THE STORY OF MERIAMUN
Rei, the Priest of Amen, the Master Builder, began his story unwillingly enough, and slowly, but soon he took pleasure in telling it as old men do, and in sharing the burden of a secret.
"The Queen is fair," he said; "thou hast seen no fairer in all thy voyagings?"
"She is fair indeed," answered the Wanderer. "I pray that she be well- mated and happy on her throne?"
"That is what I will tell thee of, though my life may be the price of the tale," said Rei. "But a lighter heart is well worth an old man's cheap risk, and thou may'st help me and her, when thou knowest all.
Pharaoh Meneptah, her lord, the King, is the son of the divine Rameses, the ever-living Pharaoh, child of the Sun, who dwelleth in Osiris."
"Thou meanest that he is dead?" asked the Wanderer.
"He dwelleth with Osiris," said the Priest, "and the Queen Meriamun was his daughter by another bed."
"A brother wed a sister!" exclaimed the Wanderer.
"It is the custom of our Royal House, from the days of the Timeless Kings, the children of Horus. An old custom."
"The ways of his hosts are good in the eyes of a stranger," said the Wanderer, courteously.
"It is an old custom, and a sacred," said Rei, "but women, the custom- makers, are often custom-breakers. And of all women, Meriamun least loves to be obedient, even to the dead. And yet she has obeyed, and it came about thus. Her brother Meneptah--who now is Pharaoh--the Prince of Kush while her divine father lived, had many half-sisters, but Meriamun was the fairest of them all. She is beautiful, a Moon-child the common people called her, and wise, and she does not know the face of fear. And thus it chanced that she learned, what even our Royal women rarely learn, all the ancient secret wisdom of this ancient land. Except Queen Taia of old, no woman has known what Meriamun knows, what I have taught her--I and another counsellor."
He paused here, and his mind seemed to turn on unhappy things.
"I have taught her from childhood," he went on--"would that I had been her only familiar--and, after her divine father and mother, she loved me more than any, for she loved few. But of all whom she did not love she loved her Royal brother least. He is slow of speech, and she is quick. She is fearless and he has no heart for war. From her childhood she scorned him, mocked him, and mastered him with her tongue. She even learned to excel him in the chariot races--therefore it was that the King his father made him but a General of the Foot Soldiers--and in guessing riddles, which our people love, she delighted to conquer him. The victory was easy enough, for the divine Prince is heavy- witted; but Meriamun was never tired of girding at him. Plainly, even as a little child she grudged that he should come to wield the scourge of power, and wear the double crown, while she should live in idleness, and hunger for command."
"It is strange, then, that of all his sisters, if one must be Queen, he should have chosen her," said the Wanderer.
"Strange, and it happened strangely. The Prince's father, the divine Rameses, had willed the marriage. The Prince hated it no less than Meriamun, but the will of a father is the will of the Gods. In one sport the divine Prince excelled, in the Game of Pieces, an old game in Khem. It is no pastime for women, but even at this Meriamun was determined to master her brother. She bade me carve her a new set of the pieces fashioned with the heads of cats, and shaped from the hard wood of Azebi.[*] I carved them with my own hands, and night by night she played with me, who have some name for skill at the sport.
[*] Cyprus.
"One sunset it chanced that her brother came in from hunting the lion in the Libyan hills. He was in an evil humour, for he had found no lions, and he caused the huntsmen to be stretched out, and beaten with rods. Then he called for wine, and drank deep at the Palace gate, and the deeper he drank the darker grew his humour.
"He was going to his own Court in the Palace, striking with a whip at his hounds, when he chanced to turn and see Meriamun. She was sitting where those three great palm-trees are, and was playing at pieces with me in the cool of the day. There she sat in the shadow, clad in white and purple, and with the red gold of the snake of royalty in the blackness of her hair. There she sat as beautiful as the Hathor, the Queen of Love; or as the Lady Isis when she played at pieces in Amenti with the ancient King. Nay, an old man may say it, there never was but one woman more fair than Meriamun, if a woman she be, she whom our people call the /Strange Hathor/."
Now the Wanderer bethought him of the tale of the pilot, but he said nothing, and Rei went on.
"The Prince saw her, and his anger sought for something new to break itself on. Up he came, and I rose before him, and bowed myself. But Meriamun fell indolently back in her chair of ivory, and with a sweep of her slim hand she disordered the pieces, and bade her waiting woman, the lady Hataska, gather up the board, and carry all away. But Hataska's eyes were secretly watching the Prince.
"'Greeting, Princess, our Royal sister,' said Meneptah. 'What art thou doing with these?' and he pointed with his chariot whip at the cat-headed pieces. 'This is no woman's game, these pieces are not soft hearts of men to be moved on the board by love. This game needs wit!
Get thee to thy broidery, for there thou may'st excel.'
"'Greeting, Prince, our Royal brother,' said Meriamun. 'I laugh to hear thee speak of a game that needs wit. Thy hunting has not prospered, so get thee to the banquet board, for there, I hear, the Gods have granted thee to excel.'
"'It is little to say,' answered the Prince, throwing himself into a chair whence I had risen, 'it is little to say, but at the game of pieces I have enough wit to give thee a temple, a priest and five bowmen, and yet win,'--for these, O Wanderer, are the names of some of the pieces.
