LITMIR.BIZ

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This was her mother’s prophesy unfolding. Beware the three serpents, she had warned Kiya, so long ago.

      If the viper had been the first serpent, then this asp was surely the second. Or was it? A water snake had swum by them in the oasis pool. It had veered towards her, then veered away, deterred by a brush of Tahar’s hand. If the water snake had been the second serpent, then this asp was the third. Perhaps this was not the continuance of her mother’s prophesy, but the fulfilment of it.

      But why? Why did the Gods wish Kiya dead?

      Suddenly it came to her. The tomb. She should have never heeded King Khufu’s call to service. She should have never gone to labour upon his Great Pyramid of Stone. Instead she should have listened to the priests, whose message was clear: no female should ever set foot upon a tomb. She had broken the taboo. Now the Gods were merely exacting their punishment upon her.

      Kiya resolved not to fight the asp. She would face her death bravely, for it was the Gods’ will. She took the part of her headdress that she had placed under her head and stuffed it into her mouth. To cry out would mean to wake her captors, and she refused to give them the pleasure of witnessing her death. She slowed her breathing and braced herself for agony.

      Then she felt it—the sting of two sharp fangs in the tenderest part of her thigh. The exquisite pain crackled through her body, followed by a kind of squeezing inside her that made her breath grow short. She studied Thoth’s pocked white face, which seemed to grow larger, closer.

      Her strength drained away and the needling pain in her thigh grew. She had failed her people, who asked only that she revere the Gods, that she heed their simple rules. Soon she would face Osiris, the King’s heavenly father, in his Hall of Judgement—though she probably would not even make it that far. She had no papyrus to tell her the names of the doorkeepers, nor any priest to say the spells. She did not even have any gold with which to pay the boatman.

      Not that any of it mattered. She had sinned against the Gods. She was doomed to wander for all eternity in the labyrinths of the Underworld, lost as she had always been, among strangers.

      Now the serpent’s figure slid into view, profiled against Thoth’s blurring face. The creature had climbed the entire length of her. Its hood expanded, it hovered above her, as if considering her transgressions. She would go now, willingly. She let her eyelids close.

      But behind her eyes she found only darkness. She did not hear the howls of the jackals, who guarded the gates of the Underworld. Instead, she heard the sound of footsteps in the sand.

      She could no longer feel her limbs, and the world began to spin. She heard a sharp hiss, and the rough scuffing of feet upon the ground. Then something else—a soft, wet noise, like the suckling of a babe at its mother’s breast. There was a strange tugging sensation at the site of the wound.

      Was someone attempting to suck out the venom? Yes, it did feel as if there were a mouth tugging at her thigh. There was no time for reflection, for soon an acute pain ripped through the numbness in her leg. She had never felt such agony—not even when she had been pierced by the Libu blade. She opened her mouth to scream and felt a large hand over it.

      ‘Stay silent,’ the trader’s voice growled.

      She bit down hard on the cloth again. The feeling of suction at the site of the bite returned, then ceased.

      ‘Tahar,’ sneered the Chief. He muttered something in the Libu tongue, then bent over Kiya and switched to Khemetian. ‘What is wrong, slave?’ he asked.

      Kiya felt the fabric of her headdress being arranged to cover her face.

      ‘The boy will not answer you,’ explained Tahar. ‘He has suffered the bite of an asp. He is all but dead.’

      ‘Are you alive, boy?’ asked the Chief, ignoring Tahar. Kiya stayed silent. ‘Let me see you.’ Kiya could feel the fabric of her headdress being tugged.

      ‘There is no need to look at the site,’ the trader explained steadily. ‘It is already too late to stop the poison.’ His voice was like the edge of a blade.

      ‘There is enough moonlight to at least see the mark,’ said the Chief. ‘Or would you deny my will?’

      Kiya felt the cover come briskly off her face. She smelled the Chief’s strong, sour breath. ‘The boy still breathes,’ the Chief said. ‘If I can save him, Tahar, he is mine, for you have clearly forsaken him.’

      Kiya felt her wrap being folded back, then a sudden sharp pain as the Chief’s finger probed the tender site where the asp’s fangs had penetrated her thigh. He pushed his hand further up, and she drew a breath when she felt Chief’s bony fingers discover her woman’s mound.

      ‘What is this?’ the Chief exclaimed. ‘Not a boy at all!’ The Chief yanked his arm from beneath Kiya’s wrap. ‘You have lied to us, Tahar.’

      Kiya opened her eyes, but could see only shadows all around her. Her body was limp with exhaustion, but she felt a small tingling sensation returning to her legs, and the tightness in her chest had diminished. She saw the shapes of slumbering men stirring upon the ground. They growled and moaned, still heavy with the effects of the wine. The shadowy figures of two men stood above her, motionless.

      ‘If you give her to me now I will forgive you,’ whispered the smaller shadow—the Chief.

      ‘Never. She is mine.’

      ‘She is ours,’ the Chief said, his voice growing louder. ‘She is a spoil of the raid. She belongs to every man here.’

      ‘Nay, she belongs to me and me alone.’

      What happened next Kiya wasn’t entirely sure. She felt her limp body being scooped into the trader’s strong arms. She was placed atop the horse and felt the trader’s large, warm body slide behind hers. He gripped her tightly by the waist.

      ‘Do not fight me,’ he whispered with hot breath. ‘Not now.’

      As they rode away she heard the frantic sound of the Chief’s shouts. Though she did not speak the Libu tongue, she could imagine what he was saying.

      ‘Why do you delay, you drunken fools? Get her! She is ours!’

       Chapter Seven

      ‘I am yours, My King. You may take me if you wish,’ breathed the young woman. She had draped herself across King Khufu’s lap, as she had been instructed, though she could not bring herself to relax her limbs.

      ‘I wish you would get off my legs,’ said the King. ‘You are stiffer than a mummy.’

      The woman scrambled to the floor and waited obediently upon her knees.

      ‘Just rub my feet, woman,’ the King bristled.

      The King’s newest concubine took his soft right foot in her hand and began to knead. ‘You are the handsomest, most magnificent king who has ever lived,’ she said as she worked, for concubines were trained to flatter the King in such ways.

      ‘Indeed?’ answered King Khufu, bemused. He plucked a grape from the fruit basket on the table and stared out at the brown rooftops of Memphis.

      ‘And the most intelligent and the most powerful and...’ The woman paused.

      ‘And?’ asked the King.

      ‘And the most accomplished.’

      ‘Ah! Accomplished. Did you hear that, Imhoter?’ The King pointed a shrivelled date at his elderly advisor, who was kneeling at the foot of the King’s divan.

      ‘Yes, My King,’ said Imhoter, keeping his head bowed.

      Of course the holy man had heard it. He had been kneeling with his head bowed for some time, waiting for the King to release him from his obeisance.

      ‘Do you think she refers to my ossuary, Imhoter?’ asked the King.

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