Scroll Of Saqqara Part 13

Tbubui nodded and thanked her hostess. Nubnofret summoned her sweating servants, and the two women were soon standing naked side by side on the bathing slabs, drenched in cool lotus water, wine still in hand and chattering gaily about the latest treatment for softening the hair.

When Sheritra arrived home at sunset, flushed and animated from her day, she found them still deep in conversation, now reclining on reed mats by the pool. The heat was over for the day, and lawn, flower beds and her mother and guest were all saturated in a copper glow from the last of the sun. Both women looked up with a smile as she came to them across the dry gra.s.s, and Nubnofret patted the mat by her ample hip.

"Have you had a good day?" she asked, and Sheritra, sinking beside her under the deepening shade of the blueand-white-striped awning, noted the two empty wine jars lying between them and her mother's pleasant, slurred speech. She was taken aback, for she seldom saw Nubnofret the worse for wine, but she was also secretly amused. The folds of her mother's face, already, at age thirty-five, freezing into a permanently preoccupied, stern expression, had softened, and her l.u.s.trous eyes were full of a contented laziness.

"I have indeed," Sheritra answered, returning Tbubui's half-obeisance with a nod. "Harmin and I found a little bay on the west bank about five miles upstream from the city where a neglected old ca.n.a.l emptied into the Nile. It was quite choked up with growth and nests and wildlife and we poked about in it for ages. But we didn't see a crocodile. We ate in the barge's cabin because of the heat. Harmin has gone home." She turned to Tbubui. "I do apologize, Tbubui. If I had known you were here I could have invited him to join you and you could have left together."

"It does not matter, Princess," Tbubui replied. "Your mother and I have spent a delightful afternoon free of all male company and I am sure that Harmin's presence would have spoiled it!"

Sheritra regarded the two of them curiously. They seemed to exude an essence of indolent femininity, an aura of purely womanly shared confidences, that made her slightly uncomfortable. She did not have any close friends of her own s.e.x. She had always scorned the frivolous conversations of the daughters of her father's acquaintances, silly giggling girls who thought and talked of nothing but fas.h.i.+on, cosmetics, what hairstyles were currently in vogue in the Delta and which young men had the most attractive bodies. She felt, looking from her mother's somnolent, amused face to Tbubui's sensuously sprawling limbs that all those subjects had been thoroughly covered by them today. Nubnofret confirmed her suspicion.

"We have done nothing all day but sip wine and talk about completely inconsequential things," she explained. "It has done me good."

"I have enjoyed it also," Tbubui put in. "I have no female company and I do not talk to my servants." She glanced at Nubnofret as though something else was expected, and Nubnofret grunted.

"Tbubui has kindly invited you to stay at her home for a while " she said. "I think that the change might be good for you, Sheritra, if you want to go. What do you think?"

Sheritra studied her mother's face and a.n.a.lyzed her tone. Sometimes a similar question held the expected answer within it and the girl knew that she was not really being given a choice. But this time she could hear no unstated coercion, nor could her over-sensitivity detect an eagerness to have her out of the way. Nubnofret was smiling at her with kohl-smudged eyes slitted against the sun. Time with Harmin, Sheritra thought. Hour after hour in his company, talking, drinking him in with my eyes, perhaps kissing him, perhaps ... But it was not entirely proper, not quite the accepted thing. She pondered, frowning unconsciously, and her mother added, "Of course Bakmut would go with you, and a scribe and your body servant. Your father would provide suitable guards." And someone to report to him on my every move, Sheritra added ruefully. But that is how it should be. "What does Father say?" she asked.

"I have not spoken to him about it," Nubnofret confessed. "I decided to see how you felt first. Well?"

"Do come, Princess!" Tbubui urged. "I would be so honoured by your company and would have someone to talk to. Harmin will also be overjoyed, I'm sure." She cast a sidelong glance at Nubnofret that plainly said "Have I gone too far?" But Nubnofret was working lotus oil into her fingers and merely nodded.

