Daughter of Isis, Lilian Nirupa [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

DAUGHTER OF ISIS
A NOVEL OF THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE
By
LILIAN NIRUPA


DAUGHTER OF ISIS
1,000 BC – Memphis, Lower Egypt.
Chapter 1 – Desert Trials And Rebirth
Lizla opened her eyes and screamed in terror. Complete blackness surrounded her. Had she become blind? Where were the flowers, the lights, the radiant faces she had grown accustomed to holding in almost breathless admiration? Nothing but blackness, thick, like a heavy mourning veil. It even seemed real to the touch. The thought of a mourning veil sent darts of panic up her spine. But wasn’t she alive? Wasn’t her eager spirit more youthful than ever in her limbs? Her mouth still carried an aftertaste of that exquisite wine that – how did he call himself? – her twin ka? – had given her as a farewell. She tried to remember more, but couldn’t. Her memories were being swallowed by anxiety.
She raised her hand and tried to feel the impenetrable surroundings. Beyond the silky robe that covered her body, the air was cool and moist. A penetrating fragrance of myrrh and moss met her approval as her exploring hand reached the clear sensation of – rocks! Yes, it was stone. She searched now, openly with both arms outstretched. In the darkness, she explored as far as she could reach, tracing out a rocky alcove, which surrounded her body about two feet beyond the soft cushion on which she lay. It was rock all the way up to the... She could not touch the zenith of the alcove. Somehow above herself, at the distance of her extended arms, there was nothing but the thickness of an implacable darkness.
“It is not a coffin,” Lizla thought, trying to keep herself alert and centered. Her own scream had produced a terrifying effect on her nerves. She would not scream again, she warned herself. It was to no avail. Worse than that, there was no echo!
No. She would lie quietly, try to control herself and remember. Perhaps she was dreaming. But no, this was no ordinary circumstance. Nothing in the last two months had been ordinary. Why should it be? Wasn’t the full moon of the height of her fourteenth year the appointed time? A time that she and her guides had kept secret from everyone; even from Mother? Why? The question burned again in her mind. Why? She had always confided in Mother. Even in her queenly role, Mother had always found time for Lizla. The late Pharaoh’s wife knew the priests had selected her daughter for some special study but the Queen did not interfere. No one interfered with the priests of Amon-Ra. The Pharaoh himself obliged them.
Lizla remembered asking Rat-ta, her mentor, about the silence regarding her mother. The priest had answered cryptically: “When you awake, the moon shall be no more.”
But Lizla’s studies had carried her far enough that she could understand “Moon” for “Mother.” She remembered asking anxiously: “Will she die?”
The priest had looked at her with compassionate eyes but then answered dryly: “Not in the way you know” and returned to his habitual silence.
She felt calm after a while. She was used to wakeful nights. During the last two months she had spent several vigils on the desert. Ah! But those were different, watching the silver boat of the moon sail among the stars through the pleats of her linen tent...
The coolness of the air and its extreme quietness provided a good cushion for comforting rest. She observed that in musing about the last few weeks of desert training, she had almost forgotten about her strange imprisonment. She realized, rather to her surprise, that her absence of panic was something new. She felt calm, assured – almost content. At that moment she heard steps. No voices. Suddenly the invisible ceiling above her opened into a flash of blue and gold. She recognized the impeccable light of the desert sun on a cloudless sky.
The beloved face of Ra-Ta, her mentor and guide, was illumined with one of his rare smiles. Lizla thought she could read his mind. “Are you awake?”
He helped her out and invited her to sit on a white silk litter. Two young priestesses of the inner temple carried an almost transparent veil, with which they silently and almost reverently covered Lizla. Through this veil of sky-blue tint, Lizla contemplated the scene as the small caravan departed through the desert noiselessly in a northeasterly direction.
Almost an hour passed. The fiery heat of the desert landscape was soothed away from her eyes by the veil. Ra-Ta had said no word to her. She did not feel like talking either. The familiar landscape took on a dreamy aspect which combined with her newly discovered calmness. Lizla reflected on this and was puzzled again. Scarcely three months ago she was running around with her cousins, Allen and Ten-pa, and the strange blue-eyed Mikos. Then Mikos had disappeared and Mizzia had come. Mother approved of Mizzia, the dark-eyed, witty Babylonian girl who served in Aunt Lilly’s nursery. Together, Lizla and Mizzia had spent many hours roaming around Aunt Lilly’s magnificent apartments and trying her perfumes, veils, oils and gowns. Princess Lilly was a widow, but young and beautiful. Many young pretenders were trying to win her attention. A year after her husband’s death, her life was a succession of parties and ceremonies, which Lilly attended, always arrayed in splendid clothes and elaborate coiffures.
