The litter stopped. "Go into the tomb and tell the men to come out," he ordered his steward. "Tell them I am here." He allowed the other man to help him into his chair but forbade him to wash the wound. The few minutes he had spent unprotected under the sun had made him slightly dizzy and he gulped a jar of beer and watched the Overseer and torchbearers disgorge, puzzled and uncertain, from the tomb mouth. "That tunnel leads up and out into Osiris Unas"s ruins," he explained to the incredulous Overseer. "If you explore the outer rim of the walls you will find it, and the stone I pushed away to get out. Replace the stone. Post the guards on this entrance, and go home."
The man nodded. "You are injured, Highness."
Hori managed a grin. "It was an adventurous few minutes. I will see you tomorrow." He did not wait until the men had dispersed. Still clutching the earring, he pulled himself out of the chair and back onto the litter, and gave the command to take him home. It was time to talk to Khaemwaset.
9.
How pleasant is mine hour!
Might an hour only become for me eternity, when I sleep with thee Thou didst lift up mine heart ...
when it was night.
HE WISHED HE WISHEDthat the ride could have been longer. He dreaded telling his father what he had done, and now that the deed was accomplished he was less sure that Tbubui had been correct in her advice. Nursing his knee, he sat brooding with the curtains closed, oblivious to the hum of the city around him and fighting the sense that his maturity was slipping away until he was a little boy again.
His hope to enter the house un.o.bserved proved vain. As he eased himself from the litter at the rear entrance, Sheritra came out, a cup of milk in her hand, and exclaimed, "Hori! Whatever have you been doing? You are filthy and scratched from head to toe and you smell awful!" She came closer. "And how did you hurt your knee?"
For answer he uncurled his fingers. The earring lay glowing complacently on his palm. "I opened the secret chamber in the tomb," he admitted ruefully. "And I found a tunnel. This was lying in it and it ripped my knee. Now I must confess to Father. Where is he?"
"In Mother"s rooms, playing sennet." She traced the wound with one gentle finger. "He will be furious with you, Hori, you know that, don"t you?" Then her gaze became fixed on the jewel. Lifting it, she turned it over thoughtfully. "Ancient turquoise," she commented. "This might mollify him a little if you are lucky. It reminds me of the turquoise Harmin was wearing yesterday. He had a fortune in ancient stone on his wrists and around his neck."
Those in love bring up the name of the beloved at every opportunity, Hori reflected wryly. Aloud he said, "What is a member of an impoverished n.o.ble family doing with a fortune in turquoise?"
"They are not impoverished, only modestly wealthy," she rebuked him quickly. "And besides, Harmin told me that the stones are heirlooms to be handed down to his son." She pa.s.sed him the earring. "You had better find Father. I don"t suppose you noticed the new house snake sunning himself as you came in?"
Hori shook his head and left her, making his way along the pa.s.sage towards his mother"s rooms His leg was now stiffening and he forced it to bend, the pain in his body and the discomfort in his conscience rendering him entirely miserable. He did not even have Antef to put the day into a better perspective.
Khaemwaset and Nubnofret were sitting on low stools just inside the steps that led down to the cloistered terrace and the side garden beyond. Their heads were together, bent over the sennet board, and as Hori went towards them he could hear the rattle of the sticks and his mother"s low laugh. Wernuro rose from her corner and bowed to him and he smiled at her, coming up to his parents and halting selfconsciously. You are a man, he told himself sternly. You made an adult decision. Now stand by it, you fool. His father was making a move, hand stroking his chin as he pondered the board, and it was Nubnofret who looked up, the breeze from the garden momentarily fluttering her scarlet linen. Her smile of welcome faded. "Hori!" she said. "What happened to you? Wernuro, bring a chair quickly."
Khaemwaset gave him one glance. "And wine also," he added. "Was there an accident at the tomb?"
