There are sparks of fire in my heart, my throat feels tight and I cannot sleep.”
I was a physician and thought I knew something about men and women. So I said, “She must be a married woman and her husband guards her carefully?”
Horemheb looked at me and his eyes flared so badly that I quickly lifted the cup from the floor and poured him wine. He calmed down and felt his chest and throat and said, “I must get away from Thebes for the filth stifles me, and the flies soil me.” But then he humbled and looked at me and said in a low voice, “Sinuhe, you are a doctor. Give me a remedy that will conquer love.”
“That is easy,” I said. “I can give you berries that when dissolved in wine will make you strong and hot as the baboon so that women sigh in your arms and roll their eyes. That is easily done, if you so want.”
“No, no,” he said. “You misunderstand me, Sinuhe. There is nothing wrong with my strength. I want a remedy that cures me from my madness. I want a remedy to quieten my heart and turn it into stone.”
“There is no such remedy,” I said. “All it takes is a smile or a glance from green eyes, and the physician’s arts are powerless. This I know. But the wise say that one evil spirit can be driven out by another. Whether this is true I know not, but I fancy the second might be worse than the first.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded irritably. “I am weary of words that only twist and turn things and tie the tongue.”
“Find another woman to drive the first from your heart,” I said. “That is all I meant. Thebes is full of lovely, seductive women who paint their faces and wear the thinnest of linen. You may find one among them to smile upon you, being young and strong with slender limbs and a gold chain about your neck. But I do not understand what keeps you from the one you desire. Even though she be married, there is no wall too high for love to surmount. When a woman desires a man, her cunning can remove all barriers. Stories from both kingdoms prove that. The love of women is said to be as constant as the wind, blowing always and merely changing its direction. Women’s virtue, they say, is like wax and melts in the heat. He who cheats is not the one who is put to shame but the one who is cheated on. So it has been and ever will be.”
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“She is not married,” snapped Horemheb. “You are beside the mark with your prattle of constancy and virtue. She does not even see me though I dwell under her eyes nor does she take my hand if I stretch it forth to help her into her chair. Maybe she thinks I am filthy for sun has made my skin black.”
“She is then a lady of some distinction?” I said.
“Vain to speak of her,” Horemheb resisted. “She is lovelier than the moon and the stars and more remote. Truly I could more easily grasp the moon in my arms. Therefore, I must forget. Therefore, I must leave Thebes, or I will die.”
“You have surely not fallen victim to the charms of the great Queen Mother,” I exclaimed jestingly, for I wanted to make him laugh. “I thought she is too old and stout to please a young man.”
“She has her priest,” returned Horemheb with contempt. “I believe they were adulterers while the King yet lived.” I stopped him with my raised hand and said, “Truly, you have drunk from many poisoned wells since you came to Thebes.”
Horemheb said, “The one I desire paints her lips and cheeks yellow red, and her oval eyes are dark, and no one has yet touched those limbs veiled by the royal linen. Her name is Beketamun, and in her veins flows the blood of Pharaohs. Now you know all my madness, Sinuhe. But if you tell anyone or remind me of it with so much as a word, I will seek you out and slay you wherever you may be. I will put your head between your legs and throw your body on the wall. And you may not even say her name in my presence, for I swear I will then kill you.”
I was greatly alarmed at what he said, for that a man of low birth should raise his eyes to Pharaoh’s daughter to desire her was a dire thing indeed. So I said, “No mortal may approach her. If she is to marry anyone, it will be her brother, the heir, who will raise her up to be his equal as the great royal consort. And thus it will be, for I read it in her eyes at the deathbed of the King when she looked at no one but her brother. I feared her as a woman whose limbs will bring no warmth to any man, and emptiness and death dwell in her glance. So I tell you, depart, Horemheb, my friend — Thebes is no place for you.”
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