Shiri (31 page)

The slave opened the door and looked back briefly. She gave her daughter a wan smile. “To apologise.”

XII

He heard the door to his chamber creak open and felt his breath grow shallower as his victim entered sheepishly.
She’s here, she’s come.
He’d known she would. Princess or slave, maiden or whore, when it came down to it they were all the same, they simply couldn’t resist him. He kept his back to the door and smiled at his reflection in the body length silver mirror. A warm tingling coursed through his veins and he felt himself stiffen as he heard her try to speak. It sounded halfway between a whimper and a sob. He allowed her but one word and even then he could taste her sweet fear, feel her bitter hate.

“I…”

He spoke without turning, “Your first lesson, whore; seek not to speak unless you have something worthy of my ears.”
He raised a mug of pungent frothy ale to his lips before continuing, “Aye, from now on things will be different around here. You will come to my chambers every night after dark. Make whatever excuses you want to the boy; I care not what, just come. You will bow to me, sweet princess, you will worship my cock, and you will give yourself to me in everyway I demand while I will fuck you and play with you until I’ve had my fill for the night. Then you will thank me for seeing fit to honour you with my seed and leave. I prefer to sleep alone.” He rotated slowly, a friendly smile on his face. It did not take long to dissolve into a frown. He glanced accusingly at the ale as if it were at fault.

She bowed her head, “My … m
y mistress… she is almost ready. She sends me ahead to keep you amused before she arrives.” It was like the squeaking of a mouse.

He stepped closer. Aye, it scrubbed up better than he’d have imagined truth be told, so much so that he actually lowered himself to sharing words with it. “No doubt you are skilled in the whore’s arts … pity you’re destined to die.” He took another
swig as if pondering something. “Aye, very well then, you can stay.”

He saw her breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps the Princess had threatened to give her a beating if she did not manage to please him. He circled her, assessing her worth. Wearing her mistress’s jewels, drowned in perfumes and with those big brown eyes, he concluded that the slave was not entirely without her charms. He walked in a broad circle around her, discussing her pros and cons with the statue of
Amun
that filled one corner of the room, “Her teats are too small, her hips too narrow. Aye, aye, a decent enough look to her all the same.”

Though shorter in stature and lacking the crimson locks, there was something in her features that vaguely reminded Pharaoh of the Princess. The resemblance pleased him. But what pleased him most were those eyes, drowned in the shadow of her glorious mistress he’d failed to notice them before, bu
t he noticed them now.
Big brown pools brimming with fear and hate.
A distant memory stirred, he could not quite place it but he felt an unexpected thrill of excitement all the same. This one might even be worth taking in her own right.

Abruptly, Pharaoh concluded that her gown concealed far too much for him
to make an educated assessment. “Remove it,” he ordered before bringing the ale to his lips. His body continued to sway. He felt a little too drunk.

He offered the statue of
Amun
a low bow, arms outstretched before staggering towards it. He steadied himself by pressing a hand against the statue’s base. When he turned the slave was still in her robes. He blinked; a slow drunken blink. Perhaps he had not told her to remove them; no, he was sure he had. “Remove your…” he paused struggling to think of the words, “Take off your clothes,” he commanded with a self-satisfied grin, “or I’ll cut them off, and cut you while I’m at it.” He brandished his blade briefly before returning it to his hilt.
Yes, this one would be fun.

He was at the opposite end of the room to her now, staring at her, waiting for her to obey, expecting no less. And slowly the slave complied, at least to some degree. She allowed her dress to fall about her waist. He saw her hand slip inside it. The move was clumsy, nervous. She took a faltering step towards him. The
hand remained hidden.
She is concealing something.
She took another step towards him. “Remove your … the rest.”

She paused, bit her lip.
“My Pharaoh may remove them for me if he wishes.” She smiled seductively and beckoned him closer. His eyes darkened.
Something was not right in this.
Something was not right in those eyes. There was too much revulsion in them, too much fury.
Perhaps the Princess had not sent her to pleasure me at all, perhaps she sent her to …
the thought sobered him just a little.
“Do not make me tell you again, slut. Remove them and toss them aside.”

