Scroll Of Saqqara Part 18

"Dear Khaemwaset," she said. "I received a message from Sheritra last night, asking that her belongings be returned home and explaining why. You have suffered a double loss. I am so sorry."

Khaemwaset melted under her concern. Drawing her to him he held her slim, tight body against his own and laid his chin on the smooth top of her head. He was aware that she wore no perfume today and the warm, simple odour of her hair filled his nostrils. He felt himself begin to relax, an internal loosening that reminded him of how tense he had been.

"I confess that my mother's death touches me less deeply than the loss of Penbuy," he murmured. "We all knew that she was dying, and for her the prospect was a welcome one. But Penbuy had barely finished building his tomb on the edge of the Memphis necropolis. He was very proud of its decorations."

"It is no wonder that your servants are devoted to you," she replied, her voice m.u.f.fled in his neck. "Come, dear brother. In my room there is wine and I will ma.s.sage sweet oils into your shoulders. I can feel how distressed you are by the state of the muscles in your back." At her words he was immediately aware of her touch on his spine, one hand between his shoulder-blades, one on the small of his back just above the belt of his kilt, and deliriously he imagined them sliding downward, cupping his b.u.t.tocks, pressing them gently ...

"Is Sisenet here?" he asked drowsily.

She disengaged and smiled up at him. "No. My brother and Harmin have taken a tent and gone out onto the desert to hunt for three days. They left at dawn. Harmin was very distressed that Sheritra would not be returning until the period of mourning for her grandmother is over." Taking him by the hand she began to lead him to the rear of the room and the windy pa.s.sage beyond.

"We must all go to Thebes for her funeral," Khaemwaset said, glancing at the glaring square of hot light at the end of the corridor before she stood aside to let him enter her bedchamber. "Please come with us, Tbubui. In seventy days you will surely be living on my estate. I want my father to meet you, and a journey such as that would give you and Nubnofret a chance to become better acquainted. The investigative work Penbuy began at Koptos will have been completed and you will face Ramses as my wife. Because of the mourning period our contract cannot be ratified until after the funeral, but that can be done in Pi-Ramses. Will you come?"

He had crossed to the centre of the spa.r.s.ely furnished room and was watching her as she closed the door and swung to face him. He noticed then that she was wearing a tight and transparent white linen sheath but no sandals or jewellery. He wondered if it was the same sheath she had been wearing the first time he had glimpsed her, and at the thought he was choked with sudden desire.

"But how will the work at Koptos be completed now that Penbuy is dead?" she asked anxiously. "Had he made much progress, Highness? Will our marriage be postponed because of it?" She ran to him lightly like a little girl. "Oh I am so selfis.h.!.+ I do not want to wait any longer than necessary to belong to you!"

He was gratified by her eagerness. "Penbuy's son Ptah-Seankh will leave for Koptos in a few days and will take over his father's task. He will have completed it, I am sure, before bringing Penbuy's body back to Memphis. But I do not intend to wait until then to bring you home, Tbubui. A suite has been prepared for you in the concubines' house, and your own rooms are even now rising from the lamentable chaos and dirt of construction on the north end of the house. I am, of course, in mourning, but you may take up residence as soon as you wish."

Her eyes lit up, then she frowned. "No, Khaemwaset," she said. "I will not risk tempting you to commit a sacrilege by celebrating such a joyous moment while you are in mourning. I will wait until you return from Thebes, but I intend to visit Nubnofret this very week and a.s.sure her that I understand the position of Second Wife very well."

"You will not come south with us?" Khaemwaset could not contemplate the prospect of the miles that would stretch between them if he was forced to go without her, and he reached out, pulling her roughly against him.

"No, I will not," she said firmly. "It would not be seemly. We have many years ahead of us, dear one. What are a few more weeks? Come. Let me pour you wine."

But he would not let her go. "I do not need wine," he whispered against her ear. "Nor do I need ma.s.sage. The oil of lovemaking will loosen my muscles, Tbubui. Let us while away the afternoon ruining the neatness of the couch your servant has so carefully made."

She did not comment, and he pulled her towards the dusky expanse of sheets, his hands already tugging at the straps that held up the sheath, which sweat had pasted to her stomach and thighs. When he rolled them past her wrists she raised her arms with a strangled sound, half laugh and half sigh, then leaned towards him, cupping the full b.r.e.a.s.t.s he had exposed.

