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 SEDUCTRESS

A WHISKEY DOLLS NOVEL

JESSICA PRINCE
 Copyright © 2023 by Jessica Prince
www.authorjessicaprince.com

Published by Jessica Prince Books LLC

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
 CO N T E N T S

Discover Other Books by Jessica

About Seductress

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue

Check Out More from the Whiskey Dolls

Read a Sneak Peak of Crossing the Line
Discover Other Books by Jessica
About Jessica
D I S COV E R O T H E R B O O KS B Y J E S S I CA

WHITECAP SERIES
Crossing the Line
My Perfect Enemy

WHISKEY DOLLS SERIES

Bombshell
Knockout
Stunner
Seductress

HOPE VALLEY SERIES:

Out of My League
Come Back Home Again
The Best of Me
Wrong Side of the Tracks
Stay With Me
Out of the Darkness
The Second Time Around
Waiting for Forever
Love to Hate You
Playing for Keeps
When You Least Expect It
Never for Him

REDEMPTION SERIES
Bad Alibi
Crazy Beautiful
Bittersweet
Guilty Pleasure
Wallflower
Blurred Line
Slow Burn
 THE PICKING UP THE PIECES SERIES:
Picking up the Pieces
Rising from the Ashes
Pushing the Boundaries
Worth the Wait

THE COLORS NOVELS:

Scattered Colors
Shrinking Violet
Love Hate Relationship
Wildflower

THE LOCKLAINE BOYS (a LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP spinoff):

Fire & Ice
Opposites Attract
Almost Perfect

THE PEMBROOKE SERIES (a WILDFLOWER spinoff):

Sweet Sunshine
Coming Full Circle
A Broken Soul

CIVIL CORRUPTION SERIES

Corrupt
Defile
Consume
Ravage

GIRL TALK SERIES:

Seducing Lola
Tempting Sophia
Enticing Daphne
Charming Fiona

STANDALONE TITLES:
One Knight Stand
Chance Encounters
Nightmares from Within

DEADLY LOVE SERIES:

Destructive
Addictive
 AB O U T S E D U CT R E S S

I knew my best friend’s little sister was off limits, I just couldn’t help myself.

When a tragic accident caused Ford Grimes to trade the fast pace of the city for the refuge that came
with being a small-town firefighter, the last thing he wanted was romance. Then he met the seductive
manager of the local pizzeria and found himself questioning all the rules he’d put into place for his
new life.

Hardin Shields may as well have had a neon sign strapped to her that said do not touch in big,
glowing letters. The single mother had enough on her plate. With a family restaurant to run and an ex
who was making her life difficult, the last thing she needed was for her unrequited crush on her older
brother’s best friend to take a turn into . . . something.

When the chemistry becomes too hot to ignore, they decide to keep things light and fun, but when
danger comes lurking, threatening Hardin, Ford has to decide if he’s strong enough to let go of the
pain of the past in order to protect the woman who’s coming to mean too much, or let her go.
1
 HARD IN