The young man sank back into the chair Wernuro had placed respectfully behind him, noting at the same time the lack of surprise in his father"s voice and att.i.tude. It was almost as though Khaemwaset was waiting for something untoward. "Father, did you do the Tibi horoscopes by any chance?" he suddenly asked. Khaemwaset shook his head. "For Mekhir then? Mekhir is almost upon us." Again Khaemwaset shook his head. He was waiting for an explanation, and again Hori had the impression that his father had steeled himself for bad news. There was an air of strain about the alert, handsome features, a tension in Khaemwaset"s thickset, muscular body. For the first time, in spite of the trouble Hori felt he was embroiled in, he found himself looking at his father objectively, as another adult male, divorced from the hazy coc.o.o.n of fatherhood, authority and long familiarity that had always blunted Hori"s perception. Khaemwaset is a man in torment, Hori thought in surprise. How good looking he is with his intelligent eyes and wide shoulders! What is happening in the secret life of his ka? With these astonishing and somehow rea.s.suring thoughts Hori"s confidence came surging back. My father is a man just like myself, the revelation came. No more, and no less.
"Well I suppose we can do without our horoscopes for another month," he said slowly. "It does not really matter. And in answer to your question, Father, there was no accident at the tomb. I opened a door in the false wall today."
A dead silence fell. Wernuro"s small movements as she poured wine for Hori went almost unnoticed. Hori raised the silver cup, drank and replaced it. Khaemwaset was staring at him intently, obviously angry but also, it seemed to Hori, afraid. Nubnofret had turned towards the terrace and was gazing out at the trees now stirring against a softly reddening sky. This was none of her business.
At last Khaemwaset spoke, his voice unnaturally steady. "I do not recall giving you permission to do such a thing, my son." His eyes remained fixed on Hori"s face. Hori found himself entirely calm.
"I did not ask it," he replied. "I took the responsibility for the decision upon myself."
"Why?"
Tbubui"s reasoning unwound through Hori"s mind, and all at once her arguments seemed spurious, selfish. I have been lying to myself, he thought, still in that same brilliant calm. I will tell him the truth.
"Because I wanted to," he said. "You have shown little interest in the tomb and its findings, indeed, often you seem afraid of it. It has consumed the greater part of my time for the last three months. I chose to knock out the wall at my own convenience instead of waiting for you to do the deed at yours."
Khaemwaset blinked. His hand strayed to the sennet board and he picked up a gold cone, his thumb exploring its smooth surfaces absently. "The paintings?" he said. "Are they destroyed?" The anger was still there, Hori saw, simmering under this man"s rigid control.
"Yes," he replied brusquely. "The wall is in fact mostly rock, with a wood and plaster door set approximately in the middle of it. Opening the door meant reducing the scenes to flakes of plaster. I intend to have it rebuilt and the scenes repainted later."
There was another awkward silence. It was as though Khaemwaset longed to ask the inevitable question but dared not do so. At length he carefully replaced the cone on the House of Spitting, spread his hennaed hands palms up, and found the courage. "What was beyond the door, Hori?"
Hori sipped the wine and found himself hungry. "There is a small chamber containing two coffins, both empty. The coffins had no lids. They either never existed or they have vanished. The floor of the room is ankle deep in stagnant water. There are niches in the walls where the shawabtis ought to be standing, but they too are empty."
Khaemwaset nodded, his eyes still on his hands. "No inscriptions? No paintwork?"
"None. But I believe that the coffins were once occupied. Thieves broke in and rifled the contents, and probably tore apart the corpses. They entered through a narrow tunnel that links the chamber with the desert. I injured my knee crawling through it and dragging myself over this." He held out the earring. His father took it slowly and examined it, and Nubnofret came to life.
"How lovely it is, Khaemwaset!" she exclaimed. "Clean it and it would beautify any aristocratic neck!"
"I will clean it," he said with difficulty, "but it will be replaced in the tomb."
"No," Hori spoke up. "I will clean it and put it back." Khaemwaset shot him a dark glance but, to Hori"s amazement, he pa.s.sed back the gem and rose. will clean it and put it back." Khaemwaset shot him a dark glance but, to Hori"s amazement, he pa.s.sed back the gem and rose.
"Come and I will dress your wound," he said. "Nubnofret, we will finish the game later." His tone brooked no argument. Meekly Hori stood and followed him.
