Flail of the Pharoah Read online

  At last the Pharaoh and Queen of Egypt stood at a window high in the palace that faced towards the East, watching the magnificent orange globe of the sun rise above the horizon. Then Seti turned to his wife with a smile. ‘It is done. Shall we break bread together, my queen?’

  As the royal couple broke their fast on fresh dates, bread, honey and goats’ milk, the swelling sounds of the morning could be heard outside: the snorting of camels and cries of their drivers; the cry of oarsmen on the Nile; the cooing of doves and the murmurings of the palace women, all combined into the familiar symphony of daily life that gave Mira a great sense of satisfaction. Thanks to the ritual that she and Seti had just performed, life could move smoothly along its usual course, illumined and sustained by the great gold disc of Ra.

  As she wiped the juice from her mouth with a fine napkin, Mira heard Seti say, ‘Shall we proceed to the audience chamber now? I am eager to see what tribute has been brought for us.’ He helped her up with his strong hand, giving her a wry smile as he continued, ‘Our coffers might be overflowing, but there is always room for more.’

  She followed on, one pace behind as modesty decreed, until they paused outside the throne room. Trumpeters announced their presence and bodies prostrated themselves as the king and queen moved to the dais bearing two high-backed gold chairs, intricately painted in beautiful colours and inset with previous jewels.

  Mira settled on the cushion and composed her features. It was not seemly to display her feelings during an audience. She must appear unmoved by the most heartrending entreaties, must not respond to any petitioner by so much as the raising of an eyebrow, and could not make any sign or gesture that might be taken as a ‘yea’ or a ‘nay’. It was for the Pharaoh to decide the fate of those who threw themselves upon his mercy.

  Equally, the queen’s smile must fall with equal radiance on all who bestowed gifts. The humblest offering of fruit or flowers must be received with the same enthusiasm as a pearl-encrusted casket or a lion cub, brought from the vast jungles of the south and destined to spend its life in the palace menagerie. All must be received ‘without fear or favour’, as the Pharaoh himself often repeated.

  To remain so passive through an audience of several hours could be tedious, so Mira was wont to let her thoughts rove even while her expression remained impassive or her smile fixed. Today she began thinking about the ceremony of the Awakening, and how especially sacred it had seemed to her when she bared her bosom to receive the Pharaoh’s stripes. She recalled the exquisite sensations as her husband lashed her breasts, the stinging pain being quite eclipsed by her excitement at suffering her husband’s chastisement.

  She had wanted him to master her completely, to dominate her as he dominated the courtiers and captives. There were carvings throughout the land that showed the mighty Pharaoh with his foot upon the neck of his enemies, carvings that always evoked in her a secret, mysterious thrill. Sometimes she had strange dreams and fantasies about being the lowliest slave in the palace, whipped by her master for the slightest misdemeanour.

  Yet her husband always treated her as his equal, for that was how the royal court of Egypt regarded its king and queen: equal rulers in a land that dominated all others on earth. How could she expect things to be otherwise between her and the Pharaoh, when centuries of tradition prevailed?

  The last of the wretched petitioners had left the chamber and now it was time for happier business: the presentation of gifts. A steady stream of men brought tribute from their lords, hoping to win or maintain the Pharaoh’s favour. There were rare spices from the land of Punt, carved cedar wood artefacts and embroidered cloths from the lands that were near enough to Egypt to fear its power. Soon a huge pile of gifts grew in front of the twin thrones, the perfume from rare incenses and woods filling the air.

  Finally came the slave traders, with their human bounty. These men sailed in ships to the edge of the world, seeking male servants for the palace and women for the harem. Mira recognised one of them: a fierce, dark-skinned man called Ephiras, who had made it his job to seek out the most beautiful maidens he could find and bring them back for the Pharaoh’s pleasure.

  This time, it seemed, he had excelled himself.

