Several times on the way to Khaemwaset"s suite Hori appeared to lose consciousness, but eventually they came to the imposing electrum-plated door behind which Khaemwaset was sleeping. The guard, after one look at the dishevelled trio, knocked, and after a moment a bleary-eyed Kasa answered. One glance at them was enough to chase the sleep from his eyes.
"Highnesses!" he exclaimed. "Whatever has happened?"
"Let us in, Kasa," Sheritra demanded, "We must speak with Father."
The body servant bowed and disappeared with alacrity. After what seemed an age he returned. "The Prince is awake and will see you," he said, standing back, and the three of them staggered through the ante-room and into Khaemwaset"s sleeping room.
He was sitting up and blinking in the light of the fresh lamp Kasa had brought, his expression irritable. At the sight of them he slid from under the sheets and reached for a discarded kilt, wrapping it around his waist and brusquely indicating the chair by the couch. Antef and Sheritra slid Hori onto it.
"So, Hori, you have returned," Khaemwaset said coldly. "Embroiled in madness and conspiracy, I have no doubt. What is the matter with you?"
"He is very sick," Sheritra said swiftly before Hori could reply, "but he has things to tell you Father. Oh please listen."
"Sick?" Khaemwaset echoed without much interest. "I dare say he is. Sick with his own guilt. I had expected more from you, my son, than weak self-indulgence and the petty urge for revenge."
Hori had managed to retain his hold on the Scroll. Now he thrust it towards Khaemwaset. "Do you recognize this, Father?" he asked. "Sheritra and I found it not an hour ago in the locked chest in your office where you keep your other scrolls. Antef will swear that I am telling the truth."
"What were you doing in there?" Khaemwaset said furiously. You have taken leave of your senses, all of you."
Then he looked down at the Scroll. At first he was obviously not aware of what he was holding, but as he turned it impatiently the bloodstain came into view. He stared at it, his hand began to shake, then with an oath he flung it away. It flew past Hori"s head and landed in the shadows. Quietly Antef stepped back and picked it up. Sheritra, all her attention fixed on her father, saw that he had gone a deathly white.
"I see that you do recognize it," Hori commented with a wry smile. "Remember how you dug the needle into your finger, Father, and your blood dripped onto the corpse"s hand? Antef, give it back to the Prince. I want him to examine it more carefully. I want him to be sure."
But Khaemwaset backed away. "It is the Scroll of Thoth, that d.a.m.nable thing," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I am not denying it. What I refuse to believe is your foolish story. If you have indeed broken into my chest you will all be severely punished." He was recovering. Sheritra saw the colour creeping back into his cheeks, and with a blaze of controlled anger mixed with cunning. She had never before believed her father capable of sheer animal craftiness, but there was no mistaking its presence on his face. He is not going to listen, she thought with a chill of fear. All his fairness, his reason, has been swallowed up in possessing Tbubui. He is like a cornered animal driven to the extreme of temporary insanity by the need for self-preservation.
He came close to Hori, bending and placing his hands on his own knees, peering into his son"s pain-wracked face without any sign of concern.
"You are a little jackal, Hori," he said thickly. "Shall I tell you what I believe? I believe that you broke open my chest to put the Scroll in, not take it out. You did not find it there, you stole it from the tomb and mutilated my chest to support your weak story. Now what story is that exactly, Hori? What incredible deceit am I being asked to consider?"
Sheritra pushed forward with the scrolls Hori had brought back from Koptos. "Read these, Father," she begged. "Hori is too ill to talk. They will explain everything."
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 partic.i.p.ation 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 doc.u.ments 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 you ask me, Sheritra, I will read." 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 h.o.a.rded 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 G.o.ds know what would have happened if you had spoken the second as well."
Khaemwaset rose and strode to the door. In spite of his a.s.surance, 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 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." 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.l 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."
"G.o.ds," 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 sealed 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.semble 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 pa.s.sage-the guard and her father"s distinctive ba.s.s. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 superst.i.tious 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 a.n.a.lyzed 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 pa.s.sage, 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 pa.s.sage. 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 pa.s.sage, 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 pa.s.sage 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 p.r.i.c.king 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.
He who is at rest cannot hear thy complaint, and he who is in the tomb cannot understand thy weeping.
