Reluctantly Khaemwaset acknowledged that he must leave Tbubui’s presence and be a proper host to her retiring brother. He turned in time to see her cross one long leg over the other. The slitted sheath fell back, exposing a breathtaking length of dusky thigh. Though the woman’s attention never left a gesticulating Sheritra, Khaemwaset somehow knew that the movement had been for his benefit, and Tbubui was fully aware of his glance.
Dinner was a happy, noisy affair. At Khaemwaset’s request, Nubnofret had demanded the presence of all musicians in the Prince’s pay, and his young dancers and singers as well. Normally, Khaemwaset liked to dine in relative quiet, particularly if his guests were present on official pharaonic business and would want to talk seriously after the sixth course, but this time he had wanted entertainment. Spring flowers were everywhere, heady in their ripeness, and incense filled the air with a bluish haze. The dancers wove about the little tables, finger-cymbals clicking, weighted hair swinging, and the singers’ harmony filled the ears of the company.
Khaemwaset had been careful to place Sheritra close to himself and the doors so that she could both be protected and beat a silent retreat when she wanted to. But he found her place taken by Tbubui, a laughing, animated, altogether bewitching Tbubui who joked, fingered her injured foot with mock alarm and kept up a stream of entirely fascinating conversation that included Nubnofret as well as himself. Hori and Sisenet had their heads together over the wine and were discussing something in private, inaudible voices.
Harmin sat beside Sheritra and she did not seem to mind. Once in a while he would touch her—on the shoulder, on the arm—and once Khaemwaset happened to see him putting a white lotus bloom behind her ear, smiling in answer to her chuckle. What is happening to us all tonight? he wondered delightedly. It is as though a spirit of good-humoured recklessness has invaded the house, so that surprising but good things might overtake us at any moment.
The party did not break up until the dawn. Even when good manners demanded that the guests be allowed to go, the family gathered on the watersteps in the grey, fleetingly cold un-light, as if to drain the last drops of their company. Looking around at their palely lit faces, Khaemwaset was surprised to see Sheritra’s still among them, and, startled by the expression of half-hungry eagerness all of them carried. No one was drunk, but all, though exhausted, were still exhilarated. The torches that had burned all night on the visitors’ barge in preparation for their departure were extinguished. Tbubui, Sisenet and Harmin made their reverences, went aboard, and the family watched the craft angle out of sight on an oily, waveless river. Nubnofret sighed.
“It is going to be a hot day,” she said. “Well, Khaemwaset, they were excellent company and I should like to invite them again, even though their accent is provincial and their taste in everything is quaint, to say the least.”
A return invitation from his wife for no reason other than a desire to see her guests again was high praise. Khaemwaset felt absurdly complimented. But he did not agree with her that their accent was a provincial one. He had travelled Egypt on official business far more often than she, and knew that if he had heard it before he would have placed it.
“They are interesting people,” Sheritra put in, and added rather grudgingly, “I think they really liked me and were not talking to me just to be polite.” No one dared to comment for fear she might misconstrue what was said and her evening would be spoiled.
“Sisenet is widely read,” Hori said. “It is a pity that you did not have more time to spend with him, Father. I was telling him about the tomb, about our problems interpreting the wall scenes, and he offered to try and help. Do you mind?”
Khaemwaset considered. He felt a little guilty that he had had so few words with the man, but he had sensed that Sisenet was a person of few words anyway and was self-sufficient in his silences. “I only mind if he is no more than a thrill-seeking amateur,” he replied, “but you would have guessed that, and put him off. I suppose he may have something to add to our speculations.”
Nubnofret gave a prodigious yawn. “What a charming young man Harmin is!” she said, blinking like an owl in the strengthening light. Khaemwaset, tired though he was, could almost see the machinations begun behind those huge, shadowed eyes. Oh do not say anything just yet, he begged her silently. I saw Sheritra’s response to him too, but a chance word now will earn her scorn and that will be that. However, Nubnofret did not go on. She yawned again, bade them good morning and walked away. Sheritra met her father’s gaze.
