“Your name, sir. You are named after…” she began.
“Our Dorian ancestor, son of the great queen Helen,” he butted in. “Indeed I am.”
I recalled how vapid and irritating Helen could be, and wondered at how her sons could have managed to found dynasties. But then she had not raised them, for she had abandoned them and their brut of a father for Paris and Troy when they were small. As I looked at this handsome young man I recalled the last time I had seen Helen, her back raw and lashed to hades. Her face beaten and body starved. I had pitied her then.
“She was a renown beauty I believe. Are all your people very beautiful?” Sekhemet asked with a light flutter of her dark eyelashes. Her bright bovine eyes were trying very hard to catch his attention. But Dorus was looking at me. MeryAmun cleared his throat and slid off his stool to join us.
“Oh, yes,” she said with a cooler expression. “This is my betrothed… Mery…Amun.” For a fraction of a moment, I thought she was going to forget his name.
“Pleased to meet you,” Dorus was just as unimpressed with the boy as his future wife.
“I trust you had a safe passage?” I asked. He seemed glad to be permitted to show me attention.
“Thank you, yes. I am never keen on boat journeys but they must be endured if we want to continue a prosperous business.”
That explained why he had travelled overland after his arrival in Egypt, and not by way of the Nile.
“Nor I,” I smiled, trying not to recall the many weeks I had been trapped below the decks of ships in the dank stale air, with nothing but rats to feed upon.
“You have been to Crete?” he asked.
“I am afraid not, but I hear it is lovely.”
I sensed Sekhemet growing irritated at my side.
“You have seen the pyramids?” she said, turning the attention back to her self.
“I…” he tore his gaze from my face. “Yes, my lady, they are hard to miss. They are truly magnificent.”
“Like the rest of our great land,” she grinned, taking his hand. “Let us take a tour before we return to Mn-Nefer.”
MeryAmun and I were left to entertain the charioteers as she whisked him away on our horses.
*
The welcome feast was over and almost all the guests had retired to their own homes. With so many people inside, the villa had been unbearably hot.
Every window had the shutters pushed out wide; even the door was propped open by a large stone. The scent of roasted goose and warm bread lingered in the hot greasy air. I was standing in the courtyard watching Sekhemet as she openly flirted with Dorus. he leaned over him to retrieve a glass of wine, letting her breasts brush against his arm.
She would, as she grew up, learn to be more subtle with such things, and how better to use her charms to her advantage, but at that time she was still so very young.
Dorus laughed at some joke she had shared but glanced in my direction. I knew I should leave them alone, let Sekhemet seduce him into a more favourable trade deal for her family than he intended, but I was afraid she might lead herself down a path she did not yet fully understand.
Also, I was fascinated with him. His broad shoulders, bronze skin, untamed hair and deep blue eyes. The way his mouth curled at the corners when he was trying not to smile, the way he moved his body when he walked. I was hungry, and I ought to have been out hunting for someone to quench my thirst, but blood and sex had long since merged into a single pleasure for me. And I wanted this man, in every way. I had to go. I turned away, walked through the villa to the main entrance and look my leave into the depths of the city.
Pushing the image of Dorus from my mind I weaved my way through the streets toward what had become my second home. There is one thing you can always count upon no matter where you are in the world, or what period in time, there will always be a brothel.
Mn-Nefer was a small city then. It had once been great, it had once been Egypt’s capital, but that was centuries ago. Though it survived and would continue to do so for many more generations, the population was not large at that time.
The city consisted of one big temple complex to the god Ptah, a market square, and not more than a dozen streets. Sekhemet and I lived in a villa at the very north edge of the city, where the Pyramids could be seen in the distance on a good clear day. The brothel was at the opposite end of town at the south end of the southernmost street. Trade was not always plentiful, but there were enough regulars and passing merchants to keep it in business.
I walked in through the main door. This was a new phenomenon for me since I had always had to creep in the back entrance in previous towns. But here the madam was a bawdy Vampyr that wore her gown so low cut it revealed the tops of her nipples, and when she walked her bulbous breasts jiggled invitingly. She saw me enter, gave me a wicked grin, and tilted her head in the direction of the large front chamber.
“I had a feeling you would be in tonight, what with that big party going on at the villa. I saved the best one for you.”
I flashed her a knowing smile by way of thanks. I climbed the stairs and pushed back the curtain to reveal a large chamber containing a wide double bed covered in soft brightly coloured blankets.
“There you are my sexy secret.” His voice was always soft and low, as though he were trying to be quiet. I turned to look at my willing companion. There have always been some that desire the bite of a Vampyr, need it even. Timo was one of them. I stood there a moment, letting him look at me, then slowly untied the bows at my shoulders, removed the cord from my waist, and let my gown fall to the floor.
“Oh! How is it you never age,” he gasped. He said this almost every time we were together, and by then it had been a fair few.
