This is an AU and a complete work of fiction. I do apologize for any lingering discrepancies. This is a side-project, so I do not know how often I'll be able to work on and update this.
Thank you, Foxmac, for beta-ing this.
Enjoy.
Chapter One: A New Beginning
"Yes, indeed. She seems like the most suitable choice for him," The Chief Eunuch Djadao commented on one of the women, who blushed in response and dared a glance at the handsome heir to the throne. He turned to the prince with hopeful expectation of the soon-to-be ruler to approve of the match but to no avail as the young man indifferently lounged in his seat.
The other advisers sycophantically agreed, nodding in unison.
Enough of this farce, Kahotep thought as he stood and made his way out of the room. Day after day, they do this. Trying to match me up with some woman I have no interest in marrying.
"Sir, where are you going?" Amahté queried, hastily trailing after his master's son.
"Out," Kahotep replied tersely as he strode through the palatial foyer, scowling at the towering statues of past pharaohs that guarded the entrance. Servants, scribes, and other members of the court stood aside in fear of the prince's seething rage.
Amahté cried out again, "My Lord Prince!"
Stopping once he was outside of the palace, Kahotep ordered one of the idle guards stationed nearby, "Get me my chariot."
"The Pharaoh will not be pleased," His servant managed to huff out, hands on his knees as he struggled for air.
"Is that a threat, Amahté?"
Straightening himself up, Amahté looked differentially to the heir of the throne. The young prince had done away with the wig he wore as customary for those in the upper class, uncovering his cropped dark brown hair which he ran his fingers through.
"N-not at all, my prince."
Kahotep shook his head at the fretful response as he unencumbered himself from the gold arm bands and bracelets he bore, tossing them to the panicky Amahté, who scurried to catch them. He beheld his exposed inner left wrist, where a tattoo he had gotten of the Wedjat, or Eye of Horus, was located. The tattoo was a sign of his allegiance towards the god as well as a ward against evil.
As Amahté retrieved the last of the jewelry, he turned around to discover that the Prince of the Two Lands was already in his chariot, thanking the soldier who fetched it for him. No, no, no . . .
"My Lord Prince!" Amahté harried to prevent the young man from departing, the gold clinking in his arms as he labored not to fall behind. "Wait! Don't go!"
The sun had traversed through the sky, illuminating it from the middle of the cloudless space, indicating high noon. Kahotep had traveled beyond the outskirts of the city, putting quite the distance between him and the palace that he would arrive long past nightfall if he chose to go back.
Sighing, he walked along the bank of the Nile; the water rushed downstream noisily, the current being particularly strong. I hadn't meant to act perversely, he thought to himself with a tired sigh. It is my duty to rule one day and I'll have to get married.
Kahotep settled himself on the ground, lying down with his hands behind his head. Eléa's union with Awan was arranged and she's happy.
He missed his sister dearly – with her marriage to the General of the Army of the East several seasons ago, she was not readily available to provide him with her thoughtful guidance as she had in the past for she now had a home to uphold and a troop of servants to guide. Evoking his sister's most recent visit to the palace, Eléa had been the epitome of marital bliss, her smiles and laughter utterly genuine as she talked animatedly of her new life with Awan.
Would I be like that if I married the woman Djadao selected for me? He mentally asked himself, his eyelids growing heavier as the soporific warmth of the sun began to affect him.
"What should we do with him? He must be a run-away slave. Think we can sell him?" A gruff voice said, eliciting Kahotep to open his eyes, only to discover himself restrained by a rope that presently bound his ankles and wrists.
Two men stood before him, one portly and the other lanky. Slavers, by the looks of them, he thought.
Eager to end the mistake before it went on further, Kahotep opened his mouth to sort out the misunderstanding, speaking in his native tongue, "I am Kahotep, Prin—"
"Ahem. We . . . cannot . . . understand . . . what . . . you're . . . saying," the taller of the duo spoke, enunciating deliberately slow as he did so. Clearly not the brightest, he said to his friend, "He must be foreign."
The stout man frowned at the obvious statement from his companion, "Where do you think we are? Of course he's foreign." He glanced at the man they had fettered – tawny-skinned and leanly muscular, the man wore black kohl around his russet eyes, augmenting them, and a shendyt, a linen cloth wrapped around his waist and belted. "He's Egyptian. We could get a high price off of him."
"All right," The less intellectual of the duo replied, retrieving a piece of cloth from the satchel on his camel and placing it over Kahotep's mouth before he could once more voice the error the men had made.
Along with Kahotep's capture, the slavers had seized his chariot and horses, tying him behind one of their camels as they each took turns riding the chariot.
Idiots, Kahotep thought as he watched the heavier man, Orrin as the more dimwitted man Mali had called him, laughed aloud and rode carelessly, damaging the chariot.
A muffled grunt escaped Kahotep as his body made contact against the firm ground. He regarded the change of scenery before he discerned he was in a holding cell for slaves; the stone room was unlit and lacked windows. The door slammed shut behind him, leaving him constrained and alone. Great.
Propping himself up, he felt his tattoo itch, stimulating him uncomfortably rub his wrists together as an attempt to relieve the dermal irritation.
