Free Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw Page B

daughter, the role Mara was to play. But to her it was unimaginable luxury. And as she shook the garments out one by one and looked at them, she felt again the fierce determination that nothing, nobody must stand in the way of her possessing such things always, freedom and gold and a life worth living—gardens with lotus blooming in the fishpool, roast duck and honey on the table, rows and rows of papyrus scrolls on the shelves in a beautiful room …
    So she dreamed, as the black girl dressed her in an ankle-length sheath of white linen, secured the wide straps over her bare brown shoulders and wound a cinnamon-colored sash twice about her waist, looping it in front so that the ends fell luxuriously to her sandals. Her hair was combed to glossy smoothness, scented and delicately oiled; her eyelids were properly painted, with brows and lash line elongated almost to her temples. There were gold bands for arms and ankles, too, and a broad collar formed of cylindrical beads enameled the same deep radiant blue as her eyes.
    She put away the little copper mirror at last, with a sigh of content. It had been a long time since she had enjoyed even the near-necessity of eye paint, which all Egyptians, men and women, considered essential to a decent appearance. And the rest was elegance undreamed of. The sandals did pinch a little, of course, where the strap passed upbetween her toes, and the high-curling tips would trip her if she didn’t watch out. She was not accustomed to such grandeur. Never mind, she would grow accustomed to it! Only a guttersnipe went barefoot.
    Followed by the slave, who padded silently behind her carrying the chest, she returned to the wharf. Saankh-Wen was now sitting on a folding stool on the deck of the princess’ barge, staring apathetically at the cooks moving about on the attendant kitchen boat, which was moored nearby. Mara glanced up, shading her eyes.
    “Let down a ladder, please.”
    He turned toward her, then leaned over the gunwale, his sleepiness gone. “You’re the interpreter?” he asked uncertainly.
    “Yes.”
    “The same one?”
    “Of course. I identified myself not half an hour since.”
    “Aye. Aye.” His thick lips curled in a smirk. “But you look different now.”
    “Indeed?” Mara gave him a perfunctory smile, careful neither to offend nor encourage him. She did not wish him to remember her longer than was strictly necessary. “Will you let down the ladder?” she repeated.
    He hastened to obey. When she stood beside him on the deck, her head held high, her eyes cool, he stopped gaping and became more respectful. “The princess and her train will return soon. You’re to wait in there. I’ll stow your chest.”
    “Very well.”
    As the slave woman walked across the wharf and out of her life as silently as she had come into it, Mara made her way to the pillared pavilion which occupied most of the deck space of the barge. There was space on each side for twelve oarsmen, but there was neither mast nor sail, and the captain’s cabin had been removed in order to enlarge the quarters occupied by Inanni and her women. Marapushed aside one of the hanging carpets that formed the pavilion’s walls, and stepped in. The first thing she did was to kick off the unaccustomed sandals. Then, comfortably barefoot, she began to look about her.
    Dazzled by the sunlight outside, she could not at first distinguish one object from another in the shadowed interior. But as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom she began to make out couches and low tables, clothing boxes and all the feminine hodgepodge of trinkets, mirrors, jewelry and scents necessary to an entourage of a dozen women. The better she could see all this, the more astonished she became. She stepped quietly about the place, examining with curiosity and not a little revulsion the strange possessions of these barbarians. How different they were from anything Egyptian! The jewelry was crude and tasteless, the boxes uncarved, and the