“We all have our secrets,” I replied as always. Very slowly I slunk towards him. He stared at my breasts and then at the mound of copper hair between my legs. He began to stroke himself as he hardened. I stood before him and ran my hands over my breasts, into the dip of my waist and over my stomach until my fingers tangled in my hair and pressed gently on my clitoris. He groaned and stepped in close. He had been young, firm and smooth when we first met, but by then his stomach has softened, and the muscles over his thighs were beginning to sag. But other than that he was the same as he always had been. I reached up and felt the bulk of his biceps as I leaned in close and pressed my tongue against the pulsing vein in his neck. He tasted of olive oil and salty sweat. He lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around him. Turning us both he pushed me against the wall and thrust inside me. As his passion grew more frantic I bit down hard into his neck.
I did not need to drain him into forgetting. This man wanted to remember everything. I took his blood into mine in an ecstatic blur as I came. He pumped into me faster and faster, as though he were giving me every bit of his life until finally he grunted like a bear and exploded inside me. I pushed him away, throwing us both onto the bed, gasping for breath. I waited for him to pass out cold, and then made my way back to the villa.
*
“Hello.”
I almost leapt from my skin. I spun around in the pitch-black entrance hall. There, leaning casually against the wall, eyes glinting through the darkness, was Dorus.
“Lord Zeus! You scared the life from me. What are you doing here?” I spluttered in slightly old-fashioned Greek. He smiled with delight.
“Waiting for you.” He stepped toward me. “Where did you go?”
I edged back, something did not feel right. He stopped.
‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean to alarm you,” he offered, taking a step back himself. His eyes seemed to bore into me. I thought perhaps he was like Timo, that he knew what I was and wanted me to bite him. I shook my head. I did not want to jeopardize anything Sekhemet had planned, and there was something else nagging at me that I could not quite recognize at that moment. He seemed to read my caution and took another step back. “Forgive me,” he said again.
“No, no, it is all right. Please, what can I help you with?”
I walked past him and through to the courtyard. At least out there, the moonlight would permit me to see his expression better.
“Sekhemet, she is to be married to that boy soon?”
A pang of jealousy stabbed at my gut. Then I understood what the nagging feeling was. I did not want this man to desire me for merely my bite. I actually wanted him to care for me. I knew not why, for we had only just met.
“We have no weddings as such in Egypt,” I explained. “Usually, a girl is considered a wife once she moves into her husband’s home with her dowry. But MeryAmun is to live here, so there will be a celebration to formalize the marriage upon her next birthday when she has reached the age her parent’s agreed upon.”
Dorus stopped by the orange tree that had been planted to give me shade from the sun. He looked up at the gently rustling branches.
“I had presumed her older than her appearance,” he spoke as though this were merely an observation.
“She does give that impression. She has been head of this house since she was eight years old, and her father taught her well.”
“She dresses older too, the wig she wears, the gown…”
The pang of jealousy bit again.
“She is very beautiful,” I added.
“Hmm. That I had not noticed.” He was looking right at me now. If it had not been so dark he might have caught in my gaze.
“Really? You must be the only man who has not.” I added, attempting to keep my tone casual. He shook his head. For a moment I thought he was going to move in closer to me. But then he hesitated and stayed as he was. I sat down on the stone bench beneath the tree and looked up at him. His hair was ruffled in the breeze, and his eyes seemed to twinkle in the moonlight. For a moment I saw Helen again, as she had stood the first time I had met her, holding Paris’s hand.
“You are certainly Helen’s son,” I whispered to myself, but he heard me.
“What do you mean?”
I was not sure how to explain myself other than with the truth. If he was like Timo, then he knew what I was already and there was no risk.
“You have her eyes.” I offered. I had never cared for Helen, but in the last days of her life, I had come to understand and pity her. This man before me had the better part of her. Not just physical beauty, but I could sense his desire to do the right thing by others: to make things better. It had taken Helen some time to feel such things, she had watched those who cared for her lose almost everything before she felt it, but it had been there in the end.
“How could you possibly know that? She died many centuries ago.” He was looking at me with great caution. I knew then that he did not know my nature.
“A painting on a wall I saw once.” I was not lying, there had been one made at Troy. He narrowed his eyes.
“I thought you had not been to Crete.”
Something scurried along the ground and past our feet. I looked down to see what it was, but the creature had already vanished into a bush.
“She was famous across many lands,” I offered, hoping he would not press me further. “Now, how can I help you with Sekhemet?” I forced a smile and hoped he would accept the change of subject. He acquiesced and took a seat next to me, his muscular thigh resting against mine. I tried to concentrate on the conversation.
“She has a fearsome reputation, worse than her father. Word is she will not take no for an answer and will cripple those who try with high import taxes just to pass through the city.”
It was true, she had forced merchants to pay such large fees some had even attempted to bypass Mn-Nefer, and transport by caravan through the Red Lands to the west.
“She is a very persuasive little girl,” I replied, watching how his lips rested together. I wanted so much to kiss him. I had been a very long time since I had wanted anyone in a truly romantic fashion, not since Paris, and that had not ended well. I looked at Dorus’s stubble chin and youthful face. He was young too, perhaps no more than nineteen or twenty. I could feel his heart was beating fast.