Khaemwaset cleaned, st.i.tched and bound the knee without a word. But as he was closing his herb chest he said, "You know that I am violently angry with you, don"t you, Hori?"
Hori wanted nothing more, now, than to go to sleep. "Yes I do," he answered. "But I also know that you are afraid. Why?"
His father stood motionless for a moment, then he sighed and slumped onto one of the large scroll containers. "Something has changed between us," he said. "Indeed the whole fabric of this family is changing and I do not know whether it is for good or ill. The scroll you saw me take-I read part of it aloud trying to translate it. And since then there has been Tbubui and this tomb. Sometimes I feel as if we have set out along a path from which we cannot turn back."
That is not all, Hori thought, regarding his father"s shadowed features. What the rest is, I have no idea. "So you have not seriously considered the answers to the mystery of the water, the baboons, the scroll itself?" he asked.
Khaemwaset straightened. "Of course I have!" he replied sharply. "But I am not sure I want to know the answers."
"Why? Shall we consider them now, together? Four bodies, Father, two of them hidden away behind a false wall. A tomb undesecrated, a secret but ravaged chamber, surely this is the challenge of a lifetime!"
"You should not presume that the inner chamber was robbed," Khaemwaset said carefully. "I will come with you tomorrow and see it, but it sounds as though the place was either never finished or deliberately left crudely cut and unpainted." He got up and offered an arm to his son. "Many times I have wished that we had left the accursed place alone. Let me help you to your couch."
Hori gratefully leaned on him. In a rush of affection the young man was tempted to blurt out his visit to Tbubui, his growing preoccupation with her, but the touch of his father"s flesh somehow forbade it. There will be time enough, he thought painfully, drowsily. That is a fight I must be healthy to win. I wish he had offered me poppy, but perhaps the withholding of it is his way of punishing me for my arrogance today. As soon as possible I will go to Sisenet"s house and tell Tbubui what I have done.
Along the pa.s.sages the servants were lighting the torches, and in his suite the lamps already glowed. Khaemwaset lowered him onto his couch, told him he might eat there later and bade him rest. Before his father had left the room, Hori was asleep.
He did not wake for dinner. A servant brought food, which after a time cooled and congealed, but Hori slumbered on. He came to himself once, sensing the lateness of the hour by the air of deep calm that suffused the house. His night lamp had gone out and his body servant lay snoring quietly beyond the bedchamber door. His knee throbbed in a relentless rhythm but he knew it was not the pain that had woken him. He had been dreaming something unsettling, something verging on nightmare, but he could not now remember what it was. Struggling up he poured himself water and drank thirstily, then lay down again and stared into the darkness When next he formed a conscious thought, his breakfast was being placed by his feet and the doors to his private shrine were being opened. Today will be difficult, he thought, picking at the food. Father will still be in a bad humour and my wound will be at its worst. Well, at least Antef comes home soon. But the thought of his servant and best friend returning did not give him the stab of excitement it should have. Antef would wait for Hori to suggest a hunting expedition, a fishing afternoon, a jaunt to the markers or a boating party with other friends. They had always been close. Antef had never crossed the ephemeral and sometimes complicated line of deference that must forever separate him from his royal companion. Still, theirs was a warm and companionable relationship. The gossip mongers of Memphis had at one time gleefully spread the rumour that Antef was in fact Khaemwaset"s son by a concubine or, better still, a servant girl, but the story soon died. The Prince was too upright a man not to acknowledge his offspring and Memphis was full of juicier topics of conversation.
In Antef, Hori had found his equal in matters of opinion, taste and physical pursuits, and Antef could keep a royal secret as well as any well trained servant. All the same, Hori thought as he lit the incense before Ptah and hurried through his morning prayers, I do not know if I wish to divulge to him my interest in Tbubui. A woman can destroy a friendship, indeed, Tbubui is already affecting my feelings for Antef. I do not want to go hunting or roaming in the markets with him. I do not want to spend my leisure time in the garden drinking beer and teasing each other about the last wrestling bout we had. When I was younger we traded lies concerning our s.e.xual prowess but I cannot betray Tbubui like that. If I confide in him will he understand that I want to spend most of my time with her? Guiltily, he wrenched his mind back to the smiling golden G.o.d with his gleaming blue lapis cap whom he served, and finished his obeisances with proper attention. Then he ordered out his litter, allowed his body servant to paint his face and limped out of the house.
