"I always do." Khaemwaset took Sheritra"s elbow. "Would you like to see the dead, my dearest?"
Sheritra was not squeamish. She nodded eagerly and, with her father on one side and Hori on the other, bent her head under the low lintel of the farther doorway.
Inside the light was softer, more diffused. The two sarcophagi bulked dimly, and Thoth was a dusky authoritarian presence. The three approached the bodies. Sheritra said nothing. She merely leaned over each one and studied it.
"She is the Princess Ahura," Khaemwaset told her. "We do not know the Prince"s name. Their son is not here, obviously. Perhaps when all the work is done we will know better."
"Poor things," Sheritra said softly. "Undoubtedly it is a wonderful thing, to sit under the sacred sycamore tree with the blessed dead in Osiris"s kingdom, but, Father, I am more than glad that soon we will get on our litters and go home to Mother"s superlative feast."
"Sheritra, you are such a greedy little thing!" Hori teased her. She replied lightly, and Khaemwaset listened to their banter without paying much attention to the words. His own glance had pa.s.sed very carefully over the corpses. Nothing had changed. Even the ends of the threads that had bound the scroll to the prince"s hand were curled as he remembered them yesterday. He was aware of a relief pooling through him like warm water, and was at a loss to explain it. He felt happy, boyish, full of fun.
"How long before the work is completed and the tomb can be re-sealed?" he asked Hori.
The young man considered. "It is hard to say," he replied. "It depends on the artists, of course. No repairs are necessary, so all should be ready for the offerings very soon."
"I think we should put the lids on the coffins," Khaemwaset said slowly. "It is not right for these two to lie open to the dust like this, and besides, if in the future thieves do get in, the lids will discourage them from pillaging the bodies for precious amulets."
Hori looked at him curiously, and Khaemwaset wondered if something strange was showing on his face or betraying itself in his voice.
"Very well," Hori agreed. "We take a risk, seeing that we do not know why they were not put in place originally, but our intentions are pure and will doubtless absolve us from any retribution from the dead."
Khaemwaset"s bright mood began to fade. "We will leave you to your labour," he said to his son. "Remind Amek"s men that the guard is to be maintained until the tomb is finally closed, will you, Hori? And make sure the fellahin get plenty of beer and vegetables. Their jobs are the hardest." He moved back towards the stronger light of the antechamber and the blessed, living white light of the direct sun shafting down the steps. "Sheritra," he called over his shoulder. "It is still too early to go home. Would you like a jaunt through the city? We can see what new baubles are on display in the markets."
"I suppose we might as well sin fully," she called back, and together they walked to the litters.
Instead of turning north to skirt the temples of the kings in the Ankh-tawy district, Khaemwaset ordered the bearers to veer south, cutting across the edge of the southern suburbs where most of the common foreigners lived and crossing the ca.n.a.l that was fed by the Nile and linked the temples of Hathor in the south and Ptah in the north. Khaemwaset had not bothered to include Ramose in his entourage, and it was st.u.r.dy Amek who called the warning to the increasingly thick crowds to give way and pay homage to the son of Pharaoh.
Soon the noise and stir of the Peru-nefer district began to a.s.sault their senses, and the narrow streets of riverside Memphis intersected around them, lined with two- and three-storey mud houses and shops and fronted by canopied stalls behind which the keepers shouted their wares. In spite of the crush of people, the braying of donkeys and the shrieks of naked children rolling in the dust and litter, Amek managed to keep a s.p.a.ce of reverence around his royal charges.
Sheritra saw something that caught her eye and Khaemwaset ordered the litters halted. He watched her as she scrambled onto the street, her linens displaced and her sandals forgotten in the bottom of her litter. Sheritra rushed across to a stall piled with vases and oddly carved boxes that surely came from Alashia, judging by the weird sea creatures ill.u.s.trated on them.
But once there her shyness took over and she hung back, arms folded, eyes on the display. Khaemwaset gestured to Amek, who went to her and discreetly asked what she was interested in, and, while she whispered and Amek haggled, Khaemwaset looked through the milling bodies to the river, glimpsed briefly and then lost again as the people moved.
