Now Hori was leaning forward, genuine concern in his face. Holding out the wine, he made the scribe drink. The cup chattered against Ptah-Seankh’s teeth but the violet liquid made him feel braver. “I think you had better tell me everything,” the Prince advised, and Ptah-Seankh did so. It was like lancing a boil.
“The day before I was due to leave for Koptos, he said, “the lady Tbubui came to me. She dictated a letter to me for your father to read. It contained everything I was to discover about her lineage during my research, the same research my father was engaged in when he died. It was all lies, Prince! All lies! I protested, but she threatened to have me discredited and then dismissed if I did not do as she said.” He at last had the courage to raise his eyes to Hori, who was regarding him intently. “My father worked for the Prince for many years,” he went on. “He would have been believed, or at least his words would have been considered. But I am a new scribe, untried, unproved. I did what she wanted.”
The Prince’s face came closer. With a pang of fear, Ptah-Seankh saw that his lips were drawn back in a rictus of extreme emotion and his gaze was almost inhuman. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said in a strangled voice, “that Tbubui dictated your research for you? That she told you what to write for my father to read when you returned from Koptos?” Ptah-Seankh nodded miserably. “You did no work in the libraries there at all? You simply waited out your time and came home?”
“Yes. I am so ashamed, Highness, but I was very afraid. I had hoped that it would not matter. Your father is very attached to the lady …”
Hori silenced him with a savage gesture. He did not move. His face remained so close to Ptah-Seankh’s that his breath brushed the other’s mouth with a rhythmic, quick warmth. Gradually the animal savagery of his expression relaxed into a tight mixture of pain and speculation. “Why?” he breathed. “Why, why, why? If she is not a noblewoman with an ancient lineage, then who is she? No peasant woman or common whore or even a dancer could acquire the education and the social skills she has. What is she hiding?” Suddenly he sat back, drained his wine with one swallow, and then rose. “Come, Ptah-Seankh,” he said. “We are going to my father.” He snatched the scroll out of the scribe’s hand.
Ptah-Seankh exploded in protest as he too came to his feet. “Highness, no! Please! I came to you in confidence, to unburden myself, to seek your advice! The Prince will banish me immediately when he knows what I have done!”
“You will have to take that chance,” Hori retorted grimly. “Repeat your story to him now, and throw yourself on his mercy. I will not be silent and allow my birthright and Sheritra’s dowry to be thrown away. Besides,” he added, “will you not feel better telling him the truth?” He strode to the door, and with a sinking heart Ptah-Seankh followed.
Hori caught up with Khaemwaset as he was on his way to the reception hall for the noon meal, Tbubui on his arm. He greeted his son amicably, but his eyes darted to Ptah-Seankh and the scroll Hori was gripping, and his smile died. “What is it?” he snapped.
“I need to speak with you immediately, alone,” Hori said. “Come out into the garden.”
“Can it not wait until we have eaten?” Khaemwaset objected. “Tbubui is hungry.”
“Then Tbubui can go and eat,” Hori said loudly. “This will not wait.” He saw the swift, worried glance that passed between the two before Khaemwaset gave her a kiss and she withdrew her arm. “Ask Nubnofret to hold the meal,” he said, and she turned into the shade of the entrance pillars and was gone.
Khaemwaset pushed past Hori, who followed him, Ptah-Seankh behind, until they reached a secluded spot by the thick bushes screening the path to the watersteps. Here Khaemwaset halted and rounded on his son. “Well,” he barked. “What is it?”
For answer Hori thrust the scroll under his chin. “You recognize this?’ he asked, his voice quivering with rage. “Explain to me how you are able to destroy my life and Sheritra’s future and still have an appetite for your food!”
Khaemwaset turned slowly to the scribe. “You are unworthy of my trust,” he said coldly. “You are dismissed.”
Ptah-Seankh paled. He bowed, speechless, and began to retreat, but Hori roughly grasped his arm.
“Not so fast,” he said. “You may change your mind, Father, when you hear everything your scribe has to say. It is not Ptah-Seankh who is unworthy of trust, it is your precious Tbubui. Tell him, Ptah-Seankh!”
The man fell abjectly to his knees. Haltingly, with many glances up at Hori’s glowering face and the Prince’s first angry and then disbelieving expression, he told the story of his downfall. But by the time he had finished, the Prince was no longer impaling him with his relentless gaze. He was watching his son.
Ptah-Seankh fell silent. Khaemwaset went on staring at Hori. Then he began to clench and unclench his fists, the muscles of his forearms knotting ominously.
“That is the most cruelly imaginative story I have ever heard,” he said heavily. “But I would like to hear it once more, this time in Tbubui’s presence. You!” he shouted over the shrubbery to the guard always stationed on the path. “Fetch the lady Tbubui! She is in the hall eating.” His attention returned to the two young men. “I knew you disliked her,” he said to Hori, “but I would not have believed you capable of this kind of animosity. As for you …” he bent, and with shocking suddenness the flat of his hand connected with Ptah-Seankh’s cheek. “The story you will presently retell will be the last words you speak in this house.”
