Saved by Her Enemy Warrior

by Greta Gilbert

  ‘Ha-ha-ha,’ Intef replied. ‘Ho-ho-ho.’

  He had no energy to correct them, nor could he bear to lie about his true purpose in the tomb, for the General had sworn him to secrecy.

  Hence Intef merely bowed humbly before the soldiers’ praise and drained his cup. Where was that cursed servant?

  Another group of soldiers approached, followed by another, and Intef found himself repeating the routine until finally the entire courtyard began to spin.

  ‘Long live the Hero of Thebes!’ someone shouted and Intef was lifted into the air upon a tall man’s shoulders. ‘Praise for the mighty Beetle!’ another shouted and he seemed to be floating above the crowd.

  ‘The mighty Beetle!’ they began to chant.

  Intef wobbled atop the man’s shoulders, trying to keep his balance. But when Intef opened his mouth to speak, the only thing that came forth was wine. It spewed out of his mouth like a fountain. The drunken crowd roared with laughter as Intef was set back on the ground and a battery of servants came to clean up the mess.

  Getting his bearings, Intef found himself annoyingly sober once again. He spotted Ranofer surrounded by a bevy of women. His fellow tomb raider was motioning to Intef. ‘Come here, you drunken fool!’ he shouted. Intef ducked his head and tried to get lost in the crush of bodies.

  He spied a platform along the western edge of the courtyard. A large crowd had gathered around it as if awaiting some official address. Next to the platform there was a doorway that appeared to open out to the river.

  Keeping his head down, Intef headed towards the doorway. He had almost reached it when he heard a voice sing out atop the platform. ‘Honourable Egyptians, I give you Prince Rameses the Third and his new wife, the Great-Granddaughter of Rameses the Great Ancestor.’

  Intef’s heart went into his throat and he studied the ground. They had not even said her name.

  ‘Intef!’ called a woman’s voice. He looked up and there she was, stepping through the doorway.

  ‘Aya!’

  Following behind her, Rameses caught her by the waist. ‘This way, Wife,’ he said, forcibly turning her body towards the platform. He nodded at Intef, then whisked her up the stairs to the roar of the crowd.

  ‘To the newlyweds!’ shouted the announcer.

  ‘To the newlyweds!’ repeated the crowd, erupting into a cacophony of cheers.

  Intef darted through the exit and put his hands over his ears. He did not want to hear any more cheers. He had saved many lives that day, but two lives were ruined—hers...and his.

  * * *

  Aya gazed up at the high open windows of the royal bathrooms and imagined she was a bird. She looked down, pretending her feet were talons. The warm bathwater poured across her shoulders and she shook it off, as a bird might shake off its feathers.

  Her two young body servants frowned, then began rubbing the soap into her skin. Soon her dust-caked flesh was covered in the mixture of oil and salts.

  ‘Now the rinse, Princess,’ said the elder of the young women and poured more warm water over her head. Aya watched the water trickle down through the drain in the bath chamber. It was as brown as mud.

  ‘There was no time to bathe before the wedding,’ Aya explained.

  ‘Of course,’ said the elder. ‘It must have been a very long day for you, Princess.’

  ‘What is your name?’ asked Aya.

  ‘I am Maya,’ said the elder, then nodded to the younger.

  ‘And I am Meryt,’ said the younger, who was already applying a new layer of oil and salts to Aya’s skin. Maya took up her own handful of soap and started in on Aya’s hair.

  It felt strange to submit to the care of servants. In the past, Aya had always been the one to do the scrubbing.

  Aya tried to relax and imagine herself alone, but the silence was too large. ‘We were married on the battlefield, you see,’ Aya said by way of filling it.

  ‘So we heard, Princess,’ said Maya. ‘It must have been exciting!’

  Aya smiled, but found she did not know how to respond. ‘Before that Intef and I were many days inside Tausret’s House of Eternity,’ she said instead. ‘The tunnel that we chiselled out was very long.’

  The young women exchanged a look.

  ‘What is it?’ Aya asked. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘It was our understanding that you were discovered in Seti’s tomb, not Tausret’s,’ said Maya.

