A/N: Hello to any readers out there :) This entire story is plotted out and about 10 chapters are already written. Please R & R!
"Those who live today will die tomorrow, those who die tommorow will be born again. Those who live Ma'at will never die."
-Ancient Egyptian Proverb
From the moment Suhad of Amurru pulled the half-dead soldier from the riverbed, she knew he was a strong man. Wounded and exhausted as he was, he had not allowed himself to die on the battlefield the way so many Egyptian and Mitanni had just days before. Survival was not a matter of willpower for most men, but this soldier was different.
At first, his long, lanky frame was disarming. The soldier looked like any other young man her age, albeit a very handsome one. It was only over the weeks of tending his wounds, concealed in a small hut on the outskirts of her farming village, that he had shown his true nature. In the little world of their own Suhad watched him heal, and with his body mended, his playful, stubborn personality revealed itself.
His determination to be up and walking long before his weak legs would carry him seemed foolish to Suhad, until he shocked her by accompanying her on walks around the reed fields only days after deciding on his goal. That was when she knew he was a powerful man, one who took action and did not simply let fate decide his path.
Suhad's heart never stood a chance. She had never met someone as confident and poised, who spoke like a nobleman but stood up for the people of her village like a commoner. Someone who was so charming and kind and wanted to make Egypt a better place for all her people. Because of this, when he finally disclosed his true identity, that of Pharaoh Tutankhamun himself, she was both shocked and unsurprised at once.
What she could not understand for the life of her was what he saw in her. Her low-born status and her foreign blood made many people suspicious of her, especially now with the Mitanni and other neighboring tribes encroaching on the Egyptian borderlands. Yet Tutankhamun looked at her as if she were something holy. Suhad had told him as much, that their blossoming love was impractical at best, impossible at worst.
Yet she couldn't bring herself to break off their relationship. It was like an unseen force had tied them together with invisible string—Suhad knew she had to go with him, first to the Mitanni fortress to rescue one of his captains from the war prison, and then to Thebes to stop the coronation of the new pharaoh.
The circumstances behind the coronation were hazy at best for Suhad, Tutankhamun had not divulged any more than necessary, although in truth he didn't know many details either. That did not matter; this was his birthright and he planned to fight those who had maneuvered against him to claim it. Then, with peace restored, she would stand by his side, helping him to become the great pharaoh he aspired to be.
Newly-widowed Queen Ankhesenamun smiled from her chamber doorway as she watched the young general fix her silken bedsheets. Every movement was completed with the clinical precision of someone who had gone through the motion a thousand times before. She couldn't help but notice how handsome he looked in the early morning light, his tousled wavy brown hair falling in his face with every movement, his broad shoulders flexing beneath his green striped tunic. Ankhesenamun wondered if there would ever be a day where she didn't like to look at him—she doubted it.
"Pharaohs don't make their own beds, Ka."
"Soldiers do, and I am still a soldier for a few more hours," he retorted, finishing with the sheets and shooting Ankhesenamun a playful look.
She met him halfway across the sparkling stone floor of her bed chamber, resting her hands on his chest comfortably while his arms circled her small waist. "Then my maids will thank you. They have one less task for the night—assuming the pharaoh will have his queen in his chambers this evening."
Ka smiled down at her, but his expression fell into something more serious. Touching her face gently, he responded, "Ankhesenamun, we can hold off on moving your brother's—"
"No, Ka." Ankhesenamun cut him off, knowing what he was going to offer. "You are pharaoh now. Just as my father had his things moved from the pharaoh's chambers when Tutankhamun was coronated, so it will be with you. The gods understand this is the way, and my brother knows from the Field of Reeds that this is how it has always been. It does not mean that we love him any less. You do him no wrong by embracing your role as pharaoh, but you would do yourself a disservice by demonstrating any hesitation."
He sighed, accepting her words, but his eyes still bore the same worried look. Ka was concerned about her, but when wasn't he? He had been since they were ten! But now, there was truly nothing for her to worry about; they were together and after today they would rule the kingdom as husband and wife.
Stroking her jaw with the lightest of touches, he answered, "Nothing has to be rushed, I know you still mourn Tutankhamun. This should be a happy day, not one that dredges up your grief."
"You of all people should know I'm too much an adherent of propriety to already be allowing you to step on rules of royal etiquette." Ankhesenamun bit her bottom lip but couldn't help the smile that eased across her countenance as she looked up at him. "And as I still outrank you, you will just have to live with my decision."
