Home>>read Scroll of Saqqara free online

Scroll of Saqqara(143)

By:Pauline Gedge


Again he had intended to refuse, to walk beside the litter, but he found himself sliding down beside her. The litter rose and began to sway. “A quiet spot by the river please, Simut!” she shouted to her chief bearer, then she let the curtain fall and turned to Hori, her flawless little face inches from his own. All at once he was aware of his grubby kilt, his tangled, unwashed hair, the grit seaming his skin. “If you were ten years younger I would say that you are a naughty little boy who has run away from home,” she said frankly after regarding him for a while. “You look as though you have already been through many hair-raising adventures. Does your royal father know where you are?”

Admiration for her made him smile. “I apologize, Nefert-khay,” he said humbly. “I have a hard thing on my mind and it has made me careless of all save its constant pain.” He ran a hand self-consciously through his tresses. “Meeting you was very opportune …”

“Because you knew you were in dire need of a wash,” she finished for him, giggling. “Highness, you are an annoying, frustrating, altogether unapproachable man. You appear at court, always seemingly out of nowhere. You drift about the corridors and gardens with your nose in the air and your thoughts far away, then you disappear again. You are the subject of lip-smacking gossip among my friends when the antics of those at court become boring. Someone will say, ‘I think I saw Prince Hori yesterday, down by the fountains, but I cannot be sure. Is he at court again?’ and no one will really know, and then we begin to discuss your mystery and then we berate you for our boredom and unhappiness.” She giggled again, a squirming, vitally alive, fragrantly perfumed example of the best of Egypt’s feminine nobility.

An overwhelming temptation to bare his soul came to Hori. He wanted to spill everything into those delicate, shell-like ears, to watch her frown and become solemn, but he refused the impulse. She is better for me this way, he thought. Funny, vibrant, dragging me out of myself for one afternoon. “I had no idea that so many eddies were created in my wake,” he protested honestly. She turned onto her back, her knees up, and began to twirl a thoroughly wilted pink lotus flower in her fingers.

“I expect I exaggerate,” she admitted, unrepentant. “You are probably not mysterious at all. My friends and I are probably mistaking a merely vacant expression for something exciting and exotic. Women are so foolishly romantic, aren’t they, Highness?”

Some are, he thought grimly. And some are cruel, and some care nothing for romance but only wealth and position, and some use their seductiveness to maim. “There is nothing wrong with romance,” he said firmly. “Love is wonderful, Nefert-khay.”

She sighed gustily. “Is it, Prince? Are you in love? Do men dream foolishly and stand gazing at nothing with a stupid expression on their faces? And steal a bracelet or even a piece of papyrus from the object of their desires so they can kiss it and press it to their bosoms when no one is looking?” She rolled her head and gazed at him in mock seriousness. “Do they?”

How innocent you are, he thought, looking down at her. Even with your palace sophistication, your patter, your worldliness, you are so blessedly innocent. I do not see that expression on Sheritra’s face. Not anymore.

“How old are you, Nefert-khay?” he asked suddenly.

She pouted. “Oh dear,” she said. “I am going to get an indulgent lecture. I am seventeen years old. My father has been looking for a husband for me for the last year but he has not been looking far enough afield.” She sat up. “I did suggest you as a candidate, Highness. My blood is certainly noble, though not, of course, royal. But my father says that you will have to marry royalty first, and think about nobility in a Second Wife.” Her face lit up. “So be quick, Prince Hori, and marry some boring blue-blood so that you may then turn your attention to me. Or better still, I will be the first candidate for your harem. Take me as your concubine. You can always marry me later.”

Hori burst into his first spontaneous laughter for many weeks, and as he roared helplessly, the tears trickling down his cheeks, making rivulets in the grime, he felt a tiny part of the blackness around his heart crumble away. Nefertkhay was looking decidedly nettled.

“My dear girl!” he gasped. “Does anyone know when you are being serious? I assure you that when I am ready to marry, yours will be the second name put forward to my father.”

“The second?”

“After the boring blue-blood, of course!”

The litter settled to the ground with a gentle bump. Nefert-khay pulled aside the curtain and leaned out. “This will do very well,” she shouted. “Good for you, Simut! Come, Highness. I will fill your mouth with mud for not falling at my feet in immediate surrender.”