The passage was narrow, dark and utterly plain. But at the farther end the brilliance of the afternoon cut the darkness in shafts like knives, and Khaemwaset could see a small rectangle of lawn, a few flowerbeds in a busy array of colours, and a pond choked with waxy white and pink lotus over which bees hovered. Harmin turned abruptly to his left, stood aside and bowed. “Mother, the Prince Khaemwaset,” he said. “Highness, this is my mother Tbubui.”
Khaemwaset entered the room with the usual words of reassurance ready on his lips. She had injured her foot. She would not be able to rise and reverence him, as the little dancer had tried to do. Strange, he thought, strange that she should come to mind just now. He was about to speak, to tell this woman not to try and move, when he heard Amek draw a quick breath behind him. It was a tiny sound, come and gone in a second, but Khaemwaset simultaneously halted. He felt the blood leave his face. The white walls of the pleasant room wavered and he fought to keep his control. He was aware of Amek’s comforting presence at his rear, Harmin’s grey eyes on him with what was surely bewilderment, his own fingers gripping the satchel as though he would die if he dropped it, then he recovered and managed to move forward.
“Greetings, Tbubui,” he said, and marvelled that he could sound so sane.
The woman was sitting in a large chair beside a couch draped in glistening sheets, her leg propped up on cushions above a stool. Both bare, languid arms were draped loosely over the wooden rests, and heavy silver rings winked at him from her slender fingers. She was smiling at him above a jumble of white linen—sheet or cloak he did not know which—her hennaed mouth curving, her black, kohled eyes regarding him steadily. Black, black, he thought dazedly, and her hair black as night, black as soot against those exquisite collar-bones, black as the anger she conjured in me the last time I saw her on the Memphis river road, striding scarlet through the crowd. I have found her. No wonder my servants could not, with her living on the east bank!
But no. He moved towards her cautiously, as though at a sharp movement her image might shiver and disappear. I did not find her. Fate found her for me and cast me on her shore like a drowning sailor vomited onto a stretch of sand. Does she recognize me? Amek? Surely Amek! He saw her level gaze transferred to the Captain of his Bodyguard then back to him. The smile widened, and Khaemwaset was suddenly terrified to hear the sound of her voice.
“Greetings, Prince, and welcome to my home,” she said. “I am honoured indeed that you should choose to come and examine me in person, and I apologize for any inconvenience I may be causing you.” The voice was cultured, well-modulated, a voice accustomed to giving orders, greeting guests and entertaining visitors. Khaemwaset wondered what it would sound like throaty with passion. Setting down his satchel and bending over her foot, he clenched his jaw and forced himself to reply. She had a very faint accent. So did her son, now he came to think about it, but it was not any of the accents of foreigners he knew.
“I am not inconvenienced,” he said. “Harmin told me of your efforts to cure yourself, and I could then do no more than come and assist you.” He began to unwrap the bandages around the foot, willing his hands not to tremble. In a moment I shall touch her flesh, he thought. Control yourself, physician! This is a patient! His lungs were full of her perfume, a light but musky hint of myrrh blended with something he could not identify. He kept his gaze on the unwinding.
At last the bandage fell to the floor and Khaemwaset forced himself not to hesitate. Gently he pressed the swollen, purple flesh around a mound that did not in fact appear to be infected but that certainly, though dry, had not closed. Her skin was cool, almost cold. “There is no infection here,” he announced, looking up at her from his squatting position. “You have no burning in the groin?”
“None. Harmin was perhaps overzealous in his efforts to persuade you to come, Highness. I am sorry. But the wound will not in fact close.”
She pushed her hair behind her small ears with both hands, and Khaemwaset saw that she was wearing a pair of heavy silver-and-turquoise earrings fashioned into the shape of two ankhs and hung with tiny scarabs. The sight of the scarabs reminded him of the trouble he had gone to in order to avert the spell of the nonsensical scroll, and the night he had spent in Nubnofret’s bed, negating his protection without a second thought.
“How long has it been like this?” he asked. She shrugged, and the linen slipped down her breasts, revealing the tantalizing shadow of a cleavage.
“For about two weeks. I soak the foot twice a day and have it poulticed in a mixture of milk, honey and ground incense to dry it up, but as you can see …” She gestured along her leg, and Khaemwaset felt the tips of her fingers brush his helmet. “… my treatment is not efficacious.”