Khaemwaset straightened and took them with an indifferent glance for her. He unrolled the first and then began to smile gently. “Ah,” he said. “Why am I not surprised to find this in Antef’s broad hand? So my son has suborned you also, young man?” Antef said nothing, and Khaemwaset’s eyes moved to Sheritra. “I am deeply disturbed by your participation in this fraud,” he accused her. “I had thought you would have more sense, Little Sun. Did you connive in these forgeries?”
“They are not forgeries,” she contradicted him swiftly. “They are copies of documents residing in the library at Koptos. Antef made them under the librarian’s supervision. The man will surely swear to the truth. Please just read them, Father.”
“A man will swear to any truth if he is paid enough gold,” Khaemwaset said darkly. “Nevertheless, because you ask me, Sheritra, I will read.”
He sat down on the edge of the couch and, with an ostentatious contempt began to scan the papyrus. Hori was swaying dangerously on the chair and moaning softly but his father paid him no attention. Antef took the flask of poppy from his belt and unstoppered it, holding it to Hori’s mouth so that he could drink, then he knelt and pulled Hori’s head onto his shoulder. Sheritra stood—tired, aching and scared—while slowly the contents of the room began to acquire coherent shapes and the lamplight faded to a dirty yellow. Dawn was at hand.
At last Khaemwaset tossed the final scroll onto the couch behind him and looked directly at his daughter. “Do you believe this rubbish, Sheritra?” he demanded. It was the worst question he could have asked her. She hesitated, and he jumped in. “You do not. Neither do I. It is unfortunate that Hori has squandered so much energy preparing his vile little hoax. If he had hoarded a little for himself he might not have become ill.”
“I am ill because she cursed me,” Hori broke in with an agonizing slowness. “She told me to my face that she would do so. She is a living corpse, Father, like her husband Nenefer-ka-Ptah and her son Merhu, and they will destroy us all. You brought it on yourself when you gave tongue to the first spell on the Scroll.” He tried to laugh. “Only the gods know what would have happened if you had spoken the second as well.”
Khaemwaset rose and strode to the door. In spite of his assurance, Sheritra thought she detected an underlying unease. “I have heard enough,” he said loudly. “Tbubui warned me that you were jealous enough and insane enough with thwarted desire to actually attempt to kill her and her baby, and I supposed that her words stemmed from hysteria because of her pregnancy. But no more. You are a threat to both.” He hauled on the door. “Guards!” he yelled.
“No, Father!” Sheritra screamed, flinging herself across the room and clutching his arm. “No, you cannot! He is dying, can’t you see that? Have pity on him!”
“Did he have any pity on Tbubui? On me?” he said hotly. Two guards were even now hurrying into the room, and Khaemwaset nodded curtly in Hori’s direction. “My son is under close arrest,” he told them curtly. “Take him to his quarters and do not let him out.” Sheritra screamed again but he firmly plucked her fingers from his arm. The soldiers were pulling Hori to his feet, and Antef was hurriedly pushing the flask into his hand. Hori looked at Sheritra.
“You know what you must do now,” he said. “Please try, Sheritra. I do not want to die just yet.” Then he was being half dragged, half carried across the room and out the door. Khaemwaset swung to her.
“As for you,” he snapped, “I am ashamed of you. For the moment you are free until I decide a fitting punishment.” He turned to Antef. “You are a good young man at heart,” he said more kindly, “and I prefer to believe that you have been my son’s unwitting tool. You also will be disciplined and I will probably expel you from my household, but today I will be lenient. You may go.”
“You were not as indulgent towards Ptah-Seankh,” Sheritra said in a trembling voice when Antef had bowed and left, and Khaemwaset agreed with her readily.
“Of course not,” he said. “Ptah-Seankh was my servant. He owed me his loyalty, not Hori. He betrayed me. But Antef is Hori’s servant, and he at least remembered where his duty lay. I admire him for that.”