  ‘And that you were alone,’ said Meryt.

  Aya stared at the clear-eyed young women. ‘Apologies, I do not understand.’

  ‘We were told that the hero Intef chiselled the tunnel from the outside in, not the other way around,’ Meryt said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Aya. So the story had already been changed. It was not Tausret’s tomb, but Seti’s that would be remembered in the tale. And there would be no account of the pillaging that had taken place, despite Setnakht’s sudden wealth and magnanimity. Tausret herself was central to the story, yet her role in it was already being quietly erased.

  Worse, earlier that day when Aya had gently asked her new husband if he would dedicate some royal resources to restoring Tausret’s tomb, he had flatly refused. ‘I am going to move her into Bay’s tomb,’ he had explained. ‘It is smaller and more appropriate for a woman.’

  Aya’s mouth had hung open. ‘What will happen to her own tomb?’ she had asked.

  ‘Oh, it will belong to my father,’ he had said and grinned. ‘Is that not poetic?’

  Tausret’s fate was sealed, just as Hatshepsut’s had been. The men who came after her would simply deny her existence. They would not only chisel her name off monuments, they would replace her in her very own tomb.

  Aya suppressed a sob.

  ‘It is normal to be confused, Princess,’ Maya remarked. ‘You have been through such an ordeal.’

  ‘Soon you will be as good as new,’ Meryt said cheerfully.

  Aya smiled, her heart near to bursting with despair. No, she would never be as good as new. Tausret’s tomb was desecrated, her afterlife destroyed, her memory to be erased, and there was no chance to save any of it, for Aya had just been married to the son of Tausret’s enemy.

  She had saved lives, but it seemed she had failed her beloved Pharaoh—her mother—once again. The servants could rinse her a thousand times: she would never again be clean.

  ‘Do not weep, my lady. It is a joyous day,’ said Meryt.

  They rinsed Aya once again and soon Aya’s skin was luminous with the sheen of expensive oils and redolent with sweet-smelling perfumes.

  ‘Here is your bed gown,’ said Maya, passing Aya a nearly translucent garment of fine linen. ‘Is it not lovely?’

  Aya stared at the gown without seeing it. Tausret’s commanding voice resounded suddenly inside her heart: Do not become some selfish man’s brood mare.

  ‘Do you have something else? Something more modest?’ asked Aya. The women exchanged another look. Maya departed, but when she returned, it was not a garment she carried, but a cup. ‘It is the milk of poppy, Princess. It will help you through the night that is to come.’

  ‘Gratitude,’ Aya said, accepting the cup, but not yet taking a sip. She gazed down at her exposed breasts. ‘May I bring my tunic with me anyway?’ she asked. ‘It will be a comfort to have it near.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the two women, speaking as one.

  They led Aya across a hall and pulled back the beads of a sprawling chamber. ‘Prince Rameses has requested that you wait for him on the bed,’ Maya said, gesturing to a large mattress atop a wooden frame at the centre of the chamber.

  Aya did as she was told, setting the milk of poppy on top of a table just beside the bed and her clothing in a discreet corner of the chamber.

  A single torch smouldered on its perch near the bed, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. Aya waited atop the downy bed matt
ress in quiet despair. It felt as though she were sinking through the floor.

  Any moment Rameses would come through the door and take his husbandly right. And he would do it again and again, without any precaution, until Aya was fat with the heir to the throne. Aya gazed at the cup of poppy milk sitting beside the bed.

  Inside her heart, Tausret was nearly shouting now: Do not become some selfish man’s brood mare!

  Aya glanced about the sparsely decorated chamber. In a far corner, she spied a brazier and its poker, a fine copper wash basin and matching bedpan, along with numerous chests she assumed to be full of clothes.

  Across the chamber there was a small sitting area that included several lounging couches atop a sprawling red carpet. A fine glass table stretched between the couches. It was the stage for a single, long-stemmed rose that had been placed inside an alabaster vase.

  Beside the sitting area was a tall curtained window and Aya wandered towards it and stepped between the curtains.