"Oh really!?" Ka laughed, pinching her backside and causing her to squirm. "Enjoy pulling rank while you can, love."
She giggled, unable to help the swirl of emotions within her—she had been quietly in love with this man for her entire adult life, despite carrying out her father's wishes by marrying her brother. So even the sadness and grief losing Tutankhamun brought could not temper her feelings of adoration; they flowed freely, no longer inhibited by familial obligations.
Ankhesenamun caught Ka's face in her hands and brought him down for a sound kiss, something she found herself doing quite often—just a reminder that he was here, holding her, and this wasn't just one of her dreams.
"You were right. Anubis has freed us, to mourn my brother as all my siblings gone before their time, but, most importantly, to live our lives. Tutankhamun will always be our brother, but I won't have his memory keep us from embracing our fate. You will be a strong and wise pharaoh. I am proud to stand by your side."
"I wouldn't have it any other way." Ka smiled, kissing her again with that lopsided grin still on his lips. Ankhesenamun loved how tightly he held her, like she was the most precious thing in the whole world. When they finally broke apart, foreheads resting together, his hand fell to her still-flat stomach. "I wouldn't want to do this without either of you."
Smoothing her small, tan hand over his, she allowed them a moment of reprieve, to think about nothing other than their family. It would be her, Ka, and their baby. Everything would fall into place just as it should.
"We cannot bring back the family we have lost, Ankhe," Ka whispered, "But we will have a family together. A new dynasty. We will have so much joy it will overwhelm our grief."
She knew that as an adopted son of Ankhenaten, he had not only lived through the deaths of his own mother and father, but the deaths of the princes and princesses he had grown up with in the palace at Amarna. Their shared sorrow only brought them closer, Tutankhamun was just the most recent in the long line of tragedies.
"We will…assuming you go to see the high priest this morning. I came here to let you know he summoned you to morning prayer, before you begin preparation for the coronation ceremony," Ankhesenamun joked.
Ka sighed, pulling away from her slightly. She could see that he was reluctant to get the day started; that was probably the reason he had bathed on his own and had opted to fix her bed instead of socializing with Ay and the other advisors who had been competing for his attention since sunrise. "So it begins."
Smoothing her hands over his tunic front, she let out a breathy laugh. Sometimes Ankhesenamun forgot how much Ka had distanced himself from the nobility in his later years, opting for extended campaigns with the army instead of lounging around the palace yard to hear the latest gossip. He was nervous, and that was okay.
He had always tried his best to shield her from every unkindness the world threw at her, even when she was made queen and he knew he was overstepping—now Ankhesenamun would return the favor, guiding him in the den of snakes until he got his footing.
"Don't let the high priest's double speak and metaphors unsettle you. It is he who should be worried about impressing you. You witnessed Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun's coronations, this will be no different. You know how this goes."
"I do," Ka agreed, but his downcast gaze suggested that he was miles away from her.
Walking back to the brightly painted doorway, Ankhesenamun turned to look at him. "Now, would you have me accompany you to temple? Or would you rather bask alone in your last few hours as general?"
Without hesitation, Ka closed the space between them, taking her hand in his as they walked out into the corridor.
The coronation room in all of its colorful pillared splendor, was packed with Egyptian nobility that afternoon. Everyone of importance was invited to the grand palace at Thebes this mercifully cool day, and now they stood in reverent silence at the priest's behest.
High Priest Amun stopped, arms out toward the great stone statues on the altar, as he implored the gods to see and honor their new pharaoh. The only movement was of the sweet-smelling smoke incense that curled toward the vaulted ceiling as the queen and soon-to-be pharaoh looked upon the priest dutifully.
While waiting for the high priest to give her a direction in the ensuing ceremonial rituals, Ankhesenamun snuck a glance at Ka and couldn't hide a grin. Her heart soared. He would be a great pharaoh, like that of her great grandfather. Ay tried to scare her away from marrying him by claiming that High General Horemheb would run roughshod over Ka, having been his military superior for so long, and, in turn, gain too much power, but Ankhesenamun truly didn't believe that would be the case.
As he did with all the military men, the vizier underestimated the intelligence of his future pharaoh. Ka knew what needed to be done and knew better than to think any of the noblemen had his best interests at heart.
Between her knowledge of the palace's political and diplomatic maneuverings and his knowledge of the country's military and foreign dealings, they would rule as a united front, pharaoh and queen, insulated from the choreographies of others who sought to pull strings, and bring Egypt into a new golden age.
