Chapter 7 The Scholar
Chapter seven
The Scholar
MERYT
“Higher, Meryt! Come now, you are better than that!”
I strained to stretch my leg higher as ordered with the next extension in the dance my mother was teaching us. It was to be our first group performance as the upcoming generation of dancers in Pharaoh’s court, and we had to be flawless.
“Higher!”
I’m trying, I thought, but I dared not speak back to her, for she gave no more quarter than Pharaoh or any of his elite would should we displease them.
Several others, particularly the girls, had no trouble with their extensions, but the most limber among us was without a doubt Nakht, whose long legs could arch upward until his foot touched his forehead.
As we continued to dance in tandem, Nakht made certain I saw how much better he could perform the move compared to me. He even smirked in my direction.
“Not that high, Nakht,” Mother warned, and he startled so much at being singled out, he lost his balance, knocking three other dancers to the floor and tumbling atop them.
The rest of us laughed.
“All right now!” Mother called to calm us.
Those Nakht had toppled into were roughly pushing him off of them, each in different directions so it was looking increasingly more like a brawl.
“Enough! We will break and return to this in the afternoon.” Mother helped Nakht to stand and told him sternly, “Do not show off and extend out of step unless you are a solo dancer. Do you understand?”
“Yes, teacher,” he said, with a bow of his head.
Then Mother looked to me. “Work on your flexibility. I expect a better show of it when we return to this later.”
“Yes, Mother.” I bowed my head in kind.
She was firm only because she knew firsthand that sloppy dancers did not stay in the troupe for long, but were cast back into the kitchens or gardens or worse. If we did well, we lived well, and as Mother left the room, I promised myself I would always live well. I would. I…
I…
Lived?
Was I still alive?
“What else is to be expected from an orphan,” one of the other dancers, a tall girl who had been in the tumble, spat toward Nakht with a prowl in her step.
The others he had knocked over, and soon, the rest of the dancers too, closed in around Nakht, backing him toward the far wall.
“Always trying to be the center of attention because no parents claimed you, is that it?” another child asked.
Their sneers were terrible, cruel for no reason other than wanting to make Nakht feel small.
“Your mother left you on Pharaoh’s doorstep and perished,” the first girl said, a true story as far as any of us knew, “struck down by the gods themselves, for not even they wanted you.”
“Stop that.” I stormed through their ranks, pushing them away from Nakht so I might make a wall between him and his attackers, smaller though I may have been compared to several of them.
They would not dare lay a hand on me when my mother was Pharaoh’s favorite, and if one could not use their privilege to help others, what good was it?
“You think yourselves somehow better because a few of you know one of your true parents? Even those of you who know both, how are we different from each other? Are we not all the gods’ children?
Yes, all, for if they truly did not want any of us, we would not be here.
Are we not peers? Are we not slaves together? ”
The venom in my words caused the line of others to step back.
“Everyone has things they do not know about themselves, that someday, they might, and other times, they might not. Everyone has secrets they might never tell too, but we must be able to trust one another, or we are all doomed.”
I had my own secret, after all. I knew I was beginning to like Nakht, insufferable though he could be at times, and far more than I ever imagined I could like anyone.
The girl who had initiated the attack stepped toward me. Most of the girls were taller than the boys at this age, and she was the tallest.
“What, so you’re his friend now?” she scoffed.
It made no sense to make enemies of the only people we had to count on in life, but I would rather risk that than be part of the mob they were creating, singling one person out for something he had no control over, especially when I knew their motives were even more selfish at their core, all because he made them feel inferior.
“Nakht bolsters me to do better,” I said.
“What are you worth to me other than background noise?”
A few of the others gasped in surprise, even snickered, as the tall girl went red in the face, fists clenched in anger. But she had no comeback, and she could not use her fists without reprimand.
I turned around, leaving myself vulnerable should she dare strike me, and took hold of Nakht’s hand to lead him out from the prison of our peers. He looked stunned but also could not contain a small smile as we left the others and went into an adjoining practice room.
Nakht didn’t want to show the negative effects of the confrontation, but I could feel his agitation and pain in the tremble of his hand.
