“What’s the plan for getting us out of here?”
Nefron glanced up and down the corridor. “I’ll arrange transportation and provisions.”
“And our weapons?”
“I’ll find them. Do not fear.”
“When and where?”
“Not here. You must trust me, Mildred. Be patient. Please.”
Nefron’s dark eyes widened in a silent plea. Mildred felt compelled to step aside, and the woman swept past her. As she did so, she whispered, “Go back the way you came and report to Mimses. Now.”
Mildred had retraced half of her steps before she realized she had done it.
She found Mimses’s hall again without too much difficulty, wondering again at the absence of sentries posting along the corridors. Unlike the afternoon before, the black man was dressed in a flowing blue robe, an outfit she assumed was his robe of office.
He stood at the balustrade of the terrace and, when she entered, he beckoned for her to join him there.
“Did you spend a pleasant evening?” he asked, not looking at her.
“No,” she answered.
“Good. If you had, Grandmother would be severely punished. As it is, if the decision was up to me, I’d have you and your scavenger friends staked out in the desert atop a bed of cactus.”
An obscenely witty remark popped into her head, but she kept it from passing her lips.
Mimses turned, his eyes drifting up and down her body. “Do you know how Aten operates?”
“No.”
“I’ll spell it out for you, brown sugar. It’s divided into classes, but we don’t observe strict distinctions. We’re not numerous enough for that. There’s only a handful of what you might call royal insiders. I’m at the top of the heap since Osorkon lost his brain and took off.”
The man’s lips moved in his characteristically vulpine smile. “Life in Aten is easy. The system is smooth, except for a little spot of bother a year or so ago. Everybody has obligations and duties to discharge to the kingdom. All they have to do is discharge them and they earn privileges. You know what the first privilege you’ll earn will be?”
She shook her head.
Mimses grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled her hard against him. She splayed out her hands on his chest, first trying to push him away, then relaxing into his arms. He closed a hand over her left breast, fingers kneading it through the thin leather covering. Into her ear, he crooned, “You get to let me fuck you.”
She was careful to keep her face an expressionless, bland mask. Mimses snorted out a laugh at her lack of response and released her, leaning back on the terrace railing.
“But not for a while yet, brown sugar. You’ve got to prove you’re worthy. Now, get to the kitchen. It’s past time for my breakfast.”
She turned, and he gave her a swat on the rear to inspire her to pick up her pace. She said not a word. Mildred wasn’t moved by the threat of sexual victimization. She was too angry, too consumed by the desire to murder the man with her bare hands.
She was also too pleased with herself to speak, for fear of betraying her small triumph. She kept her hand closed tight around the metal ankh she had slipped from the delicate chain on Mimses’s neck.
DOCS FIRST DAY of servitude was, by and large, a bore. He had expected to feel the bite of an overseers whip on his back or shackles to be welded to his ankles and all sorts of humiliating abuse. His long tenure as slave and court jester in Jordan Teague’s vulgar little empire of Mocsin was still fresh in his memory and gave him an occasional nightmare.
Assigned to a maintenance detail, he followed a crew of four into a covered shed at the far side of the compound. Within were a number of the solar-powered chariots in various states of disrepair. His job was to help repair them, and so he did.
The first chariot he turned his attention upon had a burned-out wheel bearing, and under the helpful directions of his fellow workers, he rebuilt it by melting down the original in a small smelter and recasting it in a mold.