Entombed with her enemy...

Will her heart remain unscathed?

Left to die in the tomb of her beloved Pharaoh Tausret, royal adviser Aya would be silenced forever by those who seek power. But she is not alone! Egyptian soldier Intef is there to steal her mistress’s gold. Now they must work together to escape. This handsome warrior is Aya’s enemy, yet it’s passion not hatred that burns between them. Can their desire withstand the revelations that await them outside?

GRETA GILBERT’s passion for ancient history began with a teenage crush on Indiana Jones. As an adult she landed her dream job at National Geographic Learning, where her colleagues—former archaeologists—helped her learn to keep her facts straight. Now she lives in South Baja, Mexico, where she continues to study the ancients. She is especially intrigued by ancient mysteries, and always keeps a little Indiana Jones inside her heart.

Also by Greta Gilbert

Mastered by Her Slave

Enslaved by the Desert Trader

The Spaniard’s Innocent Maiden

In Thrall to the Enemy Commander

Forbidden to the Gladiator

Seduced by Her Rebel Warrior

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Saved by Her Enemy Warrior

Greta Gilbert

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90133-2

SAVED BY HER ENEMY WARRIOR

© 2020 Greta Gilbert

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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For my beloved Aunty Kathy,

our family’s reigning queen,

who has loved and inspired me all my life.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One
1189 bce—Valley of the Kings royal burial ground, west of Thebes—modern Luxor—Egypt

Aya was kneeling in prayer when she felt the guard’s hand cover her mouth. She tried to cry out, but his large palm muted the sound. ‘Do not scream,’ he muttered in her ear. ‘Remember your dignity.’

He tugged her head backwards and she felt the cool of a blade against her throat. ‘It will be over soon,’ he assured her. ‘Close your eyes.’

Aya did as she was told. Quickly, she thought. A merciful death.

A bronze voice sliced the silence. ‘Cease.’

Aya opened her eyes to discover the High Priest of Amun standing over her, the torchlight flickering on his powdered face. He blinked at the guard. ‘No blood may be spilled inside a house of eternity. Use rope.’

There was a rush of movement into the burial chamber. Aya was seized by her arms and lifted, and her feet were pulled out from beneath her.

‘Behind the shrine,’ the High Priest directed and Aya was carried across the chamber like a goat.

‘Holy One,’ she said. ‘What is happening?’

She was tossed to the floor beside the hut-sized golden container that had been constructed around Pharaoh’s sarcophagus. She tried to sit up, but the guard’s large palm held her down.

‘Pharaoh’s Most Beloved Advisor is irrelevant now,’ he muttered, his sour breath in her ear. ‘She will follow Pharaoh to the fields of paradise.’

Aya perceived a rope being threaded between her bound arms and wrapped around the shrine.

She heard the sound of men heaving. Her wrists rose up above her head, suspended by a rope she could not see.

‘The pectoral,’ the High Priest intoned. Aya felt the weight of her golden pectoral necklace—the most valuable thing she owned—being lifted off her chest.

She tried to kick, but her feet were already bound. They were being lifted above the floor like her wrists had been.

‘I beg you to cease!’ she shouted at last and, when she heard the High Priest’s bemused grunt, she began to sob. ‘For the love of Isis.’

‘Silence her,’ he snapped and Aya felt a blow to her stomach.

‘Holy Ones!’ she shouted. Another blow. ‘Guards!’ A blow to her side, her head, her face...nothing.

When her wits returned, Aya heard the sound of bricks being stacked in mud. If death had a sound, this was it. Scoop, swish, set. Her head throbbed and her heart filled with dread. She moved to cover her ears, forgetting that her wrists were tied.

She opened her eyes.

If death had an aura, it was the quality of torchlight. It flashed across the painted ceiling, illuminating the garish yellow stars. She was lying on her back, her ankles also tied, and now she knew why the men had bound her this way.

Tied beside the shrine of the deceased, she could not show herself to the priests standing at the entrance to the chamber. She could not display her tears or appeal to them for mercy. She could not see them and they could not see her. She could only whimper in misery and stare up at those terrible stars, ablaze in the mocking torchlight.

Myrrh.

Its scent was everywhere. The priests had filled the chamber with its anise-tinged smoke. ‘The Breath of Isis’, it was called, because it was supposed to invoke the divine protectoress. But it only clogged Aya’s lungs, giving her the unusual sensation of drowning. If death had a scent, surely it was that of myrrh.

She was seized by a spasm of coughs. She strained against her bonds, forgetting that she could not cover her nose. She could do nothing but let her lungs clear themselves in the sanctified air of the tomb, feeling all the while that she was despoiling it. She should not be here, but she was tied. Tied.

She filled her voice with deference. ‘Is this some manner of test, Holy Ones?’ She pictured them lingering in the shadowy corridor just beyond the chamber, their bald heads gleaming in the torchlight. ‘Surely you do not mean to leave me here?’

The practice of burying living servants with dead kings had been forbidden in Egypt for thousands of years and the men at the entrance to the chamber knew it. It was an abhorrence, an offence to ma’at, the principle of order and justice. Yet not a single voice responded to her query.

‘Venerable priests,’ she began. ‘I beg you. Do not condemn me thus. I have never stolen. I have never cursed the gods. I have never harmed an elder, or a child, or spoken ill of anyone. I have served the Living God in all...’ she paused ‘...in most things.’

She awaited a response, but there was only the diminishing torchlight, the thickening air and the dogged rhythm of the bricks, as if the jackal-headed god of death himself were stacking them.

Her voice cracked. ‘I refer you to Pharaoh’s funeral papyrus,’ she said. And to your own humanity, by the gods. ‘I am to be freed from service! It has been written.’

But it was as if she were talking to the paintings on the walls.

Scoop, swish, set.

‘If you do not free me, you defy the will of a god!’ she shouted. ‘You place Great Egypt in danger.’

So why were the priests not responding? Aya searched her heart—the centre of all her thoughts—and a dark knowing descended. The priests did not care whether or not they offended Pharaoh Tausret, because they had never believed in Pharaoh Tausret at all.

Because Pharaoh Tausret had been a woman.

‘I can pay,’ Aya lied. ‘There is a cache of gold hidden in Pharaoh’s Temple of Millions of Years. I can show you where it is.’

She thought she heard someone grunt, followed by a breeze of whispers. Perhaps her lie had found some adherents among the priests and other officials. Perhaps the High Priest himself was considering her offer? She had long suspected his designs on the Horus throne.

The High Priest was not the only man with such an ambition. General Setnakht, a rebel general with his base right there in Thebes, had sought the double crown throughout Tausret’s reign. It was rumoured that he, too, was gathering his army and that Setnakht and the High Priest would soon face each other in battle, with the Horus throne as the prize.

There was only one problem with their efforts. Neither of the pretenders could prove a link to the royal bloodline. Without royal blood, none could win the loyalty of all the people. Royal blood was divine blood and only a god was allowed to sit on the throne of Egypt.

Whichever man succeeded in taking the throne would claim a link to Pharaoh’s bloodline and Aya was the only person who could prove him wrong.

Which was why it seemed that she was doomed.

‘You may save yourself,’ the High Priest said suddenly. The sounds of bricklaying ceased. ‘Tell me where I may find Tausret’s heir.’

Aya bit her tongue. She did not know exactly where the heir resided, but she knew enough. It was a secret that Pharaoh had shared with Aya alone. How did the High Priest know she kept it?

Perhaps he had only guessed that Aya knew about the heir. Perhaps he thought that the threat of entombment would be enough to coax her secrets from her.

‘Speak now, woman!’ the High Priest thundered. ‘Or be silent for ever!’

It was her chance. If she would reveal the location of Pharaoh Tausret’s only living son, she could save her own life.

But it was a confession she could not make. She had been a poor counsellor and an even poorer protector, but a traitor she was not. She would keep the heir’s existence hidden for ever, for that had been Pharaoh’s dying wish.

Scoop, swish, set.

Now it was Aya who said not a word and the moments seemed to stretch into years. She had failed Pharaoh in many things, but she would not fail her in this.

‘I will find him, you know,’ snapped the High Priest. ‘And I will kill him.’

Aya heard another brick slide into place and the sound of voices moving further and further away. ‘You will not find him,’ she whispered, as if merely saying the words could somehow make them true.

She would not allow herself to cry, though tears seeped from her eyes anyway. She needed to remember her dignity, as the guard had said. She had begged and grovelled and debased herself enough. Now it was time to quietly accept her fate.

‘The will of Osiris,’ she whispered and a stream of tears dribbled into her mouth. They tasted of kohl and brine, of sour and salt. They were the taste of suffering, of a long, slow, terrible death.

There was not a single sound now and even the painted stars had ceased to shine. And Aya was alone.