Once we had reached the safety of the far side of the practice room and none of the others had proven to follow us, I turned toward him to make sure he was all right.
“Mew?”
Nakht and I both perked up at the sound.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
It was obvious I had, and we released the grasp of our hands to begin looking for the source.
The sound had seemed to come from a small costume chest that rested on legs high enough for a small kitten to climb under and would usually give plenty of space to climb back out, except several items had been stacked around it.
I dropped to my knees to begin moving the blockages out of the way, and Nakht joined me.
Once we had a clear enough view to look under the chest, a tiny white figure was already crawling toward us from beneath it.
She gave another plaintive mew before escaping the prison she had inadvertently found herself in, and emerged, a blinking ball of white fluff with the faintest of dark markings.
The signature spots of her breed would only appear as she got older.
“Hey there, girl,” Nakht said, instantly reaching to pet her.
We hadn’t checked to confirm whether or not she was female, yet I knew we had both guessed correctly.
She leaned up into Nakht’s caresses with clear gratitude for the rescue.
“I don’t remember a kit like this in any of the recent litters, do you?
She’s beautiful. Have you ever seen such a pure white? ”
“I don’t think so,” I said, but while I reached to pet her too, my eyes quickly moved to Nakht, watching the joy alighting on his face where distress had so recently settled.
“You’re probably hungry, aren’t you?” Nakht continued.
Since the kitten was proving grateful and affectionate, he scooped her into his arms, and she allowed him to cradle her without fuss.
“Since we have a break, should we take her to the kitchens?” He looked at me, so beautiful for one so young, and I noticed a stray tear streak down the length of his cheek that he must have been holding at bay until a different emotion had allowed it to slip free.
The kitten tried climbing up his tunic, and Nakht giggled as he was distracted from his request of me to lift her to his face. She licked at the tear track, and Nakht giggled again before ducking his head, as if wanting to hide that a tear had been there so I wouldn’t pity him.
I would never pity him. As peers, we weren’t called to pity each other but empathize. There was nothing to pity. So, without calling attention to the tear the kitten had licked, I reached once more to pet her head.
“Let’s,” I said. “Go to the kitchens, I mean. I could use a snack too.”
Nakht beamed back at me. “If she hasn’t been named yet, how about we anoint her after the lioness goddess?”
“Pasht?” I questioned, and as soon as I said it, something… familiar stirred in me.
“Yes! Exactly! Something strong and clever.” Nakht stood, still holding the kitten. She looked so at home in his arms, like both had needed each other in this moment and were better for it. Just as I… I had been better for it from the moment I met Nakht.
That was when I had truly accepted that I liked him. When rivalry had turned to respect and fondness. I would not love him for some time yet, but we were friends from that day on.
From that day on…
“Thank you, Meryt, for—”
I whirled around, desperately seeking the real Nakht like I had in my previous memory. I hated that I kept forgetting him and always remembered too late to truly—
He was there, standing directly in front of me, as near to me as he had been when I threw myself at him the last time, only now, I was too afraid to move closer.
We were still in the practice room, weren’t we? But I couldn’t hear anyone in the room next door. I dared not glance back at where I had left the younger Nakht either, but I sensed he had vanished with the others.
We were alone.
“Meryt?” Nakht spoke to me, and my heart fluttered in my chest to hear his voice.
I was Meryt, the real, current day Meryt, as grown into a man as Nakht was, and dressed in my blue dancer’s attire just as he was wearing his red.
“Meryt.” Nakht made to reach for me but hesitated.
I wanted to reach for him too, but could I? Could we?
I raised my hand slowly but still not far enough to make contact. “I fear that if I touch you, you’ll vanish,” I admitted. My voice almost sounded strange to me, since I had been hearing it younger and younger.
“I fear the same. But it is you?” Nakht asked.
“It’s me. And you?”
“It is,” he said, voice cracking and expression bared open with raw emotion. “I have almost finished, Meryt. I have almost saved you.”
Because I was dead. I had died on that corridor floor with Nakht sobbing over my body. “And then what? Do you know what the gods will grant us if you succeed?”