"I daresay he would," she responded drily. "But I do not object to that, providing he is never alone with my daughter." She looked up suddenly. "You do not have to go, Sheritra."

But you want me to, Sheritra thought angrily. I can see that you do. If I decided to spite you I would simply decline the invitation, but you know, don't you Mother, that I cannot pa.s.s up this chance to be with Harmin. "On the contrary," she said. "I would love to go. Thank you, Tbubui."

The woman smiled warmly. "Good! I shall have a room prepared for you, in fact I shall give you my bedchamber as it is the largest in the house. We have several empty rooms." Sheritra did not protest. As a princess it was her right to occupy the best accommodation. "When would you like to come?" Tbubui pressed.

Sheritra regarded her mother levelly. "Tomorrow," she said.

Tbubui sat up. "Good!" she repeated.

At that moment Khaemwaset and Hori stepped out of the terrace's shade and came towards them, Hori limping awkwardly. Tbubui rose and reverenced them with a grace that sent a pang of envy through Sheritra. A month ago I would not have cared, she told herself, or even if I did it would not have been such a violent caring. I would have sneered at her, but now I want that unselfconscious a.s.surance for Harmin's sake. She herself scrambled up for her father's kiss. Hori gave her a twisted grin and sank into one of the chairs the servants were rus.h.i.+ng to provide.

"So," Khaemwaset began, his eyes on Tbubui after a cursory but warm greeting to his wife, "we males come to interrupt an obvious idyll. You all look satisfied with yourselves. Have you settled the affairs of Egypt between you?"

It is not like Father to be condescending, Sheritra thought. He seems very uneasy. And why is Hori staring so sourly at the ground? Well, I will not let either of them spoil my day. Her mother was talking of Tbubui's invitation and Sheritra listened as she and Khaemwaset tossed her decision about between them. Her father was not exactly objecting. It seemed to the girl that under the prescribed, formal objections was an eagerness to see her go that was equal to her mother's. Puzzled and a little hurt, she tried to catch his eye, seeking rea.s.surance, but could not. Tbubui was watching, her gaze, also narrowed against the sun, moving slowly from one to the other. She made no move to interrupt and Sheritra thought that her stillness had a smug quality about it. Finally her father turned to her.

"I shall miss you, Little Sun," he said merrily. "But of course your mother and I will visit you often until you are ready to come home again."

Mother will not, Sheritra thought mutinously, and you, dear Father ... All at once an idea flashed into her mind and she exhaled quietly. Could it be? Khaemwaset was now jovial, animated. Sheritra turned her attention un.o.btrusively back to Tbubui. She was smiling to herself and fanning a hand across the blades of gra.s.s, to and fro. Sheritra again inspected her father's sparkling eyes and wide gestures, her heart sinking. So that was it. If I am actually in Tbubui's house I give Father an excuse to visit there whenever he wishes. And I am suddenly convinced that he will wish to visit a very great deal.

Sheritra did not know why the conviction of Khaemwaset's interest in the other woman was causing her anxiety. Perhaps such a change would be good for him, be rejuvenating for a while. But the girl, remembering the odd and awkward conversation she had had with him not so long ago, was sure it was not so. She herself liked and admired Tbubui, but then she was not a man. Tbubui was dangerous to men, her instincts told her.

Surrept.i.tiously, from under lowered lashes, she scrutinized her brother. Hori's s.h.i.+ning dark head was down, his eyes fixed unseeingly on his bruised knee. Oh Hathor no, Sheritra thought with something approaching horror. Not both of them! Does Tbubui know?

She and Khaemwaset were discussing the scroll. "I have decided to let Sisenet inspect it," Khaemwaset was saying reluctantly. "But he will have to do so here. I am responsible for its safety before the G.o.ds and the ka of the man who owned it. I am truly at the point, Tbubui, where I would welcome any a.s.sistance in its deciphering." Tbubui answered immediately, intelligently, and Sheritra looked at her mother.

