She huddled in the shadows, trying to stop her trembling. She feared him, but she feared herself more. Where had the calm, rational advisor to a pharaoh retreated,and who was this panicked, impulsive girl in her place?
She could only thank the gods that the arrowhead had not drawn blood when she had held it to his neck. She had regretted the kick before she had even made it.
She did not wish to harm him. Intef, son of Sharek, a man who had released her from her bonds. A man who, after defending himself against her attack, had worried for her safety.
A man who had treated her with gentleness.
The kiss.
When their lips had touched, it was as if she had stepped into the current of an invisible river. It was not until he eased her back to the floor that she remembered he was her enemy.
And he was her enemy. He was a tomb robber, the most wretched of men. His very presence in this sacred space not only threatened Pharaoh’s afterlife, but also Aya’s current one. How could she know for certain he did not mean to dispose of her at some point, or somehow do her harm? She had already given him ample reason. Besides, crooked men craved conquest. She needed him to know she would not be conquered.
Still, she needed to get out of this tomb and, for that, she needed him. It would not be long before the High Priest’s spies found Tausret’s heir. If Aya could find him before they did, she could save his life. It was the least she could do for a pharaoh who had given her everything and for an Egypt she loved with all her heart.
The light of Intef’s torch emanated from one of the storage rooms. She stood and made her way towards it.
‘I see you have discovered the holy amphorae,’ she said, glancing at the large jugs lining the shelves all around him.
He did not even lift his head to greet her. ‘That is what you have to say after trying to take my life?’
He was concentrating on an open amphora, which he had placed in the middle of his folded legs. Beside him lay a smouldering coal brazier and a half-eaten loaf of bread.
‘Forgive me,’ she said.
‘The last time you said that, you followed it with a rather punishing kick.’
‘I apologise.’
‘You apologise? Well, that is a first. Scores of men have tried to wound me in my short time on this earth, but none has ever apologised for it.’
‘I am not like other men,’ she stated.
‘Well, you certainly are not,’ he said. Finally, he looked up at her. ‘Mother of Mut.’
‘It is a grave sin to curse. Have you no reverence at all?’
‘I curse when something warrants cursing.’ He was staring at her brazenly.
‘Nothing warrants cursing in this sacred home.’
‘Not even the way you look?’
She cringed. People had reacted to her appearance with derision all her life, but most had the decency not to speak their feelings aloud.
‘Here, catch,’ he said. He tossed her the bread.
She stared at the half-eaten loaf in anguish. It had been spoiled by his lips—it could never be returned to Pharaoh.
‘Just eat it,’ he said. ‘It cannot be made whole again.’
He was right, of course. They would have to eat many more sacred loaves and drink many more amphorae of beer if they wished to escape this tomb.
‘Which company did you say you fought for?’ she asked.
‘I am currently with the mighty Sons of Ra.’
‘Currently? Does a soldier not remain with his company throughout his career?’
‘I am often called upon to train others.’
‘In treachery?’
He ignored the jab. ‘Archery.’
So he was an archer, then. He certainly had the chest of an archer—all lean muscle and stark bone. But a trainer? A teacher of men? If he was so accomplished, then what was he doing inside this tomb at all?
‘I have not heard of the Sons of Ra,’ Aya said, ‘and I did not know that soldiers were moved between companies to provide training. You must be quite an expert.’
‘I am the very best.’
She scanned his expression in search of the lie and was instantly thwarted by two formidable defences: handsomeness and conceit.
He was grinning at her even now, trying to distract her. He had probably been using his good looks to his advantage all his life.
‘It is strange that I have not heard of you,’ she said. ‘Being such a distinguished archer.’
‘My company is stationed at a fort further south,’ he said. ‘It is doubtful you would have heard of us.’ His eyes shifted a little. ‘Your Pharaoh was woefully removed from things in the Delta.’
‘The Delta in the North occupies a more strategic position than Thebes does here in the South,’ she noted calmly. ‘The North is a better place to address the Asiatic threat, as well as the confederation of Sea Peoples.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You do not agree?’ she asked.
