Thirty One
I must have fallen asleep, because I awoke some time later to dim light. Ahmose must have returned and decided not to disturb my slumber. I silently cursed myself for having fallen asleep. I stretched my hand out, searching for Ahmose, wanting to be close to my husband. My desperate fingers were met by vacant air. My heart pounded. I sat up and realized the bed was empty. I gazed out the window and saw the night sky above. It was the middle of the night. How long had I been asleep? It was unlike him not to come to bed. I suddenly became overwhelmed with worry and suspicion.
Something shifted in the shadows, and I fell back on the bed with a startled yelp. "Ahmose?" I called, frightened. The dark figure shifted in the darkness, coming from the shadows to reveal herself in the firelight.
"Nay, it is only I," Iset replied coolly.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded. I didn't care if my tone was cruel. She was here in my bedchamber watching me sleep, and my husband was absent.
"My dear queen," she breathed. "I only wanted to be near you." She came to the edge of the bed and reached out to touch my hair. I flinched away. Her eyes flickered over my hair and face, and to the precious gems that adorned my body. "Such beauty," she sighed. "Your hair is like sheens of sunlight." Her eyes darkened suddenly. Her ruby lips pulled into a thin line. "Before you came to Egypt, my beauty was unrivaled, and my husband thought none more beautiful than me."
A cold shiver of fear prickled my lower back. "Where is Pharaoh?" I demanded in a low, threatening voice.
"His Majesty is tied up," she mocked, just as she had that day I departed from the palace. But now, I couldn't decide if her words should be taken literally. Furious, I got up from the bed and stormed towards the door. I had no plan; I only knew I was going after Ahmose myself. "Do you know what happens to women who take something from me?"
Her tone was like a ripple in a lake of ice. I spun around and met her gaze with unyielding rage. I immediately knew where this conversation was headed. Iset had the face of an angel, but her jealous heart held the fury of a monster. "Do you mean your worthless husband?" I hissed. "One cannot take something that is given away so easily!"
My words must have penetrated her cool façade because her lips quivered and her eyes flared. "He only wanders from our bed because my womb is as dry as the Egyptian summer! My body cannot give him the son he desires, but his heart loves only me! And you," she screamed. "You thought you would give him what I cannot! Did you believe he would favor you if you went to his room that night and crawled into bed with him?" Tears sprung to her eyes. She was in hysterics now. "My husband was banished from his own home because of you!"
"How dare you!" The room around me began to spin as the ferocity of my wrath seized my body. I approached her and my hands curled into angry fists. "How dare you speak of this in the room I lay with my husband! You are a vindictive serpent just like Kephri!"
"Kephri," she spat. "That vulgar harlot was a waste of precious air! I am glad she is dead..." Iset halted midsentence and bit her lip. I grasped the edge of the table and supported my weight so I would not plummet with the spinning room.
"You killed Kephri," I gasped. The realization hit me with the force of a thousand pounds. "You killed Kephri in a jealous rage, and you let Menefer take the fall for it!"
"Fall?" she laughed as if she had fulfilled a great accomplished. "It was more of a plunge."
Shaking, I came from the corner to face her. "What do you mean?"
Iset noticed my trembling fists and grinned. "Your outstanding beauty is matched only by your fiery spirit. You have the temper of an Egyptian asp." She tilted her head to the side, and her thick black hair cascaded over her bronzed shoulder like a waterfall of darkness. "I'll never understand why the girl's death struck you so deeply. She was merely a servant."
"She was my friend!" I cried. "Did you have something to do with her premature death?"
Iset drew in a breath and smiled. "Yes, I killed Kephri. She was the only one standing between my husband and me. We were happy before...I knew if Kephri was out of the way we could be happy again. But he only grew more distant from me. Of course he didn't suspect my involvement... Planting the murder weapon in the servant girl's room was more than enough to convince everyone. But you..." her hateful eyes locked with mine. "You began meddling. I couldn't let you prove the girl's innocence, lest they would continue searching for the true killer and eventually capture me. If you had just left it alone, I wouldn't have had to persuade the girl that jumping to her death would be more merciful than Pharaoh's verdict."
I crossed the short distance that separated us and slapped her face. My hand burned from the force of impact. She shrank back with a startled yelp. Blood oozed from the corner of her lip and she wiped it with her fingers to observe the severity of her injury. "Wench," she hissed, and pulling a dagger from her robe, lunged at me. "I will get rid of you as efficiently as Kephri, and then my husband and I shall take our rightful places as King and Queen of Egypt."
