Suzanne Robinson (34 page)

Seth strained away from his tormentor “No!”

Gasantra paid no attention. She made strange signs with her hands, then got up and retrieved a bottle from a darkened comer She knelt between Seth’s legs and poured oil on his burning flesh.

“I will kill you.” Seth jammed his teeth together as the cool oil ran over his penis.

He gasped. Gasantra’s slick hands stroked him. Waves of unwanted pleasure traveled through his body. Desperately, Seth tried to think of escape while Gasantra teased him. Against his will, his hips flexed, and he drove himself back and forth between her hands.

Gasantra was insane. He would kill her. To kill her, he had to be free. He had to get free. Anqet needed him. Anqet.

Seth moaned and let his body relax under Gasantra’s accomplished hands. He thought of Anqet. He pictured her round night-black eyes, her full breasts. He dwelt on the long, long legs of the girl he loved and tried not to let his hatred of Gasantra overwhelm the passion he needed for his purpose. When Gasantra lowered herself to enclose his penis inside her flesh, he deliberately imagined Anqet’s warm softness. Feigning ensorcelled submission, he drove his tongue into the mouth of the woman on top of him. She pumped at him. He gave a massive thrust. Gasantra shouted and collapsed on top of him. Seth felt his own release pulse through his imprisoned phallus as his body arched upward. He let his arms and legs relax and went limp.

Gasantra lifted herself; she patted his face. “Seth? What’s wrong? Seth?”

He waited a short time before he moaned and fluttered his eyes open. He spoke in a weak whisper.

“Gasantra?”

The woman examined him anxiously. Seth widened his eyes as if bewildered.

“Gasantra? My love? Why do I feel so odd?”

Gasantra gave a triumphant laugh. “Oh Seth, it worked. You’re free of Anqet.”

“Anqet?” Seth let his tone become querulous. “Who’s Anqet? Why am I tied down like this? I feel so tired.” Seth drew in his breath as Gasantra pulled free of him. He looked up at the woman and did his best to simulate innocence and trust.

“Are you truly cured, my love?” Gasantra asked.

“Have I been sick? I must have a fever I’m so hot. I’m burning alive.” Seth moved his head from side to side, his eyes closed. Tousled hair fell over his face. “Help me.”

“Don’t be afraid.”

He watched her retrieve a knife from the shadows and begin to cut his bonds.

Gasantra crooned to him. “Don’t worry. It’s only a potion.”

Seth let her cut his ankles free. He lurched to a sitting position and eyed the knife in Gasantra’s hand. The woman was fool enough to come close. She set the knife down and kissed him. She rubbed her hand over his bare thigh. Her nails scraped his damp skin and sped up toward his groin. Seth submitted to the caress while he grasped for the knife. He found it in time to keep Gasantra from pulling him on top of her. He grabbed her by the neck and rested the knife below her left eye. He spoke sweetly and softly.

“Tell me where Hauron has taken Anqet, or I will peel your eyeballs out of your head.”

“You tricked me!”

Gasantra squirmed and spat at him.

“You missed,” Seth said. He pressed the point of the
knife into Gasantra’s skin, but stopped before it broke the surface. Gasantra squawked.

“They’re at the Inn of the Silver Fish!”

Seth hurled the woman from him. “He took her to that cavern of obscenity?” He grabbed up his kilt and dressed hastily. “What about Dega? Quickly, or I’ll beat it out of you.”

Gasantra cowered against the wall. “Gone. Escaped. I don’t know where.”

Seth found his dagger on a table. He thrust it into his belt and pointed a finger at Gasantra.

“Run. Find a mudhole and bury yourself in it, for if Anqet is harmed, I’ll come back for you. You’ll die slowly by my own hand.”

Seth jerked his belt tight, made for the door, and opened it cautiously. Men rushed past. He ducked back inside until they were gone. He heard metal sing. A yell ended on a gurgle. Seth glanced back at Gasantra’s groveling figure and eased out into the hall. One of the woman’s hired thugs came racing at him from the direction of the noise. He saw Seth and raised a scimitar but stopped in midstride with a startled
“Uuuuugh.”
Seth hopped out of the way as the man fell on his face before him with a spear in his back. Seth stepped over the body to meet the spearman.

“Dega, my tranquil killer, you’ve saved me a fight.”

Seth clapped his equerry on the back. Dega grinned and wiped the blood from a cut on his forehead.