N o one ever told me when you became a mother, everyone in your household, no matter how
big or small, would stop being able to locate their personal belongings, and that job would
fall on you for the rest of your life.
“Mommy! I can’t find my leotard!” my daughter yelled from the general direction of her bedroom
while I raced frantically around the kitchen like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to clean up the
accidental mess I’d made while pouring my daughter’s cereal for breakfast, get Hazel’s lunch packed,
switch the clothes I’d put in the washer the night before then forgot about over to the dryer, and try to
keep hold of my sanity for a little while longer.
“Look in the laundry room,” I shouted back, spreading the peanut butter across the slice of bread
in front of me with a little too much force and tearing a massive hole in it.
“It’s not there!” she returned.
I let out a growl and fished another slice of bread from the bag.
Of course, it was the last slice, because that was how my life was going. The pantry and fridge
were both running dangerously low. I’d spilled the last of the milk all over the counter and floor
earlier when I got sidetracked with the million other things I had going on, and the only thing in the
freezer was a box of freezer-burned fish sticks that I was unwilling to try to scrape off and bake. So
sometime between ballet class, soccer practice, managing the family’s pizzeria since my parents were
semi-retired, dropping off and picking up Hazel from school, homework, and dinner, I was going to
have to somehow find time that didn’t exist in my crammed schedule to get to the grocery store.
“Have you looked in your dresser drawer?” The drawer where every one of her leotards had
been since I’d washed them and put them all away last Sunday.
“Oops! Forgot to look there!”
Of course she had, because looking there would have made the most sense, so why bother?
I managed to get the peanut butter spread smoothly the second time around and made quick work
of slapping the sandwich together, stuffing it into a baggie, and throwing it in Hazel’s lunch box while
I stuffed the destroyed bread in my mouth and chomped down.
Waste not, want not, right? And besides, this was the best I could do for myself in regard to eating
breakfast.
As a mom, I made sure my kid had the most important meal of the day every single morning, but
when it came to me, well, it was a feat if I managed to remember to eat at all most days, so this little
snack was a win. Most of my meals consisted of whatever I could scarf down on the go, which didn’t
leave a lot of room for healthy eating.
Most mornings I held it together better than this. After all, I’d been rocking the single mom gig
pretty much since the little pink plus sign popped up on the at-home pregnancy test.
All the red flags in my past relationship had been there. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the kind of
man Keith was. I’d been that clichéd woman who’d ignored the warning signs because I was so
madly in love, I just knew I could change him.
Stupid.
I’d made excuses for his shitty behavior. He wasn’t a lazy bum, he was a musician who hadn’t had
his big break yet. He wasn’t an asshole, he was a temperamental artist. He didn’t have a drinking
problem, he was young and would get it out of his system soon.
I’d lied to both of us throughout most of our relationship every time I coddled him and swore up
and down that his day was coming or that he was the most talented musician I’d ever heard.
Those rose-colored glasses had blinded me to the fact that Keith was a hack. He was on the long
road to nowhere not because he wasn’t lucky, but simply because he sucked. It was amazing what a
person could overlook when they were young, stupid, and thought they were in love.
Looking back, there wasn’t much about that relationship I actually liked, but for as terrible as it
was, I couldn’t regret it, because it gave me the most precious gift in the world. It gave me my Hazel.
I would never regret her, she was my entire world, and I cherished every single day with her.
It was just that some of those days, I wanted to lock everyone I knew out of the house and scream
into a pillow until I passed out from lack of oxygen. Like today.
As if to prove my point, Hazel’s voice carried through the house. “This is the pink one, Mom! I
want the purple one!”
My eyelid began to twitch. “The purple one is dirty. Wear the pink one.”
“But I don’t wanna wear the pink one,” she whined. “I wanna wear the purple one!”
I love her, I reminded myself. I love her with all my heart and gagging her with her leotard is
considered child abuse.
“It’s dirty,” I repeated loudly. “Deal with it and move your behind. We have to go.”
We were already running ten minutes late.
“But it’s not smelly. Please, can I wear it again?”
Man, kids were gross sometimes. “No,” I barked. “Pink. Now. You have five minutes!”
She let out a ridiculously dramatic Ugh before I heard the slam of a drawer, meaning she caved
and finally grabbed the pink leotard for her ballet class this evening.
Before I had a chance to take a breath, my cell started to ring, and because I was already off my
game, I answered it without looking at the screen first.
“Yeah?”
“Hey, Hardin. It’s Kadence.”
My back went straight. A call from Kadence Perry couldn’t mean anything good. The woman had
been working as a waitress at Junior’s Pizzeria for less than three months, and she’d already called in
sick half a dozen times. Even when she was present for her shifts, her work ethic was seriously
lacking.
She’d been a thorn in my side since her first day, and I should have fired her weeks ago. Hell, I
wouldn’t have hired her if the call had been mine, but it wasn’t. Even though my parents were
supposed to have retired from the restaurant, my father was struggling to let go completely.
A part of me was bitter at that, because I knew if my brother, Owen, had been the one to take over,
our dad would have gladly handed him the reins and sailed off into retired bliss. But that wasn’t what
happened. Owen never wanted the pizzeria. His dream had always been to become a veterinarian,
and that was exactly what he’d done.
 Me, on the other hand, well, all I’d ever wanted was to uphold my family’s legacy. I had nothing
but happy memories of my family’s pizzeria. This was where I used to come every day after school,
sitting in the booth at the back of the room to do my homework while my parents worked. This was
the place I’d gotten my first job in high school. My father had even made me come in and interview,
claiming I had to earn my spot. I had, and since that very first job bussing tables and washing dishes,
I’d had to earn every raise and promotion I’d gotten. I wasn’t the manager because it was my parents’
restaurant. I was the manager because I’d worked my ass off for the position.
But Junior’s had been handed down to the oldest child for generations since it opened when my
mom’s grandfather came over from Italy . . . until me.
I wasn’t blind. I’d seen the hope in my mom’s and dad’s eyes over the years. All Owen ever
talked about was being a vet, but they’d kept their fingers crossed that he would change his mind.
He hadn’t.
And I breathed a sigh of relief the place that had been a second home to me all my life was finally
going to be mine. Unfortunately, something about being the youngest, the baby, made it harder for my
folks to cut the apron strings. Most days, it felt like they didn’t trust me, and I would have been lying
if I said that didn’t sting like hell.
Kadence Perry was just another in a long line of examples of one of my parents going over my
head. She was the daughter of one of Dad’s poker buddies, so when he’d asked my father if he could
help her out, he hadn’t blinked.
That was how I’d gotten stuck with a waitress only one step up from Keith in laziness.
“Hey, Kadence. You on your way to the shop?”
“That’s actually why I’m calling.” Of course, it was. “I’m feeling a little under the weather this
morning, so I don’t think it would be smart for me to come in and be around all those people, you
know? I could be contagious.”
I pursed my lips and blew out a slow, calming exhale, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Kadence,
this the second time in five days, you’ve called off. I moved you from the evening shift because you
kept showing up late”—when she showed up at all—“because you said the early shift would work
better. Now you’re bailing on that one too. Your job exists to help me and the rest of the staff. If you
aren’t doing that, I don’t really see a point in keeping you around.”
She let out an indignant huff through the line. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m really sick! And
I’m sure it’s also against a bunch of health code violations for me to be there.”
She wasn’t wrong about that . . . if she were sick. But I’d stake my reputation that she was full of
shit.
“I guess I’ll just have my dad call your dad,” she said in that whiny, nasally voice of hers that
drove me up the freaking wall.
I swore I could feel my pulse behind my eyeball as I dropped my head in defeat. “No,” I sighed.
“There’s no need for that.”
I knew what a call to my father would do. On more than one occasion, he’d questioned whether or
not I was ready to take over Junior’s, and each time he did, it hurt like hell. If he found out I fired a
woman he hired as a favor to his friend, he’d start to doubt my abilities again.
“Just . . . get better,” I forced out through clenched teeth. “And we’ll see you on your next shift.”
“Thanks, Hardin! You’re the best,” Kadence squeaked. Then, having won, she hung up on me,
leaving me with the start of a nasty headache.
“Okay, Mommy, I’m ready.” Hazel skidded across the kitchen floor in her socks, barely stopping
before she crashed into the table.
 I arched a brow as I looked down at her feet. “Think you’re missing something, Hazelnut?”
She looked down at her shoeless feet before shouting, “Oops!” and booked it out of the kitchen.
“Did you brush your teeth?” I called back.
There was a pause, then, “Doing it now!”
I was going to have an aneurism before I hit forty. I just knew it.
And because my morning couldn’t get any worse, my phone chose that moment to ring again.
I swiped the screen aggressively and brought it to my ear. “I swear to God, if this is another one
of my employees calling in sick, I’m firing everyone!” I barked through the line.
“Hardy?”
I stopped the tasks I had started of wiping my filthy counters and dropped my head back on a
silent scream.
“Hardy? You there?”
“I’ve asked you a million times not to call me that, Keith.”
He cleared his throat across the line like he was suddenly uncomfortable. “Yeah. Right. Sorry.”
“What do you need, Keith? I’m really busy right now, trying to get out the door.”
“No, I know, it’s just . . . Look, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Do you think we can
meet up later this week maybe?”
He’d never been one to hem and haw around a point before, or to ask to meet up, for that matter.
Our conversations usually consisted of him calling with some excuse as to why he had to miss yet
another milestone in his own daughter’s life. I’d get pissed and end up yelling at him for being so
selfish, then he’d accuse me of always nagging him before hanging up on me.
It was a vicious cycle that hadn’t changed in the seven years since Hazel had been born.
“Are you calling to cancel your weekend with her? We’ve talked about this, Keith. You can’t keep
—”
“It’s not that. Jesus, Hardin. Can we not fight? Just this once?”
I closed my eyes and pulled in a breath, trying desperately to find my calm. It wasn’t even eight in
the morning, and I was already wishing this day was over. I’d have given anything to strip off my
clothes and crawl back into bed with the covers over my head.
“What do you want, Keith?” I repeated, trying to keep my voice calm.
“Like I said, I’d like us to meet up soon. Whenever you have a chance.”
My frustration was quickly beginning to bubble over. “Why can’t you just say what you need to
say now, over the phone? I don’t exactly have a lot of free time.”
“Then I’ll come to you,” he spit out, his tone way too upbeat. “Just name the time and place.”
Alarm bells were ringing in my head, but I didn’t have time to hound him until he came clean. I
had other, more important things to worry about at the moment, such as our daughter, who I did
roughly ninety-nine percent of the caring for. If Hazel didn’t have such a good time with her father—
on the weekends he actually came through—I would have asked him to sign over parental rights a
long time ago. It wasn’t like losing the child support would have been a big deal. Starving artists
weren’t exactly big on paying their share.
I’d accepted a long time ago that my daughter’s welfare was going to fall on my shoulders alone,
and I was okay with that. I’d made the decision to be with Keith. It wasn’t like he hadn’t shown me
his true colors. I’d gotten careless and wound up pregnant. I hadn’t really been known for my stellar
decision-making in the past, so when things got tough and the man I was tied to for the rest of my life
flaked again, I couldn’t place the blame on anyone else.
I’d learned a long time ago to pull up my big-girl panties, stop whining about how unfair things
could be, and handle my shit like a responsible grownup.
“Fine,” I said on a sigh more to get him off the phone than for any other reason. “I’ll call you later
and we’ll set up a time to meet. But I really have to go.”
I could actually hear the smile in his voice as he said, “Great! Thanks, Hardin. That means a lot.
We’ll talk later. Give Hazel girl my love, yeah?”
My brain screamed, because he can’t be bothered to give it to her himself? But before I could
finish that thought, he’d disconnected.
I wasn’t sure how I’d pull it off or when I could make it happen, but there was one thing I knew
for certain: I needed a break.
2
 FORD

