“Highness, your brother is here. He is here,” the girl was saying, and Sheritra passed a shaking hand over her face.
“Hori?” she asked, aware that she was drenched in sweat. “He has returned? Bring him in, Bakmut, and find some food and something to drink at once.” The girl nodded and melted into the shadows.
Sheritra looked at the night lamp. Bakmut had obviously just trimmed it and it send a tiny, reassuring column of yellow sanity into the darkness pressing about the couch. Sheritra sat higher, now wide awake, and as she did so there was movement beyond the lamp’s reach. Hori materialized and sat heavily beside her knees. Sheritra stifled a scream. He was so gaunt that she could see his ribs, and his head was trembling The hair that had once been so thick and gleaming with health lay lank against his neck, and his eyes, as he turned to survey her, were as filmed and sunken as an old man’s.
“Gods, Hori,” she exhaled. “What has happened to you?”
“I never thought I would see you again,” he rasped, and she could see tears of fatigue gathering. “I am dying of a curse, Sheritra, Tbubui’s curse, like the bite she put on poor Penbuy. Do you remember?”
For a confused moment she could not comprehend what he was saying. He sounded delirious. But then in a flash of enlightenment she saw again the pile of refuse, the glint of something, the broken pen case in her puzzled hands and the wax doll.
“Penbuy!” she cried out “Of course! How could I have been so blind! It was his pen case. He had several, and I suppose I must have seen them all at one time or another but not directly, just out of the corner of my eye, unremarked. Penbuy …”
“She put a death curse on him so that he would not bring back bad news from Koptos,” Hori whispered. “Sheritra, read these. Read them now.” Several scrolls appeared and he passed them to her. The shaking in his hands was so pronounced that it was communicated to her as she took the papyrus. His skin, as she brushed his fingers, was hot and dry. She wanted to throw the scrolls aside, to call for her father in his capacity as physician, to rouse the servants and have him put to bed, but she sensed the desperation behind his request and honoured it, giving all her attention to the scrolls.
She had just begun to read when Bakmut returned with wine and slices of cold roast goose and melon. “Bring more light,” she ordered absently, but by the time the girl was placing larger lamps on the holders about the room she was oblivious, all her attention fixed on what she was reading. Hori sat quietly, swaying sometimes, occasionally lifting a flask to his mouth. What is that?” she asked once, her eyes still on the scroll under her hands, and he answered, “Poppy, Little Sun.” She had nodded and gone back to her reading.
At last she allowed the final scroll to roll up with a polite rustle. Hori turned to her and they regarded one another in silence.
“Impossible,” she hissed. “Never.” There was a cold anger in her.
“No,” he insisted. “Think, Sheritra. Let us examine the evidence rationally.”
“What you are suggesting is not rational, Hori,” she said, and he jerked away, his whole body quivering uncontrollably with the gesture.
“I know,” he said. “But I was in that tomb, Sheritra. The body had gone. The librarian was horrified and mystified. The water depicted on the walls …” He stopped himself with an obvious effort. “May I try and convince you?”
Sheritra’s dream came back to her, alien and frightening. “Very well. But you should not be trying to talk. You are very sick. I think she has poisoned you, and if so you need Father and an antidote.”
He laughed breathlessly, painfully. “He can’t help me. She murdered Penbuy by a death curse and she is doing the same to me. Is that too difficult to understand?”
“I am sorry, Hori. Continue.” Privately she sent a quick glance into the room for Bakmut. If she could send the girl for her father Hori might be saved, but she did not want to drain her brother’s strength with argument. “At least eat something first,” she suggested, and at that Hori turned on her, his lips drawn back in a fevered snarl.
“Antef fed me soup until I could no longer keep it down,” he said, and with a chill of real fear Sheritra heard the terror in his voice. “I have no time to eat, you little fool. Wake up! I am dying! Let me try to convince you!” She recoiled, then took his hand.
“Yes,” she quavered.
“Will you first try to believe that Father has done this? That he unleashed something perverse when he spoke the words on the scroll without knowing what he said?”