He was enjoying himself. Nubnofret would be aghast if she knew that her daughter was standing in a public place amid the dust and offal, engaged in a purchase of insulting cheapness while beside her three men were reeling, drunk, onto the street from the inviting coolness of a beer-house.
Soon Sheritra came up to him, arms wrapped about an ugly, biliously green pot, a wide smile on her face. "It is a disgusting thing," she said breathlessly, "but I like it and I will make Bakmut fill it with blooms. Where are we going now?"
Khaemwaset ordered the litters turned homeward on the river road with a sense of regret. The afternoon had been worth the sharp words Nubnofret would rain on their heads. The road that followed the bank of the water was much wider than the city streets, and they were able to sway along side by side. The crowds were still plentiful but moved in a constant fashion, and their progress was faster.
They had crossed the bridge over the ca.n.a.l that led from the river to the watersteps of Ptah"s temple when Khaemwaset, idly watching the weaving citizens ahead, suddenly stiffened and sat straight. A woman was striding away from him, her naked feet kicking up little puffs of dust. She was tall and supple-spined, moving with a confident, loose swing of her hips that caused those around her to step out of the way. Khaemwaset could not see her face. She held her head, with its cap of gleaming black hair, very high, and was not glancing to right or left. Her arms swung unselfconsciously, brushing her white-clad thighs, and on both wrists she was wearing twisted silver bracelets that resembled snakes.
"Look at that woman!" Sheritra called across to him, pointing. "That one, there! What presence she has, doesn"t she, Father? Her walk is almost arrogant, in spite of the fact that she is wearing a very old-fashioned sheath and no sandals."
"Yes, I see her," Khaemwaset called back, hands clenched in his lap, neck craning to keep her in view. Her sheath was indeed old-fashioned. It followed the contours of her lithe body in white curves, beginning at her shoulder blades, clinging to the small of her back and ending at those flexing ankles. Khaemwaset"s eyes travelled its length, noting how her firm b.u.t.tocks under the gleaming linen were clenching and loosening, clenching and loosening.... She had cut a slit up one side of the tight garb in order to stride out, and he watched her long brown leg appear, straighten lazily, then disappear, only to fill his vision once more.
"Is that a wig, do you think, or is it her own hair?" Sheritra was saying. "In either case, no one wears their locks like that any more. Mother would not approve of her her!"
No, she would not, Khaemwaset thought, his throat tight. There is a controlled ferocity about that walk that would antagonize Nubnofret immediately. "Move faster!" he shouted at his bearers. "I want to catch up to that person. Amek, run ahead and stop her." Why are they not all staring at her? he wondered. He watched Amek struggle through the crowd as the pace of his bearers quickened, but with a sinking in his stomach he knew that his captain would not catch up with her. Even as he became aware of his own nails digging into his palms and released the frenetic grip on himself, she was swallowed up and was gone. Amek came back. "I am sorry, Prince," he said. "For all her grace, she ate up the ground."
So Amek had noticed also. Khaemwaset shrugged. "Do not worry," he replied. "It was just a pa.s.sing fancy, and we must be getting home." Sheritra"s eyes were on him in speculation. He glanced down at the white marks on his palms then looked across at her. "I have been more curious than circ.u.mspect," he said, and she smiled.
"One may appreciate beauty without any blame," she comforted him. "I too saw that she was lovely."
For once the self-deprecation in his daughter"s voice merely annoyed Khaemwaset. He grunted, barked a loud order and twitched the curtains of his litter closed, riding to his front gate and the challenge of his gatekeeper in his mud hut with eyes closed and a growing sense of loss.
5.
Oh Man who givest way to thy pa.s.sions, what is thy condition?
He cries out, his voice reaches to heaven.
O Moon, accuse him of his crimes.