I stood beneath the freezing shower spray, the water feeling like millions of tiny needles
pricking my skin.
My body was exhausted. The call came in hours ago. Some asshole had thought it would be a
good idea to start a burn pile on his land just outside of town in the heat of the day, despite the burn
ban we were currently under. He had a bunch of dead limbs, trash, and even a couple tires he’d
carelessly lit on fire.
Not only was the jackass stupid enough to douse the whole thing in gasoline to, in his words,
make quicker work of it, but he’d piled everything way too close to a grove of trees on his property,
and when the wind kicked up, they’d caught quicker than a match, given how dry everything had been
lately.
It had taken hours of long, hard, back-breaking work to get everything out, and the guy had come
dangerously close to kick-starting a forest fire.
But the most ignorant thing the man had done was argue and fight with the cops who showed up to
ticket his dumb ass for breaking the law. He actually took a swing at one of them and ended up being
hauled in for assaulting an officer.
I couldn’t lie, watching them cuff the son of a bitch and load him into the back of a cruiser had
been enjoyable as hell, given that the rest of my crew and I were sweating our asses off having just
fought his fire.
We’d headed back to the station, all of us stinking to high heaven and drained of energy. The
building that housed Grapevine Fire Department had seen better days, to say the least—those days
being before I’d been born—so the plumbing wasn’t exactly up to snuff. To make things fair, we’d
draw straws to see who’d be lucky enough to shower first, that person being the only one who’d be
blessed with hot water.
This time around, I’d been last, and by the time my turn rolled around, all that was left was icy
water that made my balls burrow up into my body. The only silver lining was that my body was too
tired to care.
The job with Grapevine FD had taken some getting used to, that was for sure. Hell, the whole
move to a small town after living and working in a big city for years had been a culture shock, to say
the least.
I was born and raised in Maryland and spent a decade as a firefighter with the Baltimore Fire
Department before trading it all in to move to Small Town Nowhere, Virginia.
It had taken a while to get used to the much slower pace of small-town living, especially when it
came to work. A normal shift in Baltimore had us running calls from the time we started to the time
we ended, everything from medical emergencies to structure fires to car crashes. There was never a
dull moment.
Things in Grapevine moved differently. We were still busy, but in a different way. Medical
emergencies happened everywhere, but there weren’t nearly the same number of structure fires as
we’d gotten in the city. However, the threat of brush and forest fires was much greater, especially
given the drought we’d had lately. Everything was bone dry, the perfect kindling, and it wouldn’t take
much to set off a disaster, which was nearly what had happened today. The owner of that property
was in a serious world of hurts, and I couldn’t find it in myself to feel bad for the fool.
Reckless, selfish people deserved to pay the price for putting others in harm’s way, and he was
paying his.
If only that were the case for every thoughtless asshole out there.
I hadn’t realized how tightly I was holding my body until the pain started radiating from my
clenched jaw, and my blunt nails cut into my palms.
Standing beneath the icy water, I pulled in a fortifying breath and flexed my hands, releasing the
tension from the balled up, white-knuckled fists I’d been holding them in. I blinked my eyes opened,
taking in the aged and cracked tiles covering the shower wall. I focused all my energy on those tiles
in an effort to pull myself back to the present. I was in the shower, not standing in the middle of the
highway, being pelted by frigid rain drops.
The lights above me were a flickering florescent, not the standard white, red, and blue of
emergency vehicles.
I wasn’t on some congested section of road in Maryland. I was in Grapevine, Virginia. My new
home.
I pressed my palms against the cold wall. The tiles had once been white, but had grown dingy
with age. They were just one of the many things that needed to be updated in the Grapevine fire house.
I was still on shift. I couldn’t afford to be pulled back into the past while I was responsible for the
well-being of the people in my new town.
I took one last deep breath before cranking the nozzle to shut the water off. I did a half-assed job
of drying myself before wrapping the towel around my waist and throwing the curtain to the shower
stall back. I padded to the row of lockers along the back wall and made quick work of dressing in a
clean uniform.
“Your balls turn to raisins in there?” Palmer, one of the other firefighters, razzed as I stepped out
of the communal bathroom and into the sleeping quarters. What the room lacked in privacy, it made up
for in, well . . . nothing, really.
The room was longer than it was wide and had vaulted ceilings that made it difficult for anyone
over five seven to walk beneath. There wasn’t room for much of anything other than two rows of twin
beds barely long enough for a teenager, let alone a grown man. It took up one half of the second story,
while a dated weight room with a few sets of dumbbells, a rusted bench press bench, and a broken
treadmill made up the other half.
Downstairs we had a large kitchen, a TV room with a couple ratty couches, and the chief’s office.
I balled up my used towel and chunked it at Palmer’s head as I moved past him. “Fuck drawing
straws,” I grunted. No one knew how the hell he did it, but Palmer always managed to draw the long
straw, meaning he always got the hot shower. I wasn’t sure how you could cheat at something like
that, but we were all convinced that was what he was doing. “You get the last shower from here on
out, dick.”
He laughed, laying the paperback he had been reading face down on his chest to keep his place.
Palmer was the laid-back one of the crew. Never one to take things too seriously—unless we were on
the scene of an accident or fire—he was always quick with a laugh or a joke. When things were slow
around the firehouse, he was usually the one cutting up, making the rest of us laugh.
Working as a first responder in Grapevine was a whole hell of a lot different than in a big city.
There were some shifts when things could get boring, so Palmer took it on himself to make sure things
never got too stale.
“What can I say, man? Just lucky, I guess.”
“Lucky my ass. You’re cheating. Just haven’t figured out how yet.”
He let out another bark of laughter, not the least bit insulted. “They’re talkin’ dinner down there.”
He jerked his chin in the direction of the opened door that led to the stairs. “Might wanna hustle to get
your vote in. I already gave mine.”
I arched a brow. “What are the options tonight?”
His mouth pulled into a wince. “Well, it’s Crawford’s turn to cook.” That explained the look.
Crawford was a beast when it came to the job, one of the best men you could want on your team
fighting fires, but he couldn’t cook for shit. Rumor had it, when he was on kitchen duty a few years
back, he and the entire crew had gone home when their shift was up and were hit with a worst case of
food poisoning the town had ever seen. He still came up on rotation regularly because it was only
fair, but on his nights, we didn’t vote over what he’d make. We’d vote over whether we were willing
to let him cook or if we’d do takeout.
Needless to say, takeout always won.
“So, Junior’s it is,” I said, and he shot me a finger gun while picking up his book and returning his
gaze to the pages. “You said it.”
Junior’s Pizzeria in a small, middle-of-nowhere town, had to be the best pizza I’d ever had in all
my thirty-nine years. It was the sauce. I didn’t know what the hell they put in it—no one did. That
sauce recipe was the town’s best kept secret. The Shields family who owned and operated the place
were seriously tight lipped about it. My buddy Owen Shields ran the local vet clinic, and because
he’d chosen that path instead of joining the family business, even he didn’t know how to make it.
In my line of work, it was crucial that you remain in shape. It wouldn’t do to be carrying a person
out of a burning building and have to take a break halfway down the stairs to catch your breath. I’d
always prided myself on a balanced diet and plenty of time working out so I was in optimal shape for
my chosen profession, but after one trip to the local pizzeria, I was hooked. Whatever the ingredients,
it was addictive. I ate a few slices from Junior’s at least once a week and started working out extra to
combat all the cheesy, doughy awesomeness.
Totally worth it.
Another selling point for me, at least in the beginning, was that the woman who ran the place was
drop-dead gorgeous. A real seductress. I wasn’t in the market for a relationship. Never fucking again.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t up for a little fun, if there were no strings involved and we both knew
the score. I’d been new to town, just starting to settle in, and I’d spent the better part of a month
coming in and sitting at the bar where I could eat great food, drink a cold beer, and flirt with a fucking
gorgeous woman. It had been going pretty damn well, and I knew she was feeling it too.
I’d been enjoying a slice for lunch one day, building up to make my move on the woman I’d come
to know as Hardin, when the door to the restaurant flew open and a tornado of long, wild, dark hair
came streaking through, running right behind the counter and latching onto her leg.
The second the words, “Hi, Mommy” came out of her mouth, I’d felt like a bucket of ice water
had dumped over my head.
 That was the day my plan to seduce Hardin Shields into my bed had died. I didn’t get involved
with women who had children. It was absolutely out of the question. Hardcore deal breaker. As
beautiful as the woman was, she’d forever be in the unattainable category.
It worked out for the best, because not long after, I met her older brother, Owen, and the two of us
became tight. He was probably the person in Grapevine I was closest to; my best friend if I had to put
a label on it, and everyone knew that fucking your best friend’s little sister was a hard no.
I jogged down the stairs just as the Darryl, the oldest member of the crew, let out a gruff, “I’m
sick of Mexican, man. I want Chinese.”
“No Chinese,” Lydia barked back. She might have been the smallest member of the department,
but she was also the biggest ball-buster of us all. She could hold her own on a call, no problem, and
she didn’t give a shit how much bigger any of us were, she didn’t hesitate to put us in our place.
There’d been more than one time I’d covered my balls to keep them safe when I did or said something
to piss her off. “I had Chinese last night, and I don’t want it again.”
Darryl scoffed at the little woman glaring frozen daggers up at him. “How is that my problem?
What you do on your free time has no bearing on the decisions made here.”
Lydia slammed her hands down on her hips and got right up in his face, or as close as she could,
seeing as Darryl had nearly a foot on her. “It does when we’re discussing Chinese, and I don’t want
it.”
It was inevitable that he’d cave to the little hellraiser, we all did, so I didn’t bother sticking
around to watch it go down.
“Hey, Grimes. Where you goin’?” our rookie, Henson, called after me as I headed toward the
back exit that would take me to the parking lot.
“To Junior’s to pick up a couple pies. Be back in a few.”
“I could do pizza,” I heard Lydia say as I pushed the door open. And as it started to swing closed,
Darryl’s voice followed. “Works for me. Problem solved.”
The last voice I heard before it clicked into place was Crawford’s. “Thank fuck.”
3
Another random document with
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up unto heaven and our heart is sore." "Amon is the god of the rich and
Aton the god of the poor," the king preached. "Woe unto you, you sleek and
rich who acquire house after house and field after field, so that there is no
room on the earth left for others! Your hands are full of blood. Wash,
cleanse yourselves, learn to do good. Save the oppressed, defend the
orphan, protect the widow. Provide bread for the hungry, water for the
thirsty, clothes for the naked, shelter for the homeless, smiles for the
weeping. Undo the bondsmen's yoke and set the slaves free: then shall your
light shine in darkness and your night shall be as midday!"

