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“To Deir el-Bahri then?” Ere more stated than asked, raising a sardonic brow.
“To the Temple of Hatshepsut,” Ben eagerly confirmed.
Chapter Six
"We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows."
—Robert Frost
~1487 B.C. Ancient Egypt. 18thDynasty, Regency of Hatshepsut.
“I cannot do this anymore!” Heba seethed in the privacy of her chambers.
“It’s the fourth attempt on my son’s life. Fourth in three years! And these are the ones we managed to thwart. That came close enough to…”
She broke off, choking, and swallowed the rest of her sentence as if speaking of the dangers brought them back to life.
After three years of living with their secret, Shai had learned to desensitize himself to her purposeful references to “her son.”
Ehab, as Heba privately called the child-king, also meaning “Gift,” in keeping with both hers and Shai’s names, was her secret way of tying the three of them together.
She used it in only the rarest moments, and only when they were alone with the child. In all other circumstances, she referred to the boy Pharoah as Thutmose or “my son.”
Not even with Shai alone did she slip to say “their son.” For, what happened three years ago never happened.
At least, Shai had the consolation that she also never referred to Ehab as her dead husband’s. That was merely what everyone assumed. But he had never heard her outright state it as fact.
Ehab was hers and hers alone.
“I have doubled the guards,” Shai said quietly, with a calm he forced himself to exude, for Heba’s sake.
Inwardly, he was ever vigilant. He’d cleaned up the threats that lurked in every corner of the Palace and outside of it for the past three years, but more always surfaced the deeper into the conspiracies he dug.
“I have interrogated each and every one of them myself,” he continued. “Hand-picked. They have all trained under me. The Pharoah is safe.”
His reassurance seemed to mollify her for the time being, for her rare show of panic subsided as she wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tight, as if physically stifling any more outbursts.
Shai wanted to wrap his arms around her too, hug her even tighter. But he restrained himself. It was not his place. He could not cross that boundary, for both their sakes.
Shai could still not believe this was his life sometimes.
A baby in a basket taken in by a kind, elderly couple, raised to be a stone mason. Then captured in an enemy raid and sold into slavery in a faraway land. Bought by a Princess and turned into her personal protector.
Two years ago, his circumstances changed drastically yet again.
Heba astounded the entire royal court, including Shai, when, on the first anniversary of her Regency, she declared him a free man.
She never said anything about it to him, never let on what she intended. She simply declared it during court one day, almost as an afterthought, after making many other decisions and proclamations, sorting through big and small disputes and official matters that came her way.
She had then turned to him without batting an eye, as if this decision that altered his entire future was a matter of course, something trivial that she simply threw out as a whim, and asked:
“Well, Master Shadow, now that you are free, what will you do? Is there anything you desire after these many years of faithful service?”
Shai’s hesitation was merely a moment despite the internal earthquake that was rearranging his insides.
Instinctively, ever in tune with Heba even though he didn’t fully understand the workings of her mind, he knew he should react with the same equanimity, almost boredom, that she effected upon making this life-changing declaration.
“I wish to remain your protector, my Queen,” he answered solemnly, holding her gaze.
