“You feel old, Nubnofret?” he asked, startled. “But you never …”
“I never give any indication of my years?” she finished for him. “That does not mean that I do not feel them, Khaemwaset. I am not altogether the coldly efficient mistress of a royal household, you know.” Khaemwaset looked for accusation in her face, but there was none. She was staring up at him hesitantly, like a young girl longing for a kiss but too afraid to make the first move, love in her still sleep-swollen eyes. He took her in his arms. “Will you stay with me tonight?” she begged. “I have not felt the warmth of your body beside me for so long.” Again he looked for recrimination and found none.
“I would like that also,” he agreed, and thought to himself, The incantation is destroyed. What harm can it do? Yet as he lay on his side under her sheets and felt her fit her body around his, he saw again the woman on the street, and all at once the dark house around and over him seemed full of the foreboding of Sheritra’s nightmare. He fell asleep with a prayer on his lips.
In the morning he had a lingering headache and a huge fatigue. He and the rest of the family, subdued and quiet, gathered briefly in the coolness of the reception hall before scattering to the day’s duties.
“I am going to look over the long-neglected plans for the Apis burials, and then I am going to spend some time in the temple of Ptah,” Khaemwaset told them. Nubnofret’s answer was a pair of raised eyebrows. She kissed him on the neck and drifted away. Khaemwaset noticed with amusement that Sheritra was following her dutifully.
“I will spend the day at the tomb,” Hori announced, “but this evening I have been invited to a party in the foreigners’ quarters. I shall see you at dinner, Father.”
Khaemwaset’s eyes followed his easy swing and perfectly muscled legs, then he turned away with a sigh. What it was, to be young and handsome, rich and sought-after. He was sure that Hori’s horoscope, day after day, showed every third as full of luck, while his own was becoming increasingly ambiguous.
Back in his office, Penbuy placed a load of official correspondence on the desk and went to the floor in readiness for dictation. Khaemwaset, with a regretful glance at the shaft of brilliant late spring sunlight splattering the floor from the clerestory windows high above, opened the first with a mutinous jerk. After I have made a special offering to Ptah and begged him for his beneficent protection for this house I will take a jaunt on the river, he promised himself. I will think of nothing but the wind on my skin and the birds in the thickets.
Once the correspondence had been taken care of he summoned his architect, and together they spent a couple of hours over the plans for the Apis bulls. The architect’s work had been very satisfactory, and Khaemwaset gave orders for the excavations to begin before he retired to his quarters for a light lunch, a careful wash, and a change of clothes. Then with Amek and Ib he got onto his barge and was rowed the short distance to the canal down which Ptah’s sacred boat was floated from his temple during times of festivity.
Leaving the barge at this point, Khaemwaset walked beside the canal, under Ptah’s sacred sycamores, to the god’s watersteps and from there along the hot granite paving between the two massive pylons and into the outer court, his small train of servants following behind.
The court was comfortably crowded with worshippers. Incense rose above the pillars of the inner court in a barely visible cloud, and the murmur of the singers and the rattle of their systrums could be heard. Khaemwaset removed his sandals and handed them to Ib. He had brought his favourite turquoise necklace with its Eye of Horns counterpoise as an offering to the god whom he served full-time for three months of every year. Holding it to his naked chest he walked towards the inner court, careful not to nudge the common people who were standing praying, eyes closed and arms extended. Amek and Ib had retired to the wall where there was shade.
Khaemwaset stepped through to the inner court. Here there were only priests and musicians. The worship of Ptah went on all day, from the time the sanctuary was opened at dawn and the god fed and clothed to sunset, when the small, dark secrecy of his home was closed and locked. For a moment Khaemwaset paused, caught up in the ritual of song and the praise of the dancers’ bodies, before he found a space and began his prostrations.
