"Stop acquiring so many," Bint-Anath broke in, laughing. "Listen more closely to Suty when he tries to tell you how much gold your harems are draining from the royal treasury every day. Then you might be deterred from further purchases and contracts."
"Hmm," was all the reply. Ramses began to eat steadily, though with a delicate grace.
Khaemwaset's table servant had filled his plate also, and he ate and drank with appreciation for the excellence of his father's cooks. He saw Nubnofret close to the dais, sitting with a few of her female friends among the nobility, and not far from her he spotted Hori and Nefert-khay. She had both hands resting on his bare shoulder and was nuzzling his ear as he ate. With a pang, Khaemwaset thought of his Sheritra. What was she doing at this moment? Saying her prayers, walking in the torch-lit garden with Bakmut's undemanding company? Perhaps she was sitting in her room, knees drawn up to chin, wondering what he he was doing and castigating herself for the shyness that prevented her from plunging into life. He would have liked to have seen her here, eyes aglow with wine and excitement, her fingers drawn to some young noble's shoulder and her mouth pressed against some adoring ear. Pharaoh was directing another comment in his direction. His brother Ramses was slumped over his food and humming tunelessly to himself. Khaemwaset gave himself over to the pleasures of the evening. was doing and castigating herself for the shyness that prevented her from plunging into life. He would have liked to have seen her here, eyes aglow with wine and excitement, her fingers drawn to some young noble's shoulder and her mouth pressed against some adoring ear. Pharaoh was directing another comment in his direction. His brother Ramses was slumped over his food and humming tunelessly to himself. Khaemwaset gave himself over to the pleasures of the evening.
Several hours later, full of stuffed goose, cucumber salad and various pastries, slightly inebriated, Khaemwaset found himself near the north doors of the hall talking to his friend Wennufer, High Priest of Osiris at Abydos. The noise had not abated. If anything, the crowd had become more raucous as the wine jugs emptied and the entertainment had begun. Shouts and snatches of song erupted here and there as guests expressed their approval of the fire-eaters, the jugglers and acrobats, the sinuously naked dancers whose hair brushed the floor and whose golden finger-cymbals clicked out a taunting invitation together with their sweat-slicked hips.
Khaemwaset and Wennufer had retired to a relatively quiet place where they could both talk undisturbed and enjoy the night wind wafting through the open double doors from the dark garden beyond. Pharaoh had left some time before. There was no sign of Hori, and Nubnofret had come to Khaemwaset earlier to let him know that she would be spending the greater part of the rest of the night in Bint-Anath's suite. He had kissed her absently and turned his attention back to Wennufer's argument with regard to the proper origins of the heb-sed festival, and both men were soon oblivious to the uproar around them.
Khaemwaset was engaged in making a strong point, his face thrust close to Wennufer's and his wine cup extended so that the nearest slave could fill it, when he felt a touch on his arm. He ignored it, dimly presuming that someone had jostled him, but it was repeated. Irritated, he turned.
An old man stood before him, coughing with an attempt at the polite control Khaemwaset had come to recognize in those with chronic lung conditions. He was slightly bent, and the hand that had importuned Khaemwaset was already returning to clutch an amulet of Thoth that hung on his wrinkled chest. He wore no other ornament. His shaved head was bare, as were his yellowed feet. He might have been ugly with his seamed jowls and unhealthily puffy features, but for his eyes. They were alert and fixed Khaemwaset with a steady gaze. The man wore an old fashioned thigh-high winding kilt over which his belly sagged, and tucked into its belt was a scroll.
Khaemwaset met his glance with an impatience that quickly turned to bewilderment Those eyes seemed familiar. A fellow priest? he thought, from On or Memphis? Then why so poorly dressed? He could pass for a peasant. One of my back-room servants, those on whom I rely but rarely see? Then what is he doing in Pi-Ramses, and how, for that matter, did he obtain leave to enter here? If he is a servant, often seen but not consciously acknowledged, I had better have a word with Nubnofret about retiring him. The poor man looks as though he already has one foot in the Judgement Hall. He repressed an urge to embrace the stranger that was followed by a sudden cold shudder of what felt like repulsion. Wennufer, seeing his friend's abstraction, had fallen silent and was sipping his wine and staring into the dishevelled crowd, ignoring the petitioner altogether- for Khaemwaset was sure the man was a petitioner of some kind. For medicine, I expect, he thought.