“They were all charming,” she said deliberately. “As a matter of fact, I liked them.”
Khaemwaset put an arm around her thin shoulders, suddenly loving her with a fierce protectiveness. “Let’s get some sleep,” was all he replied, and together, still linked, they turned towards the house.
7
I am unto thee like a garden,
which I have planted with flowers
and, all manner of sweet-smelling herbs.
OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS Khaemwaset cast about for some excuse to visit Tbubui again. Her foot had healed well, and he knew he would not meet any of them at the social and religious functions he attended in Memphis as Pharaoh’s representative. Nobility they might be, but their blood was not sufficiently blue to allow them to hold any major offices; besides, they did not seem drawn to court life or the maze of governmental administration. There were many such families in Egypt, living quietly on their holdings, paying their taxes and sending the obligatory gift to the Living Horus on New Year’s Day, immersed in the simple life of the villages and the mundane concerns of their people.
But they are not usually so erudite, Khaemwaset thought on more than one occasion as he returned unwillingly to his routine. The soil of the land to which they relate so closely clings to their feet. Why are these three so different? What has brought them from the backwater of Koptos to Memphis? If they were bored, then why not go directly to Pi-Ramses? If Tbubui is ambitious for Harmin, that would have been the logical choice, for she is bold and learned and would have no difficulty getting herself noticed. I will ask her if she would like me to bring the youth to my father’s attention, perhaps get him a minor post at court where he can show his skills and advance on his own. All he needs is that first connection. But it was too soon, he realized. He did not want to appear patronizing. Nor did he want Tbubui to think that he was merely ingratiating himself with her. Which, he reflected ruefully, would probably be the truth.
It was Hori who solved his dilemma. He approached his father a week into the month of Tibi, waiting until Khaemwaset had dealt with the daily correspondence before ambling into the office and perching on the edge of the desk in his customary fashion.
“There was a letter from your grandmother today,” Khaemwaset told him. “She writes cheerfully but her scribe took it upon himself to add a note to the bottom of the scroll. Her health is failing rapidly.”
Hori frowned. “I am sorry to hear it. Will you be going north then?”
“No, not yet. She is well cared for and I do not think the situation is critical.” Khaemwaset regarded the prospect of more weeks in the Delta with the horror of a trapped hare. He wanted nothing more at the moment than to cultivate Sisenet and his sister without interruption. The thought came tangled with shame, but he consoled himself by imagining that the scribe would have asked for his presence more explicitly if his mother’s condition had been dangerous.
Hori sighed. “So many people speak of her with awe,” he said quietly. “She must have embodied everything that was good and beautiful in her day. Aging is so sad, isn’t it, Father?”
Khaemwaset ran his eye over the perfectly muscled thigh resting on the polished wood of the desk, the flat, taut stomach, the straight shoulders and upright spine before him. Hori was smiling at him faintly, his translucent eyes ringed in their long black lashes, those appealing crinkles around the sensuous curve of his mouth.
“It is only sad if the years behind have been wasted,” he commented drily, �
�and I doubt very much if Astnofert regards her life as a waste. And speaking of waste, Hori. you are well into your nineteenth year and will soon be twenty. You are a fully royal prince. Don’t you think it is time you started casting about for a wife?”
The smile left Hori’s face. His dark, feathery eyebrows shot up in surprise. “But I have been looking, Father!” he protested. “The young women bore me and the older ones are unattractive. What am I supposed to do?”
“Let your mother and me find you a noblewoman, and then form your own harem. I’m serious, Hori. Marriage is a duty for a prince.”
Hod snorted. “Yes I know. But I look at you and Mother, how comfortable you are together, how your few concubines languish away because you so seldom bother with them, and I keep hoping that I might also find someone who would share my life, not just run a household. In that respect you have set a bad example, Father!”
Khaemwaset forced a smile. Guilt threatened him and he beat it back. “Nubnofret and I are perhaps not as close as you seem to think,” he said quietly.
“You were at one time,” Hori broke in loudly. “And look at Uncle Si-Montu and Ben-Anath! That is what I want, Father, and I will wait another ten years if necessary in order to have it!”