Nubnofret had withdrawn from the conversation. She lay full-length on her side, eyes closed, and something about the stiffness of her pose told Sheritra that her mother's afternoon was not ending as delightfully as it had begun.

Without warning Sheritra felt hot and weak. Emotional undercurrents swirled around her-her mother's formless apprehension. Hori's sulkiness, her father's uncharacteristic animation-and in the centre of it Tbubui, who a short time ago had been all lazy, sultry woman and who now was all serious earnest student of history. Does she know? Sheritra asked herself again. If she does suspect, then surely she would not be extending an invitation to me! Or would she? She came to her feet and the conversation broke off.

"Father, give me leave to go into the house," she said. "I have spent a full day in the sun and I am very tired. I want to be bathed before dinner." She knew that her words were stilted, that she was standing slouched and ill at ease, that she was once more the family embarra.s.sment, but she could not help it. Surprised, Khaemwaset nodded.

"Of course," he said.

Sheritra forced herself to turn to Tbubui. "I will arrive at your home tomorrow afternoon," she said.

"Until then, Princess," was the polite reply.

Sheritra left them, hurrying around the pond and the gurgling fountain and past the flower beds in an agony of self-consciousness, feeling as though they were all staring at her back. She reached the entrance and rushed inside with great relief. Perhaps I should not go, she thought dismally, unaware of the guards' salute as she pa.s.sed them in the pa.s.sage. Perhaps Tbubui is using me as an excuse for Father to visit her without suspicion. And perhaps you are an overly sensitive idiot, another voice mocked her, with too much imagination for your own good. Be selfish, Sheritra. Put yourself next to Harmin and do not worry about the rest.

Just before the door to her own quarters she looked up and her reflection met her, a stooped, pinched, homely girl to whom even the smoothly beaten copper of the floor-toceiling relief could not give the illusion of beauty. I cannot change myself, she thought in a dismay that bordered on panic. Only he has the power to change me and I am determined to be given that chance. For once I will not care about any of them. She turned away from the daunting copper image and entered her rooms.

The evening meal that day seemed interminable. Her mother, obviously suffering a headache, had done her best to entertain two of Pharaoh's Heralds who had arrived unexpectedly on their way south into Nubia. Later, Sheritra sought out Hori. He was sitting morosely just inside the main entrance of the house, his foot propped up on a stool, gazing into the stultifying hot darkness that seemed to take its breathless heat from the orange torches now illuminating the forecourt and the paved path to the watersteps. He glanced up as she folded her linens under her and sank by his feet at the top of the entrance stair. The smile he gave her was his usual winsome grin, but she was not deceived.

"You are unhappy, aren't you, Hori?" she said without preamble. "I do not think it is the pain of your knee, either."

He stirred, swore softly, then chuckled. "Your perception is always disconcerting," he replied. "No, it is not my knee. Father will remove the st.i.tches tomorrow."

She waited for him to go on but he did not. Fleetingly, she wondered if she ought to keep silent, but she was afraid of the distances that were opening in the family, the imperceptible rifts between her parents, between her father and herself, between her father and Hori. She felt a desperate need to remain close to this beautiful brother whom she loved so much, for without him, she realized, she would have no one. In spite of her pa.s.sion for Harmin she did not yet trust him completely. "You are in love with Tbubui, aren't you?" she murmured. For a while she feared that he was not going to answer her, or worse, that he would lie, but in the end he slumped forward and his cheek brushed her hair.

"Yes," he admitted, and his voice cracked on that one word.

"Does she know?"

He sighed. "Yes. I told her everything when I went to see her yesterday. She suggested that I could visit her whenever I wanted but that we could be nothing more than friends."

Her heart went out to him. He sounded confused and hopeless. "Do you accept that?"

He straightened. "Of course not!" he snapped. "I will find some means of winning her. I am after all one of the most sought-after single men in Egypt and certainly the handsomest. She cannot resist me if I flaunt my body in front of her often enough."