Khaemwaset began to grow sober under the stranger's level stare, yet he could not look away, and gradually he saw something in those depths, a lurking terror quickly masked. At last the man spoke. "Prince Khaemwaset?"
The question was a formality, Khaemwaset knew. This man was perfectly aware of his identity. He managed to nod. "I cannot examine or treat you at this time," he got out, surprised to hear himself whispering. "Petition my Herald for an appointment."
"I do not want to be treated, Prince," the stranger answered. "I am dying and I have little time left. I come to ask a favour of you."
Favour? Khaemwaset saw that the full lips were trembling. "Then ask," he urged.
"It is a very serious matter," the man went on. "I beg you not to take it lightly. The fate of my ka hangs in the balance."
So it was an affair of magic. Khaemwaset relaxed. The old man wanted a spell of some kind, either chanted for him or written down to take away, but even at the thought the man was shaking his head.
"No, Prince," he said huskily. "It is this." He looked down, the torchlight sliding over his bald scalp, and fumbled at his waist, withdrawing the scroll. Carefully he held it out and Khaemwaset, his interest piqued, took it, turning it over in his practised hands.
It was obviously very old. The papyrus had a brittle fragility that made his fingers suddenly gentle. It was quite thin, perhaps not more than three revolutions, yet its weight was curiously great.
Around them the feast swirled. The musicians kept up a loud harmony of harp, lute and drums, whose rhythms shook through the tiled floor. The revellers shrieked and danced. But around the two men, standing half in the shadows sweeping through the doors, there hung an aura of timelessness.
"What is it?" Khaemwaset asked.
The old man coughed again. "It is a thing of danger, Prince," he said. "Danger to my ka, danger to you. You are a lover of wisdom, a great and well-respected man, devotee of Thoth, god of all wisdom and knowledge. I beg you to perform a task that I in my arrogance and stupidity am not allowed to accomplish." His eyes had gone very dark, and Khaemwaset could see a pleading in them that was almost painful. "I am running out of time," the man urged. "Destroy the scroll on my behalf, and in the next world I will prostrate myself before mighty Thoth a thousand thousand times for a thousand thousand years on your behalf. Please, Khaemwaset! Burn it! Burn it for both our sakes! I can say no more."
Khaemwaset looked from the agonized face to the wound scroll in his hands, and when he glanced up again the man had gone. Annoyed yet oddly feverish, he hunted through the people with his eyes but caught no glimpse of a naked, freckled skull, a bowed chest. He became conscious of Wennufer at his elbow. "Khaemwaset, what are you doing?" the priest asked testily. "You are too drunk to go on discussing, perhaps?" But Khaemwaset muttered a quick apology and walked away, out the doors, past the surprised salute of the guards and onto the dew-soft darkness of the lawn.
The uproar behind him slowly receded until he was pacing the dim greyness of the path that doubled back along the north wall of the palace to a place where he could reach his quarters quickly. As he went he held the scroll gingerly, afraid that it might crumble if he tightened his grip.
Such nonsense, he thought. An old man is dying and wishes for a few moments of recognition before he goes. He plays a silly game with me, knowing that I, even with holy blood in my veins, am the most approachable of my family. The scroll is probably no more than the names of his servants and what they are paid. A joke? Hori's joke? No. Wennufer perhaps? Of course not. Is it some kind of a test my father has prepared for me? He considered that possibility for a few moments, his gaze on the indistinct path blurring beneath his feet. Ramses did test the loyalty of his subordinates at unexpected times and in odd ways. He had done so periodically every since the top echelon of the army had been dismissed following the debacle of Kadesh. Khaemwaset, however, had never been the object of such a trial. Neither had any other members of the family.
But would we know? he wondered as he turned the corner into the full glare of a dozen torches lining the approach to the eastern door. What if we have been repeatedly tested and repeatedly passed without ever being aware of such a calculated thing? But if a test for me tonight, what kind? What for? Am I to burn the scroll without reading it and thus prove that my higher loyalty is to my king over my love of learning? Supposing that I read it and then disposed of it. No one would know that I had unrolled it first. He glanced swiftly behind him but the gardens lay in a perfumed darkness, the shrubs uneven smudges against the bulk of the wall, the trees black-armed and impenetrable. No, he thought, feeling foolish. Father would not have me followed and watched. I am being ridiculous. Then ... what?
