Saved by Her Enemy Warrior

by Greta Gilbert

  ‘I feared this moment would never come,’ he said, exhaling. She could feel his wet skin against hers, the subtle rise and fall of his breaths. She rested her head on his chest and he pushed his fingers into her hair. ‘I started searching for you the moment you disappeared.’

  She tilted her head and gazed up at him. ‘How did you know I disappeared?’

  ‘I met your replacement. She responds to the name Aya quite naturally.’

  ‘My replacement?’

  ‘She looks very little like you, except through the eyes. They are also blue.’

  It took her a moment to apprehend the news. After Aya had disappeared on their wedding night, it seemed that Rameses had quickly found a replacement for her. It was a clever thing to do. As long as the people believed his wife to be the granddaughter of Rameses the Great Ancestor, she was.

  Which meant that Aya no longer had any reason to hide. Like Tausret herself, she had been erased. She paused and waited for the anger to come. Instead, relief washed over her. In truth, she had never felt so very free.

  ‘Perhaps now Great Egypt will be at peace,’ she said.

  Intef’s voice was full of heavy stones. ‘I thought I had lost you for ever.’

  She opened her mouth to speak and felt the crush of his lips on hers. All the gods in all the heavens, how wonderful it was to feel his lips again! She kissed him back urgently, as if she had a message that she had been waiting years to tell him. Only she had not been waiting years, she realised. She had been waiting her whole life.

  ‘Intef, I—’

  He placed his tongue between the gap in her front teeth, making her giggle. ‘I have wanted to do that from the first time I saw you grin,’ he said. Meanwhile, his hands moved up and down her back, rubbing in the salt and oil.

  ‘Aya, how I have missed you,’ he said. ‘I cannot count the times I have dreamed of touching you again...these arms...’ he dipped his hand into the pot once again and began rubbing the mixture on her shoulders and arms ‘...this stomach, these hips...’ he massaged the mixture into her stomach, then down over her hips ‘...these legs, these feet.’ His hands rioted over her legs and feet, but he soon returned to standing.

  ‘This—’

  He wrapped his hands around her backside. ‘Ahh, Aya,’ he said. He massaged her flanks in long, loving strokes. And then she forgot what she was going to say entirely, for their lips met once again.

  * * *

  It was a hungry, desperate kiss. It was not simply that he found her lips arousing. In kissing them, he had the feeling of imminent arrival—as if he had been floating in a vast ocean and had finally sighted land.

  He wanted her elementally, the way he wanted water or air. He yearned to taste her and smell her and take in the sight of her, but that was not all he wanted. He wanted the invisible things, too. The things she had shown him in the dark.

  She was the most wondrous woman he had ever known: an arrow-shooting, tomb-chiselling, latrine-digging, life-saving wonder and he loved her beyond words.

  He stepped back from her. ‘I think it is time to rinse,’ he said. He was nearly panting and his desire throbbed painfully. He let the bucket plunge into the well and cranked it up again, but she stole it from his grasp.

  ‘I think it is you who needs the rinse.’ She poured the cool water over his burning flesh and laughed.

  ‘How dare you!’ he shouted. He plunged the bucket back into the well and cranked it up.

  ‘Intef, I—Ack!’ she cried as the water went pouring over her head. He repeated the rinse twice more until all her limbs were clean and she was standing like a goddess in the diminishing light.

  ‘I did not think it possible, but after all these months, I believe you are even more beautiful,’ he remarked.

  ‘And you have become even more outrageous.’

  ‘Outrageous?’ he said. ‘Not at all.’ Then he lifted her off her feet.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Do you have a bed mat on the roof?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then I am taking you to it immediately.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Unfinished business.’

  * * *

  Soon they were lying on her bed mat, staring up at a sky full of stars. ‘Remember the painted stars that decorated the false chamber?’ Aya asked.

  ‘They are all I see most nights,’ said Intef. ‘I hardly perceive the real ones any more.’

  ‘I think of them, too,’ Aya said. ‘Far too often.’ She sat up and gasped. ‘The temple! The evening ritual—I forgot!’

  ‘Shall we go there now?’ asked Intef.

  ‘Too late. It must take place in the first hour of night, just as the sun goes down.’

  ‘It is my fault,’ said Intef. ‘I distracted you from your duty.’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said. Now that Tausret was safe inside a provisioned tomb with dedicated priests, she would no longer require Aya’s constant attention. Finally, Tausret could rest, which meant that Aya could rest, too.

  ‘Can you ever forgive me, Aya?’ Intef asked.

  ‘Forgive you? Without you I would have never discovered my true identity. There would have been a war. Thousands of lives would have been destroyed.’

  ‘And instead two lives were,’ said Intef.

  ‘Rameses could never destroy my life. I would not let him.’

  ‘I could not help you escape him.’

