Pharaoh by Karen Essex Read Free Book Online Page A

Arsinoe’s rule. The mob would undoubtedly drag Kleopatra out of the palace and slay her in the streets. She had been a
     Roman-lover like their father since she was a small child. When she was away with the now-dead king in Rome, bribing those
     monsters to put them back on the throne, Arsinoe and Berenike would make puppets out of their images, shooting them with arrows
     until it looked like the Parthian army had come through and emptied their whole pouches into the effigies. Then the two princesses
     would fall on the grass and laugh until they were sick to their stomachs. Berenike would wait until Arsinoe had no breath
     left in her body. Then she would cover her with kisses and touch her in all the secret and wonderful places that their idiot
     brother seemed incapable of finding. Arsinoe would lie in reverie until Berenike got bored and went to her grown-up women.
     She missed Berenike terribly, though she would like to do those same things now with a man. Not someone disgusting like her
     brother or the eunuch or the elderly Caesar, but one of the young soldiers who stood guard over the royals, one who had a
     lean, strong body and handsome eyes. She saw no chance of this at present. She was closely watched day and night. Even in
     the future, when she would finally escape to head her army, she would still be expected to remain chaste until she chose a
     husband. It would have to be that way to preserve the monarchy, unless she, too, chose to sell herself out to another creepy
     Roman with lupine teeth. She had spurned the advances of the snake, General Achillas, though he was handsome almost beyond
     compare. When he approached her and suggested an alliance based on sex in exchange for his protection, she felt the spirit
     of Berenike riseup inside her and she slapped him across the face. “I shall leave you to your brother’s charms, then,” he replied, and she
     knew that if she did not act first, he would eventually make her pay for what she had done. So she made a plan.
    She would choose the next king-not one of her brothers, not a conniving military man like Achillas who sought only power,
     but some beautiful Greek prince like Seleucus, the handsome Graeco-Syrian whom Berenike had chosen and who had died in battle
     against the Romans. Together, and in memory of Berenike and all that she stood for, he and Arsinoe would break this ridiculous
     custom of brother-and-sister marriages that kept the entire world laughing at them and their bizarre ways. Kleopatra only
thought
she was exercising her will and having it her own way. She was merely a Roman’s whore, and if that’s not how she saw herself,
     then she was not being realistic. Arsinoe would be different.
    Arsinoe placed the proffered arrow into her bow and pulled back with all her might until her arm quivered. The eunuch came
     behind her and placed his arms over hers as if helping with her form. He took the weight of the stance from her, and she felt
     herself relax, only to tense again from having a beautiful man, even if he was a castrated one, embracing her from behind.
     He whispered, “The uniform of one of the Roman pipe-boys will be in the trunk in your chamber. At the hour of midnight, put
     it on and be prepared to leave.” Arsinoe’s bow arm started to shake again. “You will not be alone,” he said. She felt him
     pull her arm back until it hurt.
    “Release,” he ordered, and the two of them let go at the same moment and hit their mark.

    Kleopatra watched the spider’s tiny jaws devour the leg of some long-dead insect. She could not discern what the thing had
     been, so crumpled and distorted were its small remains. She had never observed a spider’s activities from this angle at this
     proximity, and she found herself mesmerized by the creature’s persistent, rhythmic chewing. She was grateful for her acute
     eyesight. The spider was perched upon his elongated legs, negotiating his bulbous body this way and that so that