That night Intef had fallen asleep to the rhythmic sounds of metal against stone. When he awoke, the chiselling had ceased. He wondered if it was morning yet, then heard Aya thrashing in her sleep. He lit his torch and crossed to her bed mat. She was moving her limbs beneath her bed sheet as if she were trying to push away some invisible demon.
He observed her for a long time, telling himself that he was trying to determine whether or not to wake her. In truth, he was trying to determine whether or not he could manage to be near her for four more days.
It had been a mistake to accompany her into the cramped space of the tunnel. It would have been enough to have demonstrated his chiselling technique once on the wall and then left her on her own, yet he had insisted on squeezing next to her inside the emergent tunnel.
His body’s response to hers had been difficult to control. In only a short time, he had become rather helpless with desire. He had pretended to embrace her in response to her impending panic. In truth, it was in order to soothe his own irrepressible lust.
If only he could have reminded himself that in three days Aya would be gazing upon him not with lust, but with loathing.
Just thinking about it caused a heavy dread to overtake him. He wanted Aya to think well of him. It seemed the most important thing in the world. But how could she ever approve of him after she learned what he was going to do?
There was no solution to the problem that did not involve a betrayal of his own duty. Thus he could do nothing other than to purge her presence from his heart. In order to do that, he needed to stay as far away from her as he could. After he handed her to General Setnakht, he would need to find a way to forget her completely.
He wished he could smash something. He strode out of the false chamber and flashed his torch down the long hall. The images from the Underworld seemed to come alive beneath the low flame. He caught sight of an elegant woman in a fitted red sheath holding a looped ankh cross in her grip. Atop her head was a sun disc cradled by a crown of horns. She was Hathor, the goddess of love and beauty.
Aya. She was all he could think about and he did not understand why. It was as if in the quiet darkness of the tomb, something had been resurrected inside him: a latent yearning that was triggered every time he saw her face or heard her voice or even said her name.
Aya.
In his youth he had certainly known his share of women. Before he had joined the army, he had peacocked around the sprawling marketplaces of Thebes with the other young men. He had inherited his father’s good looks, along with a healthy young man’s lust, and had happily feathered many a nest.
But that had been before Intef had chosen Nebetta and then failed to save his own father’s life.
There had been no women after that—only the war that Amenmesse slowly lost to Seti and the needless deaths of thousands of Egyptians, many of whom had perished beneath Intef’s own arrows.
How could he enjoy the pleasures of a woman when he was killing other Egyptians? How could he even consider the joys of life when his homeland was being torn apart?
Now his youth was behind him and nothing had changed. Above the ground, armies were assembling for battle and the war for the double crown raged on.
And yet—Aya.
He needed to distract himself, but where could he go? There was only one part of the tomb he had not yet seen.
He stepped into the second unfinished chamber and was greeted with the familiar layout of their makeshift latrine. Instead of moving into that room, he took a hard right, passing a thick wall. He turned the corner again, flashing his torch on the walls and expecting to discover more bottles of perfume.
Instead he looked out over a strange wooden world.
It was a great horde of furniture. There were gold-plated chairs and quilted couches and silver-embossed tables with golden lions’ feet. There were bronze beds with jewel-encrusted headrests and feather-stuffed pillows. But there was something unusual about this gilded cache. Everything in it was small.
At the centre of the room, the pale glitter of electrum caught Intef’s eye. It was the shiny triangular headboard of what appeared to be a cage. Stepping closer, Intef realised he was looking at a child’s cradle. It had been so richly embellished with gold and jewels that he hardly noticed its most miraculous characteristic. It was made of wood.
A wooden cradle! By Anubis, this was a rich find indeed. In the Black Land, wood was worth its weight in gold and children’s cradles were usually made of reeds.
Intef reached out to the cradle and gave it a push. It creaked as it rocked and he could almost imagine the child sleeping peacefully inside it.
Beside the table was a box full of toys—balls and blocks and small wooden figures carved into the shapes of animals. At last he understood the nature of the cache. This was the furniture that belonged to Tausret’s only son. It was the prince’s playroom.
Intef squatted to study the cradle. Its legs had been wedged into two perfectly bent pieces of wood that rocked effortlessly along the floor. Intef wondered if its craftsman had been a weapons maker, for it appeared that he had used the same wood-bending technique that was used in the production of bows.
Holding his torch, he gently tipped the cradle backwards to get a better look. On the underside of the rocker he noticed a small bronze engraving.
For the granddaughter of
Pharaoh Merneptah
Born in the first year of his reign
Made by Hemaka
Chief Craftsman to Pharaoh
Intef reread the second hieroglyph. Incredibly, the craftsman had mistakenly etched the symbol for granddaughter instead of grandson—a grave error. If it had been detected, the cradle would never have been allowed inside the tomb.
Intef swept his torch around the room one last time. The figure of a life-size stuffed doll caught his eye. It was sitting in one of the smaller chairs and seemed to be watching him closely. He moved to inspect it.
