That night Amon again did not sleep well. The moment he closed his eyes he seemed to see Maria's eyes, and a crowd of stray thoughts came surging in; he tried hard not to think of her, and could not help thinking of her anyway.
Under her gaze he felt as though he had been softened, and yet, goaded by desire, his body had gone somewhat stiff and hard.
Usually, when his heart was in turmoil, he would go bathe in the cold spring—but now he could not help wondering: Could there be something else strange about that cold spring? Is it that piercing chill that has made me like this?
Amon still did not understand a great many things; a boy's first stirrings come on just this quietly. Nor did he know that Maria's heart was, at this moment, far more tangled than his own.
Maria was not asleep. She was praying toward the Tears of the Gods, awakening the power the god had bestowed in the peculiar way Gabriel had taught her. It had gone more smoothly than Gabriel expected—she had already succeeded, and she felt that she could now wield a kind of formless force that filled the air around her. Force might not be the right word; perhaps energy, or ability?
But at the same time, the tangled desires lurking deep in her soul seemed to have been awakened and magnified as well, battering at her heart and calling up many things she had thought long forgotten and wishes she had thought long abandoned.
Maria did not doubt her own devotion to the goddess Isis in the least, but her life was not a blank sheet of paper apart from that; she was also a cherished daughter of the nobility. Maria was sixteen this year. Her grandfather had been a merchant in Cape State, and had been ennobled as a reward for organizing a fleet to follow the Egyptian army and supply its provisions and war materiel.
Maria's family did not rank very high among the powerful of Cape State, but they were wealthy. After her grandfather died, her father inherited the business and still dealt mainly in trade, though he was nowhere near as successful as the old man had been. What pleased her father most was having a daughter like Aikou-Maria: in the year Aikou turned fourteen he took her to the temple in the city-state, and everyone said she was the most beautiful girl in Cape State.
Half a year ago Maria's family fleet had run into a storm at sea and suffered disastrous losses, and a great deal of money was urgently needed to make up the shortfall. Her father went to borrow from an old friend of her grandfather's, a man of great standing and great wealth in Cape State. But this distinguished lord set a condition: he would marry Maria, and if her father wanted to keep the family business intact, he had to agree.
By sheer coincidence, a visiting king from the United Kingdom of Barron had also seen Maria at a temple gathering, and made his demand outright: he would take Maria as his queen. He sent a document to the city lord, Rod-Dick—another offer that could not be refused.
Maria's father did not know what to do with himself, until word came that the Isis Temple at Memphis was selecting a holy maiden; he begged the city lord Rod-Dick to let Aikou-Maria enter the selection. The priests at the local temple judged that Maria met the requirements, and she became a candidate for holy maiden, which settled the trouble for the time being. But Maria had to become a true holy maiden before all of it could be settled for good.
She was devout toward the goddess Isis, but whether her wish to become holy maiden also contained some private motive, Maria herself could not say—and neither could anyone else!
Now that she had obtained the Tears of the Gods, Maria was finally at ease: every trouble her family faced could hope to be resolved, and especially now that she had gained a first grasp of divine art, a feeling of boundless release had come over her. At the same time, a great many desires had been awakened as well.
To become the holy maiden of the guardian goddess Isis meant living a life high above the world and at the same time sealed off from it. Every deed, every word, even every glance had to suit a holy maiden's station. She would never again be permitted bodily contact with any grown man; the vessels and implements she used were all subject to special rules and requirements, and so on and so on. All of it ran somewhat against a young girl's nature.
Maria had read the tales in the papyrus poems as well—the soul-stirring wars and the romantic passions—and she too had once had all sorts of fancies about her future. But after she resolved to become a holy maiden and give everything she had to the great goddess Isis, all those wishes had to be given up, the desires of the ordinary world among them.
Yet now Maria felt wretched: from body to soul she was filled with an indescribable restlessness. Gabriel had told her that this was the Trial of the Gods she must face—that these things were awakened together with the power the god bestowed, and could not be forced down by sheer will. She could only meet them with a pure heart and refuse to be swayed by them.
Maria could do that; Gabriel was utterly convinced of it. But she seemed to have met with one small challenge. At the meal that day, when she spoke with Amon, they had looked each other straight in the eye as if daring each other on, and neither knew what it was they meant to overcome. Amon was only a miner's son, yet Maria was intensely curious about him—she even had strange, fanciful imaginings.
It was Amon who had mined out the Tears of the Gods. He was a youth favored by the goddess Isis—that was how he could receive the descent of the Tears of the Gods. But Maria had heard what happened in the town square that day: Amon had nearly had a finger cut off, precisely because he had mined out the Tears of the Gods.
The crowd had argued it out and determined that he had received the blessing of Muyun, the guardian goddess of this place—something that had not happened in the town for a hundred years. What sort of youth could win the compassion of two utterly different deities at once and bring about a wonder unseen in a century: blessed by the goddess Muyun, and yet mining out the Tears of the Gods that Isis bestowed?