‘There is no disagreeing with a northerner.’
Aya held her temper. ‘I will gently remind you that it was Pharaoh Tausret’s own grandfather who built the northern palace at Pi-Rameses. Perhaps you have heard of him? He was called Rameses the Second, otherwise known as Rameses the Great Ancestor. He certainly seems to have believed in the Asiatic threat.’
‘The Asiatic threat in the North is one thing; the Nubian threat in the South is quite another.’
Yes, the Nubian threat is much less threatening! Aya stopped herself from saying it. She was supposed to be striking a deal with this man, not arguing politics.
‘The land of Egypt faces many threats,’ she stated neutrally.
‘Indeed it does. And yet what concerns me most is the threat standing before me...’ He paused. ‘The Libyan threat.’
He smirked and her teeth locked together inside her mouth. She was beginning to understand better why she had nearly slit his throat.
‘I apologise if my appearance threatens you,’ she hissed.
‘Then you are Libyan?’ He pointed to his own eyes, indicating the colour of hers.
‘Part Libyan, part Egyptian.’
People never saw the Egyptian part of Aya, despite her full lips and dark hair. They only noticed her pale skin and blue eyes—features of the enemy.
He squinted, as if studying a scroll. ‘I do not believe you are a killer.’
‘Why do you not believe it?’
‘For one thing, you are a woman.’
‘Women are just as capable as men of being killers.’
‘And yet they do not kill with the frequency of men. That is irrefutable.’
‘Only because they are not allowed to become soldiers or guards.’
‘And rightly so.’ He glared at her. ‘Women should give life, not take it away.’
‘The same could be said of men, could it not?’ asked Aya. She had had this debate many times before, with many similar men. The next thing he was going to say was that the gods created men to sow the seed and women to cultivate the field.
‘You are too beautiful to be a killer,’ he remarked instead.
The comment was unexpected—and totally illogical. Had he not just moments before insulted her appearance? She opened her mouth to protest, then felt a strange heat colonising the surface of her skin. By the time she thought of an appropriate response, he was lifting the jug to his lips.
Glug, glug, glug.
She had never heard a man drink so loudly. Nor had she ever wished for a drink of water more. Banish him and his soldier’s manners! And curse her skin, which she could feel every second becoming a deeper shade of red.
Too beautiful to be a killer. Ha! ‘The beautiful goddess Hathor once nearly destroyed humankind!’ she announced.
He placed the amphora on the floor, but his eyes were still drinking—her. ‘It is rude to stare,’ she said.
‘It is indeed,’ he said and his eyes said, Glug, glug, glug.
She scowled. He grinned.
Surely he was mocking her. Southerners had a particular disdain for Libyans, the people of the Red Land as they called them, and this man was southern to the core. Still, she felt a strange lifting of her spirit. She could count on one hand the times she had been called beautiful in her life.
‘You are clearly already experiencing the effects of the beer,’ she said. She glanced at the empty amphora beside him, feeling an aggravating thirst in the depths of her own throat.
‘It is not beer I drink.’ He held the amphora out to her. ‘It is water.’
‘You are mistaken,’ she replied. ‘It is unnecessary to provide the deceased with water in the afterlife, for there are rivers and lakes everywhere. There is only wine and beer in this house.’
‘And yet I am drinking water,’ he insisted. ‘Perhaps you are not right about everything.’
He continued to hold the amphora out to her. ‘No, thank you,’ she said. Accepting a drink would be admitting she was wrong and she did not wish to seem a fool.
‘You will need to drink eventually,’ he observed.
‘I realise that.’
‘Well, what are you waiting for? Do you plan to kill me first?’ He motioned to one of the chests stacked against the wall. ‘Perhaps after I dip into the holy cheese that has been packed into those boxes?’
‘You are baiting a crocodile,’ she growled. There it was again—the anger. It was bubbling inside her like a spring.
‘So the answer is yes? You do plan to kill me?’
