Scroll of Saqqara(139)
He was not surprised to find a summons from his father already waiting for him when he stepped into his quarters. Pharaoh commanded his presence without delay. He was waiting in his private office behind the throne room. Khaemwaset had given little thought to Ramses’ current marriage negotiations, but their tortuous convolutions came back to him now, and as he strode unwillingly through the suffocating throngs of courtiers another memory, likewise submerged, floated whole and distastefully vivid into his mind. An old man, coughing politely, one desiccated hand grasping the amulet of Thoth that hung on his wasted chest and the other proffering a scroll. It had been oddly heavy for such a thin piece of papyrus, Khaemwaset remembered. He glanced suddenly down at his hand, feeling again its brittle fragility. He had lost it. He remembered that, too. Somewhere between the fiery torches outside the north door of the palace at Pi-Ramses and his own quarters the wretched thing had disappeared. For no reason he could fathom, his thoughts were turning of their own accord to the bogus Scroll of Thoth, once more sewn securely to the hand of an unknown man lying withered in his coffin. With an exclamation, Khaemwaset wrenched himself back to the present and Ib inquired politely, “Did your Highness speak?”
“No,” Khaemwaset said shortly. “I did not. We have arrived, Ib. Claim a stool outside the doors and wait for me.”
The Herald had ceased calling his titles and was bowing Khaemwaset into the room. Khaemwaset walked forward.
Just where the floor seemed to slide away into a gleaming infinity, its flow was broken by a mighty cedar desk. Behind it Ramses sat, gold-hung arms folded across his slightly concave, equally bejewelled chest, the wings of his white-and-blue-striped linen helmet framing the fastidious, slightly disdainful face Khaemwaset knew so well. His father’s beaked nose and dark, glossy eyes had always reminded Khaemwaset of an alert Horus, but today his birdlike watchfulness had a quality of the predator about it. Khaemwaset, coming up beside the desk and kneeling to kiss the royal feet, thought that Ramses’ expression had more in common with the vulture glaring down at him from the helmet’s headband than with the hawk-son of Osiris.
The Royal Scribe Tehuti-Emheb had risen from his position on a cushion just behind Pharaoh, and, together with a wrinkled and still blandly inscrutable Ashahebsed who was delicately balancing a silver ewer in both hands, he reverenced Khaemwaset. Brusquely he flapped a hand at them and they rose, the scribe to regain his place and Ashahebsed to pour a stream of purple wine into the chased gold cup at Ramses’ right. His glance briefly crossed Khaemwaset’s own, and Khaemwaset read the same haughty dislike they had always felt for each other in Ashahebsed’s watery old eyes.
But he had no time to respond, for Ramses was sitting back, crossing his legs slowly, hooking one arm over the back of his chair with casual yet studied grace. He did not invite his son to take the chair that stood vacant beside him. Instead he gracefully indicated the pile of scrolls to his left. His red-hennaed lips did not smile.
“Greetings, Khaemwaset,” he said smoothly. “I do not think that I have ever seen you looking so unhealthy.” The royal nose wrinkled slightly. The royal eyes held steadily on Khaemwaset’s face. “You are yellow and haggard,” Pharaoh went on relentlessly, “so that I am almost disposed to pity you instead of extending to you the discipline you deserve.” Now his mouth twitched in a wintry curve. “I said almost. These scrolls all contain complaints from the ministers to whom you owe your attention. Letters unanswered, estimates unapproved, vacant positions in minor ministries still unfilled, because you, Prince, have been shamefully neglecting your responsibilities.” He unhooked his arm, put his elbows on the desk, and steepling his many-ringed fingers under his chin he stared at Khaemwaset with calculated disgust. Khaemwaset dared not break his gaze in order to glance at Ashahebsed, but he sensed the man’s hidden glee. He did not mind Tehuti-Emheb’s presence, for it was his job to record the exchange and whatever its results might be, but Khaemwaset was suddenly furious with his father for not dismissing the old cupbearer. Knowing Ramses as he did, he was sure Ashahebsed’s presence was no oversight. Khaemwaset refused to be discomfited. Neither man would gossip, and the truth was that he deserved the Mighty Bull’s disapproval. Nevertheless, the fumes of anger coiled, acrid and bitter, in his throat. “But these things, though puzzling and annoying, do not merit the totality of my divine displeasure,” Ramses went on. “Twice your mother’s steward sent messages to you regarding her worsening health, yet she died without the comfort of your presence. I want to know why, Khaemwaset.”