“And why can you not admire Hori for his loyalty to you?” Sheritra urged. “You cannot seriously think that Hori would have been able to dig through the rubble to the tomb entrance, force the door and raise the lid on that one coffin. Read the scrolls again, Father. For neither can you seriously believe that Hori could have contrived such an involved story. Please, at least give him the benefit of your doubt.”
“He could have hired workmen to do the task while he was away,” Khaemwaset replied sullenly. “I have not visited the site since … since …”
“You are more distressed than you would have us believe, aren’t you, Father?” Sheritra said. “Some part of you is terrified that Hori may be right. In fact, that part of you believes more strongly than I do. Go to Koptos yourself. Talk to the librarian.”
Khaemwaset shook his head vigorously, but his voice, when it came, was weak and thready. “I cannot,” he whispered. “She is everything to me, and I will do whatever is necessary to keep her. You are wrong, Little Sun. No sane person could believe that my darling is anything other than a beautiful, accomplished, desirable woman. But I do think that perhaps her lineage is not pure. It may even be non-existent.”
“Hori would not hurt her,” Sheritra said. Her head was throbbing and her whole body cried out for rest, for oblivion, but she sensed something more behind her father’s arrest of Hori. It was as though he had eagerly and too rapidly embraced the opportunity to confine him, to place him under his thumb. She came up to him and they faced one another soberly in the grey, pitiless first light of Ra filtering between the shutters. “The last thing Hori wants to do is cause Tbubui harm. He loves her as much as you do. He hates himself for it, not her, and certainly not you. Father, are there spells to lift a death curse?”
He blinked. “Yes.”
“May I see them?”
Again that expression of bestial cunning came and went on his face. “No, you may not. They are volatile, dangerous things, best left to magicians with the power and authority to use them.”
“Then will you conjure one for Hori?”
“No. To do so without the certainty that he is indeed under a death curse would only do him harm.”
“Gods,” she said softly, backing away. “You want him to die, don’t you? You have become a horror, Father. Shall I kill myself now and save you the trouble of doing it later when Tbubui decides her life will be simpler without me?” He did not answer. He went on standing there, the cruel dawn light revealing every crevice in his aging face. Sheritra gave one sob of disappointment and anguish and fled.
I must go back to his office before he has finished being bathed and dressed, she thought desperately as she hurried away. Before the guard is changed as well. Oh, I am frightened! But I must not involve Antef anymore. Anything to be done I must do myself. I wish Harmin were here. She almost cannoned into two servants with brooms and rags in their hands, and they shrank back against the wall, bowing their apologies.
The house was stirring. Soon the parade of musicians and body servants would begin on their way to waken and minister to the family. The stewards would be knocking politely and approaching the couches on a wave of gentle harping, the morning refreshments balanced on silver trays. But not to Mother’s suite, Sheritra thought despondently. Those rooms are dismally empty. I have not had time to miss her, yet surely with her gone the heart of this house has begun to decay. Tbubui will try and fill her place, but more stridently, more loosely. Sheritra wrenched her mind away from the future and slowed, greeting the sleepy guard on her door and going into her ante-room. To her surprise, Bakmut was sitting on a chair, awake and alert, a scroll in her hands. As Sheritra approached she rose and bowed.
“Good morning, Bakmut,” Sheritra said. “I see that you have not slept much either.”
The girl came close and held out the scroll. It was seale
d with Ramses’ imperial imprint. Fingering it, Sheritra also saw that it was addressed to Hori. “How did you come by this?” she asked sharply.
“I intercepted it,” Bakmut said forthrightly. “A Royal Herald arrived with it yesterday and fortunately his search for the Prince brought him to your door. If he had gone further into the house, or lost his way and wandered closer to the concubines’ house, his burden might have been removed from him by another. I had concealed it, and forgot to pass it on last night when your brother came to your door.”
“Just what are you saying?” Sheritra frowned.
“I am saying that I trust no one in this madhouse anymore,” Bakmut replied flatly.