Chapter Two

Intef held his breath, testing the quiet. It had begun only moments ago, when the voices had faded and the sound of stacking bricks had ceased. Bless the gods for the peace. The woman’s grief-stricken ravings had been almost too piteous to bear—and so very loud.

‘I am to be freed from service,’ she had cried, betraying her advanced age. It seemed that the old woman had served Pharaoh all her life, for her freedom had become so precious to her that she was threatening to remain in the burial chamber if she did not receive it. She had even offered to lead the priests to gold in exchange for it.

She had obviously been overwhelmed by grief and in the end they had had to bind her limbs with rope just to extract her from the chamber.

That had been at least an hour ago, but Intef knew he could not yet emerge from the stuffy chest in which he huddled. The tomb was not yet empty. A whole gang of servants were currently filling its long entrance corridor with earth. He thought he could hear the faint spilling of their buckets. If he could hear them, then they would be able to hear him.

Another hour, he decided.

He exhaled, forcing his breath through the layers of linen surrounding him and reminded himself to stay calm. He had nine days, after all. That was how long the tomb workers had assured him that one man could survive inside a tomb before the spirits of the Underworld claimed him.

Intef turned away from the morbid thought. He had more immediate concerns, such as how to adjust the angle of his throbbing neck. He was not sure he could wait much longer. He was wretched with hunger and thirst and both his legs had gone numb.

How many hours had it been since the priest Hepu had stuffed him inside this wooden prison? Twenty at least, for it had been late the previous night when Intef had met the priest outside Tausret’s mortuary temple. He thought back to the strange encounter.

‘You are Setnakht’s beetle?’ Hepu asked. Like Intef, the priest had been working in secret for the rebel Generals—first Amenmesse, then Setnakht—for most of his life.

‘I am indeed, Holy Brother,’ Intef replied. ‘It is nice to finally meet you.’

Hepu looked disappointed. ‘You are too tall for the chest I had planned.’

‘Do you have another? Something with a rooftop bed and a view to the river?’ Intef jested.

‘You are nervous,’ said Hepu.

‘On the contrary, I am delighted to begin my adventure.’

The priest shook his head. ‘You should be nervous. I know not of a single living man who would do what you are about to do.’

‘How difficult could it be?’ asked Intef. ‘I will relax inside a chest for the next few hours, then get carried by royal chest bearers into the dusty hills. After another short rest, I will emerge from the chest into a lovely tomb, then chisel my way out through a bit of stone.’

‘When you realise what you have done, you must not panic,’ said the priest. He gazed at the hammer and chisel Intef carried. ‘You think those are your greatest tools, but they are not.’

Intef sighed. How priests loved to give advice. ‘What, I beg, is my greatest tool?’

‘Calm,’ said Hepu. ‘Come, we must hurry.’

Hepu sneaked Intef into the pillared staging hall and they stumbled amid the deceased Pharaoh’s sacred grave goods. ‘I have replaced the beer with water in a dozen amphorae bound for the tomb,’ he whispered. ‘They will be on the second shelf in the northeast storage room.’

‘Remind me again, Hepu, where is that particular room?’

Hepu expelled a heavy sigh. ‘Nobody has instructed you in the layout of the tomb?’

‘The men in the tomb workers’ village said it was very long, with two large chambers.’

‘By Horus,’ Hepu held out his arm. ‘Imagine this is the tomb,’ he said. He ran his hand down his forearm. ‘This part is simply a long corridor leading down to the chambers. After Pharaoh—and you—are entombed, it will be filled in with earth.’

‘I knew that much,’ Intef said.

Hepu arched a greying brow, then opened his palms and held them slightly apart. ‘This is what you will be left with—two large chambers connected by another corridor.’ He raised his left hand. ‘Your journey will end when you reach the second or main chamber. It is the deepest part of the tomb.’ He touched each corner of his hand. ‘There are four storage rooms adjoining the main chamber. Your chest will be placed inside one. In one of the other storage rooms you will find the water containers I mentioned, along with beer and bread.’

‘Olive bread?’ asked Intef.

Hepu ignored Intef’s attempt at levity. ‘To reach the first chamber, the false chamber, you must break through the main chamber’s security seal and go up this corridor.’ Hepu pointed to the space between his palms to indicate the corridor that joined them. ‘Just before you reach the false chamber, you will notice two entryways on either side of the corridor. Those are the unfinished chambers.’

‘Where Pharaoh Tausret’s greatest treasures lie?’ asked Intef.

‘For the sake of the rebellion, let us hope,’ said the priest. He raised his right hand. ‘You will have to break through another brick seal to reach the false chamber. It is slightly smaller than the main chamber but is similarly flanked by four storage rooms. It is also where you will carve your tunnel,’ said Hepu. ‘Ah, here we are.’

They had arrived at Intef’s unlikely ferry—a large ebony chest. Hepu opened the lid to reveal a cache of the late Pharaoh’s undergarments. ‘Get in,’ he said.

‘You must be jesting,’ said Intef.

But Hepu was a man who did not jest and Intef held his breath as Hepu covered him with layers of lavender-smelling loincloths.

‘You could not have chosen a chest full of salted beef?’ mumbled Intef.

If their mission succeeded, Hepu would be raised to the priesthood of one of the larger temples of Thebes. If it failed, he would likely lose his head.

Hepu arranged the last layer of garments atop Intef and sighed. ‘Forgive us, oh, mighty gods,’ he said. ‘We labour for the good of Egypt.’ Then he closed the chest and locked it shut.

Intef thought back to Hepu’s strange advice: ‘When you realise what you have done, you must not panic.’

Who was panicking? If there was any cause for panic, it was because he would be smelling like a woman for the next nine days.

It was an ignominious mission to be sure. Instead of marching alongside General Setnakht on his way to seize the empty throne of Egypt, Intef had agreed to be buried inside a tomb surrounded by a woman’s delicates.

And that had not even been the worst of his debasement. The processional journey from Pharaoh Tausret’s House of Millions of Years to her House of Eternity the following morning had been something akin to being baked slowly in an oven. At one point he had caught himself moaning.

Thankfully, none of the chest-bearers seemed to notice. Nor did the onlookers, whose oohs and ahhs only added to the cacophony. Who could detect a small moan above the jangling sistrums of the priestesses and the shrieks of the professional mourning women?

Then there was the distraction of Pharaoh herself, who had been transfigured into the god of resurrection via a solid gold coffin made in the shape of Osiris. A troupe of milk-bearers purified the ground before her as she floated towards her tomb on a sled borne by six white bulls.

The onlookers obviously revered her: she was the last direct descendant of Rameses the Great Ancestor, the last person in Egypt to carry that divine blood.

Though to be fair, she no longer carried any blood at all. Just seventy days ago, it had been drained by the embalmers and her cranial matter had been removed through her nose. Four of her organs had been preserved in sacred canopic jars, leaving her heart in its place, and her entire royal body had been smothered in Natron Valley salt.

After thirty-five days in salt, her royal corpse was then cleaned and wrapped in linen strips cut from her own robes. Precious amulets were placed beneath those linens, which were then sealed in place by unguent-scented resins.

Every preparation had been made to preserve Pharaoh Tausret in a journey that—it occurred to Intef—had begun only moments ago, just after sunset.

It was the first of the twelve hours of night and Tausret’s soul was journeying through the Underworld while Intef waited inside the chest that contained her undergarments.

Intef might have laughed. It was a humorous situation to be sure. He would retell it to his fellow soldiers one day to riotous applause.

‘And it was dark inside the tomb, you see,’ he would say, ‘and hot as the mines of Hammamat. There was not a single breeze. The air stood as still as death. But I took comfort among Pharaoh’s loincloths, for they smelled of lavender and felt like soft clouds...’

He could hear their laughter already. ‘Ha-ha-ha!’ they roared. ‘Ho-ho-ho!’

Not really, though. He was fooling himself. It was not his friends’ imagined laughter he heard, it was the pounding of his own heart inside his ears.

Chapter Three

Aya had run out of prayers. The heir was in danger and there was nothing she could do to protect him. She tugged hopelessly at her bonds. Already she was losing her strength. She was failing Tausret in death as she had failed her Pharaoh in life, and the people of Egypt would suffer for it.

No—this could not be. How had she not anticipated the High Priest’s treachery? He was the wealthiest, most powerful man in Egypt, with an ambition to match his lands. Now that the throne was empty, he would stop at nothing to seize it.

There were only two things in his way: General Setnakht, the rebel leader in the South, and the true heir to the double crown, whom most did not believe even existed.

But Aya knew otherwise and, apparently, so did the High Priest.

He had meant to scare the heir’s location from Aya by tying her here, but it was of little consequence that he had failed. He had informants in every village and spies in every nome. He would set his minions upon the North, focusing his attentions on the Delta, where Tausret had made her capital.