He was coming up to the first torches and his steps slowed, then stopped. He was directly under a torch, if he had raised a hand he would have been able to touch the leaping orange flames that danced and guttered in the night air. Taking the scroll in his fingertips he held it up to the light with a confused idea that he might be able to read it without unrolling it, but of course it remained opaque, only paling a little in the torch glow. He held it higher. This is insane, he told himself. The whole episode smacks of madness. He could feel the heat of the torch on his face, his quivering hand. The papyrus began imperceptibly to blacken and he could sense it pull inward and curl. It is very old, he thought. There is a small chance that it is indeed a thing of value. Hastily he pulled it away from the fire and looked it over. One corner was singed and even as he held it a tiny portion broke away and drifted to the ground. Very lucky or horribly unlucky, depending on my actions tonight, he told himself, thinking of his horoscope. But which action, burning or saving, will bring fortune? For he was all at once certain that this was the moment of which the horoscope spoke and there would be grave consequences either way.
For a long time he stood irresolute, remembering the old man, his begging eyes, his urgent words. He wanted to get rid of this burden thus placed upon him, yet at the same time he was assuring himself that his judgment was impaired by wine and the lateness of the hour, that he was stretching a meaningless encounter into something portentous and fateful. Groaning quietly, he tucked the scroll into his voluminously pleated waist and walked slowly out of the circle of torchlight, through the succeeding band of deep shadow, and on to the palace entrance, where two guards sprang to attention and made an obeisance. He wished them a good night, and was soon being admitted into the family's suite. Ib and Kasa came hurrying to meet him.
"Where have you been, Highness?" Ib asked, impatience and relief written all over his face. "One minute you were talking with the High Priest and the next you had vanished. Amek rushed away immediately to find you and presumably he is still looking. You make our tasks difficult."
"I am not a prisoner of my servants, Ib," Khaemwaset retorted testily. "I came through the garden and entered by the east gate. I expect my bodyguard to be aware of my movements at all times." And that is not entirely fair, he thought as he saw Ib flush, but he was suddenly so exhausted that he could hardly stand. "Kasa, bring hot water and wash the henna from my hands and feet," he ordered, "and please hurry. I want to go to bed. Am I alone here?" Kasa bowed shortly and went out, and Ib answered.
"Her Highness is not back, and neither is Prince Hori. Nor is any of their staff."
I am gently and suitably rebuked, Khaemwaset thought with an inward smile. He placed a placatory hand on Ib's shoulder. "Thank you," he said. "You may retire, Ib." The man bowed his departure and Khaemwaset strode through into his bedroom.
Fresh flowers bad been placed in vases in the four corners. Two lamps burned, one in a tall golden holder in the middle of the floor and a smaller one by the couch, whose sheets had been turned down invitingly. The room murmured of quiet, undisturbed rest. Khaemwaset sank into his chair with a sigh and felt for the scroll. It was not there. He checked his belt, felt among his linens, looked about on the floor, but there was no sign of it. Kasa knocked and entered, a boy bearing a basin of steaming water behind him, and Khaemwaset rose.
"Did either of you see a scroll lying on the floor by the door or in the hall?" he asked. The lad, eyes downcast, shook his head and, hurriedly setting the bowl on its waiting stand, he backed out. Kasa also shook his head.
"No, Highness," he answered.
"Well go and look," Khaemwaset snapped, his fatigue evaporating. "Look carefully."
A few moments later his bodyservant was back. "There is no sign of any scroll."
Khaemwaset pushed his feet back into the sandals he had so recently removed. "Come with me," he said, and rushed out into the hall, his eyes searching the floor as he went. Indeed, there was nothing. He left the suite, Kasa behind him, and retraced his steps with infinite care, but Pharaoh's gleaming and now empty passages lay unsullied under the dim light of torches nearly spent.
Khaemwaset went out onto the path. The same two guards were leaning sleepily on their spears. Both scrambled to attention. "Do either of you remember seeing a scroll in my belt as I passed you earlier?" he asked them peremptorily. They both denied it. "But would you have noticed?" he pressed them. "Are you sure?"
The taller of the pair spoke up. "We are trained to be observant, Prince," he said. "No one enters the palace with anything suspicious on their person. We would not, of course, suspect you, but our eyes travel everyone automatically and I can assure you that you stepped through our salute without any scroll." It was true, Khaemwaset thought angrily. The Shardana were quick of eye and would stop anyone they even suspected of harbouring a weapon.
