Scroll of Saqqara(127)
“No,” she replied, and all at once she wanted very much to sit down. “From the first moment you saw her, when we were together on the litters, do you remember, Father? I had a suspicion it would come to this.” She decided not to tell him that she knew about the contract already. It did not matter anyway. “Give Mother time to become used to the idea and she will accept Tbubui,” she went on. “Mother is after all a princess, and will do her duty.”
“I had hoped for more than her duty,” Khaemwaset said hotly. “I wanted her to befriend Tbubui, usher her into the family warmly. I cannot pierce the cold, correct mood that has held her since I gave her the news. Well, she will have plenty of time to get used to the idea.”
“Why?” Sheritra allowed herself to sink onto the couch.
Khaemwaset folded his arms and began to pace “I sent Penbuy to Koptos to gather information on Tbubui’s family,” he said. “It has to do with a clause in the contract. I need not explain. I have been struck two blows today, Little Sun. Not only has my mother died, but my friend Penbuy also.”
“What?” Sheritra was fighting to keep up with such sudden developments after weeks of placid predictability. “Old Penbuy? How did he die?”
“Not so old,” her father replied with grim joviality. “Penbuy was my age. He did not want to go to Koptos at this time of the year but I sent him anyway. It was his duty to go.” She opened her mouth but he held up a hand to forestall her. “The herald who came north with the news said that Penbuy fell ill shortly after he arrived in the town. He complained of pains in his head and shortness of breath, but he kept working in the library attached to the temple there. One day he walked out, took four steps into the sunlight and collapsed. He was dead by the time his assistant reached him.”
Something ominous stalked along Sheritra’s spine as though her father had been pronouncing some grave and portentous edict that would change her fate forever, instead of quietly relating the events leading up the death of his servant and friend. “It was not your fault, Father,” she said gently, sensing his guilt “Penbuy was doing his duty as you said. It was his time. Death would have found him whether he had been there or here at home.” But is that true? she asked herself even as the words left her mouth. Oh, is it true? And that cold, nameless thing kept padding up and down her back on soft, repellent feet.
“I suppose so,” Khaemwaset said slowly. “I will miss him. He is, of course, being beautified in Koptos, and then his body will be returned to Memphis for burial. We are in mourning for two people, Sheritra.”
I wish I had not come here, Sheritra thought passionately. Perhaps if the news had come to me in Sisenet’s house I would have insisted on mourning there. I would have abstained from making love, I would have prayed, I would have sacrificed for the kas of my grandmother and poor Penbuy … “Father, where is Hori?” she asked. “I want to see him and then I want to go to my rooms and absorb all this.”
Khaemwaset smiled crookedly, painfully. “It has been a shock for you, hasn’t it? And I think Hori will be another shock. He is not himself at all, Sheritra. No one seems to know why. He avoids us as much as he can, even Antef. But perhaps he will talk to you.”
Indeed he will talk to me, Sheritra thought grimly, if I have to call the guards and have him held down until he does so. What a homecoming! “Does he know about the marriage contract?” she asked, rising.
Khaemwaset looked sheepish. “Not yet. A hundred times I have been on the point of speaking of it to him and a hundred times I have changed my mind. He has become so unapproachable.”
She smiled at him faintly. “Would you like me to do it for you?” She had fought to keep the sudden scorn she felt from tinging her words. What is happening to you, Father? she wondered. This expression of shame, of hesitation, might befit a servant, not a pharaoh’s son who has been used to giving commands and making decisions almost since his birth. It was as though something vital in him, something strong and noble, had softened like overripe fruit. What are you afraid of? she wanted to shout. Where is your nerve? It was said that an obsequious servant made a cruel master, and looking into her father’s embarrassed face she had a blinding urge to slap it. She had never felt lonelier.
“Thank you,” he replied with relief. “You are closer to him than I, and his temper is so uncertain that I have dreaded broaching the subject. If you pave the way I can then sit down with him and try to explain.”
“Surely no explanation is necessary,” she said stiffly. “There have been few princes with only a single wife, Father. You are an exception, a curiosity. We have been living an abnormal family life here in Memphis, sufficient only unto ourselves. Perhaps Mother, Hori and I have grown arrogant.”