Chapter 11 A Feast for the Gods #2
“Ah, but happily for me, you are nicely mature and quite powerful.”
“At times I do not feel it,” Faraj sighed.
Her chuckle caught short, and where she had pressed herself against him, he felt the brief tightening in her belly that had distracted her.
“Anuket,” he said, as firmly as he could around the flutter of his concern.
His foresight was blessedly quiet and gentle when he looked at her, presenting him with no greater disaster than a laughing toddler who had escaped her diaper and her minders; but even if he was certain that Anuket would be safely delivered, he fretted at the thought of her pains.
“If you will not let me bring you to bed and—”
“Oh, you promise?” she teased, still a bit breathless. “Take me to your bed, yes, please.”
“—If you will not let me bring you to your childbed, with a physician,” he amended hastily, feeling heat burn in his cheeks that had nothing to do with the brazier’s warmth. “Then at the least you will sit and rest and gather your strength for what is to come.”
He tucked her arm through his and took a step towards his own seat, and for once Anuket didn’t laughingly resist; she accepted his support and his hands, leaning upon his arm as she knelt to settle upon the silken pillows.
One of the Priests of the Assessors of Maat made a sound of shock.
Faraj ignored it; if he kept Anuket by his side through the evening, he could keep her seated, and could watch and listen for any pains she might otherwise try to conceal.
And if nothing else, at least it might counterbalance some of the rumors about which of the pair of them he found most appealing.
“You are too compassionate for your own good,” she told him, rubbing the small of her back against the aching there. “If you weren’t so renowned a prophet, I would be concerned for the advantage the unscrupulous might take of you.”
“You’re not alone in that concern,” Faraj said.
Neferkamin had slipped past Irfan’s defenses and was striding across the courtyard, and Faraj thought it was not only because of his concern for Anuket, because he would not have such a provocative roll to the hips if it were.
“But, O peerless jewel among Hathor’s devoted, surely you have noticed how difficult I am to take advantage of.
You and Neferkamin have both been trying to take advantage of me without notable success for several years now. ”
Anuket threw her head back and laughed so loudly that Bastet’s High Priestess pinned her ears back with a grumble.
“Oh, do share your pleasures,” Neferkamin said, crouching on his heels at her side. “And what is this I hear about advantages to be taken?”
“His Highness informs me that we should not fret for the vulnerability of his compassion; his heart is carved of such stern stone that he boasts of how long he has resisted us both,” Anuket told him, chuckling.
“And also I cannot have the pride of carrying my belly to flaunt at the Greater Convocation. Truly his Highness is stern with us this evening.”
“Well, I am just as fond of a masterful hand,” Neferkamin said, smiling at Faraj with the blazing confidence of a bonfire’s heat. “Particularly fond of a masterful hand clenched in my hair. Or on my—”
“Yes, I know,” Faraj said wryly. “You have informed me. At length.”
“And breadth,” Neferkamin agreed, arching his brows. “And depth. And vigor.”
“In your dreams,” Anuket told him merrily. “In both our dreams, alas. But at least I can console myself that my breasts will be magnificent for the Convocation.”
“Your breasts are always magnificent, my dear. Do they feel underappreciated? Let me grope — ah, that is to say, let me admire them.”
“Not right now, please,” Anuket said, and waved off his theatrical shock. “I don’t presently need to hasten the birthing pains. Tomorrow evening, perhaps, if she’s still dawdling by then.”
Neferkamin dropped the innuendoes like a scalding rock. He stared first at Anuket, then at Faraj, calculating rapidly.
“She will be well, or you would be more greatly upset,” he said. “But she will be well, so you did not foresee this either.”
“True and true,” Faraj admitted.
“And she is the most lustily relentless being who is not me,” Neferkamin continued, “so she will not let you summon a physician while she can still watch the evening’s spectacles, and cause them as well.”
“Entirely true,” Anuket said contentedly, choosing a date to nibble.
After another moment’s consideration, Neferkamin offered a rueful smile that was simply human, and which tugged at Faraj’s heart more effectively than his performances of merrily outrageous lewdness ever had.