Sheritra was appalled at the cynical tone. "But Hori, you have never ...your strength has been ..."

"Well perhaps I have simply not cared enough until now to turn my good looks into the weapon they are," he grated. "She has no man. If someone else held her affections she would have told me. No, Sheritra. She eats at my vitals and one day, one day, I will eat at hers."

She was shocked both at the crudity of his language and the coa.r.s.eness of his voice. Desperately she sought the brother whose cheerful, constant unselfishness had made him beloved among so many. "Have you spoken to Father about it?" she asked.

"No. When she surrenders I will approach him, but until then it is none of his business."

So Hori, wrapped in his own agony, was oblivious to Khaemwaset's. It was just as well. The implications of the situation came into Sheritra's mind in all their potential horror. Quite apart from the strife that would ensue between her two favourite men, there was the future. If Hori won her he would of course build another wing onto the house and she would be under Khaemwaset's gaze at every hour. But surely that was better than having her here as Khaemwaset's Second Wife, with all the authority that position entailed. Tbubui at dinner, Tbubui commandeering the barge, Tbubui and Khaemwaset on his couch while Nubnofret lay alone ... And Tbubui and me, Sheritra thought, shrinking. Tbubui and Hori. Oh G.o.ds. Let me be wrong about Father. Let Hori's infatuation end as suddenly as it began.

Hori once more bent close to her until she could smell the sour wine on his breath. "You are going to stay with her tomorrow," he whispered. "She likes you, Sheritra. Talk to her about me. Make her think. Will you do that for me?"

She jerked away. "I will try, Hori," she cried out, "but all is not as it seems. Oh why did she have to come into our lives! I am afraid!"

He did not answer, did not try to comfort her, and she got up and left him, walking through the murmurous house towards her own apartments where her servants were packing her belongings. Her mind told her to order the things returned to their tiring boxes but her heart yearned for Harmin. He had kissed her again today, both of them lying in the long gra.s.ses at the river's edge, hidden from the eyes of servants and soldiers on the barge. The sun had been a dreaming, sultry presence making her pliant, liquid with desire, and Harmin's black hair had fallen across her neck, his tongue cool against the convolutions of her ear. I can do nothing, she thought as she entered her ante-room to Bakmut's somewhat harried bow. I cannot stem the disquieting tide of powerful change sweeping over this family. I am no longer apart from it, for it is tumbling and buffeting me also. Each one of us must look to himself.

She left the watersteps late the following morning with Bakmut, all her personal servants and four guards, selected by Amek and approved by her father. Nubnofret had bid her a casual goodbye, embracing her briefly and a.s.suring her that she must come home as soon as she wished. But Khaemwaset had drawn her aside and thrust a piece of papyrus into her hands. "Your horoscope for Phamenoth," he had said brusquely. "I cast them all last night. Little Sun, I do not like it. Read it for yourself as soon as possible and remember that I am only as far away as the mouth of one of your guards. I will come and see you within the week." Suddenly she clung to him as though she had been banished to the Delta for some heinous crime, missing him already. Yet under the burst of homesickness was the cold core of her determination, and besides, she had not missed the undertone of eagerness in his voice. Kissing him on his cheek she turned and walked onto the barge. Hori had not appeared at all. She waved to her parents once and disappeared into the cabin.

It took the rowers less than an hour to pull the barge to Tbubui's watersteps, even though the prevailing north wind of summer had begun to blow and the river was so low that very little current remained to carry them along. Sheritra sat in the cabin, a silent Bakmut at her feet, the horoscope still unread in her hand. She felt tense, dislocated, as though instead of going to stay with a new friend for a few weeks she was setting out across the Great Green, her destination unknown. Exacerbating the impression was the knowledge that both her parents, for dissimilar reasons, were glad to see her go, and Hori too wanted her away from home to help him pursue his own ends. It was irrational, Sheritra knew, but she felt that he had betrayed her.

