Free Servant of the Gods by Valerie Douglas

she’d learned her way through the byways of the city. Irisi had enjoyed having the company, but she couldn’t complain much of having some little time to herself. There was also the pleasure of seeing what the shops had to offer that she hadn’t seen before or finding some delicacy to bring back to the others.
    For the first time in a great long time, Irisi felt truly happy, content.
    As almost always, it not being the rainy season and the Nile not in flood, the day was sunny and clear with few clouds. It was a pleasant day to walk about, still early enough for the air to be comfortable.
    Shop owners in the souk called greetings to her warmly.
    It was outside the second shop she visited that she felt a presence, a darkness that was unsettling and disturbingly familiar…
    The Grand Vizier. Kamenwati.
    She went still, calling up all she’d learned from the Druids and now from the priests and priestesses of Isis, asking the Goddess for strength.
    His darkness battered at her.
    Turning in his direction, she bowed respectfully as a Priestess of Isis to the Grand Vizier. Even so she kept her eyes slightly averted, never looking him directly in the face. He was a powerful magician and his glamour seemed stronger somehow.
    Had it always been so? Was it only because she had been away from it or had he enhanced it somehow?
    Either way, she felt it beat at her.
    “My Lord,” she said, quietly, cautiously, all too aware she didn’t have her swords on her.
    Not that it mattered, as a number of items nearby would have stood as weapons for her, if she needed to defend herself. If she could have or would have dared draw a weapon on the Grand Vizier…
    Kamenwati looked at her. Those pale foreign eyes met his evenly.
    Meeting his eyes. A slave. If he’d dared to strike a priestess of Isis, he would have cuffed her just for the liberty she took. Just as he had to speak to her himself, directly, she who had once been his slave. It infuriated him. It burned in him.
    That she’d escaped, denied him the power he needed and would have given him in time, only enraged him further.
    “Know this,” he said, softly, his eyes locked on her face, “you are mine. I own you. You may be a priestess of Isis and even I won’t tempt the Gods so much yet, but there will be no other save me in your life. I cannot touch you or risk the wrath of the Goddess, but if I cannot have you, no other will. Understand this. They will die. This is my will. By assassin, by magic or by poison… they will die. There will be no other but me.”
    Then he was gone in a swirl of his dark kalasaris.
    Irisi caught her breath once again, watching him stalk away.
    When she returned to the temple she said nothing to Banafrit of the encounter.
    There was no point.

Chapter Nine
     
     
    Outside, beyond the veranda, Irisi watched as the sun sank below the horizon and the first stars appeared in the azure sky. Within, torch light flickered over gold-streaked marble floors, glistening sandstone and polished granite walls. Great pillars supported the ceiling of the King’s palace. Down the center of the room, a long reflecting pool filled with the silver water of the Nile glimmered. Servants and slaves offered food to all gathered there, going to one knee as they held up golden plates filled with delicacies.
    The scent of perfume drifted in the air lightly and softly, as the cool night breeze swept through the hall.
    Below in the courtyards folk wandered about, greeting friends, whispering to this one or that, speculating about why they had been summoned this night. All were dressed in their finest gowns, kilts and kalasaris. Gold dripped at ear, throat, and wrist. Gems sparkled in the torchlight.
    It was not the first time Irisi had stood at Banafrit’s side in the King’s palace but the first on such a grand occasion. Just what the occasion was hadn’t yet been announced, but rumors were running rampant. Some whispered that the King was finally going to name his heir,