AS HE AND SHERITRA MOVED AS HE AND SHERITRA MOVED stealthily through the house, Khaemwaset could hear the servants chattering as they lit the lamps in the garden. "We are both filthy, and reek of the bazaar," Sheritra whispered. "Do we appear like this but on time, or do we wash and be late?" stealthily through the house, Khaemwaset could hear the servants chattering as they lit the lamps in the garden. "We are both filthy, and reek of the bazaar," Sheritra whispered. "Do we appear like this but on time, or do we wash and be late?"
"We wash," Khaemwaset answered firmly. "Tardiness is not as high on your mother"s list of crimes as dirtiness. Be quick though, Sheritra;"
They parted. In Khaemwaset"s quarters Kasa was waiting, his arms full of towels, clean linen and appropriate jewellery laid out on the couch. "The Princess is furious," he said in answer to Khaemwaset"s brusque query. "She wanted to know where you had gone. The Princess Sheritra did not play her lute today." Khaemwaset was already on his way to the bath house with Kasa padding behind. "I know," he said. "These little escapes of mine are scarcely worth it, Kasa. Nubnofret"s wrath is a terrible thing when roused. Wash me quickly."
Before long he was stepping from the increasing gloom of the house into the warm evening glow of the garden. Sheritra was already there, sitting with her knees drawn up under a plain blue gown, her encircling arms hung with several lapis bracelets and a lapis circlet resting on her brow. Her face was unpainted. She was talking to Hori who was lounging in the gra.s.s beside her, his hair damp from his own bath. Khaemwaset approached them through the soft twilight, taking the chair behind which a servant was bowing. He had time to do no more than greet his son before Nubnofret appeared from between the pillars, a servant bearing a tray of delicacies behind her. Khaemwaset took a clove of garlic steeped in honey, aware of Nubnofret"s frozen face as she sank gracefully into the chair beside him.
Sheritra was giving Hori a spirited account of their day. "And we saw the most extraordinary woman!" Sheritra said. "Wasn"t she, Father? Sort of arrogant but easy, if you know what I mean." Nubnofret turned quizzical and rather too sharp eyes on her husband, and Khaemwaset found himself suddenly unwilling to discuss the creature who had paced ahead of him, tall and supple and magnetic, and had left a tiny bleeding scratch in his mind like the swipe of a cat"s claw. "She was indeed unusual," he agreed. "Nubnofret, how much longer is dinner going to be?"
"Not more than a few minutes," his wife replied, obviously annoyed, "though I am surprised that having come home late you wish to rush to your food."
For a little while longer the family shared their news in the rapidly darkening garden, while the lights in the house began to cast pale beams over the velvet flowers and the crystal movement of the fountain became a grey cascade. The fish in the ornamental pond at the farther end rose to the surface and made little eddies as they snapped at the mosquitoes that swarmed over them, and the monkeys shambled close to the group and squatted, their eyes on the tray and their furry hands outstretched.
Finally Nubnofret relented. Nodding at Ib as the household"s Senior Steward, she rose, and the others followed suit.
I wonder what that woman is doing tonight. The thought came to Khaemwaset without warning as he mounted the few wide steps between his pillars and turned towards the wonderful mix of aromas blowing from the dining room where the musicians were already playing. Has she a husband, and are they walking together in their garden, enjoying the night breeze? Does she live with her parents, perhaps, a person of inscrutable aloofness, scorning men, even now alone in her apartments while her family entertains some eager suitor who will never have the privilege of touching her? No, his thoughts ran on as he took his place in the pile of cushions. She is not a girl. Many suitors have come and gone but she is not interested. She is a commoner who knows that her worth is greater than all of them, and she waits for a prince.
Nubnofret was settling herself beside him, and for a moment Khaemwaset felt the lash of her tongue. "I am used to being deserted by you on any occasion you might find boring or not necessary for good governmental relations," she hissed, "but I will not have you subverting my authority with Sheritra or encouraging her to shirk her duties in this house! I will not have you teaching her that self-indulgence is acceptable."