The first thing he noticed was the doll’s hair. It was long and dark and appeared to have been crafted from a horse’s mane. Small bunches of the hair had been painstakingly sewn into her pillowy head, then gathered at the base of her neck and tied with a bow.
It was the kind of toy that would have belonged to a girl, not a boy.
The doll’s features had been just as carefully fashioned. Her lips were a smiling bud of henna-dyed thread and her nose was a shiny round of brown leather.
The doll’s eyes were her finest, and also strangest, feature. They were made of two almond-shaped stones of lapis lazuli. They had been sewn into place with black thread, making them appear as if they had been kohled. The colour of the stones was remarkable: a deep midnight blue shot with gold. Thin lines of black paint defined the circles of the eyes, but instead of a black dot in each eye’s centre, there was a triangle.
A triangle inside a circle. Where had he seen that shape before?
Intef was inspecting the doll for any marks of ownership when a scream of fear split the silence.
‘Stop! Guards!’
Aya knew she was being visited by another memory, yet she could not seem to extract herself from its hold on her sleeping mind...
She was lying on her bed outside Tausret’s private chamber, trying to fall asleep. The full moon had just moved into view—framed by the palace courtyard. Aya stared up at the milky white orb without seeing it, for her mind was focused as it always was on the day ahead.
There had been so much to do in the five years since Pharaoh Seti had died and left Siptah—the son of a harem wife—as his heir. The boy was fifteen years old but still too sickly to rule and so Aya’s mistress, Chief Wife Tausret, continued to function as regent in the boy’s stead.
There were audiences to be held and decisions to be reached and appearances to be made, all of which Aya, as Tausret’s servant and advisor, was required to attend. It seemed that the King of every nation on earth wished to solicit Egypt’s aid, for the terrifying Sea Peoples were once again on the march.
Aya closed her eyes and she could hear the crickets in the courtyard singing their relentless song. Suddenly, the crickets ceased.
She opened her eyes and felt her heart jump into her throat. A man was standing over her. He wore a voluminous white tunic over a bulging belly and carried a small copper lamp between his thumbs.
He stroked his long beard. ‘Hello, Aya,’ he whispered.
‘Chancellor Bay?’
Aya stood up from her bed mat to greet him. ‘What is the matter, my lord?’
She feared there had been a robbery. It was the only explanation for his appearance in Tausret’s wing of the palace so late at night. Either that, or someone had died. ‘Do you need to speak to Regent Tausret?’ Aya asked. ‘Wait here and I will wake her.’
Aya made a move towards the entrance to Tausret’s chamber, but Bay held her by the arm. ‘You stay right here with me,’ he growled and it was then she noticed his strange grin.
She glanced at the guards standing at the entrance to Tausret’s chamber. One was gripping his sword, the other his bow. They were watching closely, frozen as two ibis birds.
Bay squeezed his hands into his waist belt and produced two gold ingots. He held them out to the guards as if offering samples of cheese.
‘It appears you have a choice,’ Bay said, approaching them. He glanced towards the edge of the pond where a pair of his own guards hovered in the shadows. ‘Or you can drop your weapons, accept these ingots, and spend the rest of your lives in beer and bread.’
The guards released their weapons, accepted the ingots and scurried out of the courtyard like geese before the storm.
‘Stop!’ Aya shouted after them. ‘Guards!’
Bay pressed his hand to her mouth. ‘Shush now, Little Cow,’ he hissed. He tossed her down on to the bed mat and stretched out beside her. ‘I am here to tell you that you are going to be my wife.’
Aya could smell the stench of wine on his breath and see the glitter of madness in his eyes. ‘I am going to get you with child—a little heir of my own. And I shall rule this land for the rest of my days.’ The lamp’s yellow light danced wickedly beneath his chin. ‘Just think of it—a Syrian scribe as Pharaoh of Egypt!’
‘You are not in your right mind, Lord Bay,’ she said carefully. ‘Come, let us find some water to splash on your face.’ She tried to sit up, but he gripped her wrists, pushing her back on to the mat.
Terror shot through her. She fought to keep her calm. ‘Unhand me, Bay.’
‘That is no way to speak to your new husband, Little Cow.’
She attempted to roll away, but he simply rolled atop her, paralysing her body with the weight of his own. ‘Get off of me!’ she shouted.
‘You are so cruel to me, Wife!’ He pressed his hips against hers and she could feel his engorged desire rub against her leg.
She fought to keep her calm. She needed to dissuade him. ‘Lord Bay, I am but a slave. I serve Regent Tausret alone.’
‘You are no slave,’ he said. ‘And Tausret is a weak and ineffectual regent.’
He pressed his hips harder against Aya’s, forcing her legs apart. ‘She panders to foreigners and calls it diplomacy.’ He tunnelled his hands beneath her tunic. ‘She squanders our tax revenues in gifts to the poor. She cannot even produce a proper heir. Ah, there we are.’ He pushed his finger into Aya’s womanhood. ‘How many sons has she lost? Four? Five?’
