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"Ah!" Tamet cried, struggling to hold tight to the basket as its handles suddenly tore in her grasp. She balanced it awkwardly, knowing that all the food would tumble out if she so much as breathed too heavily. As the bottom of the basket disintegrated, a cloth appeared in her vision, the food falling to be caught upon a cloak carried by a young man.
"Such a fine dinner should not be rolled in the dust," he said, laughing as she pulled off her veil and plucked up the food again, rolling it securely in the linen. "Your hair will smell of fish now – and those plump dates will smell of the fish too."
"I'll wash them," she said in annoyance that a man should laugh at her. "They are for my mistress."
"She must be glad you take such care with her food," he said cheerfully.
"She is particular," Tamet said, then, for she had not meant to speak ill of Yehoishema, added, "she is with child, she smells things very strongly." She clicked her tongue at herself – what business was it of a stranger, that she should spread gossip? "Your cloak will smell of fish too," she said, and turned away.
"It's not my cloak!" he called after her, laughter still in his voice.
*
Four days later she saw him again.
"Ah, is that the fragrance of lotus flowers?" he said, "Or a girl who wears fish in her hair?"
"I have no time to speak to rude, idle soldiers," she said, walking past. "Is there no patrol for you to march on with your unit?"
"It's true I'm a Judean," he said, "but I'm not a soldier. I serve in the temple – and I'm not idle; have I not been walking up and down here half the day hoping you would come out to buy treats for your mistress? Did you have to wash your hair before serving her?"
Tamet stopped and glared at him. He was no older than her, she saw, and full of amusement at his own wit. "Would you speak so to a woman of Judah?" she said. "Do not speak to me of my mistress – she is a lady and an officer's wife. And you are but a fool who mocks maidservants in the street." She strode off, ignoring his protestations that he had meant no harm. She was so intent on not looking back that she walked past the dateseller she had wished to buy from.
*
"You again," Tamet said, looking sidelong at him.
"Lady, I wish to apologise – I am rude and idle," he said. "We men of Judah are not as smooth in our manner as the great lords of Egypt."
"True," she said, "but I am not a lady who would know how to talk to a great lord, I am but a maidservant."
"I am but a very minor servitor in the temple," he said, smiling. "I am Anani son of Azariah."
"I am Tamet daughter of Pethu," she said, "the slave of Meshullam the son of Zakkur."
"Ah, your mistress really is an officer's wife," he said. "Have you been in his house since you were a child?"
"One year," she said, and shut her mouth on the rest of it.
"And in that year, the lord Meshullam has not raised you to being a wife?" Anani said, his eyes drifting down to her hand.
"You are impertinent," she said. "It's not your business – don't read what my hand says without asking!"
"It just says, This hand is beautiful."
"It does not," she said, but she laughed as she said it. "Should you not be serving in the temple?"
"It is a service to bring food to those who are hungry," he said firmly. "Will you eat with me, Tamet daughter of Pethu?"
"I have treats to buy for my mistress, Anani son of Azariah," she said, and walked off, grinning.
*
Half a month later it was as if it was nothing to her to walk with a young man by her side, watching the boats on the River as he spoke. He was not impertinent as he had been at first, and spoke to her as if she were a woman of means and not a peasant girl sold off in a bad year.
" . . . and the other servitors wanted to chase the cat out, but I thought, Does the Lord Yau want mice in the storehouse? It is not as if the cat was sitting in the inner courtyard of the temple, so I –"
"You shouldn't chase cats away," she said firmly.
Anani looked at her, then back at the water. "Do you think they are gods?" he said.
"The lord Meshullam and lady Yehoishema have taught me to worship the Lord Yau," she said politely.
"And do you?" he said, suddenly fervent.
"Yes, of course," she said, thinking how ungrateful it would be to her mistress to do otherwise.
"Meshullam your master," Anani said, and his voice was desolate. "Has he – are you –"
"Out of respect for my mistress, has he not treated me as a daughter of the house?" Tamet said in her best Aramaic. She poked a finger into Anani's side. "She told him to keep his hands off – she has a rare temper, he's afraid to cross her!"
Anani breathed out noisily, and looked more like a boy than a young man. He bent and picked up a stone, sending it skimming across the water. "Tamet daughter of Pethu!" he said in a rather self-important tone, and blushed as his voice rose as if he really were still a boy. "Tamet," he said again, "I'm just a servitor in the temple, I'm not a priest – "
"I had thought you were the governor," she said. "Your noble Persian accent, the fine curls in your hair –"
"Stop, I'm not joking, what I mean is – priests aren't allowed to take converts as wives. But I'm not a priest," he said, his voice running down to nothing as she stared at him.
"I am an Egyptian slave, and your friends will whisper behind their hands that I have lain with my master," she said at last. "Poor man or no, do you not wish to do better?"
"No," he said. "Anyway, my friends already know I could never love a girl whose hair didn't smell of fish."
While she was still laughing at him he bent and shyly kissed her mouth.
The temple of Khnum, Elephantine Island