"Ankh-em-maat, You-Who-live-in-Truth," the king's disciples said to

him, "you will make the poor equal with the rich, will efface the boundaries
between fields as the river flood effaces them. You are a multitude of Niles,
flooding the earth with the waters of inexhaustible love!"

The king had invented a dangerous game of throwing gold to the

beggars like fire into straw. For many years Mahu, the chief of the guards,
had saved the situation: collecting trustworthy people from among the
palace servants he dressed them up as beggars and promised the well-
behaved a fair share of the spoils and the unruly—the lash; and all had gone
well. The king was short-sighted; from the High Place where he sat while
throwing the gold money rings into the crowd, he could not recognize the
faces below.

But someone informed against Mahu. The king was very angry and
nearly dismissed him from his post; and next time Mahu had to admit real,
not dressed up beggars. Then there was trouble: no sooner did the rain of
gold begin to fall than people grew savage, a free fight began and a whole
detachment of armed soldiers had difficulty in quieting the crowd. There
were three killed and many wounded. The king fell ill with grief, gold
rained no more, but food was still given away and petitions received.

The Beggars Court was a large quadrangle paved with slabs of alabaster
and surrounded by two storeys of pillared arcades. At one end of it was the
High Place—the king's tabernacle. A wide, gradually ascending staircase of
alabaster led to it. The goddess, Nekhbet, the Falcon Sun-mother, with a
white head and a red, scaly body, was soaring above the tabernacle holding
a golden ring—the royal globe, in its claws. "As the mother comforts her
children so will I comfort you," the king, son of the Sun, said to the
sorrowful children of the earth.

"Down! down! down! the king comes! The god comes!" the runners
cried and the whole crowd in the court prostrated themselves, crying out:

"Rejoice, Akhnaton, Joy of the Sun!"

Besides beggars and petitioners there were, in the crowd, many sick,
blind, halt and lame, because people believed that everyone who touched
the king's clothes or upon whom his shadow fell was healed.

"Defend us, save us, have mercy, O Lord!" they called to him, like the
souls in hell to the god who came down to them.

The king ascended the steps to the tabernacle and sat on his throne. Dio
stood behind him with the fan.