All moderation fled. Jerking away her hands he forced them both between his legs, under his kilt, to where his p.e.n.i.s was already fully engorged, and as she began to stroke it, his mouth found her nipple. Together they collapsed upon the couch. She was groaning softly, eyes closed, body lifting to his tongue, his touch, a low sound that sharpened his need even further. A dream, he thought incoherently as her hand tightened on him. An orchard ... a woman behind a tree ... was she beckoning? And I woke full of desire, full of sap, so painful, so glorious ... He lifted his head to kiss her, exploring her yielding mouth, then he stopped to survey her face. "I love you, Tbubui," he whispered. "You are my sister, my disease, the longing of my heart, the fruit for which my body yearns. I love you."

She murmured something in return, but so low, and through lips so slack with pa.s.sion, that he could not make out what she had said. Then all at once her black eyes opened wide and she began to smile. "Make love to me, Mighty Bull," she said aloud. The t.i.tle belonged to every pharaoh, it was not Khaemwaset's to carry, but the words, heavy with s.e.xual meaning, with virility and power, almost caused him to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e immediately. Suddenly the sight of the lazy, all-knowing smile, the exquisite face below him now flushed with her own need, was more than he could bear.

With an oath he grasped her by the hips and flung her over onto her stomach, entering her from the rear with unthinking brutality. His action unleashed a torrent of savagery in him and he completed the act like a rape, pounding into her again and again and cursing aloud with each stroke.

When he came to himself he was lying beside her, panting, the sweat running from his body to stain the purity of her now rumpled sheets. She was propped on one elbow, still smiling at him but faintly, bemusedly. He did not apologize for his actions. "I shall return and make love to you often," he said curtly, remembering as he spoke that he had just broken the proscriptions of mourning. "Will you like that, Tbubui?"

"Yes," she replied, and that was all, but the word acted on him like a drug and instantly he wanted her again. He knew that he had not stopped wanting her even during his moment of release, that the act had not a.s.suaged the fever of desire burning and scouring away all else within him. It was as though for months he had been drinking an aphrodisiac that clouded his mind while sharpening his appet.i.te for this woman, this woman, until possessing her had nothing to do with the clamorous demands of his body. Mighty Bull, he thought, licked by the flames of her black hair plastered in wet tendrils on her neck, the rivulet of sweat inching into her cleavage, her bitten, swollen mouth, Mighty Bull, Mighty Bull, and a dim presentiment of his fate came to him so that he groaned aloud and closed his eyes. She neither spoke nor moved, and presently he rolled from the couch, wound his linen around his waist and left her.

IT TOOK SHERITRA a long time to find her brother. She searched the house and grounds, growing hotter and more irritated. She wanted to sit quietly under a tree and absorb the news of her disappointment while a servant ran after him, but did not want Hori to feel that he had been summoned. a long time to find her brother. She searched the house and grounds, growing hotter and more irritated. She wanted to sit quietly under a tree and absorb the news of her disappointment while a servant ran after him, but did not want Hori to feel that he had been summoned.

At last she had an idea. Ordering Bakmut back to her rooms she set off for the watersteps. This time she skirted the northern end of the house, picking her way through the building debris, to her, new and alarming, when she rounded a corner and almost tripped over a pile of sun-dried bricks. The shape of the addition could be clearly seen. Her father's architect stood under a canopy in the middle of what had once been the s.p.a.cious and peaceful north garden, a table before him, his head bent over his blueprints. Beside him Sheritra recognized several master craftsmen who waited for him to speak.

A moment of pure hatred for Tbubui shook Sheritra as she paused, hand raised against the glare, surveying the dismal mess, but she waved the feeling off with a rueful smile and a shake of the head. The men under the canopy sensed her pa.s.sing and looked up, bowing to her, but she ignored them and was soon walking along the shrub-lined path to the watersteps.