Looking into her fiery eyes, he wanted to explain that he had been trying to apologize to Sheritra for letting her down the night before, but he could not make the effort. Not at the moment. "I am really sorry, Nubnofret," he said quietly, "and you are right. I will not argue with you." She blinked and sat back, her expression softening. She had obviously expected a sharp retort from him. He kissed her softly on the cheek and suddenly she took his face in both her hands and pressed her full mouth against his.
"You drive me to distraction," she said throatily, "but I love you all the same." She tasted of sweet honeyed wine, and her tongue had flicked his own.
In spite of his intention to devote the rest of the evening to his family, Khaemwaset found his thoughts circling the mysterious woman while his mouth spoke of inconsequential things. He saw her heels rise, her calves tighten as she walked. He saw her white sheath rub against her outer thigh. It is ridiculous, he told himself. Egypt is full of beautiful women of every nationality. I see them every time I leave home, enter a temple, move through the palace at Pi-Ramses. Why this woman? He had no answer, and in the end dismissed her from his mind with the energy of years of self-discipline. He had his cup refilled for the fourth time, noticing that for once Nubnofret was matching him, and did his best to join his children"s light-hearted conversation but the wine was better, rich and cool, and in the end he fell silent and let it lead him where it would.
Later, as he slid rapidly towards sleep, he was aware that he had had more wine than was good for him. Drunkenness was a pleasant pastime. Everyone indulged themselves, but Khaemwaset knew that he was becoming too old, at thirtyseven, to function well the following day if he had imbibed too freely the night before. Nubnofret will have a sore head tomorrow too, he thought, mildly annoyed with himself as his eyes closed and he pulled the sheets up over his shoulders. I drank from guilt and she from irritation, I suppose. One should only drink from joy. That was his last coherent thought.
He dreamed, and in the dream he was sitting on the gra.s.s in a Delta orchard, under the full weight of a noon sun, but there was no discomfort, only a feeling of tremendous well-being. Good, he thought in his dream, closing his eyes and lifting his face. This is an omen of great pleasure to come. The trees around him were heavy with ripe fruit, and now and then he could hear the soft thud of an apple detaching itself and falling to the ground. For a while he remained thus, in a bath of contentment, not wondering, for this was a dream, why the scent of blossom was so strong at harvest time.
Then another awareness began. His p.e.n.i.s was stirring, swelling under his plain linen kilt, becoming fully hard. Another good omen, his dream self thought happily, opening its eyes. My possessions will multiply. Through the glare of sunlight he thought he caught a flicker of movement in the shade where the trees stood dusty and motionless. White linen, the suspicion of a brown leg with foot pointed, a hand sliding around a trunk, the fingers long and graceful, caressing the bark. I am as hard as that wood, he whispered, and full of sap. Full of sap ... He was dizzy with pleasure and the tension of his erection, his eyes on those fingers stroking, pressing, exploring ... He woke with his knees drawn up, both hands around his p.e.n.i.s. He was oozing sweat. His sheets lay in a crumpled pile on the floor.
Groggily, with an unpleasant lurching in his head, he staggered up. d.a.m.n the wine, he thought, grabbing a handful of linen and winding it around his waist. He groped his way to the door and stepped out into the pa.s.sage. He had no idea what time it was, but it felt very late. The house was silent. Stumbling a little, he made his way to Nubnofret"s suite and let himself in over the snoring body of her guard. Wernuro was also fast asleep, limbs akimbo on her mat by the door. Khaemwaset went around her and straight through into his wife"s bedroom.
She too was snoring gently, her sleeping gown open to the waist, sheets bunched around her knees. This is not Nubnofret, he thought dimly as he bent over her. Not my fastidious wife. This is Nubnofret my drunken wife. The words increased the s.e.xual urgency that had impelled him there. He eased clumsily onto the couch beside her, pushing the thin linen away, and his lips closed over her nipple. It hardened immediately and she moaned, pushing against his mouth. He felt her legs untangle, her thighs part.
"Khaemwaset?" she murmured.
"Yes," he whispered back. "Are you awake? Am I welcome, Nubnofret?"