Two hours later he stood with Khaemwaset amid the rubble left when the false wall was torn down, staring at the two newly exposed coffins. Torches had been fixed to the rock on either side of the untidy hole and they sent an unsteady red light into the chamber which did nothing to dispel its sinister atmosphere. After a while Hori retired to the camp stool his servant had brought, his now stiff leg flung out before him, and watched his father pick up a lamp and splash his way to the coffins. Khaemwaset grimaced as Hori had done at the distasteful odour and feel of the pool. After a careful examination of the sarcophagi he waded back to his son.
"You are right," he said briskly. "They were occupied at one time. But if the bodies were dismembered by thieves in search of valuables and flung into the water, there would be some trace of them. The linen windings and mummified flesh would have dissolved but not the bones. Are you sure nothing lies under the water?"
"Nothing," Hori replied firmly. "I hated to do it but I slid my feet over every inch of the floor. It is slimy rock, no more. Father, is it possible that the princess Ahura and her husband were first buried there, in the small chamber, and later, when the tomb was inspected and found to be seeping water, the sem-priests had new coffins made for them out here?"
"It is possible," Khaemwaset agreed. "But then why is the first burial room so poorly executed? Did these people have three chambers instead of the customary two, one for goods and one for bodies, and if so why? For a child, perhaps, or children? But if that is so, if the tomb was opened later by other members of the family, why the subterfuge of a false wall? What had to be hidden, Hori? There is nothing in that room. Thieves look for valuables, small things, and may destroy but ultimately leave behind anything not easily portable. Yet beneath the water there is no trace of splintered furniture, shrine pieces, statues, anything. And if the chamber was prepared for other members of the family, surely it would have been as lavishly decorated as the rest of the tomb." He pushed his feet back into his sandals and Kasa knelt to lace them. "Only one child, a son, is depicted on these walls," he went on. "I confess I am completely puzzled. I do not think that we shall ever unravel the answers."
"Well what of the scroll?" Hori suggested. "Can you not look at it again, Father? And perhaps this time it will be clearer to you? It may contain some hint for us."
"It may," Khaemwaset said doubtfully, hesitantly. "And I know that if we repair and re-seal this place without exploring all avenues of speculation you will always be dissatisfied."
"Will you not also wonder about it from time to time?" Hori asked diffidently, noting his father"s unease. Khaemwaset was glancing slowly around, one hand tightly gripping the Eye of Horus pectoral resting on his broad chest. He shook his head emphatically.
"I think I have hated this place from the moment Penbuy came to us with news of its discovery," he said in a low voice. "I still do not know why. Have the workmen begin to rebuild this wall, Hori. There is nothing more to be gained by leaving it down. I am going home. I cannot bear the stench of this water, and it has fouled my kilt."
Hori watched him rub at a grey splatter as he moved quickly towards the glow of sunlight filtering along the pa.s.sage. Then he was gone. The Overseer of Works and Khaemwaset"s Master Mason stood politely with eyes downcast, waiting for instructions. Hori left the stool. "You had better begin the reconstruction," he told them. "I cannot be here today but you have my authority to make any decisions necessary regarding the wall. I shall be back tomorrow morning."
I hope Father can bring himself to examine the scroll again, he thought as he negotiated the steps with his servant"s discreet a.s.sistance and collapsed, with a curse at his swollen knee, onto his litter. I hardly considered it as a factor when I was chewing on the tough problems of the water and the baboons and now the walled-off room, but I am now beginning to believe that it holds the key to this aggravating excavation. Nothing else does, and the inscriptions and scenes Penbuy"s a.s.sistants have so painstakingly transcribed are pretty but useless. "To the watersteps," he commanded with a thrill of pleasure. The earring lay wrapped under the little cushions. He intended to visit Tbubui, with it and his adventures yesterday as the excuse. Had she not, after all, begged him to let her know what transpired? She would commiserate with him over his knee. She would ply him with good wine, make him comfortable, her sympathy would shine from those huge black eyes. Now that his father"s somewhat cursory examination of the find was over without so much as one sharp word, the rest of the day stretched ahead full of latent possibilities. Hori closed his eyes and smiled.