Blood became ice in my veins. Understanding came to me; the reason behind her abrupt visit. Though the baskets she brought hadn't contained asps coiled treacherously in the bottoms, she still planned to kill me. Where was Ahmose? I shot a panicked glance at the door and prayed he would come in anytime. She swung at me again, and I caught her wrist, but she grabbed me by the throat with her other hand. She pushed me down and we both landed on the bed. I gasped for air and held her wrist above my face as she straddled me, trying to slice me with the dagger.
Would this be my last night of life? The pointed edge of the blade glinted in the lowlight of the alabaster lamps. I struggled to keep the blade from touching my neck, but as Iset shifted most of her weight onto her arms, it became even more difficult to struggle against her.
I wanted to scream for the guards, but the hand that grasped my neck squeezed my wind pipe, making it difficult to even breathe. I couldn't budge her weight, and she was closing down on me. I closed my eyes and saw my inevitable death. Ahmose, if he was still alive, would discover my body here, bloody and mangled. Memories of my past came tumbling back as well. I saw a much younger version of myself with Father in our family's beautiful plantation home back in Georgia. Then I saw myself, older, visiting Aunt Clair in Egypt while she was studying as an intern in Cairo. And then I envisioned Ahmose, the lost King of Egypt, standing in the city the first day I arrived in ancient Egypt. I remembered our first night together, how his hands and lips had felt against my tender flesh as we conceived our child. Ahmose would never know our child.
Panic began to set in. I couldn't push Iset away or even budge underneath her. I tried reaching for her throat, to press my fingers into the region directly above the clavicle, but she was too far out of reach, and I barely brushed her chest. I pressed my chin down on her hand forcefully, somewhat closing off her access to my airway.
Suddenly, I remembered bringing a glass of wine back from the banquet. Over her shoulder, I glimpsed the empty chalice on the table beside the bed. I was lying close to the edge, so the table was within reach. I couldn't turn my head very much, and so blindly, I reached for the goblet, with the hand that had been trying to free my throat. I had to hurry...I was running out of air...
Frantically reaching for the table, my fingertips brushed the cool metal of the chalice and with all my strength I swung it at Iset, slamming it into her face. She lost her grip on me, and I threw a punch at her throat. She wheezed, clutched her neck, and fell backwards. I rolled off the bed, and scrambled for the door.
"Don't waste your breath!" Iset cried, anticipating I was going to call for the guards. "They will not hear you!"
She paced the room, dagger in hand, eyes wide and desperate. My body trembled as adrenaline pounded in my veins. "Why are you doing this? I thought we were friends!"
Iset wiped the blood from her chin with the back of her hand. She tossed her head back and laughed. "You are a fool to believe I kept you so close because I wanted friendship. I only wanted to make sure you stayed away from my husband!"
"I never wanted him!" I cried in rage. "Pharaoh's heartbeat is the breath of humanity! There is none more honorable and righteous than him!"
"It is my husband who deserves to sit upon the throne of Egypt!" Iset snarled.
"And it is you whose hands are tainted with blood," I said. I had to get the dagger from her, whether by coercion or force. My heart labored, and the warm swirl of my unborn child snuggled in my womb, as if he was afraid. I had to protect him, and I had to find my husband. "Can you not see he does not care for you? If your husband loves you so much, why has he sent you to carry out a dangerous mission? If you are caught, you will be killed! You are the one who will be killed for this while he cowers somewhere in the shadows!"
Iset's eyes flared as my words rattled through her brain. Her expression shifted between emotions as she struggled against my words. She slowly lowered the dagger. My back brushed the table behind me, and left over from brunch earlier today, a knife remained on the golden tray. I grasped it slowly; the cool metal of the hilt suddenly filled me with a sense of urgency. I kept it hidden behind my back while maintaining Iset's gaze.
"I care about you," I said gently, and slowly stretched my hand to her. The words soiled my tongue and saliva became a stale pool in my mouth; I hoped my eyes betrayed the lie and she would believe me. "Give me the dagger, and I swear you will not be harmed. Pharaoh doesn't have to know this ever happened."
She stepped towards me, and hesitantly, lowered the dagger to her side. She lifted her other hand like she wanted to embrace me. "Would the beautiful queen really be so merciful? Is the queen's heart capable of such clemency?"
"Yes," I sighed, compelling her to come closer. I gripped the knife in my hand so tightly, my nails dug into my palm. I was shaking now, but I couldn't let my expression divulge me. Iset smiled sweetly and came closer. My eyes darted between her face and the hand that wielded the dagger. Would she try to strike at me again?
"My queen," she breathed. "You truly are Isis reincarnated."
