“This one’s stopped laying, so it was time to put her to rest,” she said.
“Did you wring its neck yourself?” said Djet.
“I did. I’d have let you watch, little boy, if I’d known you were interested. Which do you prefer, Marcus Pecunius, the succulent thigh or the plump breast? I promise they will be equally moist and delicious.” Teti gave me a coy look and began plucking feathers from the chicken.
“Whatever you prepare, I will gratefully receive.”
“Oh, what a way you have with words! I’ve heard about you Romans and your slippery tongues.”
“We are known for giving speeches,” I admitted.
“Well, let me go see what I can conjure up for you and the boy.” Feathers flew this way and that. “My late husband always bragged that I was the best cook in Sais. A young fellow like you must work up quite an appetite, seated high atop that camel all day, gripping its hump with your strong thighs.”
“Yes, I’m quite hungry,” I said.
“A good meal will give you back your strength. You just might need it.”
“For what?”
She threw back her head and laughed, then waddled away amid a flurry of feathers and swarming flies.
Djet gave me a sidelong look.
“What?” I said.
“I escaped from Obodas, thanks to Fortuna. But I’m not sure that even Fortuna can protect you from Teti.”
I frowned. “What are you suggesting? The widow is old enough to be my mother.”
“Have you never known the touch of an older woman?”
“As a matter of fact…” I recalled my visit to Halicarnassus, and the time I spent with another widow; but in no way did Teti resemble the beautiful and alluring Bitto. “What would you know about such things, anyway?” I smacked his head. “Now keep quiet and help me tend to the camel. An awful lot of flies around here, aren’t there?” No sooner did I wave one away than another took its place.
“Yes, when you return me to my master and he asks for my report, I shall call this the Inn of a Thousand and One Flies.”
I laughed and lowered my voice. “I was thinking we might call it the Inn of the Friendly Hippopotamus.”
Later, Teti joined us in the small common room of the inn while the silent girl served us the chicken, which had been cut into small pieces and smothered in a delicious sauce of ground dates and almond paste. Teti asked me a great many questions. The more personal of these I deflected as best I could, keeping in mind my guise as Marcus Pecunius. Having never stepped foot outside Sais, she appeared to know little of the world, and it seemed that virtually anything I said about myself, true or made up, was likely to satisfy her.
She did, however, know a great deal about the royal family, and was eager for any news or gossip I could give her. Was the king really as fat as everyone said? Had the people lost all love for him? Was it true that his son on the island of Cos had been kidnapped by their cousin Mithridates? Had I heard the rumor that there existed a member of the royal family brought up in secret who might any day now present himself to the people and stake a claim to the throne? I finally confessed that she must know far more about the Ptolemies and their doings than did I, an inattentive and not particularly observant foreigner.
After the meal, Teti offered to have the serving girl sing for us-apparently she was not always silent-but I pleaded weariness, and with Djet headed straight for our room.
I threw off all my clothes and reclined naked on the narrow bed, covering myself with the linen sheet and using the treasure sack for a pillow. Djet took the real pillow and slept on the floor, directly in front of the door. So it often happened in stories, he told me, that a slave would serve to block the doorway. This simple precaution struck me as quite sensible.
And yet, somehow, at some dark hour of the night, another person joined us in the room. I woke from a troubled dream, my forehead beaded with sweat, to see a hulking silhouette looming over me.
XIV
“Teti!” I whispered. “What are you doing here? How did you get in? Where is Djet?” I tried to sit up, but felt strangely lightheaded.
“I don’t know where the boy has gone,” she said. “But I saw him leave the room a few moments ago-and I took that to be my cue.”
“Your cue?”
“To join you, Marcus Pecunius. Or should I just call you Marcus? Is that not the Roman custom, to use the first name when two people become … close friends?”
As far as I was concerned, she had already come close enough. Again I tried to sit up, and again I was thwarted by an odd sensation in my head and a weakness in my limbs. Had I been drugged again, this time by Teti? Was it a standard practice for Egyptian innkeepers to sedate their guests so as to take advantage of them?
“Teti, I’m not feeling well.”
“Ah, you’re tired, that’s all. Some fresh air will revive you.” She walked to the small window, unlatched the shutters, and pulled them open. By the moonlight I saw her more clearly.
She was completely naked.
I swallowed. My throat felt dry and scratchy. “I closed that window to keep out the flies,” I said.
“Flies?” She laughed. “The flies are all asleep, silly man.”
“You’ll let in the damp night air.” I was used to sleeping in a city by the sea, refreshed by salubrious sea breezes. The air of the Delta was sultry and humid, especially at night, when oppressive vapors rose from the riverbanks and marshes. Was that why I felt so sluggish and out of sorts?
Despite my objections, Teti left the shutters open. She stepped away from the window and drew relentlessly closer.
To be honest, and to be fair, I was not entirely put off by her advances. The sight of her naked figure by moonlight had in fact stirred something in me-if not exactly lust, then at least a quiver of curiosity. Teti was no Venus, at least not as Greeks and Romans like to picture the goddess of love, with a slender waist and elegant breasts. She more closely resembled those archaic images I had seen in certain temples in my travels, goddesses of fertility who were all voluptuous hips and breasts and buttocks. Seeing Teti unclothed, no one could say she was not a robust specimen of womanhood. And if one liked that sort of thing, there was a great deal of her to like.
But what she had in mind was simply not possible. There were two reasons for this.
The first reason was Bethesda.
Like an actor in a play, I had an impulse to clutch the thin coverlet to my chin and cry out, “No, Teti! I cannot do it! My heart belongs to another!” While I did cover myself with the sheet, I kept my mouth shut. Staid Roman that I was, all my instincts cried out against making a public declaration of my feelings for a slave, even if the only person present to hear it was Teti.
From whence came this impulse to be faithful to Bethesda? To be chaste is hardly a Roman virtue, at least not for a man; to be faithful might be, if the woman is one’s wife, but Bethesda was not and surely never could be that. I was a man-a freeborn, unmarried citizen of Rome-so what was there to prevent me from indulging in a bit of harmless sport with an available female, if I desired to do so?
There was the problem: I did not desire it, and would not have done so even if Teti had looked like Helen of Troy. Indeed, the more beautiful the temptress, the more I would have shrunk from her. Such was the state of my manhood. Whatever stirrings I felt at the sight of a desirable female-I had seen quite a few in Canopus-became transmuted at once into thoughts of Bethesda, and those thoughts brought not pleasure but pain.
Was she remaining faithful to me during our separation? Even if that were her desire, had some brute forced himself on her? Had more than one brute done so? Had Bethesda forsaken me? Had she forgotten me? Was she making any effort to return to me? Would I ever see her again? Was she even still alive?
One tortured thought led to another-all beginning with the sight of an attractive woman. Thus did the faintest quiver of desire lead me not to lust but to misery. I could no longer even please myself. My natural instincts had become perverted, and all because of something the poets call “love.” Love had made me a eunuch.