Aya could picture the High Priest’s spies combing the Delta’s waterways and sifting through its cities. We seek a young man of unusually good education, they would say, flashing the image of a triangle inside a circle. He wears this tattoo somewhere upon his skin.

A bounty would be offered and peasants from Memphis to Avaris would jump at the chance to collect. Eventually, the young man would be found—Tausret’s son, the last living god in Egypt—and slaughtered like a bull.

The corrupt High Priest would then only have to defeat the rebel General Setnakht, an easy enough endeavour when he combined Pharaoh’s standing army with his own loyalists. And thus a new dynasty would be founded, a new history chiselled into stone. The priest would rob the treasury to build his monuments and neglect the peasants, just as he had done in his tenure at the Temple of Amun. Egypt would be ruined.

And Aya could do nothing about it. She could only stare into the inky blackness and wait for her end to come.

She passed the moments reciting stories inside her head.

This is a tale of two brothers, one from the North and one from the South...

Words had power; they carried magic.

This is the story of the eloquent peasant. He never knew his words were recorded for the pleasure of the King...

When woven into a tale, words could cradle the heart.

This is the story of Sinuhe who wandered far from his home. ‘Take me back, long road. Take me home to Egypt...’

Still, there did not seem to be enough words in the world to allay her misery.

Her back ached, her stomach throbbed and her throat scratched with thirst. How long would she survive, bound as she was, without the ability to move? She did not wish to know. Time was passing so slowly, as if it had become a frozen thing, giving her the opportunity to consider all the things she had never done.

She had never ridden a horse or tended a garden. She had never visited her father’s homeland, or learned how to properly shoot an arrow. She had failed in her efforts to learn Akkadian and had never once gone swimming in the Great Green Sea.

She had never before fallen in love.

A tear surfaced. Of all the things to make her weep! She had always suspected romantic love to be a kind of madness—a chaotic whirlwind of souls that always seemed to end in woe.

Why did she care that she had never fallen in love? She had certainly enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh. Like all young women, she had attended the Festival of Drunkenness and indulged in its holy rites. She had painted her body with henna and anointed it with frankincense oil and stepped inside the goddess’s temple, where she had selected from among the many eager young men.

‘Will you make me your Hathor?’ she had asked, several different times over the years. Always her chosen partner had accepted and they would share a cup of beer and lie together, helping to ensure that season’s flood.

Though now, at her advanced age of four and twenty, even that sacred indulgence had lost much of its intrigue.

Once, Aya had made bold to ask Pharaoh if she had ever fallen in love.

‘Long ago,’ Tausret had admitted with a mysterious grin. She had pressed her fingers to her lips in the sign of a secret. ‘With a Libyan man—a warrior. He had blue eyes just like yours.’

‘How did you know it was love? How did it feel?’

‘As though my soul opened up and gifts began to flow out of it,’ Tausret had said, her dark eyes sparkling.

Aya had frowned.

‘As though I could embrace the hippos and kiss the crocodiles,’ Tausret had added, laughing.

‘You jest, Mistress?’ Tausret never jested. She rarely even smiled.

‘I merely attempt to describe the indescribable,’ Tausret had waxed. ‘How I wish that you could experience it for yourself, Aya! One day you will.’

‘But how will I know it is love?’ Aya had asked.

‘You will feel as if you are a heavy stone who has suddenly exploded into a cloud of dust.’

It was true, then—love was madness. Clearly it was, if it could inspire the Living God to spout such strange poetry.

Pah! Life was mad enough as it was. Besides, romantic love usually required the participation of a man and men could not be trusted.

Did you trust your Libyan? That was what she should have asked Tausret that day. Certainly the answer would have been no. For a woman in power, men were as treacherous as a wadi in a storm.

Or a priest inside a tomb.

Her stomach continued to ache and she was clinging to each breath as if it were a memory.

‘The will of Osiris,’ she said. ‘Let it be done.’

There it was again—the whisper. It diffused into the air like a puff of smoke. It was louder this time and he could distinguish the words: ‘The will of Osiris. Let it be done.’

He was hearing things now. He had been stuffed inside this wooden oven for so long that his mind had been cooked.

Unless Pharaoh herself had issued the whisper. But that was impossible.

It would be many hours before Pharaoh’s akh, her transfigured spirit, would return from its journey. Until then, the only soul inside the chamber was Intef, along with a dried, withered mummy inside a coffin of gold.

And the soft echo of a sigh.

Intef blinked. First whispers and now a sigh? But it could not be so. Surely it was Intef himself who had sighed.

He moved his sweaty brow against the soft linen surrounding him. It had grown warmer inside the chamber since the entryway had been sealed. He would need to break through those mud bricks soon.

Intef recalled how the mad old woman had protested the setting of the bricks to seal the chamber. Did she not understand the necessity of sealing the chamber? Tomb robbery was a veritable plague across Egypt and especially here, in the Pharaohs’ royal burial grounds.

Though it was possible the woman had not been protesting the sealing of the chamber itself, but merely its contents. ‘You will not find him,’ she had added in a whisper, referring to the fabled heir to the throne.

Perhaps the woman had truly lost her wits. Everyone knew that Tausret had been unable to produce an heir for her late husband, Pharaoh Seti the Second. Tausret’s fallow field was so widely known that it had lately become the topic of songs and laments. In a sense it was the very reason Intef was here.

Intef paused, hearing another noise. He was certain that he had not produced it. It seemed to have come from the middle of the chamber.

‘Oouu...’

Not a sigh, but a strange, plaintive sound that might have been emanating from the sarcophagus itself. He focused his attention, hardly believing his ears. It sounded very much like a woman crying.

Had one of the slaves been left behind? It could not be. To bury a person inside a house of eternity was against the law—slave or not. It was also contrary to every religious text that had ever been written. There could be only one woman inside this House of Eternity, and she was no longer of this world.

‘Oouu...’

There it was again. Intef’s whole body stiffened. This is not real, he told himself, and then thought back to Hepu’s grave advice. No matter what Intef did, he must not panic. ‘The will of Osiris,’ he said. ‘Let it be done.’ He gripped his bronze chisel and wedged it between the wood.

There was the sound of splitting wood, and Aya nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘Pharaoh?’ No, it could not be. The akh of her beloved mistress was well on its way to the Underworld by now.

Was it not?

Aya’s heart pounded. ‘Pharaoh Tausret?’ she said again. She wiped her eyes against her bound hands and peered into the darkness.

‘Stand down, wretched demon!’ shouted a deep, masculine voice.

Aya shrieked. She strained against her bonds, craning her neck.

‘Who speaks, by the gods?’ commanded Aya. ‘Name yourself!’

There was a loud crash, as if a piece of holy furniture had just been destroyed. ‘Mother of—’

‘Cease your cursing!’ shouted Aya. ‘Identify yourself!’

‘Identify myself?’ gasped the spirit. ‘Identify yourself!’

‘I am Aya, Pharaoh’s Most Beloved Advisor.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘Speak your name!’

‘I am Intef, son of Sharek, soldier of Egypt,’ the voice said. ‘I—I seem to have lost the feeling in my legs.’

Aya paused. The spirit had a title? And legs?

‘Then you claim that you are...living?’ Aya asked. Madness was taking her, surely. It was the only explanation for what she thought she heard.

‘I know that I am living!’ the man—Intef—shouted. ‘I should ask you the same.’

‘I am very much living,’ said Aya. This was the strangest conversation she had ever had.

‘Well, now that we have determined that we are living, I can tell you that in this moment, I quite wish to die.’

This was truly odd. ‘Why do you wish to die?’ she asked.

‘Because it feels as though a thousand tiny scorpions are travelling down my legs, stinging as they go.’

Aya nearly laughed. Scorpions! Travelling down the legs of a real man in real pain!

He moaned. ‘My legs are on fire.’ He seemed to be sucking the air through his very teeth.

‘They are merely returning to life,’ Aya explained, feeling as if she were describing her own spirit. ‘Have patience... Intef.’

Intef, she thought—after that line of old warrior kings. She was not alone. On the contrary, she was accompanied by a warrior. Slowly, her sobs returned, but this time they were joyous.

At length his seething breaths subsided. ‘Why do you weep?’ he asked.

‘I am...grateful to hear your voice.’

‘You scold me for cursing and now you are grateful to hear my voice?’

‘Are you not grateful to hear mine?’

Another pause. ‘I had not expected to find a...woman in this House of Eternity,’ he said. ‘A living one, anyway.’ He laughed then—a deep, gravelly growl that might have belonged to the King of the demons himself.

Aya felt her skin tickle with fear. ‘You refer to Pharaoh, the Powerful One, Chosen of Mut, Daughter of Re, Lady of Upper and Lower Egypt?’

‘I assume she is the only other woman in this chamber,’ said Intef. ‘Unless the Powerful One has also brought along her flock of wigmakers?’

