Hori sighed. “So many people speak of her with awe,” he said quietly. “She must have embodied everything that was good and beautiful in her day. Aging is so sad, isn’t it, Father?”
Khaemwaset ran his eye over the perfectly muscled thigh resting on the polished wood of the desk, the flat, taut stomach, the straight shoulders and upright spine before him. Hori was smiling at him faintly, his translucent eyes ringed in their long black lashes, those appealing crinkles around the sensuous curve of his mouth.
“It is only sad if the years behind have been wasted,” he commented drily, “and I doubt very much if Astnofert regards her life as a waste. And speaking of waste, Hori. you are well into your nineteenth year and will soon be twenty. You are a fully royal prince. Don’t you think it is time you started casting about for a wife?”
The smile left Hori’s face. His dark, feathery eyebrows shot up in surprise. “But I have been looking, Father!” he protested. “The young women bore me and the older ones are unattractive. What am I supposed to do?”
“Let your mother and me find you a noblewoman, and then form your own harem. I’m serious, Hori. Marriage is a duty for a prince.”
Hod snorted. “Yes I know. But I look at you and Mother, how comfortable you are together, how your few concubines languish away because you so seldom bother with them, and I keep hoping that I might also find someone who would share my life, not just run a household. In that respect you have set a bad example, Father!”
Khaemwaset forced a smile. Guilt threatened him and he beat it back. “Nubnofret and I are perhaps not as close as you seem to think,” he said quietly.
“You were at one time,” Hori broke in loudly. “And look at Uncle Si-Montu and Ben-Anath! That is what I want, Father, and I will wait another ten years if necessary in order to have it!”
“Very well.” Khaemwaset did not feel like arguing. “I can see that I am to support you for the rest of your life.” Hori grinned engagingly and slipped from the desk. “Why did you come to see me?”
“Oh yes.” Hori flung himself with artless grace into the empty chair on the other side of the desk. “I received a message from Sisenet assuring me that his offer of help at the tomb was not polite fiction, and wanting to know when his presence might be welcome on the site. I wanted to ask you about it again, just to make sure it is all right.”
“Send a reply and invite him tomorrow, mid-morning,” Khaemwaset said quickly. “I will join you both. Even if he has nothing much to say, we can give him a meal.”
“Very well. I’m looking forward to it. I think I might invite them all. Tbubui herself seems to be a woman of great education.” His eyes slid away from Khaemwaset’s. “Have you prepared our horoscopes for Tibi?”
Khaemwaset looked at him curiously. “No,” he said slowly. “For some reason I am loath to do it this month. Last month’s and the month’s before were so catastrophic for me, and to a lesser extent for you, yet the time has passed without great incident. I am begining to wonder if I am making some fundamental mistake in my method.”
“I would not exactly say that the time has passed without great incident,” Hori mused, already heading for the door. Then he turned and stood still, hands behind his back. “Father …”
“Yes?”
After a moment Hori shook his head. “Oh nothing. I shall ask Mother if it is all right to bring them back here for the noon meal tomorrow. Or they might even invite us.”
“They might.” But Khaemwaset spoke to an empty doorway. Hori had gone.
KHAEMWASET HAD NOT VISITED the tomb site for several weeks, but it had not changed much. He stood under the shade of his canopy at the top of the stairs, piles of dry rubble to right and left, Penbuy behind him and the guests coming towards them over the shifting plain of Saqqara. Watching Tbubui’s sandals sink and rise, spewing sand as she walked, he wondered fleetingly if the heat and grit were causing her pain, and why in any case Sisenet had not ordered litters for them. Then his thoughts were caught away in the rhythmic swing of her hips under the white sheath, the darting of her kohled eyes as she took in the site.
The three came up and bowed, and the waiting canopy-bearers rushed to cover them as Khaemwaset had instructed. Tbubui’s pupils widened under the shade. Khaemwaset, bemused, saw the rims of black enlarge. The whites were almost blue in their purity.
Hori came hurrying from the dim entrance, a welcome on his lips as the one who had proffered the invitation. Khaemwaset noticed an agitation about him, but he seemed happy enough.