"May I present Nailah, Daughter of Thaimon your majesty." The attendant bowed away from the woman's hand as the pharaoh took it in his own. The old mans palms were rough with scar tissue which made his well kept nails seem out of place. His beard was long enough to tuck into the belt around his shendyt and if it weren't for the crown on his head and the rich furnishings of the room, Nailah would've found it difficult to distinguish him from the rough and ready guards that flanked him.
"Thaimons girl? Lets have a look at you…" The Pharaoh bade her turn in a slow circle, which she did confidently, knowing that she looked every inch the prospective bride she could. It was a confidence borne from nearly an entire week of cosmetic preparation as well as a lifetime of etiquette.
"Rather strange looking aren't you." He said it more as a statement rather than a question. He wasn't wrong. Her eyes were not the normal honey-brown of native Egyptians, the speckled green hailed from her mothers homeland. Her skin was a few shades too pale and burned easily and her features were delicate with no evidence of inbreeding. "Strangely beautiful." At his smile, Nailah knew she had his favor. The coil of tension loosened in her belly. With a snap of the pharaohs fingers, the guards retreated and he gestured her to a low chaise around a gently shimmering pool.
Her father took this as a sign to move towards the pharaoh and began discussing the more practical matters of a business transaction. They may have been friends since boyhood, but there was still the distance between their stations that meant her father had to be careful how he interacted. The entire process required nothing from her, so she sat with her hands held demurely in her lap, staring at the light flirting with the surface of the water and how the lily pads floated in a dreamlike way.
Eventually however, the pharaoh asked her a direct question. "How are you finding my country young one?"
Nailah put on a practiced smile. "I have found contentment in its borders your majesty." Never-mind that she had been there for less than a week.
"Really? How so? I am aware that you have lived abroad for much of your life due to your mothers health." Her mother had always been sickly and had she not been so it is entirely likely that Nailah would have been raised in Egypt rather than her mothers homeland. Although she should have expected such a question, she felt the smile freeze in place. She settled to use as much of the truth as possible.
"It is a great deal warmer and the sun shines brighter than I am used to but the weather I find pleasant enough. The colors and sounds of the markets are delightfully exotic. Father spent a great deal of time trying to remove me from the stalls. I was rather fascinated by the hanging crystals that were for sale."
"This region is known for them, we have several grand decorations of them within the palace that you will no doubt see in time. And what of the people? What are your opinions of them?" He asked, leaning back against the chaise and plucking delicately at one of the grapes a slave handed him.
"There were so many children!" she laughed gently, remembering the loud excitable bunches that frolicked about the stalls, people and animals in the bustling city. She hadn't been able to walk among them as she had been sitting in her litter, but she'd wanted to. "Their laughter colored the entire market and it caused smiles to spread as far as the eye could see."
The pharaoh nodded, having expected these answers but pleased for the note of sincerity in them. His kingdom was indeed prosperous, partially thanks to the crafting of the millennium items as well as his own firm but fair rule.
Eventually, Nailah was dismissed until the evening meal, in which she would meet her betrothed for the first time since they were small children.
All she remembered of him was a loud obnoxious, spoiled brat with hair that defied gravity. Hopefully he had grown up some, the gods knew she had hopefully changed enough to change his opinion of her. Every year on their birthdays, they had been required as a part of the contract to send correspondence. It was the only form of communication they had with each other since they were very small. It was through this that she knew he had little desire to marry. She didn't exactly blame him. As a woman she had been raised with this future in mind and had had to watch all her girlhood friends marry into different households whilst she remained in her fathers home. But as a man or rather a Prince, he had a great many options open to him, or so she'd read.
A large part of her didn't want to be in a place where she wasn't wanted, but she hoped that maybe, in time, she would be able to garner some form of respect from him. According to her mothers own experience, this respect would not be earned until she had provided him with an heir.
It was a rather bleak way of looking at the world.
Nailahs feet had taken her to the bed-chambers that had once housed her when she was young. A slave opened the door to rather decadent furnishings in white and silver trim. Gauze fluttered across the openings in the walls and their large billowing shapes seemed to mimic the movement of the clouds outside. Sunlight streamed inside, showing off the vivid colors painted on the large bed-frame and the small sitting room around it. It was by no means as lavish as she suspected the royal wing would be, but it was comfortable enough.
Her belongings had already been brought up and unpacked.
Sometimes having the world do things for you was such a bore. Not that she was ungrateful but she would have rather do it herself just to make sure she had everything. Its not like it would be an easy trip back to Rome after all.
The heat was taxing, so she rang the bell for a slave to draw her a cooling bath. She was delighted by the rose petals scattered across its surface and even more so by the delightful fragrance seeping from the bath water. The slaves did her initial wash before withdrawing to leave her to soak in privacy.