Aya stifled a gasp. Did this man have no respect for the sanctity of the deceased? Aya prepared herself to issue another scolding, then paused.

‘What, I beg, are you doing in this House of Eternity, Intef, son of Sharek?’

‘What do you think I am doing?’

She made her voice meek. ‘Have you come to save me from murderous priests?’

Intef spouted a laugh. ‘Not quite.’

Aya felt her stomach twist into a knot. He had not come to rescue her, or aid her in any way. Of course not. He had come to aid himself. This man was a tomb robber.

‘I fear that you are here for a nefarious purpose,’ she ventured.

Intef said nothing in response and Aya’s heart filled with horror. Tomb robbers were the lowest and rudest of men. They were desecrators and defilers. They snubbed their noses at the gods and placed the souls of the deceased in peril. And yet it seemed that Aya’s own life now depended on one.

‘How did you get here?’ she asked.

‘I should ask you the same,’ he said. When she did not respond he said, ‘I was smuggled inside a locked chest.’

‘And how did you release the lock?’ she asked.

‘How do you think?’

‘Force?’

‘I happen to be rather strong. And I carry a large chisel.’

Aya shuddered.

She perceived movement in the darkness. Intef seemed to be straining to stand. She heard another piece of wood slide across the floor and wondered which of the sacred chests he had destroyed.

Whichever chest it was, its contents had been despoiled by contact with the man’s skin. And that—Aya realised—was just the beginning of the desecration he planned.

‘Call to me,’ Intef said across the darkness. ‘So that I may find you.’ Aya shut her mouth. Suddenly she did not wish to be found.

‘You are tied, are you not?’ asked Intef. ‘The High Priest said something about rope.’

Aya heard his footfalls as he neared. ‘It would be helpful if you would indicate your location,’ he said and she felt the weight of his body collapse atop hers.

‘Get off of me!’ she shrieked.

‘I am trying.’ A groping hand grazed her thigh, then another pressed against her waist. ‘Where is the rope?’ he demanded.

‘Just here around my wrists. Please... I—’ She felt a hand graze her breast and gasped.

‘Further up,’ she managed to say. Her heart pounded as his hands finally found her bound wrists. She exhaled.

‘Do not celebrate yet.’ She sensed him moving away from her. He called across the chamber, ‘I think I have found what is anchoring the rope.’

‘What is it?’

‘A very large chair.’

The sacred Horus throne. ‘You must not touch it.’

He made a loud straining noise, as if he was trying to lift it. ‘What you are attempting is sacrilege,’ she warned.

‘I am not attempting, I am doing,’ he said with a heave.

‘It is a crime punishable by—’

‘Do you wish to discuss levels of impiety or do you wish to be freed?’

She drew a breath. ‘To lift the Horus throne requires the strength of four men.’

‘Or the strength of one soldier.’

She held her tongue. Between his next series of heaves, he began to whistle a cheery tune. Who was this arrogant demon and how dare he whistle in a place like this? ‘Seth’s bloody—’ he said at last, swallowing the last part of the curse.

Aya supposed she should have been grateful for his restraint, but she could only cringe as he returned to where Aya lay and she sensed him taking his seat beside her head. ‘It is only because I have not had any sustenance that I cannot lift the throne,’ he boasted. ‘I am merely weakened by my hunger and thirst.’

‘Of course,’ said Aya.

‘If only I had a dagger, I could easily sever your bonds.’

‘You did not bring a dagger?’

‘A dagger would have made me even heavier inside the chest. Besides, I knew I would have my pick of daggers once I gained entry to the tomb.’

‘Have your pick of them?’ Aya repeated, her anger surging. ‘The jewel-encrusted golden ones, you mean?’

‘Precisely.’

Aya’s heart roared. The audacity of this man! The ribald frankness with which he described his planned pillaging of this sacred house!

‘Do you happen to know where those daggers have been stored?’ he asked.

‘I am afraid I have no idea,’ she lied.

He sat puzzling for many long moments and she hoped he would not become frustrated. Surely a man such as him would have a short temper.

‘I am grateful for your efforts,’ she added out of fear.

‘Do you usually offer thanks before it has been earned?’ he replied.

Aya swallowed her anger. ‘What tools did you bring with you?’

‘A hammer and chisel.’

Aya paused. She had been expecting him to say a shovel, for she assumed that the only way out of this tomb was to dig through the mass of rocks and earth with which the long entry corridor was currently being filled. ‘Do you mean to chisel your way out, then? Is that your plan?’

No response.

‘What other tools did you bring?’ she asked.

‘Flint to light a torch.’

‘Well?’

Chapter Four

Flint. A flame. He could sever the rope by means of one. It was a good idea and he certainly would have thought of it himself momentarily. It irked him that she had done so first. She was one of those grandmotherly types who seemed to delight in her superior knowledge of things. He could almost sense her smirking beneath her wrinkles.

Yet she was right. By setting fire to the rope with which she had been tied he could not only free her, but fashion a torch with the scorched ends.

But should he free her? It was clear that he was going to have a problem with this woman, whatever he did. From the way she had corrected his use of language to the derision in her tone when she had asked about the daggers, she was going to make his job more difficult.

He should have had the foresight to lie to her. He should have told her that he was indeed sent to save her, that she had hidden allies in the Temple of Amun or some other nonsense.

Though once he chiselled his way out of this tomb, he and his fellow tomb raiders would be taking much more than just a few jewel-encrusted daggers. The sooner this woman—what had she called herself? Aya? As soon as Aya came to terms with this inevitability, the easier his job would be.

Still, he sensed he needed to be careful with her. If she was anything like her monarch, then she was dangerous and even ruthless. It was rumoured that Pharaoh Tausret had killed her late husband Seti’s heir, an innocent young man whom Seti had conceived with a harem wife.

If Aya really was the beloved counsellor she claimed to be, then surely she was implicated in that merciless deed. Intef feared that setting her free would be something like cutting the leash off a crocodile.

If only she were a common tomb robber, her treachery would be wholly manageable. The two could take turns chiselling through the limestone and come to some arrangement about the tomb’s...harvest.

According to Intef’s orders, it was going to take nine days to chisel his way out. With the aid of a partner they could work continuously and it would only take four or five.

But she was no partner. She was the kind of high-born woman who cringed when a lowly soldier set his hands on the golden throne. What would she do when he began to eat the holy breads? he wondered. How would she respond when he filled one of Pharaoh’s golden goblets with beer and took a long, gluttonous drink?

He returned to the middle of the chamber and gazed down at the rope. If he did not untie her, he would have to be responsible for caring for her himself. And what then?

He was here to complete a mission—the most important mission in Egypt. General Setnakht needed treasure to grow his ranks and seize the double crown once and for all. If Intef and his fellow tomb raiders could gather enough treasure here, it was possible that the General could buy himself an entire army. He could win the crown with a simple show of force. There might not have to be a fight and Intef was cursedly tired of fighting.

He retrieved his flint from the inside pocket of his kilt and launched his spark.

Flames erupted on the first try and he coaxed them through the fibres of the rope until it was severed in two.

‘You may untie yourself now,’ he called in the direction of the shrine. He blew on the burning fibres and severed another part of the rope, fashioning a makeshift torch. He rounded the corner of the shrine with his light. The old woman had more than untied herself. She had disappeared.

‘Aya?’

He felt a warm breath in his ear and a sharp prick against his back. ‘Drop the torch.’ He let the torch fall to the floor as a slender arm squeezed around his neck. ‘If you make any movement at all, I will kill you,’ she said. She moved the sharp object to the base of his throat.

Like a freed crocodile.

‘I am a soldier and protector of Egypt,’ he said. He was both stronger and smarter than this woman, or so he assured himself. ‘Do you really mean to kill me?’

‘Precisely.’

He did not believe her, despite her unexpectedly firm grip around his neck. ‘It is wrong to take a person’s life,’ he remarked.

‘It is worse to take a person’s afterlife.’

Thankfully the torch still smouldered on the floor and he caught a glimpse of the weapon she held—an arrowhead of the finest obsidian. It seemed she could deliver his death in an instant.

‘You would kill a man inside a house of eternity?’ he asked. He could sense a trembling in her hand.

‘I would kill a man who would despoil that house.’

‘And when that man’s corpse fills that house with the stink of death?’

‘The stink of triumph over evil.’

‘Only the god Osiris may judge what is evil.’ He reached for her arm, but she pressed the flat of the arrowhead harder against his neck.

‘I will not allow you to rob this sacred house,’ she said. There was fear inside her voice. He could feel the heavy thrum of her heart against his back. She seemed to be trying to gather the will to kill him.

He would have to seize both her arms at once, then quickly duck his head, but he needed to find the right moment.

‘You would kill a man before he has done anything wrong?’

‘I loathe men like you,’ she said. ‘You are a stain on the banner of Great Egypt.’