In spite of the light, familiar voices of her servants gathered under the awning on the deck, in spite of Amek's stolid, reliable soldiers into whose hands she would have placed her life without a second thought, she felt defenceless and very alone. I should move to Pi-Ramses, she thought painfully. Grandfather would give me a suite in the palace. Aunt Bint-Anath would care for me. I hate Memphis now. That daunting awareness made her realize fully for the first time how far behind she had left the fragile, shy girl she had been such a short time ago. I am still fragile, she thought grimly, oh so very fragile, but not quite in the same way. There was an innocence about me then that I can recognize only now, but should I mourn or rejoice at the change? I cannot say.

Harmin was waiting for her, standing on the bottom riser of the watersteps and gazing upstream when she emerged from the cabin at the captain's warning shout. Sheritra could see his brooding face lighten with a smile as he spotted her, and he bowed several times as her scribe handed her reverentially onto the stone beside him. At her word, the rest of her train began to stream along the sandy path towards the house, but the guards and Bakmut remained with her.

"Harmin," she said, and he was free to speak "Welcome to my home, Highness," he responded gravely. "I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you decided to accept my mother's invitation. I am your humble slave and I promise to gratify any desire you may express while you are here."

She met his eyes, aware as never before of the strong, regular beats of her heart, the raw constriction in her belly as she looked at him.

"I have a litter here for you," he went on. "The path is not long but the heat is great."

"Thank you, I have brought my own," she replied. "But I don t really need it today, Harmin. I prefer to walk. What a lovely shade the palms cast! Shall we go? I am eager to see this house for myself. Father and Hori have described it as unique. Bakmut, give me my whisk." She started forward and Harmin fell in with her step. The flies of summer were growing thicker every day, a scourge of black, salt-seeking creatures that settled with a maddening persistence around the eyes and mouth and on any sweat-slicked skin. To Sheritra they seemed more aggressive and numerous here under the palms than at home. She applied the black horsehair whisk to her naked flesh with an absent-minded precision as Harmin spoke of the fecundity of the trees, the coming date harvest and the report of his steward on the progress of his crops in Koptos.

"My father took very little interest in his holdings," he explained, "and relied on the steward to handle the fellahin, but I liked to walk beside the ca.n.a.ls at home and watch the grain and the vegetables spring up fresh and green."

"You speak as though you miss it," Sheritra observed, and he agreed.

"Sometimes I do," he said softly, "but I do not miss Koptos itself. My early memories of the town are not very happy ones. See, Highness!" He pointed. "Our house!"

Sheritra's first impression of the building was not like Khaemwaset's or Hori's. In spite of the fresh plaster and white-wash, in spite of the lone gardener toiling in the small garden, the estate had a forlorn, neglected air. The walls seemed bleached rather than unstained, the lawn a struggle to hold back the palms rather than a pleasant clearing, the quiet privacy an atmosphere of dereliction.

But that impression soon faded. She greeted a bowing Tbubui and Sisenet and entered the plain hall with curiosity. "I can see how my father was delighted with your home," she told them after glancing about. "It might have been built and furnished a hundred hentis ago!" Then fearing that she had offended them she added hastily, "Such taste and simplicity is wonderful, Tbubui. One cannot think or pray when one is surrounded by ornate clutter." She could hear her servants somewhere beyond the transverse pa.s.sage at the rear of the hall, and the clatter of boxes. Her soldiers ignored the family, vanis.h.i.+ng into the house with the authority of the Prince behind them, and her scribe followed, palette in hand. There was no sign of the household's own staff.

"Come, Highness," Tbubui said as Sisenet bowed again and excused himself. "This is the way to the room I have prepared for you. Please command your servants to order the routine of the house as though it were your own. Ours will not interfere." Meekly Sheritra stepped after Tbubui's yellow-swathed back, feeling Harmin behind her. "The pa.s.sage at this end leads directly into the garden," Tbubui was saying. "There is a door but it is only closed when the khamsin blows, to keep the desert sand out of the house. My brother, Harmin and I will be sleeping at the other end. I am sorry that there is no room for your servants to stay in the building itself but there is ample room for them at the rear, in the compound."