Despite the foreign features on people that until now had only ever existed on her father, this place was not that much different from home. Sure the weather was different but she hoped, rather prayed, that it wouldn't take long for her to get used to it.
She knew father was pleased to be back in his homeland after all and as her only family here it was important that he see her happy even if on the inside she was miserable.
The meeting with the prince did not go well at all. He had grown much since she'd last seen him, unrealistically expecting him to still be the pudgy child from her memories, but she'd been greeted by a man with bronze skin, chiseled features and a rather toned body. The only thing she recognized about him were the intense red eyes and the spiked hair within which nestled his crown.
He'd eyed her over after they'd done the customary introductions and although she thought she looked acceptable, she found herself surprisingly concerned by her future husbands opinion of her. But he'd only tsk'ed and turned away, leaving a solid lump to form in the pit of her belly.
She thought she hid her disappointment well but when she looked up, beheld the prince's mother staring intently at her face and give her a reassuring smile, she assumed that her face had read exactly what she was feeling.
They had a rather quiet dinner with just the royal family and the royal advisers. Her father was there and was having a roaring time with the pharaoh and one of the pharaohs body advisers who wore his hair slightly over one side of his face. It was an odd hairstyle but then again they all looked different so Nailah didn't think much of it. They had a rather strange meat dish with rice and spices that were sweet to the tongue, yet tanged when she swallowed. She wasn't used to dishes that flirted with her senses like this.
She was brought out of her thoughts by a question asked by one of the advisers. Unlike the majority of them, this one was a woman and she had a strange necklace on with Egyptian hieroglyphics carved into the gold. The symbol of the pharaoh shined.
"I noticed you haven't touched some of the dishes my lady, are you quite alright?" The woman had introduced herself as Isis earlier and her voice was breathy and hard to hear over the din of the male voices.
Nailiah looked down at her plate and scooped another dainty mouthful of the dish, swallowing through the burn of spices. "I'm perfectly fine, just a bit tired from all the travelling we've been doing in the past couple of weeks. My body hasn't quite caught up to the possibility of staying in one place for too long." She laughed slightly to cover how uncomfortable she was by the woman's stare.
"Is something the matter Isis?" she finally asked when the woman said nothing else.
The woman shook herself out of her stupor and gave her a gentile smile. "Nothing that will not pass with time." The answer was cryptic and didn't quite fit with the question she had asked but she shook it off and, grimacing, tried to swallow another mouthful of food she'd decided that she didn't like, unaware of the eyes of the Prince tracking her every move.
Later in the evening the woman Isis spoke again, this time to the room at large. "The millennium necklace has shown great blessings for the coming union, it is clear that the gods favor this match!" the room near exploded with cheering, however Nailah was confused and slightly saddened when the Prince stood up and left the room without another word to anyone.
She watched him go and finally felt she had eaten enough to push her plate away. Isis, a very intuitive woman so it seemed, called the table to order before excusing both herself and Nailah due to the lateness of the hour. She then escorted her back to her bed-chambers before bidding her goodnight.
Nailah did not wait for the servant to open the door but rather burst through it herself. She asked them to leave and when they looked confused, she told them she could ready herself for sleep without their assistance. They left and she was alone.
More than anything, Nailah wished she had brought someone familiar she could talk to, suddenly feeling very vulnerable in this foreign country. She had known it would be different, the towns on the passages here had helped her to come to that conclusion. However it was different when your feet had stopped walking and your mind had had time to catch up. This land was a great deal harsher than the one she knew, and she suddenly realized how strange her own life would have been to her father if this was what was familiar to him. The language she'd been speaking all day, although tutored since birth, felt strange on the tongue. Her belly was already stating its displeasure with the food and a migraine had begun to pound at her temples.
She walked out onto the balcony, hoping the freshness of the air would soothe the aches. It was cooler, a great deal cooler and her skin shivered in the slight breeze. In the distance she could see the twinkling lights of the torches of the city's residents just barely over the grand fortifications of the palace.
She thought of the prince. He was handsome enough but seemed to care little for her. She couldn't say she was surprised but figured that the little girl inside her had believed in her mothers bedtime stories of happily ever after too much. Well, she thought with determination, she would have to work on it and with him. And perhaps, she thought, with time it could grow into something more.
She retired.
That plan was shot straight to the pits of hell when she saw him with another woman the next day. She was young and looked Egyptian with a rather animated energy about her that caused frequent laughs to escape her lips. Her humor seemed to be contagious and the Prince let out rumbling chuckles often.
The stone that had fallen into her stomach seemed to have been lit aflame and she turned away to walk the way she had come. She tried to swallow but it felt as if her mouth had been stuffed full of cotton and she was filled with a deep level of sadness that hurt and disgusted her. She barely knew him, there was no need for this reaction. Yes there is, a sullen voice said in her head.
