'It is either that or starve,' Taita agreed, and took her place at the hearth.

  Nefer resumed his old role of hunter, and after his first day out in the desert returned with a plump young gazelle and four marvellously patterned giant bustard eggs that were only slightly addled. Mintaka sniffed her share of the omelette Taita made and pushed it away. 'Is this the same man who complained of my cooking?' She looked across the fire at Nefer. 'You are as guilty as he is. Next time I will go with you to make sure that what you bring back is edible.'

  They lay side by side in one of the shallow wadis that cut through the hills and watched a herd of gazelle feeding towards them.

  'They are dainty as fairies,' Mintaka whispered. 'So beautiful.'

  'I will shoot if you have qualms,' Nefer told her.

  'No.' She shook her head. 'I did not say I would not do it.' Her tone was determined, and by now he knew her well enough not to query hear decision.

  The ram moved ahead of his herd. His back was a delicate cinnamon shade and his underbelly was the silvery white of one of the thunder-heads that rose above the horizon. His horns were lyre-shaped and polished between his pricked, trumpet-shaped ears. He turned his head on the long curved neck and gazed back at his small herd. One of the lambs began to stot, bouncing on stiff legs with its nose almost touching its bunched hoofs. This was the alarm behaviour.

  'The little creature is just practising and showing off.' Nefer smiled.

  The ram lost interest in this juvenile display, and came on towards where they lay in ambush. He picked his way over the stony ground with studied grace, stopping every few paces to look about warily for danger.

  'He has not seen us, but he soon will,' Nefer whispered. 'We do not have Taita to gull him.'

  'He is out of range,' she whispered back.

  'Fifty paces, no more. Shoot or he will be gone in an instant.'

  Mintaka waited until the ram once more turned away his head. Then she rose slowly to her knees and drew the bow. It was one of the short recurved weapons they had salvaged from a buried chariot. She released the arrow and it rose in a gently arc against the pale desert sky.

  With those huge dark eyes, the gazelle had instantly picked out her small movement of rising. His head switched round and he stared at her, on the point of flight. At the twanging release of the bowstring he leaped forward while the arrow was still in the air. He skimmed away, tiny puffs of dust rising where his hoofs touched the earth. The arrow rattled against the stones, where moments before, he had been standing. Mintaka jumped to her feet and laughed to watch him go, showing no sign of chagrin at having missed the shot.

  'Watch him run, like a swallow in flight.'

  Taita had taught Nefer that the true hunter loves and honours his quarry. He admired Mintaka the more for her compassion towards the creatures she hunted. She turned to him, still laughing. 'I am sorry, my heart. You will go hungry to bed this night.'

  'Not with Taita at the cooking fire. He will pluck a feast from the very air.'

  They raced each other to retrieve her spent arrow. She had a head-start, and reached it ahead of him. She stooped to pick it up, and the back of her short tattered skirt flew up. Her thighs were smooth and brown and her buttocks perfect rounds, the skin pale and unblemished where the sun had never touched it, lustrous as precious Oriental silk.

  She straightened and turned in a flash to catch the expression in his eyes. Though she was virgin and unversed in sensuality, her feminine instincts were full blown. She could see what passion her innocent gesture had roused in him, and the knowledge stirred her too. Seeing how he desired her made her want him with an intensity that was painful. She felt her loins melt with love for him, overflowing sweet and viscous like a honeycomb left in the heat of the midday sun.

  Timidly she swayed towards him, but Nefer felt hot shame at the carnal desire that had almost overwhelmed him again. He remembered his promise to her. 'I would rather die than break my oath, and bring dishonour upon you,' he had told her, and at the memory he forced himself to turn away. He found that his hands were shaking and his voice was gruff as he said, with his eyes averted, 'I know where there is another herd, but we must hurry if we are to find them before dark.' He set off without looking back at her, and she felt bereft. She had wanted more than anything on this earth to feel his arms around her and his hard young body pressed to hers.

  She gathered herself quickly and followed him, trying to push away the strange feelings that had so nearly engulfed her, but they would not so easily be set aside. She caught up with him, and trotted a few paces behind him.

  She studied his back. She watched how his thick dark curls bounced on his shoulders. She wondered at how wide his shoulders had grown since she had first met him. Then she looked further down, and felt her cheeks burn as she watched his buttocks moving under the thin stuff of his short apron. She enjoyed a delicious sense of shame at her own lascivious feelings.

  Too soon they reached the rim of the long wadi that cleaved the mountains. He turned his head to look back at her and almost caught her studying his body. She raised her eyes to his just in time.

  'There are hundreds of old tombs in the bottom of the cliff here. I first saw them when my father brought me this way, just before he was-' He broke off, saddened by the memory of the last day he had spent with Tamose.

  'Whose tombs are they?' she asked, to distract him from something so painful.

  Taita says they are a thousand years old, from the time of Cheops and Chephren who built the great Pyramids at Giza.'

  'Then they must be almost as old as the Magus himself.' She smiled and he laughed.