"Bakmut always sleeps on my floor," Sheritra said, and turned in at the door Tbubui was now standing beside. The room was not large but, like the rest of the house, it seemed so. Sheritra swiftly took in the couch, table, chair, stool and cosmetic table and nodded to Bakmut. "Have my things brought in."

"I have removed my own tiring chests," Tbubui told her, "but of course if your Highness needs them they are at your disposal."

Sheritra smiled and touched her briefly. "Thank you, Tbubui. You have gone to great trouble to make me comfortable." The woman and her son understood the dismissal. As the door closed behind them Sheritra sank onto the couch with a sigh. She would have liked more light, for the room was very dim, but more light would have meant more heat and the sweet coolness was very welcome. "I will not need the fans here," she remarked to Bakmut. "See that my own linen is put on the couch, and send the scribe to me as soon as the soldiers have worked out a schedule. Do you think we will eat before long, Bakmut? I am very hungry."

"I can ask, Highness," the girl said, and went out. Sheritra sat on, listening to the silence, her eyes on the two high patches of square white light on the farther wall cast by the windows that had been cut just under the ceiling. The thought that Harmin was somewhere close by gave her a thrill of excitement. I am going to enjoy this to the fullest, she told herself, her earlier misgivings forgotten for now.

She ate a simple and exquisitely prepared meal in the hall, sitting cross-legged on cus.h.i.+ons before a low cedarand-gilt table, waited on by her own steward who tasted each dish before serving her. Khaemwaset had his own tasters but they were seldom seen. The food at home was p.r.o.nounced safe before it arrived in the dining hall and the courtesy here, performed in her presence, a reminder to all of her exalted station, t.i.tillated her. Many n.o.bles had tasters, particularly those closest to Pharaoh, who had reason to fear the ambition of underlings, but it was obvious that Sisenet did not bother with one. He, his sister and his nephew ate with a delicate relish, talking to each other and Sheritra with easy grace, so that soon she felt entirely at home.

When the meal ended, all disappeared to sleep away the worst heat of the afternoon, and Sheritra, freshly washed, slipped between her own sheets in Tbubui's bedchamber contentedly. Bakmut had placed her sleeping mat against the wall behind the door, but on Sheritra's dismissal she continued to hover beside the couch, obviously troubled.

"What is it, Bakmut?" Sheritra asked The girl clasped her hands together, eyes downcast. "Forgive me, Highness," she said, "but I do not like this place."

Sheritra sat up. "What do you mean?"

Bakmut bit her lip. "I am not entirely sure," she replied hesitantly, "but the servants of the house, they do not speak."

"You mean that they do not speak to you? They are rude?"

Bakmut shook her head. "No, Highness. I mean that they do not speak at all. They are not deaf, for they respond when spoken to, and I do not think that they are dumb, for I saw one of them lick her mouth, but they simply never say a word."

"Perhaps their mistress has trained them that way," Sheritra offered. "Each household is different, you know that, Bakmut, and the demeanour of servants varies depending on their employers' way of life." Surprised and apprehensive, she found that she was fighting to keep a stridency out of her voice, wanting to reprimand Bakmut for attempting to coalesce her own vague fears. "This family has a need for more silence than we do," she went on, "and probably the servants have been commanded not to speak unless their instructions are not clear. It is nothing. Put it out of your mind."

Bakmut still hesitated. "But the silence is not nice, Highness. It weighs on me."