  ‘But you did help me escape him.’ She lifted her other wrist and held it before his eyes. ‘Do you see the object woven into my bracelet?’

  He stared at the bracelet in wonder. ‘Is that the arrowhead?’

  She felt her eyes filling with tears. ‘It was all I had left of you.’

  She had longed for him, too. She could finally admit it. She had dreamed of embracing him from the moment he had flashed her his wicked grin. It was something she had tried to deny, for surely it was some trick of the gods. How could it be that this impudent, heretical tomb robber had somehow stolen her heart?

  Yet he had. Curse him, he had. It belonged to him, to do with what he would. She could feel it even now, beating out its wild enthusiasm.

  He pulled away from her and touched her face. He gently arranged her hair, placing its errant locks behind her ear. ‘It is strange, but I feel I can see you, even in the darkness,’ he said.

  ‘And I you,’ she said.

  In every way imaginable. She could see the skilled archer and the clever teacher, the loyal soldier and the scheming spy. She could see the blood-soaked plains of battle, where he had grown hard and cold and lost his fire. And she could see the small precious part of him that remained smouldering still.

  She sensed that small fire was trained on her. Perhaps it had been for a long while. She would have never dreamed it possible that a man such as he could want a woman such as she. Yet she could feel his liquid dark eyes watching her. She could imagine their dangerous glint, the yearning in them. Even in the dark, they were sending arrows through her.

  ‘I never would have stopped searching for you, Aya,’ he said. ‘You are my Isis and I am your Osiris. You brought me back from the dead.’

  ‘But your breath never left you.’

  ‘That is not what I mean.’

  ‘I know it is not.’

  She rested her head on his chest. His heartbeats were so strong and true, like music. She wanted to dance to those heartbeats for the rest of her life.

  He traced her lip with his thumb. ‘There is another debt I wish to pay, you know. I promised I would show you the marshes.’

  ‘And you did,’ said Aya. ‘I think about it often.’

  ‘We may have wandered the marshes that last night in the tomb, but I was the only one who went swimming.’

  ‘Swimming?’ There was only one thing he could be referring to. The
women at court spoke of it often, but only indirectly and with a twinkle in their eyes. ‘I am afraid I have never...swum. How does one achieve such a thing?’

  * * *

  He had neglected her once, but never again. She claimed to have enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh in the past, but he had a strong suspicion she had only ever gone through the motions. Perhaps she had even pleasured herself on occasion, but it still was not the same.

  He would show her what pleasure could be when combined with the kinds of feelings they shared. On this first night of her freedom, he would help her find her way to bliss. ‘Well, one must first relax one’s muscles,’ he said.

  ‘And how does one do that?’ He motioned for her to roll on to her stomach and she obeyed.

  He arranged the bed sheet so that it folded over the bump of her bottom. ‘One must also relax one’s mind,’ he said. He thought of the most distracting question he could conceive. ‘Tell me, were there other Libyans in Tausret’s court?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I am helping you relax.’ He lifted his leg and straddled her, finding his seat just atop her covered bottom. Slowly, he began to rub up and down her back.

  ‘There are many Libyans serving in Pharaoh’s court,’ she replied. ‘Oh, that feels wondrous.’

  ‘Did not Pharaoh Merneptah defeat many Libyans during his reign?’

  ‘He did indeed,’ said Aya. ‘He took over eight thousand of them to till the fields of the Delta. They worked alongside Egyptians and married them. What is that you are doing?’

  ‘I am simply removing the knots you have developed in your neck from all your hard work.’

  Meanwhile, he had begun to move himself gently atop her bottom.

  ‘Oh, well, it feels very good.’

  ‘It is my hope to have you completely relax,’ he said. ‘Please tell me more about the North. I know it poorly.’

  ‘The North of Egypt is very...different from the South,’ she said and he made his way slowly down the length of her back until he was rubbing her tailbone gently.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, there are many different peoples in the North.’

  ‘Like whom?’ he asked. He gently began to knead her bottom.

  ‘Like the Asiatics,’ she said. ‘And the Libyans. There are Nubians, too... Oh gods, what are you doing?’

  ‘It is just part of the massage,’ he said. ‘Which Asiatic tribes?’

  ‘Oh, there are Canaanites and Babylonians and Hittites... What are you doing now?’

  ‘I am just going to massage the inside of your thighs a little. Is that all right? Tell me, why do northerners tolerate foreigners so well?’ He moved her legs apart and slipped two fingers inside her.

  ‘Oh, Intef...’ She sighed.

  ‘Tell me,’ he insisted. ‘Why are they so...open?’

  ‘Northerners appreciate people who are different,’ she breathed. ‘Better ways of doing things, new ideas.’

  Keeping his fingers inside her, he lay down atop her. He whispered in her ear, ‘And yet every great unifier of Egypt has come from the South.’ He was throbbing with his need for her, but he kept his desire tucked inside his loincloth.

