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It was only because he watched her carefully that he saw the infinitesimal flicker in her cat-like eyes.
A flush of heart-felt relief colored her abnormally ashen face. A sparkle of life lit her otherwise opaque, unreadable eyes.
The flicker was there and immediately gone. No one else saw it.
Instead, she slid those unreadable, calculating eyes to the court that observed this exchange, showing her mistrust of everyone in the throne room, showing Shai that there was a performance to be enacted.
So, he played his part.
“And, if my Queen pleases, I wish to command my own troops. To protect you and the Pharoah in ways I didn’t have the power to before.”
“A commendable suggestion,” Heba noted with that same air of ennui.
“I shall promote you to Captain of the Palace Guard. You will receive the commiserate coin for your services, of course.”
She glanced at the court scribe and kept her eye on him until he finished taking down her proclamations.
Once he was done, she said, “Dismissed.”
After the court dispersed and they returned to her chambers, behind heavy, locked doors, she turned to him.
“You chose to stay,” she breathed on a whisper.
“Aye,” he said simply.
And that was all they spoke about it.
Nothing in their interactions, since that fateful day when she made him a free man, changed.
Other things did.
He still stayed with her at all times, including in her chamber, but she had his own bed brought in and set at the foot of her bed, by his request. This way, any intruder would have to get past him to get to her.
The bed was made to his particular specifications, long and wide enough to accommodate his body, just a woven mat stretched between the posts, the way he preferred it. She did all this without asking, somehow knowing what suited him.
He received coins like every other person in the royal employ. Funds that he promptly gave to his parents, for he had no need of them himself, as everything he required was readily supplied him. Weapons, clothes, armor, men to train… whatever he desired for himself or his new responsibilities, he had only to ask her.
The way the royal household treated him changed. The other slaves and servants had always regarded him with a certain deference at best, mistrust at worst, given his special position with the Queen.
But now, they treated him with due respect and awe. He was no longer one man, but a powerful leader of men. He kept all of the them safe, not just the royals, but also those who served them.
Hatshepsut’s court also changed their regard for him.
Before, he was ignored; he was no one. Many called him the “Queen’s Dog” instead of Shadow. And even those who referred to him as the latter did so with derision.
Now, he was responsible not only for the Queen’s safety, toward whom his loyalty was shown to all to be ironclad, but he was also in charge of everyone else’s safety. Which also meant that he kept them in line.
As Captain of the Palace Guard, he was informed ofeverything. It was his job to know. And if anyone dared plot against the Regent, he might decide that their safety was not worth guarding. Perhaps he might even impress upon them howunsafe they truly were by removing them altogether.
Hence, the royal court treated him with wariness and fear at best, outright resentment and hate at worst. Hatshepsut possessed a powerful weapon in her Shadow. He used to only be her shield, but now he was her sword as well.
Yet, nothing much changed between himself and Heba.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There were subtle changes, and Shai didn’t know what to make of them.
She no longer watched him when he dressed and undressed and bathed. Even though they shared a chamber, had seen each other in various states of undress, had shared their bodies in the most intimate ways, she seemed to have developed a modesty around him that had never been there in the past.
She didn’t go out of her way to change any routines, didn’t remove him to an adjoining chamber, which could easily be arranged. She seemed to want him near her at all times, just like before, but there was now an invisible wall between them.