“I followed you here, then went for help,” Dega said as they rushed from the house. “I think we’ll need your personal troop for this task after all, my lord.”

Hopping aboard his chariot, Seth nodded agreement.

“Where we’re going, we’ll need every warrior.”

In the middle of the chamber at the Inn of the Silver Fish, Anqet sat on the floor She rested elbows on knees and cradled her head in her hands. She’d been sick on one of Hauron’s costly robes. With shaking hands, she made a quick examination of her body. She was unhurt, except for
a few bruises, and untouched. Anqet looked at her hands and realized for the first time that they were unbound. What had prevented her molestation?

An exclamation came from behind a half-closed door to her right. She heard her uncle’s voice.

“What do you mean he’s still alive? You let a woman stop you? Go back and finish the work you were assigned.” There was a rumble of protest. “I don’t care if he’s dangerous. Take as many men as you need. Find him, and kill him. Make it look like an accident. Go.”

Seth was alive! Thank the gods. But he was in trouble, and he didn’t know where she was. It was up to her to escape.

The room was equipped with a washbowl and waterjar. Anqet made sure Hauron was still talking. She crept to the bowl and poured out enough water to make the jar easy to lift. She drank from it as well, to cleanse her mouth. On the same table lay the remains of a meal. She stuffed a slice of melon in her mouth in an effort to settle her stomach.

Anqet tiptoed over to the side door, the waterjar in her hands. Hauron was still talking with the guards. She dashed quietly to the main entrance and cracked the door open. A man stood guard outside. She closed the door and returned to the other exit. Hauron was coming. She flattened herself on the wall beside the door and raised the jar over her head. Lord Hauron bustled past. Anqet brought the jar down, but he turned, saw her, and ducked out of the way. The jar shattered on the floor.

Hauron charged for her Anqet sprang out the side door, slammed it closed, and dropped a bar into place. She raced to another door, but Hauron had anticipated her and leapt for her, tackling her Anqet bit fiercely at his neck. Hauron screamed and flung her away. She landed on her feet and raced out of the chamber. In the hall she met the startled guard. Anqet spun in the opposite direction and fled.

At the stairs, she looked down on pandemonium. Chairs and tables sailed in the air. Naked women and
children screamed and cowered against the walls. A man saw Anqet and came toward her She fled back the way she’d come, only to meet Hauron running down the hall. Anqet ducked into the nearest room and barred the door Hauron pounded at it. She looked for another way out. There was none.

“What’s going on?” asked a sleepy voice.

Anqet spotted a mound of pale, flaccid skin on a pallet—the fat Egyptian.

“Lovely,” the man said. He tried to get up but was hampered by his own corpulence.

Anqet walked over to a washstand, grasped the water jar, and cracked it over the man’s head. He fell back, drenched and unconscious. A squeak came from beneath the flab. Anqet fished under it and pulled out the boy she had seen earlier.

“I’m sorry, little one,” Anqet said. “I didn’t know you were there.”

While Hauron battered at the door, she took the child’s hand. Hair disheveled, facepaint smudged, he planted small feet in the customer’s belly and hopped to the floor. He came to her willingly, making no sound. The bar at the door splintered, and Hauron burst in. Behind him Anqet could see men fighting—royal troops and Hauron’s thugs. Hauron was bleeding from a cut on his lip. The marks from her teeth and nails decorated his body. He bore a dagger and glared with a hate so violent that it erased all humanity from his eyes.

Anqet edged farther away with the boy at her back. Hauron came toward her slowly. Anqet looked around, frantic for a weapon. At her feet lay a potsherd from the broken water jar Triangular and concave it had a jagged point. She grabbed the shard. Hauron was almost upon her She wedged the boy securely between her body and the wall. She felt his hands grasp her skirt.

Hauron licked blood from his lip. “I’ll have my revenge before I escape your lover.”

“Anqet!” Seth’s bellow reached them from below.

Anqet screamed back. “Seth!”

Hauron waved the dagger at her. Anqet blocked the attack with one arm and stabbed Hauron’s throat with the pointed end of the shard. It sank into flesh and broke. Hauron snarled and backed away long enough to remove the point from his throat.

Anqet dropped the useless fragment. She’d missed hitting a vein. She shoved the boy more securely behind her as Hauron charged, roaring, the dagger poised for a deathstroke. Anqet braced her legs to kick at the man. She knew he would kill her this time.