Just before she reached them she veered, pus.h.i.+ng through the stiff, summer-withered twigs and into the tangled bushes and small trees of the riverbank. They gave way to rushes and soggy ground but she went on, for a little farther, out of sight of both the steps and the river, was a clear s.p.a.ce where she and Hori used to crouch together to watch the arrivals and departures of guests, or to while away lazy afternoons out of reach of their guards and nurses. Neither she nor Hori had used the place for years but she was certain that it had not become overgrown, and that he would be there, arms about his raised knees, eyes on the patches of river to be glimpsed through the sheltering reeds.

Sure enough, as she fought her way forward she saw a flicker of white. In another moment she was lowering herself beside him. He was sitting on a mat, a jug of beer and a half-eaten slice of black bread smeared with b.u.t.ter beside him. Ants were already at work on the bread but Hori obviously had not noticed. He glanced at Sheritra as she squatted, and she was hard pressed to still her shocked reaction at the sight of him. He was gaunt, with grooves of deep-violet shadow under his eyes. His hair was unkempt, his linen filthy. "Hori" she blurted unthinkingly. "Haven't you bathed today?"

"Welcome home, Sheritra," he said mockingly. "I presume you've been told the news. And no, I have not bathed today. I was out all night partying at the house of Huy's son. I crept into the kitchens for some bread and beer and brought them here. I think I went to sleep." He smiled then, a wan, quick quirk of the lips that to Sheritra was somehow more ghoulish than if he had scowled at her. "I suppose I should go into the house and have someone clean me up. I must look terrible." He pa.s.sed a weary hand across his face.

"How did you know about Grandmother and Penbuy?" she asked curiously.

"I heard a couple of the kitchen servants gossiping as I grabbed my victuals. Is that why you came home?"

Tentatively she touched his knee. "No. I was anxious about you, Hori, and angry that you had not come to see me or sent me any word." She hesitated, then went on. "Also there are certain things I must discuss with you. I am sorry to see you in such anguish. I love you."

Clumsily he put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her tightly, then he withdrew. "I love you too," he responded, a tremor in his voice. "I hate myself for this cowardly giving in, Sheritra, this relinquis.h.i.+ng of everything strong in myself, but somehow I cannot help it. I am tortured by thoughts of Tbubui every waking moment. The times I have spent with her are repeated over and over in my mind with the most horrible clarity. I have never been so exquisitely hurt in all my life."

"Do you talk to Antef?"

He flinched away from her. "No. I have betrayed our friends.h.i.+p. Antef is also hurt and bewildered, and I carry guilt for that on top of everything else. But Antef would not understand and could offer me no comfort, I know. And talking to Father is out of the question."

Oh Hori, she thought, shrinking from the thing she must tell him. How right you are! "Do you know why Father is having an addition built on the house?" she asked after a moment, and he shook his head.

"No one has told me and I have not asked," he said. "You don't know what it is like, Sheritra. I don't care why the house is being expanded. I simply don't care care. I am consumed by Tbubui and nothing else has any reality at all."

Sheritra s.h.i.+vered. She knew his feeling well. "The addition is for Tbubui," she said gently. "He is going to marry her. In fact, they have already signed the contract. Penbuy was in Koptos investigating her family when he died."

He made a mewling sound, like a blind kitten pawing for its mother, but he did not move. His face was turned to the river where a fis.h.i.+ng boat, its white, triangular sail flapping idly in the slight noon breeze, was slowly tacking by. No stirring of air, however, could penetrate the thick river growth that surrounded the pair, and the view of the Nile from the clearing was crisscrossed by twisted branches and stiffly upright reeds. Sheritra brushed at a fly that was hovering to seek the salt around her eyes. She wanted to speak, to have wise and sympathetic things to say, but the enormity of Hori's involvement and the bleakness of his future overwhelmed her and she remained silent. His voice, when it came, startled her.

"No wonder she would have nothing to do with me," he croaked. "Why consider a stripling son when you can have the father, wealthy, influential, handsome? Knowing how I felt about her, she should have told me. She should have told me!" Sheritra was helpless against the bitterness in his voice. "I feel like a fool," he went on in a low tone. "A stupid, ignorant, childish fool. How she must be laughing at me!"

"No!" Sheritra managed. "She would not do that. And how could she say anything to you, Hori, when at the time she was not sure of Father's feelings? It would have been wrong."

"I suppose so," he agreed grudgingly. "But why are you telling me, Little Sun? Did Father lack the guts to do so?"

