Son of the SunList of players so far -Lij, the Pharaoh Knefer-Lijedefer- Elijah Sen-Adom, the harpist - Dominic Neferura-Ulive, Lij's wife and sister - Liv Menkh, Chief Advisor - Viggo Pen-Nekeb, A eunuch; body slave to Lij - Sean Astin Seti-Hop, a physician - Ian Mckellan Nefer-Aru, Lij's mother - Cate Blanchett Merit-Aton, Liv's mother - Miranda Otto Setep-Aton another royal physician - Chris Lee Orem, a eunuch, Liv's lover - Orli Captains of the Guard, Zeser-Amon - Sean Bean and His brother, Ankh-Aton - David Wenham Imhotep, the Royal architect - Billy Menep-Atifer-Ankh-Ra - Lij's Granny - An old woman with heart. Several friends, aquaintances and folks who merit mentioning, but no names, please! Part 20 � The Lion Roars "Lij - look at me", Dom whispered against Lij's soft skinned neck. He ran his hands over the healing skin, feeling the heat rise in his lover. Lij pressed closer to Dom. "Lie with me on the bed", he said, pressing urgent lips against Dom. The bed was wide enough and to spare for the two lovers, who were melded together on its soft coverlet. "Oh, I've missed you, my Dom." Lij smiled at his partner, who was propped up on one elbow, just staring at him in wonder. "I've missed our talks...walking together, swimming, laughing. Our little house in the desert, You playing and singing me to sleep. Your daily struggle with the pictograms. You laughing over my stumbling efforts with your language...oh, you - and everything about you - everything." Dom kissed the trembling lips - his own far from steady. "And I, you, my soul. I cannot believe they let us have this ..." He waved an expressive arm around the room. "Lij, are you eating, my love?" Dom asked, running a hand along Lij's flank. Lij smiled. "I'm eating now. You are both food and drink to me." Dom's brow creased. "You must try harder, Lij. You have not been well, and I worry..." Lij kissed his brow. "I promise", he whispered. "Kiss me, Dom. I've missed your embraces, too." Dom uttered a small cry, and gathered his lover to him. "Let me taste you". His lips pushed down on Lij's and he thrust his tongue in, remembering he had to be gentle - remembering not to mark him. He drew back a little, concerned at the fire he felt in his own body and in his partner; concerned at the force that would erupt in a moment, and cover them both in confusion and ecstasy. He had promised Lygia, and a promise was sacred. "Lij, stop, please. Softly! I want...." What he wanted was never disclosed. Lij took an erect nipple between his teeth and bit down on it. Dom erupted. "Gods of my Mother! Stop!" Lij lifted his head, and stared at Dom reproachfully. "Do you not want me, Dom? Have you found someone else up there in the comfortably appointed palace more desirable than I?" He smiled as he said it, knowing there would never be anyone else for either of them. "Little lion! You know the answer to that full well. It's just that I don't want you to go back to Lygia and Soraya looking as if we've been fighting in a battle, not making love. Gently, please." Lij tenderly kissed his Dom on the lips. "Very well. Gently, if that is what you wish." He kissed a featherlight trail along his lover's body that ignited a flame in Dom that nearly made him lose his resolve. And later, as Lij, panting and keening, thrust into him, making Dom's body weak with love for him, Dom smiled. Lygia's assumptions were incorrect. This was how Dom preferred to make love - with Lij inside him, it was perfection. *** They had been discussing what might have happened if...when... the perfume seller took his message to Nekeb, when Lij stopped talking and stared into Dom's eyes. "Are they treating you well, my Dom? You look tired." Dom stretched himself upon the bed, and placed his hand on his lover's belly. He told Lij it was because he found sleep difficult without his arms around him. The door flew open. "Under the bed, Lord, now!" Lygia hissed at Dom. Dom asked no questions, just leapt off the bed and under it. Lygia quickly checked Lij's naked body, and kicked a wash cloth lying on the floor underneath the bed. She pulled the sheet over Lij, and sprinkled a few drops of herbal essence on the coverlet, which fortunately hung to the floor on all sides. "Eyes shut!" she breathed, urgently. "It's the King!" Moments later sounds were heard in the corridor. "...so you see, Great Lord, it is sensible to keep him in bed until the fit passes," Soraya said in a clear voice. Dom, under the bed, and Lij on top of it, heard a grunt of assent. "Very well; but I will still see him. My present boy tires me - he has no imagination." The king swept into the room, Soraya following in his wake. Lij did his best to look asleep, and sick. A delicate flush mantled his cheeks. He is so beautiful, it is a thousand pities he will not return to his lover Soraya thought. "How is he, Lygia?" she asked, a worried expression, not entirely assumed, in her eyes. "He is asleep, now, as you can see. Shall I wake him, Lord?" Sennacherib nodded. "I would see him awake, yes - do so!" He stood at the foot of the bed, his sandalled feet nearly touching Dom's body, lying still beneath it. Dom breathed in, hard. He dare not move, the room was too quiet. He would be heard. "Adom!" Lygia shook Lij gently. "Wake up, sweeting. Your Lord is here to see you." Both Dom and Lij noted that the woman had given Lij his assumed name. She had not betrayed that secret, at any rate. Lij opened his eyes, and Sennacherib leered at him. "Perfect. He is perfect. Stand up, boy!" he commanded. Lij pulled the sheet over himself, as he was naked, but the king waved it away. "Let me see". Lij put the sheet down and stood proudly at the side of the bed, his lips unconsciously set in the proud line that Dom found so appealing. Obviously Sennacherib did as well. "Come here, boy!" Lij moved forward until he stood in front of the Assyrian. The king towered three handsbreadths above Lij, but still Lij would not look away from the lustful eyes now intent upon him. Sennacherib moved his hands over Lij's body in a shameless fashion. Lygia averted her gaze, but Soraya glared at the king. Luckily, he was not looking at her. All his