Nodding his thanks, he reached down a torch from the lintel and, bent almost double, scoured every inch of his short journey from the garden to the passage doors. There was nothing. Kneeling, he scanned the stone for the tiny charred piece of papyrus that had broken loose under the torch, but it was nowhere to be found. Swearing under his breath he investigated the grass to either side of the path, parting it carefully while Kasa watched in obvious bewilderment, but came up empty.
In the end he strode back to his suite. His heart was racing.
"Rouse Ramose," he told Kasa. "Bring him without delay." Kasa opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again and slipped away.
Khaemwaset began to pace. It is not possible, he thought. I passed no one. I thrust it into my belt, took five paces to the door, and came here directly. Not possible. A dread began to steal over him but he fought it down. Danger, the old man had said. To me. To you. Have I failed? Or have I passed some mysterious test? He put a hand to his chest and felt the frantic action of his heart. Sweat had broken out along his spine. He could feel it begin to trickle into his kilt.
When Ramose, sleepy and slightly dishevelled, bowed before him, he almost ran to the man. "I have lost a valuable scroll," he said. "It is somewhere in the palace or perhaps in the gardens. I will give three pieces of gold to anyone who finds it and brings it directly to me. Spread the word, Herald, begin now, to anyone still wandering the palace." All sleep had left Ramose's eyes. He bowed his understanding and hurried out, straightening his linens as he went. He had scarcely closed the door when it opened again and Nubnofret came into the room. An odour of stale wine and crushed lotus blooms preceded her.
"Whatever is going on, Khaemwaset?" she queried. "I almost bumped into Ramose as he was rushing out of the suite. Are you ill?" She came closer and peered at him, then exclaimed, "You certainly look ill! Oh my dear, you are white. Sit down." He allowed her to push him into his chair. He felt her cool hand steal over his forehead. "Khaemwaset, you have a fever," she pronounced. "You really hate Pi-Ramses, don't you, and the city hates you, for its demons always make you mildly sick. I will call for a priest. You need a spell that will drive them forth."
Khaemwaset caught her arm. Fevers were indeed a matter for magic, being caused by the possession of demons, but he knew that he had brought this illness upon himself and no evil power inhabited his body. Or does it? he wondered suddenly, confusedly. Was my decision to keep the scroll the wrong one, giving it the power to quietly transform itself and enter me? Am I now harbouring something evil, something destructive? Nubnofret was waiting, her arm still resting in his grip, her expression questioning. He shuddered, then began to shiver uncontrollably.
"Khaemwaset, you are frightening me." Nubnofret's voice came to him from far away. "Please let me go." He came to himself and mumbled a stiff-lipped apology, withdrawing his hand. His wife kneaded her arm. "Kasa!" she shouted. "Put him to bed. Look at him." Kasa came running, and with a glance at Nubnofret, helped Khaemwaset out of the chair and onto the couch.
"But no priest," Khaemwaset muttered. He lay on the couch, still trembling, and drew up his knees. "I am sorry, Nubnofret. Go to bed and don't worry. All I need is a good sleep. I have lost a valuable scroll, that is all." Nubnofret visibly relaxed. "In that case I quite understand," she said scornfully. "Other men might suffer so at the loss of a child but you, my dear brother, sweat and quiver over bits of papyrus."
"I know," he answered, clenching his teeth against the shivering. "I am a fool. Goodnight, Nubnofret."
"Goodnight, Prince." She sailed out of the room without another word. "Is there anything you require, Highness?" Kasa asked uncertainly.
Khaemwaset lifted his cheek from the pillow and peered up at the anxious face of his servant. The effort was almost too much. A great heaviness was on him now, so that his eyelids drooped and closed of their own accord. "No," he managed in a whisper. "Do not wake me early, Kasa." The man bowed and left quietly, at least, Khaemwaset thought that he did. If Ptah had decreed the end of the world at that moment, Khaemwaset would not have been able to force his eyes open. He heard the pause for Kasa's bow, the light sound of his footsteps across the floor, the polite click as the door closed, but those things came to him from far away, from the other side of the city, from another world. He fell into sleep like a man who loses his footing and goes sliding down the edge of a dark pit, and immediately he began to dream.
It was noon, a summer noon of intense, merciless heat that stung his nostrils and rendered him almost blind. He was walking, head downcast, along a road of white dust that reflected up at him the sun's cruel bite. Just ahead of him a woman strode. He could see no more of her than her naked ankles powdered with little puffs of the fine sand her progress stirred, and the rhythmic revealing and concealing of her strong brown calves as the scarlet linen she wore flowed with her stride.