For answer she took his hand and placed it between her legs, her head coming up to receive his kiss. Her body smelt of the heavy perfume she liked and her flesh was hot and yielding. He made love to her in the daze of his dream and his need, hearing her cry out her own climax moments before his own exploded. He collapsed onto her, trembling and wet, but she went on crying. "Nubnofret?" he grunted, puzzled and disoriented, and she pushed him roughly away.
"That"s Sheritra," she said tersely, and slid out from under him, reaching for her gown at the same time. Dazedly he fumbled to tie the sheet once more around his waist, and they hurried into the pa.s.sage.
Wernuro and the guard were now awake, Wernuro struggling sleepily to light a lamp. Nubnofret brushed past them. Khaemwaset"s eyes were on the tumble of russet hair down her back, the swift padding of her naked feet under the floating white gown. Naked feet, he thought, suddenly confused. Naked feet. Sunlight. Apple orchard. My dream. Like a blow he knew then that the woman who had been lurking behind the laden tree in his dream was the same one that he and Sheritra had pursued that afternoon, and he had just rendered the protecting spell of the morning null and void by making love to Nubnofret. How did it happen? he asked himself, aghast. To me of all people! Such loss of control is inexcusable. I am unguarded, we are all defenceless.
Nubnofret was turning into Sheritra"s quarters just as Bakmut was coming out. The servant bowed. "What is wrong?" Nubnofret asked sharply. "A nightmare, I think," the girl answered. "I am on my way to fetch a little wine for the Princess, to calm her. She is fully awake now."
Khaemwaset did not wait. Stepping past the two women, he strode to Sheritra"s couch. His daughter was sitting up, arms about her knees in a characteristic gesture, her face pale. When she saw him she held out her arms and he sank onto the couch while she buried her face in his shoulder.
"What is it, Little Sun?" he asked soothingly. "It"s all right now. I"m here."
"I don"t really know," Sheritra replied, a quaver in her voice though she was trying to keep it steady. "I never have bad dreams, Father, you know that, but tonight, just now ..." She shuddered and lifted her head "It was something terrible, fearsome, not a person or an animal but a feeling, like something growing behind me, without eyes or ears but aware of me as prey, something malevolent to devour me."
Nubnofret had seated herself and taken Sheritra"s hand. "Bakmut will be here in a moment with the wine," she said rea.s.suringly, "and you will drink and sleep again. It was only a dream, my dear. See, your father and I are here and your things are all around you, safely and sanely. Hear that owl, hunting? You are at home in your own bed, and all is well." She was stroking the pallid hand as she spoke, smiling at both of them. Khaemwaset was overcome with tenderness for her. He put his free arm around her shoulders.
"I"m sorry to have disturbed you," Sheritra said. "I did wrong today, Mother, and this may very well be the punishment of my conscience."
For once Nubnofret did not take advantage of the statement. "I do not think so," she said. "Here is Bakmut. Drink the wine, and we will stay with you until you fall asleep again."
Sheritra"s plain features relaxed. Taking the cup, she drank deeply, then burrowed down into her pillow. "Tell me a story, Father," she asked drowsily, and, with an amused glance at his wife, he began to do so, but he had only recited a few sentences when Sheritra"s breathing became regular and her eyes ceased to flutter under the pale lids. He and Nubnofret crept out and Bakmut closed the door behind them.
"We used to do this when the children were very small," Nubnofret said to Khaemwaset as they walked back down the pa.s.sage. "Although Sheritra was so frightened, I felt almost young again." She smiled at him wistfully out of a welter of disordered hair.
"You feel old, Nubnofret?" he asked, startled. "But you never ..."
"I never give any indication of my years?" she finished for him. "That does not mean that I do not feel them, Khaemwaset. I am not altogether the coldly efficient mistress of a royal household, you know." Khaemwaset looked for accusation in her face, but there was none. She was staring up at him hesitantly, like a young girl longing for a kiss but too afraid to make the first move, love in her still sleep-swollen eyes. He took her in his arms. "Will you stay with me tonight?" she begged. "I have not felt the warmth of your body beside me for so long." Again he looked for recrimination and found none.