The guards admitted the petitioners through a narrow passage between

two low walls of stone along the foot of the stairs. Two Nubian soldiers
with naked swords guarded the door in the middle of the wall adjoining the
staircase. Approaching this door every petitioner prostrated himself, sniffed
the ground, placed a wooden or a clay tablet with his petition on the bottom
step of the stairs, where there was a heap of them already, and passed on.

Everyone was admitted into the Court, but a special permit was required
for entering the passage leading to the king's tabernacle. Mahu, the chief of
the guards, watched over everything.

Suddenly there was a disturbance. A petitioner tried to get through the

little door. The soldiers crossed their swords in front of him but he went
straight ahead, stretching his arm towards the king and screaming as though
he were being cut to pieces:

"Defend, save, have mercy, Joy of the Sun!"

Not daring to kill a man before the king, the soldiers lifted their swords
and the man, flattening himself on the ground and wriggling like an eel,
crept between them and began crawling up the stairs. Mahu rushed at him
and seized him by the collar, but the man wriggled out and went on
screaming and crawling towards the king.

Mahu made a sign to the lancers of the bodyguard who stood two in a
row, along the stairs. They closed their ranks and lowered their spears. But
the man crawled on.

At the same moment a frenzied scream was heard:

"Let him through! Let him through!"

The squealing, breathless scream like that of a woman in hysterics or of

a child in a fit was so strange that Dio did not recognize the king's voice.
With a distorted face he jumped up and stamped with both feet, as the little
girls had done when they played blind man's buff to the sound of the
threshing song. And the ringing cry went on:

"Let him through! Let him through!"

Mahu made another sign to the lancers and they lifted their spears,
making way. The man crawled between them and advanced almost as far as
the top landing where the king's tabernacle stood. He raised his head and
Dio recognised the long red curls, the red goat's beard, the prominent ears,
hooked nose, thick lips and burning eyes of Issachar, son of Hamuel.

The king was quiet now and, bending forward, looked straight into
Issachar's eyes intently and, as it were, greedily, just as Issachar looked at
him.

"Your servant has a secret message for you, sire!" Issachar whispered.

"Speak, I listen."

"No, for you, for you alone."

"Leave us alone," the king said to the dignitaries who stood on the
landing.
 All withdrew except Dio who hid behind the corner of the tabernacle.

Some three or four steps separated Issachar from the king. "I know who
you are! I know!" he said, crawling up and looking straight into the king's
eyes, with the same intent, eager look. "Sun's joy, Sun's Only Son,
Akhnaton Uaenra, Son of the living God!"

Suddenly he jumped up and drew a knife from his belt. But before he
had time to raise it Dio darted forward and seized him by the hand. He
pushed her so that she fell on her knees but jumped up again, not letting go
of his hand, and screening the king with her body. An unendurably burning
chill pierced her shoulder. She heard shouts, saw people running and fell on
the ground with the last thought: 'he will kill him!'

IX

aradise gardens of Maru-Aton—the Precincts of the Sun

—were situated south of the city, where the rocks of the
hilly desert were close to the river.

The sweet breath of the north wind could be felt even

on the hottest days under the shade of the evergreen
palms and cedars laden with the fragrance of incense. Each tree was planted
in a hole dug in the sand, filled with the Nile black earth and surrounded by
a ridge of bricks to prevent water running away.

Everywhere there were flower-beds, ponds, islands, bridges, arbours,

chapels, summer houses of light transparent lattice-work magnificently
painted and gilded like jewel boxes.

The king often came here to rest from the noise of the city in the
stillness of paradise.
 Dio spent three months here recovering from her wound. Issachar hit
her with the knife just above her left breast. It was a dangerous wound: had
the knife gone in deeper it would have touched the heart. During the first
few days she suffered from fever and delirium.

She fancied she was lying on the funeral pyre as then, in the island of
Crete after killing the god Bull; the sacrificial knife pierced her heart; the
flames burnt her but through their heat she felt a heavenly freshness: Merira
was the flame and Tammuzadad—the freshness.

Or she saw a fiery red goat grazing on the green meadows of paradise;
the grass turned coal-black at his touch and red sparks flitted about it; and
again—Tamu was the green grass and Merira—the sparks.

Or it was a rich old Sidonian merchant unfolding before her among the
booths of the Knossos harbour magnificent stuff, red shot with green;
winking slyly he praised his goods: "a true robe of Baal! A mine of silver
per cubit is my last price." And, once more, the red shade was Merira, the
green—Tammuzadad.

Or, the real Merira was taking her into the holy of holies of Aton's
temple, as he really had done, three days before Issachar's attack on the
king; she did not want to go in, knowing that no one but the king and the
high priest were supposed to do so, but Merira reassured her, saying, "Yes,
with me you may!" And, taking her by the hand, he led her in. In the dim
light of sanctuary lamps the bas-relief of the Sphinx seemed a pale
phantom: a lion's body and legs, human arms and head and an inexpressibly
strange, fine, birdlike face—old, ancient, eternal. "If a man had suffered for
a thousand years in hell and then came to earth again, he would have a face
like that," Merira whispered in her ear. "Who is he?" she tried to recognize
him and could not; and then, suddenly, she knew him and woke up with a
cry of unearthly horror: 'Akhnaton'!

The king's physician, Pentu, treated her so cleverly that she was soon
better. But the unwearying care of the queen did her more good perhaps
than any medicine. The queen nursed Dio as though she had been her own
daughter; she never left her, spent sleepless nights beside her though she
herself was far from well: she had a cough and every evening there was an
ominous red flush in her cheeks.

Each time that Dio saw the wan, beautiful face bending over her, the
face of one who had also received a mortal wound, she felt like bursting
into tears.

She learned from the queen what happened in the Beggars Court after
Issachar had struck her and she fell down senseless.

"God has saved the king by a miracle!" everyone said. The assassin had
raised his knife to strike him when some dreadful vision appeared before
him; the knife dropped out of his hand and he fell at the king's feet. The
king, thinking that Dio was killed, bent over her and embraced her with a
cry so terrible that only then they understood how much he loved her. He
would not leave her, but at last Pentu, the physician, assured him that Dio
was alive and he got up, covered with her blood.

"You are now related by blood both to him and to me," the queen said,
smiling through tears.

Some of the bodyguards rushed at Issachar, intending to kill him on the

spot, but the others saved him at the orders of Mahu and Ramose; only
these two had kept their presence of mind amidst the general confusion and
remembered that, before putting the criminal to death, they ought to find
out from him whether he had any accomplices. Issachar was taken to the
prison and cross-examined, but he said very little; he did not give anyone
away and only confessed that when he raised the knife to strike the king he
had a vision. He would not say what the vision was and only muttered to
himself something in the Jewish language about their King-Messiah and
repeated senseless words "they shall look on Him whom they pierced." But
he would not explain who was pierced and then grew silent altogether.