"You are simply not used to it," Sheritra said with finality, lying down again and easing the ivory headrest more comfortably against her neck. She bit back an impulse to tell the girl to keep reporting her feelings and impressions, and closed her eyes. Bakmut's feet could be heard padding to the sleeping mat by the door and her little sighs as she composed herself brought a sense of security to Sheritra. My guard is outside in the pa.s.sage, she thought. My staff have flooded the house. Harmin is within the sound of my cries, and I have embarked upon one small adventure solely for myself. What is this unease that borders on fear? I do not like the silence either. It is not calm, not a contented aura through which we might all move. It is like an invisible veil of obscure purpose that isolates us, cutting us off from events outside its power. Still with eyes shut, she smiled at her fanciful diagnosis And I believed our our house to be quiet! she thought. You are still a timid child, Sheritra. Grow up! She sensed the implacable force of the early afternoon's heat searing the thick mud walls that coc.o.o.ned her. Bakmut groaned briefly in her dreams. The sheets slid silkily against Sheritra's smooth skin and she slept. house to be quiet! she thought. You are still a timid child, Sheritra. Grow up! She sensed the implacable force of the early afternoon's heat searing the thick mud walls that coc.o.o.ned her. Bakmut groaned briefly in her dreams. The sheets slid silkily against Sheritra's smooth skin and she slept.

11.

From the evil-doer the quay slips away.

He is carried away by his flooded land.

KHAEMWASET SAT KHAEMWASET SAT behind his desk, his head swimming in the close airlessness of his office, and stared down at the papers littered between his hands. It was the beginning of Phamenoth. Sheritra had been gone for three days and Khaemwaset missed her, surprised at the definitely hollow place she had left. He had not realized how much he had taken for granted the moments when he would turn a corner and find her bending with milk for the house snakes, or glance up from his meal to where she would be folded, one knee up, her linens askew, frowning over her food while the ebb and flow of family conversation swirled apparently unheeded around her. The garden, wilting and struggling under an intensifying sun, seemed forlorn without her presence. He had grown so used to Nubnofret's sharp reprimands and his own automatic rebuffs in defence of his daughter that he had been scarcely aware of them, yet now when he, his wife and Hori settled in the dining hall to while away the evening hours, he cast about for what was wrong and discovered the absence of one familiar habit. behind his desk, his head swimming in the close airlessness of his office, and stared down at the papers littered between his hands. It was the beginning of Phamenoth. Sheritra had been gone for three days and Khaemwaset missed her, surprised at the definitely hollow place she had left. He had not realized how much he had taken for granted the moments when he would turn a corner and find her bending with milk for the house snakes, or glance up from his meal to where she would be folded, one knee up, her linens askew, frowning over her food while the ebb and flow of family conversation swirled apparently unheeded around her. The garden, wilting and struggling under an intensifying sun, seemed forlorn without her presence. He had grown so used to Nubnofret's sharp reprimands and his own automatic rebuffs in defence of his daughter that he had been scarcely aware of them, yet now when he, his wife and Hori settled in the dining hall to while away the evening hours, he cast about for what was wrong and discovered the absence of one familiar habit.

Hori was unusually preoccupied and uncommunicative. Perhaps he missed her also. He was gone from sunrise to dinner time and no longer sought out his father with an eager account of his days. Khaemwaset presumed that he was still overseeing the work on the tomb and roaming the city in his spare time with Antef, and it worried him to see Antef on several occasions wandering moodily along the paths of the estate by himself. Khaemwaset had removed the st.i.tches in Hori's knee and the boy no longer limped. The wound had healed well but would leave an untidy scar. Khaemwaset wanted to ask his son what he had done with the earring, and what was the cause of his distress, but found he could not. A wall, still insubstantial but strengthening, had appeared between them. Hori had withdrawn and Khaemwaset found himself unwilling to pierce that almost sullen sh.e.l.l. He had his own agonies.

Two days after Sheritra's departure he had summoned Penbuy and, wrapped in an atmosphere of complete unreality, had ordered his Chief Scribe to draw up a marriage contract between himself and Tbubui. Penbuy with his impeccable manners and the restraint of good breeding, had given his master the briefest of stares, blanched a little under his deep olive skin and sunk cross-legged to the floor, arranging his palette in the pose hallowed by generations of scribes. "What t.i.tle is the lady to receive?" he asked primly, pen poised.