For a while, in spite of his growing exhaustion and the sweat that continually ran into his eyes, he was content to watch the slow, almost relentless way her muscles flexed and loosened and her toes gripped, splayed, then flung back tiny showers of dust, but soon a need to see the rest of her took hold. He tried to lift his head, and found that he could not. Straining, he contracted the muscles of his neck, pushing, compelling, but his gaze remained fixed on the road gliding ponderously beneath that graceful tread.
He began to wish that she would stop. He was gasping from the heat and began to stumble with fatigue. He called out, but his words were nothing more than tiny wisps of burning air on his lips. Stop! he thought desperately, please stop! But her pace did not vary. In spite of the sense of hypnotic compulsion growing around him, he attempted to veer into the grass he dimly knew lay to either side of the track, there where trees cast a shade for which he would have died, but his legs kept marching, marching, drawn into the woman's oblivious confidence.
Khaemwaset finally woke with the first hesitant light of dawn and the early chorus of birds. His room was shrouded, calm. His night lamp had long since gone out, and he smelled the faint, stale odour of the used-up wick mingled with the rank smell of his own body. He was trembling with the aftermath of his nightmare and his sheets were sticky. Fever dream, he thought, as he struggled to sit up. Nothing more. He reached for his night table, the frame of his couch, the delineations of his face, in an unconscious need to reassure himself that he was now awake, in a world of substance and sanity. As he did so he realized that his penis was engorged and fully erect, and he was overflowing with a kind of sexual excitement he had not felt in years.
He lay quietly, stilling his breath and his mind, then he called softly for Kasa and ordered his morning bath and food. Already the palace was stirring around him, but distantly. His suite was always relatively silent.
Kasa was tying Khaemwaset's sandals when Ramose was admitted. Khaemwaset bade him speak, his heart suddenly tripping, but the Herald had no news. "My assistants report that no one approached has seen or heard of the scroll, Highness," he admitted. "But we will keep spreading your request and the promise of a reward. I am sorry."
"It is not your fault, Ramose." Khaemwaset stood and waved him out, sending for Amek at the same time. While he waited for his bodyguard he could not resist a rapid search of his floor, his reception room, the entrance hall of his suite, but he came up empty. Amek appeared and saluted. "Get out my litter," Khaemwaset ordered. "This morning I want to go in person to the House of Ra and say my prayers with the other priests." He did not know what he wanted to say, or why he felt such a strong urge to stand in the temple and breathe the incense; the aura of power and peace, but he knew he would regret any change of mind.
He spent his remaining few days in Pi-Ramses in discussions with the Viziers of the North and South, several foreign ambassadors, temple administrators and his father. He visited his mother once more, took an afternoon stroll, suitably guarded, through the colorful markets of the city in search of the perfect gift for Sheritra, and went hunting in the marshes with the Khatti ambassador, whose feathers turned out to be less ruffled than the hapless ducks he brought down with the throwing stick.
Nubnofret had, as always, forgotten her ire. Khaemwaset saw little of her and Hori until the day when they embarked for Memphis and home. He himself seemed fully recovered from the strange fit that had overtaken him on the night he lost the scroll. To his chagrin, it had not been recovered. He did not think that it would. Deeply hidden was the growing conviction that spirits had been abroad, that for some reason of their own they had for a moment dissolved the barrier between the living and themselves, and he had been the point at which the wall wavered. The old man was either a great magician in communication with unseen powers, which Khaemwaset doubted, or he was a spirit himself and his scroll a thing of smoke and air that had faded into nothing with the approach of dawn.
The warnings of his horoscope, the vivid memory of the edge of the scroll curling and blackening under the torch, the old man's urgent plea, were thrust to the back of Khaemwaset's mind. He would go home, look at the plans for the Apis burials, begin digging again at Saqqara, and recover his strong sense of self. Only the dream truly continued to haunt him. He forgot none of its details, and for a long time a woman's bare feet in the dust could give him an inadvertent pang of fatigue and lust.
He and the rest of the family sailed home laden with purchases for the house and gifts for Sheritra and friends in Memphis. The river had shrunk even further in the time they had been away, and now was flowing with a turgid slowness. The return journey took longer in spite of a steady breeze from the north because the current was against the craft and the oars had to be used.
