“Bakmut always sleeps on my floor,” Sheritra said, and turned in at the door Tbubui was now standing beside. The room was not large but, like the rest of the house, it seemed so. Sheritra swiftly took in the couch, table, chair, stool and cosmetic table and nodded to Bakmut. “Have my things brought in.”
“I have removed my own tiring chests,” Tbubui told her, “but of course if your Highness needs them they are at your disposal.”
Sheritra smiled and touched her briefly. “Thank you, Tbubui. You have gone to great trouble to make me comfortable.” The woman and her son understood the dismissal. As the door closed behind them Sheritra sank onto the couch with a sigh. She would have liked more light, for the room was very dim, but more light would have meant more heat and the sweet coolness was very welcome. “I will not need the fans here,” she remarked to Bakmut. “See that my own linen is put on the couch, and send the scribe to me as soon as the soldiers have worked out a schedule. Do you think we will eat before long, Bakmut? I am very hungry.”
“I can ask, Highness,” the girl said, and went out. Sheritra sat on, listening to the silence, her eyes on the two high patches of square white light on the farther wall cast by the windows that had been cut just under the ceiling. The thought that Harmin was somewhere close by gave her a thrill of excitement. I am going to enjoy this to the fullest, she told herself, her earlier misgivings forgotten for now.
She ate a simple and exquisitely prepared meal in the hall, sitting cross-legged on cushions before a low cedarand-gilt table, waited on by her own steward who tasted each dish before serving her. Khaemwaset had his own tasters but they were seldom seen. The food at home was pronounced safe before it arrived in the dining hall and the courtesy here, performed in her presence, a reminder to all of her exalted station, titillated her. Many nobles had tasters, particularly those closest to Pharaoh, who had reason to fear the ambition of underlings, but it was obvious that Sisenet did not bother with one. He, his sister and his nephew ate with a delicate relish, talking to each other and Sheritra with easy grace, so that soon she felt entirely at home.
When the meal ended, all disappeared to sleep away the worst heat of the afternoon, and Sheritra, freshly washed, slipped between her own sheets in Tbubui’s bedchamber contentedly. Bakmut had placed her sleeping mat against the wall behind the door, but on Sheritra’s dismissal she continued to hover beside the couch, obviously troubled.
“What is it, Bakmut?” Sheritra asked
The girl clasped her hands together, eyes downcast. “Forgive me, Highness,” she said, “but I do not like this place.”
Sheritra sat up. “What do you mean?”
Bakmut bit her lip. “I am not entirely sure,” she replied hesitantly, “but the servants of the house, they do not speak.”
“You mean that they do not speak to you? They are rude?”
Bakmut shook her head. “No, Highness. I mean that they do not speak at all. They are not deaf, for they respond when spoken to, and I do not think that they are dumb, for I saw one of them lick her mouth, but they simply never say a word.”
“Perhaps their mistress has trained them that way,” Sheritra offered. “Each household is different, you know that, Bakmut, and the demeanour of servants varies depending on their employers’ way of life.” Surprised and apprehensive, she found that she was fighting to keep a stridency out of her voice, wanting to reprimand Bakmut for attempting to coalesce her own vague fears. “This family has a need for more silence than we do,” she went on, “and probably the servants have been commanded not to speak unless their instructions are not clear. It is nothing. Put it out of your mind.”
Bakmut still hesitated. “But the silence is not nice, Highness. It weighs on me.”
“You are simply not used to it,” Sheritra said with finality, lying down again and easing the ivory headrest more comfortably against her neck. She bit back an impulse to tell the girl to keep reporting her feelings and impressions, and closed her eyes. Bakmut’s feet could be heard padding to the sleeping mat by the door and her little sighs as she composed herself brought a sense of security to Sheritra. My guard is outside in the passage, she thought. My staff have flooded the house. Harmin is within the sound of my cries, and I have embarked upon one small adventure solely for myself. What is this unease that borders on fear? I do not like the silence either. It is not calm, not a contented aura through which we might all move. It is like an invisible veil of obscure purpose that isolates us, cutting us off from events outside its power. Still with eyes shut, she smiled at her fanciful diagnosis And I believed our house to be quiet! she thought. You are still a timid child, Sheritra. Grow up! She sensed the implacable force of the early afternoon’s heat searing the thick mud walls that cocooned her. Bakmut groaned briefly in her dreams. The sheets slid silkily against Sheritra’s smooth skin and she slept.