  Ephiras prostrated himself before the throne. ‘Your majesty, a pearl amongst women have I found,’ he said, in his broken Egyptian and thick accent. ‘And from a place far-flung. A cold place, white and bare.’

  Seti leaned forward with his elbow on his knee, chin in hand. His eyes stared keenly at the old man. ‘A cold place, you say Ephiras? But does such a place not produce “cold” women?’

  Everyone laughed politely at the Pharaoh’s little joke, including Ephiras. But then the slaver signalled to his man at the door. ‘You shall see, sire. Pale like ivory is the girl, but her heart warm as a fire-hearth. I bring you only the one perfect woman this time. You see!’

  A girl was brought in by the assistant, who brought her to the area in front of the throne then withdrew her veil. A gasp of surprise went around the courtiers in attendance when they saw how pale and beautiful she was, with hair like shining gold, eyes like sapphires and lips like rubies.

  The queen was used to seeing beautiful women unveiled before her husband and she knew that, once they joined the harem, they would take their turn in serving his bed. But somehow she knew this rare creature was different from the other exotic maidens paraded in the palace. There had been yellow girls from the Orient, black girls from the equator, and many olive-skinned girls from the Mediterranean. But never before a girl like this, plucked from the earth’s polar region and pale as the legendary stuff called snow.

  She wore a diaphanous robe that plunged at the neck to display her creamy throat and the tops of her breasts, and slit at the sides to show her shapely calves and thighs.

  Ephiras all but rubbed his hands in glee at the response of the royal court to his latest acquisition. ‘She is called Charmian, sire,’ he gushed.

  ‘Does she speak Egyptian?’ Seti asked, his voice slightly hoarse.

  ‘I have schooled her a little, your majesty, but she will learn fast. That I can promise you. She has a good head on her shoulders, not just a pretty one, and her voice is sweet as the spring breeze in the palms. Say something for your new master, Charmian – that greeting I taught you.’

  The room fell silent, with only distant, muffled sounds from beyond the palace walls to be heard. Mira examined the girl, critically looking for some flaw in her features, some awkwardness in her posture, some hint of insubordination in her expression – but she could find none. This Charmian was perfection herself, and already the queen hated her for it.

  Shyly, the captive brought forth a few halting phrases. ‘Hail to your highness, King Seti the Third, who reigns in the paradise garden of Egypt, land of the fertile Nile.’

  Her voice was silvery, light and musical, and it brought forth spontaneous applause from the courtiers and even from the Pharaoh himself. Seeing that everyone else was applauding, Mira also gave a few rapid handclaps, although it went against the grain to do so.

  ‘If you wish, sire, you may examine the girl more closely to see if she meets with your approval,’ Ephiras continued in his oily way, his voice heavy with insinuation.

  Mira knew well what humiliation might follow for the foreign girl. The Pharaoh was at liberty to order female captives to be stripped naked. He could then descend from the dais and make his personal inspection: opening their mouths to see that their teeth were sound; squeezing their breasts to ensure they were ripe and firm and had never suckled a child; patting or pinching their rump to make sure they were well covered with flesh, for he preferred a woman with a good rear on her.

  Then, if he had any doubt about her virginity, the king might probe the woman’s private parts with his finger, to test the resistance – or otherwise – of her hymen. Many a female had been discarded after this trial, condemned to spend a life of menial servi
tude in the palace kitchens, or toiling in the fields, instead of living the relatively pampered life of the harem.

  To Mira’s surprise, however, Seti declined the offer. ‘I trust you not to present me with soiled goods,’ he told Ephiras, making the slaver swell with pride. ‘Anyone can see, from the girl’s demeanour, that she is pure and innocent. She will have pride of place in my harem.’

  Then he turned to Mira with a look that made her fear what he was about to say. She struggled to remain composed and return her husband’s smile.

  ‘And you, my queen, shall take personal charge of the girl. She will deem it a great honour, I am sure, to be prepared for the Pharaoh’s bed by his most high consort. You know what to do, wife. Take Charmian to her quarters right away, and make a start on her. I trust you to acquaint her with the ways of the Egyptian court, and of the royal bedchamber.’

