Flail of the Pharoah by Rosanna Challis Page B

challenge.
    But first she must deal with the girl placed in her charge. Some of the lowborn Egyptian women had secret methods of birth control, involving sponges soaked in vinegar. Perhaps she would send Iras on a secret mission to learn their arcane arts. It was a risky endeavour, for it was a terrible sin to impede the passage of the king’s seed, but if it secured her son’s supremacy in the court of Egypt it was a risk well worth taking.
    Charmian crept back into the sanctuary of the harem. It was dim and quiet with only a couple of small lamps burning, most of the women being sound asleep, and she was grateful for the blanket of night that covered her. She could not have born to have dozens of pairs of curious eyes upon her now.
    She found her narrow bed in the alcove at the far end of the vast room and pulled the curtain around it. The fard on her cheeks and the kohl around her eyes smelt stale, and now the perfume had evaporated from her wig it exuded a stench of animal fat. She was disgusted and pulled off the black curls, throwing the hairpiece into a corner. Then, seizing a stray scarf from her wardrobe she rubbed frantically at her face until most of the paint had come off.
    Only then did she sink gratefully upon her bed, still wearing her diaphanous robe. She stared up at the ceiling, which was painted with stars and an image of Nut, Goddess of the Night, and thought about what she had witnessed in the king’s bedchamber. The images were still as fresh in her mind’s eye as if they had been burned upon her retina, and she began to replay them, over and over again, trying to make sense of the extraordinary display she had seen.
    It took a long while for sleep to come. Charmian felt a strange restlessness invade her body and her hands unconsciously began to stroke her breasts and stomach. She could imagine the Pharaoh’s hands there instead of hers, pinching her nipples as he had pinched the queen’s, bringing them to a firm ripeness. Tentatively she squeezed them between thumb and forefinger and felt ripples of exquisite excitement course through her.
    ‘King Seti…’ As she breathed his name into the night air her palms closed over her taut young breasts and she cupped them, caressed them, increasing her own arousal.
    Charmian let her right hand pass into the shaven cleft between her thighs and gently part the tumid lips of her sex. How wet she was. She had never explored her body in that way before, since girls were prohibited from ‘spoiling themselves’, as the phrase had been back in the land of her birth. How distant all that seemed now. Here she instinctively knew attitudes were much freer, and sexual behaviour was considered a natural part of life, not something secret and hedged around with rules.
    She began to rub the swollen nub that pulsated with such tempting pleasure, but then she stopped and withdrew her hand. What if the Pharaoh could tell she had touched herself there? What if she were to be considered spoilt goods and end up like the rejected ones in the harem, the embittered coterie that sat in a corner gossiping and spying because they had nothing better to occupy them? Queen Mira had warned that might be her fate if she failed to please the Pharaoh.
    For another hour or so Charmian tossed and turned on her narrow bed, feeling for the first time the ravages of unappeased lust. She began to long for her turn with King Seti, so she might be able to express the mysterious desires that raged within her innocent flesh. She recalled seeing his hand slap against the padded cushions of the queen’s buttocks, again and again, and how Mira had seemed to relish the stimulation. She imagined the Pharaoh putting her across his knee too, his broad hand making her flesh sting as he slapped it mercilessly. At the same time she imagined him caressing between her nether lips, letting her copious juices flood over his fingers as she writhed and convulsed, just as Mira had done.
    The thought was driving