Sheritra looked at the scroll thoughtfully. “My brother has been arrested,” she said. “Should I open this, or try to get it to him? It must be the answer to his plea for help.” The girl remained silent. “You did well, Bakmut,” Sheritra told her, handing back the papyrus. “Keep it safe for a little longer. I do not have the time to open it now. I must go. If anyone comes to my door, tell them I have gone back to bed and do not wish to be disturbed.” Bakmut nodded mutely, lips compressed. Sheritra gave her a smile and went out again.
The guard who had challenged them and then let them pass was still outside the office, his eyes red-rimmed and heavy with the need for sleep. Sheritra had no trouble persuading him to let her in, and as she closed the door she heard his replacement come striding along the passage and greet him cheerfully. Good, she thought. If my luck holds he will not be told that I am within.
The office held none of the air of unreality and urgency it had during the night. Ra had now lifted completely above the horizon. The light sifting down onto the floor, filmed with its collection of dust that the servants would soon industriously sweep away, prompted no phantoms. A little calmness came to Sheritra. Taking a deep breath she crossed to the inner room. The mangled door was still standing wide, the chest open on the floor.
She did not hesitate. Sinking cross-legged beside it she delved inside and pulled out a scroll at random. In her heart she knew that the task was impossible, that even if she could, by some fantastic chance, find a correct spell, she would not be able to assemble the necessary implements to carry it out. Yet if Hori died and she had not done everything possible, she would never forgive herself.
She had not been down there long, doing her best to decipher a maze of arcane hieroglyphs, when she heard voices beyond in the passage—the guard and her father’s distinctive bass. Her heart leaped into her mouth. Hastily dropping the scroll back into the chest, she looked about wildly for a hiding place. He had obviously not waited to be bathed and dressed before coming to inspect the damage she, Antef and Hori had done. The room was small, compact and bare, but several of the chests stood end to end and there was a little space between them and the wall. Without thinking she squeezed behind them, lying full-length with her face towards the room. Through one narrow slit she could see the rifled box and the lower half of the door. Trying to still her breath, she waited, almost fainting with fright.
Presently her father came in and paused in the doorway. She could hear his exclamation of disgust as he saw the confusion, then his bare legs came closer. Going down on one haunch he began to grope through the scrolls, perhaps counting them to make sure none was missing.
Sheritra could see his face now, intent, stern. She kept glancing away in the superstitious certainty that if he looked up he would meet her eye and she would be discovered, but she looked back in time to see him toss one more roll of papyrus into the chest. It was the Scroll of Thoth. The bloodstain looked rusty in the daylight. Khaemwaset slammed down the lid but left the chest where it was. Going to his knees, he appeared to survey the other boxes.
Now his expression changed. It was no longer stern. The intensity grew greater, became something harshly judgmental, and he began to whisper to himself, a string of half-formed words Sheritra could not catch. She had seen just such a look on Harmin’s face when he was running down a prey. Khaemwaset clenched and unclenched his fists, still on his knees. Then he seemed to make up his mind. Leaning over, he lifted the lid of the chest directly in front of Sheritra. She could feel him rummaging about, and the conversation he was holding with himself became louder, though no more intelligible. The lid thudded shut and she jumped.
Then she saw him leaving, but in his right hand he was gripping a small stone vial. She did not stop to consider her motives. Pulling herself free of her hiding place, she scurried after him. She had to hover in the outer office for a few moments while he exchanged another word with the guard, and she waited until he was far enough along the corridor not to hear the guard if the man spoke to her. Then she walked out the door, nodded to the startled man and set off behind her father, whose sandals were slapping against the tiling just out of sight.
She could not have analyzed her compulsion to follow him. The sight of the vial in his hand had set off waves of apprehension that did not as yet coalesce into coherent thought.
Cautiously, she peered around the next corner, knowing she was close to Hori’s door. Her father was there, standing in the middle of the passage, motionless yet alert. Sheritra watched him, puzzled. There was something furtive about his behaviour, and she could see that he had begun to sweat profusely. Every now and then he would lift his kilt and mop his face. He was still muttering to himself. Sheritra waited.
