After the Festival of the Nile in Ancient Egypt, the beautiful courtesan Rhadopis bathes in her palace pool on the island of Biga. Her servants shriek as a falcon swoops down, grasping one of her golden slippers in its talons and takes flight.

In the royal palace, Pharaoh Merenra II talks with his two trusted advisors regarding the recent unrest with his Prime Minister Khnumotep and the priests, angered that the King wishes to take back property and riches gifted to them by his royal ancestors. As they talk, a falcon flies by, dropping the precious slipper into the lap of the king. Awed by such a sign from the Gods, the King learns of the slipper's owner and her beauty and sets out to return the article to her.

Love strikes the hearts of both Rhadopis and the king when they first see each other. The King pledges to make her life a paradise, gilding her palace in gold and other treasures to match her beauty; Rhadopis finds herself experiencing love for the very first time and gives herself unhesitatingly to the King. But all of this does not come without a price. As the king spends wealth and gold upon the palace in Biga, Khnumotep and the priests rally their countrymen, spreading rumors of his squandering the wealth gifted to the priests on the whims of a dancer. The civil unrest wends its way to the streets of the capital, resulting in tragedy.

I'm of two minds regarding this novel. While I enjoyed the glimpse into life in Ancient Egypt, the architecture, the politics, the almost salon atmosphere of Rhadopis' palace with her discussions of art politics architecture and other heady topics, the characters seemed almost too much like the cast from a soap opera. The King dismisses or ignores any signs of unrest inside his kingdom because he is blinded by his love of Rhadopis. Rhadopis goes from flirtatious to reverential within a single meeting with the King, only briefly touching on the subject of love which she's never truly experienced. The Queen Nitocris, even after she learns of her King's rendez-vous with the courtesan, remains adamant about staying by his side through thick and thin. Somewhat hard to believe but, in the context of this novel, they still made it an enjoyable read. In fact, the author -- Naguib Mahfouz -- drew me in and kept me enrapt with all the polticial deceptions intrigue and love triangles. Who doesn't like a good soap opera now and then ( )