The Feather on My Scale: Ch 13
I pulled him onto my lap as we sat on the throne, watching the advisers assemble. He stiffened in my arms in momentary protest at the compromising position. I waited, giving him time to soften to the unorthodox placement as the court watched my movements with either indifference or derision. “Easy, angel. We’re doing no more than performing to the Priests’ expectations. If I touch somewhere you don’t like, tap me, I’ll let up. I’m just a big battery, remember?” I whispered, trying to find a position that would fulfil my temple personnel’s opinions of me, while still providing Wash with some semblance of modesty.
“A performance?” Wash’s breath lay warm against my throat. Hairs rose along my arms.
“That is all, a performance.”
“Will you be angry at me for participating?”
“Why would I?”
“You are Pharoah.”
“And you are High Husband to the Pharaoh. I would not have you demure and scared, but I leave it to you how you will be most comfortable.”
“You sure you want me to call Ammit?” He trailed a series of small kisses up my neck unexpectedly. I swallowed, fighting to keep my eyes from widening at his suddenness. He had twisted against me, drawing fingers across the webbing and knuckles of my hands, moving them to tighten one against his thigh, one around the lean cut of his waist. The peach fuzz on my face rose at the contact as everything within me reached for the points of contact with his skin. An unerring desire, my body wished desperately to mesh with his, the sensation of power flow heady and unyielding.
“I will have the priests grovel at my feet. When we move the hearts of man, we may yet move the minds of government.” I watched the hooded glances thrown my way as the Adom approached, citing rites and rituals.
“My Pharaoh,” Adom called the meeting to attention by initiating the formal grovelling.
“Rise, Overseer to the High Husband,” I reminded him of his change in roles.
He hid his grimace poorly. “We come to you today to wish your marriage one blessed by Geb and Nut, that it will be fruitful to the benefit of all your people.”
I muffled a dismissive snort. He was one to talk. He was the one to put forth the idea of cups. Fruitful? Forcing a smile more full of teeth than pleasantries, I ran a hand up Wash’s creamy skin to cup his ribcage. “I appreciate the sentiment, Adom.”
“This evening, Son of Osiris, reincarnation of Horus, the Nobility of the dome has gathered to seek council, oh keeper of vast wisdoms.” Adom was laying it on thick.
I slid a critical eye along the prostrating men and women.
“The nobility wants to discuss your actions of proposing cups between myself and the keeper of my heka? A ba-less man capable of storing it, bringing forth miracles that have blessed this sanctuary over and over in the several days? They want to lodge a complaint against my very soul in favour of one of the daughters instead. One who couldn’t possibly hold my soul, for who would keep a ba-less child within the nobility? Who would claim one that would not mark them poorly? You want to test him, to make him into nothing more than cheap entertainment to soothe your wounded egos that I would not share cups with a woman who would bear my children and instead with a man, thereby rendering my lineage to the roll of the dice with my concubines. Would the nobles instead prefer their daughters to find their way into my bed with no cups shared?” I picked my words carefully, looking for outrage and protests.
Adom bowed low, putting his head to the floor in a bid to think through his reply. Muttering flitted about the chamber between nobles.
“Silence.” I brokered no dissent. Wash flinched at my tone. I squeezed him in reassurance. The popping of the solar wind on the domes was the only noise to permeate the hall.
“You would displease even the gods in your cunning? You would seek my soul perform for your amusement?” I let my words hang over them in disappointment rather than indignation this time.
“My Pharaoh!” One noble, Viscount Rayphon of the m\Midlands motioned that he be allowed to speak. He started into a beseeching monologue trying to pacify my anger and was joined shortly by others also voicing their wishes that I continue to have a long life and well wishes for Wash and such miserable tidings of flattery. I found myself soothing through texture while I allowed the nobles their time. Wash’s skin and the luck knots took the edge off and the peak of his nipple I kept coming back to, though it made him shift every time I flicked past it in my thoughtless perusal.
“I hope you know I can feel you like this,” Wash’s dove whisper was only for my ears. He shifted, drawing my attention to the point where he sat and we met.
“I apologize. I do find you attractive but mean you no ill will, my Hierophant. Ignore it and I will get it under control.” I rested my hand along his hip and slipped into the depths of my imagination, searching out a treasure deposit of cold showers and images with which to bid my affection to subdued respectability.
“You are honey and milk like this. Leave it out of control and Ammit will rise grander than you might expect, my Lord. Your power is vibrant when your affectation shows. If you would, allow me to make a request upon finishing with this spectacle.” Wash shifted my hands closer to his own pride. I leaned down to kiss his shoulder if only to keep the throb at my core and the gasp in my throat muffled. It also created more chaos in the chamber at my action.
“A request, angel?” I curled my hands into his robes and skirts to feel soft skin and lean muscle flex out of reach.
He lifted a hand from mine, relenting. I breathed a sigh of desperate detachment and relief as he took up his staff. “Have your way with me, my Lord,” he whispered in my ear before slamming the sharp tip of the was-sceptre into the tile. The hall silenced at the echo of defiance.
I expected Ammit to dominate the chamber as a single entity. With that demand from my Hierophant, the hall flooded to the purple depths of the Nile. The power channelling off of me felt like I was well beyond six cups of robust wine and heading for another. Warmth and demand spread through from every point of contact I had with Wash’s bare skin and my own.
Ammit raced through the streamers and deep gorges as sandstone climbed the walls in cliffed outcroppings. Massive creatures of myth and reality dove through the ceiling, crashing through waves, sending bubbles and the sound of crying rage to shake the tile beneath my priests’ feet.
Nobles scattered as the god barrelled through the rows, splitting off the sections, rounding them up into packs of those I recognized as supporters of the temple, those who supported the nobility, and those who I knew were loyal to the royal house. Those last were bequeathed ibis-headed guards with crossed scimitars and crooks. The groups looked at each other in horror as they realized what had happened.
“If you wish to put forth your daughter’s hand for a position as concubine, lodge it with the Overseer of the High Husband. But you will not bring me complaint against who keeps my soul. You who lack divine blood, you have no position to protest the gods’ decisions.” I tested Wash’s neck with a gentle nip. Scrambling and shouting in the chamber told me he’d done something fun with that bit of teasing. I glanced up in time to find Babi and Shesmu with gleaming, toothy grins, circling the problematic groups.
“Do we have an understanding?”
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