He hurriedly pulled the blue head covering from his mop of hair and stroked through the black strands that reached just to the tip of his ears. If he rushed, he would still catch the stranger. He could meet her before she withdrew from the feast. They would both fill the evening with conversation and new acquaintances. Strange and different. Able to-

Sudden muttering snapped Assou out of scattered thoughts and made him glance over his shoulder, only to catch sight of the small, black figure beside his table. Although the door was closed, it had found its way inside and was looking at him with bright green eyes.

“Amenti...” Brows raised, Assou went to his knees and lured the animal. But it didn’t stir. Instead, its tail twitched briskly from right to left.

Amenti was one of the three sacred cats of the palace and thus one companion of Meritamen – the second, royal consort.

“Are you lost?” Cautiously, Assou crawled closer to her, held out his hand, and waited. But she still showed no reaction, merely seemed to cast a spell on him before she stood up. She sauntered to the door to scratch at the wood with one paw, which he immediately opened for her.

With a leap, she made it to the hallway, looked at him once more, nodded completely absurdly, and then started moving – deeper into the palace. He watched her go for a moment, letting the sheen of black fur calm him and only slowly recapturing the thoughts that had taken him by surprise earlier.

So he, too, got himself moving.

The blue fabric found its way back onto his mop of hair as footsteps noisily accompanied him outside. His shadow danced gallantly across the walls, following an intricate melody, before colliding with another black mass. A shadow that engulfed his own.

The first thing Assou perceived was the beautifully curved hips of a woman. The second was the penetrating gaze of the third Great Royal Queen.

Maathorneferure’s upright gait had the charm of a goddess. Perhaps because her legs were longer than anything found in Egypt. Or perhaps it was because of her straight posture. Even her shadow was formidable compared to his, and the way she strode had the grace of a snake. She dwarfed the two enslaved girls at her side.

“I see you have already changed.” Her voice wavered between deep calm and germinating turmoil.

“Indeed. And I apologise again for ruining your robe. It wasn’t intended for me to bump into an enslaved girl.” As was proper, he placed a hand on his chest and bowed. It was politeness that commanded it.

“I accept the apology.” Her smile became more heartfelt, while the sparkle in her dark eyes exuded joy. “But if you dare speak for me again and not give me a chance to address my needs to Ramesses, I will make sure you lose your title as vizier. You should know your position.” She lost all friendliness, all formality, and simply spoke at him as if they were old enemies on a new battlefield. “Keep your nose out of matters that don’t concern you and don’t speak for others. Save yourself the trouble of trying to disagree. I don’t like it when people of high status actually pretend to care about their slaves.” She took a step closer to him. “Liars are nothing more than souls we can sacrifice. And I don’t need anyone to take over my spouse’s decisions, making suggestions that are nothing more than a misleading report.”

“You don’t seem to be familiar with the duties of a vizier, do you?” His question was provocative in the face of his opponent. “I make suggestions to the pharaoh concerning the empire. Do you think a mouthpiece of the gods, a god himself, can bother with the smallest trifles?”

“The mouthpiece of the gods knows what he has to do. If he is what he claims to be, he needs no advice because he already knows the answer.” She snorted. “Take care of the people’s taxes, the slaves and all the other inanities of the land, but don’t you dare interfere again in a situation that doesn’t require your advice. My word carries more weight than yours. You should always keep that in mind.”

It wasn’t his problem. If she desired it, he would get out of her way. Wasting strength wasn’t on his agenda – not even when his fingertips were tingling and the words to fight back were on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he swallowed the lesson and put on a weary smile. “As you wish. If you will excuse me, then.”

Without giving Maathorneferure another glance, he strolled past her and followed down the dark corridor, where his shadow enjoyed the trivial solitude.

The warmth outside the palace, which tasted fresher than the stale air of rock cut from the country’s cliffs ages ago, greeted him with faint stars on the now almost black horizon. It made him breathe deeply, driving Maathorneferure into the background and freeing him to let his eyes wander over the mass of the feast.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Slaves were still pouring drinks, food was being served, and conversations bubbled up and ebbed away. Nothing had changed in his absence. The only difference was that he couldn’t locate the brown strands of the beautiful stranger. Almost as if she had been swallowed up by the crowd, although hardly anyone had moved from their spot.

Slowly, Assou bridged the distance to the table where Ramesses was eating. Searching with each step, always with hope in his body, while his shoulders slumped lower and his chest tightened with each failure to find her.

“Are you looking for something, Vizier?” A voice behind him snapped him out of his miserable pursuit and brought a small boy to the fore. The chin-length black hair hung straight down, resembling Dinem’s, and gleamed in the light of the erected fire goblets.