Both inner and outer court were unroofed, and the sun beat down upon Khaemwaset as he rose and yet again laid himself face down on the sandy floor. He prayed the words of tradition first, extolling the smiling god who had created all things, and then stood and begged Ptah to remember that he, Khaemwaset, was an honest and faithful servant who needed the eye of the god turned upon his household because of his own foolishness. He prayed long and earnestly, but reassurance did not come. Instead, he gradually began to feel that he had made a mistake, that though the god would accept his gift, Khaemwaset should be praying elsewhere. It is Thoth whom you serve in the pursuits closest to your head, the thought came. It is Thoth whom you have wronged with your greed for knowledge and more knowledge, for the power only the gods may possess. Are you afraid to bare your soul in this way before Thoth instead of Ptah? For Thoth is more understanding but less forgiving. His servants are the only ones who know the ecstasy and the terror of his wisdom.
In the end Khaemwaset capitulated. Approaching the closed sanctuary he ceremoniously passed his gift to the priest on duty there and began to thread his way back to the massive open doors that led to the outer court through the swaying, chanting dancers. He was about to pass through the gloom of shade the door cast when he saw her.
She had been standing behind a group of petitioners and was in the act of turning away towards the pylons. Khaemwaset caught a brief glimpse of her face—confident, withdrawn, straight nose, wide black-kohled eyes under a fringe of gleaming hair—before her back was towards him and she was striding away with that indolent yet purposeful tread. She was wearing a yellow sheath, still of a body-hugging, old-fashioned cut that accentuated every curve, but over it billowed a transparent white ankle-length cloak rimmed in gold.
Khaemwaset watched it float behind her sandalled feet, then he sprang after her. The crowd had thickened, and it seemed to him that everyone milling in the flaming hot air had all at once moved to place themselves between himself and his quarry with a malicious purpose. “Out of my way!” He jostled and pushed, heedless now of who prayed and who simply stood in wonder at Ptah’s mighty edifice. “Get out of my way!” An indignant murmur went up, and the temple guards who always stood at intervals around the walls began to move forward. “Don’t you see her?” Khaemwaset shouted to Ib and Amek who were hurrying towards the disturbance. “You, Amek, you saw her yesterday. Run after her! Run!”
The guards had recognized him and had halted, irresolute. Khaemwaset plunged between the pylons and out onto the wide courtyard before the watersteps. He looked up and down. But there was no sign of her. He ran to the edge of the courtyard and peered along the south side of the wall, but the expanse was empty. The north side was also deserted. The canal rippled quietly, blue and serene in the afternoon furnace. Trees lined it, and with a rage he seldom felt, Khaemwaset knew that his quarry, oblivious to the stir she had created, had simply walked in under the trees for their shade on her way to … Where? Where? Ib and Amek came up to him, panting and bewildered, and Khaemwaset grimly held on to his temper, knowing that none of it was their fault.
“Did you see her?” he asked Amek. Amek eyed him as though he had gone mad.
“Yes, Highness,” he said, “but it was not possible for us to catch up with her. You were closer than we were.”
“All right.” Khaemwaset closed his eyes and winced. “All right. I want you to go home and turn out all the soldiers you can spare. Put them in civilian clothing. Describe this woman to them. Tell them to search Memphis, but discreetly. No one in the family is to know anything about it, do you understand?” They nodded, still confused, but he did not care. No matter what, he was determined to stand face to face with the creature who had invaded his dreams. It is as though s
omeone has slipped a philtre into my wine, he told himself, or conjured a spell of compulsion on me without my knowledge. I feel drugged with her, each sighting immediately translated into a thirst for more, like poppy juice to those in pain. Is some fellow magician trying his strength on me for a joke?
His servants were still staring at him indecisively and he turned away from them, half running beside the canal, eyes searching the welcoming deep shadows under the forest of trees and trimmed grass to his right, but knowing, knowing, that she was not there. His barge still rocked peacefully where the canal met the Nile. His captain was squatting beside the ramp, talking with the steersman, and both men rose and bowed as he came up to them.
Barely acknowledging their reverence he hurried onto the deck. “Take me home!” he commanded. “Quickly!” They sprang to do his bidding.
