‘If I were trying to intimidate you, you would know it.’ She could feel his thick voice deep inside her belly.
‘Would I?’
He exhaled and his warm breath tickled her hair. ‘You would.’
She should have let the discussion end there, should have calmly stepped aside and let him pass. ‘How would I know it?’
He took her chin in his hand and she gasped. He squeezed her jaw just a little, then slowly tilted her face up to his. ‘You would know because you would feel fear.’
By all the holy gods. His musky breath poured over her face. His lips were so close. In truth she did feel fear. She was afraid of how much she wanted to kiss him. ‘I certainly do not feel fear.’
He bent closer still. ‘That is only because I do not wish for you to fear me.’
Was she mistaken, or was he closing his eyes? ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘No.’ His eyes flew open. He released her chin and lurched backwards. ‘Say what you wish to say and have done with it. We need to get to work.’
Aya could hardly remember why she had stopped him at all. ‘I have come to apologise for my bad behaviour,’ she managed to say. ‘I vow never again to insult you, or seek to do you harm.’
He grunted a laugh. ‘And I vow never again to believe a single word you say.’
‘I do not wish there to be enmity between us.’
‘Then please do not offer me any more friendly kisses,’ he said, ‘and kindly stay out of my way.’
He pushed past her, but she turned quickly and kept up with his pace. ‘I will not cease until you accept my apology. Please! I am sorry for what I said to you. You are not a—I did not wish to imperil our friendship.’
‘Friendship?’ He stopped again. ‘If you are such a friendly person, then why did the High Priest of Amun leave you inside this tomb? There are much easier ways to rid oneself of an enemy without endangering one’s holy ka!’
She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. She sensed that if she did not tell him the truth now, she would lose his confidence for ever.
‘The High Priest wished to torture me,’ she admitted.
‘For what reason? Punishment?’
She had to tell him the truth. If she lost Intef’s trust, it was possible that he would break their agreement. Tausret’s greatest riches would once again be a risk. ‘Information.’
‘What information?’
How could she do this? How could she deliberately betray Pharaoh’s dying wish? ‘Information that only I can give,’ she said, stalling for time.
It occurred to her that if the High Priest knew about the heir, then others did, too. Still, she needed a better reason to break the most important promise she had ever made. First and foremost, she needed to protect the heir. What if she could enlist Intef’s help in doing just that?
‘If I tell you this...secret,’ Aya said, ‘you must vow to help me when the time comes.’
‘Fine, I promise,’ Intef said. ‘Now tell me, what information was the High Priest trying to extract from you?’
Aya took a breath. ‘He wished to know the location of the heir to the Horus Throne.’
‘What?’ he said. His mouth hung open. Aya cast her eyes to the floor. ‘Apologies, but I am not sure I heard you correctly. Could you say that again?’
‘Tausret’s heir is real,’ said Aya. ‘And I know the city in which he lives.’
Chapter Eleven
He could not hold her gaze any more, so he started walking. He had been fooling himself about her. He had tried to make her into a mosquito, when in truth she remained a dangerous crocodile. He knew that she would no longer bite him with her teeth, but there were other ways for her to threaten him.
For example, right now, when he should have been thinking about the secret she had just divulged—a secret that could raze a kingdom—all he could think of was how close her lips had been to his.
‘There is a living member of the Rameses line?’ he asked cautiously.
She nodded.
‘Male or female?’
‘He is the heir, must he not be male?’
‘If the heir were female, we could avoid a war.’
‘You refer to a marriage of alliance?’
‘The legitimacy of Setnakht’s own heir would be unassailable if he were married to the daughter of Tausret.’
‘I had never thought of that,’ Aya admitted. ‘Probably because the heir is male.’
And that, of course, was the problem. Intef ran his hand through his hair and tried to think. Now instead of two men vying for the empty throne, there were likely to be three. The war would never end.
He speeded up his pace. ‘Is that the errand, then? You wish for me to help you find the heir?’
‘Before the High Priest does,’ said Aya.
The young man would have to be destroyed, and fast, lest he raise an army. ‘Do you know where this divine son is to be found?’ he asked.
‘I know more than the High Priest does.’
‘And do you know what he looks like?’
‘I know enough,’ she said. ‘He has a distinguishing tattoo.’
Intef asked nothing further. He did not wish to arouse her suspicions. If he could not extract the information from her himself, Setnakht surely would. Either way, it seemed that the most valuable treasure in Tausret’s tomb was not made of silver or gold, but of flesh and bone.
‘I forgive you,’ Intef said.
‘You what?’
‘I accept your apology.’ He could no longer even look at her. It was likely that Setnakht would kill the heir just as the High Priest wished to do. ‘Let us begin again.’
‘You will help me find the heir and spirit him to safety?’ she asked, skipping to keep up with him.
‘I will,’ Intef lied. He hated himself. More death. More blood on his hands. He quickened his pace, as if he could simply outrun his guilt. Now he had lied to her not once, but twice.
‘Careful!’ Aya cried.
