Scroll of Saqqara(41)
“One may appreciate beauty without any blame,” she comforted him. “I too saw that she was lovely.”
For once the self-deprecation in his daughter’s voice merely annoyed Khaemwaset. He grunted, barked a loud order and twitched the curtains of his litter closed, riding to his front gate and the challenge of his gatekeeper in his mud hut with eyes closed and a growing sense of loss.
5
Oh Man who givest way to thy passions, what is thy
condition?
He cries out, his voice reaches to heaven.
O Moon, accuse him of his crimes.
AS HE AND SHERITRA MOVED stealthily through the house, Khaemwaset could hear the servants chattering as they lit the lamps in the garden. “We are both filthy, and reek of the bazaar,” Sheritra whispered. “Do we appear like this but on time, or do we wash and be late?”
“We wash,” Khaemwaset answered firmly. “Tardiness is not as high on your mother’s list of crimes as dirtiness. Be quick though, Sheritra;”
They parted. In Khaemwaset’s quarters Kasa was waiting, his arms full of towels, clean linen and appropriate jewellery laid out on the couch. “The Princess is furious,” he said in answer to Khaemwaset’s brusque query. “She wanted to know where you had gone. The Princess Sheritra did not play her lute today.” Khaemwaset was already on his way to the bath house with Kasa padding behind. “I know,” he said. “These little escapes of mine are scarcely worth it, Kasa. Nubnofret’s wrath is a terrible thing when roused. Wash me quickly.”
Before long he was stepping from the increasing gloom of the house into the warm evening glow of the garden. Sheritra was already there, sitting with her knees drawn up under a plain blue gown, her encircling arms hung with several lapis bracelets and a lapis circlet resting on her brow. Her face was unpainted. She was talking to Hori who was lounging in the grass beside her, his hair damp from his own bath. Khaemwaset approached them through the soft twilight, taking the chair behind which a servant was bowing. He had time to do no more than greet his son before Nubnofret appeared from between the pillars, a servant bearing a tray of delicacies behind her. Khaemwaset took a clove of garlic steeped in honey, aware of Nubnofret’s frozen face as she sank gracefully into the chair beside him.
Sheritra was giving Hori a spirited account of their day. “And we saw the most extraordinary woman!” Sheritra said. “Wasn’t she, Father? Sort of arrogant but easy, if you know what I mean.” Nubnofret turned quizzical and rather too sharp eyes on her husband, and Khaemwaset found himself suddenly unwilling to discuss the creature who had paced ahead of him, tall and supple and magnetic, and had left a tiny bleeding scratch in his mind like the swipe of a cat’s claw. “She was indeed unusual,” he agreed. “Nubnofret, how much longer is dinner going to be?”
“Not more than a few minutes,” his wife replied, obviously annoyed, “though I am surprised that having come home late you wish to rush to your food.”
For a little while longer the family shared their news in the rapidly darkening garden, while the lights in the house began to cast pale beams over the velvet flowers and the crystal movement of the fountain became a grey cascade. The fish in the ornamental pond at the farther end rose to the surface and made little eddies as they snapped at the mosquitoes that swarmed over them, and the monkeys shambled close to the group and squatted, their eyes on the tray and their furry hands outstretched.
Finally Nubnofret relented. Nodding at Ib as the household’s Senior Steward, she rose, and the others followed suit.
I wonder what that woman is doing tonight. The thought came to Khaemwaset without warning as he mounted the few wide steps between his pillars and turned towards the wonderful mix of aromas blowing from the dining room where the musicians were already playing. Has she a husband, and are they walking together in their garden, enjoying the night breeze? Does she live with her parents, perhaps, a person of inscrutable aloofness, scorning men, even now alone in her apartments while her family entertains some eager suitor who will never have the privilege of touching her? No, his thoughts ran on as he took his place in the pile of cushions. She is not a girl. Many suitors have come and gone but she is not interested. She is a commoner who knows that her worth is greater than all of them, and she waits for a prince.
Nubnofret was settling herself beside him, and for a moment Khaemwaset felt the lash of her tongue. “I am used to being deserted by you on any occasion you might find boring or not necessary for good governmental relations,” she hissed, “but I will not have you subverting my authority with Sheritra or encouraging her to shirk her duties in this house! I will not have you teaching her that self-indulgence is acceptable.”