Sheritra did not know why the conviction of Khaemwaset’s interest in the other woman was causing her anxiety. Perhaps such a change would be good for him, be rejuvenating for a while. But the girl, remembering the odd and awkward conversation she had had with him not so long ago, was sure it was not so. She herself liked and admired Tbubui, but then she was not a man. Tbubui was dangerous to men, her instincts told her.
Surreptitiously, from under lowered lashes, she scrutinized her brother. Hori’s shining dark head was down, his eyes fixed unseeingly on his bruised knee. Oh Hathor no, Sheritra thought with something approaching horror. Not both of them! Does Tbubui know?
She and Khaemwaset were discussing the scroll. “I have decided to let Sisenet inspect it,” Khaemwaset was saying reluctantly. “But he will have to do so here. I am responsible for its safety before the gods and the ka of the man who owned it. I am truly at the point, Tbubui, where I would welcome any assistance in its deciphering.” Tbubui answered immediately, intelligently, and Sheritra looked at her mother.
Nubnofret had withdrawn from the conversation. She lay full-length on her side, eyes closed, and something about the stiffness of her pose told Sheritra that her mother’s afternoon was not ending as delightfully as it had begun.
Without warning Sheritra felt hot and weak. Emotional undercurrents swirled around her—her mother’s formless apprehension. Hori’s sulkiness, her father’s uncharacteristic animation—and in the centre of it Tbubui, who a short time ago had been all lazy, sultry woman and who now was all serious earnest student of history. Does she know? Sheritra asked herself again. If she does suspect, then surely she would not be extending an invitation to me! Or would she? She came to her feet and the conversation broke off.
“Father, give me leave to go into the house,” she said. “I have spent a full day in the sun and I am very tired. I want to be bathed before dinner.” She knew that her words were stilted, that she was standing slouched and ill at ease, that she was once more the family embarrassment, but she could not help it. Surprised, Khaemwaset nodded.
“Of course,” he said.
Sheritra forced herself to turn to Tbubui. “I will arrive at your home tomorrow afternoon,” she said.
“Until then, Princess,” was the polite reply.
Sheritra left them, hurrying around the pond and the gurgling fountain and past the flower beds in an agony of self-consciousness, feeling as though they were all staring at her back. She reached the entrance and rushed inside with great relief. Perhaps I should not go, she thought dismally, unaware of the guards’ salute as she passed them in the passage. Perhaps Tbubui is using me as an excuse for Father to visit her without suspicion. And perhaps you are an overly sensitive idiot, another voice mocked her, with too much imagination for your own good. Be selfish, Sheritra. Put yourself next to Harmin and do not worry about the rest.
Just before the door to her own quarters she looked up and her reflection met her, a stooped, pinched, homely girl to whom even the smoothly beaten copper of the floor-toceiling relief could not give the illusion of beauty. I cannot change myself, she thought in a dismay that bordered on panic. Only he has the power to change me and I am determined to be given that chance. For once I will not care about any of them. She turned away from the daunting copper image and entered her rooms.
The evening meal that day seemed interminable. Her mother, obviously suffering a headache, had done her best to entertain two of Pharaoh’s Heralds who had arrived unexpectedly on their way south into Nubia. Later, Sheritra sought out Hori. He was sitting morosely just inside the main entrance of the house, his foot propped up on a stool, gazing into the stultifying hot darkness that seemed to take its breathless heat from the orange torches now illuminating the forecourt and the paved path to the watersteps. He glanced up as she folded her linens under her and sank by his feet at the top of the entrance stair. The smile he gave her was his usual winsome grin, but she was not deceived.
“You are unhappy, aren’t you, Hori?” she said without preamble. “I do not think it is the pain of your knee, either.”
He stirred, swore softly, then chuckled. “Your perception is always disconcerting,” he replied. “No, it is not my knee. Father will remove the stitches tomorrow.”
She waited for him to go on but he did not. Fleetingly, she wondered if she ought to keep silent, but she was afraid of the distances that were opening in the family, the imperceptible rifts between her parents, between her father and herself, between her father and Hori. She felt a desperate need to remain close to this beautiful brother whom she loved so much, for without him, she realized, she would have no one. In spite of her passion for Harmin she did not yet trust him completely. “You are in love with Tbubui, aren’t you?” she murmured. For a while she feared that he was not going to answer her, or worse, that he would lie, but in the end he slumped forward and his cheek brushed her hair.