He felt his skull smash against brick. Pain pulsed through his head. He reached out for the wall, but could not find it. He swayed, then felt Aya’s hands encircle his chest, bracing him.
‘You hit your head!’
She held him steady as his senses returned. How had he forgotten about the seal to the false chamber? He had smashed into it with the full force of his stride and now a lump was forming on the top of his forehead. A terrible, deceitful lump.
‘Intef, are you all right?’ Aya was reaching for his head, but he stepped out of her grasp.
‘It is just a bump.’ There was no time for any of this. He turned and braced his chisel against the brick and landed his first blow.
‘Shall I go fetch some water?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘There will be water in the false chamber when we reach it.’
Tap, tap, tap.
‘But do you not wish to rest? I can search for a salve to help soothe your swollen head.’
‘There is no time for rest,’ he said.
Tap, tap, tap.
‘Of course there is time. We were resting all morning.’
‘You were resting,’ he clarified. ‘I was trying to get you to move.’
‘That is a half-truth,’ she protested. ‘You were as immersed in our discussions as I was.’
‘Yes, and this is what happens when we become immersed in our discussions.’ He pointed to the bump on his head.
She shot him an imperious look, then lifted her hand once more and gently touched his forehead.
‘Ouch.’
‘I fear you are not fine,’ she said.
Well, perhaps not, but it had nothing to do with his injury.
‘There is an abrasion beside the bump,’ she said. ‘It is bleeding.’
‘It will stop.’
‘Let me help you.’
‘The only help I require from you is for you to aid in chiselling our escape tunnel. Until then, if you could kindly cease speaking.’
‘I am merely trying to be friendly,’ she said.
‘I fear that if we stand here talking any longer, our efforts at friendliness will be our demise.’
He watched the blood of frustration rise to her cheeks. She opened her mouth in exasperation and he caught sight of the small gap between her teeth. ‘You are impossible!’ she barked.
He shook his head, turned away. Better to be impossible than friendly.
‘Aya, I am fine.’
* * *
He was not fine. She held the torch aloft, watching him work. The lump on his head continued to grow, but he would not stop to rest.
‘Intef, will you not cease your chiselling just for a moment?’ she asked, but he was so focused on his work that he did not seem to hear her.
‘Intef!’ Aya shouted and finally he stopped. He gazed at her in wonder, as if he had forgotten she was there. ‘Are you sure you are all right?’ she asked, glancing at his injury. Something was amiss. It was not just his sudden urgency to chisel. He had forgiven her too quickly. In one moment he had been condemning her, in the next, promising his help.
The man was as changeable as the wind.
‘This morning you were full of jests,’ she said. ‘Now you chisel as if the god of chaos himself were chasing you.’
He shook his head. ‘I must take care not to lose sight of my duty.’
‘To your family?’
‘To get us out of this godforsaken tomb!’ he shouted. He ceased his tapping and turned to her, his black eyes flaming. ‘Listen to me now, for in this I do not jest: the air inside this tomb will soon turn sour. It will draw demons from the Underworld and we shall perish among them.’
‘But we are breathing fine,’ said Aya.
He sighed, annoyed. ‘There is a finite amount of air inside every underground chamber just as there is a finite amount of water inside a pool. The larger the chamber, the greater the amount of air—and time.’
‘But we have nine days, no?’
‘Nine days for one person working—and breathing—alone, but we are two.’
He plunged his fingers into the knot of his belt, producing a small object she could not see. He lifted his sandaled foot and pressed it against the wall.
‘Pay attention now, for our lives depend on it.’ Holding the object between his finger and thumb, he rubbed it against the leather strap of his sandal until a single scratch mark appeared. ‘Today is day one. In about twelve hours, when we grow naturally sleepy, we can assume it is night,’ he explained. ‘When we awake from that sleep, it will be day two, and we will make another mark.’
He pretended to scratch a second mark on his sandal and she got a better view of the object he held. It was the arrowhead.
* * *
He checked her expression for understanding, but she would not meet his gaze. She was staring at the arrowhead in his palm as if she had been struck by it.
He closed his hand around it. ‘You have nothing to fear.’
But it was not fear blooming in her expression, it was heat. A crimson blush was creeping up her neck, as if she was remembering the last time she had seen the arrowhead. As if she was recalling their unlikely kiss.
Was it possible that she had felt it, too? That strange tenderness when their lips met? That unexpected want? He had assumed that her desire had been feigned, that she had only kissed him in order to manoeuvre her kicking leg into a more damaging position. Now he wondered if it was not as simple as that.
She seemed fascinated by the painted wall closest to her view. She turned away from him, flashing her torch up and down the columns of hieroglyphs.
‘Tausret passed unexpectedly,’ she remarked, keeping her gaze fixed on the wall. ‘That is why only the ceiling and east wing of her burial chamber are decorated. She managed to finish this corridor, however.’
‘I see,’ said Intef, pretending interest.
