Free The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh by Marié Heese

sight of him.
    “I have heard about your brother, Princess,” he said. “It is grievous news.”
    “Yes.” We were both silent for a bit. “Sit down and talk to me.”
    He folded his legs into his scribe’s pose. More silence.
    I closed my eyes, picturing the moment of sudden flight that had ended my brother’s life. “A terrible shock,” I said. “A sad loss.”
    “Are you?” he asked. His dark eyes were questioning.
    “Am I what?”
    “Are you sad? Truly?”
    “Why should I not be?” I asked indignantly. “I have lost my brother!”
    “Then why do you not weep?”
    I glared at him.
    “It brings you closer to the throne,” he reminded me. “If you would still be Pharaoh.”
    I had, truth to tell, been trying not to think this, yet thinking exactly this, and feeling at the same time enormously guilty to be thinking it. But I did not like this scribe looking so clearly into my shameful heart. “How dare you!” I said furiously. “You presume much!”
    “You have the full blood royal,” he observed. “It would be natural, to be thinking about the succession. You need not feel shame.”
    “I am not ashamed!” I scrambled to my feet.
    He tilted his head back, looking at me with eyes like slits. “Then do not be so angry. It suggests guilt.”
    He had thrust me into confusion and I liked it not. But I did not know how to depart with dignity.
    “They say …” He stopped, tantalisingly.
    I took the bait and sat down again. “Well, what do they say?”
    “They say that the axle may have been … tampered with. It seems that the chariot had lately come from a complete overhaul. It should have been sturdy.”
    A chill ran down my back like a small, cold snake. “Who would have done such a thing?”
    “Someone in whose interest it would be for there not to be a strong Pharaoh when the current one passes, may he live for ever.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as the priests, perhaps? It would greatly increase their power and influence.”
    I nodded. This made sense. I trailed my hand in the cool water. The fish rose, snapping, as if expecting food. I glanced at the scribe. His eyes were calculating, as if he was not sure what to think of me. He could not – surely! – imagine that I had known, had in any way been involved …
    “I did not wish my brother harm,” I said. “Truly, I did not. He was years older than me and I did not see much of him before he went to the Kap, but I did not … I would never … I did not wish him harm. You must believe it.”
    He nodded and stood up. “I was called to the office of the palace housekeeper,” he said, “but that was before all of this. Yet I should go and see …”
    “Of course,” I said, shortly. “Go.” He should wait, I thought crossly, to be dismissed. I was a princess, after all. But to him I was a child.
    I looked after the tall figure with the broad shoulders as he walked away. I was affronted that he had looked at me suspiciously. I wanted him to look at me differently. Like … like the priests looked at me when I danced as the God’s Wife. Like that.
    With my brother lying dead, I should not have been thinking of such matters. But I have sworn to write the truth, and the truth is that I did think of him so. I did.
    Here endeth the fourth scroll.                      
    I knew the late great Senenmut, may he live for ever. Indeed, I knew him well, for I often worked with him as one of many junior assistant scribes on the numerous building projects that he directed for Her Majesty as Overseer of the Royal Building Works. I was included in listing different types of building materials because I was a quarry scribe for a time and I know materials, especially marble. I was often present when Her Majesty came to inspect a site or to confer with Senenmut on a particular statue or decoration that she desired.
    He was, I think, the only one of her officials who ever dared to oppose her in any matter of considerable importance,