“Very well.” Khaemwaset did not feel like arguing. “I can see that I am to support you for the rest of your life.” Hori grinned engagingly and slipped from the desk. “Why did you come to see me?”
“Oh yes.” Hori flung himself with artless grace into the empty chair on the other side of the desk. “I received a message from Sisenet assuring me that his offer of help at the tomb was not polite fiction, and wanting to know when his presence might be welcome on the site. I wanted to ask you about it again, just to make sure it is all right.”
“Send a reply and invite him tomorrow, mid-morning,” Khaemwaset said quickly. “I will join you both. Even if he has nothing much to say, we can give him a meal.”
“Very well. I’m looking forward to it. I think I might invite them all. Tbubui herself seems to be a woman of great education.” His eyes slid away from Khaemwaset’s. “Have you prepared our horoscopes for Tibi?”
Khaemwaset looked at him curiously. “No,” he said slowly. “For some reason I am loath to do it this month. Last month’s and the month’s before were so catastrophic for me, and to a lesser extent for you, yet the time has passed without great incident. I am begining to wonder if I am making some fundamental mistake in my method.”
“I would not exactly say that the time has passed without great incident,” Hori mused, already heading for the door. Then he turned and stood still, hands behind his back. “Father …”
“Yes?”
After a moment Hori shook his head. “Oh nothing. I shall ask Mother if it is all right to bring them back here for the noon meal tomorrow. Or they might even invite us.”
“They might.” But Khaemwaset spoke to an empty doorway. Hori had gone.
KHAEMWASET HAD NOT VISITED the tomb site for several weeks, but it had not changed much. He stood under the shade of his canopy at the top of the stairs, piles of dry rubble to right and left, Penbuy behind him and the guests coming towards them over the shifting plain of Saqqara. Watching Tbubui’s sandals sink and rise, spewing sand as she walked, he wondered fleetingly if the heat and grit were causing her pain, and why in any case Sisenet had not ordered litters for them. Then his thoughts were caught away in the rhythmic swing of her hips under the white sheath, the darting of her kohled eyes as she took in the site.
The three came up and bowed, and the waiting canopy-bearers rushed to cover them as Khaemwaset had instructed. Tbubui’s pupils widened under the shade. Khaemwaset, bemused, saw the rims of black enlarge. The whites were almost blue in their purity.
Hori came hurrying from the dim entrance, a welcome on his lips as the one who had proffered the invitation. Khaemwaset noticed an agitation about him, but he seemed happy enough.
After a few moments of idle chatter, Khaemwaset ushered them down the steps and into the constant coolness of the short passage. With a nod he gave Hori permission to take charge of Sisenet, but Tbubui also wandered away.
Khaemwaset followed her with his eyes, all at once oblivious to his surroundings, all his being intent on the sweet, alluring curves of her, the rise and fall of her heels, the clean sweep of her throat and neck as she looked up to study the bright paint-work.
When she came to the two statues she halted, and stood for a long time staring, then she leaned forward and caressed them, her light fingers moving gently over every groove. “We love life so passionately, we Egyptians,” she said. “We want to hold onto every hot desert wind, every heavy odour from our garden flowers, every touch from those we adore. In building our tombs and preserving our bodies so that the gods may resurrect us, we spend gold like water tossed down our summer-parched throats. We write spells, we perform rituals. And yet who can say what death means? Who has returned from that dark place? Do you think one day someone might, Prince? Or perhaps already has, without our knowledge?” She stepped towards him “They say that the fabled Scroll of Thoth has the power to raise the dead,” she went on, watching him intently. “Will it ever be found, do you think?”
“I do not know,” Khaemwaset answered awkwardly. “If it exists it will be protected by Thoth’s powerful spells.”
She came closer “Every magician dreams of finding it,” she said softly, “if indeed it lies hidden somewhere. But few could control it if they did. Do you desire it, Great Prince, like the others? Do you hope that you might stumble across it each time you open a tomb?”
