Scroll of Saqqara(68)

“She is not harmed,” he replied to Nubnofret’s silently raised eyebrows.

“Her reaction to the prospect of a tumble in the mud was rather extreme,” Nubnofret commented, and Hori shook his head.

“Not really,” he said. “Her husband drowned, and ever since she has been mortally afraid of water. Apparently he fell from a raft during a boating party at Koptos. He had had too much wine, and the Nile was in full flood. His body was recovered miles downstream four days later.”

“How do you know?” Khaemwaset asked sharply, with resentment.

“She told me,” Hori answered simply, “because I asked her.”

Sheritra shuddered. “How dreadful” she exclaimed “Poor Tbubui!”

Khaemwaset gently took her wrist. “So you are going into the city with Harmin tomorrow,” he said. The young man had taken him aside earlier and had coolly requested his permission. Khaemwaset had gladly given it. “You must of course take Amek and a soldier with you,” he insisted to Sheritra, “and be home in time for dinner.”

“Of course I will!” she replied impatiently. “Do not fuss so, Father. Now I will change my linens before we eat.” She disengaged herself, shouting for Bakmut, and went into the house. Hori had already wandered off, Antef appearing from the rear garden to meet him. Khaemwaset and Nubnofret looked at each other.

“She is going to fall hard,” Khaemwaset said slowly. “I don’t know what that young man has said to her, but already she has changed.”

“I see it too,” Nubnofret agreed. “But I am full of fear for her, my husband. What can he possibly see in her? He is new to Memphis. She is the first girl he has met here. He will discard her when his social life becomes more varied. Sheritra is too sensitive to handle such a crushing rejection.”

“As usual, you give her no credit,” Khaemwaset responded angrily, feeling as though his wife had attacked Tbubui herself. “Why is it not possible for Harmin to appreciate all the qualities in Sheritra that are not visible? And why do you immediately presume that he is merely dallying and will desert her? Let us at least give both of them the compliment of optimism.”

“You always were blind to everyone’s faults but mine!” Nubnofret snapped back bitterly, and turning on her heel she stalked away across the darkening lawn, her linen floating wraithlike behind her in the gloom.

By the time they sat down together for the final meal of the day, her anger had lessened to a stiff formality. Khaemwaset deliberately set himself to making her smile, and in the end succeeded. They drank their last cups of wine sitting side by side on the watersteps that still held the warmth of day, knee to knee, watching the barely perceptible flow of the quiet water. In the end, Nubnofret put her head on his shoulder.

For a while he let it rest there, inhaling the aroma of her tumultous hair, loosely holding her hand, but then a mild desire woke in him. “Come,” he whispered, and rising he led her in under the tangled shrubbery beside the steps and made love to her.

But as he did so a distaste for his wife began to rise under his sexual urgency, a repugnance for her large, soft breasts, the spread of her ample, pliant hips, the wideness of her generous mouth now parted in pleasure. There was nothing hard, spare, driving about Nubnofret, and by the time Khaemwaset rolled from her and felt the dry grasses and twigs dig into his back, he knew that he would rather have been making love with Tbubui.

SHERITRA TRIED not to break into a run as she saw Harmin smile a greeting from his vantage point in the bow of his barge. For a fleeting moment her defences came up and she wished with all her heart to be safely in her room talking with Bakmut, far away from this sudden complication, this enormous risk. But soon the shrinking was replaced by a feeling of happy recklessness new to her. Forcing her shoulders back she walked towards him with all the grace she could muster, Amek and his soldier behind. Harmin bowed as she negotiated the ramp and she bid him a good morning, thus giving him the freedom to speak.

“Good morning, Princess,” he answered her gravely, signalling for the ramp to be drawn inboard. Amek and the other man took up their stations at either end of the craft, and Harmin drew Sheritra towards the cabin.

His family’s barge was not as large nor as sumptuous as Khaemwaset’s, but it was hung with pennants cut from a cloth of gold on which black Eyes of Horus had been painted. The curtains, tied back, were also cloth of gold, tasselled in silver. Sheritra took the upholstered stool Harmin indicated, watching him covertly as he arranged cushions for himself on the floor, then turned to offer her fresh water and slivers of cold beef marinated in garlic and wine.