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This is just a chunk from a beginning I wrote ages ago, and never finished. It's only until I write some more for the other one.
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Sunlight filtered through the gossamer curtains, lighting upon the curls of incense. Flowers added their perfume to the air, their heads already drooping in the heat. Bowls of sticky fruits were scattered around the spacious suite. Fine linens were draped over the bed, but they’d been mussed during the night. Thick walls, covered in frescos and stories, kept the worst of the heat at bay, while a slight breeze brought fleeting relief. It stirred the curtains, revealing the luscious garden and lily covered pool beyond.
Nimlot stepped hesitantly into the room. He’d been repeatedly forbidden from waking the Pharaoh, but he was late for the Ritual of the Morning, and the High Priest was growing impatient. Uncertainly, he moved towards the bed, where the Pharaoh lay face down.
“Your Majesty,” he called, quietly, hoping the Pharaoh would awaken before he reached the bed. The Pharaoh didn’t even stir, much to his disappointed.
The closer he got, the more he felt something was wrong. The curtains were open slightly, which was never allowed because the Pharaoh complained the light kept her awake, the bed sheets were sliding off the bed, and the fruit hadn’t been touched, whereas normally the Pharaoh would have consumed at least some of them during the night. Then his eye was captured by something truly horrifying. Blood stained the linen. It spread from near her back in a mocking bloom, and there was an ugly smear near one corner, where someone had wiped their hands or a knife. As he moved around the bed, he saw a copper blade, normally used for gutting fish. I t was obviously old, and had been repeatedly sharpened. Dried blood was trapped in between the blade and its handle.
Shocked, he reached out to peel the linen off her body. He was sickened to find a gaping wound in the Pharaoh’s back. Flies already flitted around the hole, laying their eggs in the flesh. The scent reached him, overpowering the sickly perfumes. He retched, leaving his meagre breakfast on the floor, before rushing from the room, screaming for the guards.
It took four days for them to find a suspect. By then the Pharaoh’s corpse had been sent to the Beautiful House, on the west side of the river, where her body was being prepared for the painstaking process of mummification.