AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It almost looks as if she’s…demanding something of him,” Ben murmured. “Her stature may be half of his, but she’s in full command of this scene.”
“But though he’s clearly a slave and bound besides,” Ere continued, “with his head bowed in seeming submission, I don’t get the sense that he’s actually submitting to her, do you?”
“No,” Ben agreed. “He looks like he’s making a vow. And the posture of his body looks like he’s angling toward her in…protectiveness perhaps.”
“Hmm,” Ere mused. “There’s something strangely intimate about this scene. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“He’s important to her,” Sorin put in gruffly. “She’s important to him.”
“I do believe you’re right, my love,” Ere murmured. “Ever insightful, you are. Fated One indeed.”
“Now if you look at the shadows that start to appear following this scene,” Ben said, “doesn’t it look like they are less Hatshepsut’s shadow and more another person altogether?”
“They’re always twice her size,” Ere noted. “Until she matures into adulthood and the shadow is maybe one and a half times her size at this point. It follows her everywhere. In all of the scenes from here on, she is never without it.”
“Him,” Sorin said.
“Eh?” Ere queried, looking at his Mate.
“Hefollows her.”
“I think you’re right,” Ben agreed.
“Although the shadow is somewhat formless, without the bold details that Hatshepsut and everything else have, you can kind of make out the outline of a nose and chin.”
“A bearded chin,” Ere commented. “And is that waves in his hair?”
“Not an Egyptian,” Ben deduced.
“The Fated One,” Sorin said.
They were on to something big, Ben felt it in the tingle sliding down his spine, making him shiver.
But what?
As they progressed through the tunnel, more scenes of Hatshepsut’s rule were depicted in startling detail.
“Look,” Ere pointed out. “She now has a child. Thutmose III, not the girl history would attribute to her.”
“And look at the shadow,” Ben said.
“Doesn’t it look as if it—”
“He,” Sorin reminded them.
“As ifheis embracing mother and child?” Ben amended. “One could say it’s her shadow in the embracing position with her arms around the babe, but it looks to me like the shadow is embracing Hatshepsutandthe babe.”
“I can see the beard and the wavy hair if I squint hard enough,” Ere added.
Beneath the image, the boy king’s name was clearly written out. But beside it was another name: Ehab.
“It means ‘gift’ in Arabic,” Ben noted.
“You never cease to amaze me, dear boy,” Ere said proudly. “Perchance, does the shadow have a name?”
They retraced their steps again from the very beginning but could find no moniker for the queen’s constant companion.
“But look here,” Ere directed them back to the inscription beneath the picture of Hatshepsut and Thutmose I.