  She gazed out at a long, elegant colonnade that meandered past the palace walls and down towards the distant gardens. Where the colonnade disappeared around the bend, Aya spied the lovely river, shimmering beneath a blanket of moonlight. Two guards wandered down the colonnade, moving away from her towards the river. If she sneaked away right now, she might be able to evade their notice. She could dash across the grounds and slip into the river...

  She was turning to retrieve her tunic when she heard the sound of laughter outside the door.

  She scrambled back to the mattress just as Rameses swept into the chamber, followed by two women clad in little more than beads.

  ‘Hello, Wife,’ he said, shooting Aya a nod.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Hello, Husband,’ Aya said, watching the giggling women come tumbling into the room.

  He gave one of the women a deep, lingering kiss and spanked the other on the backside. ‘Go now, little kittens. I have work to do.’

  The women departed and Rameses crossed the chamber. He held a jug in one hand and what appeared to be a woman’s loincloth in the other. He tossed the loincloth aside. Standing before Aya in his long wine-stained kilt, he took a drink from the jug and let out a long burp.

  ‘What is that look?’ he asked. Rameses was a typical Theban with his sepia skin and glossy black hair. But his eyes were small and seemed to lack brightness. They were nothing like Intef’s.

  ‘What look?’ replied Aya.

  ‘You look as if you have just seen a demon.’

  ‘I am merely...awestruck,’ she said, ‘by your well-muscled physique.’ He was too drunk to recognise her insincerity.

  ‘The women tell me I am in fine form,’ he bragged, flexing his thick but rather un-muscled arms. He noticed the open window. ‘Gods, did the chambermaids leave it open again?’ He crossed to the window and lifted a long reed pole, gently pulling the curtains shut with it.

  He returned to Aya, glancing at the cup on the table beside the bed. ‘What is that?’ he asked.

  ‘It is milk of poppy,’ Aya admitted. ‘But I am sure it will not be needed.’

  ‘Is milk of poppy not a medicine for pain?’ he asked.

  ‘It can be, but I was told it can also help a man with...’ She glanced down at his loincloth.

  His eyes flashed. ‘No, it will certainly not be needed,’ he said. He took another drink of wine and his eyes slid back to the cup. ‘Though I admit I come to you in a rather...used condition.’

  Aya might have been offended, or disgusted, but as she gazed up at the future Pharaoh of the greatest kingdom in all the world, she felt only a vague sense of pity—along with a strange premonition that it would be women—not war—that would be his end.

  Just as Aya had hoped, he reached for the cup and took a long drink. Then he lay down next to her. ‘Gods, your eyes are strange,’ he told her.

  ‘That is what they say,’ she said. She turned her face away from him.

  ‘Come now, I do not mind your face,’ Rameses said, as if extending his generosity. ‘Besides, it is what I put in your belly that matters.’

  Aya forced a gamely grin. ‘Still, I am not the prettiest woman in Thebes now, am I? Why do we not put out the torch? That way you can imagine a more beautiful woman beneath you.’

  ‘Your cleverness seems to compensate for your strangeness,’ said Rameses gently, as if he meant it as a compliment.

  She reached for the torch and waved it out above them and soon they were lying together in total darkness.

  He began to grope at her breasts. ‘Excuse me, Husband, but do you mind if I have a cup of that wine you brought? I think it will help me relax.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rameses said. She heard him reach to the floor and lift the large jug, taking a long draught himself before handing it to Aya. While she drank, he continued to fondle her breasts.

  ‘As soon as you can produce an heir, there will be no more need to lie together,’ he remarked cheerfully. He gave her nipple a hard twist.

  ‘Ow!’ she cried.

  ‘That is the spirit!’

  Aya forced a soft giggle and pretended to drink, then returned the jug to his hands. ‘Gratitude, Husband.’

  She heard him take another long draught before sensing him stretch away from her to place the jug on the floor. Aya moved her hands over his exposed back and began to rub. ‘Now let me help you relax,’ she said.