When the crowd suddenly broke into frenzied murmurs, Ankhesenamun returned from her reverie and turned from the altar to see what had caused the commotion—her brother, Tutankhamun, stood proudly at the doorway in peasant rags. She couldn't take her eyes off of him, he was supposed to be dead. He died on the field of battle a month ago!
"…Is he back from the dead?"
"…Thank the gods!"
"…Does this mean he was rejected by Ma'at? Or did Osiris save him?"
Her brain worked in overdrive while murmurs from the crowd punctuated the uproar. Of course, Ankhesenamun was happy her brother wasn't dead! She loved him! But then pendulum swung in the other direction as she considered what that meant for her. She would be back to being Tutankhamun's wife, and her love for Ka would be again relegated to stolen moments in the shadows. Could she do that, now? What about their child?
Ka immediately removed the crown the priest had bestowed upon him and handed it out toward Tutankhamun, who continued to advance across the red stone floor. The throngs of guests parted rapidly for him, but he seemed to pay them no mind. His expression was unreadable, and Ankhesenamun's heart pounded. The way he appeared, the way he carried himself, her dear, kind brother looked like a stranger as his gaze fixed solely on Ka.
For being just as surprised and shocked as she was, Ka held his composure by not divulging any particular emotion as he stared back at the pharaoh, his arms out in a non-threatening gesture of deference. There was really nothing else that could be done until they ascertained Tutankhamun's intentions.
The entire room held its collective breath when the two men finally were toe to toe. Nothing had been said, but Tutankhamun opened his arms cordially, embracing his closest friend in a tight hug, and for one shining moment, Ankhesenamun thought everything would be smoothed over. They would talk through this bizarre turn of events, and all would be well.
"Brother, it is so good to see you," Ka remarked with a tight-lipped smile that only Ankhesenamun could see.
Surely, Tutankhamun would rather have had Ka reign in his stead than any of the other candidates. By moving quickly, Ka had protected Ankhesenamun from those that would have sought to marry or do away with her and claim the throne for themselves. He was the only prince of the palace left, and he did his duty to his adopted father.
"You are a betrayer."
Tutankhamun whispered those words into Ka's ear, tears in his eyes as his impassive expression twisted into fury. Ka pulled back slightly, a look of confusion on his face, but Tutankhamun's jaw clenched, and he made no further effort to explain himself. Without ceremony, he unsheathed the ceremonial knife at Ka's side and stabbed him with it.
Completely catatonic, the queen sat on the floor exactly where she had fallen, perversely unable to make herself move from the macabre scene.
Ankhesenamun had never felt pain this acutely before. Like her ribs were snapping under an enormous weight and her heart was folding inward as a last desperate attempt at self-preservation. She heard nothing, except a quiet ringing in her ears, she saw nothing but white spots.
She couldn't recall the two soldiers prying Ka from her bloody hands, or Harit coming to drag her out of the hall and cleaning the blood smears from her face.
The dark red stain on her dress was still warm, causing resistance as the linen slid down her legs to pool at her feet—vividly, Ankhesenamun remembered that.
Hundreds of Egyptians gathered in the courtyard to greet the newly crowned pharaoh. Instead, like something out of one of Ankhesenamun's recent nightmares, the Theban crowd roared in awe, not for her and Ka, but for the seemingly resurrected Tutankhamun. He greeted them on the limestone veranda, blood anointing his face as a gruesome memento of what had just transpired inside. He enthralled them with a vicious speech about power and kings and betrayal and birth-rights.
The words sounded like nothing more than garbled dissonance and sharp-edged syllables.
Ka was dead.
Ankhesenamun could walk back to her chamber and the bedding would be folded just the way he made it, his dressing robe would be laying where he tossed it over the blankets, waiting for its owner to return.
Dead.
Not a clean, distanced "with the gods" or "with honor on the battlefield" wherein which one could imagine the death as almost a sacred and magnificent epilogue to life. No, he died in her arms from a stab wound inflicted by his best friend. It had to have been a misunderstanding, whatever her brother thought Ka had done to deserve such an ignoble end, but the vindictive, glassy-eyed expression on Tutankhamun's face would haunt her forever.
She should have held him tighter. A fresh round of tears stung Ankhesenamun's already burning eyes as her foggy brain suddenly recalled how quick two soldiers were to pull Ka from her, dragging him away like a slaughtered bull at temple. He was still warm when they took him from her.