‘You cannot escape this tomb alone.’

‘I am certainly capable of wielding a hammer and chisel.’

‘Of course you are—perhaps for several hours,’ he mused, ‘but you would quickly tire. You would need to work for months. What you do not understand is that the god Shu does not enter here. After only eight or nine days, the air will grow sour.’

She paused, as if she had not considered that particular truth. ‘I will dig my way out, then.’ Another slight loosening of her grip.

‘Dirty, suffocating work,’ he commented blithely, ‘and I doubt you could break through the brick seals to the chambers.’

‘The mortar has yet to set. It will be easy enough to breach.’

‘Easy? The final seal will be as hard as rock by the time you reach it. And even if you could emerge from the entrance, what would you say to the guards of the Kings’ Valley? The Medjay are trained to kill intruders. How would you convince them not to kill you?’

‘I am confident,’ she said with no confidence at all, and that was his cue. In a single movement, he ducked under her grip. Then he seized her wrists.

‘Drop the arrowhead,’ he commanded, staring at her shadowy fist. ‘Now!’ She appeared to open her hand, but as he moved to catch what he expected to be the falling weapon she yanked her other wrist from his grasp and placed the arrowhead in her own mouth.

She lurched away from him, writhing and kicking in an attempt to free herself. But he lunged forward, pushing her off balance. Together they went tumbling to the floor.

He landed atop her, crushing her beneath his weight. ‘Are you harmed?’ he asked, though he could not think of why he was so worried about her well-being. She had just tried to kill him.

She whimpered a small assent. She was unharmed, thank the gods. The fallen torch burned just near her head and, as he lifted his own head, he beheld her shadowy face for the first time.

His breath caught in his throat.

She was no hardened old crone—that was startlingly clear. The flickering torchlight revealed a woman in her prime, with full cheeks, shapely red lips and strange, kohl-stained eyes the colour of the sea.

Seizing on his hesitation, she lurched her head forward and smashed it against his. A sharp pain split across his skull and tiny streaks of light obscured his vision.

He swung his legs astride her and sat up, keeping her wrists pinned to the floor with his hands.

‘Spit out the blade,’ he commanded, as she slowly came back into focus. Curse the gods, she was beautiful. ‘Do it now.’

When she refused, he considered his options. He could attempt to roll her over, though that would require him to briefly release her arms. Too risky.

He could pull her hands together and try to hold them with one of his, thus freeing his other hand to extract the arrowhead. But he doubted his fingers would have enough force to pry open her teeth. Besides, he did not wish to harm her.

He had never been so paralysed by inaction. As he gazed down at her strange blue eyes, he felt an odd kind of humming sensation deep in his stomach. If he were not defending himself against a violent enemy, he might have believed it a twinge of lust.

She exhaled and he felt an unwanted quickening of his blood to his extremities. His heart thumped out a strange rhythm.

Her expression was grim. Her lips were tight and colourless against her face and the flare of her nostrils suggested the depths of her anger.

She obviously hated him—so much so that she seemed unable to calm her breaths. He imagined the arrowhead she held in her mouth, with her just waiting for a chance to use it on him again. There was not a woman in the world he should have desired less and yet there it was—that deep hum slowly becoming a roar.

By all the wicked gods.

‘Well?’ she said.

Chapter Five

‘Well, what?’ he asked, though his eyes were not projecting the kind of curiosity she might have expected would accompany such a query. Instead, they seemed to be smouldering. At her.

Either he was experiencing some lusty memory, or he could barely contain his anger towards her. She was rather certain it was the latter.

‘Are you going to let me go?’ she asked.

‘Do you think me a fool? Spit out the blade.’

The blade was her only weapon—the only advantage she currently had against him. She could not give it up.

She assessed her situation. He had positioned himself too far down the length of her body for her to be able to use her legs against him. How could she get him to bend forward towards her and expose his holiest, most tender parts? An idea surfaced.

‘Are you going to kiss me or not?’ she asked.

It was the only thing she could think of to give herself the advantage. In order to kiss her lips, he would have to lean forward and lift his body off of her hips, exposing himself. A quick raise of her knee would be all it would take to send him reeling.

‘You wish for me to kiss you?’

She nodded vigorously.

So that I may deliver you the ultimate pain.

It was an admittedly unneighbourly plan, but he was an unneighbourly man. Did he expect her to simply welcome the plunder of her mistress’s tomb?

She had acted impulsively by threatening him with the arrowhead, but it was too late to turn back now. Besides, if he was capable of plundering a tomb, what other things might he feel entitled to take without asking?

She needed to speak to him in the only language men such as him knew—that of force. She only wished she were better trained to express herself in that particular tongue.

‘You have obviously bested me,’ she cooed. ‘Why not give me a kiss?’

The torchlight flared, illuminating his face, and she beheld him for the first time. His scathing dark eyes perched over a nose that thought itself clever. His brown skin glowed beneath a sheen of villainous sweat. His fiendish eyebrows were so long and sleek they looked like wings.

But of course he would be handsome. All wicked men were. There would have been too much justice in the world if his appearance had actually matched the state of his soul.

‘Forgive me for not trusting your intentions,’ he remarked. His eyes sparkled with something resembling humour. ‘It is difficult to believe you would wish to kiss me after you just tried to kill me.’

His casual tone stirred her wrath. Was her effort so very trifling that it struck him as funny? Very well, she would embrace the role.

‘Do you really think I could have harmed you with this little thing?’ Aya stuck out her tongue to demonstrate the arrowhead and saw his expression change. He raised a winged brow and his dark eyes burrowed into her. She felt a pang of heat deep in her stomach.

She sensed that she had just waded into a pool without a bottom. She quickly returned the arrowhead to her mouth and gathered herself. She could not show fear or hesitation. Unscrupulous men feasted on such emotions.

A quick, sharp kick, then into the shadows.

She affected a playful pout. ‘If you want the blade, then come and get it.’

It was the most unusual invitation he had ever received from an enemy, though admittedly he had never faced an enemy such as she. Still, he knew he would be a fool to accept it.

She was clearly planning to bite off his tongue. Or worse, she was planning to slice it off with the very arrowhead she cradled gently inside her mouth.

Gods, that mouth. It was the most sensuous thing he had ever seen. When she pursed it in disapproval, it resembled nothing so much as a lotus in bloom. Her eyes, in contrast, gave nothing away. They were as blue as the sky and as distant as the clouds. Together, her lips and eyes seemed to be conspiring against his will. The hot and the cold. The carnal and the sublime.

Perhaps he was still experiencing the deleterious effects of his confinement. It was possible that he had merely conjured her: a vision to explain the weakness in his limbs and the spinning in his head.

Or perhaps she had been sent by Tausret herself—a beautiful, dangerous spirit created to distract Intef from his purpose here.

Yet she did not seem like an enchantress. On the contrary, she appeared to have no awareness of her own beauty and her attempt at seduction had all the marks of a novice. Did she really think him so dull-witted as to take such bait?

He bent forward tentatively and caught wind of her scent—a heady mix of lavender, myrrh and insincerity.

But there was something else in the air around her. Something delicious and womanly. He breathed in more deeply and it was as if the scent alone could quench his thirst. He bent closer. By the gods, she smelled like seduction itself.

This was a bad idea.

‘I will not kiss a woman who is beneath my restraint,’ he stated, bending away.

‘Then release me.’

‘Release the arrowhead first.’

Then she did something totally unexpected. She obeyed him. Abandoning her pout, she spat the offending weapon to the floor.

‘There,’ she said. ‘Now will you kiss me?’

She did not know which was more confounding, his hesitation or the way his eyes lingered so long on her lips.

In retaliation, she studied his lips, which were far too lush and generous to belong to a man like him.

Why was he not kissing her? Did men not usually seize upon such invitations? She had spat out the weapon, after all. He was no longer in any immediate danger. Was it her appearance itself that repulsed him?

It would not have been the first time. Egyptian men, especially Southerners, were often repulsed by her strange combination of features. She was not Egyptian enough to desire and not Libyan enough to denounce.

Still, she was a woman and he was a man, and it was quite dark, even with the torch.

Now that torch flickered and they stared at each other—two archers who had run out of arrows. Who would give up first?

Not Aya. Clenching her stomach muscles, she lifted her torso off the floor, leaving only a hand’s width of space between their two faces. ‘Why will you not kiss me?’ she breathed.

His voice smouldered. ‘You must kiss me first.’

He was watching her from beneath those impossible brows, his expression full of menace. He lifted his hands from her wrists, pretending to give her the opportunity to escape.

Barbarian man. He was trying to scare her. He was expecting her to run, only to pull her back beneath his control. She would not give him the satisfaction. She was a noble woman—an advisor to a pharaoh. She ran when she decided to run.

She sat up, braced her arms behind her and pressed her lips to his.