  He subsided beneath her touch almost instantly. ‘Ah, that feels wonderful,’ he said, letting out another long burp.

  Aya rubbed and kneaded and probed until his rhythmic snore filled the chamber with its grunting music. She slipped from the bed, gathered up her clothes and crossed to the window.

  Stepping between the curtains, she peered out into the moonscape and her heart skipped. Two guards who appeared to be deep in conversation were heading straight down the colonnade towards the palace. She retreated into the chamber, thankful they had not seen her.

  Still, it seemed there were guards crawling everywhere and she had not a single weapon for her defence. She sat down beside the window, noticing the long reed pole that Rameses had used to shut the high curtains.

  An idea surfaced. Aya grasped the pole and bent it backwards tentatively. It did not break. She searched through one of the chests of clothes and seized on a thin leather tie. She bent back the pole and tied the ends off, fashioning herself a bow.

  Now all she needed was an arrow. The chamber was dark, but she tried to picture its contents. She recalled the rose inside the vase on the table and retrieved it, along with the arrow that she had tucked inside her dirty tunic. The arrow that Intef had given her.

  Using the ragged thread of her tunic’s hem, she tied the arrowhead on to the stem. She needed another arrow. She remembered the brazier poker she had seen in the corner and quickly retrieved it. Then she pulled her tunic over her head to cover herself. Holding her newly forged bow and two makeshift arrows, she slipped between the curtains.

  ‘What are you doing, Wife?’ called Rameses.

  Her heart skipped. He could not have seen her, could he? Perhaps he had heard the swish of the curtains. ‘I am just getting a breath of fresh air,’ she replied.

  ‘It is rather stuffy in here,’ said Rameses. ‘Why not open the curtains?’

  Aya did her best to move the fabric back along its high pole, until a long beam of light from the rising moon shone into the chamber. She could see Rameses’s profile. He was sitting up in bed. ‘What have you there in your arms, Wife?’ he asked, his voice thick with suspicion.

  ‘It is a bow I have fashioned from the reed pole you used to draw back the curtains.’

  ‘Clever woman,’ said Rameses. ‘So you mean to escape?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You know there is no chance for you? The moment you slip out that window, I will simply call the guards on you—or I wi
ll come after you myself.’

  ‘No, you will not.’

  Slowly he rose from the bed, and she raised her bow. ‘What do you think you are doing there, Wife?’

  ‘Come no closer,’ Aya warned, ‘or I will do what I must.’ She stretched back the string of her bow and balanced the poker upon it.

  ‘I had heard Tausret was a killer, though I did not expect it of her daughter.’

  ‘My mother was not a killer, she was a giver of life. And I will give you your life if you let me go.’

  ‘You are making a mistake,’ he said, stepping towards her.

  She quieted her mind and let her arrow fly. It landed on the front panel of his kilt, right between his legs, pinning him to the wall.

  He gazed in drunken wonder at the arrow, then turned his attention to Aya, who was readying the stem. She set the projectile into place in her bow and aimed it at his heart.

  ‘I am going to leave now and, whether you call the guards or not, I will escape.’

  ‘Harlot! You are just as bad as your mother.’

  ‘I am just as good as my mother,’ said Aya. ‘And I must warn you that if you do call the guards on me, your reign will be cursed.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said, but his smile was taut with fear.

  ‘Would it help if I shot this arrow a little bit closer to Egypt’s Mighty Bull?’ She glanced at his loincloth and saw him swallow hard.

  ‘Swear that you will not call the guards,’ she said. ‘Now!’

  ‘I swear it!’ he replied.

  ‘Swear that when you are Pharaoh, you will put the people of Egypt first.’

  ‘What?’ he said, his expression pained. She drew back her bow. ‘I swear it!’ he said.

  ‘Swear that you will surround yourself with honest men and will abide no corruption in your great house.’

  ‘I swear it,’ said Rameses.

  ‘Swear that you will keep the grain coffers full and never let any Egyptian go hungry, whether citizen, captive, freedman or slave.’

  ‘I swear it!’ said Rameses.

  ‘For whom do you swear it?’