During the short ride to his watersteps he sat tensely in the small, airless cabin, trying to control the fever of impatience that gripped him. He had forgotten his plan to spend the rest of the afternoon on the river. All he wanted to do was pass the time in the best way possible until his servants began to come to him with news,
Once off the barge, he went straight to his office. Penbuy was there with one of his junior scribes, making fair copies of the rough work they were doing in the tomb, and Khaemwaset asked them to occupy themselves elsewhere. Penbuy shot him a curious glance but of course obeyed, and the door closed discreetly behind them. Khaemwaset began to pace. There were a dozen tasks he could address and he knew that there was the healing of distraction in them, but for once he lacked the power to do what was best. I have no doubt that eventually I will find her, he thought, arms folded as he wandered the large, quiet room. If necessary I will employ the Memphis police. And I also have no doubt that when I do, she will turn out to be a disappointment. Dreams that become reality always do. She will be either very simple, an unlettered commoner without intelligence, uncouth and loud-mouthed, or a spoiled bitch from some minor nobleman’s household, a woman with social pretensions, strident and tasteless.
He paced until he grew tired, then he left the office and went out into the garden, lying on a flax mat with a cushion under his head in the shade and trying to doze. His gardener could be heard somewhere near the watersteps at the front of the house, talking to his apprentice as he tended the shrubs that lined the path. The monkeys, not far from him, snuffled and gibbered half-heartedly in the dragging stillness before sunset that never seemed to end. Birds dipped into the fountain and out again, refreshed, shaking their wings and piping deliriously.
After a while Khaemwaset heard someone approaching and sat up, every nerve instantly alert, but it was only Sheritra. She flung herself down beside him, her skin beaded with water, her long hair darkly roped over her shoulders. Bakmut had followed her and was standing some distance away. “Mother gave me as many chores as she could think of this morning,” Sheritra said, her hands busy squeezing the water out of her hair, “but in the end she had to let me go, so I went for a swim. Spring is definitely over, isn’t it, Father? The days are beginning to be uncomfortable and the crops everywhere are above the ground. What are you doing out here?”
Khaemwaset propped himself on one elbow and watched the water drain in clear rivulets past her neck and into her tiny cleavage. He had not intended to, but he said, “I saw the woman again. In the temple of Ptah.”
Sheritra did not need to ask which woman. Her deft fingers went on sliding down the slick coils of hair. “Did you speak to her?”
“No.” Khaemwaset began to pluck idly at the grass. “She was leaving the outer court when I noticed her. I had Amek and Ib with me but none of us could catch up to her. I have sent them to search, and I am waiting for word.”
Sheritra called and Bakmut came forward, offering a comb. The girl took it, Bakmut retired just out of earshot, and Sheritra began to pull it through the thick tresses. Already wisps had dried and were curling and blowing about her face. Keeping her eyes fixed on the bathing birds, she said, “Why are you so determined to find her?”
Khaemwaset thought he felt a soft movement against the back of his hand, and looked down. There was nothing, but, unbidden, the memory of the little dancer with the skin complaint came back to him, the sudden shock of her mouth against his skin in gratitude. “I do not know,” he confessed, “and that is the truth, Sheritra. I only know that I must look into her eyes and hear her voice before I can be at peace again.”
Sheritra nodded sagely and fell to scooping up the rapidly drying droplets of water along her leg. “I hope you are disappointed,” she said unexpectedly. Khaemwaset saw a blush bloom up her neck and give a reddish hue to her brown cheeks. “Why?” he enquired, though he knew, and marvelled at her perception. “Because if you are not disappointed, if she is anything at all like your image of her, your interest in her will grow.” Khaemwaset was puzzled by the urgency in her tone.
“But even if it did,” he objected, “what would be the harm? Many men have concubines and very happy families. What threat do you see, Little Sun?”
She did not respond in a girlish way to his attempt to cajole her with the meaning of her name, or his deliberate teasing emphasis. All at once she swung to face him directly and, though the blush was now fiery, she met his eyes. “You are not an emotional man, dear Father,” she said. “You are always calm, always fair, always kind. I cannot imagine you in love with anyone other than Mother, though I can see you adding to your concubines on rare occasions.” Now she dropped her gaze. “But only for a little variety, you understand, not to be disloyal in your heart to Mother. This woman …” She swallowed and forced herself to continue. “This woman already fills your thoughts. I can tell. I do not like it.”
