Scroll of Saqqara

by Pauline Gedge

  Lust for Tbubui inflamed him. He could not have cast the vivid visions of her body, her laugh, her gestures, from his mind if he had wanted to. Every call upon his time and attention infuriated him, and Hori’s abrupt revelation yesterday was a distraction of enormous proportions.

  As soon as the evening meal was aver, Khaemwaset rose and left the hall, striding out into a far corner of the garden where he stood rigid, watching the rising of a pale, waning moon. He had made a supreme effort earlier in going to his wife’s suite and entertaining her once more at sennet, and it had been almost too much for him to bear.

  He had not wanted to go to the tomb that morning. The tomb was one catastrophe in an ocean of irritations. He had wanted to stay where he was, in the event that Tbubui might call on him for some reason. In a few days he intended to visit her, with a herbal recipe as the excuse. He knew that in fact he needed no excuse. She was a widow and he a prince, entitled to as many wives and concubines as he wished, but in his heart he felt besmirched, made guilty by this passion. Its power had already swept him away so that his work, his family, his position meant nothing anymore He had already determined that nothing should stand between him and the object of his desire. Coldly he was beginning to plan his campaign of acquisition.

  Sighing, he let the sensuous beauty of the night—the scented, fitful breeze that fluttered probing fingers against his naked skin, the soft black sky with its mat of stars— insinuate itself into that place already turbulent with obsession. His thoughts turned to the turquoise earring Hori had revealed with a mixture of pride and shame, but immediately he saw it resting against a tall brown neck, entangled in black hair that smelled of warmth and myrrh. It would suit her so well. “Ah Thoth,” he groaned quietly, arms coming up to cradle his pain, “if you love me then help me. Help me!” The god’s symbol now stood small and hard-rimmed above the house, its light an indifferent, alien thing.

  Khaemwaset sank to the grass with his back against a tree. For a long time he watched the cheerful glow of lamps within move from room to room and eventually be extinguished. Beyond the garden wall, where the servants’ compound lay with its granaries and the huge kitchen, came the intermittent sounds of laughter and the rattle of dice and click of knucklebones, but soon these faded into the deepening lateness of the hour.

  A lamp appeared, hovering just beyond the shrubbery, and Kasa’s voice called, “Prince, are you out here?”

  “Yes,” Khaemwaset called back without rising. “I am too restless to retire, Kasa. Leave my couch turned down and water in the ante-room so that I may wash before bed. Then you may go to your own quarters.”

  “Wash yourself, Highness?” Kasa’s indignation was clear though Khaemwaset could not see him. “Really, I …”

  “Sleep well, Kasa,” Khaemwaset broke in firmly, and the lamp made an agitated sweep and disappeared beyond the invisible pillars. In truth, Khaemwaset’s eyes burned and his head felt thick with weariness, but beneath the physical symptoms he was preternaturally alert.

  When the last lamp had been put out in the house he got up, intending to take a turn around his estate and perhaps watch the river for a while, but instead he found himself descending the watersteps, untethering the small skiff, clambering into it and running out the oars. This is madness, his sane self protested, aghast, but his driven, dreaming self established a rowing stroke, took note of the shrouded, deserted banks and the empty stretch of moon-glittering river, and matched Tbubui’s name to each pull.

  The northern suburbs glided by, sunk in silence. Once Khaemwaset passed a large lamp-bedecked raft crowded with revellers, but their noise soon grew faint. He pulled for the eastern bank, scarcely conscious of his aching thighs and shoulders. I should not be doing this, he told himself peacefully. If anyone sees me they will think that the great Prince has taken leave of his senses. Perhaps I have. Perhaps I am in the grip of strong magic, perhaps I am even at home on my couch floating in the illusion of purpose, movement, under a spell of Thoth’s moon. Well then, let the spell continue. Let it bind me tighter, let the night dissolve time and reality so that I may stand unseen before her house as a young man in love, without cumberances. Water dribbled silver from the oars, and the surface of the river rippled away to be quietly lost in the shadows of the bank.

