A queer little half-smile flitted across her face. “You have always been too indulgent with them, Khaemwaset,” she said. “You have made them the spoiled centre of your life. Where other men have placed their families second to their duty to Egypt, you have delighted in fulfilling their desires first and they have become unruly. Hori, in fact, has …” Her voice trailed off, and he saw an expression of anguish in her eyes.
“You know something you are not telling me,” Khaemwaset demanded. “I have never heard a word of criticism of my family pass those sensuous lips of yours, Tbubui, unless I have almost thrashed it out of you. What do you know about Hori?”
She came to him slowly, her hips swivelling in unconscious invitation, halting just out of his reach. “I do carry a dreadful thing concerning your son,” she said in a low voice. “I will tell you now, but only because I live in increasing terror for my safety and the life of my unborn child. Oh promise me, dear brother, that you will not blame me!”
“Tbubui,” he said in exasperation, “I love only you. Even your silly little faults are dear to me. Come now. What is on your mind?”
“You will not believe anything he brings back from Koptos, will you?”
“No,” Khaemwaset assured her. “I will not.”
“He is so implacable in his hatred,” she began, so softly that he had to crane to hear her. “He would kill me if he could.” She looked up and faced him, her eyes full of desperation, her mouth trembling. “He raped me, Khaemwaset. Hori raped me when he first knew I was to marry you. He had come to my house to talk, he said, but he began to make advances towards me. When I refused him and told him I was in love with you and we were going to be married he became incensed. ‘Do you not prefer young flesh, Tbubui, to some old man fighting the encroachments of time?’ he urged, and then he … he …” She covered her face with her hands. “I am so ashamed!” she burst out, and then began to weep. “Believe me, Khaemwaset, I could do nothing! I tried to summon my servants but he clapped a hand over my mouth. ‘Cry out and I will kill you!’ he threatened, and I believed him. He was insane, a wild man. I even think …”
“What?” Khaemwaset croaked. He was looking about desperately, his eyes lighting on first one thing and then another, but he could not escape his own feeling of mounting betrayal and rage. Tbubui collapsed onto the floor, pulling her hair to hide her face, then her hands scooped up imaginary earth and placed it on her head in the traditional gesture of mourning.
“I do not even know if my baby is yours or his!” she blurted. “I pray that it is yours, Khaemwaset! I pray! I pray!”
Khaemwaset came slowly to his feet. “You need not fear, Tbubui,” he said thickly. “Sleep in peace, you and our unborn child. Hori has betrayed every decency, every claim he might have had on my affections or my paternal duty. He will be punished.”
She looked up, her face disfigured and tear-stained. “You must kill him, Khaemwaset,” she choked. “He will not rest until he has exacted what he sees as a just vengeance on me, and I am so afraid! Kill him!”
Some part of Khaemwaset, a tiny core of sanity, began to shout no! No! This is an illusion! Remember his sense of humour, his smile, his readiness to be your partner. The work you have done together, the discussions, the nights of drinking and closeness, the love and pride in his eyes … But the overwhelming part of him that was Tbubui swept over him.
Walking to her he squatted and drew her hot, damp head down onto his chest. “I am sorry that you have suffered so much at the hands of my family,” he said into her hair, eyes closed. “Hori does not deserve to live. I will see to it.”
“I am desperately sorry, Khaemwaset,” she said, her voice muffled against his skin, and he felt her hand insinuate itself between his thighs.
SHERITRA WAS DREAMING. Harmin was bending over her, a scarlet ribbon tied into his hair, the smell of his skin a musky, warm perfume that invaded her nostrils and rendered her weak with longing. “Pull back your sheets and let me come in,” he was whispering. “It is I, Sheritra. I am here. I am here.” She looked up at him, lit dimly by the night lamp, her gaze languorous and slow with desire, but there was something wrong. His smile was changing, becoming feral. His teeth were lengthening, sharpening, his face greying, and she realized with a shock of pure horror that a jackal was bending over her. Starting up with a shriek she realized first that it was still night and the peace and silence of the numbing hours before dawn had a hold on the house, and second that Bakmut was shaking her gently.