Soon the noise and stir of the Peru-nefer district began to assault their senses, and the narrow streets of riverside Memphis intersected around them, lined with two- and three-storey mud houses and shops and fronted by canopied stalls behind which the keepers shouted their wares. In spite of the crush of people, the braying of donkeys and the shrieks of naked children rolling in the dust and litter, Amek managed to keep a space of reverence around his royal charges.
Sheritra saw something that caught her eye and Khaemwaset ordered the litters halted. He watched her as she scrambled onto the street, her linens displaced and her sandals forgotten in the bottom of her litter. Sheritra rushed across to a stall piled with vases and oddly carved boxes that surely came from Alashia, judging by the weird sea creatures illustrated on them.
But once there her shyness took over and she hung back, arms folded, eyes on the display. Khaemwaset gestured to Amek, who went to her and discreetly asked what she was interested in, and, while she whispered and Amek haggled, Khaemwaset looked through the milling bodies to the river, glimpsed briefly and then lost again as the people moved.
He was enjoying himself. Nubnofret would be aghast if she knew that her daughter was standing in a public place amid the dust and offal, engaged in a purchase of insulting cheapness while beside her three men were reeling, drunk, onto the street from the inviting coolness of a beer-house.
Soon Sheritra came up to him, arms wrapped about an ugly, biliously green pot, a wide smile on her face. “It is a disgusting thing,” she said breathlessly, “but I like it and I will make Bakmut fill it with blooms. Where are we going now?”
Khaemwaset ordered the litters turned homeward on the river road with a sense of regret. The afternoon had been worth the sharp words Nubnofret would rain on their heads. The road that followed the bank of the water was much wider than the city streets, and they were able to sway along side by side. The crowds were still plentiful but moved in a constant fashion, and their progress was faster.
They had crossed the bridge over the canal that led from the river to the watersteps of Ptah’s temple when Khaemwaset, idly watching the weaving citizens ahead, suddenly stiffened and sat straight. A woman was striding away from him, her naked feet kicking up little puffs of dust. She was tall and supple-spined, moving with a confident, loose swing of her hips that caused those around her to step out of the way. Khaemwaset could not see her face. She held her head, with its cap of gleaming black hair, very high, and was not glancing to right or left. Her arms swung unselfconsciously, brushing her white-clad thighs, and on both wrists she was wearing twisted silver bracelets that resembled snakes.
“Look at that woman!” Sheritra called across to him, pointing. “That one, there! What presence she has, doesn’t she, Father? Her walk is almost arrogant, in spite of the fact that she is wearing a very old-fashioned sheath and no sandals.”
“Yes, I see her,” Khaemwaset called back, hands clenched in his lap, neck craning to keep her in view. Her sheath was indeed old-fashioned. It followed the contours of her lithe body in white curves, beginning at her shoulder blades, clinging to the small of her back and ending at those flexing ankles. Khaemwaset’s eyes travelled its length, noting how her firm buttocks under the gleaming linen were clenching and loosening, clenching and loosening.… She had cut a slit up one side of the tight garb in order to stride out, and he watched her long brown leg appear, straighten lazily, then disappear, only to fill his vision once more.
“Is that a wig, do you think, or is it her own hair?” Sheritra was saying. “In either case, no one wears their locks like that any more. Mother would not approve of her!”
No, she would not, Khaemwaset thought, his throat tight. There is a controlled ferocity about that walk that would antagonize Nubnofret immediately. “Move faster!” he shouted at his bearers. “I want to catch up to that person. Amek, run ahead and stop her.” Why are they not all staring at her? he wondered. He watched Amek struggle through the crowd as the pace of his bearers quickened, but with a sinking in his stomach he knew that his captain would not catch up with her. Even as he became aware of his own nails digging into his palms and released the frenetic grip on himself, she was swallowed up and was gone. Amek came back. “I am sorry, Prince,” he said. “For all her grace, she ate up the ground.”
So Amek had noticed also. Khaemwaset shrugged. “Do not worry,” he replied. “It was just a passing fancy, and we must be getting home.” Sheritra’s eyes were on him in speculation. He glanced down at the white marks on his palms then looked across at her. “I have been more curious than circumspect,” he said, and she smiled.