Scroll of Saqqara

by Pauline Gedge

  “I had hoped for more than her duty,” Khaemwaset said hotly. “I wanted her to befriend Tbubui, usher her into the family warmly. I cannot pierce the cold, correct mood that has held her since I gave her the news. Well, she will have plenty of time to get used to the idea.”

  “Why?” Sheritra allowed herself to sink onto the couch.

  Khaemwaset folded his arms and began to pace “I sent Penbuy to Koptos to gather information on Tbubui’s family,” he said. “It has to do with a clause in the contract. I need not explain. I have been struck two blows today, Little Sun. Not only has my mother died, but my friend Penbuy also.”

  “What?” Sheritra was fighting to keep up with such sudden developments after weeks of placid predictability. “Old Penbuy? How did he die?”

  “Not so old,” her father replied with grim joviality. “Penbuy was my age. He did not want to go to Koptos at this time of the year but I sent him anyway. It was his duty to go.” She opened her mouth but he held up a hand to forestall her. “The herald who came north with the news said that Penbuy fell ill shortly after he arrived in the town. He complained of pains in his head and shortness of breath, but he kept working in the library attached to the temple there. One day he walked out, took four steps into the sunlight and collapsed. He was dead by the time his assistant reached him.”

  Something ominous stalked along Sheritra’s spine as though her father had been pronouncing some grave and portentous edict that would change her fate forever, instead of quietly relating the events leading up the death of his servant and friend. “It was not your fault, Father,” she said gently, sensing his guilt “Penbuy was doing his duty as you said. It was his time. Death would have found him whether he had been there or here at home.” But is that true? she asked herself even as the words left her mouth. Oh, is it true? And that cold, nameless thing kept padding up and down her back on soft, repellent feet.

  “I suppose so,” Khaemwaset said slowly. “I will miss him. He is, of course, being beautified in Koptos, and then his body will be returned to Memphis for burial. We are in mourning for two people, Sheritra.”

  I wish I had not come here, Sheritra thought passionately. Perhaps if the news had come to me in Sisenet’s house I would have insisted on mourning there. I would have abstained from making love, I would have prayed, I would have sacrificed for the kas of my grandmother and poor Penbuy … “Father, where is Hori?” she asked. “I want to see him and then I want to go to my rooms and absorb all this.”

  Khaemwaset smiled crookedly, painfully. “It has been a shock for you, hasn’t it? And I think Hori will be another shock. He is not himself at all, Sheritra. No one seems to know why. He avoids us as much as he can, even Antef. But perhaps he will talk to you.”

  Indeed he will talk to me, Sheritra thought grimly, if I have to call the guards and have him held down until he does so. What a homecoming! “Does he know about the marriage contract?” she asked, rising.

  Khaemwaset looked sheepish. “Not yet. A hundred times I have been on the point of speaking of it to him and a hundred times I have changed my mind. He has become so unapproachable.”

  She smiled at him faintly. “Would you like me to do it for you?” She had fought to keep the sudden scorn she felt from tinging her words. What is happening to you, Father? she wondered. This expression of shame, of hesitation, might befit a servant, not a pharaoh’s son who has been used to giving commands and making decisions almost since his birth. It was as though something vital in him, something strong and noble, had softened like overripe fruit. What are you afraid of? she wanted to shout. Where is your nerve? It was said that an obsequious servant made a cruel master, and looking into her father’s embarrassed face she had a blinding urge to slap it. She had never felt lonelier.

  “Thank you,” he replied with relief. “You are closer to him than I, and his temper is so uncertain that I have dreaded broaching the subject. If you pave the way I can then sit down with him and try to explain.”

  “Surely no explanation is necessary,” she said stiffly. “There have been few princes with only a single wife, Father. You are an exception, a curiosity. We have been living an abnormal family life here in Memphis, sufficient only unto ourselves. Perhaps Mother, Hori and I have grown arrogant.”

  He blinked, then scrutinized her keenly. “You have changed,” he said slowly. “Not only do you look different, your eyes are surer and colder.”

  But I am not cold, she thought as she inclined her head and turned, walking to the door. I am hot, dear Father, oh how hot, and nothing, not Grandmother’s death, not the splintering apart of our former closeness, can begin to subdue these invisible flames. You are thin and insubstantial, all of you, beside the silky feel of Harmin’s skin under my questing fingers, the languorous glance of his dark eyes as he bends over me. Her hands curled into fists as she paced the corridor towards Hori’s quarters, and she was oblivious to the patient soldiers’ curious stares. She was enraged.

  14

  Beware of a woman from strange parts,

  whose city is not known …

  She is as the eddy in deep water,

  the depth of which is unknown.

  ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING Khaemwaset, walking into his office to begin the correspon dence for the day, came face to face with Penbuy’s son, Ptah-Seankh. The young man’s features were so like his father’s that Khaemwaset’s heart turned over, but then he recognized the build as slightly thinner and taller, the eyes as more close-set, though with Penbuy’s watchful, almost judgmental clarity, the mouth a little less forgiving. Ptah-Seankh’s eyelids were swollen and his skin sallow. He had obviously been weeping over his father, but Khaemwaset admired the determination and control that had brought him here, palette in hand and linen freshly starched, to continue the tradition of duty and loyalty that had begun many generations ago. At Khaemwaset’s approach, Ptah-Seankh knelt and prostrated himself.

