Read Online The Bull of Min by Lavender Ironside - Free Book Online Page B

peeking over the pale, new-quarried stone that had been used to increase the height of its outer wall. A guard moved along the line of the wall, tiny with distance, as black against the clear, bright blue of the mid-day sky as an ant against fresh-scrubbed tile.
    Thutmose paused in the shade of the largest olive tree. It leaned across the footpath, exhausted by age. Only a few shriveled fruits clung to the tips of its gnarled branches. Most of this orchard was long past its fertile years; the estate was no longer producing, no longer particularly valuable to any noble house. Thutmose had procured it easily and quietly, working through a diffuse network of stewards and loyal nobles. It would be difficult for anyone to trace the property to the throne. Not that anyone was likely to come nosing around such a place. Still, a man could never be too cautious. He watched the guard on the estate’s wall creep toward the southernmost corner, pause, turn east, and disappear from view.
    “How many guards are on the house?”
    The soldier Djedkare answered with his usual attentive pluck. “Twenty, Horus. The barracks we built lies just beyond the house. You can’t see it from here, but of course it is ready for your inspection, should you desire it. The men take it in shifts. There are never fewer than six men at watch on the walls or the gate, and twenty on site at all times. Occasionally more, when we receive supplies, or when the weekly shifts change.”
    Djedkare was not many years older than Thutmose, but already showed impressive aptitude. The man was bright, thoughtful, serious about his work. More importantly, he had spent his years of soldiering at foreign outposts, far from Waset and its royal family, yet his own family was known to be deeply loyal to Thutmose and Hatshepsut. The same was true of all the men who served here: strangers to Waset, but proven in loyalty.
    They started toward the house on the bluff. Thutmose kept his eyes on his own sandals as he made his way up the lane, allowing Djedkare to lead the way. The man spoke all the while in his efficient, controlled clip.
    “Lady Satiah has seemed entirely content, Lord. She has shown no interest at all in leaving. She is polite and pleasant whenever we have need to speak to her, and yet she is as modest as any man could wish. Keeps herself hidden from the eyes of men. Unless she has need of something her few servants can’t fetch for her. We’re so out of the way here, and the estate is so old that we have no unexpected visitors. No one comes poking about. I must say, it is the easiest guard duty I’ve ever done.”
    “I am glad to hear it – glad to hear you find the lady so agreeable.”
    Djedkare nodded. “If I am impertinent, I apologize humbly, Lord – but she seems the very best sort of woman, the kind even a king would be lucky to have.”
    Thutmose tried to stifle a laugh. It fought its way out as the merest exhalation, a soft snort of wry amusement.
    “I hope I do not overstep, Mighty Horus.”
    “No, Djedkare; it’s quite all right. Lady Satiah is the kind of treasure a man must guard very closely.”
    “Indeed.”
    The man would not press his comments further. Thutmose understood him well enough to know that much. Djedkare, like all the men who minded the estate, thought Satiah to be exactly what Thutmose had made her seem: a woman of interest to the Pharaoh, prized and respected, more than a concubine for the harem, but not yet officially a wife. He had allowed the men to speculate, as far as propriety would allow, that the Great Royal Wife struggled with the idea of Thutmose marrying another woman – not just adding another pretty and well-connected girl to his harem, but joining with another woman before the eyes of the gods, conferring upon her real status.
    Thus, t he guardsmen believed Lady Satiah was housed here, a pampered pet of the Pharaoh, until the gods saw fit to soften Meryet’s heart.
    None of these men w ould recognize Satiah