THE GUARDS HAD LAID HORI THE GUARDS HAD LAID HORI on his couch and withdrawn, and he had fallen into a sodden, drugged dream in which Tbubui, clad in pure white linen, sat in the garden under the dappling shade of a sycamore tree with one round breast exposed. A tiny wax doll, with copper pins driven into its head and abdomen, was sucking from her puckered nipple, its malformed, lipless mouth working in a grotesque rhythm. "It will not be long now, dear Hori," Tbubui was saying sweetly. "He is almost full." Hori woke with a soundless scream in his throat, the now familiar throbbing in his head and gut giving him a moment of panic. He scrabbled against the sheets until his control rea.s.serted itself. Then he lay still trying to accept the pain, to absorb it. on his couch and withdrawn, and he had fallen into a sodden, drugged dream in which Tbubui, clad in pure white linen, sat in the garden under the dappling shade of a sycamore tree with one round breast exposed. A tiny wax doll, with copper pins driven into its head and abdomen, was sucking from her puckered nipple, its malformed, lipless mouth working in a grotesque rhythm. "It will not be long now, dear Hori," Tbubui was saying sweetly. "He is almost full." Hori woke with a soundless scream in his throat, the now familiar throbbing in his head and gut giving him a moment of panic. He scrabbled against the sheets until his control rea.s.serted itself. Then he lay still trying to accept the pain, to absorb it.
Around him the house followed its appointed routine. He could hear people pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, his guard shuffling and sighing beyond the door to the antechamber, s.n.a.t.c.hes of music from somewhere in the garden, and he smelled a strong aroma of wheaten gruel. Turning his head with difficulty, he saw that while he slept someone had been admitted with food for him. A bowl of now cold soup and a plate of melon slices smothered in honey sat on his bedside table. Beside the fruit lay a paring knife, winking in the sunlight angling from the clerestory windows high in the walls.
Hori stared at it stupidly. The events of the night reeled slowly through his mind in an aura of dream-like unreality, yet he knew they had occurred. Father rejected everything I tried to show him, he thought weakly. Sheritra stands loyally by my side but she refuses to consider the truth.. She is too besotted with Harmin to allow the possibility that he is ... that Tbubui is ... What is left to do? No spell will save me and we cannot find the doll. I think Sheritra is right. It is in the house on the east bank. If I could only go there. The paring knife lay innocently, its tip buried in oozing honey, its blade shimmering.
While contemplating it Hori fell into another doze, not knowing if his eyes had closed on not, for he woke still gazing at the innocent little fruit knife. The pain had intensified, like a feral animal gnawing and worrying at his vitals, yet no one had come. There is no one to tend me, he thought with a gush of self-pity. No servant to bathe and soothe me, no physician to administer the blessed herbs of oblivion. I have been deliberately forgotten.
Tears of weakness and loneliness ran down his face, and for a while he succ.u.mbed to them, drawing his knees up to his chin while that cursed beast chewed delightedly at his vitals and pawed at his brain. But then he struggled up and reached for the flask of poppy he himself had dropped to the table before plummeting like a stone down the well of forgetting. He shook it before taking a mouthful. There was not much left. Curiously, he felt a little stronger and more clear-headed, a sign that sent a stab of panic through him. His father was a physician, and he knew that often a terminally ill patient would exhibit a burst of well-being, lucidity and energy just before the end, like the flaring of a candle about to gutter into nothingness. I must make use of this, he thought. It will not last long.
His agony had receded to a dull ache and his eyes returned to the small, clean knife waiting beside the melon. The house on the east bank, he thought lazily. I refuse to die without a fight. How many guards stand at my door? Surely no more than one at a time. I am dying, remember? And that one will not be alert, thinking that he watches over a very sick man. Hori"s hand reached out and closed over the hilt of the knife. Tonight, he told himself. He fell asleep again, still clutching it.
He woke, and it was dark. Some noiseless, faceless servant had set a night lamp on his table but had not bothered to remove the tray from the morning. If I were Father, Hori thought with hysterical humour, I would reprimand that person. His fingers had frozen around the hilt of the knife, which had become entangled in the sheets. He extricated it, flexed his hand and examined himself. He felt better. He knew very well that it was the calm before the final, incendiary storm, but put that thought away.
With infinite care he sat up, felt for the floor with his feet and cautiously stood. The room whirled and then steadied. He realized that he was naked, but the filthy kilt the guards must have stripped from him lay in a heap on a chair. Slowly, still bent double against the pain that lay in wait for him if he straightened, he tottered to it and wrapped it on. No sound came to him from the pa.s.sage beyond the door. He crept across the room, the knife held loosely on his palm, and put his ear to the warm cedar wood. He could hear his guard shuffle, but little more. Slowly he inched the door open.
