?"
"I do, but I am afraid...."
"What of?"
"I don't know.... You may forgive me, but I will torment myself to death.... Oh, Rita, darling, why didn't you kill me straight away? It would have been better to make an end of it!"
"Nonsense! All will be forgiven and forgotten if only one lives and loves. And you do love me, don't you—more than before?"
"More, much more! I love you dreadfully, that's why I will die—because I love you so. You know, Rita, if one loves very much, one cannot live, it's too great a joy...."
"It was after that you got to love me so?" Rita asked, with slight mockery.
Instead of answering Maki hid her face on Rita's breast and burst into tears.
"There, that will do," Rita said, drily. "It is time to go home—see what heavy dew there is."
She took her by the arms and again led her along carefully like a nurse.
They went indoors. Rita put her sister to bed and sat down beside her, waiting for her to go to sleep.
"Don't go," Maki begged.
"I won't, don't be afraid, I'll sleep here beside you."
"You do love me, yes?" Maki whispered in her ear.
"No, I don't love you a bit. Why, you silly girl, if I didn't love you, I wouldn't torment you so.... there, that's enough talking, go to sleep."
"No, wait a minute, what was I going to say? ... Oh, yes! You know I do not know for certain who came to me then. I told you it was he, Saakera, but I don't really know—perhaps it wasn't he."
"Who was it, then?"
"He Whom I was expecting. I doubted, I did not believe—and this is why I suffer now. I shall die in misery, but when I am dead, perhaps He will come again."
"There, don't let us talk of it, sleep. Shall I tell you a story?"
"Do," Maki answered in a sleepy, childish voice.
"Once upon a time there lived a king and queen," Rita began the tale of the Bewitched Prince, in a sing-song voice like the old nurse, Asa. "One day they prayed to the gods and the gods gave them a son. And when he was born the seven Hathor came to decree his destiny and said, 'this man will meet with death from a crocodile, a snake, or a dog.' And the king was very, very sorry when he heard of this. And he caused a tower to be built in the mountains and settled the prince there. And the prince was very, very happy there...."
She stopped, listened to her sister's even breathing and kissing her on the eyes, that she might have good dreams, went out of the room.
Old Asa, the princesses' nurse, could not go to sleep in her stuffy room and went out into the garden; seeing something white flit among the trees she was frightened and wondered if it were Tiy—she knew that the dead queen walked about at night. But, recognizing Princess Meritatona, she called to her. The girl stopped, looked round without answering and ran along, disappearing among the thick bushes.
Used as Asa was to the princess's whims, she was surprised and then frightened—in a different way than at first: she felt there was something really alarming about the white phantom.
She ran after Rita, but her old legs did not obey her very well. She went on and on, calling her name, but there was no trace of her.
She met the gardener.
"Have you seen the princess?"
"Yes, I have."
"Where?"
"On the Lotos pond, in the chapel."
"What was she doing there?"
"I can't say."
"Let us go and look."
They walked to the chapel. The gardener did not dare to go in; Asa went in, but ran out immediately, screaming wildly, and fell to the ground, almost knocking the gardener off his feet.
He went into the chapel and saw the princess hanging on the brass rod of the curtain before the altar. She had made the noose out of the curtain drawstring but so badly that it slipped off. Hanging unevenly, her body rested with the toes of the left foot on the corner of the bench she had knocked down after climbing on to it to throw the string over the rod.
When the gardener cut the string and took the noose off Rita's neck she did not breathe and her face was so blue and fixed that he thought her dead.
Maki dreamt that she was lying on the marriage-bed in a high tower in the starry sky, waiting for Him as she had done then, in the temple of Attis; she knew that He would come and that His face would be like the moon, the sun of the night, not burning, not terrible, like the face of the god whose name is Quiet Heart.
She woke up and called:
"Rita!"
She looked round—there was no one in the room; only the moon looked in at the window, bright as the sun of the night.
Suddenly far away in the garden cries were heard. Maki jumped up, ran into the garden and listened. The cries came nearer and nearer. Men with torches ran about shouting.
Maki ran towards the torches. The men were carrying something long and white. Maki rushed forward with a shriek. The men made way for her. Moonlight fell upon Rita's face, and Maki fell fainting upon the ground.
Rita was in a deep swoon. She was saved in the end, but for several weeks she was at death's door as in childhood when she had eaten 'spiders' eggs.'
The same night Maki's labour pains began and by the morning she was safely delivered of a son.