Scroll of Saqqara(193)

His father had come out of his room and was standing nonchalantly, watching. Hori, leaning heavily on Antef, saw a glance of mutual conspiracy flash between the two of them, a gloating moment of triumph before Merhu pushed her roughly away.

“You?” he said loudly, looking her up and down with feigned surprise. “Me marry you?” He was stepping back, contempt in every regal line of him, and Sheritra was momentarily dumbfounded. “You were an assignment I was asked to undertake, and not even a particularly interesting one at that. Virgins bore me. It was boring to possess your scrawny body and even more tedious to pretend I loved you. I want no more to do with you. The game has palled.”

“Sheritra …” Hori gasped, but she whirled and pushed past him, such shame and unbelief on her face that he shrank back.

He began to hobble after her, with Antef’s arm around his waist, and behind them Nenefer-ka-Ptah started to laugh. The coarse, inhuman sound followed them along the passage and out into the garden, a rising cacophony of insane delight that woke the shadows and pursued them like the gleeful demons of the underworld, until the path began and the palms gradually muffled that hysterical shrieking.

Sheritra was huddled at the foot of the watersteps, her breath coming in shuddering gasps, too shocked to cry. The skiff had vanished, Hori noticed as he and Antef made their halting way towards her, but the raft was tethered securely to the one pole at the foot. “How did you know I was here?” Hori managed.

“The Princess knew,” Antef said. “The alarm was raised two hours ago when your guard was found dead at your door and you were gone. We had spent most of the day trying to devise a way to get you out. She said that the only place left for you to try was Sisenet’s house. We crept away in all the hue and cry and I doubt if we were missed.”

They had come up to Sheritra but she gave no sign of having seen them. She continued to hug her knees, her face buried, her whole body shaking with suppressed sobs.

“Sheritra,” Hori said urgently. “You cannot stay here. You must go home. Sheritra!” At length she lifted her head. Her face was disfigured in its grief but it was dry, and under the impact of shock and betrayal, Hori thought he saw something terrible, a cold implacability he did not like. “Antef and I will take you home,” he said, “and then we will drift towards the Delta. I must find a priest of Thoth or of Set to take this curse from me.” She rallied with an obvious effort and came to her feet unsteadily.

“Forgive me for not believing you, Hori,” she said in a strangled whisper. “I saw you strike Sisenet. I saw the knife in his throat. I still cannot accept …”

“I know,” he said swiftly. “Get onto the raft, Sheritra. Antef, you will have to row.”

They tumbled onto the craft and Antef pushed off. Hori sat with his arm flung over Sheritra, his head nodding against her breast as Antef panted, fighting the current. Hori closed his eyes. Two days, he thought. I have two days if that demon spoke correctly. Sheritra stirred and he heard her whimper.

The raft bumped and Antef said, “Your Highness, we are home. Do you want to disembark?”

Hori pulled himself away from his sister. Dimly he felt her take his face between her hands, and her kiss was like dark petals on his lips. “I love you, Hori,” she said urgently, her voice breaking. “I will never forget you. Go in peace.”

So she knows that I will not survive, he thought dimly. He rubbed his cheek against hers but he was incapable of words. His burst of energy was over and he wanted nothing more, now, than to curl up on the floor of the raft and lapse into unconsciousness. He felt her rise and heard her footsteps crossing the craft, then there was only the river’s secret sucking noises and Antef’s regular panting. “Take me north, Antef,” he murmured, and gave himself up to the blessed painless spiral into oblivion.

Sheritra walked calmly up the steps. Behind her she heard Antef grunt as he poled the raft away, but she did not turn. She was cold and calm, she was in control of herself. With an absent word of greeting to the guard by the water she reached the path and started along it, still encased in that brittle unnatural peace.

Dawn was not far off. She felt it. The torches were guttering and the darkness in the garden had a quality of restlessness about it. A servant rushed by, giving her a cursory reverence, and further on a guard was fruitlessly searching the bushes. They will not find him, she thought coldly. Already he is a possession of the gods. No one can touch him now.

She swung into the house by the main entrance, ignoring the flurry of frenetic activity going on, and made her way unimpeded to her own quarters. Bakmut was asleep, sprawled across the doorway, but Sheritra stepped over her and continued on into her bedchamber. The night lamp still burned by her couch, casting a friendly, limpid glow.