“You are not married?” he asked, his voice shaking slightly.
“No,” I whispered. His breath quickened and his fingers twitched close to mine on the bench. But then he cleared his throat and edged away.
“My father requires a good deal. And I am to be part of that, should it come to it.”
I gawped.
“Your father sent you here to seduce Sekhemet into giving him a better trade agreement?”
He lowered his head.
“I am to marry her if necessary.”
I got to my feet and swivelled back to face him.
“But she is betrothed to MeryAmun. This was not known to your father? It is public knowledge and has been in place her entire life!” I was uncertain if I was angry with him for being so presumptuous, or because it meant that he would not want me. Dorus clasped his hands together in his lap and sighed.
“My father believes that such an arrangement is not binding to the parties in question, as they were not old enough to consent at the time.”
“And you are willing to marry her yourself in order for your father to get his hands upon her wealth?” I was as much disgusted as astonished. I had to fight to keep my voice quiet, so as not to wake anyone else in the house.
“No, well… I did agree to come. But to see what I could do to make a good deal without…but…it is no worse than she is herself,” he grumbled.
This may have been true, but I was still irritated.
“Then why ask me about MeryAmun?” I gritted my teeth. After all, Sekhemet was my ward. I had raised her as though she were my own child since she was three years old. Though she had so often proved she could very well take care of her business herself, I still wanted to protect her.
“You were willing to go through with it if necessary!” This was not a question.
“I had not known how young she is…I cannot take advantage of a child.”
“Yet if she had been older you would have?” I was shaking with anger now, both for Sekhemet’s honour and with myself for liking him.
“No…yes… I don’t know. Maybe. And I had not counted upon y…”
His voice trailed away. On the upper floor of the villa, I could hear someone stirring. I looked up toward the sound and waited. But no one came out.
“You should go to bed sir,” I hissed.
“Please, Cassandra. I don’t know what to do. When we discussed business this evening Sekhemet made it clear that if I did not agree to give her thirty percent of the profit, she would prevent our trading any further south. My father will give no more than fifteen. You have been here many years I believe, you must have grown up with her. You must know her better than anyone. Help me reason with her without…” Then he really did not know what I am.
“Without seducing her into breaking a lifelong engagement, and persuading her to marry you?” I knew my voice was getting louder. “Please just go to bed,” I begged.
“I don’t want to marry her.” He actually sounded pitiful. He rose and stepped toward me, reaching for my hand.
“Oh, so you would try to seduce me now, so that I may help you?” I snatched my hand away and stalked off to my chambers, not even looking back to see his expression, no matter how desperately I wanted to.
*
I pulled the blanket high over my head so that I was covered from tip to toe. The drape over my window had drifted apart, permitting a streak of sharp sunlight to cut across the room. Out in the courtyard below I could hear a couple of the servants clattering about. As well as two paid serving boys, Sekhemet had three indentured slaves. Two had been there long before I, and another had sold himself to her when the bad harvest came and he could not afford to keep his family. She was a hard mistress, though not a tyrant.
“Boy, hurry up with the fan.” I heard her bark at one of them. She sounded more harsh than usual. A moment later she was yelling at MeryAmun too. “You’re pathetic, why can you not be more like a man?”
I realized somethi
ng was amiss and I had better go and discover what.
“There you are!” she bawled as she stormed across the courtyard to the arch under which I was taking shade. The moment she was before me she whispered viciously “What were you two doing down here so late last night? I saw you sitting together beneath the tree, looking all cosy.” So she had seen us. She had barely ever raised her voice to me, for she knew somewhere deep down what I was capable of. I sighed.
“Dorus was asking about you,” I replied truthfully.
“Really?” Sekhemet thought for a moment, weighing up the probability. Then suddenly she was beaming with pleasure. Sometimes I wondered if she had two people living in her head, she could be so contrary. “Did he say that I am pretty? Did he want to know if I was happy with…him?” She rolled her eyes in MeryAmun’s direction. He was sitting on my bench beneath the orange tree, looking utterly sorry for himself. “Did you tell him I would gladly break my engagement? Please… what did you say?”
I rubbed my hands over my face and chewed at my bottom lip.
“Yes, he asked if you could be free to marry him,” I replied eventually. After all, it was the truth and I felt like I owed him no discretion. “But Eme,” I had called her this pet name all her life, just as her mother had before me. “Eme, he is only interested in financial gain.” But Sekhemet wasn’t listening, she had stopped hearing me at the words ‘marry him.’” She clapped her hands together in delight.
“MeryAmun’s parents will be arriving for the marriage celebrations in a few days. You cannot have forgotten.” My words were lost for Sekhemet was already skipping through the courtyard toward the entrance hall, where presumably she hoped to happen upon Dorus.
I closed my eyes and sighed.
“If the marriage celebration is in a few days, then Sekhemet’s birthday must be very soon.”
The Dark Evolution Chronicles Page 12