  Her diminutive watersteps were easy to miss, crowded as they were by choking river growth, but Khaemwaset manoeuvred the skiff unerringly to bump against them. He disembarked, made his boat fast and stepped up onto the path. His feet made no sound on the sandy ground strewn with brittle fallen palm leaves. The trees themselves marched away into duskiness on either side like the pillars of a temple, and their spreading height made a canopy. Khaemwaset felt even more strongly that he was walking in a dream. One more bend in the track and the house would be before him, its white walls dimmed to a mysterious grey, its tiny windows blind. He padded on.

  All at once a flicker of movement to his left caught his eye, and some of the weight of unreality slipped from him. He stopped. Someone was stalking him. I should have at least brought Amek with me, he thought, senses suddenly alert. I am a fool. He waited tensely for another flutter between the trunks. It came, and then Tbubui was walking towards him, threading her way barefoot, the delineations of her face and body blurred in the half darkness. Her hair was loose and tousled, a black cloud framing scrubbed features, and with an inward wrench Khaemwaset saw that she was naked but for a flimsy sleeping kilt tied about her hips. She came up to him and halted without the least surprise.

  “Prince Khaemwaset,” she said. “I should have guessed it was you. The air is full of your presence tonight.

  She had not asked what he was doing there. Unadorned by any jewellery, her face fresh and unpainted, she looked about sixteen. I am a young man in love, Khaemwaset thought happily. Oh Tbubui! “The thought of you makes me commit outrageous acts,” he replied. “I had planned to circle your house like a lovesick youth and then go home. Forgive my eccentric behaviour.”

  “It is no more eccentric than mine,” she countered with a slight smile “I like to wander under the palms at night if I cannot sleep. And sleep often eludes me of late.”

  “Why is that?” he asked quickly, his throat constricting. She raised dusky eyes to his.

  “I am not sure,” she whispered, “but I know that I am lonely, Prince. Rest does not come easily to the discontented.” She clasped her hands together under her chin in an artless, youthful gesture. “My brother is not a communicative man though he loves me, and Harmin …” She shrugged. “Harmin is a young man carving out his own concerns.”

  She began to wander away, not in the direction of the house but farther in under the trees. Khaemwaset kept pace with her. He took her hand and it was a natural, simple thing to do. Her fingers curled around his. She came to a halt in dense shadow and he pulled her to face him, fumbling for her other hand.

  “I love you also,” he said urgently. “I think I have loved you from the first moment I glimpsed you walking in the dust along the river road. I have never been in love before, Tbubui, not with my body, mind and ka all crying out.” He released her hands and took her by the shoulders, touching her neck, the curve of her ears, brushing across her eyes in a kind of ecstasy. “I want to make love to you now,” he hissed. “Here, under the palms.”

  “I long to lie in your arms,” she returned in a low voice. “I have wondered what it would be like so many times, and then when I looked into your eyes and saw my desire mirrored there …” She rubbed her cheek against his questing fingers. “But I do not give myself lightly, Khaemwaset, as some women might. I live sternly as the ancients did, and abhor the moral corruption of this age.”

  Khaemwaset sank to the sand, pulling her with him. Her words had merely skimmed his mind, and all he clung to was the admission from her own lips that she longed to lie in his arms. Forcing her gently onto her back he buried his face between her breasts, his hands kneading her thighs. Feeling the soft kiss of linen there he loosened it and
raised his head. She lay naked under him, concave belly lightly lifting and falling, the simplicity of her stark hip bones an agony of pleasure in themselves.

  He began to draw his tongue over the skin between them, but she took his head in both hands and forced it up, her mouth seeking his. This time the kiss was hers, the moans of delight were hers, and she thrust against him with an urgency that rendered him momentarily weak. He broke away and straddled her, victory awe and passion a tumult within him, but she suddenly wriggled from his grip and rolled away, lying face down on the earth and panting. Khaemwaset put out a hand but she cringed away, then she sat up, pulling her knees to her chin.