His eyes flared and she felt the rush of his breath into her mouth. Good—let him be surprised. He was not the only one who could assert his will. Though in truth her will felt rather flimsy as his mouth encompassed hers. He pushed back at her, tilting his head in order to deepen the kiss. Her stomach flooded with heat.

He moved his mouth over hers, opening and closing in a kind of controlled abandon. Curse his lips. They were softer and lusher and vastly more pleasurable than she had even imagined. They were trembling slightly, as if with nervousness.

Lust rioted through her. It was as if he wanted her after all, despite her appearance.

May the gods forgive me, she said to herself, realising she wanted him back.

Their lips began to move together in a steady rhythm.

She was vaguely aware of the need to lie back on the floor, to draw him down with her and position him for her show of force. But for the moment she could only marvel at how good it felt to kiss him.

This is a trap, he told himself.

There was no other reason for her to invite such intimacy—unless he was mistaken about her feelings towards him. She had said she loathed him, had she not? She had obviously wished him dead. Yet her kiss was like life itself—served up with a generous sprinkling of lust.

How good it felt to kiss her. Their lips danced as if in time to the same propulsive lute. Perhaps she had changed her mind about him. Maybe in the time between now and when she had pressed the arrowhead against his neck she had realised that he was in fact her only hope for survival.

Not likely. Her loyalty for her departed Pharaoh was as fierce as it was obvious. At any moment, she would surely attempt another head smashing, or bite down hard upon his tongue. Still, it was difficult not to feel anything but excitement as they shared the same warm breath.

He gave her lower lip the gentlest of sucks. She sighed and he felt his desire spike. The sistrums of logic sounded, warning him to retreat. He ignored them.

He swept his tongue into the soft cavern of her mouth.

Had he gone mad? He was kissing a woman who had attacked him, who had openly vowed to see him dead. He needed to get as far away from her as he could. Instead he pushed his tongue deeper.

His tongue was plundering. It moved through her mouth, taking everything it wished. She knew she should stop him, but she did not want to.

He tasted like lavender and beer, fresh and tangy, with a hint of salt. It had been many hours since she had eaten any food. Surely that was reason he tasted so good. His hand moved up through her hair, sending ripples of sensation down her neck. She felt her limbs relax as he gently cradled her head.

This was not part of the plan, though at the moment she could not remember exactly what that plan was. She could only meet his tongue with her own, for it seemed the two appendages had urgent business together.

He pulled her towards him, deepening the kiss. Her whole body seemed to fill with light. She could not recall a kiss ever feeling this right and she doubted her own mind. At the festivals, she had kissed her partners with great passion, for that was what the goddess demanded.

There was no divine spirit observing her now, however, and yet all she wanted to do was keep kissing.

She wondered if it was a simple matter of contrast—that anything would feel good after being left for dead. Surely that was the reason for the pangs of sensation travelling down her limbs, the strange excitement in her heart. She was simply returning to life.

He seemed to be doing the same, for she could feel the length of his arousal pressing against her stomach as his tongue continued to coil with hers. The sensation should have terrified her, but instead warmth rushed through her in a secret torrent.

He was her enemy, yet she had never felt so at ease in the arms of a man. Was this some sort of deception? But it was she who was supposed to be deceiving him!

She fought to recover her wits as he eased her to the ground. She lay back, feeling like a reed bending beneath a mighty lion.

He raised his head to observe her and there was that fire in his eyes. She could practically hear its windy flames. It was a man’s passion and it was all for her.

But it could not be. She was not the kind of woman men were passionate for. She was an advisor to a pharaoh.

Though not any more.

She looked around her, slowly realising that he had pushed her into the position she had desired all along. His hips had lifted off hers, exposing the most vulnerable part of him to her waiting leg. She moved it into striking distance.

She had to do it, lest he believe her weak, or easily seduced, or tacitly offering him a gift she did not wish to give. A show of force—that was what was needed now. This was her chance.

‘Forgive me,’ she whispered.

Chapter Six

Forgive her? What was there to forgive?

Then he felt it—a pain so poignant that it made him lose his breath. It shot up into his stomach and then directly to his head, which seemed to burst into a thousand shards.

He reeled back in agony. She had kicked him, the little croc. She had thrust her thigh into the most sensitive part of his body and delivered a blow so painful that it was sending tears into his eyes.

She rolled out from beneath him as pain coursed through him in unrelenting waves and he watched her disappear into the darkness beyond the torchlight.

He took the arrowhead in his hand and began to laugh. Not since the Battle of the White Desert, when a Libyan spear thrower had stuck him in the back of the thigh, had he felt so much pain.

He collapsed back on to the tile floor, foetal and laughing through his tears. She was not only more dangerous than he had at first thought, she was vastly more interesting.

He tried to think his way through the pain. He put his heart into an imaginary jar and gazed at it from far away. There were endless ways to shield oneself from pain, after all, and over the years Intef had become quite adept at many of them.

There were also many ways to invite pain, including lying helpless before one’s enemy. Intef peered around the chamber nervously. There were certainly other arrowheads hidden among Pharaoh’s grave goods, along with the arrows to which they were usually attached. As Pharaoh’s Most Beloved Advisor, Aya probably knew exactly where they were. She could return any moment with an arrowhead in each fist.

The thought struck him as funnier still. Intef, son of Sharek, the deadliest archer in the southern rebel army, killed by a trembling, terrified servant who had likely never even held a dagger.

‘Are you off to find another arrowhead?’ he called into the shadows. ‘Go ahead, then.’ He felt dizzy and his voice was as dry as dust. ‘Do your worst.’

He reached for the torch and stood. At the far corner of the room, he could see the frame of a doorway. Crossing to it, he flashed his torch inside to discover a small storage room stacked to the ceiling with wooden chests. Beside the chests was a wall of shelves that had been filled with amphorae.

He could practically feel the cool water running down his throat. He flashed his torch behind him to assure himself that Aya had not followed, then selected one of the containers from the second shelf. He shoved his thumb beneath its wax seal.

He felt vaguely remorseful. It was hot and stuffy inside the tomb and she was probably just as thirsty as he. And while she had caused him a great deal of pain, it had already practically disappeared, yet she was probably still suffering the effects of her failed head blow.

He had killed many enemy soldiers in the line of duty and that was difficult enough, but he had never in all his life had to defend himself against a woman.

A beautiful woman, as it happened, though not in the traditional sense. Her eyes were not the right colour, her nose not the proper length, her skin was too pale and her lips were almost masculine in their fullness.

It was as if the venerable Ennead of Egyptian gods had sat down at their table with a woman from the Black Land of Egypt and a woman from the Red Land of Libya and fashioned someone altogether new.

She was a surprise, this woman, and Intef could not remember the last time he had been surprised.

He removed the seal from the amphora full of water. ‘For you, Aya,’ he said, raising the container. ‘Life, prosperity, health!’ He put the jug to his lips and felt his strength increased. He glanced down. Surprisingly, so had his arousal.

He should not have been surprised. He was a lusty man, after all, and he often enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh.

Intef tried to recall the last time he had lain with a woman. Surely after General Setnakht’s invasion of Wawat, six months before. A horde of Nubian beauties had descended upon the army’s desert camp after a raid, eager to relieve the soldiers of their plunder. Intef vaguely remembered a woman who had offered to rub his shoulders, but could not recall anything more.

He took another long draught of water. Had there been any women from his village lately? Perhaps during the Festival of Drunkenness at the last inundation? But he had not joined in the festival, he remembered now. It had been the second year of drought and the idea of such indulgence had not appealed to him.

A few years ago, there had been the march to occupy the Osiris Temple at Abydos, just after Pharaoh Siptah’s murder. A veritable swarm of women had come to greet Setnakht’s rebels and Intef was certain that he had taken his pleasure with one of those lusty villagers. But what had she looked like? What had she called herself?

Perhaps his long hours squeezed inside the chest had also squeezed his memory. Or maybe he simply needed a bit of sustenance to stir his recollection.

He looked around the small room and spied a basket of bread atop one of the crates. His stomach roared. Why was he thinking of women at all, entombed as he was in this house of death? He should be thinking of how to drink and eat and avoid losing his life.

Though perhaps it was the very nearness of death that made him consider women at all—lust being one of the more vibrant features of living. So why could he not recall the names and faces of the women with whom he had...lived?

In truth, there was only one he could remember at all...

Her name had been Nebetta. They had grown up together on a temple-owned plantation north of Thebes. Intef did not remember when he had met Nebetta, just as he did not remember when he had learned to speak or walk. He just remembered that she had always been there, like the sunrise or the western hills.

He had liked to tease her. She had been so tall in those early years—much taller than he—and she had never seemed to know what to do with her limbs.

‘Be careful not to poke your head in the sky, Nebetta!’ he would warn her and she would scold him for being too short to see above the wheat.

