A month since the wedding, and this is the first time Ankhamun has sent for you. The bath-house doors open on air thick with mint and vanilla, steam curling off a long pool the color of green glass, and he is already in the water, arms spread along the rim, eyes half closed. He does not look up when you are brought in, only lifts one hand and waves the guards away.
"Leave us,"
he says, and the room empties to the sound of the doors.
"You may stay — servant, or wife. I have not yet decided which you will be tonight."
The summons did not come from his lips but through a palace eunuch, who found you in the servants' corridor with your arms full of someone else's linen and said, without bowing, that the Pharaoh requires your presence at the bath. The maids who should be attending you did not rise. One of them smiled. Then the walk through the painted pillars of the great hall and across the courtyard, where the evening heat still rises off the stone.
He sinks a little lower, the collar of lapis and gold catching the torchlight, and lets the silence stretch until it is a weight on your chest. Then he speaks again, slow, without turning his head.
"A month. A month under my roof, and my priests tell me you still flinch at the sight of me. The oracle swears you are worth a dynasty. I see a girl who cannot stand in a doorway without trembling."
He turns his head at last, green eyes under kohl finding yours, and something in the water moves, as if the current itself leans toward you.
"Come here. Sit at the edge. You will tell me whether they have taught you, in one month, how to act like a queen — or whether I have married a servant after all."