His brow quirked up in interest as he became aware of his restraints slackening, and after a few minutes of his persistent wriggling, he managed to liberate himself from the rope bindings, which had been the idiot Mali's handiwork and he thanked the gods for making it so.
Once again, he took the time to scrutinize the space he had been confined in. There was no avenue of escape other than through the door in which he came through. On closer examination of the wooden entrance, he noted that it opened into the room – a major advantage for him, leaving him only to wait for the appropriate opportunity.
"What do you mean he's gone?" Orrin shouted at Mali, his expression curdling from his anger.
Suddenly finding his sandals rather fascinating, Mali muttered a reply, "I checked on him like you asked. I opened the door and, well, he knocked me out. Who does that? When I woke up, he wasn't there anymore."
"Idiot!" Orrin roared, pounding his fist against his desk prior to stomping out of the room. "Come on. We have to fix your mess."
There was a faint tug on the corner of his lip as Kahotep spotted a resting camel still fully-equipped, saddlebags and all. It seemed that Horus was smiling down upon him.
Settling himself on his mode of transportation, he clicked his tongue, "Hut hut." The animal rose onto all fours, proceeding forward as a trained reaction to the command.
Just as the thought of his seemingly successful escape began to bring him comfort, hollers from his two captors informing each other of the direction their captive was fleeing came from behind.
"There! Over there!" Kahotep heard Orrin's petulant shouting, causing him to look back at his pursuers whom now held weapons.
Each armed with a bow and a quiversful of arrows, Orrin and Mali drew their weapons, targeting at the absconding Egyptian.
"He's more trouble than he's worth," Orrin rationalized to his companion as he ran after his camel and the slave. "Might as well kill him if he's this badly behaved."
Mali aimed and released multiple arrows haphazardly before shouting with glee, "I hit him, Orrin! I hit him!"
"Hyah, hyah!" Kahotep encouraged the camel to hasten as he clutched his thigh, the long end of an arrow jutting out from where it had penetrated his leg. Two more arrows found their mark – one on his back, where his right shoulder blade was, and another on his left arm.
Assessing the retreating form of the Egyptian as he moved further and further into the distance, Orrin stated matter-of-factly, "He'll be dead by early morning. We'll go then to get back the camel."
Bleaching the dark sky and tinting red-orange, the sun loomed from the east, peeking over the horizon as a camel leisurely emerged from it, bathed in the warm light.
"That man is hurt!" An onlooking child remarked, alerting her mother in the midst of retrieving water from a well. "Momma, momma, look!"
The woman turned her attentions to the direction her daughter was pointing to – her eyes widened as she saw the limp form of a man atop his camel, unmindful of its rider's fate. Spinning her child around, the woman urged her daughter away, "Sheriti, go get your brother and father. Quickly, now!"
"By the gods," She gasped as she became aware of the arrows lodged in the man's body, prompting her to run to the camel and take hold of its reins to still it as she checked on the inert traveler.
The woman gave a hurried plea to the goddess of healing to keep the man alive as she led the camel into the city and towards her master's property.
"What happened, Lara?" A robust man asked as he approached with his son, his gaze darting from his wife to the wounded traveler and back.
Handing the camel's reins over to her son, the woman spoke, "I don't know, but he's injured. We must help him, Kale."
The man nodded as he regarded the man, his injuries inflamed with dried crimson around it and his bronze skin muted from the blood loss. A grim expression setting on his face, Kale directed his son, "Idra, I need you to bring the camel to the shed. Make sure it has food and water before you run off to Master Jak and tell him about our new guest."
"Sarah, what are you doing?" Jak sighed, arms crossed as he observed his daughter laze on a heap of cushions in the salon of their abode – her golden locks strewn over the pillow her head rested on as she popped a date into her mouth from the fruit-filled platter beside her.
Replying with a shrug, Sarah continued to stare off into space, "Nothing really."
"Go outside. It's a beautiful morning. Enjoy it," The man offered, imploring the gods to aid his daughter in finding some sort of pursuit to sate her interest. She can't stay here forever, he thought as he watched his daughter disregarded his suggestion and continued to loll around. She's already of age and I'll have to marry her off if she doesn't find someone on her own and soon.
"Master!" a young voice exclaimed from behind.
Jak turned to find Idra, the servant boy, coming near before he hastily began to relay information of an injured man, something or other.
"What is your urgency that you must eat your words before they leave your mouth?" He laughed as the boy gave the impression of wanting to be elsewhere, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "What has happened?"
"Mother and Sheriti found a man half-dead on a camel when they went to fetch some water from the well. They took him in and Father is caring for him right now," The boy delivered the news slower, his impatience apparent as he gazed longingly at the direction he had come from.
Sitting up, Sarah watched her father excuse the boy, instructing Idra to inform him once the man was conscious before leaving for his study. She reclined back down once again as she tried to reclaim her previous nonchalance – her curiosity towards the wounded traveler, however, undoubtedly piqued.