He had not really noticed her beauty until his eighteenth year. She had begun to work at her family’s date stand in the market at the centre of Thebes and, whenever Intef had visited her, he’d noticed some new miracle. The silken shine in her long dark hair, the flush in her cheeks, the way her green bead necklace seemed to glow against her sepia skin.

‘My lotus in bloom!’ he would call to her and would know by the tinkle of her laughter that his compliment had hit its mark.

One day Intef had joined his father at a gathering of military recruits in a tavern in the centre of Thebes. Pharaoh Seti’s brother, Amenmesse, had been preparing to seize the Horus throne and most of the men of Thebes were joining the fight.

‘Amenmesse is the rightful heir!’ they had shouted.

Intef had stood beside his father as the recruiting scribe had added their names to the list.

‘We are recruiting all over the South,’ the scribe had told them. ‘We need your help in the search for volunteers.’

When the meeting had concluded, Intef had strolled back through the marketplace, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nebetta. By then he had been so popular among the young women of Thebes that he had been known as The Fisherman, because he always had at least a few young women on his hook.

When he had spotted Nebetta that day at the date stall, he had cast his line in the water. She had been as lovely as a palm standing there, arranging the small fruits.

When she had finally noticed him watching her she had held out a date to him and flashed a grin so dazzling that it had stopped him in his tracks.

‘Leave it to you to show up when there are free dates to be had,’ she’d jested.

Right then, Intef had realised that he was no longer The Fisherman. He had somehow become the fish.

They had made love that afternoon in the shade of the date palms. When Intef had returned home that night he had been nearly trembling with joy.

‘Father, Mother, there is something I must tell you.’

It had been just after sundown and the two of them had been lounging on the roof of their small mud-brick hut, gazing out at the river. The last ferry of the day had just embarked from shore and Intef had watched with strange delight as its big linen sails had caught the wind and headed for the west bank of the river.

‘We must pack our kits tonight,’ Intef’s father had said. ‘We leave tomorrow for Edfu.’

‘We are leaving Thebes?’ Intef had asked.

‘Of course we are—did you not hear the recruiter? He needs our help.’

‘But it is just a recruiting mission.’

‘We volunteered to support General Amenmesse’s bid for the throne,’ Intef’s father had said. ‘This is how we do it.’

‘But there is no battle. It is a voluntary mission for the able.’

‘And we are able,’ Intef’s father had said. ‘Or do you not wish for the rightful heir of Egypt to wear the double crown?’

Intef had frowned. It had seemed to him that it was less a question of succession than it was of the balance of power: Amenmesse’s supporters lived in the South, while Seti’s resided in the North. It all seemed rather pointless, though he would not tell his father that.

‘I need you to come with me, Intef,’ his father had added, ‘to protect my back.’

Intef had gazed out at the ferry, slowly making its way across the great river. Its passengers had seemed so small against the tide.

‘I wish to do what is right, Father.’

He had glanced at his mother, who had nodded gravely. ‘I do not need any help in the fields, dear boy.’

‘We leave before dawn,’ his father had said.

‘But it is just a recruiting mission.’

Intef’s father had shaken his head. ‘You either support Amenmesse or you do not. There is no—’

‘Mother, Father, it is Nebetta. I wish to make her my wife.’

Intef’s mother had gasped with joy, but Intef’s father had frowned.

‘You have committed to Amenmesse’s army,’ he’d said. ‘Nebetta can wait.’

The ferry had approached the opposite shore. Intef had seen the pilot pull hard on a line and its sails go slack.

How easy it was for his father to say such things with Intef’s mother at his side! he had thought.

‘I am so happy for you, Son,’ she had said, her eyes full of tears.

‘Father?’

His father had stood and crossed to the ladder, then started his way down. ‘You are a man now and your life is your own. But remember your duty,’ he’d said.

Intef had slept on the roof that night. He’d gazed at Sopdet, the brightest star in the night sky, and decided it was a sign. He would build a hut for Nebetta over the following days and, as soon as it was built, he would make her his wife.

With Nebetta waiting for him in Thebes, he had known he would be able to fight whatever battles awaited him. He would stand strong by his father’s side and help put Egypt to rights.

The following day, Intef had woken to the sound of his father’s soft footfalls walking away from the hut. He must have sensed Intef watching him, but he had not turned around to look. He’d only walked away slowly across the field and disappeared.

Just a few days later he and his mother had received the news of his father’s death.

‘They were ambushed by Seti’s troops,’ the officer had explained. ‘They were not even armed.’

‘How did he die?’ Intef had asked.

‘An arrow in the back.’

There had been no Nebetta after that. There had only been the hot sun, the piles of wheat and Intef’s solemn vow to ride out with Amenmesse’s army.

What he had not done for his father in life, he would do for him in death.

Now, Intef dug inside the basket of food and came upon a small linen pouch. Inside were a dozen perfectly ripe dates. He paused, recalling that day so long ago when he had been offered a date and the promise of love.

There was a reason he did not remember the women he had enjoyed since then. After his father’s death, the desire had gone out of him. He felt so little when he lay with a woman now that it usually did not even register in his heart as a memory. He could not even remember the desire to kiss a woman’s lips—at least, not until tonight.

Though he knew he should not have been considering Aya as a woman. For his own good, he should be considering her as a dangerous crocodile. There was a reason the priests had locked her in here and they had placed their own souls in peril in doing it. What did she know? Whom did she threaten? Perhaps she had committed some terrible crime. The thought gave him a chill. She was probably stalking him right now, just waiting for him to turn his back.

If she attacked again, he would have no choice but to restore her bonds. He had to stay alive to complete the mission, after all, for the mission was bigger than either of them. He had been a fool to kiss her and to let her stir his lust. Such feelings were more dangerous than they seemed—a lesson he had learned long ago. He was a soldier and a servant of Egypt now. An honourable man. Before anything else, he had to do his duty.

Chapter Seven

She huddled in the shadows, trying to stop her trembling. She feared him, but she feared herself more. Where had the calm, rational advisor to a pharaoh retreated,and who was this panicked, impulsive girl in her place?

She could only thank the gods that the arrowhead had not drawn blood when she had held it to his neck. She had regretted the kick before she had even made it.

She did not wish to harm him. Intef, son of Sharek, a man who had released her from her bonds. A man who, after defending himself against her attack, had worried for her safety.

A man who had treated her with gentleness.

The kiss.

When their lips had touched, it was as if she had stepped into the current of an invisible river. It was not until he eased her back to the floor that she remembered he was her enemy.

And he was her enemy. He was a tomb robber, the most wretched of men. His very presence in this sacred space not only threatened Pharaoh’s afterlife, but also Aya’s current one. How could she know for certain he did not mean to dispose of her at some point, or somehow do her harm? She had already given him ample reason. Besides, crooked men craved conquest. She needed him to know she would not be conquered.

Still, she needed to get out of this tomb and, for that, she needed him. It would not be long before the High Priest’s spies found Tausret’s heir. If Aya could find him before they did, she could save his life. It was the least she could do for a pharaoh who had given her everything and for an Egypt she loved with all her heart.

The light of Intef’s torch emanated from one of the storage rooms. She stood and made her way towards it.

‘I see you have discovered the holy amphorae,’ she said, glancing at the large jugs lining the shelves all around him.

He did not even lift his head to greet her. ‘That is what you have to say after trying to take my life?’

He was concentrating on an open amphora, which he had placed in the middle of his folded legs. Beside him lay a smouldering coal brazier and a half-eaten loaf of bread.

‘Forgive me,’ she said.

‘The last time you said that, you followed it with a rather punishing kick.’

‘I apologise.’

‘You apologise? Well, that is a first. Scores of men have tried to wound me in my short time on this earth, but none has ever apologised for it.’

‘I am not like other men,’ she stated.

‘Well, you certainly are not,’ he said. Finally, he looked up at her. ‘Mother of Mut.’

‘It is a grave sin to curse. Have you no reverence at all?’

‘I curse when something warrants cursing.’ He was staring at her brazenly.

‘Nothing warrants cursing in this sacred home.’

‘Not even the way you look?’

She cringed. People had reacted to her appearance with derision all her life, but most had the decency not to speak their feelings aloud.

‘Here, catch,’ he said. He tossed her the bread.

She stared at the half-eaten loaf in anguish. It had been spoiled by his lips—it could never be returned to Pharaoh.

‘Just eat it,’ he said. ‘It cannot be made whole again.’

He was right, of course. They would have to eat many more sacred loaves and drink many more amphorae of beer if they wished to escape this tomb.

‘Which company did you say you fought for?’ she asked.

‘I am currently with the mighty Sons of Ra.’

‘Currently? Does a soldier not remain with his company throughout his career?’

‘I am often called upon to train others.’

‘In treachery?’

He ignored the jab. ‘Archery.’