She tried to keep her calm. ‘I must stop you from robbing this tomb however I can. It is my duty and also my most fervent wish.’
‘Well, murder is certainly one way to stop me, though I really do not believe you capable of such a thing.’
‘You do not know me,’ she breathed.
‘And neither do you know me,’ said Intef. ‘But I will help you along with that. Do you know what I do when a man tries to kill me?’
Aya shook her head.
‘I kill him in return.’ The mockery was gone from his voice. ‘That is how it works.’
Suddenly he was on his feet. She turned to flee, but he caught her by the arm and spun her around. He was standing behind her, squeezing his arm around her neck, just as she had done to him. His other arm was tight around her waist. He spoke gently into her ear. ‘Perhaps I should.’
She was like a crocodile stolen from the reeds, well tied and slowly losing its energy to fight. She made one last, writhing effort, then went limp against him. ‘Go ahead, then,’ she breathed. ‘But do it fast. A merciful death.’
The words echoed in his mind and, though he held her, he did not see her, for he was already somewhere else.
He was standing on a vast desert hardpan strewn with bodies of fallen men. It was the aftermath of the Battle of Memphis, and the rebel General Setnakht had prevailed. Behind him, Pharaoh Tausret’s men were running for the hills, their blurry images slick in the desert heat.
Before him there was only pain: a field of Tausret’s soldiers in varying stages of death. Intef and his partner Ranofer had come to collect their arrows, which had killed all of their victims save one—the man pinned to the ground at their feet.
Intef stared down at the man’s smallish figure, a soldier so new to manhood that the stubble remained on his head from his sidelock of youth. He was slashing the air wildly with an imaginary sword, no longer in his right mind.
Intef felt a familiar deadness in his heart. The boy was an Egyptian just like all the rest of the dying—a young man who had found himself on the wrong side of an unnecessary war.
‘Whom do you serve?’ Ranofer asked the boy, as was the custom.
‘I serve Tausret,’ the boy said. He slashed his invisible sword at the men’s ankles.
‘Why do you serve the widow of Seti?’ asked Ranofer.
The boy’s blood wept from where Intef’s arrow still stuck in his thigh. ‘She is Pharaoh! A living god.’
‘She is a woman,’ said Ranofer. ‘A woman!’
‘Who will bear a divine son!’ cried the boy. He had lost all his colour. He would not survive the hour.
‘May you walk for ever in the Fields of Yaru,’ said Ranofer, and pulled his dagger from its hilt.
‘Stop!’ cried Intef.
‘He will not survive,’ said Ranofer. ‘He is practically dead already.’
But Intef would not listen. He was digging in his kit for a bandage. If he could just extract the arrow from the boy’s thigh, it might be possible to seal the wound.
The boy raised his head one last time. ‘May the Devourer of Souls make meals of both of you!’ he hissed. ‘Now do it. A merciful death!’
Ranofer tossed Intef a glance and Intef turned away. There was a soft gurgle and the sound of the boy’s lifeless body collapsing to the ground.
Ranofer stepped to Intef’s side, wiping his blade on the cloth of his kilt. ‘You are welcome,’ he said.
A plume of the boy’s blood flowed to the base of Intef’s sandals. ‘He could have been my own son,’ said Intef.
‘It is foolish to indulge such a thought,’ Ranofer said.
‘Egyptians killing Egyptians.’
Ranofer slapped Intef hard across the face. ‘Such talk imperils both of us.’
‘Apologies,’ said Intef, wishing Ranofer would hit him again.
‘The boy followed Tausret, the false god,’ added Ranofer. ‘There was no choice.’
Ranofer was right. There was no choice—not for lowly soldiers such as themselves. In this endless fight for power, they were merely tools.
Intef stared at his bow and arrow, hating it. It was all he could feel any more—hate—and usually not even that. He could not do it any more—this pointless killing. He would not do it. His heart was dying; perhaps it was already dead: What was a united Egypt worth if forged by the blood of Egyptians?