Take to thee my breast;
what it hath overfloweth for thee.
DAWN WAS A HINT of thinning in the darkness when Khaemwaset slipped out of the concu bines’ house and re-entered his quarters, falling onto his couch and into his dreams almost simultaneously. He woke three hours later to the gentle strumming of his harpist and the good smell of fresh bread and ripe figs and grapes. Kasa was rolling up the shutter blinds to let in the precious early sun that would be firmly excluded in two more hours.
Khaemwaset ate without much appetite, his mind on Tbubui’s words of the night before, but it was as though the decision had been made, the ramifications of her pleading and his objections flowing scarcely coherently in the background. She is so right, he told himself, spitting a grape pip into his palm and staring at it stupidly. I should have considered this eventuality but I buried my head in the sand of delusion. Reality has caught up with us all and it is cold, a merciless, brute thing. Something must be done immediately, today, or I will lose her. “Kasa,” he called. “Have Ptah-Seankh wait upon me in my office. Have you selected my dress for this morning?”
He finished the food, waved the harpist out, and, once bathed and dressed, he said his prayers before the shrine of Thoth. They would hate me if they knew what I was about to do, he thought secretly while his tongue spoke the ancient words of beseeching and worship. Outrage, betrayal, bitterness, none of them would understand. But Tbubui is my life, my youth, my final amulet against the advancing years and the long darkness. Father is rich beyond the dreams of ordinary men. Let him pick up the pieces if I die. He owes me that much.
When he had snuffed the incense and closed the shrine he went to his office. One of his servants was already letting down the shutters against the sun’s implacable strength, and he could hear gardeners at work outside. Ptah-Seankh was sitting on a stool, reading, his palette on the floor beside him. He stood and bowed as Khaemwaset approached.
“Greetings, Ptah-Seankh,” Khaemwaset said. “A moment, please.” Taking a small key from his belt he went into the inner room, unlocked a chest, removed a scroll and came back into the office. Passing the scroll to his scribe he took his place behind the desk. “This is my will,” he explained. “I want you to read it carefully. There are three clauses in it, dealing with the disposition of my personal wealth and hereditary estates. Be careful to differentiate between my personal holdings and those assets that accrue to me because I am a prince. Hori automatically falls heir to those, and I can do nothing about that. But I want you to strike him from my personal inheritance. My daughter Sheritra also. Leave Nubnofret’s gains alone …”
Ptah-Seankh was clutching the scroll and staring at him, a dumbfounded expression on his face. “But Highness,” he stammered, “what has the Prince Hori done? Have you given enough thought to what you are asking me to do?”
“Of course,” Khaemwaset replied testily. “My wife Tbubui is pregnant, and that fact necessitates a change in the will. A copy of the document is filed in the Memphis House of Life. Take my seal as authorization, remove the copy and execute the same changes in it. You will make Tbubui’s unborn child my sole beneficiary.”
Ptah-Seankh stepped forward. “Highness, I beg you to consider well before you take this solemn initiative,” he expostulated. “If you remove Sheritra from the will you leave her without means for a marriage dowry if you die before she marries. As for Prince Hori …”
“If I want your opinion I shall ask for it,” Khaemwaset snarled. “Shall I repeat your instructions?”
“Yes,” Ptah-Seankh said steadily, his face pale. “I think your Highness had better say the words again.”
He is hoping that the sound of them will be so ominous that I will frighten myself and change my mind, Khaemwaset thought. I do frighten myself, but I will not change them. He repeated himself, slowly and carefully, aware of the scribe’s unwavering, unbelieving gaze. Then he dismissed the man. Ptah-Seankh bowed, paused as though wanting to argue again, then backed from the room. The door closed with a polite click behind him. It is done, Khaemwaset thought, laying his arms across the smooth surface of the desk and listening to the muted sounds wafting in from the garden. In the space of a few hours I have betrayed my children and degraded myself, but I have kept Tbubui. Later I will concern myself with the transgression of Ma’at, but now I will go to her and watch the anxiety smooth from her face when I tell her that she and our son are safe. Her eyes will slowly light, and she will touch my face with the tips of her fingers, and I will know that I have done the right thing, the only thing.