  “I cannot,” she muttered. “Forgive me, Prince.”

  He wanted to shake her in his frustration. He wanted to fling her once more onto her back and hold her down, push himself inside her and release the dammed-up flood of pain that was now a constant burden, but he did not. He stroked her hair with one long, tender caress, then withdrew his hand. “I have a beautiful house on my estate,” he said steadily. “It is large and airy and full of precious things. Its garden is complete with a fish pond and a fountain. I have not entered it for a long time. My very few concubines live there.” He smiled wryly, but he did not think that she could see his expression for the depth of the shadows. “I have seldom bothered them over the years. Nubnofret was enough for me, but now …” He paused but she did not look up. Her forehead was resting on her knees. “Now I want you with me,” he went on. “Move into that house, Tbubui. Come as a privileged member of my household. Your every need will be met, yours and your son’s and your brother’s. Let me take care of you.”

  Slowly her head came up and turned towards him. Khaemwaset could see the cold glimmer of her eyes. “Princesses may count themselves fortunate to end up in the harems of kings,” she said distantly, “but I will be no man’s concubine, languishing the long hours away in waiting for a man whose infatuation fades under the onslaught of fresh beauty, and who in the end does not summon her at all. She remains his property, though, and may not claim her freedom.”

  “Tbubui, it is I, Khaemwaset who makes you this offer!” he expostulated, amazed. “I am not by nature a profligate man. I would honour you with my body to the end of my life!”

  “You were not a profligate man,” she objected, and now her voice seemed disembodied and deadly cold, “but forces have been wakened in you that will not be quelled, O Prince. With me or without me, your long-suffering Nubnofret cannot satisfy you any longer, whether you know it yet or not.”

  “You woke those forces!” Khaemwaset cried out. “You changed me! It is you towards whom they are directed, and you who will always control them. I love you!”

  “Yes, you do,” she agreed, still in that flat remote tone. “But I am sorry, Prince. I cannot accept your offer. And I cannot give you my body whenever you desire it as a common whore would do. Such a thing would destroy me.”

  Khaemwaset became aware that he was grinding his lips between his teeth and his hands were clenched into fists. With conscious deliberation he uncurled his fingers, relaxed his jaw and lay back with eyes closed. For a long time a silence fell. Neither of them moved. The palm grove around them was utterly without sound.

  Then Khaemwaset rose, getting to his feet without haste. Hands on his hips he stared down at her. “Get up, Tbubui,” he commanded. She did so, brushing her buttocks, knees and elbows like a child who has been told not to muddy a new kilt, then she stood before him with downcast eyes. “Your words were strong,” he said, “but they confirm in me the knowledge of your good breeding and sound morals. Such women are rare. I love you more, not less, for your position, my dear sister.” It was the first time he had called her a lover’s name and she made a small, throaty whimper. “Under the law I am permitted to take another wife,” he went on boldly, though his other self, the cautious, sober self who wanted only to be returned to its placid old existence, listened in horror. “Until now I have not wished to do so, but I will have you, Tbubui, do not doubt it, and if it must be through marriage, then I gladly offer it.” Taking her chin he forced her to look at him. Her expression was blank, even sullen, her eyes veiled. “I will have a marriage contract drawn up between us and you will live in my house, in a suite I shall build for you. Are you agreeable?” Her eyelashes fluttered as though she were coming out of a deep trance.

  ‘Dear Khaemwaset, dear Prince,” she said softly. “I love you, but never think that I refused to give myself to you in the hope that you might be pressured into marrying me. The marriage of a blood prince is a serious matter. Let us both take some time to consider it well.”

  He held her urgently. “But you will consider it?”

  “Oh yes.” She smiled. “Indeed I will.”

  All at once he wanted nothing more than to be at home on his couch where he could think. “Come and visit us tomorrow afternoon,” he begged. “Spend some time with Nubnofret. She already thinks a great deal of you and enjoys your company. Life as a princess has much to recommend it, Tbubui.”