Although he would have preferred to walk, he was carried from the skiff along the winding path under the tall palms. The house was as he remembered it, low and freshly whitewashed, rambling and silent. He felt he had left it years ago. The front garden was deserted and for the first time Hori wondered if his appearance might be inconvenient, but as he alighted and told his bearers to wait for him under the trees by the riverbank, a servant came out, bowed and stood stoically. He was entirely black, a pure Nubian, Hori conjectured, with powerful shoulders and a blunt face. He reminded the young man of the shawabtis in the tomb, black, ebony with gold collars, each deaf and dumb until the moment when their master called them to perform their duties in the next world. "Tell the lady Tbubui that Prince Hori is here and wishes to speak with her," he ordered. The man bowed again, still with head lowered, indicated that Hori should precede him into the entrance hall, then vanished. Hori sank onto a chair. In spite of his rapid heartbeat, his antic.i.p.ation, the almost stultifying peace of the house began to settle over him.
He did not have long to wait. Tbubui herself came gliding towards him, reverencing him several times as she did so, a welcoming smile lighting her features. She was barefoot, as usual, one golden anklet tinkling as she moved, her wrists imprisoned by two thick, plain gold bracelets. Beneath the thin white body-hugging linen of her sheath her brown skin could be glimpsed, and this time Hori made no attempt to wrench his gaze from the clean curves of her hips and thighs, the slight quiver of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her hair had been imprisoned in a dozen braids, exposing the n.o.ble length of aristocratic neck and her pure, uncluttered chin. Green eye-paint gave her eyes a l.u.s.trous sheen, and her mouth was hennaed orange.
"Highness!" she exclaimed as she came up to him. "Your knee! Whatever have you been doing?"
She might be talking to a child, Hori thought a little mutinously. That is how she sees me. As a child to be condescended to and indulged. He realized that she had not waited for him to speak first as she should have done and he pushed himself to his feet.
"Greetings, Tbubui," he said coolly. "I took your advice and opened the false wall in the tomb yesterday. Today I come to tell you what transpired."
Her smile widened. "Wonderful! But you look drawn, Prince. Are you in pain? Would you like wine? I do not suggest the garden today. It is too hot. Let us retire to my suite where there is a comfortable chair and some cushions."
Hori"s rebellious moment melted away. He followed her awkwardly into the rear pa.s.sage and turned right, away from Harmin"s quarters. Presently she entered a room and held the door for him. A female servant rose from the corner and bowed.
"Your Highness should take the chain by the couch," Tbubui said. "I can testify to its comfort for I spent much time in it when my foot was injured. You!" She addressed the servant. "Bring a footstool and cushions and a jar of wine." The girl inclined her head and turned away. Are all the servants here forbidden to open their mouths? Hori wondered, taking the chair. I have not heard one of them speak.
The footstool was brought and piled with cushions. The quiet girl lifted his leg with the lightest of touches and settled it on the softness, then went away, came back with wine, poured and was dismissed. Tbubui sat on the edge of the couch. Out of the corner of his eye Hori noticed a tiring chest with lid flung back and a scarlet sheath spilling over its side. A vanity table covered in neatly aligned pots and jars stood next to the chest, and on the floor, as though flung there, was a scarlet ostrich fan.
"It is so wonderfully cool in here," "he said slowly, picking up the silver wine cup. "To you, Tbubui. Life, Prosperity, and Happiness!"
"Thank you, Prince," she smiled. "An old wish and a very welcome one. Now please tell me what happened to you yesterday. And what did Khaemwaset say when you told him what you had done?"