Sheritra thought of Khaemwaset's embarra.s.sed, sheepish face, his pathetic eagerness when she offered to break the news to Hori. "Yes," she answered, "but not because he suspects that you love her also. He is so embroiled in his own emotion that I don't think he could see past it if he tried. He has always been such a strong, quiet, predictable man, Hori, in control of himself and satisfied with his life. He has been violently disrupted, and is ashamed of it."

Now Hori turned to study her. Some of the pain went out of his eyes. "You have changed," he said softly. "I hear a new wisdom in you, Sheritra, a knowledge of others that was not there before. You have grown."

Sheritra took a deep breath and felt the old, familiar flush of colour begin to seep up her neck. "I have been making love with Harmin," she said frankly, and waited for a reaction, but there was none. Hori continued to examine her. "I know what you are going through, dear brother, because the same wound plagues me. Yet I am more fortunate. I have gained the object of my desire."

"You are indeed more fortunate," he said slowly, "and that fortune will increase with father's m ... marriage." He stumbled on the words, and then recovered. "With Tbubui in residence here, Harmin will either move in also or be a constant visitor. Whereas I ..." He swallowed, then burst out, "Forgive me, Sheritra! I am br.i.m.m.i.n.g with a most distasteful self-pity." Then suddenly, shockingly, he was crying, loud, harsh sobs made more agonizing by his efforts to subdue them.

Sheritra knelt and pulled his head down onto her breast, not saying anything, her eyes travelling the surrounding growth, the broken glimpses of the river, the parade of ants still swarming over the forgotten bread and streaming away into the sand. Presently Hori sat back, wiping his face on his dirty and wilted kilt. "I feel better," he said. "We always did help each other, didn't we, Sheritra? Forgive me for ignoring you lately, for not even sending a herald to inquire how you were."

"It doesn't matter," she replied. "Hori, what will you do now?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. To stay here with her actually in the house would be more than I could bear. Perhaps I will consider taking up residence with Grandfather at Pi-Ramses and applying for some government post. I am, after all, a prince of the blood." He shot her an impish grin that was a pale copy of his former gentle humour, but nevertheless filled her with relief. "Or I may decide to become a full-time priest of Ptah instead of fulfilling my duty to the G.o.d for only three months out of the year."

"Please, Hori," she begged. "Make no irrevocable decisions just yet, no matter how anguished you are."

"Little Sun," he replied, stroking her hair. "I will wait, as I said, but I will not prolong my pain."

They fell silent. Sheritra almost drowsed. Reaction from the events of the morning was setting in and she thought of her couch with longing. But before she could sleep there was the matter of the earring, a p.r.i.c.k of unease under everything else. Hori had unfolded and was lying back, his hands behind his head, his ankles crossed. She s.h.i.+fted so that she was looking down on him.

"Hori, do you remember the earring you found in the tunnel leading out of the tomb?" she began. He nodded. "You showed it to Tbubui, didn't you?"

A shadow pa.s.sed over his face and he sighed. "What a day that was!" he said. "She was very taken with it."

"I found one exactly like it in her jewel box. When I asked her about it she said that she had had the one you showed her copied as a pair, and then lost one of them. But ..." She bit her lip and looked away, and he finished for her with his usual shrewdness.

"But you were afraid that she was lying, that in my pa.s.sion I had lost all sense and had given her the original." Sheritra blinked in a.s.sent. "Well, I certainly did no such thing," Hori protested. "I may be besotted, but I am not insane enough to commit that sacrilege."

"Oh." Sheritra was only partially mollified. "What happened to it, then? Do you still have it?"

He did not answer directly. "Father has closed the tomb," he said, but she leaned over him urgently.

"Hori! Answer me! You still have it, don't you?"

"Yes!" he said loudly, sitting up in one sharp movement. "Yes I do. I am going to lay it on Ptah's altar as an apology for keeping it, but Sheritra, it reminds me so strongly of Tbubui that I cannot part with it yet. It is not stealing, it is polite borrowing. Ptah will tell the ka of the woman that I meant no harm."

"The only harm you are doing is to yourself, torturing yourself every time you look at it," she said vehemently. "Well, at least you had the good sense not to hand it over to Tbubui. You know, Hori, I could have sworn the one I picked out of her jewel box was the original. Ah well." She rubbed the sand from the elbow she had been resting on and flicked an ant from her calf. "Did you say that Father has closed the tomb already? Why? Was the work finished?"

