Aya jumped to her feet and ran across the chamber, forcing herself between Intef and the shelf full of holy amphorae. ‘I forbid you from even looking at them!’
He folded his arms and nodded his head, as if congratulating himself. ‘Aha! I see that you are able to move after all.’
The realisation hit her all at once: he had never meant to drink the sacred wine.
‘Brute!’ she shouted. He had outwitted her, though that was not what vexed her the most. It was that terrible, triumphant, god-forsakenly handsome grin he wore. ‘Is everything a jest to you?’ she asked.
‘Is everything so serious to you?’
‘My duty is to Pharaoh,’ she said, aware that there was very little space between them. She pressed her back against the shelf. ‘I must protect her.’
‘An honourable sentiment. Perhaps you should have been a soldier.’ She could not determine if he was mocking her or not. All she could tell was that he had too many teeth and they were far too white.
‘Perhaps you should have been a magician,’ she said, ‘for you seem to be full of tricks.’
‘I had to find some way to get you moving,’ he said. ‘You were like a half-dead hippo beneath that robe.’
‘Ha-ha,’ she said. ‘You see? I can recognise a jest.’
He shook his head, and stepped away from her. She exhaled, though she could not say why she had been holding her breath.
He gestured to a sheltered area behind a shelf. ‘The only thing missing is a good-humoured woman to warm my bed mat,’ he said.
‘But there is no bed mat.’
He slid her a look. ‘A jest,’ she said. She forced a smile, then stepped to the side, putting more space between them.
‘Such a mirthless grin,’ he said. He poured water into a cup and offered it to her.
She stretched her arm to accept the cup and returned to her position several paces away. ‘You think me a cold, ill-humoured woman,’ she said, staring into the cup.
‘On the contrary, I find you full of fire. It is unfortunate that you have no outlet for all that passion.’ He poured himself a cup and drank it down.
Was he mocking her again? ‘I am advisor to a pharaoh,’ she said.
‘Such a lofty title! I imagine you have men clamouring to warm your bed.’
She eyed him suspiciously.
‘No men?’ he asked.
‘Your rudeness is as ubiquitous as mud.’
‘You allude to the marshes?’
‘I allude to your lack of education.’
‘But you were thinking of the marshes.’
‘I will not dignify your crudeness with a response.’
‘You must have wandered them quite a bit in your tenure at court,’ he said, pouring himself another cup. ‘How many times? Dozens?’
The audacity of such a question! She considered leaving the room, forgetting the chamber was sealed. ‘I will assume that is a yes,’ he said.
‘It is not a yes!’ Aya cried out, though she had no idea why she had even lowered herself to respond to him.
‘So you have never wandered the marshes?’ he asked.
The man had provoked her last nerve. ‘Of course I have. I am a woman, am I not? I go to the festivals. I take part in the rites.’
‘I do not believe you.’
‘I do not care what you do or do not believe.’
‘Which festivals?’
She searched her mind. ‘The Festival of Drunkenness, for example.’
‘Any others?’ he asked. The moments passed like the footfalls of an elephant. ‘So the Festival of Drunkenness,’ he said at last. ‘How many times have you participated in those ecstatic rites?’
‘Many times.’
‘How many?’
He waited in silence for her response, having apparently suddenly acquired the virtue of patience. She busied herself sipping her cup until all the water was gone. ‘Certainly two. Possibly three. I cannot recall.’
‘If you cannot recall the pleasures of the flesh, then you certainly have never enjoyed them,’ he stated.
‘That makes very little sense.’
‘Do you at least have someone to love? A child? A pet?’
‘I love Tausret. I have served her all my life.’
‘And how long is that life so far, may I ask?’
‘An impertinent question if ever there was.’
His twinkling eyes slid up and down her body. ‘I would say that you have seen at least thirty floods.’
‘Four and twenty!’ she cried.
‘Four and twenty—that is still rather old. And only thrice have you enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh?’ He lifted the amphora of beer and held it out to her. ‘In that case you should not be drinking water.’
She frowned, once again unable to read his tone. But she allowed him to tip the container to her glass and when he was finished she took a long gulp. ‘Pah!’ she said, feigning disgust.
‘What is wrong?’
‘It is bubbly and tart, just as beer should be.’
‘Then what—? Aha!’ he exclaimed. This time his grin was genuine. ‘Well done, Advisor.’
