When he returned from the latrine, he was whistling cheerfully. The sadness that had surrounded him seemed to have evaporated and the careless, arrogant tomb raider swaggered to her side.
‘I should take my turn now,’ she told him, peering into the false chamber.
He returned a wicked frown. ‘In the latrine?’
She tossed him a scowl and they crossed the false chamber and ascended the ramp of earth. Ducking her head beneath the ceiling, she noticed a large hole. Beneath it he had dug out a concavity in the dirt.
He squatted just outside the concavity at a small stretch of wall just below the ceiling. ‘The most important principle in stone work is patience,’ he said. ‘Funnel your energy into small, rhythmic movements. Let the tools do the work.’
He took up his hammer and chisel and began to tap on the wall. She should have been watching his technique, but she was distracted by the large sculpted muscles of his back and shoulders, which twitched and flexed with each tap.
He was a strong, powerful man and she knew that she was blessed to have him here. Even if she could have freed herself from her bonds, she would not have been able to escape the tomb alone. She could not even make her own fire, by the gods, and she would have had to fashion her own tools. Without him, she simply would have perished.
She owed him a great debt.
And she would pay it. She would furnish him with enough gold to ensure his family’s comfort for the rest of their lives. It did not matter that she would have to spend the rest of her own life working to replace those riches. Life was life and he had restored hers. In a very real sense, he was her Osiris.
‘It is not necessary to work hard, you see,’ he was saying. He tapped out a small, square portion of stone and demonstrated it to her. ‘Now you try.’
She positioned herself in the place where he had crouched and tried to mimic his movements. After what seemed like an endless number of blows, a small shard of stone fell from the wall.
‘Well done!’ he said. ‘Now let us try it inside the tunnel.’ He placed the lamp on the ground in the concavity beneath the hole, then ducked his head and stepped in after it. He reached out his hand.
‘Come,’ he urged. ‘I promise not to bite.’
Without taking his hand, Aya followed him into the small space. To her amazement, it was large enough to accommodate both their bodies standing upright, with their heads poking up into the tunnel he had chiselled so far.
‘You have made great progress already,’ she praised. She was just a hand’s width from his chest and the soft glow of the lamp below them illuminated the fascinating curves of his muscles. She tried not to stare at him, though he was once again occupying her entire field of vision.
Worse, she found her heart had begun to beat so intensely that she could actually perceive its movement beneath her skin. He was peering down at her curiously, as if he had noticed it, too. She needed to distract his attention.
‘Your chiselling is excellent,’ she remarked, as if she were an expert. ‘I can only aspire to such efficiency.’
He smiled and handed her the tools. ‘There is no reason to be nervous.’
‘I am not nervous.’ She placed the chisel against the rock above them and gave it a few thumps with her hammer, quickly realising that chiselling overhead was much more difficult than chiselling on a vertical wall.
She paused and breathed in, catching a whiff of his scent. When he had collapsed atop her the day before, she had faced an assault of lavender so rich and potent that it had reminded her of nothing so much as the royal harem laundries.
She inhaled him now, her senses exciting to a savoury mixture of sweat and dust and musk. She breathed in his scent again, for one breath did not seem to be enough. Neither did a second, nor a third.
She could hardly even concentrate on her chiselling! He did not look like a magician, but it seemed as if he had conspired with the god of magic to anoint himself with some beguiling perfume.
She landed another blow, then filled her chest with air and held it. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Holding my breath,’ she peeped.
‘Why in Great Egypt are you doing that?’
‘It...helps my technique.’
A shard fell and Aya squatted to the ground to inspect it, gulping the unadulterated air near the floor. ‘It is much larger than I expected,’ she remarked. It was an ill-considered choice of words, especially given her current and rather unfortunate proximity to the holiest part of him.
‘Larger is not necessarily better,’ he said, adding, ‘when it comes to chiselled stone.’ She could almost envision his jackal’s grin.
She returned her attention to the shard. She would not allow his crass humour to unnerve her. She remained crouching at his feet, feigning fascination with the cut stone until even she grew bored with it.
There was nothing to do but return to standing.
As if reading her heart, he opened his hand to her. ‘Come, let us practise chiselling a bit more,’ he said.