  Mira rose and made an unsteady bow before her throne, but she felt nauseous and was afraid she might fall as she went down the three steps. She could hardly bear to look at the girl waiting so patiently and humbly, but she knew she must not betray her inner qualms. Years of training allowed her to remain outwardly serene while her emotions were in turmoil, her heart thudding wildly beneath the heavy bejewelled pectoral she wore between her breasts.

  ‘Come, girl,’ she said, holding out her hand as she descended, her voice sounding surprisingly calm and normal to her ears. ‘Welcome to the royal court of Egypt.’

  She bowed to the Pharaoh, nodded imperiously to Ephiras and took the girl’s slender hand in hers, leading her out of the chamber. Her lips were pasted into a smile throughout, her bearing tall and regal, yet there were dark thoughts in her mind and cruel feelings in her heart.

  When they had left the audience chamber and were walking down the corridor towards the women’s quarters, Charmian suddenly changed. A fleeting terror showed in her exquisite blue eyes and she began to tremble.

  ‘Please…’ she whispered, ‘where… you take me? What happen to me?’

  Mira realised then, with a certain satisfaction, that the slave girl had no idea what her duties would be in the palace, or why she had been brought there. It would be easy to control this creature, to keep her in a state of fear and rule her with a rod of iron. Perhaps it was just as well that the queen had been given sole charge of the lovely Charmian, after all.

  Chapter 2

  It had been a long journey, and not just in terms of miles or months. For Charmian, it had been a nightmare transition from a pleasant, ordered world to a frighteningly chaotic one…

  The day when the barbarian slavers came had dawned bright and fair, in the land where the days were long in summer and short in winter. Charmian had just been betrothed to the son of a chieftain and she was looking forward to her new status as a married woman. Her family were wealthy herdsmen and foresters, so she had a large dowry and several suitors. The man who had won her was handsome, and seemed kind.

  She had been sitting with the women, embroidering deerskin garments, when the cry went up. ‘Strange ships! Strange men!’ There had been the clanging of armour being donned, and the sharpening of swords. Charmian, huddled with the other women, felt a dark fear engulf her, a strong emotion she had never experienced before in her young life.

  After the enemies had landed events moved swiftly. The invaders were violent men, swarthy barbarians with black beards, matted locks and evil eyes. They moved through the coastal villages like a forest fire, marauding and plundering, but their main aim had been to steal not gold and silver but human beings, men and women they could sell in the slave markets of the south.

  Charmian still had bad dreams about the moment when the three men came into the women’s room, looking around with greedy eyes. One seemed to be in charge. He surveyed the foreign females with a calculating eye, and then pointed to Charmian and her friend. The men seized them, and they were dragged screaming from the place.

  Outside there were smoking ruins and many bodies. Charmian tried not to look, but already her eyes were streaming with tears and she was trembling uncontrollably. She was herded together with other women from her settlement, and shackles were placed on her hands and feet. They were forced to make a slow shuffle down to the shore, where the black hull of the pirates’ ship reared on the water like a floating prison. At that moment, for the first time in her young life, Charmian wished she were dead.

  The sea voyage was a dreadful ordeal. In her country it was the men who went to sea, not the women, and she had no idea how sick it would make her feel. She seemed stuck there in that dark hold for an eternity, crammed between other wretched bodies stewing in their own vomit, urine and excrement. For a girl brought up in dainty ways, it was pure hell.

  At long last the boat docked in some faraway land of which Charmian had no knowledge. Several of her fellow slaves died on the voyage, and the stench of rotting corpses had been added to the other vile odours for the past week or so. To be allowed out onto dry land, into the light and air of a sunny day, seemed like heaven – at first.

  They were taken to a building made of stones, and buckets of water were thrown over them. Then they were give food – just bread, goats’ cheese and olives, but it was a feast compared to the dried biscuit and foul water onboard ship. The chief slaver came to look them over and a few were selected at once, Charmian amongst them.