She could not contain her grin. ‘Thank you, Thief.’
‘Soldier, if you please.’
His expression sobered and he tilted the amphora into his own cup. He was definitely concealing something. ‘And just how many years have you served in Pharaoh’s army, soldier?’ she asked.
‘Twelve so far,’ he replied then drained his cup. He finished with a loud sigh. ‘I was eighteen when I joined.’
‘So you are thirty now. A more advanced age than my own.’ There, let him feel the sting of his own tongue!
‘I am not so very old.’
‘There are lines of years at the periphery of your eyes,’ she observed.
‘That is because I did not sleep last night!’
She understood instantly that she was the reason. ‘Apologies,’ she said. ‘I sometimes cry out in the night.’
‘It is unfortunate that I lost so much rest, as I fear it will affect my chiselling.’
‘How can I make amends?’
The question seemed to cheer him. ‘You can tell me what was in your vision.’
‘There was a serpent—a bad omen. I launched an entire quiver’s worth of arrows at it, but could not manage to hit the beast.’
‘A bad omen? What did it portend?’
‘The death of a mother and her baby,’ Aya’s throat squeezed. ‘On the birthing blocks...’
‘Pharaoh Tausret?’
Aya nodded.
‘Not a vision, then,’ Intef said. ‘A memory.’
‘A tragedy.’
He shook his head. ‘It is why a woman should never be pharaoh.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘If Tausret had been a man, she would have had an entire harem’s worth of heirs.’
Aya bit her tongue. She felt like a bed of coals he was currently teasing with a poker. ‘Why the scowl?’ he asked. ‘I am merely being logical. It is nothing against the woman herself—though there was the problem of the corrupt treasurer she kept beside her.’
‘You refer to Chancellor Bay?’ she asked.
When Seti was Pharaoh, he had employed the Syrian immigrant Bay to help him in the battles against Amenmesse. With each success, Seti had promoted Bay to ever higher offices, until finally Bay was in control of the entire treasury.
Meanwhile, because Tausret could not produce an heir, Seti had named Siptah, the young son of a harem wife, to be his successor, with Tausret to function as the boy’s regent. When Seti died and the young Pharaoh Siptah succeeded to the throne, Bay had stepped in to guide the boy and pushed Tausret aside. Worse, he had sent most of the treasury’s gold back to Syria.
‘Bay is a dirty thief,’ said Intef. ‘A man in Tausret’s position would have seen—’
‘A man in Tausret’s position?’ Aya interrupted. ‘A man was in Tausret’s position—her husband! Seti the Second was the one who promoted Bay. He loved him like a son.’
‘A terrific failure of judgement.’
‘By a man!’
Intef was shaking his head. ‘Bay did not turn treacherous until after Seti went to the next life and the boy Siptah took the throne. It was Tausret’s job as regent to remove Bay’s tongue from Siptah’s ear and Bay’s arm from the treasury. But for how many years did she ignore Bay’s treachery? Five? Six? She was blinded by his charm.’
‘Bay was not charming.’ Aya was feeling her blood begin to warm again.
‘How can you judge who is and is not charming to another?’ Intef argued. ‘Some women are charmed by crocodiles. Some men, for that matter.’ He shot Aya a significant look.
Did he mean to suggest that he was somehow charmed by her? Or simply that she was like a crocodile?
Curse him in either case! She would not allow him to undermine her point: ‘When Tausret finally inherited the double crown, she set to work restoring the treasury. She had no wealth, yet she defended Egypt and made alliances to ensure the supply of grain. She was one of the best Pharaohs Egypt has ever known.’
‘Yet she allowed Bay to bankrupt us! He was a dirty thief and Tausret was complicit.’
Aya smiled to conceal her growing anger. The man knew nothing of the royal court, yet he was judging Pharaoh as if he were the feather of truth itself.
Dirty thief indeed. What an interesting judgement for Intef to make! He was planning to steal from Pharaoh’s own sacred store of gold after all. Was he not doing the same as Bay?
‘Dirty thief...’ she repeated. She shot him her own significant look.
He narrowed his eyes, apprehending the slight. ‘You insult me.’
She turned away from him. She had vowed not to lose her temper again. ‘I only observe that there are noticeable similarities between—’ but now she was speaking to an empty room, for Intef had already departed.