She walked back to her bed-chambers. She spent the entire day staring out the window.
Nailah fully expected to continue in this fashion till the wedding ceremony but she couldn't take being cooped up inside for much longer. One of the high priests, she didn't catch his name but knew it started with a ka' sound, accompanied her to the royal gardens.
She'd come out to dance.
The attire she wore made her feel like a princess and she enjoyed the way it swirled about her ankles as she moved. There was no sense of coordination to her movements, just a series of twirls and frolicks that she and her friends used to practice in around the trellis at home. It wasn't the same without them, but she enjoyed the cool breeze on her face as she turned it up to the sun, the rays unable to reach her through the veil. She closed her eyes anyway.
She almost suffered a heart attack when smooth notes began playing. She looked over and saw the priest plucking at strings on the lyre. When he noticed that she had stopped her movements, he too stopped, watching her to see if she would continue. She cautiously lifted a foot and he plucked a tune. She raised her arms and he rang another. They continued in this way for several minutes and by the time she had made a full circuit of the garden she had nearly forgotten he was there. The music was odd but it put her in mind of a trickling stream, soothing and sweet to the ears. She could almost imagine it as the tune fauns would play as they attempted to seduce the dryads following Dionysus.
Wouldn't it be grand to live such a life, vibrant and free of the pressures of fathers and engagements and infernal heat? To be immortal in forests filled with revelry and laughter... Lost in her daydream, Nailah spent the better part of the morning dancing in the garden but eventually she had to stop. The sun was beating harshly on the stone floor and eating through her thin sandals. Not to mention her feet were beginning to ache.
As she left, she thanked the priest and commended him on his skill. He gave a small bow but made no comment aside from the small smile on his lips.
Later on that day she was taken to be fitted for the ceremonial robe she would wear on her wedding day, the Pharaoh having decided that the dress she had bought with her was too foreign. Pharaohs word was law.
All her complaints at not being able to wear her mothers dress went unheard and her father had taken to walking on the other side of the roads when he saw her coming towards him which made her feel more isolated than ever. She hated Egypt, she decided.
The only thing that she enjoyed was her daily dance in the palace gardens, especially since several of the young woman had begun to join her. Some mornings it was just her and on others it felt like she could barely move without tripping on someones hem. The girls seemed nice but Nailah was sure that they were doing it solely because of her future rank. Nevertheless, their presence and twittering conversation made her feel less alone.
There was a girl called Teana who apparently worked within the palace as a maid who struggled with some of the moves and asked her often for private lessons. Nailah, without anything better to do, happily obliged and after a few conversations with her, both of them having similar opinions on a number of subjects, thought that with time she might be able to celebrate a firm friendship with her.
But the others… they she could do without but it went against her breeding to cause a stir and ask them to leave.
The gardens were silent today, not even the priest, who she had found out was named Karim and bore the millennium scales,stood in his usual corner with his lyre. The bubbling sound of the fountain under the trellis invited her to dip her feet within the cool water beneath. It was severely hot today and the alabaster stone tiles seemed to reflect the heat through the soles of her sandals. She held the hem of her chiton out of the way and perched her rump delicately on the edges of the fountain. Tipping her head back when a cool breeze darted past her, she gave a quick but thorough look around to make sure she truly was alone before letting the veil about her face fall.
It was such a relief to not have the cloying fabric about her nose and mouth, the women here had to keep their faces covered until they were married and Nailah had no idea how they coped with it all the time, and she didn't even wear a thick veil!
A sigh escaped her lips and she closed her eyes.
Her solace was interrupted by a maniacal cackle and the fierce rush of air that darted past her. She opened her eyes and saw the dark wild hair of the Princes woman darting away, her laughter ringing about the alabaster columns.
A second later, she was spluttering in the fountain as someone pushed her in. She blinked away the water and saw someone else sitting in the fountain with her. It was the Prince and he was wearing a dumbfounded look on his face as he blinked at her. It took her a second to realise that her veil was floating somewhere about her and she scurried to find it. As she reached for the floating material, another hand grabbed it before she could and instead of handing it to her so that she could protect her modesty, the Prince kept his eyes locked on hers as he fastened first one side and then the other. It seemed as if a strange magnetic force kept their eyes on one another and as the final clasp clicked shut and her face registered the damp fabric once again covering her face, one of the princes hands lingered on the side of her face.
The moment was interrupted when the princes lover returned and blew a raspberry at him before darting away with another cackle. Yes, the moment was definitely ruined she thought sullenly to herself as she began to slowly stand, the water making her dress heavy and hard to move in. But it seemed that the Princes charity was at an end.