‘Three,’ called a voice from behind them. Tausret was standing in the doorway of her chamber in her blue nightdress. She held out a dagger. ‘Release her, Bay. Now.’
Bay rose to his feet, laughing. ‘You are a cowardly woman. You cannot even hold that dagger properly.’ He walked towards Tausret’s trembling figure. ‘Do you not see that even your own guards have abandoned you?’
Bay plucked the dagger from Tausret’s hands and pointed it at her chin. ‘Go back to bed, old woman,’ he said, ‘lest I decide to rid Egypt of you myself.’ He tossed the dagger aside and shoved Tausret to the ground.
‘Come now, Wife,’ he said, turning back to Aya. ‘This will only hurt for a moment.’
But Aya was no longer lying on the ground. She had seized one of the guards’ abandoned bows and arrows and was taking her aim. She released the arrow, but it flew beneath Bay’s arm and landed on the floor.
‘Little Cow?’ he said, turning to see her readying her second arrow. ‘How dare you?’ He was rushing towards Aya. She was shaking so badly that when she released the deadly projectile it only wobbled to the ground. His hands encircled her throat.
Wrath flamed in his eyes as he began to squeeze the life out of her. Her head seemed to fill with air. He was lifting her off the ground. She had nearly given in to death when she saw the arrow shoot through the side of his throat.
‘How cowardly is that?’ said a voice.
Tausret.
A hand was gripping her shoulder.
‘Aya, wake up!’
Aya opened her eyes. ‘I am awake.’ She gulped the air.
‘You were having another vision.’ His voice was thick with concern.
She touched her throat. ‘My arrows...would not reach their target.’
His hand remained on her shoulder and she prayed he would keep it there. She knew he was not her friend. She knew she could not trust his intentions. She knew there was something he was concealing from her. But at the moment it felt as if he was the only thing keeping her tethered to the world.
‘What target?’ he asked.
She placed her hand atop his and let out a sob.
‘It is all right,’ he whispered. ‘Nothing can harm you. I am here.’
He said nothing more, but she felt his presence around her like a cloak. She had been haunted by her memory of Bay’s death for years, but only now, with Intef’s hand atop her shoulder, did she feel safe speaking his name aloud.
‘The target was Chancellor Bay,’ she said at last.
She saw Intef mask his surprise.
‘He tried to rape me,’ she said. ‘He said that he was going to make me his wife. He said that he would get me with his son and heir. I tried to fight, but my arrows would not stop him. He almost choked the life from me. It was Pharaoh Tausret who finally killed him. She saved my life.’
Intef was shaking his head in confusion. ‘But the young Pharaoh Siptah killed Bay, not Tausret.’
‘The High Priest circulated that lie,’ said Aya. ‘He killed Siptah himself.’
Intef looked pained. ‘I thought Tausret killed Siptah.’
‘The High Priest made up that lie, as well. He wanted to discredit Tausret in the eyes of the people. He sent out the news to all the temples and they disseminated it throughout the two lands. It is unfortunate that most citizens believe whatever they hear—especially when it comes from a priest.’
Aya watched Intef run his fingers through his hair in the way he always did when he was frustrated. ‘What is the matter?’ she asked.
‘It pains me to think of you being groped by that vile man.’ He stood and began to pace. ‘And then he choked you?’ She could see his jaw clenching as he walked back and forth, shaking his head as if trying to rid himself of a demon.
‘He was not successful.’
‘You almost died!’
‘But I did not. Tausret’s arrow pierced his throat.’
‘He wished to marry you?’
‘That is what he said. What is the matter?’
‘To think of you married to such a beast—’ His voice broke. He took a breath, shook his head several times more. ‘It pains me.’
‘I would have escaped him,’ said Aya.
‘Not before he damaged your soul.’
‘You underestimate my cleverness,’ she said, echoing his words. He stopped in his tracks and gazed at her.
‘You find me funny?’ she asked.
‘Not at all—why?’
‘You are grinning again.’ She could not read his thoughts, though she wished to more than ever.
He returned his expression to a frown and went back to pacing. She could practically see him studying the events she had recounted, trying to make sense of them.
‘I mean no offence,’ he said, ‘but why would an ambitious man such as Bay wish to marry a servant? If he wanted an heir, would he not wish to marry a woman of rank?’
It was an innocent question, yet it felt like a punch to her stomach. As Tausret’s advisor, Aya had always seen herself as a woman of rank. But Intef was right. She did not have a name or any family. She was half Libyan, by the gods. There was no reason for any noble man to take her to wife.
‘He was very drunk that night,’ she said, her stomach sinking further still. Was it possible that in addition to terrifying her, Bay had also been mocking her?
She did not wish to think about it any longer. ‘I fear I have wasted precious time sitting here,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘Tell me, where are the hammer and chisel?’