“You are forgiven, dear Sheritra,” Tbubui rejoined lightly. “I am aware of Hori’s infatuation with me. I have been kind to him, do not fear, and it will pass. As for the earring …” She reached down and deftly removed the piece from Sheritra’s grip. “Hori showed me the original, and loving turquoise as I do I was determined to have it copied. I drew its likeness as soon as Hori left, and my favourite jeweller made up a pair for me.”
“Oh.” Sheritra was covered with confusion. “But where is its mate?”
Tbubui sighed. “I have lost it. The fastening was not as secure as it should have been, but I did not want to wait for it to be fixed. I was too happy wearing it. Before I could bring myself to part with it, it parted from me. The servants have scoured the house and grounds, even the skiff and the barge, but it must have fallen from my ear somewhere in the city. One day I will have another one made.” She dropped the earring carelessly back into the chest. “Would your Highness like spiced wine? A snack?”
Tbubui’s explanation had been perfectly reasonable, but something in Sheritra’s intuition warned her that she had not heard the truth. At one time Hori would not have dreamed of desecrating a tomb by giving away someone else’s property, but that had been a free, honourable young man. Was the moody, irritable Hori, in the throes of an unreturned love, capable in fact of doing such a thing? Sheritra thought it possible. It took time, too, for a well-crafted piece of jewellery to be made, and the one Sheritra had dangled did not even seem new. The goldwork was finely scratched and pitted here and there. It was not an unusual practice for a craftsman to deliberately age a piece of furniture or jewellery, but Tbubui’s turquoise had glowed with the milky greenness of genuine antiquity, and the gold had been dark, spidered through with purple. It was entirely possible that Tbubui had used a turquoise already in her possession to form a pear-shaped stone like the original. It was also possible that her jeweller was able to take the extra time to reproduce Mittanni’s purple gold, but Sheritra had the uneasy feeling that none of these speculations were correct. Hori had pressed the beautiful thing into the hands of the woman he burned for and she had accepted it.
Sheritra made another uncomfortable mental connection. The discarded paraphernalia of the spell—could it have been conjured by Tbubui in an effort to avert the jealous anger of a dead woman? Yet it was the remains of a cursing spell, I am sure, Sheritra told herself as she lay sleepless on her couch or walked the garden or sat while Bakmut painted the soles of her feet with henna. One does not avert the rage of an ancient ka by insulting it yet again. I must go home for a day or two. I cannot put it off any longer.
She told Harmin that night as they lay tumbled in each other’s arms, and he nuzzled her cheek, saying, “I will let you go, providing you promise to come back in two days. You bring me hunting luck, Little Sun, and besides, you have made this house a happy place.” Later Tbubui quickly agreed that Sheritra’s decision was a wise one. “I can understand your worry,” she said sympathetically. “Scold that brother of yours for ignoring us both, and invite him for dinner when you return. Give my greetings to your illustrious mother.”
Sheritra had the few things she would need packed and said a casual farewell to Harmin and his mother. There was no need for formal leave-taking. She intended to return to the place she now considered her real home on the following afternoon.
But as she left the house and set off slowly towards the watersteps in the pale, early sunlight, a mixture of depression and reluctance fell heavily on her. She no longer carried reality with her wherever she went. Its immediacy, its focus, seemed to pale and blur the more distance she put between herself and the low, white house baking in its shield of silence. She moved up the ramp into the barge with the odd conviction that neither the outside world nor she herself had any substance.
Bakmut was clearly jubilant. Even the guards seemed to move and speak with a brisk sparkle. They are all happy but me, Sheritra thought resentfully as the vessel glided away from the bank. Well, they will not be happy for long because no matter what happens I am ordering them all back with me tomorrow. She stifled an urge to snap at Bakmut who was humming under her breath, and she stared ahead at the unfolding city with a glum determination.
Her father’s watersteps looked huge and new to her as the barge bumped them and the ramp was run out. The tethering poles sunk in the Nile flew spotless flags of blue and white, the imperial colours. The steps themselves, scoured daily of every stain, seemed to mount dazzlingly to infinity, and Sheritra breasted them in a kind of horror. At the top, the household guards saluted her one by one and several servants, impeccably attired, as spotless as the watersteps, came hurrying to reverence her. One of them, a herald, ran towards the house to announce her. A parasol was quickly unfolded and an escort formed.