Scroll of Saqqara(132)
Sheritra shivered. She knew his feeling well. “The addition is for Tbubui,” she said gently. “He is going to marry her. In fact, they have already signed the contract. Penbuy was in Koptos investigating her family when he died.”
He made a mewling sound, like a blind kitten pawing for its mother, but he did not move. His face was turned to the river where a fishing boat, its white, triangular sail flapping idly in the slight noon breeze, was slowly tacking by. No stirring of air, however, could penetrate the thick river growth that surrounded the pair, and the view of the Nile from the clearing was crisscrossed by twisted branches and stiffly upright reeds. Sheritra brushed at a fly that was hovering to seek the salt around her eyes. She wanted to speak, to have wise and sympathetic things to say, but the enormity of Hori’s involvement and the bleakness of his future overwhelmed her and she remained silent. His voice, when it came, startled her.
“No wonder she would have nothing to do with me,” he croaked. “Why consider a stripling son when you can have the father, wealthy, influential, handsome? Knowing how I felt about her, she should have told me. She should have told me!” Sheritra was helpless against the bitterness in his voice. “I feel like a fool,” he went on in a low tone. “A stupid, ignorant, childish fool. How she must be laughing at me!”
“No!” Sheritra managed. “She would not do that. And how could she say anything to you, Hori, when at the time she was not sure of Father’s feelings? It would have been wrong.”
“I suppose so,” he agreed grudgingly. “But why are you telling me, Little Sun? Did Father lack the guts to do so?”
Sheritra thought of Khaemwaset’s embarrassed, sheepish face, his pathetic eagerness when she offered to break the news to Hori. “Yes,” she answered, “but not because he suspects that you love her also. He is so embroiled in his own emotion that I don’t think he could see past it if he tried. He has always been such a strong, quiet, predictable man, Hori, in control of himself and satisfied with his life. He has been violently disrupted, and is ashamed of it.”
Now Hori turned to study her. Some of the pain went out of his eyes. “You have changed,” he said softly. “I hear a new wisdom in you, Sheritra, a knowledge of others that was not there before. You have grown.”
Sheritra took a deep breath and felt the old, familiar flush of colour begin to seep up her neck. “I have been making love with Harmin,” she said frankly, and waited for a reaction, but there was none. Hori continued to examine her. “I know what you are going through, dear brother, because the same wound plagues me. Yet I am more fortunate. I have gained the object of my desire.”
“You are indeed more fortunate,” he said slowly, “and that fortune will increase with father’s m … marriage.” He stumbled on the words, and then recovered. “With Tbubui in residence here, Harmin will either move in also or be a constant visitor. Whereas I …” He swallowed, then burst out, “Forgive me, Sheritra! I am brimming with a most distasteful self-pity.” Then suddenly, shockingly, he was crying, loud, harsh sobs made more agonizing by his efforts to subdue them.
Sheritra knelt and pulled his head down onto her breast, not saying anything, her eyes travelling the surrounding growth, the broken glimpses of the river, the parade of ants still swarming over the forgotten bread and streaming away into the sand. Presently Hori sat back, wiping his face on his dirty and wilted kilt. “I feel better,” he said. “We always did help each other, didn’t we, Sheritra? Forgive me for ignoring you lately, for not even sending a herald to inquire how you were.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “Hori, what will you do now?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. To stay here with her actually in the house would be more than I could bear. Perhaps I will consider taking up residence with Grandfather at Pi-Ramses and applying for some government post. I am, after all, a prince of the blood.” He shot her an impish grin that was a pale copy of his former gentle humour, but nevertheless filled her with relief. “Or I may decide to become a full-time priest of Ptah instead of fulfilling my duty to the god for only three months out of the year.”
“Please, Hori,” she begged. “Make no irrevocable decisions just yet, no matter how anguished you are.”
“Little Sun,” he replied, stroking her hair. “I will wait, as I said, but I will not prolong my pain.”
They fell silent. Sheritra almost drowsed. Reaction from the events of the morning was setting in and she thought of her couch with longing. But before she could sleep there was the matter of the earring, a prick of unease under everything else. Hori had unfolded and was lying back, his hands behind his head, his ankles crossed. She shifted so that she was looking down on him.