Scroll of Saqqara(108)

“Of course! How stupid of me! But tell me, who is the High Priest of Thoth in Koptos, and what is the temple like? I myself am a devotee of the god.”

They talked for a while of religious matters, and Khaemwaset found himself warming to Sisenet’s incisive mind, his polite method of arguing, his well-modulated, even voice that was a fitting companion to his lucid reasoning powers. Khaemwaset loved an involved discussion on some point of history, medicine or magic with someone as sophisticated in those fields as himself, and to his delight, Sisenet was proving to be just such a man. The scroll, he thought. Perhaps there is some hope after all. He did not know if he was disappointed or pleased.

“When can you come to my home and examine the scroll I borrowed from the tomb?” he asked eventually. “I am eager, now, to have done with it. It has been in the back of my mind like a vague itch ever since I saw it.”

“I do not have your Highness’s erudition,” Sisenet answered, “and I doubt if I will be able to help you, but I would be honoured to try at your convenience.”

Khaemwaset pondered. There was Nubnofret to talk to, and his official duties to at last clear away. Then he had to smile at himself. I am still reluctant to handle the thing. I still want to avoid it. “Come one week from today,” he said. “I will hold the afternoon for us alone.”

“Very well, Prince.” Sisenet gave him a brief smile and both men fell silent. He will not bring up the subject of the marriage, Khaemwaset was thinking. It is my responsibility to do so. I believe I am a little in awe of this man. The realization surprised him.

“Tbubui tells me,” he began carefully, “that you are content to have her marry me.”

Sisenet gave a rare, open laugh. “How tactful you are, Highness! She does not need my approval, and the thought that I might have any control over your decision, you a prince of the blood, is ridiculous. But know that I am very pleased. Many men have desired her, and she has spurned them all.”

“And what will you do?” Khaemwaset asked curiously. “Will you return to Koptos?” The question seemed to amuse Sisenet. His eyes gleamed at some private thought.



“I may,” he replied, “but I do not think so. I am happy here, and the Memphis library is full of marvels.”

“Would you like a post in my household?” Khaemwaset found himself asking out of a strange need to ingratiate himself with the man. He immediately regretted the offer. It sounded like a gentle attempt at compensation, or the price of guilt. But Sisenet was not offended.

“Thank you, Prince, but no,” he declined. Still in that same odd, self-abnegatory mood, Khaemwaset was about to ask whether Harmin wanted help in advancing, but he remembered that Harmin would obtain an automatic title if he married Sheritra. The convolutions of the arrangement he had set in motion were too complex to consider at the moment, and besides, Khaemwaset thought, they make me afraid.

The conversation flagged. After a few innocuous pleasantries Khaemwaset took his leave, passing straight behind the hall and out into the glare of the garden. Sheritra and Harmin were no longer playing knucklebones. They were talking quietly while Bakmut trickled cool water over Sheritra’s limbs. The heat was intense. Khaemwaset talked to them briefly, promised his daughter that he would see her again soon, and gathering his staff, he returned to the river. He did not see Tbubui. Now that the contract was in her hands, now that he had taken one more step towards an irrevocable, violent revolution in his life, he was like a general who regroups his forces and rests, waiting for a new gambit. He wanted the peace of his office and the reassuring sight of Nubnofret picking daintily through her food opposite him in the deep bronze of a summer evening.





12

Let us praise Thoth,

the exact plummet of the balance,

from whom evil flees,

who accepts him who avoids evil.


THREE DAYS AFTER his first visit to Sheritra at Tbubui’s house, Khaemwaset knew he must share his decision with Nubnofret or die of guilt. He had woken with the now familiar lurch of apprehension in his chest at what had become his first thought of the day, and as he ate the bread and fruit Kasa had set beside him, he critically considered the gradual weakening of his will. He did not fully understand his hesitancy, or the feeling that he was somehow doing something reprehensible in marrying Tbubui.

The food was consumed and he was bathed and dressed before he stopped to consider what he was doing, and he only came to himself as Kasa settled him on the stool before his cosmetic table and pried the seal from a new jar of kohl. The polite snap of the wax brought Khaemwaset to his senses. This is not acceptable, he told himself angrily, watching Kasa dip a brush into the jet-black powder and lean towards his face. He closed his eyes and felt the damp brush sweep pleasingly across his eyelids. “Kasa,” he said aloud quickly, before the cloud of misgiving could solidify into yet another day of cowardly procrastination, “I want you to go across to the concubines’ house and tell the Keeper of the Door to open and prepare the largest suite for another occupant. I am going to marry again.”