Along the passages the servants were lighting the torches, and in his suite the lamps already glowed. Khaemwaset lowered him onto his couch, told him he might eat there later and bade him rest. Before his father had left the room, Hori was asleep.
He did not wake for dinner. A servant brought food, which after a time cooled and congealed, but Hori slumbered on. He came to himself once, sensing the lateness of the hour by the air of deep calm that suffused the house. His night lamp had gone out and his body servant lay snoring quietly beyond the bedchamber door. His knee throbbed in a relentless rhythm but he knew it was not the pain that had woken him. He had been dreaming something unsettling, something verging on nightmare, but he could not now remember what it was. Struggling up he poured himself water and drank thirstily, then lay down again and stared into the darkness
When next he formed a conscious thought, his breakfast was being placed by his feet and the doors to his private shrine were being opened. Today will be difficult, he thought, picking at the food. Father will still be in a bad humour and my wound will be at its worst. Well, at least Antef comes home soon. But the thought of his servant and best friend returning did not give him the stab of excitement it should have. Antef would wait for Hori to suggest a hunting expedition, a fishing afternoon, a jaunt to the markers or a boating party with other friends. They had always been close. Antef had never crossed the ephemeral and sometimes complicated line of deference that must forever separate him from his royal companion. Still, theirs was a warm and companionable relationship. The gossip mongers of Memphis had at one time gleefully spread the rumour that Antef was in fact Khaemwaset’s son by a concubine or, better still, a servant girl, but the story soon died. The Prince was too upright a man not to acknowledge his offspring and Memphis was full of juicier topics of conversation.
In Antef, Hori had found his equal in matters of opinion, taste and physical pursuits, and Antef could keep a royal secret as well as any well trained servant. All the same, Hori thought as he lit the incense before Ptah and hurried through his morning prayers, I do not know if I wish to divulge to him my interest in Tbubui. A woman can destroy a friendship, indeed, Tbubui is already affecting my feelings for Antef. I do not want to go hunting or roaming in the markets with him. I do not want to spend my leisure time in the garden drinking beer and teasing each other about the last wrestling bout we had. When I was younger we traded lies concerning our sexual prowess but I cannot betray Tbubui like that. If I confide in him will he understand that I want to spend most of my time with her? Guiltily, he wrenched his mind back to the smiling golden god with his gleaming blue lapis cap whom he served, and finished his obeisances with proper attention. Then he ordered out his litter, allowed his body servant to paint his face and limped out of the house.
Two hours later he stood with Khaemwaset amid the rubble left when the false wall was torn down, staring at the two newly exposed coffins. Torches had been fixed to the rock on either side of the untidy hole and they sent an unsteady red light into the chamber which did nothing to dispel its sinister atmosphere. After a while Hori retired to the camp stool his servant had brought, his now stiff leg flung out before him, and watched his father pick up a lamp and splash his way to the coffins. Khaemwaset grimaced as Hori had done at the distasteful odour and feel of the pool. After a careful examination of the sarcophagi he waded back to his son.
“You are right,” he said briskly. “They were occupied at one time. But if the bodies were dismembered by thieves in search of valuables and flung into the water, there would be some trace of them. The linen windings and mummified flesh would have dissolved but not the bones. Are you sure nothing lies under the water?”
“Nothing,” Hori replied firmly. “I hated to do it but I slid my feet over every inch of the floor. It is slimy rock, no more. Father, is it possible that the princess Ahura and her husband were first buried there, in the small chamber, and later, when the tomb was inspected and found to be seeping water, the sem-priests had new coffins made for them out here?”
“It is possible,” Khaemwaset agreed. “But then why is the first burial room so poorly executed? Did these people have three chambers instead of the customary two, one for goods and one for bodies, and if so why? For a child, perhaps, or children? But if that is so, if the tomb was opened later by other members of the family, why the subterfuge of a false wall? What had to be hidden, Hori? There is nothing in that room. Thieves look for valuables, small things, and may destroy but ultimately leave behind anything not easily portable. Yet beneath the water there is no trace of splintered furniture, shrine pieces, statues, anything. And if the chamber was prepared for other members of the family, surely it would have been as lavishly decorated as the rest of the tomb.” He pushed his feet back into his sandals and Kasa knelt to lace them. “Only one child, a son, is depicted on these walls,” he went on. “I confess I am completely puzzled. I do not think that we shall ever unravel the answers.”