She should have fought harder for those last moments.
Now, all she could do now was include her cartouche and talisman among his funerary amulets so that he could find her in the Afterlife. She would include some of his things in her tomb to make sure he had everything he wanted in the Field of Reeds.
Like a true festering wound, Ankhesenamun's immediate feelings of shock and grief had sparkled like acute pain, but soon gave way to a hot simmering fury, one that had already leached into her bones and twisted the very core of her being. She had to find her brother.
"Out! All of you!"
As she stormed into the pharaoh's sitting chamber, she had only the thought of attaining her goal. Later would she look back at the moment for what it was: the first time in her adult life that she had not cared what anyone thought of her. Ankhesenamun knew that she looked half-crazed in her dressing gown with her hair tangled and her makeup smeared around her blood-shot eyes.
Whether it was her appearance or her actual command that caused the maids and soldiers to flee, she didn't know. Of course, Ay stood beside the king as if her mandate excluded him while the bugs scattered through the doorway.
"And you."
Ay graciously bowed his head and exited, leaving Ankhesenamun to turn back to her brother. He looked down at her with a quiet confidence that made her bite her tongue until she tasted blood. She hadn't understood the notion of "seeing red" until that moment, staring at him with every muscle in her body tensed while his even, disinterested gaze spoke volumes.
Ankhesenamun hadn't planned to slap Tutankhamun, but once she did and the stinging pain in her hand radiated up her forearm, the sound of her anger reverberating off of the vaulted ceiling, all she wanted to do was hit him again. But this time he caught her wrist, stopping the blow and leaving her to punch at his chest as her fevered attack broke down into sobs. He slowly enveloped her in a hug, but Ankhesenamun shoved him away.
"He could not have done it."
Tutankhamun stepped forward and she instinctively moved back to replace the space between them. "He stood by the general as I lay there bleeding. He walked away and he left me to die!"
"You were badly injured. You weren't of sound mind!" she shot back.
"I was of sight!" he roared.
Ankhesenamun shook her head, physically clearing the thought from her mind. "No, no."
"He was my brother," Tutankhamun began, his tone much softer as he tried a different approach. "As much as any man that shared my blood, and he left me to rot. And then he tried to claim what is mine."
His resentment seemed to be bubbling to the surface again, and if she had cared, she would have felt a pang of sadness for his loss. Ka was his best friend, protector, mentor since they were children. It must have cut him deeply to think that his closest family could betray him in the worst way. But Ankhesenamun felt only a numbness; he brought the misery down on them both, but at least he could soothe himself with the fantasy of having vanquished a betrayer.
He would never have to ask Ka to defend himself or allow him to explain what really happened. It was she who would have to live with a truth weighing down her heart. "Ka was the most noble man I knew. He was a pawn. The general used him and manipulated him."
That was Maat's truth. Ka looked her in the eye that night she had sent for him, and he told her what happened on the battlefield. He swore his words against the goddess' feather of truth. And that was why Ankhesenamun knew her faith in him had not been misplaced.
The cool, sanctimonious look was back in Tutankhamun's eyes as he appraised her, although his words no doubt were meant to convey pity. "Maybe it was you who was the pawn, maybe Horemheb and Ka had this planned for years…Or maybe you both conspired against me."
"Is that what you see?"
He at least had the sense to cast his glance downward at her retort and Ankhesenamun found herself not waiting for a response. "He is a part of me, brother. Forever."
Tutankhamun may have ripped away her one chance at true happiness, but now he too was without one member of an already very small family. Ankhesenamun knew she could cause him pain still, and vindication swept through her at his hurt expression when she turned on her heel and walked out, her last words continuing to fill the chamber:
"I will never forgive you for this."
"Why have I been brought here?" Suhad questioned bluntly.
She had been prepared for a challenge when they got to Thebes, but what had transpired that afternoon was above and beyond her expectations; she felt exhausted and overwhelmed with uncertainty.
Without any friends or allies, as soon as Tutankhamun had left them in the throne room, all Suhad could do was stay by Lagus' side and ignore the obvious stares of the confused and panicked courtiers. Gods bless Lagus, he took her right under his wing and helped her find a measure of stability.
It wasn't until the evening that Tutankhamun, washed and redressed in finery, appeared in her chamber doorway, telling her that she would instead be staying with him and that all of her needs would now be met by a crew of maids. Suhad was uneasy. No amount of mental preparation could have prepared her for all of this.