“You’re going to need reinforcements this evening, aren’t you, your Highness. Because we cannot distract her with passion-play, and that frees her clever wit for as much mischief as her heart desires.”
“I would be most desperately grateful for reinforcements,” Faraj said from the bottom of his heart.
“Hey,” Anuket protested, but she was laughing despite her mock-indignation.
“If we cannot indulge ourselves in fanning the flames of your desire without quickening your pains,” Neferkamin told her, “then surely the next most amusing thing would be to terrify the order-priests with how suspiciously well we are behaving ourselves. Ten dinar says I can break the twitchy one without even laying a hand on his crotch.”
“Or your own?” Anuket said, arms crossed.
Neferkamin sighed deeply. “Know that I love you, O radiant jewel who shines upon Hathor’s breast, for I shall submit myself to an entire evening of chastity for your sake.”
“Which of them do you mean by the twitchy one?” Faraj asked, a bit concerned.
“Because I can’t advise breaking the priest of Ta-retiu who Eats Entrails.
Or the priest of Set-qesu who Breaks Bones.
Or any of them really. When a priest of Chaos loses his temper, you can’t really tell much difference, but when a priest of Order loses his restraint… ”
Neferkamin sighed again, fingertips dramatically poised at his temples.
He knew his own allure, and would never cover his face unless he was truly overwrought.
He was not entirely handsome in the way artists’ sculptures were; his face was sharp-boned and rather hawk-shaped, his nose a bit crooked from some youthful fistfight, but his charm and his confidence made him as supremely self-assured as any cat — not to mention as free with others’ personal space.
“Know that I love you as well, O honey-sweetest and most lickable of prophets,” Neferkamin said, “for I have promised you my support even in the face of such delectable temptation. I shall endeavor not to intentionally break any of the priests this evening. But if the twitchy one snaps of his own brittle rigidity, I disclaim responsibility.”
Faraj still wasn’t entirely sure which of them Neferkamin meant by the twitchy one, because the Cobra-Priestess of Meretseger had just arrived and there were presently several strong candidates in the running for the appellation of the twitchiest. But he’d scarcely dared hope for a gift such as Neferkamin’s offered support, especially without scandalous lewdity.
“I bless your mercy,” Faraj told him sincerely. “Will you stay with Anuket while I draw Beketmeret’s attention away? She is determined to startle me tonight, you see, and I’d much prefer she strike at me than at any other. I know when not to flinch.”
Anuket and Neferkamin looked at each other, and then at Kamil, whose tail was lashing as he watched the Cobra-Priestess loom menacingly over Irfan.
Even without foresight of his own, Irfan didn’t flinch, and didn’t back down.
Faraj had told him the Cobra-Priestess would not strike against the loyal servants of the Empire itself, and Irfan’s unshakable faith in his vision was humbling.
“Please don’t call them over,” Faraj murmured. “She would have her choice of dearly treasured targets, and she is swifter than us all. Let her entertain herself with pounding hearts and the scents of fear. She won’t harm me; she won’t defy my brother that boldly.”
With a tense sigh, Neferkamin said, “And you are certain.”
“I am not brave,” Faraj admitted. “It takes no bravery at all when I have already foreseen it. But I am not entirely kind, or I would have explained to her that the calculated intent to terrify those I love is why she cannot startle me.”
“To the rest of us, you seem either very brave or very foolish,” Neferkamin said. “Some blessed morning when I am fortunate enough to wake beside you in your bed, you must tell me how you see.”
Faraj looked over at the Cobra-Priestess again, and then he scrambled to his feet to hurry across the courtyard.
Because Elder Elias had a stern grip on his shepherd’s crook and was frowning at the Cobra-Priestess, and that was exactly what he’d been afraid of.
There were so many ways that could go terribly wrong more swiftly than his fat, scholarly, middle-aged human body could intervene — unless he got there first.
Even with foresight’s warning, he barely got himself between Elias and the Cobra-Priestess in time.
“No,” he said firmly to Elias’ wide and startled eyes, with his back to the Cobra-Priestess despite Elias’ growing terror.
“Your Tallness—”