This was a divine miracle, this was legend! Maria had read stories of miracles and legends, but she had never lived through one herself, and she could not help searching Amon for the shadow of a story. Amon was still boyish, but he was handsome too, always wearing an expression at once stubborn and composed. In truth Maria very much liked looking at him, though she could not say clearly why she liked it.
Last night, when Amon picked up that cat, Maria had felt his gaze fall on her breasts, as though it carried a touch with real substance. Was that an illusion? Maria felt as if her body had been seared by his gaze, and the restlessness plaguing her soul was magnified for no reason at all, until she could scarcely keep from trembling.
At another time Maria might never have had such a reaction, but she happened to be just then crossing the threshold of mastering divine art and undergoing that legendary Trial of the Gods. The real trial, in fact, was the very wishes and desires she was supposed to cast aside.
Maria knew very well that once she left Duke Town she would part from this youth forever, and that meant parting forever from the worldly life of her girlhood. It was a kind of symbol; she steeled her faith that it must be so, and yet a regret tormented her body and mind.
As she prayed toward the Tears of the Gods, the pale golden godstone gave off a faint halo that shone toward her, and her whole body seemed wrapped in a sacred radiance. It showed that Maria had begun to awaken the power the god bestowed—but at that very moment she felt as though the godstone's radiance had turned into Amon's gaze, searing her breasts and her body. She could not tell whether it was pleasant or unbearable; a trance she could scarcely restrain came over her.
On the third day—breakfast, lunch, dinner—Amon stood in attendance beside her the whole time. When Maria looked at him as she spoke, he looked back at her too, and he found that once their eyes had met for a while, Maria's breathing grew a little disordered and her face flushed; she looked as if she were suffering. Was she ill?
After dinner it was time for Maria's prayers again, and she said to Amon, "I want to wash my face. Please bring the water up to my room—the water must be cold, no hot water added."
These past few days Maria had always used warm water; today she asked for cold water on purpose, which struck Amon as strange. He carried the heavy basin up to Maria's room and set it down. Usually the maid attended Maria when she washed, but now she was alone, and Amon had to withdraw to the top of the stairs to keep out of the way.
"Lady Maria, are you unwell? Should I tell Lord Gabriel?" Amon ought to have gone out after setting down the basin, but instead he spoke up first. He had held it in for two days and finally could not hold it in any longer, because Maria's breath seemed to him very hot.
Amon, who never spoke first, had suddenly spoken, and Maria seemed startled. Her shoulders gave a sudden shudder; there was no wind, and yet the door swung shut without a sound, as if pushed by an invisible force.
Amon ought to have turned and walked out the door, but his body stayed where it was. Then he felt an invisible force pull at him, and what followed left a brief blank in his memory, so that for a very long time afterward Amon could not recall just how the things of that moment had come about.
By the time he could remember clearly, he was already standing before Maria, so close—in her arms, or rather, holding her in his arms. His left arm was around her waist, his right hand on her chest. Her breath seemed to scorch him, and his gaze seemed to scorch her. His hand lay on the softness of her breast, and he felt his whole body soften, as if melted by something burning hot.
The breath that rose from them both seemed to turn soft and viscous, each drawing the other in. She was so frail; her body trembled without cease in his hands. Amon's right hand quietly tightened, closing over her breast through the cloth, and through his palm he could feel the tantalizing feel of the nipple's stiff peak beneath the fabric. A young girl's breasts were not large; his spread fingers could cover one completely.
Their hearts both raced, and their breath came in pants. Amon's hand slid upward along the curve of her breast, trying for the collar, trying to slip in past the cloth that blocked him and take her breast wholly into his hand; it was so tempting, as though it held the sweetest lure in all the world.
As he did so he happened to see that Maria was looking at him, her eyes seemingly full of pain and confusion, her lips slightly parted. Amon had forgotten how to think; he brought his own breath up to meet hers, trying to kiss her. In that instant when their lips were about to touch and had not yet touched, Maria's body shook harder still, and suddenly she reached out and pushed him.
Her hands were so frail and strengthless that they looked incapable of pushing away the sturdy Amon—and yet Amon went flying backward. That invisible force had appeared again, and the bewildered Amon had no way to resist it. He landed sitting on the floor, the door behind him opened noiselessly once more, and everything had happened so suddenly and so inexplicably!
"I never thought—I truly never thought it! I'm sorry, this is all my fault! ... Amon, you must have been sent by the goddess Isis to test me ..." Seeing how hard Amon had fallen, Maria wanted to reach out and help him up, but she had gone no more than half a step before she stopped short. As she spoke, the face that a moment ago had seemed scorched by fire turned white in an instant.
"What is going on here?" a voice suddenly came from beyond the door.
Amon turned his head and saw that Gabriel was already standing in the doorway. He had come so fast that nothing else could have had time to happen—though nothing more was going to happen in any case.