The palace's golden-gilded luxury was a far cry from her hut in Amurru, and she told Tutankhamun as much. It was then that he smiled softly and asked her to take a walk with him; he wanted to introduce her to his home and history. His tight jaw and rigid shoulders made Suhad realize that he needed her company as much as she needed his as they navigated this new life together.
Their stroll around the palace grounds lasted late into the evening, Tutankhamun explaining all of the different mazes of rooms and the history behind the reliefs that covered the walls and pillars. Her fatigue shaken off, Suhad attempted to not gawk in awe of the decadence surrounding her; she had not imagined a place so beautifully lavish could exist.
One thing that kept her from being completely absorbed in the artwork was that Tutankhamun had yet to say anything of real gravity, of her, or of her biggest gap in knowledge: What had happened in the throne room. Even now, more relaxed as he was, she could see the stark change in his demeanor; the man who embraced another only to stab him moments later was not the man she recognized.
Tutankhamun had entered the palace upon their return as a winsome, determined, if not slightly overconfident young man and left blood-covered and embittered. All Suhad had been able to gather based on his original plan they had created back in Amurru was that Ankhesenamun was married, and the new pharaoh was being coronated—a very popular general that fought the Mitanni alongside General Horemheb.
Suhad had managed to pull a bit more information out of him as they walked, but his refreshed synopsis still lacked any sentiment, it was all factual: The generals had seen an opportunity to seize power by leaving him for dead on the battlefield and Ka, the younger of the two, had manipulated the queen into agreeing to marry him. Apparently, he had coveted her for most of their young life.
Without looking up at Suhad, Tutankhamun responded to her question with conviction, it was the first time his tone divulged any emotion. "Because I intend to make you my wife."
"You have a wife…" she couldn't resist pointing that out because while she had heard of nobles taking more than one, it was not common for the everyday person. He could at least have the gall to acknowledge the elephant in the room. She was not going to be dragged along by a ring in her nose and left in the dark for decisions to be made while she sat in a gilded cage. "You are married to a queen."
"Who does not have my heart," Tutankhamun replied.
The solemnity in his statement melted Suhad slightly, and when he stopped to look at her with his beautiful dark eyes, tired and overtaxed, she realized how much of a toll his return had taken on him. The true Tutankhamun was under all the finery, only now reemerging from the darkness of the afternoon's events. Her immediate concerns and desire for a greater explanation could wait.
"And do I not have say at becoming your wife?" she joked, smirking. It lifted her spirits to hear him chuckle, a smile playing across his lips for the first time since they returned to the city.
Tutankhamun took her hands in his, stroking her knuckles and she remembered how achingly sweet he could be.
"I know this will be difficult at first. I do not pretend to think everything will fall perfectly into place right away, but you have healed more than just my wounds. You have awoken something in me, when you look at me, I realize the kind of man I want to be—for you, and for Egypt. You are here because I love you, I want you with me always."
"Even though I am part Mitanni," Suhad said it as a statement more than a question. His words made her want nothing more than to close the space between them and fall into him, to come together the way they had under the stars with only the pyramids to see. But she was a realist and could not be caught up in this fantasy without considering the possible ramifications and pitfalls.
He rubbed her arms. "This does not matter; you're an Egyptian as well."
"That's not how others will see me."
He could just make declarations and demand respect; he was not considering that she, Suhad, was the one that had to live in this place amongst the gossips and rude stares, always the outsider from Amurru. "Egyptian, Mitanni, here those things matter, out there we were neither!"
Tutankhamun sighed, seeming to have understood her point. It was a rare connection they had, born out of necessity when Horemheb's men were looking for him and her split-second decision to hide him saved his life, blossoming into a love that had no prerequisites or demands in her small village. "Suhad, I am bound to my life here: my customs, my people, my duty, and yes, the queen. I want to give you this world, but I won't force you to take it."
Of course, she was going to marry him. It was for the gods to know why they were put together on this earth, but Suhad did know that he needed her. She needed to be a comforting and trustworthy presence in this den of snakes to keep the determined young man she had fallen madly in love with from being engulfed by the embittered cynical pharaoh.
Reaffirming her decision, Suhad kissed him lightly before allowing him to delve back into story of the palace. Tutankhamun needed this escape as much as she needed to learn. There would be time to pry answers from himabout the events he obviously was skirting, but for now, they were here, together.
That was enough.