Khaemwaset, impatient as always to see the calm forest of palms set against their backdrop of pyramids and desert that heralded his city, sat under a canopy on the deck of Amun-is-Lord, Amun-is-Lord, his thoughts already on his next project. Nubnofret dozed, lay in the seclusion of the cabin with nourishing creams on her face to help ease her skin's transition back to the dry desert air, or played board games with Wernuro. Hori and Antef strewed the sun-baked planks with the puzzles and toys they had picked up in the markets for dissection. Surely, Khaemwaset thought, as the oars splashed and the canopy slapped in the wind, we are the most blessed, harmonious and fortunate family in Egypt. his thoughts already on his next project. Nubnofret dozed, lay in the seclusion of the cabin with nourishing creams on her face to help ease her skin's transition back to the dry desert air, or played board games with Wernuro. Hori and Antef strewed the sun-baked planks with the puzzles and toys they had picked up in the markets for dissection. Surely, Khaemwaset thought, as the oars splashed and the canopy slapped in the wind, we are the most blessed, harmonious and fortunate family in Egypt.
4.
Death calls every one to him, they come to him with quaking heart, and are terrified through fear of him.
THEY DOCKED THEY DOCKED at the watersteps of Khaemwaset's estate shortly after breakfast, the servants scattering immediately to their duties. Sheritra, hearing the confusion, came running to greet them, and there were hugs and reassurances before they retired to the garden. Already the boats were being unloaded, and Khaemwaset knew that later they would be dragged from the water and inspected for repairs. He sank onto the grass in the shade of his sycamores, Sheritra beside him, with a gust of pure pleasure. His fountain still tinkled crystal into its stone basin. His monkeys watched the arrival with lofty boredom and went back to lolling beside the path. His comfortable old house still welcomed him with sun-drenched walls and orderly flowers. He heard the bustle of brisk activity begin inside. In a while Ib would ask him if he wanted the noon meal in the garden or in the cool of his small dining room, and Penbuy, freshly washed, would be waiting for him in his office. He watched his daughter exclaim over her gifts, her plain face flushed with excitement, and for once Nubnofret did not keep up a steady barrage of admonition and advice as the girl hunched over the bright jewels and cascading linens and knick-knacks in her lap. at the watersteps of Khaemwaset's estate shortly after breakfast, the servants scattering immediately to their duties. Sheritra, hearing the confusion, came running to greet them, and there were hugs and reassurances before they retired to the garden. Already the boats were being unloaded, and Khaemwaset knew that later they would be dragged from the water and inspected for repairs. He sank onto the grass in the shade of his sycamores, Sheritra beside him, with a gust of pure pleasure. His fountain still tinkled crystal into its stone basin. His monkeys watched the arrival with lofty boredom and went back to lolling beside the path. His comfortable old house still welcomed him with sun-drenched walls and orderly flowers. He heard the bustle of brisk activity begin inside. In a while Ib would ask him if he wanted the noon meal in the garden or in the cool of his small dining room, and Penbuy, freshly washed, would be waiting for him in his office. He watched his daughter exclaim over her gifts, her plain face flushed with excitement, and for once Nubnofret did not keep up a steady barrage of admonition and advice as the girl hunched over the bright jewels and cascading linens and knick-knacks in her lap.
Presently Ib could be seen, approaching with his dignified, unhurried walk from the back of the house. Penbuy was with him, and even at this distance Khaemwaset sensed that the man was barely containing some violent emotion. Nubnofret, usually indifferent to such things, also looked up, and Hori scrambled to his feet.
"Highness, will the family be eating here or in the dining mom?" Ib asked. Khaemwaset did not answer, indeed, he barely heard the question. All his attention was fixed on his scribe. Penbuy was trembling, his eyes glowing.
"Speak!" Khaemwaset said. Penbuy needed no further invitation.
"Highness, a new tomb has been found on the Saqqara plain!" he blurted "The workmen had begun to clear the site of Osiris Neuser-Ra's sun temple in preparation for your orders on its restoration, and behold! a rock of large size emerged. It took the Overseer three days to remove it and lo! beneath it was a flight of steps."
Khaemwaset, in spite of his quickening pulse, smiled at Penbuy's uncharacteristic loss of aplomb. "Have the steps been cleared?" he snapped.
"Yes. And at their foot ..." He paused for effect and Hori exclaimed, "Well get on with it, Penbuy! You already have our attention. We are your captives!"
"At their foot is a sealed door!" Penbuy finished triumphantly.
"It is too much to hope that the seals are original," Hori observed, but with a question in his voice. He looked at Khaemwaset, who rose.
