“Khaemwaset,” she said quietly, “I would like to go north with Ramses when he returns to the Delta. I need a rest. I need time away from the constant dust and noise of construction at home. It would not be for long. A month, perhaps.”
Khaemwaset considered her. Her expression was politely neutral and her eyes gave back nothing. She wants to get away from me, he thought. From me.
“I am sorry, Nubnofret,” he replied emphatically. “You have an estate to run, and Tbubui will be moving into the concubines’ house as soon as we are unpacked. If you are not there to welcome her officially and ease her transition you will be committing a breach of good manners, and besides, what would people say?”
“They would say that Nubnofret, Chief Wife of Prince Khaemwaset, does not like his Highness’s choice for a Second Wife and wishes to show her displeasure by her temporary absence,” she snapped back. “Have you so little consideration for my feelings, Khaemwaset? Do you not care that I am worried about you, that your father is worried about you, that Tbubui will bring ruin upon you?” She gave him a withering look, grunted scornfully and stalked away.
I am so tired of all this confusion, Khaemwaset thought, watching her go. Within me and without, a constant whirl of conflict, pain, desire, remorse, guilt. “Ib,” he shouted more loudly than was necessary. “Find Amek! We are going back across the river, to the ruined temple of Queen Hatshepsut. There are inscriptions I want to examine before we leave!” Work is the answer, he told himself fervently. Work will make the time pass more rapidly, and then the movement of the barge floating home, floating back to sanity, and then she will be there, on my estate, and everything will become lucid again. He left the suite, slamming the doors closed behind him.
HORI HAD LIVED his own misery in Thebes, avoiding his many relatives and trying to wear himself out by donning peasant linen and walking the river tracks, meandering through the markets, or standing for hours in the temple of Amun behind one of the forest of pillars in the outer court, watching the incense rise from the inner court and shiver in an almost invisible cloud against a blue sky, and trying to pray. But prayer was impossible. Only words of bitterness, black and angry, would come.
It was on one of these occasions, as he was striding away from the temple towards the donkey-choked traffic along the river road that his name was called. He halted and turned, shading his eyes. A litter had been lowered not ten paces away and the curtain had been twitched open. Hori glimpsed one long brown leg, its calf wound with glinting gold anklets, and a drift of snowy linen. For one moment his heart gave a lurch and he began to run towards Tbubui, but then the figure leaned out, shorter, younger than the creature of his imagination, and the daughter of Pharaoh’s Chief Architect, Nefert-khay, was smiling at him. He remembered her vaguely from his last trip to the Delta, a pretty and vivacious girl who had sat beside him at one of the feasts and who had later done her best to make him kiss her. She bowed as he came up to the litter.
“Nefert-khay,” he said heavily.
“So I was right,” she said gaily. “It is Prince Hori. I knew you would be in Thebes for your grandmother’s funeral, but I did not expect you to remember me. I am flattered, Highness!”
“How could I not remember you?” he bantered back with as much lightness as he could muster. “You are hardly the most modest and retiring lady at court! It is good to see you again, Nefert-khay. Where are you going?”
She laughed, showing even white teeth. “I was about to spend an hour saying my prayers, but to tell you the truth, Prince, I really wanted to get away from the palace. We are jammed into the available accommodations like fish in a frying pan so that I could hardly breathe. And you?”
“I have just finished my prayers,” Hori replied gravely. “I thought I might walk a little by the river.” Somehow it was good to talk to her. She was fresh-faced, uncomplicated, a healthy young animal with her four thick, lustrous braids bouncing against the unblemished skin of her near-naked breasts, her air of optimistic energy, her smiling clear eyes. Hori felt a little of his sourness lift.
She grimaced in mock horror. “Alone, Highness? No friend, no guard? I have a good idea. Let us find a secluded part of the river and go swimming. I can say my prayers this evening. Amun will not mind.”
His first impulse was to make an excuse, but he found himself almost unwillingly grinning back at her. “Thank you,” he said. “I can think of nothing more pleasurable. Do you know of such a place?”
“No, but we can have the bearers tramp here and there until we find one. Thebes is only a town after all.” She wriggled away from him and patted the dent her body had left in the cushions. “Will you ride with me, Prince?”