  “I am sure it has,” she responded gravely.

  He pulled her close and kissed her, this time with an almost violent ferocity, then he pushed her away, turned on his heel and set off briskly for the watersteps. He did not look back. She had not met his kiss with equal fervour but he had the distinct impression that its savagery had excited her. If I am to offer her a contract, if she is to marry into the royal family, I must institute a thorough investigation of her roots, he thought, his eyes on the soft ground gliding by beneath him. Her blood must be pure, her lineage untouched by treason or any other offence against Egypt. Penbuy can do it. He can also draw up the contract, but quietly. The thought of his brother Si-Montu, who had cheerfully married a commoner and a foreign one at that, came into his mind, and he wondered whether his need to research Tbubui came from some small warning part of him that existed solely for his preservation. I am being foolish, he told himself happily, dazedly. My desire is now within my grasp. It will be difficult to tell the family but, after all, I will be doing nothing more than that which is my right. Father might even approve. He has always been amused at my sober tastes in everything. He felt lightheaded and slightly drunk, and indeed he stumbled twice before he got to the watersteps and his skiff, still tied to the peeling paint of her post. He was sure that he had left it a dozen hentis ago.

  Suddenly he had the overpowering impression that he was being watched. Halting, he peered about, trying to pierce the thick gloom under the trees. “Tbubui, is that you?” he called, but there was not even a breeze to whisper an answer. Khaemwaset stood very still, breathing shallowly. He was more certain than ever, though he could see nothing, that an unseen presence lurked close by with speculative eyes on him. If he had been in less of an internal turmoil he would have left the path and searched angrily, but as it was he hurried down the steps and into the rocking craft. The night was no longer a magic spell of romance and timelessness. It was a shroud hiding the ephemeral, nameless things that preyed upon human beings in envy. He could not pull away from the watersteps quickly enough.

  10

  Set not sorrow in thy heart,

  for the years are not many.

  DAWN WAS ONLY three hours away when Khaemwaset fell onto his couch without bother ing to use the water Kasa had dutifully left for him. His night lamp was low and guttering. He blew it out, thinking that he would doubtless sleep very late the next morning, but to his surprise he woke refreshed at his usual time, unaware of having dreamed and feeling full of vigour.

  After he had been bathed and dressed and had opened the shrine in his quarters to say his morning prayers, he went over the events of the night. Perhaps they were a dream I had, he told himself. They seem so unreal in the full light of early morning. But he was humming as he talked to himself, for he knew the difference between vision and reality.

  When he had finished his morning prayers and was capping the incense, Hori was announced. Khaemwaset handed the long inc
ense holder to Ib and turned to greet his son. But the warmth in his heart that he wished to spread over everyone he met today was dampened as he watched the young man approach. Hori was limping, of course, but it was his face that gave Khaemwaset pause. He was pale, even haggard, with black smudges under his eyes and a stoop to his ordinarily straight spine. Concerned, Khaemwaset’s eyes flew to the knee, fearing infection, but the gash had closed well and the stitches were all visible. “Hori, what ails you?” he asked.

  Hori looked surprised and then shrugged. “Do I look that ill?” he said with an attempted grin. “My knee hurts, Father, but I don’t suppose you will want to remove the stitches until the last moment because of where the injury is. May I sit down?”

  “Of course.”

  “I did not sleep well,” Hori went on, lowering himself into the chair by Khaemwaset’s couch. “I cannot remember what I dreamed but it was terrible, dark and full of foreboding and menace, and I woke feeling sick. It is wearing off now.”

  Khaemwaset sat on the couch and observed him carefully. You need three or four days of strict fasting,” he said. “Let your body cleanse itself and your ka become quieter.”

  “You are probably right,” Hori agreed. “I wish you had cast the horoscopes, Father. Phamenoth will soon be upon us and I do not like going blind through the days not knowing my unlucky hours. I find it impossible to make correct decisions.” He was not speaking directly into his father’s face. His gaze roved the room and his hands were woven tightly together.