"What do you think?" he asked his scribe. Penbuy shrugged, already settling back into his customary controlled decorum.
"The seals appear to be originals," he answered, "but we have encountered clever fakes before, Prince. The thrill of the moment engulfed me. I am sorry. Your Overseer of Works is of the opinion that we have indeed found an untouched tomb."
Nubnofret sighed ostentatiously. "You had better pack up the Prince's meal and give it to the servants who will accompany him, Ib," she said, and Khaemwaset shot her a grateful, humorous glance.
"I'm sorry, dear sister," he apologized. "I must at least inspect this find today. Ib, have the litters brought round. Hori, will you come?" The young man nodded.
"But I beg you, no break-ins today please, Father! I have not even had time to be washed!"
"That depends on what we find." Khaemwaset was already preoccupied, his words spoken absently. A new tomb, new inscriptions, new knowledge, new scrolls, new scrolls ... Do not expect anything, he told himself sternly. The chances for something fresh are slim. My horoscope for the last third of this day is very bad. So, for that matter, is the rest of my family's, so I doubt if this find will yield anything worthwhile. All at once he was seized with a desire to tell Penbuy, "Have the earth and sand shovelled back over the entrance. My most pressing project is the work for Osiris Neuser-Ra and he shall have his restoration," but his curiosity and mounting excitement won out. Neuser-Ra could wait. He had been waiting for hundreds of hentis and would surely be patient for another day or two. Amek was approaching, the litter-bearers with their folded burdens behind.
"Is there any urgent business on my desk?" Khaemwaset asked. Penbuy shook his head. "Good. I will make this up to you somehow, Sheritra," he went on, turning to her, but she grinned up at him and held the gossamer blue linen he had given her to her face. "I am used to it," she laughed. "Enjoy yourself, Father. Find something wonderful."
Something wonderful. Suddenly Khaemwaset was filled with boyish anticipation. Gesturing to Hori and kissing Nubnofret's cool cheek, he got onto his litter and was soon swaying towards the temple of Neith and the Ankh-tawy district. His stomach growled its hunger, and the linens he had donned on the boat that morning were limp and itchy with sweat, but he did not care. The hunt was on once more.
By the time he alighted from his litter with the churned plain of Saqqara baking in the afternoon sun all around him, he was thirsty as well. His servants were hurrying behind, some pitching the small tent he always used, some lighting a cooking fire, and the long-suffering Ib was already directing the laying of Khaemwaset's camp table for his belated noon meal. Hori came scrambling through the sand to join his father.
"Phew!" he said. "No matter what time of the year it is, Saqqara is always sweltering! Please control your lust for an hour, Father, and take pity on me! I simply must eat, but I also want to stand with you when you examine the seals. I suppose that is the entrance, there." He pointed across the hot expanse of waste to where Osiris Neuser-Ra's mined temple lay. Beside it, just outside the jagged, truncated outer wall, was a gigantic boulder and an untidy heap of dark sand and gravel. Khaemwaset reluctantly turned back towards the tent and the table, now shaded by a flapping canopy and laden with food, where Ib stood behind his chair, arms folded.
Khaemwaset and Hori set to with relish, talking easily as they ate and drank, but presently the conversation died away. Hori fell into an abstracted mood. Chin in hand and eyes downcast, he traced the folds in the tablecloth with a knife. Khaemwaset's mood of elation gradually faded to be replaced by a growing uneasiness. He sat back, eyes drawn to the temporarily deserted hole in the desert floor, and it seemed to him to be both beckoning and warning. Mentally shaking himself he turned away, draining the last of his beer and rinsing his fingers, but soon his gaze returned to that ominous gash in the sunny reality of the desert and in spite of himself he imagined it as a portal to the underworld, out of which a cold wind blew.
He had sometimes been superstitiously anxious at tomb openings. The dead did not like to be disturbed. But he always made sure that proper offerings for the kas of the deceased were laid beside the coffins, broken belongings mended, and endowments reactivated, and he had seen earth replaced over the resting places with a feeling of satisfaction, knowing the gratitude of the Osiris ones.
This was different. Fear seeped towards him, sliding invisibly over the shimmering yellow sand like the demonic serpent Epap himself, and once more he was tempted to order the tomb covered over. Instead he rose, tapped Hori on the shoulder and left the pleasant shade of the canopy.
