Someone in this house is harbouring a dreadful hatred, she thought. The spell has been spoken, the ritual performed, and the tools of this unknown person’s destruction have been thrown away. I wonder if the curse was successful, or if the victim knew of it and made a counter-incantation in time. She shuddered, then shrieked as a shadow fell across her.
“Highness, what are you doing?”
Sheritra pushed herself to her feet to find Harmin at her back. She indicated her find. “The sun flashing on the pen case caught my attention,” she explained. Inwardly she was shaking. “Someone has tried to kill someone else by this, Harmin.”
He shrugged. “The servants are always squabbling and carrying grudges and becoming embroiled in petty jealousies,” he replied. “They are the same everywhere, are they not? This spell must have originated in their quarters.”
“So your servants do have voices?” she half teased, half baited him, and he grunted.
“I suppose they are voluble enough when they are alone. Think no more of it, Princess. Would you like to drive the horse this time?”
She nodded absently and, side by side, they walked to the waiting chariot. But the feeling of familiarity that had stolen over her when she grasped the pen case would not leave her. It returned often in the days that followed, to taunt her with a memory just out of reach. Sometimes she wondered if it had been Sisenet himself, a diligent scholar, who had made the wax figure. Sometimes she considered Tbubui, a dabbler in medicine and perhaps in magic as well, but she could not imagine either of them closeted in the darkness coercing demons to do their will.
Tbubui no longer came to the bath house in the mornings to examine the state of the Princess’s skin. I suppose the visits have served their purpose, Sheritra thought, but the knowledge did not distress her. She felt as though she and Harmin had already signed a marriage contract, that by some strange alchemy she could not remember the occasion, but they were already man and wife, and she was a permanent and legitimate member of the household.
They still spent the mornings together, often crossing the river and strolling the choked streets of Memphis, a pastime they had not undertaken before Harmin became Sheritra’s lover. The crowds, the noise, even the smells, increasingly bewildered the girl, and she was always relieved to step onto the barge and be poled back to the safety and quiet of the isolated house.
She was in Tbubui’s room one day, sitting at the vanity table in a loose lounging robe, her face already painted but her long hair not yet dressed. She and Tbubui were examining Tbubui’s jewellery as though they were sisters, or their station in Egypt’s social hierarchy was similar. Sometimes this irritated Sheritra, but she was too much in awe of the mentor who had become her friend to protest and risk insulting her. The collection was one Sheritra admired, for it contained many heavy, simple pieces of ancient craftsmanship of a kind now difficult to obtain.
“My mother was very traditional in her tastes,” Tbubui was explaining as Sheritra’s fingers sifted through the rings, anklets, amulets and pectorals. “She had many pieces that belonged to her ancestors and she regarded them as sacred to the family, passed down to each succeeding generation. I also value them as such. My husband gave me lovely things, but I wear my mother’s jewellery almost every day.” She draped a silver pendant with an onyx Eye of Horus around Sheritra’s neck. “This is a light and airy thing that looks very well on you, Highness,” she said approvingly. “Also it is a powerful protection against evil. Do you like it?”
Sheritra was about to express her delight when her eye caught the glow of turquoise right at the bottom of the ebony chest. Tbubui owned much turquoise, but something about the shape of the thing she was looking at caught Sheritra’s fancy, and she pushed past the other trinkets and fished it out. Tbubui’s hands had gone still on her shoulders. The girl held up a gold-and-turquoise earring. It swung gently in her fingers, and she bit her lip as she peered at it, then she exclaimed, “Tbubui, this is the earring Hori found in the tunnel leading out of the tomb. I would know it anywhere!” Her hand closed over it and she turned on the stool. “What are you doing with it? Oh tell me that Hori did not desecrate that woman’s resting place by giving it to you!”
“Calm yourself, Highness,” Tbubui said, smiling. “Of course your brother would not do such a thing. He is much too honest.”
“But he is in love with you!” Sheritra blurted. “His judgment could have deserted him. Love makes us do questionable things sometimes …” Her voice trailed away, and for the first time in weeks she blushed. “I know you are to marry my father,” she finished lamely. “Forgive my tactlessness, Tbubui.”