"She will of course immediately become a princess when she signs the doc.u.ment," Khaemwaset said, hardly recognizing his own voice, "but her official position here will be that of Second Wife. Emphasize in the contract that Nubnofret remains Chief Wife and Superior Princess." Penbuy wrote.

"Are you aware of her a.s.sets, Prince?" he asked at length. "Do you wish a clause giving you the right to control any or all of them?"

"No." Khaemwaset was finding the exchange more difficult than he could have imagined. Guilt and dread were making him testy, but he had now lived with the two negative emotions so long that he was able to ignore them. The feeling of brittle illusion surrounding what he was doing was very strong. "I know nothing of her a.s.sets save that she has some property of her own. Her late husband's estate went to Harmin. I have no desire to meddle in her commercial affairs."

"Very good." Penbuy's head went down again. "And what of her son?" he queried. "Is he to share in your bequest to Hori and your daughter in the event of your death?"

"No." Khaemwaset's answer was curt and he was sure he saw a relieved loosening in his scribe's stance. "Harmin does not need anything from me. Nor is he to receive any princely t.i.tle unless he marries Sheritra. He must not know that, Penbuy."

"Naturally," Penbuy purred, writing industriously. "But what of any offspring from this marriage, Prince?"

Khaemwaset's gut churned. "If Tbubui gives me children, they must share equally in my wealth with Hori and Sheritra. You will include the usual clauses, Penbuy. I am to provide for Tbubui, treat her with respect and kindness and perform such accepted duties as a husband is obligated to do. And before you ask, her brother will not be mentioned in this contract at all. He is incidental to this negotiation."

Penbuy laid his pen carefully on the palette and for the first time looked up at his master. "Prince, you do remember that as a member of the royal family your choice of wives is subject to Pharaoh's approval," he reminded Khaemwaset with pursed mouth and expressionless gaze. "If the lady's blood proves to be too common and you pursue this course, you run the risk of being removed from the list of blood princes in line for the throne."

It was Penbuy's duty to say those things, but Khaemwaset was angry nonetheless. I do not care, he thought savagely. I will have her in the face of any opposition, my father's included. "Merenptah would be delighted to see my name removed from that list," he said, forcing a chuckle. "As to the lady's blood-line, I want you to go to Koptos and research her claims. Add a last clause to the contract to the effect that she may sign it but it only becomes valid subject to confirmation of her n.o.ble status. That releases me from any legal pressures in the event that she has lied to me or my father refuses me the marriage." But it means nothing, he had thought privately. All of this, it means nothing. It is only a way in which I may lure her here, under my hands and eyes, forever.

Penbuy smiled faintly. "Koptos," he said with resignation. "Koptos in the summer."

Khaemwaset rose. "A disagreeable a.s.signment, I know," he acknowledged, "but I trust no one else to perform the task as thoroughly as you, old friend. Have the doc.u.ment ready to sign tomorrow, and, Penbuy ..." The scribe looked at him questioningly. There was a small pause while Khaemwaset, outwardly in control, fought to form the next words. "Nubnofret knows nothing of this. Nor do Hori or Sheritra. Keep your counsel. You will leave for Koptos tomorrow afternoon."

Penbuy had nodded, risen and bowed himself out, leaving Khaemwaset feeling strangely dirty. I do not care what my servant thinks of my deeds, he told himself firmly, for what is he but a tool, an instrument for my use? Yet Penbuy had been his advisor for many years and Khaemwaset had had to choke back the desire to ask the man for his opinion. He had not wanted to hear it.

Now he sat bowed by the heat, the completed papyrus before him covered in Penbuy's neat, faultless script. He had read it and sealed it, and it waited now for Tbubui's approval.