  'Have you ever explored them?' she asked.

  He shook his head, 'Since we first arrived here, I have thought of doing so often, but there has never been an opportunity.'

  'Let us do it now,' she said.

  He hesitated. 'We should have ropes and lamps.' But she was already scrambling down the cliff, and he was forced to follow her.

  At its base, they soon found that most of the tombs were out of their reach, set high in the sheer cliff face with a deadly drop below them.

  After a while Nefer picked out an opening he thought they might be able to reach. They climbed a section where the cliff face had collapsed, and reached a narrow ledge. They worked their way along it cautiously, Nefer leading. He reached the dark opening and stooped to peer into it. 'Of course, it will be guarded by the spirits of the dead.' He tried to make it sound like a joke, but she sensed his unease and was affected by it.

  'Of course!' she joked back, but behind her back made the sign against evil.

  'It's very dark in there,' Nefer said thoughtfully. 'We should return tomorrow with an oil lamp.'

  Mintaka looked over his shoulder. A short passageway led at a slight upward angle into the solid rock. Even after the passing of centuries, engravings were still clearly visible on the walls.

  'Look.' Mintaka touched one. 'This is a picture of a giraffe, and this is a man.'

  'Yes,' Nefer grinned, 'and a very friendly man, at that. There is no mistaking it.'

  She pretended to bridle, but could not hide her smile. The ancient artist had endowed the figure with a huge erect member.

  'Here.' She moved deeper into the passage. 'These are writings. I wonder what they mean.'

  'Nobody will ever know,' Nefer said, and stepped past her, 'The key to that ancient script has long been lost. We should go back.'

  The floor was covered with a layer of soft windblown sand. After a short distance the recesses of the shaft were obscured by sinister darkness.

  'We can explore just a short way further,' Mintaka said stubbornly.

  'I don't think that's a good idea.'

  'Here.' She pushed past him. 'Let me go first.'

  'Wait!' He tried to restrain her, but she laughed and pulled away. He placed one hand on the hilt of his dagger and followed her, shamed by her example and his own reluctance.

  The gloom thickened with each step forward until even Mintaka stopped and peered uneasily ahead. He stooped to pick up a chip of flint from the sandy floor and threw it over her shoulder into the dark reaches of the shaft. It rattled on the stone walls. 'Nothing,' she said in the silence that followed, but before she could take another step forward something moved in the darkness ahead. They heard a rustling sound that was magnified in the narrow space. They froze in their tracks, and stared into the darkness. There was a high-pitched shriek, echoed immediately by a chorus, the rustle became a rushing roar, and out of the darkness straight into their faces hurled a squeaking, fluttering cloud of darting shapes, whose wings lashed their startled faces.

  Mintaka screamed, whirled around, ran straight into Nefer and threw both her arms around his neck. He seized her and held her hard, drawing her down on to the sandy floor.

  'Bats,' he told her. 'Only bats.'

  'I know!' she said breathlessly.

  'They can't hurt you.'

  'I know.' Her voice was calmer, but she made no effort to unwind her arms from around his neck. He pressed his face into her thick, springy hair. It smelt rich and perfumed as new-mown grass.

  She made a soft, murmuring sound of pleasure, buried her face against his throat, and moved softly against him.

  'Mintaka,' he tried gently to push her away, 'I gave you my promise that this would not happen again.'

  'I release you from that promise.' Her voice was so soft as to be barely audible. She lifted her face to his. Her breath was warm and sweet-smelling. Her lips were tender and full, and quivered as though she were on the point of tears. 'I want to be your wife more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.'

  He reached down and took her mouth with his own. It was wet and so hot that it seemed to scald his. He lost himself in it. She felt that she belonged nowhere else but in his embrace. Still kissing her he explored the angles and curves and plains of her back with his fingertips. He traced the outline of her spine, like a string of pearls running down between the firm ridges of muscle.

  He placed a hand on her hip, and felt the curve of her waist like the shape of a precious ceramic vase. He reached behind her and enclosed one buttock in each hand, astonished by their symmetry and elastic firmness.

  She thrust her hips forward to meet his, and he pulled her even harder to him. He felt his loins swell and stiffen, and tried to arch his back to hide it from her. She made a small sound of remonstrance, forbidding him to avoid her. She moved against him, glorying in this proof of his arousal, of how much he wanted her.

  She had a fleeting memory of Trok thrusting his monstrous blue-veined thing at her, but that horrid episode had no relevance to what was happening here. Without effort the memory was expunged from her mind.

  She felt Nefer's fingers running slowly down the cleft between her buttocks, and she concentrated on the sensation, marvelling that she could feel it echoed in the swelling tips of her breasts and in her secret depths.

  Touch me.' She spoke into his mouth. 'Yes! Touch me. Hold me.

  Stroke me. Love me.'