"I would like that also," he agreed, and thought to himself, The incantation is destroyed. What harm can it do? Yet as he lay on his side under her sheets and felt her fit her body around his, he saw again the woman on the street, and all at once the dark house around and over him seemed full of the foreboding of Sheritra"s nightmare. He fell asleep with a prayer on his lips.
In the morning he had a lingering headache and a huge fatigue. He and the rest of the family, subdued and quiet, gathered briefly in the coolness of the reception hall before scattering to the day"s duties.
"I am going to look over the long-neglected plans for the Apis burials, and then I am going to spend some time in the temple of Ptah," Khaemwaset told them. Nubnofret"s answer was a pair of raised eyebrows. She kissed him on the neck and drifted away. Khaemwaset noticed with amus.e.m.e.nt that Sheritra was following her dutifully.
"I will spend the day at the tomb," Hori announced, "but this evening I have been invited to a party in the foreigners" quarters. I shall see you at dinner, Father."
Khaemwaset"s eyes followed his easy swing and perfectly muscled legs, then he turned away with a sigh. What it was, to be young and handsome, rich and sought-after. He was sure that Hori"s horoscope, day after day, showed every third as full of luck, while his own was becoming increasingly ambiguous.
Back in his office, Penbuy placed a load of official correspondence on the desk and went to the floor in readiness for dictation. Khaemwaset, with a regretful glance at the shaft of brilliant late spring sunlight splattering the floor from the clerestory windows high above, opened the first with a mutinous jerk. After I have made a special offering to Ptah and begged him for his beneficent protection for this house I will take a jaunt on the river, he promised himself. I will think of nothing but the wind on my skin and the birds in the thickets.
Once the correspondence had been taken care of he summoned his architect, and together they spent a couple of hours over the plans for the Apis bulls. The architect"s work had been very satisfactory, and Khaemwaset gave orders for the excavations to begin before he retired to his quarters for a light lunch, a careful wash, and a change of clothes. Then with Amek and Ib he got onto his barge and was rowed the short distance to the ca.n.a.l down which Ptah"s sacred boat was floated from his temple during times of festivity.
Leaving the barge at this point, Khaemwaset walked beside the ca.n.a.l, under Ptah"s sacred sycamores, to the G.o.d"s watersteps and from there along the hot granite paving between the two ma.s.sive pylons and into the outer court, his small train of servants following behind.
The court was comfortably crowded with worshippers. Incense rose above the pillars of the inner court in a barely visible cloud, and the murmur of the singers and the rattle of their systrums could be heard. Khaemwaset removed his sandals and handed them to Ib. He had brought his favourite turquoise necklace with its Eye of Horns counterpoise as an offering to the G.o.d whom he served full-time for three months of every year. Holding it to his naked chest he walked towards the inner court, careful not to nudge the common people who were standing praying, eyes closed and arms extended. Amek and Ib had retired to the wall where there was shade.
Khaemwaset stepped through to the inner court. Here there were only priests and musicians. The worship of Ptah went on all day, from the time the sanctuary was opened at dawn and the G.o.d fed and clothed to sunset, when the small, dark secrecy of his home was closed and locked. For a moment Khaemwaset paused, caught up in the ritual of song and the praise of the dancers" bodies, before he found a s.p.a.ce and began his prostrations.
Both inner and outer court were unroofed, and the sun beat down upon Khaemwaset as he rose and yet again laid himself face down on the sandy floor. He prayed the words of tradition first, extolling the smiling G.o.d who had created all things, and then stood and begged Ptah to remember that he, Khaemwaset, was an honest and faithful servant who needed the eye of the G.o.d turned upon his household because of his own foolishness. He prayed long and earnestly, but rea.s.surance did not come. Instead, he gradually began to feel that he had made a mistake, that though the G.o.d would accept his gift, Khaemwaset should be praying elsewhere. It is Thoth whom you serve in the pursuits closest to your head, the thought came. It is Thoth whom you have wronged with your greed for knowledge and more knowledge, for the power only the G.o.ds may possess. Are you afraid to bare your soul in this way before Thoth instead of Ptah? For Thoth is more understanding but less forgiving. His servants are the only ones who know the ecstasy and the terror of his wisdom.