And then she lunged at me. I caught her wrist and plunged my knife into her side, between her ribs and piercing her heart. She halted with a gurgled gasp, and for a moment, her eyes locked with mine. "No one," I whispered in a deadly tone, "endangers my family." And then I pushed her back, and she collapsed into the floor with the knife imbedded in her thorax. Blood spilled from the corners of her mouth as she coughed and then gasped her last breath.
I collapsed to my knees and watched the blood spill from her breast and pool into a dark puddle around her lifeless body. I nudged her with my heel to convince myself she was truly dead. After coming to terms with the horrible realization that I just killed someone, I climbed to my feet and glared at the door. It was a quiet night, and from the commotion we had created, the guards would have come busting in by now if they were nearby. I hurried to the door and pressed my ear against the mahogany. There was only silence.
Where were the guards? Ahmose was also missing, and I silently prayed they were together. Grasping the cool metal of the door knob, I slowly turned it and opened the door enough to peek outside. The corridor was a shadowy passage lighted by torches and moonlight. I drew in a breath to gather courage as I peered down both ways. There was no one around. I was completely alone.
I glimpsed back at Iset, and hurrying over to her limp body, I grabbed the dagger from her hand. I tucked it in my robe and closed the door behind me as I stepped into the hallway. The world around me was eerily silent, and the voice of the wind whispered as it blew in around the pillars of the open court.
I gazed out at the desert, the plain of sand shuffling beneath the breeze of the night. The wind chilled me, so I wrapped my robe tightly around me. Coming to the end of the corridor, I sidled up against the wall and peeked around the corner. The halls were entirely empty. The guards who normally protected this wing were nowhere in sight. I didn't know where I was headed. If Ahmose was still somewhere in the palace, he would most likely be in his study. But a lulling in my chest drew me in the opposite direction. A small voice that murmured in the back of my head led me toward his throne room.
I continued down the hall, pressing closely to the walls and trying to stay hidden in the shadows. But the lanterns hanging overhead made it impossible for me to hide, and I was found.
"My lady," a sweet familiar voice whispered to me from behind. My heart jumped into my throat. Startled, I spun around to find Lotus hurrying up behind me. "My lady, I have been searching for you. What is happening? All of the guards have vanished!"
"I don't know," I replied. "Where is Pharaoh?"
Lotus' thin lips pulled into a straight line and she whimpered, "I do not know, but I fear for him!"
My face grew cold as blood rushed out of it. "I am going to find him!"
I started to head away, but Lotus latched onto my arm and began to cry. "My lady, please do not leave me! I am afraid!"
I took the small girl by the shoulders and looked into her frightened face. "I want you to go back to your room and hide. Stay there until I come for you. Something is not right, and I intend to find out what is happening. I must find my husband first."
Lotus glanced back down the dark corridor cautiously. "I want to stay with you," she whimpered. The sound of footsteps thundered in the hall, and we were suddenly surrounded by guards. They wielded iron swords, weapons the palace guards had never been equipped with. An array of unfamiliar faces peered at me through the shadows of their helmets. Their leader, draped in military garments stepped forward. He regarded me with a curt and unwelcoming gaze I was not used to. These men were not our guards.
Frightened, Lotus shrank behind me and clung to my robe. "Come with me," he commanded coldly. He was a darker skinned soldier and did not appear Egyptian. His words were difficult to understand with his thick accent. I was becoming very angry as more questions suddenly came to me; who were these men? Where was my husband? Their aggressive demeanor made me wary to challenge them. Instead, I followed behind him as the other guards parted way for us and shadowed us down the corridor.
Lotus laced her arm around mine, cowering by my side as two guards behind us pressed the tips of their blades against our backs and ushered us onward. "Where are you taking me?" I demanded.
The guard glanced swiftly at me over his shoulder. "Lord Thutmosis has requested an audience with the queen of Egypt," he replied evenly.
These weren't our guards, they were his men; allies he had formed while away in Megiddo, and now he had taken the palace under siege. I was completely surrounded by them and had no way of fleeing. I squeezed Lotus' hand as my heart became heavy with grief. Was Ahmose even still alive?
We came to the large wooden doors that led to the throne room. The guards opened the doors for us, and Lotus and I stepped into the throne room. Immediately, I found Ahmose's amber eyes as he was bound in his throne by thick ropes that wound around his chest and arms. On either side of the room were archers armed with bows and quivers.
"Run away!" Ahmose cried in rage, but the guards suddenly slammed the doors closed behind us. Thutmosis stood beside Ahmose, a sword sheathed at his side.
