Come here
As the morning light filtered through the cracks in the fig tree, Ding Wei was drawing the seventeenth hieroglyph on the pottery shard with a reed pen.
She matched modern shorthand with the pronunciation of Isis, marking the edge of the slate with phonetic symbols that only she could understand.
"Your Highness should use honey water."
Isis came in holding a copper pot. When she saw the broken pottery shards covered with words on the ground, her wrist shook so much that she almost knocked over the lid of the pot.
The foreign princess, who couldn't even say "bread" three days ago, is now spelling out "May Horus protect the Pharaoh" on a clay tablet.
When Ding Wei took the kettle, she deliberately shook her wrist, and the sound of the ceramic bracelets colliding startled two sand larks outside the window.
This was the secret signal she and Isis agreed upon - whenever a stranger approached, the maid would use this gesture to remind her to switch back to her clumsy beginner appearance.
"Read the chronology of the Seventh Dynasty again."
Ramses' voice suddenly came from behind the curtain, and the sound of gold-embroidered sandals stepping on the blue bricks was like some kind of metronome.
Ding Wei didn't need to look up to know that the Pharaoh was observing her out of the corner of his eye again, and that gaze was more accurate than the plumb line used to measure the pyramids.
Isis hurriedly tried to kneel down, but Ding Wei grabbed her wrist.
"The Seventh Dynasty lasted seventy days, and six pharaohs died during the Nile flood season."
She deliberately omitted the two kings' names and quietly made the correct gestures with her fingers in the folds of her skirt.
The maid immediately replied, "There are also Sekhetep and Neferkara, who are recorded on the third pillar of the tomb in Saqqara."
Ramses used his gold-inlaid cane to pick up the clay tablet Ding Wei had just written on, and the scarab relief brushed against the hair by her ear.
Ding Wei smelled the scent of myrrh wafting from his sleeves, mixed with the smell of bronze ware baked in the desert sun.
When the tip of the cane slid across the pinyin symbols she created, cold sweat instantly broke out on her back.
"Send this chronology to the Temple of Amun."
The Pharaoh suddenly threw the clay tablet to the guard, and Ding Wei's nails almost dug into her palm.
Those phonetic symbols looked like crooked hieroglyphics, but if the priests studied them carefully...
"Come here."
The golden cane hit Ding Wei's feet three inches away, stirring up fine dust.
She followed the Pharaoh through twelve porticoes painted with war scenes, and finally stopped by the lotus pond in the inner court.
Ramses took off his scarlet cloak and threw it on the stone bench, revealing his muscular forearms, which still bore the old scars of the Battle of Kadesh.
“When you curtsy, place your right hand on the second rib on your left chest.”
The Pharaoh suddenly grabbed her wrist and brought it to his chest. The coolness of the bronze wristband made Ding Wei tremble.
His thumb just happened to press on the wound where she was cut by the papyrus yesterday, and the blood beads rubbed against the other's palm lines, like pomegranate seeds falling on the back of a golden scarab.
Ding Wei counted the koi's tails swishing in the pond, forcing herself to calm down. But she heard a low laugh from above her head: "Your heartbeat is faster than a gazelle being chased by a crocodile."
Ramses' hand was still covering the back of her hand, and the calluses on his fingertips rubbed the throbbing blood vessels under the skin.
When Ding Wei finally made the standard posture, Pharaoh suddenly said something in the ancient Canaan dialect, and she reflexively replied with "thank you" in modern Chinese.
The setting sun cast their shadows on the surface of the pond, startling the koi fish so much that they dived deep into the lotus leaves.
When Ramses bent down to pick up his cloak, his malachite waist pendant brushed against Ding Wei's knee.
"Starting tomorrow, you will go to the library and copy the Book of the Dead for two hours every day."
When he said this, he was facing away from the sunset, and his brow bones cast heavy shadows on his eye sockets.
"Use your improved way of writing."
On the way back to the bedroom, Ding Wei counted the traces of ochre powder in the cracks between the bricks of the palace wall.
When they turned the seventh corner, Isis suddenly grabbed her sleeve and said, "The straw basket containing the garlic has been moved."
There was half a spider web stuck to the maid's fingertips, shining silver in the twilight.
"The pottery fragment I buried at the bottom...has a fingernail mark on it."
As the moonlight climbed onto the terrace again, Ding Wei sharpened the tip of her reed pen against the edge of the pottery jar.
She stared at the stars swaying in the bowl of water, and suddenly crumpled up the papyrus covered with phonetic symbols and threw it into the burning oil lamp.
At the moment the burning smell spread, the sound of the night watchman's horn changing his post was heard outside the window, mixed with a very light tapping sound like a night owl pecking.
The moonlight condensed into a silver line on the edge of the pottery jar, and Ding Wei scraped off the solidified wax with her fingernails.
Isis knelt on a reed mat, tying dried papyrus into rolls.
"The maid in the West Palace said that the Hittite delegation will visit next full moon."
The bronze mirror reflected Ding Wei's suddenly tense shoulders.