He saw a flash of fearsome hate in her eyes then. He could see her struggling to conceal it before quickly nodding. She wriggled out of the last folds of her linen a little awkwardly. Pharaoh’s eyes focused on her right hand. Still she kept it hidden and when her robes finally fell to the floor, leaving her naked and vulnerable, that hand had somehow found its way behind her back. She took two additional steps towards him. He allowed his fingers to rest on the hilt of his blade
and stopped her with a gesture. “Why do you not kneel before your betters, whore?”

The slave paused mid-step, struggled to find another smile a
nd slowly went to her knees. “As you … as you command, Divinity.”

He glanced to the door.
“What’s taking her so long?”

He looked back to the slave, clearly growing impatient. He took a step towards the door. The Ha
biru’s breathing grew shallower. “She’s coming, Divinity, any moment now.” She parted her lips just a little. “Can I do nothing to please you ‘till then?” She slipped a hand between her legs and her tongue slid between those lips as she offered him her mouth and anything else he desired for his pleasure. Her eyes held his in a strange embrace that seemed to say ‘come closer, just a little closer.’

Aye, something was not right in this he could feel it, even with more wine than blood in his veins he could feel it. He edged towards her all the same, if she tried to play him false it would be the worse for her. He stopped before her, the golden buckle of his kilt mere inches from her face. With those glorious brown pools staring up at him, the Princess, for
a moment at least was forgotten. “I have seen those eyes before,” he slurred, “in my dreams … or memories.” He looked at her curiously. “Were you born into your chains or are you from the Megiddo batch, like the rest of the dogs of Heliopolis?”

The slave bit her lip and looked to the floor. Pharaoh grunted as if the question were of no matter and almost in slow motion, slid his free hand to the golden buckle about his waist and unclasped it. The kilt fell to the floor leaving him naked below the waist. Shiri heard his sword … her father’s sword, clatter against the cold tiles at his feet. “You are to look up at me, whore, keep those eyes open, and you better pray you know your business
,” he emptied his goblet and tossed it aside.

She raised her head obediently, struggling to hide the hatred in her eyes. He was rubbing his manhood slowly, “Please,” she said softly, “let me.” She wrapped her left hand around it, edged her lips towards it, kissed it, her eyes, as commanded looking up promisingly at his. Even as her lips brushed against it a second time her right hand shot out from behind her back, the knife aimed with all her strength ploughing towards his side. He
caught her wrist in a beefy paw. “Too slow, whore,” he laughed, as he slammed a closed fist into her head.

Shiri awoke to a mouth full of blood, her eyes opened and there he stood, his face a horror of sm
ugness. He was saying something; she could see his lips moving but heard nothing besides a dim ringing in her ears. She slithered away from him and he strutted nonchalantly after her, her pathetic knife in his hand. And then as if a bubble burst inside her swooning head she could hear him. “A slave!” It was a barking laugh. “A fucking slave! The bitch tries to turn her wet-nurse into an assassin!”

Shiri tried to speak, tried to say it was all her, tried to tell him Tiye knew nothing. She gagged on her own blood, coughed and spluttered on the floor at the Godking’
s feet. She crawled towards him. “Not her,” she garbled. “Not her … all … all me … all…” He silenced her with kick in the face and again the room whirled about her. An instant later he grabbed her hair and began to drag her along the floor. She found herself resisting, kicking, screaming.
How was the whole of the White Palace not awakened?

Somehow she shook free of his grasp, slithering and stumbling across the floor. She felt him grab her again, by the ankle this time. He pulled her bodily backwards and then there was a knife at her throat; her knife. He pressed it against her flesh, looked into her eyes, “I’ll fuck her with your blood still warm on my hands,” he said.