"Ahmose!" I cried and started to run to him, but Thutmosis held up his hand and the archers readied their bows and pointed their arrows at me. I stopped as one zipped past my face, frightening me into a standstill; a warning not to step any closer to him. "Why are you here?" I growled.
Thutmosis placed his hand on Ahmose's right shoulder and grinned. "Did you honestly believe you could be rid of me?" He tossed his head back and laughed. "You must be wondering why I have not yet killed you."
I swallowed and tried to contain my frantic heart as my eyes drifted from the smoldering ones of Thutmosis to the glinting arrows that threatened to come at me. "Perhaps it is because you need something of me; something you cannot take by force."
Thutmosis glared at me, and then smirked. "You may bear the title of queen, but in spirit you are still a vulgar wanderer who was not devoured by the desert because of Pharaoh's mercy. But I did not summon you here to state such apparent observations. I have a proposition for you, Wanderer."
His hateful eyes bore into mine. I glared at his hands as I remembered how he tried to defile me long ago. My stomach twisted as I choked back vile.
My fists clenched at my sides. Thutmosis motioned to a servant, and she came to stand beside Ahmose's throne with a basket in her arms. She was one of the servants that came with Iset. They had conspired together and planned this all long.
"Agree to become my wife," he murmured and paced around Ahmose. He gripped his shoulder. "Become my queen and neither of you will be harmed. Refuse me, and the contents of this basket will be poured onto His Majesty."
My stomach quivered as I anticipated what lay within the woven reeds. I remembered the dinner platter that contained the cobra. What horrors had Thutmosis planted within this basket?
"You have a wife!" I hissed.
Thutmosis laughed. "That pitiful woman can do no more for me than the sun can nourish a desert!"
I gazed into Ahmose's amber eyes, which burned with hatred. "You want to be rid of me! Kara has no involvement in our feud! Let her go!"
"Let her go?" Thutmosis repeated in mock surprise. "She remembers nothing beyond her journey in the desert. If I release her, where will she go, and to whom? Will she not be in constant danger the second she steps outside the palace?"
Thutmosis could not be king so long as someone opposed him. Ahmose still had loyalties in Egypt, and the people would not tolerate his murder. Thutmosis must have known he would not get away with killing him. But he had easily breached the palace with an army of his own. Where were our faithful guards? Were they lying in their own blood somewhere?
No, Thutmosis would never get away with murdering Pharaoh. He would kill us both, and then cover it up. He would mark Ahmose as a dangerous heretic and remove him from history, and I would vanish with him.
Now that Thutmosis had finally overcome us, there was nothing to hinder him from claiming the throne. He wanted Pharaoh's crown, and would eliminate all who opposed him. He would kill us both anyway.
Thutmosis ran a hand along the edge of the reed basket, his fingers ghosted around the hem of the lid. "Who will you choose?" he murmured. "Him? Or me?" My eyes darted from him to Ahmose, and to the basket that threatened my husband's life.
"It depends, my lord. What lies within the basket? If I stand by my loyalty to His Majesty, will we both die a merciful death?"
Ahmose swallowed, and glanced at the basket that lingered dangerously nearby. Thutmosis eyed it then shifted his hot gaze to me. He came to me and wrapped his arm around my waist.
"Why should it matter? If you choose wisely, neither of you will perish," he replied. He ran his fingers through my hair. His breath was heavy with the scent of beer. "You are more beautiful than Isis. Do you not wish to live?"
"Not if it means being married to a savage lout like you!" I cried and shoved him away. I ran for the servant and knocked the basket out of her hands. It fell over into the floor, and a long cobra slithered from within the woven reeds and hissed at the archers.
I fumbled with the ropes that bound Ahmose to his throne, and the archers aimed their arrows at us, but hesitated to shoot. They glanced anxiously to Thutmosis, who quickly climbed to his feet.
"Kill her!" he roared, and the archers released their arrows. They came at me, glinting furiously in the firelight, freezing me in my place with paralyzing fear. I closed my eyes as I awaited death. But it did not come.
"Kara!" Ahmose's voice was like a piercing bell as he struggled in his throne against the ropes that confined him. "Kara! Gods, kill me instead!"
His back was to me, so he did not know all of the arrows had missed me. But I was unharmed only because Lotus had shielded me from them. Her arms were around me, and over her shoulder, I glimpsed the nocks of three arrows protruding from her back. I caught her weight against me and we both fell to the floor.
"Lotus!" I cried, and tried to turn her over to examine her wounds, but she clung to me.