"No."

He began to talk of Sisenet's visit, the translating of the scroll and Khaemwaset's almost insane reaction to it, and as he spoke, his voice falling flat and almost inflectionless in the confined s.p.a.ce, Sheritra felt a great foreboding begin to darken the day.

"Father believed it was the Scroll of Thoth?" she interrupted him. "And Sisenet ridiculed the idea and convinced him otherwise?"

He nodded and finished the story. "And that was it. The tomb has been sealed, rubble piled to fill in the stair and a huge rock rolled over the site. Father agrees with Sisenet that such a thing can only exist in legends. He must be just a trifle disappointed, seeing that he has carried the dream of finding it for many years."

Sheritra's foreboding was coalescing into a pulse of disquiet. She felt it as an amorphous ma.s.s that was rapidly acquiring a shape, as yet unrecognizable but one that might turn disquiet into black fear at any moment. "Hori, I haven't told you everything," she said. "Someone in Sisenet's house conjured a death curse." His head jerked around, and under his keen scrutiny her own glance dropped. "I feel silly even mentioning it," she faltered, "but it left a bad taste in my mouth."

"Tell me," he ordered. So she did, her embarra.s.sment and uneasiness growing side by side as she spoke. "It was not a protecting spell," she ended. "I recognize the differences. I wondered at first if Tbubui had been trying to avert the anger of the woman whose earring she had-if you had indeed given her the earring-but I knew in my heart that it was not so. Someone was conjuring a violent death for an enemy."

He did not suggest the servants, as Harmin had. He did not immediately present her with an acceptable explanation as she had hoped he would. Instead he sat brooding, one long finger stroking the side of his nose. It could be anything," he said at last. "Tbubui fancying she had a rival for my father's attentions, although I cannot imagine a woman as confident and self-sufficient as Tbubui being worried about any such thing. Harmin with a similar worry. Sisenet trying to rid himself of some enemy back in Koptos. Who knows? Or the things could have been already half-buried in the sand before the household debris was tossed in that spot."

"No," Sheritra denied emphatically. "The paraphernalia was mostly jutting out of the pile itself. Oh well." She scrambled to her feet. "I expect I am making something out of nothing because I am upset. I am trapped at home until the mourning period is over, and I must dictate an apology to Tbubui and let her know why I cannot return to her house for a while," she said. "I also want to send a letter to Harmin. Please come back to the house with me and get cleaned up. Don't be so lonely. We have seventy days to fill, so let us spend them together, supporting each other."

He rose reluctantly. "I will try," he said. "But do not ask me to face Father. I might be tempted to kill him."

She almost laughed, but seeing his face the urge quickly died. "Hori ..." she whispered, but he impatiently indicated the path and she obeyed. He followed, and they walked back to the house in silence.

FOUR DAYS LATER, having already sent a message warning Khaemwaset that she was coming, Tbubui alighted at the watersteps and was met and escorted to the Prince's quarters by a deferential Ib. Word of his Highness's impending second marriage had spread rapidly among the staff, and as Tbubui paced the gardens and made her way through the house she was greeted with bows and murmured words of respect.

She looked every inch a royal Second Wife. Her white sheath was shot through with glimmering silver thread, her sandals laced with silver thongs. Silver and electrum bracelets, heavy with jasper and carnelian ornaments, tinkled as she moved. Her gleaming, straight black hair was imprisoned to her head by a triple-banded silver circlet, with one jasper droplet trembling on her forehead. Her eyelids glittered with silver dust above the thick kohl that rimmed her eyes, and her firm, pouting mouth shone with red henna like her large palms. An electrum pectoral of intertwining ankhs and half-moons covered her upper b.r.e.a.s.t.s like an exotic mat, and its pendant, resting between her naked shoulder-blades to repel any supernatural attack from behind, was a large, golden, squatting baboon. Ib announced her and withdrew, and Khaemwaset advanced with a smile.

"Tbubui, welcome to what will be your home," he said heartily. She reverenced him, then raised her cheek for his kiss. "You look wonderful, dear sister."

