satsu sought the pool within the catacombs.
she had thought to visit
@Ramesses but could not find him in his room, and presumed he had stepped out before her arrival. rather than waste the visit she sought the pool for a quick bath.
the water was colder than she remembered. it smelled sour at first and as she went to glide beneath the surface, ducking her head and then rising again, ribbons of it traced down her neck.
she found a spot to soak near the furthest wall and let out a sigh.
ramesses avoided the pool, for he did not wish to see his own face with the clumped leaves upon it.
unbeknownst to him, he and satsu were of the same mind. the water was not the same, and jawahir's fragrance lay around him in a seductive cloud.
pharaoh nodded a greeting toward his bride-to-be and slipped into the bath opposite her, lounging back with a resplendent sigh. "such pleasures are necessary to enliven the blood."
her eyes were closed.
the water shifted, and when she opened them, there he was.
he looked as he had before the attack: self-possessed, carefree.
hard to ignore the changes to his face.
satsu heard him, but did not know what to say - if anything could be said.
she could smell jawahir everywhere; her stench carried upon the man meant to be her husband, further spoiling the water. she resisted the urge to rise up immediately and leave, but only just.
i did not know she had medical knowledge.
satsu inferred of jawahir, who had taken up the cause of nurse to pharaoh most recently (or so the lie went).
"you do not wish to talk of jawahir."
ramesses ducked below the surface of the water. crowfeather's poultices peeled from his face and when he pulled himself upward from the bath, satsu might see plainly the very faint, silvered scars where nyra's teeth had caught him, only visible so close.
"your friend is more skilled. i will be preserved."
satsu was calm and pure beneath the water. ramesses looked toward her with a stinging moment of open desire. "how are you settling into the idea that you will be queen?"
no, she did not want to speak of the vermin creature in her fiancee's bed, but not because she wanted to take her place. if the man had chosen sabah to warm him at night then satsu would have been pleasant and dismissive rather than seething.
still, she had no reason to carry on. the conversation flowed.
i have no opinion on it. there is little here for me to do but wait, and i will know once we have -- once the ceremony takes place,
she did not know what to say.
satsu watched him. she saw the traces of his injury and was glad to see that he was doing well, though the hardened poultice now floated at the surface of the pool and slowly disintegrated, adding a tea-like smell.
she reminded herself: have jawahir clean the water.
chaste, too, the water eddying around her shoulders.
ramesses could not pretend that the touch of her eyes upon him now was a caress.
"you are bored here." a queen should have many diversions. with the threat of war pressing akashingo, it was not safe to leave alone. "plan our feast and festivities."
she had hesitated over the mention of their wedding. ramesses swam across the pool until he had filled her vision, dripping and glittering as a jewel plucked from the ocean. "crowfeather loves germanicus. persuade the soldier to remain a while."
he ached to touch her, and yet did not, only watched her lovely and inscrutable face.
she opened her mouth to protest, but could not. he was right. there was little for her to do but wait as she had said, and with the looming threat of the saints, the wait was a struggle. what would come to akashingo first - war, or celebration?
he moved close. satsu felt the stone wall of the pool edge upon her back.
what he said next melted some of the chill from satsu, who had not gleaned such a connection between the two men. ignorant of such pairings - resistant to a point, due to her own feelings.
i.. maybe i can,
she looked at the way the water moved around pharaoh and saw how murky the depths had become since the night of entertainment with the auxilliary.
but germanicus had tasted maggie that night, and she was hardly up to the task. what more could satsu do to change his mind? especially given the hostility he held for pharaoh.
ramesses, who now filled her gaze with gold.
ramesses wanted to trace the wetness of her throat with slow presses of his mouth —
instead he only shifted the water to rocking and lapping around them again, enjoying the look of satsu caught between he and the stone wall. ramesses lowered his mouth alongside one of her silken ears.