"My lady," she panted, wincing as I brushed one of the nocks. "I am sorry, but it would seem my services to you have come to an end. I have used my back to shield my queen. I pray the gods will smile upon me." Blood seeped from the corners of her mouth and flowed along with her tears. The arrows had pierced the center of her back. Her heart and lungs were directly in their paths. I was not a surgeon or a doctor. There was nothing I could do to save her.
I clasped her hand and cried, "The gods will honor you. Though we have been acquainted for only a short while, you have given me a friendship I will never."
She grasped my hand and leaned into my shoulder, her voice barely a whisper now. "My queen, your heart is kind and your spirit is benevolent; may you live forever." And then she closed her eyes and breathed her last breath. Lotus' lifeless form in my arms wrenched my heart in a strangling grip.
"This is shameful," Thutmosis murmured. "I'll never understand why these people remain faithful to you. But you have refused me for the last time, Wanderer. I am going to make you suffer, just as I promised so long ago. I am going to murder those whom you love the most, and then I will kill you."
The time had come for me to finally face him. My heart quavered as if it had been struck with an arrow itself.
Thutmosis motioned to one of the archers and he came to stand next to him. Thutmosis raised his hand and called, "Bid Pharaoh farewell as he enters the afterlife." And then the archer released his arrow, which aimed for Ahmose's heart.
Time halted; as I drew myself from Lotus' limp arms, I threw my arms around Ahmose and shielded him as the arrow came at us. "I've always loved you," I whispered. Ahmose struggled against the ropes, trying to shove me out of its path, but it was too late. The arrow struck me, piercing my shoulder. With a strangled breath, I watched the blood flow from my wound and seep down my breast. Ahmose's eyes locked with mine, wide and bewildered, flaring with so much pain. He needn't say anything; I could read it all in the way his face shifted between grief and fury. He didn't understand why I would die for him, but now he realized how much I truly loved him. And I would continue to cling to him until I breathed my last. They could fill my back with arrows, but so long as I lived, they would not harm him.
But I could only hold on for so long. I lost my grip on Ahmose's strong form, and slumped to the ground. Ahmose's mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear his words. And as I plummeted to the tiled floor, I glimpsed something tucked within Ahmose's tunic. It was our tablet. I wasn't sure if my weak body was falling from the pain that wracked my body now, or if I was fainting.
My mind was spinning, my shoulder ached, and I lay in a pool of blood. What would happen to Ahmose if I died today? Had my lung been pierced? All of these questions, and images of our impending doom spun around in my brain as the room grew dark. Perhaps if I died today, on our wedding day, Ahmose would bury me in a tomb somewhere and Clair would discover me in the future.
My vision went dark and I slipped away into blackness. I needed to hold on to him, but I didn't understand the extent of my injury. If my lung had been pierced, I would soon bleed out and die. And the pool I lay in confessed the grimmer fate.
As I swam around in the darkness, the cool black waters of oblivion caressed my skin as I floated between life and death. The marble ceiling of the palace vanished as did the moon from the Egyptian sky, leaving only a single point of light that could easily be traced with the tip of my finger. My eyes ached and burned from the light. I wanted to be left alone in the darkness because it was peaceful and quiet. Maybe my brain imagined the dark ocean as loss of blood and oxygen deprivation brought on hallucinations.
How long could I have lasted with that wicked arrow in my shoulder? There were more microscopic enemies than there were people on the planet. I feared infection, blood loss, poison, and the evils my incapacitated body would be vulnerable to.
The threats were endless, but what would kill me first? I could suffocate from my pierced lung, I could bleed out and die from multisystem organ failure; infection could set in from improper treatment of the wound, or maybe the tip was poisoned. Something flooded my veins with fire, and my body burned all over.
Now, for the first time in months, I missed the twenty-first century. If I had been in present day Egypt, I could have easily survived this. The hospital would have brilliant doctors that could safely remove the arrow from my shoulder and repair the damage inside me. I would have antibiotics to fight off infection. But I was here in the ancient past, and everything that could save me was three thousand years away.
But I didn't want to die. I wanted to be with Ahmose. I reached into the darkness, imagining his beautiful face, and his strong fingers reaching out for mine. I sought through the darkness for him, reaching for him, my heart breaking from being separated from him. I had to find him. It wasn't fair for me to be free from the turmoil in Egypt when he had to suffer and die with his crown.
And then a warm hand grasped mine. It was very familiar to me, a sweet memory in all the blackness. But it was not Ahmose's hand that grasped mine. It belonged to someone else; someone who had also been very important to me at one time. And then I opened my eyes.