The couch behind her was neatly made, the shine of the linen subdued by the half-light. An ivory headrest stood beneath it. She was looking at him expectantly, leaning forward, her mouth slightly parted, her small teeth glimpsed within. It would be so easy to sully that perfectly made couch, Hori thought. One lunge and I would have her on her back, out of breath, disarmed by surprise. Would she cry out? I do not think so. Gasp? Perhaps. In either case I could have my lips against hers before she could recover her aplomb. The savagery and vividness of the scene that had burst into his mind horrified him and he forced a deep breath. "Father was very angry," he said with an effort, "but he concealed it well. Today he inspected what I had done but made no comment."
She nodded, and he went on describing the events of the previous day-his tension, his feelings of trepidation and excitement. She listened attentively but, when Hori began to talk of the tunnel, he sensed an increasing agitation, though she did not stir. She seemed all eyes, intent and alert. But how mysterious!" she interrupted him. "Did you explore this place?"
"Yes," he said triumphantly. "I did. And I found this." He extracted the earring from the pouch at his belt and handed it to her. "That is what tore my knee, but it was worthwhile, do you not think so? Such lovely old turquoise and such fine goldwork to hold it." It lay on her hennaed palm like a drop of limpid Nile water, blue and green, and Hori, eagerly searching her face for approval, saw a most peculiar expression flit across it. Greed, satisfaction, anger, he could not decide which. "Put it on," he offered, and she smiled very slowly.
"Will I not enrage the ka of the lady who once owned it?" she asked with a trace of mockery, and Hori smiled back.
"That lady"s ka must know that I intend to put it back in the tomb unharmed," he stated, "and besides, how could she be offended to see her precious thing adorning so much beauty?"
For answer she pushed a braid behind her ear and screwed the earring into her lobe. It swung gracefully to and fro beside the long sweep of her neck and did indeed look as though it had been made for her. "Hori, fetch me a mirror," she asked, then she laughed. "I was forgetting about your poor knee. I will get it myself." Sliding off the couch she swayed to her vanity table, and to Hori there was something dreamlike about her motion, something private, as though for a moment she believed herself alone.
Grasping the copper mirror lying face down on the table she held it up like a votive candle in both hands, chin raised, eyes half closed, back arched, tilting her glossy head this way and that and murmuring gently. Hori could not catch what she was saying. Then she returned the mirror with a snap and came back to him. "I wonder what happened to its mate?" she said. "Perhaps thieves made off with it, as you have surmised. A pity." She regained the couch, this time sliding back on it languidly. One foot remained on the floor, the white sheath parting at the slit to reveal the long, brown strength of thigh and calf. "Would I be permitted to wear it for a little while?" she asked, and at her tone of pretty submission Hori"s heart once more began to thud. He nodded, not trusting his voice.
Her movements had stirred the air and her perfume was suddenly in his nostrils, the myrrh of s.e.x and worship and that other fragrance, elusive and tantalizing. She was stroking the earring with the fingers of one elegant hennaed hand. "You have told me of your escapade yesterday and of Khaemwaset"s response," she went on. "But Highness, you have not yet spoken of any conclusions to be drawn from the new discovery. Does the small chamber shed any light on the rest of the tomb or its inhabitants?"
"Not really," Hori admitted. "Having seen the tomb, Tbubui, you and your brother know as much about it as we do. A shameful admission! Father and I are supposed to be the historians."
"But so is Sisenet," Tbubui added. "He and I have often discussed the nature of the water, the baboons, the lids, to no avail. Tell me," she went on, her fingers still absently fondling the earring. "What happened to the scroll Khaemwaset cut from the dead hand? You do not mention it at all."
"Father still has it in safekeeping," Hori answered. "He does not look at it anymore. He tried to decipher it, you know, and was defeated. Strange that you should mention it, Tbubui, for it came into my mind quite forcibly today that it may well hold the key to all the irritating mysteries of the place. I intend to ask Father if I may inspect it." She cast him a smile of indulgent sweetness as if to say, If the greatest historian in Egypt cannot decipher it, how can you? and Hori was mortified. "Of course such an inspection on my part will be all but futile," he hastened to say, "but who knows? I may thus prompt him to attempt another translation. My workmen are even now re-sealing the second burial chamber and soon the whole tomb will be closed. Time is short."