She gazed at his large, calloused digits. She could see each bump and bend, could imagine the long hours they had spent working to save their lives.
She did not understand the feeling spreading through her body. Perhaps it was a kind of fear. That would certainly explain why her senses seemed to have sharpened. Though in truth they always sharpened when he was near.
Perhaps she was like an antelope—a creature of nervous awareness. She certainly noticed every change in his expression, every inflection of his voice, every variation in his movement. And that cursed scent!
If she was the antelope, then perhaps he was the lion whose attack she was always trying to avoid. Perhaps that was the reason for her visceral experience of him. She had to be aware of him: she was protecting herself from attack.
But he had had many chances to harm her already and had seized none of them. Further, he had made it very clear that he had no interest in her at all. If anything, it was she who was stalking him.
But that idea made even less sense. No one was stalking anyone. And that strange quickening of her heart whenever he was near was not fear. It was simply her desire to escape the tomb. So why was she still crouching on the floor at his feet?
‘You delay, Aya,’ he said, moving his open hand into her sight line. ‘Have we tired you out already?’
‘Of course not!’ she huffed.
She placed her hand in his and set out on the perilous journey of returning to standing. As she moved upwards, she passed the pillars of his lower legs, then the thick, bulging dunes of his thighs.
Finally she arrived at the dangerous terrain of his loincloth, which had assumed the shape of a sacred pyramid and seemed to be growing outwards by the moment. Her heart throbbed as she successfully moved past the obstacle and arrived at the undulating hills of his stomach.
She was not out of danger, however, for as she moved ever upwards, her own breast seemed to graze against the tented loincloth that she thought she had successfully left behind.
The fleeting sensation caused a small but debilitating tremor to rumble through her body and she jerked backwards, hitting her back against the wall. Still, she soldiered on, her eyes scaling the muscular plateaus of his chest and nearly tripping on the small dark beacon of one of his nipples.
Finally, she returned to standing and gazed into his eyes. They had not been this close to each other since he had lifted her chin in the corridor and told her no.
‘Really, though,’ he said in puzzlement, ‘how does holding your breath help you chisel?’
She did not answer. Instead she resumed chiselling with new energy, scolding herself for acting so foolishly. Several more shards went tumbling to the ground.
‘How am I doing?’ she asked.
‘Try to let the tools do more of the work. Not too hard, not so soft. Calm and deliberate, like the wood-tapper bird.’
Calm and deliberate indeed. She could practically hear the sweat accumulating on her brow.
‘It gets rather hot up here near the ceiling, does it not?’ she asked.
‘It does.’
She continued tapping. ‘It must be difficult without a lamp,’ she observed.
‘Not really.’
It was like speaking to the wall itself. She did not know why she felt the need to make small talk. They had been co-existing for hours without having to fill the silence with stupidities. Besides, she needed to preserve her energy. Her arms were beginning to burn.
‘Chiselling is hard work, is it not?’ she asked.
‘It is.’
Finally she lowered her tools. ‘May I take a short rest?’
‘Of course,’ he said.
He was gazing down at her with an odd grin and she felt as if there were a bird fluttering its wings inside her stomach. She could not tell if he found her pathetic or charming or totally hopeless.
If the latter, she was certainly not improving her image by resting after less than a quarter of an hour’s work. Still, her arms were throbbing mightily. Perhaps that was the reason for his grin. He found her comically weak.
She glanced about for some object upon which to comment, but she was standing too close to his body to be able to view much else. His arms were like muscular branches compared with her slender reeds.
And there it was again, lurking all around her—his lusty scent.
He was still grinning at her. It was as if he understood the battle taking place within her and found it amusing. He ran his hands down her dusty arms. ‘How do your arms feel?’
Better now that you are doing that.
‘They burn a little,’ she said. Her heart pounded.
He moved his hands up and down her arms several times, as if to remedy the burning. But he only transferred the burning from her arms to the place between her thighs.
‘Please do not do that,’ she said. ‘I mean—that does not seem to remedy the burning.’
He removed his hands from her arms as if they were ablaze. He had vowed not to think about her, was trying not to even look at her, yet here he was, rubbing her arms. What was he thinking?
