He was dressed as simply as his barge, with a plain white kilt hugging his long thighs and stern leather sandals on his feet, but his belt was set with turquoise, as were his thick silver bracelets and the lightly linked pectoral lying against his brown chest. The amulet counterpoise nestled between his flexing shoulder-blades was a row of tiny gold baboons, symbols of Thoth, protecting the wearer from certain spells designed to pierce the victim from behind.
“I have seen the Nile reflecting exactly the colours of your turquoise,” Sheritra remarked hesitantly, a shyness on her with the ritual of accepting food and drink. “Those are very old, are they not? So often now the stones available are inferior. They are all blue, not the ancient greenish-blue Father finds so attractive.”
Harmin went into a crouch on the cushions and grinned up at her, his kohled eyes glittering. “You are right. They have been in my family for many hentis and they are supremely valuable. They will be passed down to my oldest son.”
Sheritra felt her cheeks grow hot. “I thought we were going to walk today,” she put in hurriedly, “although drifting on the Nile is a great pleasure.” She took a gulp of water and the fire in her face began to ebb.
“We will indeed walk, and perhaps by the end of the day you will beg to be returned to the barge,” Harmin teased her. “But I decided to save you the dust and heat of the river road into Memphis. Also, if we find the bazaars overcrowded or boring we can be back on board in a matter of minutes. Look! We are already passing the canal to the old palace of Thothmes the First. I suppose you have been within it many times when your grandfather is in residence at Memphis.”
“Why yes, I have,” Sheritra began, and before she realized it, she was chatting about Ramses and his court, her father’s political contacts, life as a princess. “It is not as wonderful as you might think,” she said ruefully. “My daily routine and my education were far more rigidly controlled than that of a daughter of the nobility, and now that I have finished being tortured and you might think I am free, I face the prospect of being eventually betrothed to some hereditary erpa-ha to preserve Ramses family dynasty. I don’t mind the idea of being married, of course, but I do mind the certainty that my future husband will not love me. How could he? I look more like a peasant’s daughter than a princess!”
Her voice had gradually risen and she had become more and more agitated without realizing it, until Harmin put out a protesting hand and, coming to herself, she understood what she had said. Her hands flew to her face.
“Oh Harmin!” she cried out. “I am so sorry. I have no idea why I am talking to you like this.”
“I know why,” he said calmly. “There is something about me that made you trust me from the first, isn’t there, Little Sun?”
“Only my father calls me that,” she said faintly.
“Do you mind if I do?”
She shook her head mutely.
“Good. For I feel that I have known you since my own school-days. I am easy with you, and you with me. I am your friend, Sheritra, and I could wish to be nowhere else today than here beside you with the sun beating on the water and the crowds kicking up sand on the bank.”
She was silent, her gaze ostensibly on the things he described while her thoughts played with his words. So far the only man she trusted was her father, and that was because he had earned her respect. The male faces who had appeared and as quickly disappeared from her life had earned nothing but her self-conscious scorn for their vapidity, their refusal to recognize her intelligence, their notquite-hidden contempt for her homeliness. She knew that she was perilously close to such strength of feeling for Harmin that her whole life would be engulfed, and she herself changed. She already respected him for his frankness, the genuine way he had casually dismissed her ex terior as of no account and had touched those chords in her that had so far vibrated only for Khaemwaset.
But friend. What did he mean by friend? Was his interest truly one of sharing minds? Well, it us all you can really hope for, she told herself sadly. But his next words caused her heart to pound.
“Your skin has the translucence of a pearl,” he whispered, and she turned abruptly to find his black eyes fixed on her. “Your eyes. are full of life, Princess, full of vitality when you allow your ka to shine through. Please hide no more.”
I capitulate, she thought, panic-stricken. My judgment is even now deserting me. But oh Harmin! For Hathor’s sake stand steady on the rope! I am giving birth to the self I have fiercely protected all my life, and it is still half-blind and helpless under your strange gaze.