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Paws

Prey skulked nearby. She could smell it, young and tender. It would shriek when she sank her teeth into it, which always made her want to bite harder.

The striped cat slipped silently through the passageways of the palace, tracking the scent. Night had fallen, so she’d returned from her day at the temple. She’d often go there to partake in the burnt offerings meant for the gods. And why not? She too, was a kind of god. Should she not have her bit of flesh?

It had been a trying day. None of the humans were adhering to their normal routines. Everything alive smelled like tension, and everything else smelled like death.

It reminded her of a night long, long ago, when she was barely out of kittenhood, and rain had fallen from the sky in torrents. The cat hadn’t seen any clouds on her way back to the palace that evening, and yet it felt as if a storm was coming once more.

She followed the scent of prey into a chamber flickering with candlelight. A young man sat at a table, studying a strange object. It was a flat piece of wood with the image of a coiled snake carved into it, its body divided into sections. Black and red stones of various sizes were placed within the snake’s coils, as well as two larger pieces of each color. The man held several short sticks that were white on one side and black on the other. He rolled the sticks in his hand and stared at the snake, deep in thought. All around him, half-curled papyri lay in messy piles, twitching and sliding across one another in the breeze.

He paid the cat no mind as she entered—few did, except those who stopped to offer worship with a scratch behind the ears. Most people simply allowed her passage wherever she wished. It had always been that way, and somehow, she knew it always would be.

The cat had seen the young man many times before. She’d seen him birthed on that stormy night long ago, and watched him grow up to be a lithe, bright-eyed creature with flashing teeth. She didn’t like him, per se. Not the way she liked Cook and the girl who watched fish in the garden—but she respected him. He was a predator, like her.

She sensed a mouse moving along the far wall, and was stalking it when a shadow fell through the doorway.

“Greetings to you, my prince,” a female voice said. “Am I disturbing you?”

The man turned to see who it was. “Hello, Tadia,” he rumbled. “Not at all. Come in.”

It was one of the girls she often bedded down with at night. The women’s chamber had the softest blankets and the softest flesh, and the cat loved nothing better than curling up in the crook of an arm or leg, warmed by the blood thrumming beneath.

The girl came into the room and bowed, the beads in her hair tinkling softly. She never took her eyes from the man’s face.

“I thought you might enjoy some company,” she said, trailing a hand down her gossamer linen dress. “I often visited your father in the evenings. He liked to watch me dance.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure he did.”

“I offer myself to you, Prince Meryamun,” she said, reverent and coy. “As I was your father’s, now I am yours to do with as you wish.”

The prince rolled the wooden sticks in his hand as he regarded her. Then he pointed at a chair opposite him at the table.

“Sit.”

Tadia sat, eager and erect.

“Do you know how to play Mehen?” He indicated the snake board between them.

The girl’s shoulders fell slightly. “No, I don’t really play games… but I can learn!”

“There is a red player—that’s me,” the prince explained. “And a black player—that’s you. On our turns, we each throw these sticks to see how many spaces we can move our pawns.” He pointed to the small stones. “When the first pawn reaches the head of the snake, it moves off the board and becomes the Jackal.”

At this, he took up one of the larger pieces—carnelian carved into the shape of a dog’s head—and moved it around and around the coils of the serpent. “The Jackal can move any way it wants, killing the opponent’s pawns.”

Having finished his explanation, he leaned back in his chair. “So tell me, Tadia, how do you think one goes about winning the Snake Game?”

Tadia blinked, clearly unprepared for a test. She looked down, studying the board as if it would provide the answer.

“Well,” she began, uncertain. “Maybe it’s whoever gets all their pieces to the head of the snake first?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” the prince said. “After all, that’s how most people see the path to victory. Start at the beginning and be the first to reach the end. Simple.”

He leaned over the table conspiratorially, and Tadia leaned in to match him. “But you’re wrong.”

The cat’s hackles rose. The energy in the room was shifting. She could feel a dark current running through it and growing stronger.

“No, Tadia,” the prince continued, “one does not win the game by being the first to the goal, but by being the last left alive . The first player to eliminate all the other player’s pawns from the board is the victor. Do you understand? This game has a very important lesson to teach us. Like life, Mehen isn’t a journey. It’s war.”

He chuckled humorlessly, rolling the throw sticks in his hand. They rattled like bones.