“Not Tiye,” she whimpered. “I’ll ... I’ll do anything, anything, please,” he pressed the knife a little harder, began to draw it across her neck as he had to another a life time before. He felt his cock spasm in excitement as he saw the first trickle of blood in its wake. Still she whimpered and writhed in his grasp. “Tiye, Tiye, Tiye…” He heard a sigh, a whisper, a final word barely audible, another name, a different name. “Josef,” it was a defeated sob. “Josef.”

Pharaoh paused.
Josef?
He’d heard that name before; a dead prince, a corpse atop a bloody wooden stake,
Yuya … Yuya killed him … at least that’s what he’d claimed.
His eyes bored into the slave, he pressed the knife against her again, “How do you know that name? What was the Shepherd Prince to you?”

The slave wriggled and squirmed in his grasp, refused to answer him. Amenh
otep’s breathing grew shallower.
Yuya, this whore’s master, Yuya, the Red One’s father, Yuya, who ever seeks to give the Habiru greater freedoms.
A familiar voice echoed in his head.
“The shepherd means to free his flock!”
Through a haze of wine and ale he shook his head. Yuya bought them all, all the beaten vermin of a failed rebellion. He’d bought them all, every one. He’d wanted no others, not Nubians, not Kushites only them, only the children of Jezreel.
Why, does he refuse to have them beaten? Why does he care so much? Why does he treat them almost as if they were of his own blood?

He looked in those big brown pools again and his face turned deathly pale, his grip loosened just a little, “He is not Yuya … he … he is the Shepherd Prince.”

She twisted and all at once was free. For a moment, he let her go. She was harmless, trapped in the corner like a rabbit in its burrow. Pharaoh’s heart was pounding.
He seeks their freedom, he would arm them next.
“Yuya must die. They all must die,” he said aloud. “Every man, every boy-child that can hold a sword, every firstborn in its cradle, they must die, every one.”

Shiri felt
her fingers clench into a fist. “No!” He wasn’t looking at her. “NO!” She screeched and lunged in one. Her fist collided with his jaw. He barely flinched. He swiped at her with the tiny knife. She ducked under and found herself behind him. He swivelled on drunken legs and came after her. He swung again, she jumped back to avoid the strike, tripped over something and fell into a sitting position. He laughed.

Her hand touched something hard, something familiar. Her fingers closed around it and she rose imbued with a sense of sudden power. He pounced on her and she met him with her father’s sword.

He stared open-mouthed at the blade sheathed halfway to the hilt in his gut. He raised his hand and grabbed her throat. She pushed the blade deeper.
Why did he not die?
He squeezed and she couldn’t breathe. He squeezed harder and her legs began to fail. Her vision blurred and she collapsed to her knees, but still she gripped her father’s blade. With a final effort and strength she didn’t know she had, she ripped Lady from the monster’s guts and was rewarded by a torrent of blood and gore. He fell back and the next thing she remembered was standing over him, naked, bloody, triumphant.

In half a daze he met those eyes again, big and brown and filled with hate and sudden
ly he knew where he’d seen them.
The eyes that haunt my dreams, it’s her, the shepherd’s … the shepherd’s wife, somehow, through death and time she’s found me.

Shiri raised Lady to his throat and let him know her kiss was death. He tried to speak to the eyes. It came out as a garbled mess of blo
od and spittle. “You … your last word … you said a name … you said a name.” His head lolled a little to the side. “Shari … the name ... the name was Shari.”

The shepherd girl shook her head, “No, Divinity. The name was Shiri.” She plunged Lady deep into his throat. Gouts of steaming red liquid spat from the wound and covered her to the elbows. His eyes rolled back and his head flopped. Slowly, she withdrew her father’s blade.

She hovered there for a moment and then for no reason she could later recall she plunged Lady into him again. “The name was Shiri!” She ploughed the sword into his heart. “The name was Shiri!” She pulled Lady free and then one last time she thrust her into him again, buried her in his destroyed throat, jammed her up into his skull and left her there. She stumbled backwards staring at him in icy silence.
The name was Shiri.