In the end Khaemwaset capitulated. Approaching the closed sanctuary he ceremoniously pa.s.sed his gift to the priest on duty there and began to thread his way back to the ma.s.sive open doors that led to the outer court through the swaying, chanting dancers. He was about to pa.s.s through the gloom of shade the door cast when he saw her.
She had been standing behind a group of pet.i.tioners and was in the act of turning away towards the pylons. Khaemwaset caught a brief glimpse of her face-confident, withdrawn, straight nose, wide black-kohled eyes under a fringe of gleaming hair-before her back was towards him and she was striding away with that indolent yet purposeful tread. She was wearing a yellow sheath, still of a body-hugging, old-fashioned cut that accentuated every curve, but over it billowed a transparent white ankle-length cloak rimmed in gold.
Khaemwaset watched it float behind her sandalled feet, then he sprang after her. The crowd had thickened, and it seemed to him that everyone milling in the flaming hot air had all at once moved to place themselves between himself and his quarry with a malicious purpose. "Out of my way!" He jostled and pushed, heedless now of who prayed and who simply stood in wonder at Ptah"s mighty edifice. "Get out of my way!" An indignant murmur went up, and the temple guards who always stood at intervals around the walls began to move forward. "Don"t you see her?" Khaemwaset shouted to Ib and Amek who were hurrying towards the disturbance. "You, Amek, you saw her yesterday. Run after her! Run!"
The guards had recognized him and had halted, irresolute. Khaemwaset plunged between the pylons and out onto the wide courtyard before the watersteps. He looked up and down. But there was no sign of her. He ran to the edge of the courtyard and peered along the south side of the wall, but the expanse was empty. The north side was also deserted. The ca.n.a.l rippled quietly, blue and serene in the afternoon furnace. Trees lined it, and with a rage he seldom felt, Khaemwaset knew that his quarry, oblivious to the stir she had created, had simply walked in under the trees for their shade on her way to ... Where? Where? Ib and Amek came up to him, panting and bewildered, and Khaemwaset grimly held on to his temper, knowing that none of it was their fault.
"Did you see her?" he asked Amek. Amek eyed him as though he had gone mad.
"Yes, Highness," he said, "but it was not possible for us to catch up with her. You were closer than we were."
"All right." Khaemwaset closed his eyes and winced. "All right. I want you to go home and turn out all the soldiers you can spare. Put them in civilian clothing. Describe this woman to them. Tell them to search Memphis, but discreetly. No one in the family is to know anything about it, do you understand?" They nodded, still confused, but he did not care. No matter what, he was determined to stand face to face with the creature who had invaded his dreams. It is as though someone has slipped a philtre into my wine, he told himself, or conjured a spell of compulsion on me without my knowledge. I feel drugged with her, each sighting immediately translated into a thirst for more, like poppy juice to those in pain. Is some fellow magician trying his strength on me for a joke?
His servants were still staring at him indecisively and he turned away from them, half running beside the ca.n.a.l, eyes searching the welcoming deep shadows under the forest of trees and trimmed gra.s.s to his right, but knowing, knowing, that she was not there. His barge still rocked peacefully where the ca.n.a.l met the Nile. His captain was squatting beside the ramp, talking with the steersman, and both men rose and bowed as he came up to them.
Barely acknowledging their reverence he hurried onto the deck. "Take me home!" he commanded. "Quickly!" They sprang to do his bidding.