The man was standing to his right, leaning with a negligent boredom against the wall, most of him in deep shadow. The nearest torch burned some way along the pa.s.sage. Hori took a deep breath. He knew what a frighteningly small amount of his strength was left. If he missed the first time he would not get a second chance. Easing himself beyond the door he tightened his grip on the knife, then, lurching forward and sideways, he grasped the guard"s arm and drove the blade up under the man"s chin and into his throat. The soldier coughed once, grabbed at his chest, then slid to the floor. His eyes were wide and shocked under the intermittent flare of the torch"s flame. Hori did not have the strength to drag the body inside the room but it did not matter. Within a very few minutes he would have left the house. The amount of energy needed to kill the guard who lay, still bleeding, at his feet, had been enormous. He put out a hand to the wall to steady himself while the deserted pa.s.sage revolved slowly around him. Renewed pain seemed to bulge in his abdomen and send jolts of fire down his legs. Struggling to breathe more evenly he bent, set his foot on the soldier"s shoulder and wrenched out the paring knife, wiping it as best as he could on the man"s kilt. Then he set off towards the garden.
All the entrances were guarded, he knew that, and sure enough another tall figure bulked where the large near pa.s.sage gave out into the night. Hori did not want to kill again. These men were innocents doing their duty and nothing more. But he realized, on a rising tide of cold desperation, that he would somehow have to shamble up to the soldier and at least disable him. That was the answer.
Creeping forward, he hefted the blade. The man stirred, shifting his stance, and his sword clinked softly against the studding on his belt. Hori struck, aiming for the tendons behind the knee. He felt them give as he slashed, and with a howl the guard went down and lay writhing and shrieking. There was a tall jar just inside the pa.s.sage kept full of drinking water to be cooled by the breezes that funelled through the open doors at either end. With a grunt Hori tipped it over. Water gushed across his feet, swirled about the guard and cascaded, mingled with blood, onto the gra.s.s. Hefting the jar, Hori brought it crashing down on the soldier"s head. The shrieking stopped abruptly. Shaking and sweating, Hori stepped past him and out into the garden.
The night was still and fine with a full moon and a black sky resplendent with stars, but Hori had no inclination to admire it. He set off for the watersteps, weaving and stumbling but covering the ground steadily, all his attention grimly fixed on putting one foot after the other. Nevertheless, his nose told him that the river was rising. Its smell-rich, dank and slightly humid-underlay the more fragile aromas of flowering shrubs and watered gra.s.s. He stayed off the path, trudging silently along, his ears and eyes alert for any sign of more guards. But tonight he was lucky. He presumed that they were posted around the perimeter of the estate.
The torch illuminating the watersteps flared and danced in the moving air by the river. He pa.s.sed under it, too tired to make a detour so that he would not be seen. He did not know how he would deal with the man always guarding the boats. He negotiated the steps carefully, his balance teetering because of the constant throbbing in his head, and there was the guard, sitting at the bottom, his back against the stone and fast asleep. There is another servant who needs a severe reprimand, Hori thought, repressing a desire to giggle aloud. Now where is the skiff? He spotted it to the right, rising and falling gently on the swell, its tether looped to a pole.
Trying not to put any vibrations through the step that might wake the soldier, he went lightly, lifting a steering pole from its site in the mud and approaching the skiff. There were no oars resting in the bottom but it did not matter. He knew he had no strength to row in any case. He must trust to the now purposeful running of the current, growing each day as the Nile filled, to take him the short distance north he needed to go. He slipped the skiff"s tether and half scrambled, half fell into it.
Grasping the pole he pushed off, and the little craft bucked and began to swing towards midstream. Once there, Hori knew he need do nothing but sit and let the flow take him away. His head was spinning and he was suddenly terrified that he might lose consciousness. The knife was still in his hand. He had no belt to take it, only the kilt wrapped loosely about his waist, so he laid it in the bottom of the skiff and set one foot over it. With both hands he sank the pole once more, and the skiff protested, but after a moment Hori felt the current tug at it and he relaxed with a quivering sigh.
