Sheritra pushed herself from the couch, and dipping a square of linen in the water jug she drew it carefully over her brother’s face, his hands, his neck. The actions brought her relief. She did not have to think while her fingers busied themselves. “We must find the wax doll Tbubui used to cause this suffering,” she said determinedly, “and pull out the pins. We must also break into Father’s chest and find an incantation that will undo the damage to you. Removing the pins will allow you to live but your health must be restored.” He sat submissively while she worked. She could tell that he would not be able to do anything for himself, that searching Tbubui’s quarters would be up to her. Quickly flinging cushions onto the couch she gently forced him to lie down. “Sleep,” she said. “I will see what I can do. Will you be all right here by yourself?”
He had already closed his eyes. “Antef is outside,” he murmured. “Send him in. Thank you, Little Sun.” She kissed him on his damp forehead. His breath smelled of poppy and something else, a sweetish sourness that made her bite her lip in anxiety. He had already fallen into a restless doze when she stole out the door.
20
O that I could turn my face to the north wind
on the bank of the river
and could cry out to it to cool the pain in my heart!
THE NIGHT WAS STALE and the odour of the rising river teased her nostrils, a brackish vegetable smell, as Sheritra slipped across the garden, skirted the wall of the compound and approached the concubines’ house. Tbubui was due to move into her own apartments in four days, where the tighter security of the main house would envelop her, and as Sheritra picked her way cautiously through the shrubs screening the entrance, she was able to be grateful for this small advantage.
Turning over in her mind just how she would be able to enter the house, she was startled by soft rustlings and low voices. She halted, heart pounding, until she realized that she was hearing the women who had climbed onto the roof to escape the worst of the heat and were passing the night hours in sleep or gaming or intermittent gossip. Is Tbubui up there? Sheritra wondered anxiously. If all the women elected to have their bedding carried out, the guards will be watching the one stair on the other side and all I have to worry about is the Keeper.
She crept between the pillars and slipped through the entrance, then paused to listen. There was no sound but a distant, low snoring from the Keeper’s room. In trepidation, Sheritra went on. If Tbubui was asleep in her quarters there would be a servant at the door. Cautiously, Sheritra peered around the corner to the passage running past the woman’s domain. It was empty, and lit only by a shaft of thin moonlight falling through a clerestory window between the ceiling and wall.
A spirit of reckless haste took hold of Sheritra then. She did not know how long Tbubui would stay on the roof but it certainly would not be beyond sunrise. Hori was dying and the night was almost over. Running to Tbubui’s door she inched it open. Silence reigned within. Greatly daring, she pushed it wide and stepped inside. The same moonlight lit the stuffy ante-room and showed it vacant, the shapes of the few pieces of furniture humping grey around her. Dim though it was, there was enough light to see by.
Hurriedly Sheritra began to search, lifting cushions, pulling aside discarded linen, flicking through vases of flowers, even opening Tbubui’s golden shrine to Thoth and, with a murmured prayer of apology, feeling behind the statue of the god. She did not expect to find anything in this room and was not surprised to come up empty-handed.
Noiselessly she proceeded into the inner chamber. Its door was open and the couch vacant. Tbubui’s perfume smote her immediately, the myrrh, heavy and jaded, imbuing everything with an aura of incense and love-making. Though the space was limited, the careful placing of the furniture gave Sheritra an impression of quiet vastness in keeping with the woman’s need for simplicity. She began her search anew, this time being careful to leave no corner unexplored. She patted the mattress and ran a hand along the fragrant cedar frame of the couch. She lifted the lids of the tiring chests, the cosmetic boxes, the jewellery chests, her fingers thorough but frantic, but found nothing. She stood for a moment, thinking furiously. If I were Tbubui, where would I hide such a damning thing? she wondered. Then she began to smile. Of course! In the new suite, even now furnished and waiting for blessing and occupancy. No one has been in there for a week, except the servants to sweep it out. Sheritra spun on her heel and ran out of the house.
But her more leisurely hunt proved just as fruitless, and she flung herself into one of Tbubui’s inlaid ebony chairs, biting her lip in frustration. She knew that the doll would not be disposed of until the victim was dead, and the pins themselves would never be pulled out. She could have a thousand secret hiding places, Sheritra thought in despair. A pit in the garden, a hole in the floor, even something sunk in the river by the watersteps.