During the short ride to his watersteps he sat tensely in the small, airless cabin, trying to control the fever of impatience that gripped him. He had forgotten his plan to spend the rest of the afternoon on the river. All he wanted to do was pa.s.s the time in the best way possible until his servants began to come to him with news, Once off the barge, he went straight to his office. Penbuy was there with one of his junior scribes, making fair copies of the rough work they were doing in the tomb, and Khaemwaset asked them to occupy themselves elsewhere. Penbuy shot him a curious glance but of course obeyed, and the door closed discreetly behind them. Khaemwaset began to pace. There were a dozen tasks he could address and he knew that there was the healing of distraction in them, but for once he lacked the power to do what was best. I have no doubt that eventually I will find her, he thought, arms folded as he wandered the large, quiet room. If necessary I will employ the Memphis police. And I also have no doubt that when I do, she will turn out to be a disappointment. Dreams that become reality always do. She will be either very simple, an unlettered commoner without intelligence, uncouth and loud-mouthed, or a spoiled b.i.t.c.h from some minor n.o.bleman"s household, a woman with social pretensions, strident and tasteless.
He paced until he grew tired, then he left the office and went out into the garden, lying on a flax mat with a cushion under his head in the shade and trying to doze. His gardener could be heard somewhere near the watersteps at the front of the house, talking to his apprentice as he tended the shrubs that lined the path. The monkeys, not far from him, snuffled and gibbered half-heartedly in the dragging stillness before sunset that never seemed to end. Birds dipped into the fountain and out again, refreshed, shaking their wings and piping deliriously.
After a while Khaemwaset heard someone approaching and sat up, every nerve instantly alert, but it was only Sheritra. She flung herself down beside him, her skin beaded with water, her long hair darkly roped over her shoulders. Bakmut had followed her and was standing some distance away. "Mother gave me as many ch.o.r.es as she could think of this morning," Sheritra said, her hands busy squeezing the water out of her hair, "but in the end she had to let me go, so I went for a swim. Spring is definitely over, isn"t it, Father? The days are beginning to be uncomfortable and the crops everywhere are above the ground. What are you doing out here?"
Khaemwaset propped himself on one elbow and watched the water drain in clear rivulets past her neck and into her tiny cleavage. He had not intended to, but he said, "I saw the woman again. In the temple of Ptah."
Sheritra did not need to ask which woman. Her deft fingers went on sliding down the slick coils of hair. "Did you speak to her?"
"No." Khaemwaset began to pluck idly at the gra.s.s. "She was leaving the outer court when I noticed her. I had Amek and Ib with me but none of us could catch up to her. I have sent them to search, and I am waiting for word."
Sheritra called and Bakmut came forward, offering a comb. The girl took it, Bakmut retired just out of earshot, and Sheritra began to pull it through the thick tresses. Already wisps had dried and were curling and blowing about her face. Keeping her eyes fixed on the bathing birds, she said, "Why are you so determined to find her?"
Khaemwaset thought he felt a soft movement against the back of his hand, and looked down. There was nothing, but, unbidden, the memory of the little dancer with the skin complaint came back to him, the sudden shock of her mouth against his skin in grat.i.tude. "I do not know," he confessed, "and that is the truth, Sheritra. I only know that I must look into her eyes and hear her voice before I can be at peace again."
Sheritra nodded sagely and fell to scooping up the rapidly drying droplets of water along her leg. "I hope you are disappointed," she said unexpectedly. Khaemwaset saw a blush bloom up her neck and give a reddish hue to her brown cheeks. "Why?" he enquired, though he knew, and marvelled at her perception. "Because if you are not disappointed, if she is anything at all like your image of her, your interest in her will grow." Khaemwaset was puzzled by the urgency in her tone.
"But even if it did," he objected, "what would be the harm? Many men have concubines and very happy families. What threat do you see, Little Sun?"
She did not respond in a girlish way to his attempt to cajole her with the meaning of her name, or his deliberate teasing emphasis. All at once she swung to face him directly and, though the blush was now fiery, she met his eyes. "You are not an emotional man, dear Father," she said. "You are always calm, always fair, always kind. I cannot imagine you in love with anyone other than Mother, though I can see you adding to your concubines on rare occasions." Now she dropped her gaze. "But only for a little variety, you understand, not to be disloyal in your heart to Mother. This woman ..." She swallowed and forced herself to continue. "This woman already fills your thoughts. I can tell. I do not like it."