Khaemwaset knew without looking that the eyes of his clustered entourage were also on Hori. He was without a doubt the most beautiful member of the family. He was tall and very straight, with an easy graceful walk and an upright carriage that somehow managed to avoid being either arrogant or aloof. His large, black-lashed eyes were of a translucent quality, so that enthusiasm, humour or any other strong emotion made them glitter. Delicate brown skin was stretched over high cheekbones, and under those compelling eyes were often violet hollows of seeming vulnerability. Hori’s face in repose was youthful, contemplative, but when he smiled it broke into deep grooves of sheer pleasure, lifting him from his nineteen years and making his age suddenly indefinable. His hands were large and capable but also artlessly attractive. He loved mechanical things, and as a child had driven his tutors and nurses to distraction with his questions and his unfortunate habit of taking apart whatever contrivance was to hand. Khaemwaset knew how lucky he was that Hori had also taken to the study of ancient tombs and monuments and, to a lesser degree, the deciphering of inscriptions in stone or in the precious scrolls his father collected. He was the perfect assistant, eager to learn, able to organize, always willing to relieve Khaemwaset himself of many of the burdens on their explorations.
But it was not these things that caused the eyes of everyone in his presence to dwell on the young man. Hori was blissfully unaware that he exuded a strong sexual magnetism to which no one was immune. Khaemwaset had observed its effects time and again with a wry, quiet appreciation tinged with regret. Poor Sheritra, he thought for the thousandth time as he finished the beer and inhaled the intoxicating, wet coolness of the salad. Oh my poor, ungainly little daughter, always trailing about in your brother’s shadow, always overlooked. How can you love him so much, so unreservedly, without jealousy or pain? The answer, also familiar, came immediately. Because the gods have set in you a pure and generous heart, as they have given Hori the unselfconsciousness that saves him from the excessive self-love of meaner men who are perhaps as beautiful.
The servants were coming out of the tomb mouth for another load. Hori once more plunged into darkness. Overhead, two hawks hung without movement in the scentless, fiery air. Khaemwaset began to doze.
Several hours later he woke on the pallet in his tent, rose to stand while his body servant Kasa poured water over him and patted him dry, and went out to see the results of his servants’ labours. The mound of earth, sand and rubble beside the tomb entrance had shrunk, and men were still at work shovelling the remainder into place. Hori was squatting in the shade of a rock with Antef, his servant and friend, talking desultorily, their voices clear but unintelligible. Ib and Kasa were consulting together over the scroll that contained the lists of gifts to be placed around the dead prince, and Penbuy, seeing his master push the tent flap aside, came hurrying, a sheaf of papyrus under his arm. More beer and a plate of honey cakes appeared, but Khaemwaset gestured them aside.
“Go and tell Ib that I am ready to make the food offering for the ka of this prince as soon as I have taken a last look inside,” he said. With Penbuy pacing respectfully at his sandalled heels, he made his way back to the now small entrance under a softly bronzing sky. Red light was beginning to send streamers across the sand and the desert was rose-pink beside him, couching deepening shadows.
At his coming the workmen drew back and bowed. Khaemwaset ignored them. “You come also, for any last-moment comments I may wish to make,” he said over his shoulder to his scribe, and he squeezed through the half-closed door and padded along the passage.
The last light of the sun followed him, casting long tongues of coloured flame of a quality so dense that Khaemwaset felt he might pick them up and caress them. They did not, however, penetrate to the coffin itself, deep in the cramped little room, and Penbuy came to a halt where his palette would still be illuminated. Khaemwaset crossed the almost palpable line that divided the fingers of sunset from the eternal gloom of stillness and stood looking about. The slaves had done their work well. The stool, the chair and tables and bed had regained their pristine form and been returned to the position they had occupied for generations. New jars neatly lined the walls. The shawabtis had been washed. The floor had been cleared of the litter the unknown thieves had left, and had been swept.
Khaemwaset nodded and moved to the coffin, inserting one finger into the gap left by the twisted lid. He fancied that the air striking it was colder than that in the rest of the tomb, and withdrew his finger hastily, his rings scraping on the hard granite. Are you watching me? he thought. Are your ancient eyes vainly trying to pierce the thick darkness above you, to find me? He ran his hand slowly over the thin film of dust that had collected through the eons, sifting invisibly and softly from the ceiling to lie thus undisturbed until now. None of his servants would wash a coffin, and this time he had forgotten to do so himself. What will it be like, his thoughts ran on, to be dried, shrivelled skin, to be bandaged bones lying immobile in the dark, watched by the sightless eyes of my own shawabtis listening to nothing, seeing nothing?