"Thank you, Khaemwaset." She waved away the two servants who had immediately appeared at her elbow with trays of a.s.sorted sweetmeats and wine. "I am really here to spend some time with Nubnofret. I told you I would do that, didn't I? The last thing I want is for her to feel slighted, and I know we are going to become great friends."

Khaemwaset was suffused with a protective affection. "You are tactful and kind as well as beautiful," he complimented her. "How strange life is, Tbubui! Who would have thought, the first time I saw you threading your way through the city crowd with such regal hauteur, that one day you would be my wife?"

She laughed sweetly. "Life is indeed remarkable, or rather, it is fate that makes one hold one's breath, wondering what is to come next," she answered. "You have made me very happy, Highness."

They smiled at one another for a moment. It was Tbubui who broke their gaze. "Khaemwaset, I have a favour to ask of you before I visit Nubnofret," she said. "I must dictate a very detailed set of instructions to my steward in Koptos to do with the disposition of the coming harvest and the arrangements to be made for Pharaoh's tax a.s.sessors. The scribe Sisenet hired is a good and simple man but just out of the temple school. I do not think he would be able to understand and make a faithful rendering of my words. It will take me no more than an hour." She faltered. "I do not like to trespa.s.s on your good nature ..."

He held up a hand. "But you would like to use the services of one of my scribes," he finished for her. "Say no more."

"The responsibility to hear and transcribe my words will be great," she went on. "They must be exactly recorded ..."

"You want my best," Khaemwaset beamed, pleased that he could do something, anything for her "Penbuy's son Ptah-Seankh has taken up residence here. Oddly enough he came this morning. Will he do?"

"Thank you, Khaemwaset," she said again, gravely. "He will be excellent"

"Good." He clapped his hands and Ib approached. "Tell Ptah-Seankh to wait upon me immediately," he ordered, then he waved the other servants out. "Ptah-Seankh is the soul of discretion," he said to Tbubui. "The transaction of business should be a private matter between a woman and her scribe. We do not want servants, even those as highly trained as our own, to hear and disseminate the details of your holdings, my love. I have my own business to attend to, but send for me if you need anything more."

She kissed him softly on the mouth. "You are a good man," she told him quietly. He nodded, pleased, and went away.

Presently Ptah-Seankh was announced and came swiftly across the room, bowing, palette under one arm. Tbubui waved him up.

"Scribe, do you know who I am?" she asked. He regarded her impa.s.sively.

"Indeed I do, n.o.ble One," he replied. "You are the lady Tbubui, soon to be my master's Second Wife. How may I serve you?"

She smiled briefly, placed her red palms together and began to walk slowly up and down. Ptah-Seankh slipped to the floor and settled his palette across his knees, opening his pen case and shaking out a reed.

"I want you to take an important dictation. When you have finished it you will leave the papyrus with me. I will explain further when you are done. Are you ready?"

Ptah-Seankh shot a furtive glance at the strong ankles, the swirling linen, as she pa.s.sed his line of vision. "I am ready, Highness."

"I am not Highness yet, Ptah-Seankh," she retorted. "But I soon will be. I soon will be. Leave a s.p.a.ce for the person to be addressed. We will fill it in last. Begin."

Ptah-Seankh dipped the reed into the black ink, his heart beginning to race. So far he had taken no dictation from his new master or anyone else in the household, and though he knew his intellect and his capabilities, he was nervous. Like all Royal Scribes he scorned the habit of making a fair copy after a rough one scrawled into wax or inked onto pieces of pottery, and he intended to take down this a.s.signment flawlessly on the papyrus where it could not be corrected. He forced his concentration on the woman.

"Having completed an exhaustive investigation into the lineage and blood-line of the n.o.ble lady Tbubui, her brother Sisenet and her son Harmin, having perused the ancient scrolls reposing in the sacred library of Koptos, and having myself examined the family estate and acres on the east bank of the Nile at Koptos, I, Ptah-Seankh, swear the following to be true."

She paused, and those flexing ankles, one of them encircled loosely with a scarab-hung gold chain, came to rest together in front of him. He was aware of them but dared not look up. His heart was now hammering in his chest and sweat had sprung out along his upper lip. He prayed feverishly that his hand might not falter. What is this? he thought, but quelled the urge to scan what he had written. A scribe was not supposed to connect the words, only to write them automatically. Yet every great scribe scanned in the event that his master might want a judgment or opinion from him. Gulping a breath, he said, "n.o.ble One, do you wish me to scan as I write?"