Torture was forbidden by royal decree in the holy province of Aton, yet
considering the importance of the occasion they had recourse to it all the
same. But neither antelope lashes nor hippopotamus scourges could untie
Issachar's tongue. Mahu and Ramose had to give him up at last.
 On that same night he was taken ill with something like brain fever—or
pretended to be. Fearing that the criminal might die before the execution
Ramose hastened to ask the king for a death penalty had been abolished in
Aton's province. And when Ramose suggested that the criminal should be
moved to some other province and executed there, the king smiled and said,
shrugging his shoulders: "there is no deceiving God, my friend! This man
wanted to kill me here—and here he must be judged."—"Not judged, but
pardoned," Ramose understood and was indignant; he decided to put
Issachar to death secretly by the hands of the gaolers. But he did not
succeed in this either: the old gaolers were replaced by the new who had
received strict orders to preserve the prisoner's life.

Issachar soon recovered from his real, or pretended, illness. The king
who had had an epileptic fit after Issachar's attack on him and was still far
from well, visited the prisoner and had a long peaceful talk almost alone
with him: the guards stood at a distance; and a few days later it appeared
that the prisoner had escaped.

The three elder princesses, Maki, Rita and Ankhi, helped the queen to
nurse Dio; it was from them she heard of the city rumour about the king
having himself helped Issachar to escape; it was said that the man had not
gone far but was hiding somewhere in the town waiting, perhaps, for a new
opportunity to take the king's life.

"The king has now shamed the faces of all his faithful servants because
he loves those who hate him and hates those who love him!" Ramose cried
when he heard of Issachar's escape, and he recalled the words of old
Amenhotep the Wise, the tutor and namesake of the king's father: "if you
want to please the gods, sire, and to cleanse Egypt from corruption, drive
away all the Jews!"

"The darling Hippopotamus is right," Ankhi concluded—she called

Ramose 'hippopotamus' because of his being so stout—and suddenly she
clenched her fists and stamped almost crying with anger. "Shame, shame
upon all of us that the vile Jew has been spared!"

Dio made no answer, but the thought flashed through her mind "we are
related by blood now, but blood, both his own and other people's is like
water to him!" And though she immediately felt ashamed of this thought a
trace of it remained in her mind.

The king often came to Maru-Aton, but the queen seldom allowed him
to see Dio, especially during the first, difficult days: she knew he was not
clever with the sick. His conversations with Dio were strangely trivial.

"Why is it I keep talking of trifles?" he wondered one day, left alone

with her. "Is it that I am growing stupid? You know, Dio, sometimes I am
awfully stupid, ridiculously so. It must be because of my illness...."

He paused and then added, with the childishly timid, apologetic smile
that always wrung her heart: "The worst of it is that I sometimes make the
most sacred things foolish and ridiculous: like a thief stealing and
desecrating that which is holy...."

"Why do you talk like this?" Dio cried, indignantly.

"There, forgive me, I won't.... What is it I was going to say? Oh, yes,
about Issachar. It wasn't out of foolishness I pardoned him. He is a very
good man...."

The queen came in and the conversation dropped. Dio was glad: her
heart was throbbing as though Issachar's knife had once more been thrust
into the wound.

By the month of Paonzu, March-April, she was almost well though still
weak.

The first time she went into the garden she was surprised to see that the
hot summer came straight after the winter: there was no trace of spring.

Strange longing came upon her during those hot days of delusive
southern spring. "He who drinks water out of the Nile forgets his native
land," the Egyptians said. She fancied she, too, had forgotten it. What was
this longing then? "It's nothing," she tried to comfort herself, "it's simply
foolishness, the result of illness, as with the king. It will pass off." But it did
not.

In the gardens of Maru-Aton by the big pond opposite the women's

quarters where Dio lived, a rare tree, hardly ever seen in Egypt, was planted
—a silver birch, graceful and slender, like a girl of thirteen. It had been
brought as a present to Princess Makitatona from Thracia, the land of
Midnight. The princess was very fond of it; she looked after it herself,
watered it and kept the ground around it well dug, covering it with fresh
Nile black earth.

Dio, too, grew fond of the birch tree. Every day she watched its buds
swell and sticky, greenish yellow leaves, crumpled like the face of a new-
born baby, open out; she kissed them and, sniffing them with her eyes
closed, fancied that every moment she would hear the call of the cuckoo
and smell the melting snow and lilies of the valley as in her native woods at
home on Mount Ida—smell the real spring of her own native land.

When flocks of cranes flew northwards, with their melancholy call, she
stretched out her arms to them: would that she, too, were flying with them!
Looking at the ever blue, lifeless sky she longed for the living clouds she
knew so well. Putting her ear to a shell, she eagerly listened to its roar, that
was like the roar of sea waves; she dreamt of the sea in her sleep and wept.
One day she sniffed a new sponge Zenra had just bought and almost cried in
reality.

She had a Cretan amethyst, a present from her mother, with a fine
design upon it: bare willows in a flooded meadow all bent to one side by the
wind, a tumble-down old fence with poles sticking out, the ripple of autumn
rain on the water: everything dull and wretched and yet she would have
given her very soul to see it all again. But she knew she would never see it,
she would never go home—she would not want to herself. Was this,
perhaps, why she longed for it so? Thus the radiant shades in paradise may
be longing for this gloomy earth.
 One early morning she sat by Maki's birch tree, listening to the wailing
of the shepherd's pipe in the hills above Maru-Aton. She knew both the
song and the singer: the song was about the dead god Tammuz and the
singer was Engur, son of Nurdahan, a Babylonian shepherd, an old servant
of Tammuzadad, brought by her to Egypt from the island of Crete.

The sounds of the pipe fell sadly and monotonously, sound after sound
like tear after tear.
"The wail is raised for Tammuz far away,
The mother-goat and the kid are slain,
The mother-sheep and the lamb are slain,
The wail is raised for the beloved Son."

Dio listened and it seemed to her that in this song the whole creation
was weeping for the Son who is to come, but still tarries "how long, how
long, O Lord?"

Nothing stirred and complete stillness reigned everywhere; only the air,
in spite of the early hour, was simmering with heat over the sandy paths of
the garden and flowing in streams like molten glass.

Suddenly a fan-like leaf at the top of a palm moved as though coming to

life, then another and a third. There was a gust of wind, hot as from an
oven; the sand on the paths rose up like smoke; the light grew dim; the sky
turned dark and yellowish in an extraordinary, incredible way: it might be
the end of the world; the whole garden rustled and groaned in the sudden
whirlwind. It was dark as night.

Dio ran home. The wind almost knocked her off her feet, burned her
face, blinded her with sand. Her breath failed her, her temples throbbed, her
legs gave way under her. It was not twenty paces to the house but she felt
she would fall exhausted before she got there.

"Make haste, make haste, dear!" Zenra shouted to her from the steps;
seizing Dio by the hand she dragged her into the entry, and with difficulty
shutting the door in the tearing wind, bolted it fast.
 "What is it, nurse?" Dio asked.

"Sheheb, a plague of Set," the old woman answered in a whisper,

putting the palms of both hands to her forehead as in prayer.

