Warrior King by Lauren Lee Merewether

Author:Lauren Lee Merewether [Merewether, Lauren Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781737905059
Publisher: LLMBooks Publishing

22

A TIME OF ACCUSATION | AHHOTEP

SEDJEFATAWY, 1566 BC

When the morning light streaked through the crack in the door, Ahhotep stirred in her sleep with a fresh beam on her face. The wool blanket spread over her body and kept her body’s heat from escaping. The birds’ tweeting sounded off in the distance. The morning only lacked Baba, who she wished was beside her. Meret and Nena had come in and tried to wake her when the dawn came, but she had told them she would rise when she was ready to rise. Sleep had retaken her after that. As she stared at the light streaming into her room from the wall vent, she wondered how long she had been asleep and if the night prior had been a dream. Her smile faded. Could it have only been a dream?

She sat up and stretched, feeling the morning in her mouth. But there was a hint of cinnamon and myrrh there, making her grin. Perhaps it was not a dream.

The door to her room swung open, popping the wall behind it with a loud thud. Tetisheri stood in the doorway, yelling at her. “Why did I wake to find Ahmose in the Kap, a guard whispering of you and the Admiral alone together, Meret and Nena sitting outside your room, and you, still in bed when you are supposed to be in the throne room with your son and daughter?!”

Ahhotep sighed. Her peaceful morning was now gone. She swung her legs off the bed and stood up. While her mother stood tapping a foot, waiting for her to speak, she grabbed her clothes and royal vulture headdress.

“Meret, Nena,” Ahhotep called past her mother. “Prepare my bath.”

She saw them hurry off toward the royal harem’s bath over Tetisheri’s shoulder. Then she found her mother’s eyes.

“I could not sleep last night, nor could Ahmose,” she said as she tied her cloak around her neck. “I allowed Ahmose to sleep alongside his brother because it was the right action to take. I sought counsel with Admiral Baba to discuss the other reasons why I could not sleep.” She pushed past her mother and followed after Meret and Nena.

Tetisheri kept in stride with her along the corridor. “Alone?”

“Mother, I did not want the whole palace staff to know why I could not sleep.”

Tetisheri scoffed. “They know, Ahhotep,” she said with a gag of contempt. “And in Tao’s council room? Of all places?”

“They know nothing,” she said and entered the royal harem’s bath. “I only needed to speak to him without prying ears or eyes.”

She undressed and knelt on the stone bathing slab as Meret and Nena poured the water over her. She rinsed her mouth under the cold glare of her mother and spat the water out before she stood. Meret and Nena dried and dressed her while Ahhotep and Tetisheri stared at each other in silence.

The maidservants lined her eyes with kohl and applied blue pigments to her eyelids. Ahhotep remained unbothered, but Tetisheri’s lip curled.

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