"This is going to be bloody," Kale warned his wife as he separated his dagger from its sheath and sterilized it by running it to and fro through the ardent flames in the fireplace. Charging the other servants to hold the unconscious man down, he dug the tip of the blade into the site of the injury, blood seeping out as he wriggled the knife, creating sufficient space to permit him to remove the arrow without further trouble.
The extraction produced a pained groan from Kahotep as he clenched his jaw, rousing from his insentience managing to avoid biting his tongue from the stick that had been placed in his mouth in foresight. His breathing laborious whilst the two other arrows were pulled out in suit; all the while, he flitted in and out of consciousness.
"Is he all right?" Sheriti peeped inside the room.
Lara smiled gently, steering her daughter outside. "He is. All he needs now is some rest."
It had been three days since his wife and daughter had discovered the young traveler dehydrated and wounded atop his camel. The man had lapsed into a prolonged slumber, unresponsive to everything including his own hunger and thirst, which brought about watch duty over the injured.
Taking notice of the absence of his youngest child, Kale turned to his son who had been watching him as he finished forging an iron dagger. "Where's your sister?"
Idra observed his father swing his hammer relentlessly down onto the heated metal, his ears rung from the reverberating clangor. "She's playing 'healer' with the sleeping man."
Kale plunged his work into the water, cooling it before he set it aside to complete later. "Shall we go visit them?"
Kahotep moaned, stirring from his sleep and grimacing as he perceived the raw aching of his wounds. Bringing himself up, he considered his present situation: he was in someone's room. Smoldering wood crackled in the fireplace as steam escaped from the pot suspended above the flames; the smell wafted to his nostrils and provoked his stomach to growl hungrily.
"Want some?" A little girl popped up beside him from out of nowhere, startling him. In her hands, she held a bowl of stew.
His throat too dry to speak, Kahotep simply nodded instead. The girl smiled, scampering to fetch him a serving of the food and presenting it giddily to her patient, "Here you go!"
Ravenously devouring the contents of the dish in mere seconds, he sighed appreciatively, "Thank you."
"Want some more?" the child asked, eager to please.
"Don't feed him too much at once, Sheriti. It might come back up." A brawnily stout man grinned amiably at the little girl and Kahotep as he squeezed through the entrance of the room. Behind him came a boy, two or three years older than Sheriti.
"You're finally awake," The boy said, regarding the man with caution.
"Thank you for tending to me." Kahotep smiled at the man and the children, grateful for their kindness. "I don't know how I can repay you."
The man dismissed the statement with a wave of his hand, "I'm not asking for any repayment." Gesturing towards the Wedjat tattoo on Kahotep's wrist, he frankly commented, "You're a long way from home, Egyptian."
His hand instinctively moving to cover the eye of Horus inked permanently onto his flesh, Kahotep inquired, "Where am I?"
"Tunip. This city lies beside the Orontes River."
"I'm in Hittite territory…" Kahotep cursed his luck as he glared at the tattoo designed to protect him. Did I really travel this far? I was unconscious for the most part, so how am I to get home?
"Idra, go inform the master," The man ordered his son, who complied as he hurried out the door. "I am Kale, head servant of Jak, Governor of Tunip."
At the sound of a knock on his door, Jak stated, "Come in."
"Sir, the Egyptian is awake," Idra announced as he entered the study and stood in front of his master's desk, his hands behind his back as he awaited further instruction.
"Bring him here." Jak rubbed his temple, uncertain as to what he was to do with a recuperating foreigner.
The door closed once more, leaving the master of the house to his own thoughts.
Jak viewed the Egyptian for the first time since his servants had taken it upon themselves to save the man's life. He isn't of high status, he noted to himself as he viewed the absence of jewelry, neither gold nor colorful pottery beads, adorning the man. He doesn't seem like a slave either. He regarded the man's bandaged torso, arm, and thigh; of the areas where the man's tan skin was visible, there were no signs of past beatings that a slave would customarily procure from their service under their harsh masters. "Who are you?"
"Kahotep," the Egyptian responded succinctly, ruminating on what the sandy-haired man had planned for him.
Arching an eyebrow, Jak asked, "You understand Hittite?"
"I can speak it as well."
The injured man's answer generated a nod of interest from Jak, "Where did you learn our language?"
"My father dealt in politics. I spent my childhood listening to him dealing with foreign ambassadors and the like." Kahotep replied rather vaguely, deeming it unwise to disclose his actual position as the Prince of Kemet. "I learned a thing or two."
Leaning back against his seat, Jak crossed his arms, impressed by young man who stood in front of him. He had an air of innate dignity and charm, something the Hittite governor respected. "Do you have a home to return to?"
The expression the Egyptian held became impassive, the query throwing him off. I know for certain that Father has sent a search party for me… But do I really wish to return?
Kahotep inwardly frowned at his inability to answer back.
Taking the young man's silence as a negative, Jak smiled at the man before him. "Our countries' relations as a whole may be strained but I do not wish to be inhospitable to a man without a home. You are welcome to stay as long as you wish."
With nothing else to say other than his appreciation, Kahotep said, "Thank you."
Author's Note: Please do tell me your thoughts. Should I continue, should I not?
Feel free to PM me for any queries.