Free The Bull of Min by Lavender Ironside Page A

Wife.”
    “Neferure,” he said, but she hissed at him like a nurse quieting a difficult child. Thutmose bit his tongue. It would not do to allow the servants or the guards to hear that name. Inwardly, he cursed himself for a fool. You cannot allow her to rile your anger. “Satiah,” he said calmly, “you know you are not my Great Royal Wife any longer. You never will be again.”
    He disliked the way she arched her brows at him, the cold consideration in her eyes, the stillness in her small, fine mouth.
    “You won’t be,” he said, “not even if you should find some way to do to Meryet what you did to Senenmut.”
    “Meryet. Yes, I heard all about that one while working in the temples. Don’t fear, Thutmose. I have no reason to do that to your precious Meryet. Hathor is satisfied with her drink of blood, and for all I know, she will remain so.”
    “For all you know? ”
    Satiah gazed at him placidly, her pretty, delicate face open and serene. “All I know is much more than all you know, Mighty Horus. Affairs of state are one thing; a king’s duties at the temple are one thing. True communion with the gods – true union – is quite another.” She leaned forward slightly. The reed wicker creaked, a sound that raised a chill on his arms and sent a sick thrill up his back. “I know you still see it in me, Thutmose.”
    “See what?”
    “My power.”
    “Your power,” he scoffed.
    “You see me and you remember. The bull – my power.”
    “You never tamed the bull, Satiah . You were then and are still now nothing but a girl – a mortal girl.”
    “Speak those words all you please. You know you do not believe them. I am your wife – your Great Royal Wife. The gods made it so, and even a Pharaoh cannot undo it.”
    “I already undid it. I repudiate you.”
    She waved a hand, taking in the estate, the garden glowing in the bright sun through the archway, with one quick, bird-like gesture. “Then why all this? Why this lovely prison if you repudiate me, if I am nothing to you? Why so close to Waset? Why so close to your bed?”
    “I keep you close so I can know where you are at all times. So there will be no knives stealing out of the shadows in my palace.”
    “Why don’t you kill me?” She said it not in despair or hysteria, but in bland curiosity.
    It struck him suddenly that although she may change her name and deny her heritage, she was still – would always be – the daughter of Hatshepsut. The daughter of the woman who took the throne, who led men in battle, who secured the treasures of Punt. She was the daughter of the one the soldiers called seshep – the daughter of the woman who pulled down a god. Satiah might dress in the plain linens of a priestess and toil placidly in her garden, but the calculation and cunning of a Pharaoh were hers by blood.
    “Is it because of Amenemhat? Is that why you suffer me to live?” she said.
    Thutmose rolled his eyes. “No. I cannot prove the boy isn’t mine, and the circumstances of his birth are not his fault. I will not punish him – will even give him a proper upbringing in the palace, if that is your wish. But I will never look upon him as my son. It is not for his sake that I allow you to live. Don’t think to use your son as your shield.”
    Thutmose rose from the stool. He tugged his kilt straight, felt the reassurance of the dagger concealed in the intricate pleats of his sash. Without another word, he turned for the doorway.
    “I know,” Satiah called after him. Her voice was musical, light, confident as a king’s. “It’s the Bull of Min you remember, Thutmose. You remember, and you fear.”
    He made his way through the garden without a word to the guards. They rushed to open the outer gate for him, and he was halfway through the orchard, Djedkare in silent tow, before he realized he had drawn the dagger from his sash. He cursed, thrust it back into the hidden sheath, but his fingers did not want to unclench from its cold, reassuring