But that was the problem. He was not thinking. He was letting his lust overrule his good judgement. He was acting a fool.
‘Why are you grinning at me?’ she asked. ‘Do you find me funny?’
‘Not at all,’ he said. It was not that he found her funny. He found her irresistible. The way she twisted her lips into a knot with each careful blow. How she hovered near the ground, as if searching for her courage amid the rubble. Her cursed nearness. It was all he could do to keep himself from swallowing her whole.
‘Then why are you smiling?’ she asked.
‘I am not smiling,’ he said, affecting a frown.
‘Why were you smiling?’
‘It is just...the situation.’
‘What is funny about the situation?’ she asked with relentlessness.
‘Nothing, really,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘It really bothers me when you are not truthful.’
‘You do seem rather...bothered,’ he observed. At least that was the truth. Her face was growing redder by the moment.
‘I am bothered,’ she said and scowled. ‘You bother me! You are hiding something from me and I do not know what it is.’
‘It is normal to panic in such a small space. Let us—’
‘I am not panicking!’
‘Shh...’ he said, then did something completely wrongheaded. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him.
It felt so good—as if she had been enveloped in the wings of Osiris himself. When was the last time she had been embraced? She was not close with anyone at court and Tausret had never been physically demonstrative in her affections.
Perhaps that was why Aya did not attempt to free herself now.
This is a novelty, she told herself as she lay her head against his chest, a curiosity, that is all.
But that was not all. It was as if her heart were sighing. His strong arms seemed to be giving shelter to all the rebellious, wrongheaded and imperfect parts of herself. It was as if he had given her a place where she could hide. A kind of cave.
Time slowed and she was enveloped by the simple feeling of his being pressing against hers. She inhaled his scent, delighted in the feeling of his hands touching her skin, counted the beats of his heart.
For many moments, it was enough. But gradually she began to imagine all the other ways she wished to touch him.
There were so many things she might do. She could reach up and touch his chest, for example. There it was, just below her eye level, begging to be caressed. She could trace the bones of his shoulders. They were so strong and prominent, like gates to a fortress.
She could stand on her toes and press her lips to his and hope that he kissed her back. She sensed that he would, though she could not be sure. She had never felt this way before. Her whole body seemed to throb with yearning.
She noticed that the rate of his breaths had increased despite his having done no chiselling at all. Surely he was feeling it, too—this strange desire that had sprouted between them once again like a weed.
She glanced downwards. Perhaps not a weed, but a tall, lusty obelisk beneath a curtain of cloth. There it was, like the answer to a question she did not even know she had asked. Either he was feeling the same yearning, or he had been blessed by the god of resurrection himself.
What would happen if she simply took that part of him in hand? The very thought made her blood go rushing once again into her cheeks. It was rushing other places, too.
Though she had never done such a thing herself, she had seen such acts at festivals. In addition, the women of royal court made a study of the pleasures of the flesh and spoke of them openly.
Now, standing so close to Intef, she wondered why she had not watched and listened more closely. Normal women were expected to enjoy the various expressions of desire, for they were a natural and essential part of life.
But she was not a normal woman; she was an advisor to a pharaoh. And she was currently labouring to escape that Pharaoh’s sacred tomb. She should not even be thinking of Intef in such ways, let alone resting against his chest. She could not forget her duty.
‘I fear I do not have the strength for sustained chiselling,’ she said. With all the strength she had left in her, she lifted her head off his chest.
‘Do not worry so much about your duty,’ he said thickly.
Were they still discussing her chiselling?
Not friends, she reminded herself, lest she become confused once again.
‘I think I can chisel on my own now,’ she said, then took a deep breath and stepped out of the tunnel. ‘Your instruction is greatly appreciated.’ She scooted backwards atop the pile to give him enough room to pass.
He blinked, then seemed to snap to attention. ‘Of course,’ he said. He stepped out from beneath the tunnel and moved past her, careful not to brush against her in the tight space. Time seemed to resume its normal passing, as if the two had just awoken from the same lusty vision.
‘Now go to bed,’ she said with mock sternness, ‘for the good of Egypt.’
‘For the good of Egypt,’ he said with a small salute, then padded down the ramp into the dark.