  They were crammed into a donkey cart and taken over the mountains to a small town, with a large market square in the centre. Charmian soon realised that they were about to be sold off to the highest bidder, and she felt a desperate agony of homesickness. The best she could hope for now was that some kind man would buy her, not a cruel master. She steeled herself to forget all about the land of her birth: now she must look forward, not back, and make the best of whatever circumstances she found herself in.

  But it was hard to endure the lascivious looks of these strange sun-darkened men and to submit to their filthy, probing fingers. She gagged as they felt inside her mouth, shuddered as they mauled her tender breasts. Some of the women had to suffer even worse indignities, but somehow Charmian was spared these gross invasions of her body.

  Then a man who seemed different from the rest approached her. His name was Ephiras – she heard him called thus – and his manner was more civilised, courteous even. He looked her in the eye and asked her name, but when she pronounced the name she had been given at birth he laughed and shook his head, commenting to the slave trader in a foreign tongue. Then he looked into her eyes again and said very deliberately, pointing at her, ‘Charmian! Charmian!’

  From that she surmised that her old name was too outlandish and this was to be her new one. The final link with her homeland was broken in that instant.

  Ephiras gestured for her feet and hands to be unshackled and a single rope placed around her wrists instead. She saw a heavy purse exchanged then he led her off, the same way she had seen men leading donkeys in that land, but this time she was housed in a simple but clean dwelling, where she had a bed to lie on and was given decent food and spring water. It was a great improvement on what she had grown used to, even though the door was bolted and the window had bars upon it.

  Charmian, as she now thought of herself, had no idea how much time had elapsed since the beginning of the nightmare and now more days crept by, days when she could hear the pleasant hustle and bustle of daily life outside. The nights were worse, for then she had nothing to distract her and would often weep for her family and friends and, above all, for the man to whom she had been betrothed. What had happened to him? He was almost certainly dead, and now she must face an uncertain future that might be worse than death. How had the gods of her people allowed such disaster to fall upon such innocent victims?

  Soon after her arrival in these new quarters Ephiras sent a brown-skinned young man to talk with her, every morning. At first she wondered if she was to be married off to this man. He seemed reassuringly polite and
friendly, but soon she realised his sole purpose was to teach her to speak a foreign tongue. He would point to objects in the room and make her repeat their name. It was hard, since some of the guttural sounds were alien to her, but she tried her best and soon found herself looking forward to his visits. At least the lessons took her mind off other things.

  After a while, however, Charmian realised the language she was being taught was not that of Ephiras, or of the native people around her. She could hear them calling to each other outside her prison, and she had also overheard Ephiras addressing her tutor, but the sound of their speech was quite different. One day she asked the young man where he was from. ‘Egypt,’ he replied.

  ‘And this language you teach me?’

  ‘Egyptian.’

  So then she guessed that this pleasant land was not to be her final destination, and Ephiras would not be her master for much longer.

  When Ephiras came to her hut and gave her a goatskin bag containing a fine linen robe and some cheap jewellery, she knew the final leg of her journey was about to begin. The prospect of another sea voyage was terrifying, but this time the sea was calm and she was allowed on deck under a tent to shield her from the sun. She was under Ephiras’ protection, too, and he was kind to her.

  ‘Soon you come to the land of Egypt,’ he said to her, in Egyptian, but she realised that he spoke the language with a strange accent compared to the native who had taught her.

  ‘What happen to me there?’ she enquired, tremulously. Her inadequate knowledge of the language forced her to speak bluntly.

  Ephiras smiled, and his dark brown eyes looked almost sad. ‘Have no fear, Charmian. You will be treated with honour and respect. You are going to a place where beautiful women are valued, and you are one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.’ He stroked a lock of her fair hair as if it was gold, and he was assessing its worth. ‘You will fetch a high price,’ he added, with a smirk.