“I’m looking for someone,” Assou admitted hesitantly. “Have you perhaps seen a woman with long hair? It starts almost black and winds in dark brown to the tips. She wears a simple calasiris, and she sells wheat.”

For a moment, the boy’s eyes pierced him; silent and disinterested until he pursed his lips and nodded. “I think I saw her. She left the feast.”

She had left. And he hadn’t got a chance to speak to her. Another wasted opportunity that whizzed past him.

With a thin smile, Assou stroked the boy’s mop of hair before pressing a gold coin from the inside pocket of his tunic into his hands and turning away. If the gods wanted to test him, he had to meet their standards. Winning a woman was easy if you had status and wealth. But to win a woman over honestly, unlike most of his rank, was something else. It was difficult; like a test where he had to put all his eggs in one basket.

Assou’s steps were quick as he weaved his way through the crowds. Again and again his eyes darted over heads and bodies, looking for gaps that would allow him to advance unseen. He had to follow the widest street away from the palace to the centre before the masses thinned and the wild snatches of conversation came at him less insistently.

The smell of sweat enveloped his senses – combined with fragrant wax that hadn’t melted in the hair of some yet. It made him swallow dryly and hold his breath longer than necessary before exhaling thoughtfully. Then he looked around again, eyeing the goods on the floor, sporadically offered by those willing to sell.

White calasiris shone like bright drops between sand and darkness, while the flickering of goblets gave meagre light. Black hair shimmered. Jewellery tinkled. Brown hair drew him in.

Momentarily, Assou sucked in the air deeper before blinking a few times. But she was still there. He wasn’t dreaming. On a wall of a house, in front of which stood a couple of heavy-looking jugs, she was advertising her wheat. The sunny smile on her youthful face and the gleam in her eyes were highlighted playfully by the flames.

He had been to this place a few times before, but he had never approached her. This time he would take the plunge; hear her voice and learn her name.

“I see they serve wheat here.” The smirk on his lips didn’t match the tremble in his voice. “I’d need another sack for the palace.”

“As you wish.” She knew who he was; as all Egypt knew. But even though her voice was subtle and only grazed his perception, Assou thought he perceived friendliness behind it.

Half in a trance, he watched as the stranger took a linen sack and filled it with grains of wheat. With each ladle, the sack became fuller, heavier, and time was running out. The questions inside him began rippling. One of them rolled off his tongue.

“May I know your name?” Without a clue, he threw some of his desire at her feet and waited. He no longer wanted to think of her as a stranger. He wanted to weigh her name on his tongue and be sure that next time she would no longer be the stranger from the wheat stall.

Instead of answering, she dropped what she was doing and looked at him, her brows raised. “Have I done something wrong, Vizier?”

“No, not at all,” he raised his hands in defence, “I just wanted to know from whom I buy the wheat for the palace. I like ... to address people by their names.”

His heart pounded, sinking miserably in fear that she would refuse his request. But her confusion receded, and the smile returned to soft features. “Fatrada.”

For a moment, Assou thought he saw the world come to a standstill. Her name nestled in his mind, her brown eyes gleamed in the firelight and the wheat remained in oblivion – until she pushed the sack towards him with difficulty.

Unbidden, Assou placed a few gold coins in her hands – probably too many – grabbed the linen sack and swung the wheat onto his shoulders with so much force that he could hear it crack in his back. The brief surging pain made him short of breath. But it didn’t matter. The gods could have quartered him in those breaths, he was too mesmerised by the moment that presented itself. Too spellbound by this woman – by Fatrada – for anything else to matter.

“You are a beautiful woman,” he finally dared to say, hoping to win her affection with a few simple words. But she brought only vague astonishment upon herself.

“I thank you.” She tilted her head. “But I ask you to notice that I am married.”

Married. A piece of information that made Assou swallow dryly before averting his eyes and trying to forget the tightness in his chest with deep puffs of air. To think that there was already another man who could see her smile as his, who could whisper her name at night, close to her side, squeezed the air out of him wanly. Still, there were no shortcuts open to him. He couldn’t rely on his post if her heart was to be his.

Yet it was tempting.

With his position, it didn’t matter which woman he wanted. Most would have submitted to him willingly, enamoured with being the property of the tjati – and that was where the problem lay. He didn’t want to possess Fatrada. He wanted to win her love, not her body.

With a sigh, he shook his head, barely perceptible, before giving her one last look. “Understood.”

Then he took his distance and carried the wheat straight back to the palace. He needed a plan. There had to be some way to win Fatrada over. Some option he could determine once he had a few instants to himself – away from the feast that was still blossoming.

So he took heart. Inhaled once more.

And heard jewellery rattle.