When next he came to himself he was floating in a broken shaft of moonlight with the dark city on his left and the shadows of spindly acacia bushes clinging to the bank on his right. He had fallen unconscious after all. Whimpering, he slapped his face twice but his fingers merely brushed his skin. The burst of strength that had brought him this far was failing rapidly and he was all at once frightened that he would die here, hunched over in the skiff, and he would bob and rock all the way to the Delta before his body was found. It would be too late then to beautify me, he thought in a panic. My body would have rotted too far. O Amun, King of G.o.ds, have mercy on me and bring me safely to the watersteps!
The skiff glided on, and slowly but surely Hori saw the darkly familiar shrubbery that thickened, deepened, and became the palm plantation in which Tbubui"s old house was nestled. He began to ply the pole, clumsily jerking the craft towards the bank. For a moment it did not respond, and he was afraid that the current would prove stronger than his own miserable efforts, but then it turned reluctantly and soon was grinding against the dilapidated stair. Hori fumbled about for the knife, found it, and fell out of the boat onto the steps. The skiff immediately began to angle and drift away, but he did not care.
It all seemed to take a very long time. On hands and knees he crawled up onto the path, and once there he lay for a while with his cheek against the hard sand. I want to sleep, he thought. I want to sink into the ground forever. And indeed his thoughts did run away so that the next time he opened his eyes he sensed that the moon was waning.
With a groan he came to his feet and lurched along the path. It was very dark under the palms. Like black pillars they cl.u.s.tered stiffly around him, marching away to right and left, shrouded in their own mystery. Hori tried not to let them cut him off from reality, but as he manoeuvred the final corner and saw the house crouched to one end of its clearing, he had to contend with a rushing sense of confusion. It seemed to him that he was back in Koptos, hovering on the edge of the ruins whose silence and desolation had been so familiar. With a tightening of his will he forced his imagination away from that place and into the present, but the silence and desolation remained. Its quality here was an evil, brooding thing, and as Hori staggered across the spa.r.s.e, dry gra.s.s he was sure that invisible eyes were closely observing his progress. I have nothing left to lose, he told himself. No pain, no evil, can be greater than that which I am suffering now. I will walk straight through the main entrance into that cold hall. I will ignore any servant standing in the shadows, for I am positive they will ignore me. The shawabtis, retreating into their twilight world of not-being during the dark hours when their services are not required, blind, deaf, woodenly unmoving ... He shuddered, an involuntary action that poured agony into his wasting muscles, and stepped from the airy darkness of night into the close, Stygian blackness of the house.
There was a servant standing in a far corner, feet together, dusky arms rigidly at its sides, eyes closed. Hori drew near and pa.s.sed it with one timid glance, but it did not stir. The rear pa.s.sage yawned, a hole into nothing. Pausing to temporarily put down the knife and wipe his slippery palm on his kilt, he stole into it.
The darkness was total. Hori knew that Tbubui"s old room lay to the right near the exit to the garden, and he inched towards it, shoulder against the wall. At the other end of the house Sisenet and Harmin would be sleeping, or whatever it is that the dead do at night, he thought with another burst of amus.e.m.e.nt that he recognized as hysteria. I must not disturb them. His shoulder b.u.mped against a ridge and he felt about. The door was there. It gave at the pressure of his hand, swinging open soundlessly but with the slightest movement of air, and Hori walked in.
The same complete blackness reigned here, and in despair Hori realized that he would have to search by touch alone. He had not brought a lamp; indeed, he would have been unable to carry one. His symptoms had intensified the moment he had placed his fingers on the door, and now the sharp horns of pain gored and twisted his vitals, his brain. He tried to rise above it, to set it apart somehow from the place where reason and decision took precedence in his mind, but it was hard.
Slowly and awkwardly he began to search, his fingers probing the corners, the floor, the knife held temporarily in his teeth. Shuffling across the floor he encountered the couch, now stripped of its bedding. He felt the mattress, the gritty s.p.a.ce under the couch, and then left it to continue on the other side of the room, but he soon realized it was bare. Her tiring boxes had all gone. The night table was missing as was the shrine to Thoth. She had taken it all to his father"s home.
Sobbing with fatigue and frustration, Hori fumbled his way back to the door. You are going to die, the pain mocked him. You will never find the doll. She is far too clever for you. Who would have thought six months ago when you sat with your father on the plain of Saqqara and watched the ancient air stream from the tomb in a thin grey cloud that you would end up crouched in this stuffy, empty room with your life draining away? Be quiet, he told himself sternly, though he felt his own tears hot on his neck. Accept and go on as long as you can. His knee struck the edge of the door and he eased himself back into the pa.s.sage.