Before long she heard footsteps approaching from the other direction, and her father began to walk slowly along the passage. Antef appeared, a tray with a steaming bowl in both hands. At the sight of Khaemwaset he paused, confused. Khaemwaset glided up to him.
“What is that?” he asked curtly.
“It is gruel for his Highness,” Antef said warily. “I have been making it for him ever since he became ill. He has not eaten since yesterday morning, Prince.”
“Give it to me,” Khaemwaset demanded, and Sheritra, hiding and listening, closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. Oh surely not! she thought, aghast. Father would not stoop to such a heinous thing! “I want to talk to him, Antef, therefore I will take him his nourishment,” Khaemwaset was saying. “You may go.” After a moment the young man handed the tray to Khaemwaset and, unwillingly, turned on his heel.
When he was out of sight, Khaemwaset set the tray on the floor, glanced up and down the passage, then pulled the stopper from the vial. Sheritra saw a stream of what looked like black granules go toppling into the thin soup. He is making sure Hori will die, she thought, appalled. He is leaving nothing to chance, and if someone orders an inquiry, Grandfather perhaps, he will pin the blame on Antef who carried the meal all the way from the kitchens.
Khaemwaset was stirring the gruel with one shaking finger, his face implacable, absorbed, and in that moment Sheritra knew that her father’s reason had gone. Do something! her mind shrieked. Stop this! She pushed herself away from the wall and almost fell, then she was running around the corner and full tilt down the corridor. Colliding with her father she made as if to grab at him and the tray teetered, the bowl slid, and the gruel went splashing to the floor.
“Sheritra!” he shouted, rubbing at his calf where the hot soup had burned him. “What are you doing?” He glowered at her, and Sheritra could have sworn she saw a murderous fury in those eyes.
“Father, I am so sorry,” she gasped. “I wanted to see Hori. I was in a hurry because Bakmut is waiting to bathe me. I did not realize …”
“It does not matter,” he muttered. “I wanted to see him myself, but I will wait. Order him more gruel, please.” He did not wait for an answer. He set off along the passage like a drunkard, his step unsteady, and Sheritra folded for a moment weak with relief. Hori was temporarily safe, but she had no doubt that her farther would make another attempt on Hori’s life. If he does not die in the meantime, she thought, a bubble of hysterical laughter rising to her throat. Poor Hori! If Tbubui doesn’t put paid to you, Father will. Then she felt the hot tears pricking behind her eyelids and with
a strangled cry she ran after Khaemwaset, past the short embrasure containing Hori’s door, where a guard lounged, and into the broader main corridor running the length of the house. Her father had gone, but far ahead she saw Antef about to step out into the garden.
“Antef!” she shouted, and he paused, waiting for her until she came up to him, breathless. “Antef,” she repeated, her chest tight. “I was not going to ask for your help again but I must. We have to get Hori out of the house, and if possible, send him to the Delta. I am sorry,” she apologized, seeing his expression, “but I have no one else to turn to. Will you help me?”
“I do not know how such a thing can be done,” he said doubtfully. “His Highness is guarded closely, and frankly, Princess, if I defy your father it could mean my death.”
“I do not know how we can do it either,” Sheritra admitted, “but we have to try. Come to my quarters in an hour. That will give me time to be bathed and dressed and then we will make some kind of plan.” He bowed and they parted.
Sheritra returned to her rooms. She did not realize until she stepped through and Bakmut came hurrying to serve her how much on edge she was, but in the familiar quiet of her chambers with the smell of her perfume rising to meet her and the sight of her own possessions around her, her control broke down. Shivering so violently that she could hardly move, she allowed the servant to shepherd her to a chair. “Wine,” she muttered through clenched teeth, and Bakmut brought her a jar and a cup, pouring and folding her fingers around the stem without comment. Sheritra drained the cup, held it out for more, then sipped it slowly. The shuddering began to subside. I will kill Hori’s guard if I have to, she thought coldly. Kill Tbubui too. Kill them all if only Hori may survive. “Wash me,” she commanded Bakmut, “and let us be quick. I have terrible work to do today.”
21
Scroll of Saqqara Page 50