“It’s funny, you know, because my father was the one who first taught me to play, and yet he never learned that lesson. Because of his weakness, his sloth, his arrogance, Khetara stands at the edge of ruin.”

He glanced at the scrolls piled around his feet. “Today, when I wasn’t in meetings with his viziers, I was in this room, reading. Grain tax reports, letters from the nomarch in Sakesh and from the army commanders. The situation is worse than I thought—far worse than what Father let on . And Amun knows what the neighboring kingdoms think of us. Only a generation ago, they feared us! They paid homage to us in return for their survival.

“But no more. Now, my mother is forced to fawn over a delegation of sour-faced Tashans in the hopes that they’ll cough up a prince for my dear sister.” He scoffed. “This is the legacy my father leaves me. This mess. Thank the gods he died when he did, or else the damage would have been too much for even me to repair.”

If the girl was shocked by the man’s speech, she didn’t show it. In fact, she seemed aroused by it. The cat could feel the heat pouring off her body in waves as she listened, her lips slightly parted.

“Father boasted of his peaceful reign,” the prince went on, “but peace is an illusion. Men are born for war. If you keep them from it for too long, they either become useless or savage. There is only one language that all men understand, and only one path to victory over them: power. With the crook I will gather them under my dominion, and with the flail I will destroy all those who refuse to submit. That is my promise.”

“You speak like a true king,” Tadia responded, her voice sultry. “Please, allow me to serve you. Let me remain at your side as you lead us into glory. I will give you everything you want.”

The man licked his lips. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” She slipped off the chair and onto her knees.

The prince rolled the throw sticks in his hand as he watched her slither toward him. “And what do you desire in exchange for these offerings?”

“Only your favor, my prince,” she replied, slipping her shoulders between his legs. She rubbed her cheek against his thigh in a gesture familiar to the cat, a gesture of possession, of territory claimed. “With so many burdens on your back, you will need pleasure. Release. I can give you that, and more.” She reached out to touch him.

The prince’s hand darted forward, catching her wrist. His expression twisted into disgust.

“Do you really think I’d want my father’s half-chewed meat?” he snarled.

The girl’s face went pale.

“You think you can crawl into my bed, simply because you amused him? A man who’d mate with anything with two legs?”

Tadia shrank back, staring at the prince as if seeing him for the first time.

The cat’s tail twitched with nervous anticipation, the mouse all but forgotten.

The prince rose from his chair. “I am going to wipe everything he fouled with his touch from the face of the earth,” he said, prowling after the girl as she tried to scurry away. “Starting with you.”

He lunged and caught her by the throat.

It happened so quickly that the girl didn’t have time to scream.

The cat flattened itself against the ground as Tadia tried to wrench her body away from him. Her arms batted against his chest with futile blows as her face swelled and purpled. She flailed, sweeping the snake board off the table, scattering the red and black pieces across the floor. She pried at his fingers, her mouth opening and closing.

The prince drank in the sight and continued to squeeze.

Soon, Tadia stopped struggling. The room fell to silence. The prince released his grip and she slid to the floor, her eyes open and staring.

With a sigh, the prince sat back in his chair. He pushed a loose lock of hair from his eyes, reached for the cup of wine sitting on the table, and drank deeply. When it was empty, he set it back down.

“Guard!” he called.

A tall, barrel-chested man entered from the other room. He glanced at the body on the floor but didn’t seem particularly alarmed by it.

“Yes, my prince?” he said in a clipped tone.

The prince waved a hand toward the girl. “Clean up this mess.”

“Yes, my prince.” The guard stooped down to gather up the corpse, then draped it over his shoulder like a beast after slaughter.

The prince stopped him before he departed. “I think it’s time for you and the others to take care of the king’s personal guard. Don’t you?” He patted the big man’s arm affectionately. “Much to do tonight.”

“I will take care of it, my prince. As we discussed.” With a crisp bow, he was gone.

That done, the prince carefully gathered up the red and black pieces from the floor and set them on the table next to the Mehen board. When he found the red jackal piece, he placed it on the snake’s head and smiled.

The cat, ever curious, slunk out from her hiding place to sniff at the black jackal piece that had landed near her. Unable to resist, she batted it across the square tiles.

The prince turned toward the sound, noticing her.

“Hello there, cat,” he crooned. “Out for a hunt tonight?” He chuckled, and a primal hunger flashed in his eyes. “That makes two of us.”