IT TOOK SHERITRA a long time to find her brother. She searched the house and grounds, growing hotter and more irritated. She wanted to sit quietly under a tree and absorb the news of her disappointment while a servant ran after him, but did not want Hori to feel that he had been summoned.
At last she had an idea. Ordering Bakmut back to her rooms she set off for the watersteps. This time she skirted the northern end of the house, picking her way through the building debris, to her, new and alarming, when she rounded a corner and almost tripped over a pile of sun-dried bricks. The shape of the addition could be clearly seen. Her father’s architect stood under a canopy in the middle of what had once been the spacious and peaceful north garden, a table before him, his head bent over his blueprints. Beside him Sheritra recognized several master craftsmen who waited for him to speak.
A moment of pure hatred for Tbubui shook Sheritra as she paused, hand raised against the glare, surveying the dismal mess, but she waved the feeling off with a rueful smile and a shake of the head. The men under the canopy sensed her passing and looked up, bowing to her, but she ignored them and was soon walking along the shrub-lined path to the watersteps.
Just before she reached them she veered, pushing through the stiff, summer-withered twigs and into the tangled bushes and small trees of the riverbank. They gave way to rushes and soggy ground but she went on, for a little farther, out of sight of both the steps and the river, was a clear space where she and Hori used to crouch together to watch the arrivals and departures of guests, or to while away lazy afternoons out of reach of their guards and nurses. Neither she nor Hori had used the place for years but she was certain that it had not become overgrown, and that he would be there, arms about his raised knees, eyes on the patches of river to be glimpsed through the sheltering reeds.
Sure enough, as she fought her way forward she saw a flicker of white. In another moment she was lowering herself beside him. He was sitting on a mat, a jug of beer and a half-eaten slice of black bread smeared with butter beside him. Ants were already at work on the bread but Hori obviously had not noticed. He glanced at Sheritra as she squatted, and she was hard pressed to still her shocked reaction at the sight of him. He was gaunt, with grooves of deep-violet shadow under his eyes. His hair was unkempt, his linen filthy. “Hori” she blurted unthinkingly. “Haven’t you bathed today?”
“Welcome home, Sheritra,” he said mockingly. “I presume you’ve been told the news. And no, I have not bathed today. I was out all night partying at the house of Huy’s son. I crept into the kitchens for some bread and beer and brought them here. I think I went to sleep.” He smiled then, a wan, quick quirk of the lips that to Sheritra was somehow more ghoulish than if he had scowled at her. “I suppose I should go into the house and have someone clean me up. I must look terrible.” He passed a weary hand across his face.
“How did you know about Grandmother and Penbuy?” she asked curiously.
“I heard a couple of the kitchen servants gossiping as I grabbed my victuals. Is that why you came home?”
Tentatively she touched his knee. “No. I was anxious about you, Hori, and angry that you had not come to see me or sent me any word.” She hesitated, then went on. “Also there are certain things I must discuss with you. I am sorry to see you in such anguish. I love you.”
Clumsily he put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her tightly, then he withdrew. “I love you too,” he responded, a tremor in his voice. “I hate myself for this cowardly giving in, Sheritra, this relinquishing of everything strong in myself, but somehow I cannot help it. I am tortured by thoughts of Tbubui every waking moment. The times I have spent with her are repeated over and over in my mind with the most horrible clarity. I have never been so exquisitely hurt in all my life.”
“Do you talk to Antef?”
He flinched away from her. “No. I have betrayed our friendship. Antef is also hurt and bewildered, and I carry guilt for that on top of everything else. But Antef would not understand and could offer me no comfort, I know. And talking to Father is out of the question.”
Oh Hori, she thought, shrinking from the thing she must tell him. How right you are! “Do you know why Father is having an addition built on the house?” she asked after a moment, and he shook his head.
“No one has told me and I have not asked,” he said. “You don’t know what it is like, Sheritra. I don’t care why the house is being expanded. I simply don’t care. I am consumed by Tbubui and nothing else has any reality at all.”