The cat had seen the young man many times before. She’d seen him birthed on that stormy night long ago, and watched him grow up to be a lithe, bright-eyed creature with flashing teeth. She didn’tlikehim, per se. Not the way she liked Cook and the girl who watched fish in the garden—but she respected him. He was a predator, like her.
She sensed a mouse moving along the far wall, and was stalking it when a shadow fell through the doorway.
“Greetings to you, my prince,” a female voice said. “Am I disturbing you?”
The man turned to see who it was. “Hello, Tadia,” he rumbled. “Not at all. Come in.”
It was one of the girls she often bedded down with at night. The women’s chamber had the softest blankets and the softest flesh, and the cat loved nothing better than curling up in the crook of an arm or leg, warmed by the blood thrumming beneath.
The girl came into the room and bowed, the beads in her hair tinkling softly. She never took her eyes from the man’s face.
“I thought you might enjoy some company,” she said, trailing a hand down her gossamer linen dress. “I often visited your father in the evenings. He liked to watch me dance.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure he did.”
“I offer myself to you, Prince Meryamun,” she said, reverent and coy. “As I was your father’s, now I am yours to do with as you wish.”
The prince rolled the wooden sticks in his hand as he regarded her. Then he pointed at a chair opposite him at the table.
“Sit.”
Tadia sat, eager and erect.
“Do you know how to play Mehen?” He indicated the snake board between them.
The girl’s shoulders fell slightly. “No, I don’t really play games… but I can learn!”
“There is a red player—that’s me,” the prince explained. “And a black player—that’s you. On our turns, we each throw these sticks to see how many spaces we can move our pawns.” He pointed to the small stones. “When the first pawn reaches the head of the snake, it moves off the board and becomes the Jackal.”
At this, he took up one of the larger pieces—carnelian carved into the shape of a dog’s head—and moved it around and around the coils of the serpent. “The Jackal can move any way it wants, killing the opponent’s pawns.”
Having finished his explanation, he leaned back in his chair. “So tell me, Tadia, how do you think one goes about winning the Snake Game?”
Tadia blinked, clearly unprepared for a test. She looked down, studying the board as if it would provide the answer.
“Well,” she began, uncertain. “Maybe it’s whoever gets all their pieces to the head of the snake first?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” the prince said. “After all, that’s how most people see the path to victory. Start at the beginning and be the first to reach the end. Simple.”
He leaned over the table conspiratorially, and Tadia leaned in to match him. “But you’re wrong.”
The cat’s hackles rose. The energy in the room was shifting. She could feel a dark current running through it and growing stronger.
“No, Tadia,” the prince continued, “one does not win the game by being the first to the goal, but by being the last leftalive. The first player to eliminate all the other player’s pawns from the board is the victor. Do you understand? This game has a veryimportant lesson to teach us. Like life, Mehen isn’t a journey. It’s war.”
He chuckled humorlessly, rolling the throw sticks in his hand. They rattled like bones.
“It’s funny, you know, because my father was the one who first taught me to play, and yet he never learned that lesson. Because of his weakness, his sloth, his arrogance, Khetara stands at the edge of ruin.”
He glanced at the scrolls piled around his feet. “Today, when I wasn’t in meetings with his viziers, I was in this room, reading. Grain tax reports, letters from the nomarch in Sakesh and from the army commanders. The situation is worse than I thought—far worse than what Father let on.And Amun knows what the neighboring kingdoms think of us. Only a generation ago, they feared us! They paid homage to us in return for their survival.
“But no more. Now, my mother is forced to fawn over a delegation of sour-faced Tashans in the hopes that they’ll cough up a prince for my dear sister.” He scoffed. “This is the legacy my father leaves me. Thismess.Thank the gods he died when he did, or else the damage would have been too much for even me to repair.”
If the girl was shocked by the man’s speech, she didn’t show it. In fact, she seemed aroused by it. The cat could feel the heat pouring off her body in waves as she listened, her lips slightly parted.
“Father boasted of his peaceful reign,” the prince went on, “but peace is an illusion. Men are born for war. If you keep them from it for too long, they either become useless or savage. There is only one language that all men understand, and only one path to victory over them:power.With the crook I will gather them under my dominion, and with the flail I will destroy all those who refuse to submit. That is my promise.”
“You speak like a true king,” Tadia responded, her voice sultry. “Please, allow me to serve you. Let me remain at your side as you lead us into glory. I will give you everything you want.”