Sheheb, the south-east wind, blows from the Arabian desert. Fiery
clouds of sand, thrown up by the whirlwind, fall slanting upon the ground
with the noise of hail. The sun turns crimson, then dark like an ember. At
midday lamps have to be lit. Neither men nor animals can breathe in the
black stuffy darkness; plants perish. The whirlwind never lasts more than an
hour; if it lasted longer everything would be burned up as with fire.

In the fiery darkness of the Sheheb Dio lay on her couch like one dead.
The wind howled outside and the whole house shook as though it would
fall. Someone seemed to be knocking and throwing handfuls of sand at the
closed shutters, the flame of the lamp flickered in the wind that penetrated
through the walls.

The door opened suddenly and someone came in.

"Zenra, is it you?" Dio called.

There was no answer. Somebody approached the couch. Dio recognized

Tammuzadad and was not frightened or surprised, she seemed to have
expected him. He bent over her and smiled; no, it was not Tamu, but
Merira. She looked closely and % again it was Tamu and then Merira again;
first it was one then another; they interchanged and merged into one another
like the two colours of a shot material. He bent down still lower, looked into
her eyes as though asking a question. She knew that if she answered 'no'
with her eyes only he would go away; but she closed her eyes without
speaking. He lay down beside her and embraced her. She lay like one dead.

When he had gone away she thought "I will go and hang myself." But
she went on lying quite still. She may have dropped asleep and by the time
she woke up the Sheheb was over, the sky was clear and the flame of the
lamp looked pale. Zenra came in and Dio understood that it had been
delirium.
 After the Sheheb the weather freshened. The sweet breath of the north
wind could be felt in the shade of the evergreen palms and cedars fragrant
like a censer of incense. Only at times a smell of carrion came from the
direction of Sheol and then Dio thought of her Sheheb nightmare. It was the
last attack of her illness. The wound healed so completely that the only
trace left of it was a pale pink scar on the dark skin, and Dio was quite well.

The king had once given her a beautiful scroll of papyrus, yellowish like
old ivory, smoothed to perfection with wild boar's tooth, fine, strong,
imperishable.

Papyrus was expensive and only used for the most important records;
everything else was written on clay or wooden tablets, flat white stones or
fragments of broken earthenware.

Dio had been wondering for some time what would be good enough to
write on this scroll; at last she thought of something.

All the king's teaching was given by word of mouth; he never wrote
down anything himself and did not allow others to do so. "To write," he
used to say, "is to kill the word."

"It will all be lost, it will vanish like a footprint on the sand," Dio often
thought sorrowfully, and at last she decided: "I will write down on the
papyrus the king's teaching; I will not disobey him: no one living now shall
see the scroll; but when I have finished writing I will bury it in the ground;
perhaps in ages to come men will discover it and read it."

She carried out her plan.

In secret from all she worked night after night, sitting on the floor in
front of a low desk with a sloping board for the papyrus, tracing upon it,
with the sharpened end of a reed, close columns of hieroglyphics,
abbreviated into shorthand, and covering each column with cedar varnish
which made the writing indelible.
 Words of wisdom of King Akhnaton Uaenra Neferheperura—Sun's
joy, Sun's beautiful essence, Sun's only Son—heard and written down by
Dio, daughter of Aridoel, a Cretan, priestess of the Great Mother.

The King says:

"Aton, the face of god, the disc of the sun, is the visible image of the
invisible God. To reveal to men the hidden one is everything.

"My grandfather, Prince Tutmose, was hunting once in the desert of

the Pyramids; he was tired, lay down and dropped asleep at the foot of
the great Sphinx which, in those days, was buried in the sands. The
Sphinx appeared to him in a dream and said "I am your father, Aton; I
will make you king if you dig me out of the sands." The prince did so,
and I am doing so, too: I dig the living God out of the dead sands—dead
hearts."

The King says:

"There are three substances in God: Zatut—Rays, Neferu—Beauty,

—Merita—Love; the Disc of the Sun, Light and Warmth; Father, Son,
Mother."

"The symbol of Aton, the disc of the sun with three rays like hands,
stretched downwards is clear to all men—to the wise and to the
children."

"The remedy from death is not ointments for the dead, balsam, salt,
resin or saltpetre, but mercy and love. Have mercy upon one another, O
people, have mercy upon one another and you shall never see death!"

The King said to the malefactor who attempted his life, Issachar the
Israelite: "your God sacrifices all to Himself and mine sacrifices Himself
for all."

The King says:

"The way they break granite in the quarries of Egypt is this: they
make a hole in the stone, drive a wooden wedge into it, moisten it with
water and the wood, as it swells out, breaks the stone. I, too, am such a
wedge."

"The Egyptians have an image of Osiris-Set, god-devil, with two

heads on one body, as it were, twins grown together. I want to cut them
in two."
 "The deadness of Egypt is the perfect equilibrium of the scales. I
want to disturb it."

"How little I have done! I have lifted the coffin-lid over Egypt and I
know, when I am gone, the lid will be shut down again. But the signal
has been given to future ages!"

"When I was about eight I saw one day the soldiers piling up before
the King, my father, the cut-off hands of enemies killed in battle, and I
fainted with the smell of corruption. When I think of war I always recall
this smell."

"On the wall of the Charuk palace, near Thebes, where I spent my
childhood, there was a mural painting of a naval battle between the
Cretans and the Egyptians; the enemies' ships were going down, the men
drowning and the Egyptians were stretching out to them poles, sticks,
oars, saving their enemies. I remember someone laughed looking at the
painting: 'One wouldn't find such fools anywhere except in Egypt!' I did
not know what to answer and perhaps I do not know now, but I am glad
to be living in the land of such fools!"

"The greatest of the kings of Egypt, Amenemhet, had it written on

his tomb:

In my reign men lived in peace and mercy

Arrows and swords lay idle in my reign."

"The god rejoices when he goes into battle and sees blood" is said in
the inscription of King Tutmose the Third, the Conqueror, to the god
Amon. Amon is the god of war, Aton the god of peace. One must choose
between them. I have chosen."

"There will be war so long as there are many peoples and many gods;
but when there is one God and one mankind, there will be peace."

"We Egyptians despise the Jews, but maybe they know more about
the Son than we do: we say about Him 'He was' and they say He is to
come.'"

The king said to me alone and told me not to repeat it to anyone:

 "I am the joy of the Sun, Akhnaton? No, not joy as yet, but sorrow;
not the light, but the shadow of the sun that is to rise—the Son!"

Dio wrote down many other words of the king in her scroll and she
finished with the hymn to Aton:

The Song of King Akhnaton Uaenra Neferheperura to Aton, the

living and only God.

If my scroll is ever found by you, men of the ages to come, pray for
me in gratitude for having preserved this song for you, the sweetest of all
the songs of the Lord, that at the everlasting supper I may eat bread with
my beloved King Akhnaton, the messenger of the rising sun—the Son.