"But of course," she said softly, her voice a purr. "I want you to know exactly what you are doing for me, Ptah-Seankh." The words were gentle, but there was a cutting edge to them that Ptah-Seankh did not like. He gripped his pen and waited. She continued. "The estate comprises a large house of fifteen rooms with a staff of sixty house servants and the usual necessary additions of granary, kitchen, servants' quarters, stables containing ten chariot horses, and storehouses. The estate itself, some three thousand acres of good black soil, is well irrigated for the growing of a.s.sorted grains, flax and vegetables. Five hundred acres is devoted to the raising of a herd of cattle. Are you with me, Ptah-Seankh?"

"Yes, n.o.ble One," he managed, a terrible doubt in his mind. Transferring the pen to his left hand he wiped his right on a piece of linen and prepared to write again. He wished that he had stayed with his grieving mother for at least another day.

"Then I shall go on," that mellifluous voice with its almost undetectable accent said. The flexing feet continued to enter and leave the line of his vision, the silver ta.s.sels hanging on the hem of her sheath glittering as she paced. "As to the lady's ancestors, they may be traced to a certain Amunmose, steward of the Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut, who was awarded both land and the t.i.tle of erpa-ha and smer, and who was ordered by her to shoulder the organization of the desert caravans from Koptos to the Eastern Sea. Amunmose's line may be clearly traced in the library of Thoth at Koptos, decently preserved until the present day, and a copy may be obtained if necessary. But I, Ptah-Seankh, deemed the copying of this list unnecessary, given that my word to my Prince is sound. The list is also preserved in the great palace library at Pi-Ramses. I have seen the n.o.ble One's ancestors' names with my own eyes." She paused. "I think that will be sufficient, Ptah-Seankh, don't you? And oh, the missive is to be addressed to His Highness Prince Khaemwaset. Be sure to add his t.i.tles."

Ptah-Seankh laid down his pen. His hand was shaking so badly that the slim tool rolled from the palette and clattered onto the floor. He looked up.

"But Highness," he faltered, "I have not yet been to Koptos. I leave tomorrow morning. How can I know these things and write them if I have not seen them with my own eyes?"

She was smiling down at him, arms folded, black hair hanging. He did not like that smile. It was predatory, feral, and her small white teeth gleamed at him. "Dear Ptah-Seankh," she said conversationally. "You are new to this household, even as I am, but there is one great difference between us. His Highness loves me fiercely. He trusts me. He is sure that he knows me. You he does not know. Your father was his friend, but he was also only a servant, as you are only a servant. You can be dismissed and ruined in the s.p.a.ce of one day." Her smile had broadened, and a spasm of fear shot through Ptah-Seankh. He felt as though he were gazing up at a wild animal. Her eyes were penetrating, her stance supple but tense. He swallowed convulsively and tried to speak, but nothing would come. "Soon I shall move into this house," she went on, and her pink tongue appeared and licked her hennaed lips. "I can be a generous mistress, Ptah-Seankh, or I can whisper the poison of doubt into your master's ears until his trust in you is destroyed. I understand very well that the link between a prince and his Chief Scribe is forged not only by competency but by discretion. Shall I begin to tell Khaemwaset that you have a loose mouth? That you spread family secrets throughout the city? That you boast of your exalted position and of the hold you have over your master? She bent lower, and now Ptah-Seankh could see the yellow flecks in her eyes. "Or shall I begin to extoll your talents to him, tell him how neat and reliable you are, how wise your comments and advice? Remember, little scribe, you are still an unknown quant.i.ty to him in spite of your father You can be destroyed."

Ptah-Seankh found his voice "You want me to go to Koptos and do nothing?"

"Exactly." Suddenly she straightened, unfolded her arms, then swooped to pick up his pen, handing it to him with a gracious gesture. "Fill in Khaemwaset's name and t.i.tles, seal the doc.u.ment with your own mark. What do you use, by the way?"

"The mark of Thoth. The baboon sitting on a moon," he stammered, and she nodded.