With Hori beside him and Ib and Penbuy behind he soon reached the steps. They were hot under his sandals, though in places the stone was still thickly dark and stained with the damp of centuries. There were five of them. Khaemwaset halted before a small, square rock door, smooth and once plastered white. On its left, rotting brown rope was intricately knotted around metal hooks embedded deep in both door and surrounding stone.
Encrusted over the massive knot was a dry and crumbling ball of mud and wax. Khaemwaset bent closer, aware of Hori's light breath on his neck. The young man whistled. "The jackal and nine captives!" he exclaimed. "Father, if the tomb had been desecrated and re-sealed the imprint would be a crude imitation of the sign of the House of the Dead, or even simply a chunk of mud. And look at the rope. So ancient that a touch would crumble it away!"
Khaemwaset nodded, his gaze intently travelling the door. There was no sign of a forced entry, although the plaster had flaked away in several areas and was a noxious brown in others. Of course an untouched door did not mean an unrobbed tomb. Thieves had always been ingenious in their efforts to reach the treasures that were buried with the nobility. Suddenly Khaemwaset found himself hoping that the interior was not not intact, that more dishonest, foolhardy men than he had drawn the sting of wrath within, had leached the old spells that protected whoever lay waiting in the darkness beyond this mysterious door. intact, that more dishonest, foolhardy men than he had drawn the sting of wrath within, had leached the old spells that protected whoever lay waiting in the darkness beyond this mysterious door.
"Prince, I am afraid," Ib said. "I do not like this place. We have never seen a seal unbroken before. We should not be guilty of the first sin."
Khaemwaset replied, still studying the rough surface before him. "We are not thieves and desecrators," he said. "I have never yet committed sacrilege against the dead whom I study. You know that we will re-seal the door, leave many offerings for the ka, pay priests to pray for the owner. We always do." Now he swung to face his steward. Ib's eyes were shadowed, his expression grim. "I have never seen you like this before, Ib. What is the matter?" It was not just Ib, Khaemwaset saw. Penbuy was clutching his palette to his naked chest and chewing his lip.
"This time is not like the others, Highness," Ib blurted. "Last night, in the boat on the way home, I dreamed that I was drinking warm beer. It is a terrible omen. Suffering is going to come upon us." Khaemwaset wanted to snap at him not to be a fool, but such a dream was indeed a thing to be taken seriously. Ib's words had unleashed the fear in him again and he tried not to let it show on his face.
"Forgive me, Prince," Penbuy broke in, "but I also have doubts about this tomb. Today, when I wanted to perform my morning devotions to Thoth, my patron, the incense would not light. I replaced it with fresh grains, thinking that the old ones might be tainted, but nothing I did caused it to heat. Then I was overtaken by a fit of shivering and I could not move for some time." He came forward, his expression strained. "Pass over this tomb, I beg you! There will be others!"
Khaemwaset's mood of unease intensified. "Hori?" he said.
Hori smiled. "I slept well and said my prayers in peace," he answered. "I do not mean to belittle these omens, my friends, but the day is only half over and they could have nothing to do with this tomb at all. Will you turn from a find such as this?" he pressed his father. "Don't tell me that you also have received warnings."
Khaemwaset's mind filled slowly with a vision of the old man, the scroll in his trembling fingers, the torch fire blackening ... crisping ... Not warnings, he thought. But a premonition, a tremor of apprehension in my ka. "No," he said slowly, "and of course I will not refuse this gift of the gods. I am an honest man. I do good in Egypt. I will offer the ka of the inhabitant here many precious things in exchange for what we may glean." He straightened and touched the rope, feeling tiny pieces of it fall into his fingers like fine grit. "Ib, call my master mason and have this door chiselled out." He pulled hard on the rope and it parted. The seal cracked in two with a tiny sound and fell into the dust at his feet. He stepped back, startled. Ib was bowing silently and retreating up the steps and Hori had his nose to the hot stone, examining the crack between the door and rock. Khaemwaset and Penbuy sat together on a step and waited for the mason and his apprentices.
"It is unusual to find a door and not just a hole plugged with rubble," Penbuy remarked, but Khaemwaset did not answer. He was now fighting his own sense of dread.
When the mason and his assistants arrived, the others retired under their canopies. From where he was sitting, half bemused by the mid-afternoon heat, Khaemwaset could see the dark line made by the chisels grow into the outline of a door. In another hour the mason came and knelt before him, his slick, naked chest and legs and blunt hands filmed in white dust.