He was tempted to laugh at her description of him, her assessment of the situation. All girls saw their fathers as benevolent gods around whom their households revolved in the rightness of Ma’at, as beings of purity and awesome wisdom. There was a little of that attitude in Sheritra’s view of him. But her fear was of something else, something a mature woman might sense, the threat of an overwhelming sandstorm that might scour away the fairness, the kindness, and release the lurking abandon she suspected lay beneath. Well, is there such a recklessness hidden within me, he wondered while he smiled at her gently, unknown even to myself? He had no answer, and did not know what “being in love” was like.
“She is a mystery, that’s all,” he replied after a moment. “Like scrolls in tombs or inscriptions waiting to be deciphered. When I have deciphered her and found her to be a disappointment, as so many of the ancient inscriptions are, I will be at peace. So you see, Sheritra, there is nothing to fret about.”
She grinned at him, her solemn mood gone. “I had not looked at it in that way before,” she said. “Good. In that case, have your adventure, Father, and tell me how it progresses. I must confess to being just a little intrigued myself.” Picking up the comb, she gathered her towel around her and rose. “A new snake has taken to slithering in the back door,” she went on, “and I am trying to make it welcome. Our usual resident is coiled up in a cool corner of the reception hall but I must lure the other from whatever garden rock he is sheltering under. A lot of house snakes bring good luck, don’t they?”
He agreed and watched her amble away across the garden, her thin legs like a crane’s, her shoulders hunched. Bakmut followed, and the garden was empty once more.
Khaemwaset got up, plunged his head under the fountain’s steady coldness and took a tour around the house, greeting the servants he met, but he was not able either to take his belated excursion on the river or go into his quarters. Returning to his spot on the grass he sat numbly, his head eventually buzzing with the need for sleep, feeling jaded with self-disgust.
At last, as the sun westered and the light in the garden began to soften, Ib came to him The man was grubby and tired. He bowed perfunctorily, his mouth rimmed in grey dust, his nostrils edged in sand that clung to his sweat. Khaemwaset bade him sit, and Ib
sank thankfully to the grass. “You had better not let Nubnofret see you in that state,” Khaemwaset said. “What news do you have?”
Ib shook his head, and Khaemwaset’s heart sank. “Very little, Prince,” the Steward admitted. “Thirty of us have been combing the streets and public places of the city all afternoon. Many people have seen this woman, but of those that have seen her, none has spoken with her.” He eased off his wilted kilt and used it to rub his face. “And no one has any idea where she lives.”
Khaemwaset pondered for a moment. “Thank you, Ib,” he said at last. “Take whatever time you need to wash yourself, then organize the thirty into groups of five each. Write a watch for them of four hours each, rotating, and tomorrow they can begin again. One of them will eventually hear or see something.” He felt Ib’s disapproval and sent him into the house, but he himself sat on. I have wasted almost a whole day, he thought dismally. I have sat here like one of the insane, and what other response from Ib did I expect? Yes, Prince, we have found her, she is waiting for you in the reception hall? Khaemwaset hauled himself to his feet and stalked after Ib. The Steward was nowhere to be seen and Khaemwaset summoned Kasa, spent a delicious half hour standing in the bath house while his servant scrubbed him down and doused him with lotus water, then, freshly dressed, he went in search of his wife.
He found her in her quarters with her cosmetician, having her makeup renewed after the sleep. She was obviously pleased and not a little surprised to see him being admitted, and she swung round on her stool. Kohl glistened around her magnificent eyes. The lids had been swept with green paint and her lips freshly hennaed. She was wearing a loose cloak, open down the front and bunched loosely on her knees, and he was struck as he had not been in years by her luscious curves. “This is an odd time for you to be seeking me out!” she exclaimed, smiling. “Is something wrong, Khaemwaset?” He went to perch on the edge of her disordered couch. “Nothing at all,” he said. “Are you busy now, Nubnofret? Would you like to take a turn in the barge before dinner just as far as Peru-nefer, and sit on the deck? We could watch the sun set and play a little sennet?”
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