Free Flail of the Pharoah by Rosanna Challis Page B

myself. A child perhaps with dark hair and blue eyes, or fair hair and brown eyes. Would you have that child usurp your own son as crown prince, Mira?’
    The queen looked horrified. ‘Oh no, never! You would not do that to me, Seti!’
    His face softened a little and he touched her cheek. ‘I have chosen you as my consort, Mira, but if you do not allow me to follow my instincts freely then you shall no longer have the privilege of power. Take care, lest you lose everything for you and your son.’
    The queen broke into a sob and kissed the fluted hem of the king’s tunic. He patted her head. ‘Come, no tears at bedtime; that was our pact, remember?’ She looked up at him with glistening eyes and nodded. ‘But you have been a trial to me today. First the matter of Kiya’s punishment, and now this.’ He sighed. ‘I think it is you who should be chastised now, Mira.’
    ‘Oh no,’ she gasped. ‘You would not put me to such shame, Seti.’
    ‘You know how the saying goes, “a gentle smacking now saves a harsh beating later”. Are you prepared to submit to some light punishment, for the good of your soul?’
    Mira looked chastened, but dumbly she nodded. The king spread his thighs apart so that the apron draped over his privates and gestured across them. Obediently the queen bent across his lap. Charmian watched in amazement as Seti pulled up the flimsy skirt of her garment and exposed her naked buttocks, in the flickering torchlight the twin mounds gleaming like dimpled bronze.
    The Pharaoh raised his right hand and brought it down sharply upon Mira’s behind, the slap echoing around the high chamber, followed by the soft moan that escaped the queen’s lips. Charmian watched in fascination as Seti caressed the round cheeks for a few seconds before raising his hand to strike again, this time with stinging force. Mira groaned, yet her cry was not so agonised as the cries Kiya had emitted that morning. Instead, there was a kind of yearning in her tone that puzzled the watching girl. This seemed more like play than punishment.
    Again Seti caressed his wife’s sore bottom before inflicting more pain upon it. Charmian saw the flesh quiver, the muscles contract, knew it must be hurting the queen and yet her voice still held that strange note of desire, as if she craved more pain, and yet more. Between the blows she was pressing her pelvis hard against her husband’s lap, clenching her thighs and rolling her hips a little. It was all very puzzling to Charmian.
    When, after several slaps, the Pharaoh continued to caress his wife’s buttocks tenderly it looked as though punishment had transmuted smoothly into pleasure. She saw one of his broad hands move down between Mira’s thighs while the other continued to stroke her nether cheeks; cheeks that must be smarting as keenly with pain as Charmian’s were flushing with embarrassment. She had not realised she would be witnessing quite such a naked display of intimacy between the royal couple, although exactly what she had expected was impossible for her to say.
    She could hear Queen Mira gasping now, with increasing force, and the smile on the king’s face was rapt. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be in another world as his wife writhed and moaned on his lap. To Charmian it was all a mystery, yet a compelling one. She longed to know what the man was doing with his hidden hand, and why the woman was moaning so. Was this what men and women did together in the privacy of the marital bed?
    They seemed to have forgotten her, sitting quietly on her haunches in the shadows, but now, even if she could have crept away unnoticed, Charmian would not have wanted to do so. She was riveted by the strange sight before her, curious to know more and where it would lead. Furthermore, a distant voice in her head was telling her that she must make mental notes, for one day she would be required to behave in a similar fashion in the king’s bed. It hardly seemed possible, and yet it