Her hand left her ear and drifted down to rest on her thigh. Hori"s gaze went with it. "I would very much like to see it also," she said with a charming diffidence, all superiority gone. "But my interest would seem entirely frivolous to your august father. However, my brother has some skills in the matter of the translation of ancient scripts. He might possibly be able to help."
Now it was Hori"s turn to feel a secret scorn. "Your pardon, Tbubui, but your brother is surely no more than a clever amateur," he replied loftily. "The scroll is fragile and irreplaceable and unskilled hands might damage it."
"Oh, I think there is no fear of that," she countered softly, her eyes huge in the dim light of the chamber. "Sisenet is used to handling valuable scrolls. He has deciphered all the records left by Osiris Hatshepsut"s caravan overseers who were, as you may remember, our ancestors."
"No, I did not know that," Hori answered. "Then if you like I will ask my father"s permission on your brother"s behalf, to try to read the scroll. Will he be interested in it?"
"Oh yes," Tbubui said slowly, emphatically. "He will be very interested indeed. More wine, Prince?"
When he nodded, she rose from the couch in one fluid movement, took up the jar and bent to pour for him. It seemed to Hori that she came closer than was entirely necessary. He inhaled the gush of perfume and warmth rising from her cleavage, and seeing her braids fall forward he gently pushed them back. Her shoulder was inches from his mouth, satin smooth and gleaming. Unable to resist any longer, he learned forward, closed his eyes and pressed his lips to her flesh. It was cool and tasted of lotus water. Still with eyes tightly shut he moved his tongue towards her neck and down, seeking the delicious hollow of her collarbone, then up, up and over her chin. At last her mouth was there, slightly parted, her lips soft and yielding. She had not stirred. Thrusting his tongue between them he kissed her ardently, trying to salve the wound of l.u.s.t, his hands going blindly to cup her b.r.e.a.s.t.s that were fuller, heavier than he had first supposed. But when he broke away, dazed and breathing hard, he found the wound throbbing more fiercely than before.
"Well, young Prince," she murmured. "That was flattering."
"Flattering?" he burst out. "I am besotted with you, Tbubui! I cannot eat or sleep for desiring you. Now I know why the gorgeous little girls of my grandfather"s court left me lonely and wanting something I did not recognize until now. I was aloof, self-sufficient. I was asleep!" His voice was coa.r.s.e and ragged, his expression strained. "Let me woo you, persuade you that I am more than a youth. You could do worse than be betrothed into the most powerful family in Egypt!"
Her eyebrows rose. "But my dear Hori, you do not really know me at all. How can I be anything but a body blending with a fantasy to you? Explore my character and you may find yourself disappointed." She stroked his hair with a gentle maternal touch. "This is infatuation. Nothing more."
He struck her hand away then s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and kissed it fervently, licking the tips of her fingers. "I have never been a young man with a light heart," he groaned. "This is not infatuation Tbubui. It will last."
She made no move to withdraw her hand. "You would be the laughing-stock of every n.o.ble in Egypt," she warned him. "My blood may be aristocratic, but it is not the blood of full grandeur required of a prince"s wife. I am too old for you."
He laid her fingers between both his palms and managed a wan smile.
"And how old are you?"
There was a pause. Then she chuckled. "The G.o.ds have given me thirty-five years."
"I don"t care!"
"But I do. I cannot bind a man so young." She pulled from his grasp and he at last sat back. His head was drumming and he felt a little sick. Suddenly he became aware of the pain in his knee.
"Do you feel nothing for me, then?" he asked.
"Whatever would your father say?" she countered. "Hori, you are an attractive man and I am not immune to your magnetism. No one in Egypt is immune. But I must regard you as a dear young friend. You may visit me whenever you wish, providing you keep your feelings a secret from your family and other friends. Is it agreed?"
"Agreed," he whispered. His poise had deserted him long ago, replaced by the need to prove himself as a man that her perhaps unconsciously patronizing att.i.tude made worse. "But you did not answer my question."
"Yes, Prince," she said pointedly. "I did. Now would you like something to eat? A fresh dressing for your wound?"