Was there something mocking in her tone? Many nobles regarded the magicians’ search for the Scroll as a naive joke, and if she did too he would be bitterly disappointed. It seemed from her expression that she was privately amused by something. “Yes, I desire it,” he answered straightforwardly. “Now would you like to go into the burial chamber?” She nodded, still smiling.
Hori and Sisenet were already them, their low voices drifting, disembodied, past the torchlight. Placing an authoritative hand on her arm, Khaemwaset accompanied Tbubui and they walked into the room where the two coffins lay. Once more he watched her as she released herself from his grip and went forward, leaning into the unknown man’s sarcophagus.
“There are cut threads attached to this man’s hand,” she commented at last, standing away: “Something has been stolen from him.” She looked squarely at Khaemwaset. He nodded.
“You are correct,” he replied. “The body had a scroll sewn onto it, which I took. I have treated it with great care, as I do all my finds, and when it has been copied it will be returned to this coffin. I am hoping it will add to the sum of our knowledge of the ancients.”
She made as if to say something, then obviously thought better of it. Hori and Sisenet were engaged in knocking on the walls. “Here! It is here,” Hori said, and the other man put his ear to the plaster.
“Strike once more,” he requested. Hori complied, then Sisenet straightened. “It sounds as though there is another chamber beyond,” he observed. “Have you considered the possibility that this wall is false?”
Khaemwaset tensed as Hori nodded. “Yes I have,” he said hesitantly, “but to explore it would mean tearing apart these decorative scenes. Now that would be true vandalism.” He glanced at his father. “In any case, the decision to do so is not mine to make. My father must take the risk.”
Under no circumstances, Khaemwaset thought, is that wall coming down. I do not know why I fear this tomb but I do. Something in my ka shrinks from it. “We can discuss it later,” he said briskly. “Sisenet, my son tells me that you are an informed historian yourself. I would be happy to hear your explanation for all the water depicted in this tomb. The inscriptions are few and we are puzzled.”
Sisenet smiled faintly, looking at his sister, then at Khaemwaset. He shrugged, with an artless, aristocratic grace, his black eyebrows lifting. “I can only hazard a guess,” he said. “Either
this family adored spending their leisure in fishing, fowling and boating and wished to preserve their delight and prowess with line and throwing stick, or …”—he cleared his throat—“… or water represented some terrible cataclysm to them, a curse fulfilled, perhaps, and they felt compelled to chronicle it in the paintings of their daily lives.” He shook his head. “I am not much help, I’m afraid. Nor do I know why the coffin lids were left standing against the wall.”
“There is no way to tell,” Hori said heavily, and Khaemwaset pulled himself together. He had been watching Sisenet as the man was speaking, that odd feeling of familiarity tugging at him once more. In this setting it was stronger, as though Sisenet naturally blended with these ancient surroundings, his self-sufficiency somehow one with the heavy stillness no sound or activity could dissipate, his air of slightly arrogant authority a part of the cold dignity of the dead. The small puzzle annoyed Khaemwaset until, as Sisenet glanced at him without expression, he was suddenly reminded of the statue of Thoth overshadowing the dim chamber. Of course, he thought with relief. The level, unblinking stare of the god, his air of secret wisdom and implacable judgment, was mirrored in Sisenet’s unshakeable calm. He smiled.
“The hour grows late, and Nubnofret will be waiting to serve us lunch,” he said. “Be our guests, I beg, and let us leave this mustiness.”
They accepted his invitation. Outside, the canopied litters were waiting under a blistering sun and the bearers dozed, their backs against the relative coolness of the enormous rock that had blocked the entrance to the tomb. Hori immediately invited Sisenet to share his litter, forcing Khaemwaset reluctantly to offer his to Tbubui and Harmin, who had stood in the middle of the larger tomb chamber the whole time without uttering a single word. Khaemwaset would have preferred to ride into Memphis with Tbubui’s long, thinly clad leg resting against his own. He himself commandeered Ib’s litter. “Why did you not bring litters?” he asked Tbubui as she slid onto the cushions beside her son, and in the act of propping herself on one elbow she smiled up at him.
Scroll of Saqqara Page 18