  The sensations blended so that they seemed to envelop her every fibre, every part of her mind and body. He broke the kiss at last, and she felt his lips nuzzling her bare shoulder. She knew instinctively what he needed, and opened the front of her tunic and took out one of her breasts. It felt heavy in her hand, the tip aching and swollen. She entwined the fingers of her other hand in the thick curling hair at the back of his head, and placed her nipple in his mouth. When he sucked it, like a hungry infant, she felt something spasm and contract deep in her belly, and realized with wonder that it was her own womb.

  Gently she changed him from one breast to the other, and the sensation did not fade, but instead grew fiercer.

  In a daze of pleasure she became aware of his fingers lifting the front of her skirts and fumbling with her loincloth. She moved her legs apart to allow him to reach her more easily, and then, with her free hand, she helped him untie the knot at her hip. The cloth fell away and the air of the tomb was cool on her naked bottom and belly.

  She felt him stroke the crisp pelt of curls that covered her pudenda, then he found the swollen lips that bulged from her cleft and parted them gently with trembling fingers. She cried out as if in pain and, without conscious volition, pulled aside the skirts of his apron and reached in to find him. She was startled by its girth and encircled it with thumb and forefinger. It leaped like a living thing in her grasp, and she wanted to look at it. Without releasing her grip, she pushed him back so that she could see down between them.

  'You are so beautiful,' she breathed, 'so smooth, so strong.'

  Then she kissed him again, and holding her mouth to his she fell backwards dragging him down upon her belly, spreading her thighs to welcome him, sensing his lack of experience. It made her feel maternal and possessive. In her own ignorance, she was guiding him, feeling him sliding and slipping in her overflowing desire, probing at the entrance to her very self. She altered the angle of her hips and he flew deeply into her, his belly flat against hers, filling her until she felt he might cleave her apart, crying out triumphantly in the bittersweet pain of it.

  He was riding her like a runaway horse, and she paced him, meeting the thrusting drive of his hips with her own, mounting with him higher and faster, until she knew that she had reached the limit. Then, unbelievably, they went on far past that limit. Breaking free of earth and its bonds, then at the ends of the heavens, feeling it burst out of him, and flood her with liquid heat, swelling up within her so that she matched and met him, their separate beings welding together, so that they became a single entity. Their voices a single jubilant cry.

  Long afterwards, when they had returned together from those distant heights, they lay in each other's arms, their sweat and their breath mingling and cooling, still linked by his flesh deep within hers.

  'I don't want this ever to end,' she whispered at last. 'I want to stay like this with you for ever.'

  A long while later he sat up languidly and looked towards the opening of the shaft. 'It is becoming dark already,' he said, in a wondering tone. 'The day has passed so swiftly.'

  She came up on her knees, smoothed down her skirts, and he touched the fresh stains upon the hem. 'Your maiden's blood,' he whispered in awe.

  'My gift to you,' she answered. 'The proof of my love for you alone.'

  He reached up and tore from the hem of her skirt an encarmined shred the size of her little fingernail.

  'What are you doing?' she asked.

  'I will keep this for ever as a memory of this wonderful day.' He opened the locket he wore at his throat and placed the fragment of cloth with the lock of her dark hair that it already contained.

  'Do you really love me, Nefer?' she asked, as she watched him close the locket.

  'With every drop of blood that flows through my veins. More than life eternal.'

  --

  When they came into the room in the ancient building that they had restored and made habitable, Taita was at the hearth stirring the contents of the pot upon the coals. He looked up at Mintaka as she stood in the open doorway with the last light of the day behind her. Her skirt was still damp where she had washed it in the scanty waters of the well and it clung to her thighs. 'I am sorry we are so late back, Taita,' she said shyly. 'We followed the gazelle out into the desert.'

  She had never apologized for their late return before, and Taita looked up at the two of them. Nefer was hovering over her with a soft, dazed expression. The emanation of their love was so strong that it seemed to form a shimmering aura around them and Taita could almost smell it in the air, like the fragrance of a wild flower.

  So what was inevitable has happened at last, he mused. The only wonder is that it took so long. He grunted, noncommittal. 'It is evident that you did not catch up with them. Did they run too fast or were you distracted?' They stood awkwardly, covered with confusion and guilt, knowing that to him they were transparent.

  Taita turned back to the cooking pot. 'At least there is one provider among us. I have been able to snare a brace of wild pigeon. We need not go hungry to bed.'

  The days that followed passed for the two of them in a golden haze of delight. They thought they were being subtle and discreet in Taita's presence, trying to keep their eyes off each other, and touching only when they thought he was not looking.

  Mintaka had made a boudoir for herself in a bare cell that led off the main living room of their quarters. Each night Nefer waited until Taita was snoring softly before he rose surreptitiously and crept to her sleeping mat in this little room. Each morning she would rouse him long before dawn and send him back to his own mat in the main room, when they thought Taita was still sleeping.

  On the third morning Taita announced inscrutably, 'It seems that these rooms are inhabited by rats or other strange creatures for I am kept from sleep by their scurrying and whispering.' They both looked stricken, and he went on, 'I have found more tranquil accommodation.'