The Bull of Min Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mawat.”
    She turned to stare into his face. The sudden intensity of her eyes pushed him backward. For a moment he thought foolishly of fleeing. But he was the king, as surely as she, and a king ran from neither his fears nor his loves.
    “Gods, Thutmose. You have regrets? They are nothing beside mine. I spent so much time fretting over others taking my throne from me – taking all I loved from me. In the end, it was I who took it all. I stole it from myself. I robbed my own heart. I clung so tightly to what didn’t matter, and I lost everything that did. Everything. You cannot imagine how bitter it tastes. Do not make the same mistake, Thutmose. No gilded chair or palace is worth this loss, no temple, no crown. Promise me you won’t sacrifice everything. Not everything.”
    Thutmose swallo wed hard. His eyes burned; he rubbed them hard with his fists. His ka was not so certain that the throne was not worth sacrifice. The Horus Throne was the legacy of their family; it their unbreakable link to all who had come before, and to all who would come after for generations unending. It was their blood, their bones, their kas. He thought of Amunhotep, warm and safe and growing in the nursery. He thought of grandchildren to come, all of them inheriting the divinity and the power that was his to give. He tasted Hatshepsut’s bitterness, but felt, too, his own determination rise like a cobra from the sand.
    But Hatshepsut was staring at him, expectant, her eyes alight with the fire of her urgency. She seized him by the shoulders with hands suddenly as strong as a hawk’s talons, and he quailed under the hardness of her grip. “Promise me, Thutmose. Tell me you will not choose the throne over the things that truly matter – over family, over love. Over eternity.”
    “I promise, Mawat. I promise.”

CHAPTER THREE
     
    S ATIAH LOWERED THE BAG OF incense outside the High Priest’s door. She sighed gratefully, stretching her back, shaking a cramp from her thigh. The sack weighed nearly as much as she, and toting it from the storeroom to the High Priest’s chamber had taken her longer than it would have taken a strong young man. But the chore was an opportunity to demonstrate her dedication. Satiah never missed such an opportunity, if the gods would allow it. Of course, it was not dedication to the High Priest that concerned her. In the end, he was but a man, and men were impermanent. It was the god she hoped to impress. Ah, that was her goal in all things.
    She clapped, and after a long moment the door creaked opened. Tenry, High Priest of Min in the city of Abedju, was as kind a man as Satiah had ever met. He was barely clinging to the last threads of middle age, and his shameful mortality had begun to show plainly in the deep lines of his face and the gray wisps of hair that sometimes poked from beneath his wig when he had grown careless with his appearance. He stood at his doorway now with one side of his face rather puffy and red, an obvious sign that he had given in to an old man’s weariness and stolen a nap when all the god’s servants, even the highest, should have been hard at work.
    I mustn’t judge him, Satiah reminded herself. It is not his fault he’s mortal. True divinity is given to few – only the most devout, the most pure.
    “Ah,” Tenry said. “Incense for tomorrow’s offerings.” He chuckled as he assessed the weight of the sack. “Tomorrow’s and much more. What a diligent priestess. Min blesses us in you, little Satiah.”
    She allowed her cheeks to color, and looked shyly down at her toes.
    “It is past time for the mid-day meal. Have you eaten yet, child?”
    “No, High Priest. I have been working.”
    “Won’t you share some bread and beer with me? I would be grateful for the chance to get to know you better. One of my newest priestesses, and yet the hardest-working. You must have had a remarkable life, remarkable parents, to raise such an obedient and dutiful daughter.”
    “You are