  “Rise,” Khaemwaset said kindly. The young man came to his feet with a fluid grace, then went to the floor again, this time in the pose of a working scribe. Khaemwaset took a chair, all at once overcome with sympathy.

  “Ptah-Seankh, I loved your father and I grieve for him as you do,” he said thickly. “You need not feel that you must be here ready to work when your heart is breaking. Go home and return when you are able.”

  Ptah-Seankh raised a stubborn face. “My father served you long and faithfully,” he said, “and in the way of my family, I have been trained from my earliest years to take his place as your scribe when he died. Now he prepares for his last journey, and he would think less of me if, even at this time, I did not put my duty to you before any personal consideration. Are you ready to work, Highness?”

  “No,” Khaemwaset said slowly. “No, I think not. My temporary scribe is adequate for the time being. Ptah-Seankh, I want you to go and bring your father’s body back to Memphis at the end of the seventy days. I will endow his tomb with gold so that priests will pray for him every day and offerings may be made on his behalf. I will also arrange his funeral with your mother so that your mind may be at rest and on other things, because I have a task for you.” He leaned forward and his eyes met the young man’s. They held his own without wavering. “Your father was researching the line of descent of a woman I plan to marry,” he explained. “Her lineage is in Koptos. Penbuy was unable to do more than begin the task and he left no records. I want you to go to Koptos and complete the investigation before escorting your father home.”

  ‘I shall be honoured Prince,” Ptah-Seankh replied with a wan smile, “and I am grateful for your tact and discretion. But I shall need to know everything about this person before I leave.”

  Khaemwaset laughed. The young man’s response was painful but curiously healing. “You are indeed Penbuy’s son!” he exclaimed. “You speak as you think, and will doubtless argue with me over many matters in the course of our relationship. Very well. See to your mother’s welfare before you leave. That will give me time to explain exa
ctly what you are to do and to draft letters of introduction for you to the dignitaries of Koptos. Here.” He took up a piece of papyrus that he had already dictated. Holding a sliver of wax over the candle always burning for just such a purpose, he dribbled some onto the scroll and pressed his seal ring into it, then he handed it to Ptah-Seankh. “You are now officially in my service,” he said. “Discuss anything you need with my steward, Ib. And now, go home, Ptah-Seankh. Grieve in peace today.”

  Ptah-Seankh’s throat worked. This time he came to his feet clumsily, bowed, and hurried out, but not before Khaemwaset had seen the tears gleaming in his eyes.

  There was no longer any reason to remain in the house. Khaemwaset ordered out a litter, and taking Ib and Amek he stepped into his skiff for the short ride to Tbubui’s house. He had not seen Sisenet since his shameful loss of control on the day the scroll was translated, and dreaded having to try and rationalize it to the supremely self-assured man, but there was no sign of either Sisenet or his nephew as the litter-bearers padded along the narrow, winding track to the house.

  It appeared deserted, as usual, the quality of its deep quiet like a lullaby sung to a fretting child. Khaemwaset, alighting and approaching the open door to the entrance hall, was suddenly and disturbingly reminded of the charm his nurse used to chant softly each night by his couch to prevent the terrible night demon, She-with-her-faceturned-backward, from flowing into the room and stealing away his breath. He would lie half-terrified, half-fascinated, his eyes fixed trustingly on the nurse’s face as she swayed to the words, while the darkness in the awesomely large chamber seemed to ripple and change shape just outside the periphery of his vision. “May she flow away, she who comes in the darkness, who enters in furtively with her nose behind her, her face turned backward, failing in that for which she came. Hast thou come to kiss this child? I will not let thee kiss him! Hast thou come to injure him? I will not let thee injure him! Hast thou come to take him away? I will not let thee take him away from me!” My mother loved me with the same fierce devotion as that old nurse, he thought with genuine remorse. Her duties as queen never kept her from my side if I was ill or afraid. Yet when she needed me I was not there. In her last hours my place beside her bed was empty. I have failed her. Failed my father also, for I have abused the trust he placed in me to be his eyes and ears in government. The official missives lie piled on my desk like river flotsam because I do not recognize myself anymore. The man who would have viewed the shame of these betrayals with horror is dead, slain by the poison of a woman in his veins.

  With a grimace he spoke to the black-skinned servant who had risen from the pleasant dimness and as silently glided away. Then Tbubui was coming swiftly across the plain white tiling of the floor, her pretty face solemn, her arms outstretched. Taking his hands she gazed intently into his face.

  “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 muffled in his neck. “Come, dear brother. In my room there is wine and I will massage 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 buttocks, 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 passage 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 sparsely 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 selfish! 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 assure 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 massage. 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 breasts he had exposed.

  All moderation fled. Jerking away her hands he forced them both between his legs, under his kilt, to where his penis 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 a
s 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 passion, 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 title belonged to every pharaoh, it was not Khaemwaset’s to carry, but the words, heavy with sexual meaning, with virility and power, almost caused him to ejaculate 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 assuaged 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 appetite 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.