Forgotten Heir

Chapter THREE [Makara]

Chapter Three

Makara

I was dressed accordingly and ready to leave half an hour before my uncle had told us when to meet. I hadn't seen my Father in a couple of months now, and truth be told, I was looking forward to this visit. I missed him.

Whenever we went to my father's house in the city, Mother and I were always accompanied by Aunt Huy and Sete. It would look less suspicious, the King claimed, and if we were ever attacked or present at the time of some chaos within the city, it was always handy to have a trained soldier walking with us; protecting us from the dangers outside the palace walls.

Of course, we all had some kind of disguises that we would wear whenever we went outside the palace grounds to visit Father, so that people would not identify us as we wandered by. It was not safe for the Queen and her daughter to walk around in the city by themselves, so we had to try and blend in as much as possible.

Aunt Huy would often help with that. She was similar in size to Mother so she would give the Queen one of her old dresses. And since Aunt Huy could make her own clothes, she tailored some of her old ones to fit me. It was a change to what I was used to, but it wasn't unpleasant. Even though I would never truly be like them, it was beneficial to witness how the majority of our country lived first-hand.

We usually left the palace around midday, when the people were in the middle of their working day. This avoided many citizens walking around the streets; less people to notice and maybe pick up something that wasn't quite right about the seemingly normal 'family' walking down the pathways in a hurry. Occasionally, however, we would leave the palace early in the morning - around the same time that the markets would begin. People would be huddled around small stalls on either side of the street. Those who were poor kept to one side and examined trivial items such as bread and pottery, whereas those who were rich kept to the other and tended to by more affluent items such as fancy clothes and jewellery; those who were neither rich nor poor wandered around aimlessly on both sides.

I quite enjoyed the markets, even though the risk of exposure was much higher than when we were simply meandering through the streets in the middle of the day. The markets were much more vibrant; more entertaining to walk through. There were different smells, different voices - an entirely different atmosphere. I loved it. It almost made me wish at times that I wasn't a princess - that I was simply an ordinary citizen of Waset. But who was I to question the god's ruling? They had destined me to live as Makara, daughter of the Queen. That was their choice they had made for me and who was I to question it?

"Ah, the Princess Makara of Egypt. How nice it is to see that you have not been confined to your chambers as punishment for disobeying the Queen's orders."

The familiar voice approached me from behind. Sete was dressed in clothing similar to what he usually wore, but without all regalia that might be expected of a palace guard. Of course, he still had his khopesh. The man wouldn't even leave his bedchamber without the sword. Not that it was a bad thing, of course. It would be worse if he didn't bring it, and we ended up being attacked or something.

"Indeed," I replied dryly, turning around to face him. "I practically had to beseech Mother to allow me to come today."

Sete rolled his eyes in a fake-mocking manner. "How terribly shameful of a Princess of Egypt."

"I know - I'm terrible!"

Sete snorted, leaning one one of the marble-white pillars that stretched up to the sky just like the lotus flower that it was designed after. "We shan't have to wait much longer. I'm sure that Huy would wish your Mother out of bed as soon as possible. I'm surprised they aren't here already."