"i will need an heir. you do not want me." he breathed the words, seeking to stir the tight velveteen fur there. "the boy i want as my physician must be separated from his soldier, do you understand? and he is — you have in common your lack of expertise."
yes. maggie had told him of satsu's mockworthy virtue. ramesses had never thought otherwise, but to have it confirmed titillated and amused him. "make him your first, when the time comes. your child will be an egyptian."
ramesses confounded and disturbed her, and she wasn't certain if she was truly bothered by any of it. the way he spoke was thrilling, as if they shared some deep secret. the feeling of his hot breath against her ear was new and different. his proximity too - and for a moment the water wasn't cold at all around her.
what he proposed was carefully worded. it was upsetting, more so with the pressure of his presence all around her, and the feeling she could not escape it. satsu's face felt too warm and she could not focus on what was being said over the thickness of her veins; surely he could hear the way her heart hammered?
make him your first.
what?
you child will be an egyptian.
crowfeather...?
satsu grimaced. the idea of using herself the way jawahir used their body was loathsome; and as hot and bothered as satsu felt in the moment, that feeling spun in to anger, so much so that she lost herself for a moment and struck at pharaoh to move him back from her - to get some air, and break his spell.
no.
was all she could manage. no! i will not.
the water rippled and began to settle around them again. satsu wanted to yell at ramesses for how bold his idea was, of how lewd, to whore out his own fiancee! as if her virtue meant nothing.
she was rightly appalled.
pharaoh fell back at once, laughing, but his voice was tight and his eyes were humourless. shock rolled across the lines of his mouth, that she should reject him not only again but at all. for a moment the fine-made nostrils flared, and then in the ones to follow he had composed himself, face sliding back beneath the cool and painted veneer of alabaster and black and lapis.
"you are so noble, satsu," and he meant the words. "your friend means to follow that ... miserable creature off into whatever wastes the man means to lead him. is that the fate you want for the physician?"
he inhaled. "if you are to do this, you must understand politics and trade. any child you have while i am your husband will be counted as mine, and must be seen as mine, or you will humiliate us all."
he drew himself up rigidly in the water, but then watched her with an open look. "do you understand the weight you mean to take onto yourself? you are to be our queen. i have tested you with words and a mere suggestion and you come to near blows. if you mean to maintain this deception with me — and i will be loyal to never touching you for all of our days — then you must understand the pitfalls of what it means to misstep on so high a ledge."
"we must be godlike. and you must understand how those before you have ever held power." it was not through a sense of righteousness. "one side of akashingo is a place of pleasure. and still you are surprised when i mention it to you."
a lecture, now. he lectured her on how to act for herself, as queen, as if he has ever been in the same position. the world he comes from is so different from her own, satsu finally sees and understands, that ramesses cannot fathom how wrong he sounds. to order her to do this - to treat her, in that moment, as some whore girl, and use one of her rare friendships for the gain of akashingo - !
this lesson was not one satsu wished to hear. she had come to the pool for respite. she had avoided ramesses sickbed, only to be confronted like this.
your appetites do not surprise me,
she answered.
the way you would send me out to bed someone, much less a friend of mine, as if i were some common bitch, is what surprises me. it is what offends!
her voice rose slightly, it deepened in its rage, but satsu knew how the sound could carry in the stone corridors and was careful.
a moment to breathe, trying to cool her mind. it was not working. the hesitation only weakened satsu's position.
until we have survived nyra, we wont know if akashingo will exist let alone if you will have heirs.
she said to him; but before she could continue, there was a shadow crossing by the entryway to their bathing space, the scent of sabah.
and a voice, calling.
ramesses fumed. "i thought only of you and your companionship with him. and whatever — else he might provide you. and a way to keep him here, not for me, but for you. for your court, not for mine!"
"do you believe it is a personal wish of mine that you be given to some — countryside physician? i meant only, satsu, that you are truly free. take a lover. do as the rest of us. only do not be so haughty when you chastise me. i would never place a serving girl above you. i would never offer what i have offered to any other than y —"
sabah, calling. sabah never called. ramesses finally listened to the echoes of it. he clenched his jaw and bowed stiffly to his betrothed.
with the air of a king adjusting his skewed crown, the man turned and strode off, hoping soon to be swallowed by the shadows.
inside his flesh, the memory and taste of her nearness surged in his blood.