But all of that was in the past, childish things from a childish past, Lizla reflected rather gravely. Mother had suggested something of her womanhood changes. But when Lizla had commented on this subject to Ra-Ta, he had turned serious and had parted abruptly. That very night she had been informed that her desert trials were to be initiated.
But now, she remembered, Mizzia had also said something about womanhood changes when they had confided in each other that full-moon night of the Springtime Festival.
Lizla remembered Mizzia’s figure, tall and slender, moving so gracefully under the olive branches of Princess Lillie’s garden. That beautiful night! It was unusually hot and the sweet music of harps and lutes and the papyri vines added to the enchanting flavor of the wine and honey and the lotus flower oil that ran through her hair. Lizla had always loved lotus perfume. That evening, the small perfume cone, made of the purest wax, imbued with lotus perfume oil, had almost saturated her hair and gown as they both danced gaily through the garden. Then they had rested, sitting by the rectangular pool, and talked and drank more wine and ate figs and honey cakes. They had seen Princess Lilly disappear behind a vine covered gazebo, accompanied by Mikos’ older brother. Lizla had wanted to run after them and ask the tall, handsome Greek about his younger brother, but Mizzia had stopped her. It was then that Mizzia had confided her strange story. Her eyes were bright with wine and mirth and newly found, to Lizla, mischievous glint, which Mizzia had tried to withhold from her wide-eyed younger friend. Lizla could sense Mizzia’s blushing under the bright moonlight as she told her about her past.
“It was another full moon, like this.” she had started. She told of a strong, tall, dark Assyrian man who had taken her by the river after a night of wine and merriment at the Harvest Feast. His hands, burning with passion, had held her trembling hands and his full lips tasted of wine and honey as they met hers. In the moonlight his eyes had shone like fiery coals. His eyes and hers closed under the magic pressure of passion and, Mizzia concluded, “He took me into the darkness.” She had stopped talking then, her eyes, her whole frame vacant from a soul lost in her memories.
Lizla watched, puzzled, holding her breath. When Mizzia came back she added melancholically, “I never saw him again. He went with a caravan to Egypt. Five moons later, I knew I was with child. My old aunt helped me out. Her oldest son was going to Egypt and took me as a slave, so he said. My father was away and my stepmother was glad to be rid of the newly found problem. My child was born on the way and died. We were attacked by nomads.”
Mizzia ended her story, saying that she was sold to the Vizier. His son took a liking to her, but the Vizier was wise; he gave her as a gift to Princess Lillie. Mizzia was happy there. She loved the children and praised her Gods for being placed in the palace.
Lizla’s memories were the only disturbance on this quiet trip across the desert. But she wouldn’t talk. She knew that aspect of her training was very important. Silence, inner and outer silence, her mentor had imposed it. Besides her calmness, another factor began crystallizing in her mind as a new realization. She could almost guess what Ra-Ta was thinking – when he was thinking about her. It had proved true over and over again, these past two months. It was something she used to dream about often, when she was a child. She used to dream that she was in one of those large boats going through the Nile on a hunting trip and everybody would talk, sometimes not saying the truth, but she could “see” their hearts and what they really meant, and it was no disturbance to her. Later on, when not dreaming, if she happened to guess what people thought or foresaw their intentions, she felt quite startled about it, as if something was not right with her.
It was different now. She knew almost instinctively what Ra-Ta was thinking by his eyes and his movements. She felt she could almost read his body and see his thoughts, but even that realization didn’t surprise her nor alarm her anymore.
Her thoughts turned to Mikos, the blue-eyed Greek boy who had disappeared three months ago. Lizla and Mikos had become good friends in spite of his shyness. Lizla loved to tease him on that account. Once Mikos had found a snake skin and told her a strange story about snakes changing skins and leaving their old ones behind. Perhaps that was what had happened to her. She wondered where her old skin was. Maybe she had left it in the dark. Maybe... The dark! Mizzia had gone into the dark too. Will she too have a baby? Is that the way serpents are born? Or humans?
Lizla felt confused by the strange experience of calmness in her heart while her mind was whirling with random memories. She suddenly felt so ignorant. It was most unusual for an Egyptian girl to go to school. Almost impossible, unless she was a princess and the stars indicated something special about her destiny. Ra-Ta had said something about it. The peasants did not study, for as he would say, the spirits took care of their known and their unknowns, while whatever they could control was ruled by law and tradition. But people in government were different. The Gods left more options open to them, but in spite of their privileged birth, many nobles and princes did not wake up either, for they forgot their higher destiny. Ra-Ta did not say more, but Lizla knew what else he was thinking. As far as he was concerned, these ignorant aristocrats were more brutes than the peasants. They did nothing but partying and changing wives, hunt and drink. Any scribe copying the tax inventory for the Pharaoh or the Temple was more worthy than they were.
He had said, however, that sometimes the peasant girls could “wake up,” but Lizla should keep