attention was on the man in front of him. "He is lithe, and his muscles are not those of a young lad. Are you a dancer, by any good luck, boy?" Both the women were astonished when Lij said quietly, "yes, Lord, I dance." Beneath the bed, Dom frowned mightily. Lij only danced for him, and he was good at it - very good. It was a love-secret between them. Dom knew, however, that Lij hated lying. If he could tell the truth, even in this dangerous situation, he would. Sennacherib stilled his questing fingers in the hair at Lij's groin, and pulled, hard. Lij did not move a muscle. Sennacherib laughed, and touched Lij cheek, softly. "I'll have you hopping, little man, when I get you upstairs!" He turned to leave. Soraya settled her features into some sort of order. "One week, healer. Then I will have him, d'you hear?" Soraya nodded. "I hear, Lord", she said, her lips narrowing with displeasure. Sennacherib observed her expression with interest. "If you were my servants, not Argamus's, I would have you whipped until you could school your feelings before me, woman! "I will send Semiramis down to teach him how to please me in the dance. It will be a week well spent, if he is as beautiful when he moves as he is when still. The rest, Lygia, I leave in your very capable hands. Make sure he learns his lesson well. One week!" "Indeed, my Lord. We exist only to serve," Lygia bowed as the king swept from the room. Lygia indicated with her eyes that Soraya follow him. She did so, casting a despairing glance at Lygia that was not lost on Lij. Very soon Soraya returned, to report that all was clear, and the hapless Dom rolled out from underneath the bed. Lij had picked up the sheet and wound it around himself. He could still feel the man's heated touch on his skin. "I would like to bathe", he said abruptly. Soraya took him off to the baths, and Dom quickly put his clothing on. He sat on the bed beside Lygia. "What lessons, my friend?" Lygia sighed. "Whips and ropes and chains and manacles. He is a complex man, with complex needs. I..." She stopped as Dom had covered his face with his hands. "You must be strong for him, my Lord." "Dom...", Dom tried to speak, and swallowed the thickness in his throat. "...My name is Dom. He, as you know, is Lij. I would like it if you used my name. There is no-one here but Lij who does, and soon..." Lygia put her hand on his arm. "Come away, now, whilst he is gone. It will be easier for you, my friend, and for him." Dom picked up the harp. "There was no time to play for him," he said, sadly. Lygia smiled at him. "We have a week. He will hear you play". Dom carried the harp upstairs and into his gold and purple prison, and slumped into a gilded chair. He sat there for some time, thinking, and then made a solemn vow. If he lost Lij to Sennacherib, as he knew in his heart he would, his hands would never touch the harp again. On the altars of the gods of my motherland, this I swear! *** The desert night was cold. A fire was lit and some food made. The cooking of it was not a success. Beneath the star filled sky the smallest of rescue parties kept watch or slept. Only one leaned against a rock and thought of her beloved grandson, prisoner and slave. Menep prayed, a prayer taught to her by her mother and her mother before that. Sacred to Isis. A mother's prayer. *** "By all the gods!" Menkh cried out, exasperated beyond endurance. "Has all the Great House taken leave of absence?" The messenger backed out hastily from the tent. Zeser-Amon looked at him with a benevolent eye. "They are only trying to help, Lord." "Help?" spat Menkh, drinking thirstily from his flask. "And how could group consisting of five people hope to prevail against the combined might of Kishlan and Assyria?" Menkh had believed the servants tales of a bloody flux afflicting his family and friends. There was a sickness travelling about the palace. Two of his children had succumbed to it, so he suspected nothing. He would have done better to have gone to see for himself, instead of staying away as the physician had suggested - no, ordered. Then it was too late. If Lij was to be saved, they had to leave now. He had left messages for the sick, and spoken to the fit. Menkh thought of the other band of soft palace-reared souls travelling through desert sand and sun. He wondered if any of them would be seen again. Damn Seti-Hop! Damn his interfering family! Damn everything! Ankh-Aton came into the tent and patted Zeser-Amon on the shoulder. "Your watch, brother mine." The camp grumbled to an uneasy sleep. The Egyptian army was on the move. Garmen, alone in his heavily guarded tent, thought of stuffed fowl and olives. He received some watered wine, a hunk of bread and six figs. From the information he had gleaned at the palace, he hoped the trees in Sen-Adom's garden had been cut down. He was hungry, nevertheless - he took the risk, and ate them. *** In his bed in the bowels of the Kishlan palace, Lij was thinking during the sleepless watches of the night. He knew he would have to die. Being this man's whore was not to be countenanced. If it had meant he could return, after the king tired of him, to Dom's waiting arms, he would have endured it; but Lygia, Soraya and Leila Khatun had told him, gently, but firmly, that this was not to be thought of. Living without Dom was not to be thought of. Being the Assyrian king's bed-mate was not to be thought of. Not if it meant that he would never see Dom again. When he asked the women where the other boys that Sennacherib had chosen were kept, Lygia answered that Agor had told her they lived in a part of the palace very few people were allowed to see. It was called "Shuptu-Mittu" by those Assyrians who attended it. He asked what it meant. No one knew; it was an Assyrian phrase. Argamus had a queen and concubines aplenty, but no secret vices. His guest, however, was a different matter. No one knew what Sennacherib kept in his secret dungeons. No one wanted to know. Knefer-Lijedefer, Mighty Bull of Ma'at, Beloved of Horus, Lord of the Two Lands, lay curled up on a bed in the slave quarters of the Kishlan king, carefully formulating a plan that encompassed his own death. |