She remembered that historical records showed that the Battle of Kadesh between Ramses II and the Hittites was fraught with danger.
My fingers unconsciously stroked the edge of the pottery, and were suddenly pricked by a tiny notch - this was a new clay tablet delivered this morning, and the edge that should have been smooth had jagged cracks.
"To the library."
Ding Wei pulled her linen shawl tightly around her shoulders, and the night wind, carrying the scent of the crocodile grease lamp, blew into her nostrils.
As she turned the corridor, she deliberately let her sandals step on the loose tiles. The sound of her empty footsteps startled the sound of clothes rubbing against each other in the dark.
The stone shelves in the library were piled with faded scrolls. Ding Wei stood on tiptoe to reach the "Border Trade Record" on the top shelf, when the bronze lampstand was suddenly grabbed from behind.
Ramses's golden wristband brushed against the tip of her ear, carrying the scent of horsehair from the training ground during the day.
"You're looking for this?"
He pulled out a piece of palm fiber paper pressed at the bottom of the pottery jar, on which was painted a diagram of the Hittite army's formation in ochre.
Ding Wei caught a glimpse of half a lotus-shaped fingerprint on the corner of the paper - the shape matched the gap in the broken pottery fragment this morning.
The Pharaoh ran his finger over the oasis markings on the parchment map.
"The Hittites wanted control of the Memphis trade route."
His breath brushed against the back of Ding Wei's neck, causing a small shudder. "The priests suggest using chariots to meet the attack."
Ding Wei suddenly pressed a spot on the map and asked, "The copper production here has decreased by 30% compared to last year, right?"
She had taken a modern elective course in resource geography and remembered the depletion of the mineral veins in the Sinai Peninsula.
Ramses' pupils contracted slightly. This data should have been sealed in the treasurer's clay tablet box.
"We can trade Nubian gold for Hittite bronze."
Ding Wei dipped her hand in wine and drew a supply and demand curve on the stone table. Purple-red liquid dripped down the cracks in the table. "But the transaction must be divided into three stages, with a 5% premium each time."
The footsteps of the captain of the guards were heard outside the door, and Ramses took advantage of the situation to trap Ding Wei between the stone shelf and his arms.
His warm breath touched her brows: "Who told you about the mineral output?"
His thumb pressed on the throbbing vein in her wrist, but the force was three points lighter than during training during the day.
Ding Wei looked up at the Pharaoh and said, "The formula of the incense in His Highness's bedroom has been changed."
She caught the other person's instant stiffness in his shoulders.
"Originally, frankincense came from Ponte, but this year the fleet brought back boxes from the Arabian Peninsula—unless something happened to the Sinai trade route."
Ramses suddenly chuckled, causing the scroll that Ding Wei had placed on the shelf to rustle.
He picked up the fallen bronze pen tube and put it back into her hair.
"Come to the council chamber before sunset tomorrow."
When she turned around, the malachite waist pendant brushed across the back of Ding Wei's hand.
"With your wine-stained parchment."
When Isis applied perfume behind Dingwei's ear, she noticed gold dust on her left shoulder.
"The treasurer broke the glazed ceramic abacus today."
The maid lowered her voice and said, "Princess Taifu's personal slave girl was seen coming out of the armory."
Ding Wei adjusted her hair accessories in front of the bronze mirror, and the mirror suddenly reflected a swaying black shadow outside the window.
She deliberately knocked over the spice jar, spilling cinnamon powder onto the windowsill, and the night wind immediately blew out the outlines of scattered footprints.
The deepest indentation had fragments of gerbil grass along its edge—a plant found only in the temple herb garden.
"Move up your bathing schedule for next month."
Ding Wei made the best of it and changed the date on the clay tablet, using her fingers to wipe away the marks on the windowsill.
When Isis went out with her change of clothes, she quickly dipped a reed in water and wrote on the ground: Check the entry and exit records of the medicine garden.
The next day, the meeting room was filled with choking smoke, and Ding Wei laid out seven mineral samples next to the sand table.
When the footsteps of the Hittite envoys came from the corridor, Ramses suddenly broke the lapis lazuli beads on his wrist.
The falling gem happened to stop at Ding Wei's feet. The moment she leaned over to pick it up, she heard Pharaoh whisper two words: "Be careful."
When the delegation's copper bell rang for the third time, Ding Wei put the re-strung beads back on Pharaoh's wrist.
Her fingertips brushed against his protruding wrist bone and she felt his pulse was half a beat faster than usual.
Sunlight shone through the skylight onto the sand table, pinning the overlapping shadows of the two people to the "Hittite" marked area.
"Exchange this for bronze."
Ding Wei pushed out a sample of Nubian gold ore and caught a glimpse of a half-broken dagger inlaid with meteoric iron exposed under the robes of the envoys - exactly the same weapon pattern as the one on the parchment in the library.
She suddenly held down Pharaoh's hand as he was about to take the clay tablet of the contract.
"But there's a condition attached."
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