The dagger came down at her. She kicked. Hauron moaned, then went still. The dagger fell from his hand as Anqet’s uncle sank to the floor Someone flew at her, and she was swept off her feet and crushed in Seth’s arms. Outside, the sounds of battle quieted. Seth squeezed her and whispered endearments.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Not hurt at all. N-not at all.” Anqet burrowed her face into the count’s neck.

“I never thought a few moments could age me like this,” said Seth. “Fear has given me two hundred years.” He rocked Anqet back and forth. He held still. “By all the gods.”

Anqet looked up. Seth was staring over the bodies of the fat man and Hauron at the boy who stood against the wall. The child stared back at them, eyes wide and streaked with green paint.

“Put me down,” Anqet said.

“No.”

“I’m fine, Seth. The child needs me.”

Seth called for Dega. The warrior appeared and took charge of the boy. He cajoled the child with gentle words, and the two left, hand in hand.

“This is a horrible place,” Anqet said as she watched the child.

The count crushed her to him once more. “I know, beloved, but it won’t be anymore. I have an excuse to raze this place; I’ll see to it. Are you sure he didn’t hurt you?”

Anqet looked down at Hauron’s body. “He was going to, but he was interrupted. Oh Seth, let’s go home.”

Refusing to let her walk, Seth carried Anqet from the room that held her uncle’s corpse.

It amused Anqet that her self-possessed count was as jittery as a maid at her first festival. After all, the signing of the marriage contract had been relatively private, as private as it could be with the Son of the Sun as chief witness. Admittedly, Ipet-esut, the temple of Amun-Ra, was an overwhelmingly grandiose place for such a ceremony, but she thought Seth would have relaxed once they reached the king’s private chambers. Instead, he lurked at her side, exotic and desirable in gold and lapis lazuli, and fingered his gold dagger.

They had a moment alone while the high priest of Amun-Ra made his formal obeisance to the king.

“My love,” Anqet said. “I haven’t changed just because our names are written together in the House of Life.” Anqet smoothed back an auburn curl and whispered in Seth’s ear “If we quarrel, I can divorce you, you know. But I don’t think I’ll be able to because I want you every time I look at you.”

Seth turned his head. His gaze touched her lips and throat with green flames, then settled on her eyes.

“I’m no longer so worried about our marriage.”

“Then why are you acting as if you expected a bandit attack?”

“I don’t know.” Seth tugged at his massive broad collar “I keep expecting someone to hop out and try to take you away from me again.”

“Why?”

Seth waved away a servant carrying a wine flagon.

“Think about it,” he said. “Since we met you’ve slipped my grasp five or six times. My only hope is that marriage will act as glue and stick you to my side.” Seth clenched his hand around the pommel of the dagger. “Until we signed the marriage agreement, I was even afraid Pharaoh would interfere.”

Anqet smiled at Seth’s stepmother as the woman passed by on her way to greet General Horemheb.

“You’re not serious. The king doesn’t want me. He was only trying to get you to realize what you wanted.”

“I know, but—”

“Compose yourself. We must accept the good wishes of our friends.”

Anqet moved with Seth among the people gathered in the royal dining chamber. She surveyed the guests and noted that General Horemheb was gesticulating wildly at Vizier Ay in front of a table laden with gold plates and wineflasks. Countess Ta-usert stood beside Lord Dega and ogled the young warrior. Anqet could see the woman’s mouth form the word “amazing.” Dega gave her a perplexed smile and offered a wine goblet. Rennut pattered across the room, grasped Khet, and steered the boy away from a pile of spiced and honeyed shat cakes. Khet wriggled away from his stepmother.

Anqet grinned as she saw Prince Khai and Dega both rescue the boy. At her suggestion, Khet would be in Dega’s charge while she and the count spent a few days alone. Dega’s peaceful authority would give the high-strung, mischievous Khet an anchor when Seth had to leave his brother. Seth returned to Anqet from his greeting of the high priest of Amun-Ra.

“Uni came to me,” he said. “The galley is ready to sail for Nefer. We need only escape our friends.” Seth cast a glance at a group of his warrior officers. “You’re sure Nefer is far enough away?”

“Yes,” Anqet said.

“We could go to Kush.”

Seth’s voice trailed away. Anqet looked in the direction of his gaze. Tutankhamun was still in quiet conversation with the high priest, who resembled a starving leopard in his animals skins and long kilt. The first servant of the god laid a wrinkled hand on the king’s arm and muttered at the youth. Anqet watched Tutankhamun’s nostrils flare. His black eyes widened and then went blank.