Glorious is thy rising in the east

Lord and giver of life, Aton!
When thou risest in the sky
Thou fillest the earth with thy beauty.
Thy rays embrace all created things,
Thou hast carried them all away captive.
Thou bindest them by thy love.
Thou art far but thy rays are on earth,
Thou art on high, thy footprints are the day.
When thou settest in the west
Men lie in the darkness like the dead.
Their heads are wrapped up, their nostrils stopped
Stolen are all their things that are under their heads
While they know it not.
Lions come forth from their dens,
Serpents creep from out their holes:
The Creator has gone to rest and the world is dumb.

Thou risest and bright is the earth

Thou sendest forth thy rays and the darkness flees.
Men rise, bathe their limbs, take their clothing,
Their arms are uplifted in prayer.

And in all the world they do their work.

All cattle graze in pastures green,
All plants are growing in the fields,
The birds are flying over their nests,
And lift their wings like hands in prayer.
Lambs leap and dance upon their feet,
All winged things fly gaily round.
They all live in thy life, O Lord!

The boats sail up and down the river,

Every highway is open because thou hast dawned.
The fish in the river leap up before thee
And thy rays are in the midst of the great sea.

Thou createst the man-child in woman,

And makest the seed in man,
Givest life to the child in its mother's womb,
Soothing it that it may not weep
Ere its own mother can soothe it.

When the chicken cries in the egg-shell,

Thou givest it breath to preserve it alive
And the strength to break the shell.
It comes forth from the egg and staggers,
But with its voice it calls to thee.
How manifold are thy works, O Lord!
They are hidden from us, Thou only God whose power no
other possesses!
Thou didst create the earth according to thy desire,
While thou wast alone in eternity,
Thou didst create man and the beasts of the field,
All the creatures that are upon the earth,
And fly with their wings on high.
 Thou didst create Syria, Nubia and Egypt,
Setting every man in his place.
Giving him all that he needs,
His measure of food and his measure of days.
Their tongues are diverse in speech,
Their forms are diverse and their skins,
For Thou, divider, hast divided the peoples.

Thou makest the Nile in the nether world

To fill with goods thy people here;
Thou hast set a Nile up in the sky,
That its waters may fall down in floods,
Giving drink to wild beasts on the hills,
And refreshing the fields and the meadows.
How excellent are thy works, O Lord!
The Nile in heaven is for the strangers,
And the Nile from the nether world is for Egypt.

Thou feedest each plant as thine own child,

Thou makest the seasons for all thy creatures:
The winter to bring them coolness
And the summer to bring them heat.

Thou didst create the distant heavens

In order to behold all that Thou didst make.
Thou comest, thou goest, thou comest back
And Greatest out of thyself, the Only One,
Thousands upon thousands of forms:
Cities, towns and villages
On highways and on rivers.
All eyes see thy eternal sun.
When thou hast risen they live, when thou settest they die,
When thou didst establish the earth
Thou didst reveal thy will to me,
Thy Son, Akhnaton, who lives for ever and proceeds from thee,
And to thy beloved daughter,
 Nefertiti, the delight of the Sun's delights.
Who flourishes for ever and ever.
Thou, Father, art in my heart
And there's no other that knows thee,
Only I know thee, thy son,
Akhnaton Uaenra,
Joy of the Sun, Sun's only son!"

When she had finished writing, Dio put the scroll inside an earthenware
vessel, sealed it with a leaden seal with the sun disc of Aton and, as soon as
it was dark, took a spade and went to Maki's birch tree by the big pond in
the garden.

The fiery whirlwind of Sheheb had withered the tree, the blackened
leaves were rolled up into little tubes, but the roots were alive. Maki dug it
out to move it to a new hole with fresh earth in it, but she probably had not
had time to finish her work before night: the tree lay near the hole.

Dio dug the hole deeper, put the earthenware pot into it, covered it with
earth and levelled it.

A white rose was blooming close by in a flowerbed by the pond. In the

stillness of the April night glowworms flitted about like sparks. One of
them burrowed its way into the rose, and the flower seemed to have a heart
of fire.

Dio went up to it, kissed it and thought:

"If some day men read my writing, they will connect Akhnaton with
Dio. I shall be in him as this flame is in the flower."

X
 he whip cracked, the horses dashed forward, the feathers
on their manes swayed, snowflakes of foam dropped off
their bridles, and the chariot flew like a whirlwind. The air
whistled in the ears; the lion's tail fixed to the king's belt at
the back and the crimson ribbons of his robe fluttered in
the wind. The king was driving; Dio stood behind him.

They passed the palm groves and the fields of ripe, yellow corn, taller
than the height of man; the Nile glittered for the last time in the distance
and the menacing silence of the endless desert, now dark brown, now
sparkling like glass, enveloped them.

As she looked through her lashes at the shining snake-like sandy roads,
flattened by heavy traffic, Dio recalled the thin layer of ice over the thawing
snow sparkling in the sun on Mount Dicte. The dazzling air was
shimmering with the heat. A vulture hung motionless in the dark blue sky.
At times the shadow of a passing cloud ran over the ground and, still
quicker, an antelope galloped past; suddenly it would stop and, stretching
out its neck, sniff the air and then run on, light as the wind.

The sun was setting when the wayfarers saw on a high rock of the
Arabian hills a boundary-stone of the province of Aton.

The images of King Akhnaton and Queen Nefertiti, cut out in the rock
at a height where only the wind, the sun and the eagles could reach them,
were half-covered, as though buried alive, by the waves of drifting sands.
The only way to reach the bas-reliefs was to descend by a rope down a
perpendicular rock; and evidently this was what some enemy of Aton's faith
had done, for the images were broken and defiled.

The king stepped out of the chariot. The long black shadow cast by his
figure upon the white sand seemed to stretch to the ends of the earth.

There was a clatter of hoofs. The high-priest, Merira, and the chief of
the guards, Mahu, drove up.

"If I could only find the scoundrels, I would kill them on the spot!"
Mahu cried indignantly, when he saw the desecrated images.
 "Come, come, my friend," said the king, with a smile. "The sands will
bury them anyway—there will be nothing left."

Mahu went to make arrangements for the night: the king wished to sleep
in the desert.

Close by there was a mountain gorge, dark and narrow like a coffin,
where tombs had been cut in the rock for the princesses. Hard by an old fig-
tree made an unfading patch of green against the dead sand, and a
sweetbrier flowered, fragrant with the scent of honey and roses: the secret
water of an underground spring kept them fresh.

The king, accompanied by Dio and Merira, went down into the gorge to
see the tombs.

When they had finished they walked up the slope of the hill by a narrow
jackals' path, talking.

"Is the decree concerning the gods ready, Merira?" the king asked.

Dio understood that he meant the decree prohibiting the worship of all
the old gods.

"It is ready," Merira answered, "but do think before you proclaim it,
sire."

"Think of what?"

"Of not losing your kingdom."

The king looked at him intently, without speaking, and then asked
again:

"And what ought I to do, my friend, not to lose my kingdom?"

"I have told you many times, Uaenra: be merciful to yourself and
others."

"To myself and others? Can one do both?"