So he was an archer, then. He certainly had the chest of an archer—all lean muscle and stark bone. But a trainer? A teacher of men? If he was so accomplished, then what was he doing inside this tomb at all?

‘I have not heard of the Sons of Ra,’ Aya said, ‘and I did not know that soldiers were moved between companies to provide training. You must be quite an expert.’

‘I am the very best.’

She scanned his expression in search of the lie and was instantly thwarted by two formidable defences: handsomeness and conceit.

He was grinning at her even now, trying to distract her. He had probably been using his good looks to his advantage all his life.

‘It is strange that I have not heard of you,’ she said. ‘Being such a distinguished archer.’

‘My company is stationed at a fort further south,’ he said. ‘It is doubtful you would have heard of us.’ His eyes shifted a little. ‘Your Pharaoh was woefully removed from things in the Delta.’

‘The Delta in the North occupies a more strategic position than Thebes does here in the South,’ she noted calmly. ‘The North is a better place to address the Asiatic threat, as well as the confederation of Sea Peoples.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘You do not agree?’ she asked.

‘There is no disagreeing with a northerner.’

Aya held her temper. ‘I will gently remind you that it was Pharaoh Tausret’s own grandfather who built the northern palace at Pi-Rameses. Perhaps you have heard of him? He was called Rameses the Second, otherwise known as Rameses the Great Ancestor. He certainly seems to have believed in the Asiatic threat.’

‘The Asiatic threat in the North is one thing; the Nubian threat in the South is quite another.’

Yes, the Nubian threat is much less threatening! Aya stopped herself from saying it. She was supposed to be striking a deal with this man, not arguing politics.

‘The land of Egypt faces many threats,’ she stated neutrally.

‘Indeed it does. And yet what concerns me most is the threat standing before me...’ He paused. ‘The Libyan threat.’

He smirked and her teeth locked together inside her mouth. She was beginning to understand better why she had nearly slit his throat.

‘I apologise if my appearance threatens you,’ she hissed.

‘Then you are Libyan?’ He pointed to his own eyes, indicating the colour of hers.

‘Part Libyan, part Egyptian.’

People never saw the Egyptian part of Aya, despite her full lips and dark hair. They only noticed her pale skin and blue eyes—features of the enemy.

He squinted, as if studying a scroll. ‘I do not believe you are a killer.’

‘Why do you not believe it?’

‘For one thing, you are a woman.’

‘Women are just as capable as men of being killers.’

‘And yet they do not kill with the frequency of men. That is irrefutable.’

‘Only because they are not allowed to become soldiers or guards.’

‘And rightly so.’ He glared at her. ‘Women should give life, not take it away.’

‘The same could be said of men, could it not?’ asked Aya. She had had this debate many times before, with many similar men. The next thing he was going to say was that the gods created men to sow the seed and women to cultivate the field.

‘You are too beautiful to be a killer,’ he remarked instead.

The comment was unexpected—and totally illogical. Had he not just moments before insulted her appearance? She opened her mouth to protest, then felt a strange heat colonising the surface of her skin. By the time she thought of an appropriate response, he was lifting the jug to his lips.

Glug, glug, glug.

She had never heard a man drink so loudly. Nor had she ever wished for a drink of water more. Banish him and his soldier’s manners! And curse her skin, which she could feel every second becoming a deeper shade of red.

Too beautiful to be a killer. Ha! ‘The beautiful goddess Hathor once nearly destroyed humankind!’ she announced.

He placed the amphora on the floor, but his eyes were still drinking—her. ‘It is rude to stare,’ she said.

‘It is indeed,’ he said and his eyes said, Glug, glug, glug.

She scowled. He grinned.

Surely he was mocking her. Southerners had a particular disdain for Libyans, the people of the Red Land as they called them, and this man was southern to the core. Still, she felt a strange lifting of her spirit. She could count on one hand the times she had been called beautiful in her life.

‘You are clearly already experiencing the effects of the beer,’ she said. She glanced at the empty amphora beside him, feeling an aggravating thirst in the depths of her own throat.

‘It is not beer I drink.’ He held the amphora out to her. ‘It is water.’

‘You are mistaken,’ she replied. ‘It is unnecessary to provide the deceased with water in the afterlife, for there are rivers and lakes everywhere. There is only wine and beer in this house.’

‘And yet I am drinking water,’ he insisted. ‘Perhaps you are not right about everything.’

He continued to hold the amphora out to her. ‘No, thank you,’ she said. Accepting a drink would be admitting she was wrong and she did not wish to seem a fool.

‘You will need to drink eventually,’ he observed.

‘I realise that.’

‘Well, what are you waiting for? Do you plan to kill me first?’ He motioned to one of the chests stacked against the wall. ‘Perhaps after I dip into the holy cheese that has been packed into those boxes?’

‘You are baiting a crocodile,’ she growled. There it was again—the anger. It was bubbling inside her like a spring.

‘So the answer is yes? You do plan to kill me?’

She tried to keep her calm. ‘I must stop you from robbing this tomb however I can. It is my duty and also my most fervent wish.’

‘Well, murder is certainly one way to stop me, though I really do not believe you capable of such a thing.’

‘You do not know me,’ she breathed.

‘And neither do you know me,’ said Intef. ‘But I will help you along with that. Do you know what I do when a man tries to kill me?’

Aya shook her head.

‘I kill him in return.’ The mockery was gone from his voice. ‘That is how it works.’

Suddenly he was on his feet. She turned to flee, but he caught her by the arm and spun her around. He was standing behind her, squeezing his arm around her neck, just as she had done to him. His other arm was tight around her waist. He spoke gently into her ear. ‘Perhaps I should.’

She was like a crocodile stolen from the reeds, well tied and slowly losing its energy to fight. She made one last, writhing effort, then went limp against him. ‘Go ahead, then,’ she breathed. ‘But do it fast. A merciful death.’

The words echoed in his mind and, though he held her, he did not see her, for he was already somewhere else.

He was standing on a vast desert hardpan strewn with bodies of fallen men. It was the aftermath of the Battle of Memphis, and the rebel General Setnakht had prevailed. Behind him, Pharaoh Tausret’s men were running for the hills, their blurry images slick in the desert heat.

Before him there was only pain: a field of Tausret’s soldiers in varying stages of death. Intef and his partner Ranofer had come to collect their arrows, which had killed all of their victims save one—the man pinned to the ground at their feet.

Intef stared down at the man’s smallish figure, a soldier so new to manhood that the stubble remained on his head from his sidelock of youth. He was slashing the air wildly with an imaginary sword, no longer in his right mind.

Intef felt a familiar deadness in his heart. The boy was an Egyptian just like all the rest of the dying—a young man who had found himself on the wrong side of an unnecessary war.

‘Whom do you serve?’ Ranofer asked the boy, as was the custom.

‘I serve Tausret,’ the boy said. He slashed his invisible sword at the men’s ankles.

‘Why do you serve the widow of Seti?’ asked Ranofer.

The boy’s blood wept from where Intef’s arrow still stuck in his thigh. ‘She is Pharaoh! A living god.’

‘She is a woman,’ said Ranofer. ‘A woman!’

‘Who will bear a divine son!’ cried the boy. He had lost all his colour. He would not survive the hour.

‘May you walk for ever in the Fields of Yaru,’ said Ranofer, and pulled his dagger from its hilt.

‘Stop!’ cried Intef.

‘He will not survive,’ said Ranofer. ‘He is practically dead already.’

But Intef would not listen. He was digging in his kit for a bandage. If he could just extract the arrow from the boy’s thigh, it might be possible to seal the wound.

The boy raised his head one last time. ‘May the Devourer of Souls make meals of both of you!’ he hissed. ‘Now do it. A merciful death!’

Ranofer tossed Intef a glance and Intef turned away. There was a soft gurgle and the sound of the boy’s lifeless body collapsing to the ground.

Ranofer stepped to Intef’s side, wiping his blade on the cloth of his kilt. ‘You are welcome,’ he said.

A plume of the boy’s blood flowed to the base of Intef’s sandals. ‘He could have been my own son,’ said Intef.

‘It is foolish to indulge such a thought,’ Ranofer said.

‘Egyptians killing Egyptians.’

Ranofer slapped Intef hard across the face. ‘Such talk imperils both of us.’

‘Apologies,’ said Intef, wishing Ranofer would hit him again.

‘The boy followed Tausret, the false god,’ added Ranofer. ‘There was no choice.’

Ranofer was right. There was no choice—not for lowly soldiers such as themselves. In this endless fight for power, they were merely tools.

Intef stared at his bow and arrow, hating it. It was all he could feel any more—hate—and usually not even that. He could not do it any more—this pointless killing. He would not do it. His heart was dying; perhaps it was already dead: What was a united Egypt worth if forged by the blood of Egyptians?

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