  This was her moment, not his. ‘Why do Egypt’s great leaders always come from the South?’ he repeated.

  He pushed his fingers inside her a little more.

  ‘Perhaps because the South needs the North,’ she said. ‘And thus is always trying to join with it.’

  * * *

  It was a terrible choice of words, though they certainly belied what was in her heart. From the moment she had seen him walking towards the well that evening she had been yearning for him.

  And now this—sweet torture. He was doing what she had always done to herself but was somehow more skilled at it than she. Far more skilled.

  He was like an expert mason working his wonders on flesh instead of rock. ‘I believe it is the other way around,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I believe it is the North that needs the South.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Quite badly.’

  ‘And what exactly does the North need the South for?’

  ‘Roll over and I will show you,’ he commanded and she could do nothing but obey.

  She was lying naked on her back in the starlight’s soft glow and he was gazing at her with such admiration that she had no desire to cover herself. She pursed her lips together as if to send him a kiss.

  His grin turned dangerous. She glanced down at his desire and felt her eyes become wide at the sight.

  She quickly returned her gaze to his, but it was too late—he had caught her appraising him. She blushed and he shook his head as if to scold her.

  Which only made her blushing worse.

  She was desperately aroused. She wondered what he planned for her. Nothing about this man could be predicted. The last time they had done this, he had caught her unaware, sneaking into her like a thief.

  His clandestine invasion had been her undoing. Never in her life had she felt such a surprise, followed by such an amazement, followed by such a delicious, all-consuming pleasure.

  Since then, her body seemed to have been missing his and no more so than right now.

  She sat up on her arms and reached for him. He swatted her hand away and pushed her gently back on to the bed mat.

  ‘If you do that, then it will no longer be about you,’ he said. ‘This is about you.’

  He watched her closely as he slipped his fingers inside her once again. ‘Oh, Intef,’ she muttered. He was coaxing her lust, conjuring it into life. He gazed down at her womanhood as if charting the course of a journey.

  She knew where he was going, where he was going to take them both—south.

  Slowly, wickedly, he kissed a path downwards to her desire. He continued moving his fingers until his mouth arrived at her entrance. Finally, he pushed his tongue inside her and tasted her.

  Egypt was in drought, the Sea Peoples were on the march and the new dynasty might not survive, but lying here beneath Intef there was only the slow susurrations of his breath, the delicious movements of his mouth and fingers, and nothing at all to do but feel.

  His tongue. His evil, wicked tongue. It was a terrible magician and she was trapped beneath its spell. And his fingers—two wretched minions that were making her whole body ache. ‘More, Intef, please,’ she begged.

  Small tremors were rumbling through her. He was pushing his magic fingers inside her, his speed increasing with her need. His tongue licked and toyed with her and she no longer knew where she was.

  Until, suddenly, there she was, bursting through the sky, pulsing with sensation, a streak of ecstasy in the night. She cried out and tears of emotion filled her eyes as her body writhed and trembled and then went slack. She lay there for many moments, breathing through the aftershocks. ‘What did you just do to me?’

  He crawled up her body and lay atop her. ‘Those, my love, were the marshes,’ he stated with pride. ‘And you just went swimming.’

  They lay there for many moments, breathing together, and it was as if all the spinning parts of her finally came to a stop and all the burdens she bore were no longer hers alone.

  A surprising idea came into her mind: that it might be possible in this life not only to serve, but to be served. To protect and to be protected. To love and to be loved.

  He propped himself on his elbow beside her. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘As if I am a heavy stone who has suddenly exploded into a cloud of dust.’

  He wove his hand with hers and studied her bracelet. ‘There is one more thing I have neglected to tell you,’ he said, touching the small sharp stone. ‘And I hope you will forgive me for keeping it from you all this time.’

  She composed herself. What other thing could there possibly be? Whatever it was, she would endure it
. No one was worth more to her than him. ‘What is it, Intef?’

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘I love you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I love you, Aya. I will love you for ever.’

  She looked down and studied the place where he had kissed her hand. It was as if he had made a mark there, a relief he had chiselled into her flesh, never to be erased.

  ‘And I love you,’ she said. ‘I have been trying to tell you all day.’

  ‘You have?’

  She sat up and straddled him. ‘You were so intent on kissing me that I did not have a chance. But now I have you beneath my command and it is your turn to go swimming.’

  ‘Is it indeed?’ He grinned wickedly.

  She bent down to kiss his lips, fully intending to kiss her way down his belly, only to feel him moving himself into her. ‘Thief!’ she cried out.

  The sensation was almost too pleasurable to bear and she moaned as they began to move together as one. ‘I believe it is both our turn,’ he said.

  She had once wondered what it would feel like to be divine. Now she knew, for in that moment they ceased to be human. They were two gods at the beginning of time, wandering through the darkness, casting their glorious light.

  * * *

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