Scroll of Saqqara(140)

Wild excuses flitted rapidly through Khaemwaset’s mind. I did not receive the messages. My scribe read them to me and misinterpreted their scrawl. I was ready to come but then fell ill. You can see, Great Horus, how ill I have been. I have fallen desperately in love with a beautiful woman so that nothing and no one else exists for me, and even the suffering of my dying mother meant only an annoying inconvenience. He spread out his hands.

“I can offer no explanation, Divine One,” he said.

There was a moment of stunned silence. Ramses stared at him in disbelief. “You are defying me!” he shouted, the controlled, suave voice gone under the force of his rage, and Khaemwaset realized that his father was genuinely, perhaps even dangerously, furious. He waited, saying nothing.

Ramses began to caress the long, gold-and carnelian earring lying against his neck, stroking it between his forefinger and thumb. He was frowning. Then, abruptly, he gave the bauble a tug and snapped his fingers. “Ashahebsed, Tehuti-Emheb, you are dismissed,” he said sharply. Both men immediately bowed, the scribe as he rose with his palette balanced on both palms, and backed down the room towards the door. Ramses paid them no more attention, “You may sit, Khaemwaset,” he invited, his voice calmly dry once more, and Khaemwaset did so.

“Thank you, Father,” he said.

“Now you may speak,” Ramses went on. It was not a suggestion, Khaemwaset realized, it was a command. The double doors boomed closed. He was alone with this man, this god who held the fate of every Egyptian between his withered, carefully hennaed palms, and who had the power to punish his, Khaemwaset’s, laxity in any way he chose. He was waiting, head slightly tilted, eyebrows raised, those thickly kohled, all-knowing eyes harshly impatient. I have always been his favourite, Khaemwaset thought with a twinge of apprehension, but to be the favourite of an intelligent, devious and unscrupulous god—What does it mean? He took a deep breath.

“I do have an explanation, Father,” he began, “but no excuse. I have shamefully neglected every duty to Egypt, to you and to the gods, and my treatment of Mother has been nothing short of damnable, even though I knew perfectly well that she could die at any moment. She received that warning and passed it on to me, but I paid no attention.” He swallowed, still angry, knowing that he was talking of shame but not feeling it, hoping that his father would not pierce to the truth with those preternaturally observant old eyes.

“We know all this,” Ramses cut in laconically. “You are indulging yourself, Khaemwaset. I have an audience with a delegation from Alashia in three days’ time so you had better hurry your explanation.”

“Very well,” he said simply. “I have fallen in love with great violence, so that for some months now I have been unable to concentrate on anything else. I have offered the woman a contract and been accepted, and only a confirmation of her noble status stands between us. That is all.”

Ramses stared at him, dumbfounded, then all at once he began to laugh, a rich, robust burst of sound that stripped ten years from his appearance. “Khaemwaset in love? Impossible!” he gasped. “The Mighty Prince of Propriety besotted? Delicious! Tell me all about this remarkable personage, Khaemwaset. I might decide to forgive you your terrible faults after all.”

Obediently, Khaemwaset began to describe Tbubui to his father, and as he did so a wave of homesickness overtook him, mixed with a strange impression of inner warping, as though he were not really here in thus sumptuous office listening to a voice he barely recognized as his own, forcing out hesitant and clumsy words that had little to do with the razor-sharp keenness of his emotions. The shrewd eyes of the man leaning over the desk opposite him glowed with relish. Khaemwaset’s explanation trailed away into silence and Ramses sat straight.

“I expect to have the woman presented to me on your next visit to Pi-Ramses,” he said. “If she is half as irresistible as you say, I shall order the marriage void and put her in my harem. But I daresay she is one of those stringy, sexless, serious females who would rather open a scroll than her legs. I know your taste, my son. I have always been astounded that you chose to marry a woman as voluptuous as Nubnofret.” He lifted the golden cup at his elbow with three fastidious fingers and sipped at the wine, peering cunningly at Khaemwaset over the rim. “And speaking of Nubnofret,” he said, running his tongue carefully along his red lips, “what opinion has she expressed of your Second Wife-to-be?”

Khaemwaset grinned weakly, still in the grip of that uncomfortable distortion. “She is not happy, Divine One.”