‘The paintings and the text in this sacred hall are from the Amduat—the book of what is in the Underworld,’ she added. Her blush was taking its time in retreat. He wondered at her tumult of emotions. In the course of the hour, she had displayed shades of anger, derision, desire, sorrow and now, apparently, abashment.
He had the urge to take each of her passing sentiments and stuff them into one of the empty amphorae, to be consumed on days he wished to remember what it was like to feel. Which were most days, in truth.
‘When I return to restore the tomb,’ she was saying, ‘I shall add more scenes like these to the main chamber. Pharaoh would like that.’
The more he knew her, the more he comprehended her essential goodness. Beneath the impulsive, sharp-witted courtier was a woman who would do anything to ensure the well-being of her Mistress, even if it meant sacrificing her own freedom. She would indeed have made a good soldier. It occurred to him that in many ways she already was.
But she was an enemy soldier, alas. There was no room for his desire for her. If he acted upon it, it would make him far more loathsome than he already was, for in four short days, he would be pillaging her Pharaoh’s tomb, then delivering her to General Setnakht.
Mission accomplished. Duty done. Good woman, betrayed. The thought made him want to run into another wall.
She turned to face him, her torch illuminating both their faces. Now it was his turn to flush. It was as if she had intuited his thoughts. Her blue eyes shone black in the flickering torchlight and glittered like magic stones. Her lips beckoned and accused all at once.
‘I have told you my secret, now you must tell me yours,’ she said.
‘My secret?’ he repeated dumbly.
Which one? The secret that he was no mere thief, but a highly organised plunderer with help on the way? The secret that the treasure they extracted could help prevent the next war? The secret that part of that treasure was Aya herself?
In his wildest visions, he told her everything. She listened without judgement and comprehended his motivations. Then she took his hand in hers and somehow forgave him.
‘What is it?’ she urged. ‘What are you hiding?’
‘I—’ he began to tell her. He wanted to tell her, but the walls seemed so close. Too close. Crushing.
He stepped out of the torchlight and the moment passed. He sighed, feeling his good sense return. This was where he belonged—in the shadows. He was the man behind the next usurper—the criminal who would help Setnakht steal the throne. She had not been wrong about him. He was a dirty thief.
She touched his arm. ‘You can tell me,’ she whispered.
Damn him to the Devourer of Souls, he wanted to kiss her again.
But who would she be kissing? He was not the man she believed him to be, but a man who had been chiselled and sculpted by lies. He was a man who, in only four days, would betray her utterly.
‘Talk to me, Intef,’ she urged. ‘We are friends, yes?’
Chapter Twelve
No, they were not friends.
That was what his eyes had told her. They were sharp eyes, like well-honed blades, and they deftly severed the invisible rope she had foolishly imagined strewn between them.
What a stupid question to ask him. ‘We are friends, yes?’ As if they could somehow erase the world of difference between them.
No, he had said with his eyes and inside the dark corridor his meaning had been as bright as day. No, he would not tell her his secret. No, they should not give in to this inexplicable lust. No, she could not trust him. They had become allies only by necessity. They could never, ever be more.
Good. Thank the gods for his good judgement, for in her mourning she had apparently grown weak and lost her own. The only feeling they should be allowing inside
their hearts was the simple will to survive.
She watched him cross to the middle of the false chamber in four long strides, but she remained standing at its threshold, feeling foolish.
She had no idea why she had responded so unusually to the sight of the arrowhead. Seeing him pull it from beneath his belt should have inspired anger or even fear, certainly not the warm desire that had crept beneath her skin.
That kiss. She had tried to forget it—had tucked it away inside her heart with the other memories of things she could not explain. She wondered how she could have ever kissed him at all. More importantly, she wondered how she could ever have enjoyed it.
She loathed the memory of his hot breath, abhorred the thought of his gentle touch, scorned the vision of that small tremble she had perceived in his lips, as if he had been nervous and wished to please her.
She was the only person in the world who could protect Tausret from an afterlife of privation, yet she had enjoyed a kiss from the man who would make that privation manifest.
She should not have been kissing, but praying. During the past twelve hours, her beloved Pharaoh had been navigating the labyrinthine marshes and fiery lakes of the Underworld. She had been fighting the giant serpent and merging with the sun god and making the long journey back to the horizon.
Or so Aya hoped. Trapped inside the tomb, she could not know for certain if Tausret had succeeded in her journey. All she knew was that she had been negligent in her duty to her Pharaoh. She could not allow it to happen again.
‘Forgive me, Pharaoh,’ she whispered and felt the tiniest of breezes tousle her hair. Her heart skipped. ‘Pharaoh?’
‘Are you coming?’ called Intef, giving her a fright.
‘Just a moment,’ she called back.
She gulped the strange air moving near the ceiling, imagining it to be Tausret’s own breath. ‘I am here,’ she whispered. ‘I will not forsake you.’ Then she crossed to the middle of the false chamber.
* * *
Although slightly smaller than the main chamber—only ten paces wide and twelve long—the false chamber loomed larger to Intef somehow.
Saved by Her Enemy Warrior Page 8
