Scroll of Saqqara(99)
In spite of the light, familiar voices of her servants gathered under the awning on the deck, in spite of Amek’s stolid, reliable soldiers into whose hands she would have placed her life without a second thought, she felt defenceless and very alone. I should move to Pi-Ramses, she thought painfully. Grandfather would give me a suite in the palace. Aunt Bint-Anath would care for me. I hate Memphis now. That daunting awareness made her realize fully for the first time how far behind she had left the fragile, shy girl she had been such a short time ago. I am still fragile, she thought grimly, oh so very fragile, but not quite in the same way. There was an innocence about me then that I can recognize only now, but should I mourn or rejoice at the change? I cannot say.
Harmin was waiting for her, standing on the bottom riser of the watersteps and gazing upstream when she emerged from the cabin at the captain’s warning shout. Sheritra could see his brooding face lighten with a smile as he spotted her, and he bowed several times as her scribe handed her reverentially onto the stone beside him. At her word, the rest of her train began to stream along the sandy path towards the house, but the guards and Bakmut remained with her.
“Harmin,” she said, and he was free to speak
“Welcome to my home, Highness,” he responded gravely. “I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you decided to accept my mother’s invitation. I am your humble slave and I promise to gratify any desire you may express while you are here.”
She met his eyes, aware as never before of the strong, regular beats of her heart, the raw constriction in her belly as she looked at him.
“I have a litter here for you,” he went on. “The path is not long but the heat is great.”
“Thank you, I have brought my own,” she replied. “But I don t really need it today, Harmin. I prefer to walk. What a lovely shade the palms cast! Shall we go? I am eager to see this house for myself. Father and Hori have described it as unique. Bakmut, give me my whisk.” She started forward and Harmin fell in with her step. The flies of summer were growing thicker every day, a scourge of black, salt-seeking creatures that settled with a maddening persistence around the eyes and mouth and on any sweat-slicked skin. To Sheritra they seemed more aggressive and numerous here under the palms than at home. She applied the black horsehair whisk to her naked flesh with an absent-minded precision as Harmin spoke of the fecundity of the trees, the coming date harvest and the report of his steward on the progress of his crops in Koptos.
“My father took very little interest in his holdings,” he explained, “and relied on the steward to handle the fellahin, but I liked to walk beside the canals at home and watch the grain and the vegetables spring up fresh and green.”
“You speak as though you miss it,” Sheritra observed, and he agreed.
“Sometimes I do,” he said softly, “but I do not miss Koptos itself. My early memories of the town are not very happy ones. See, Highness!” He pointed. “Our house!”
Sheritra’s first impression of the building was not like Khaemwaset’s or Hori’s. In spite of the fresh plaster and white-wash, in spite of the lone gardener toiling in the small garden, the estate had a forlorn, neglected air. The walls seemed bleached rather than unstained, the lawn a struggle to hold back the palms rather than a pleasant clearing, the quiet privacy an atmosphere of dereliction.
But that impression soon faded. She greeted a bowing Tbubui and Sisenet and entered the plain hall with curiosity. “I can see how my father was delighted with your home,” she told them after glancing about. “It might have been built and furnished a hundred hentis ago!” Then fearing that she had offended them she added hastily, “Such taste and simplicity is wonderful, Tbubui. One cannot think or pray when one is surrounded by ornate clutter.” She could hear her servants somewhere beyond the transverse passage at the rear of the hall, and the clatter of boxes. Her soldiers ignored the family, vanishing into the house with the authority of the Prince behind them, and her scribe followed, palette in hand. There was no sign of the household’s own staff.
“Come, Highness,” Tbubui said as Sisenet bowed again and excused himself. “This is the way to the room I have prepared for you. Please command your servants to order the routine of the house as though it were your own. Ours will not interfere.” Meekly Sheritra stepped after Tbubui’s yellow-swathed back, feeling Harmin behind her. “The passage at this end leads directly into the garden,” Tbubui was saying. “There is a door but it is only closed when the khamsin blows, to keep the desert sand out of the house. My brother, Harmin and I will be sleeping at the other end. I am sorry that there is no room for your servants to stay in the building itself but there is ample room for them at the rear, in the compound.”