"MANA! Return it at once!" The prince bellowed after her before hurriedly exiting the fountain, great rivets of water gushing off him and onto the tiles and his feet made wet slaps as he thundered up the steps behind the girl.
Nailah sighed and wandered away in the opposite direction in search of a servant to assist her into dry things.
The wedding began as the dawn broke over the sand dunes in the distance. Before she was even properly awake she had been dumped into a tub of cold water and had oils poured generously over her head. After the initial wash she had been taken out of the oil bath and pushed into one filled with milk. Thankfully, this one was a great deal warmer and her chilled body shivered in delight as the heat seeped into her skin. She was not allowed to linger for as long as she would like as she was told to rinse off in another tub of cold water before being dried vigorously by several cloths.
It was not yet light enough to do without the torches so several slaves stood in attendance to the duty as others began to smooth oils and creams into her hair and skin. She smelled very fragrant, was all she could think of herself.
The mirror had watched her evolve from a shivering nude girl into a delicate bride within a matter of moments. The wedding garb was simply one great piece of fabric and tied one the shoulder and hip with gold fastenings bearing the symbol of the Pharaoh, the all seeing eye. She wore a diadem, the only thing she was allowed from her homeland and she had a gauzy veil secured to some of the hanging decorations a slave wove into her hair. Arm bands were slid up her wrist until her skin pinched under the gold and with assistance, she was helped into the sandals she would wear for the rest of the day.
She was deemed 'acceptable' by an old gnarled woman who had been watching the proceedings. When Nailah timidly inquired as to who she was, she was regaled with the woman's history as the nurse for both the Pharaoh and the prince and the several siblings of both that had not reached majority.
The woman's apparent age baffled her and intimidated her. It seemed, from the way she barked at the other slaves and servants that she had a position of authority within the household. Nailah decided after receiving a withering glare from the woman when she had loosened one of the fastenings of her dress so she could breathe, that she was not to get on this woman's bad side.
In a flurry of movement she was effectively carried to a litter and placed inside it. The men carrying it set off at a brisk place that had her empty stomach churning in distaste that had nothing to do with nerves, she hoped she would not embarrass herself on her wedding day by vomiting on her husband.
Through sheer will, her stomach stopped threatening to exit through her mouth and she could breath a little easier. The swaying of the litter did not slow for several minutes but eventually it was set down and she was helped out. Her feet set down on beautiful mosaic tiles that reminded her of home. They were outside a temple for one of the Egyptian gods, she could not remember for certain but she thought it might be Isis. Sweet perfumes of the incense were already burning and the scent made her light headed as she was marched through the dual colonnades. It seemed that the temple had no interior from what she could see but it did have a raised platform with thick wedges cut into it for stairs. A priest, she assumed, already stood at the top seeing as it was a long way up so that the newly married couple could receive the blessing of Ra the sun god. She dearly hoped that she would not burn when her veil was removed.
When she reached the top she saw that the Prince and his family were already there, as was her own father. Her nerves were softened a little when she saw the proud smile on his face as Thaimon regarded her. It felt like the first time in her life that she did not feel guilty that she hadn't been born male. The feeling chased away most of her fear so that when she eventually turned to meet the eyes of the Prince, she was able to look him in the eye without a waver. She was ushered next to him and her hands were placed in his. The palms were rough with callouses and were littered with scars. They were also a great deal bigger than her own, but possessed fingers that were far more elegant than hers, in her opinion. His nails were also a great deal longer, almost like the talons of a great bird.
They stood there like this for awhile and she had just begun to become used to the anticipatory silence of her surroundings. The voice of the priest interrupted it with a crack as he spoke in high Egyptian.
It irked her that she could not understand her own wedding vows but she had been taught the appropriate responses in the same dialect since she had first been betrothed. She had not idea what she was saying and she stumbled a bit over the pronunciation but as no body commented on it, she figured it was not too grave a slip up.
Her eyes had moved from the Princes eyes to his lips when he began speaking. His voice was so deep that she could feel the vibration of it through his hands and a quiet part of her preened in quiet pleasure. She ignored the reaction for the most part but could not help the curve of her lips as the Prince caught her eyes again with his own and gently closed his right eye in a secret wink as he finished speaking passionately.
She could feel a blush spreading across her cheeks.
She was only required to speak once more as a signal that her veil would soon be removed. As soon as the prince removed it and gazed upon her naked face, she would be considered married and a princess of Egypt. Gods above what a strange thought!
The last of the strange vowels passed her lips and the Princes hand was quick to grip the side of her veil and unfasten it. When her face was bare, finally, there was a moment where he simply stared at her before his lips gently pressed to her own and it was done.
They were married.
And she did not even know his name.