“You have already judged us, haven’t you, Father?” Hori whispered. He was stunned, all scorn gone. “It is impossible for you to believe us. You think that I compelled Ptah-Seankh to lie, that he and I are engaged in a conspiracy against Tbubui. You are totally in her power.”
“Be silent!” Khaemwaset roared, and Hori obeyed, biting his lip. He shot a sympathetic glance at the scribe, then stared at the ground.
Before long the bushes rustled and Tbubui appeared, smiling, her red linen pasted tight to her swaying hips, the hot sun gleaming in the smooth blackness of her hair. She went straight up to her husband and bowed. “You sent for me, Khaemwaset?” she smiled. For answer he poked a rigid finger at Ptah-Seankh, still on his knees. “Say it,” he commanded. Ptah-Seankh did as he was bid, his voice now choked, his skin the colour of death. Hori, watching the woman closely, had to admire her perfect control. From polite interest her expression deepened to incomprehension, then to concern. Her mouth began to pucker, and by the time Ptah-Seankh fell silent for the last time, tears were glittering on her cheeks.
“Oh Hori, how could you?” she wept, turning to him beseechingly. “I would have said nothing, I would have remained your friend. Could you not have forced away your jealousy and rejoiced for your father and me? You are as dear to me as my own son. Why have you tried to hurt me so badly?” Her face descended into her two palms and Khaemwaset enfolded her in his embrace.
In the midst of his numbing shock, Hori found himself admiring the greatest performance he had ever seen in his life. He wanted to applaud. Like a naïve child he had played right into her hands, and he had only himself to blame. Khaemwaset had released her and was frowning. “What do you mean, you would have said nothing?” he demanded of her, forcing her chin up. The tears spilled down her neck and shone against the healthy brown of her collar-bones.
“Oh no, my dearest!” she sobbed. “No! I meant nothing by it, I swear! Please do not punish Hori! He is just …” She faltered, and Khaemwaset jumped in.
“He is just what? What has been going on here? I command you to answer me, Tbubui!”
She put a hand over her mouth then withdrew it, turning to face Hori with eyes full of pity and commiseration. For one blinding moment he doubted himself, doubted Ptah-Seankh, but then he remembered how the scribe’s tale had had the unmistakable ring of veracity about it, and how his father, his father! had planned to cravenly and secretly take his heritage away from him. “You bitch,” he murmured, and for one instant he could have sworn he saw an answer
ing flare of mockery in her eyes. Then she was obeying Khaemwaset, with every show of reluctance.
“Hori is jealous of you, my love,” she said in a trembling voice. “I have known for a long time that he wanted me for himself. He confessed as much to me in the days before you offered me a marriage contract, but I was already enamoured of you and I told him so, as kindly as I could. The violence of his youthful infatuation has turned to hate, and he has been trying to discredit me.” She swung to Khaemwaset, her fingers splayed appealingly. “Oh do not blame him, Khaemwaset! We both know that such fires burn fiercely and often eat up all common sense! For my sake, do not punish him!”
Khaemwaset had listened in an astounded silence, his face becoming grimmer, and when she finished speaking he tore himself away from her pleading hands and ran at Hori. For a moment Hori believed that his father was actually about to strike him and he involuntarily flinched, but Khaemwaset was hanging on to his control.
“You vicious puppy!” he shouted, blowing spittle into Hori’s face. “This is the reason for those secret visits— lusting after your father’s betrothed. Thinking to use your looks to seduce her! If she had not begged for clemency I would throw you out of this house immediately! As it is, you are not to appear at any communal meals and I do not want to hear the sound of your voice again! Do you understand?”
Behind his father’s furious face Hori could see Tbubui. She was grinning openly at him. He realized then that the scribe had gone. “Oh yes, I understand,” he said slowly. “I understand very well. But if you think that I am going to stand by and allow you to take away my birthright for the sake of the child in that evil woman’s womb, you are very much mistaken, Father.” He stepped aside and bowed to Tbubui. “My congratulations on your fecundity,” he said drily. “I wish both of you much joy of it.” Then he flung the scroll on the ground, spun on his heel and strode away.
He kept his spine straight and his head high until he knew he was out of their vision, then he stumbled into the thick shrubbery and fell to the earth, burying his head between his knees. He wanted to cry but found he could not. For a while he simply crouched there, stunned, the details of Tbubui’s matchless performance playing over and over again in his mind, far more vivid than his father’s insanely angry face. He was thirsty for wine, wine, and more wine, and in the end he got up, pushed his way back to the path and cautiously entered the house by the main doors. They stood open, as usual. The three servants permanently stationed there rose and reverenced him, and he stalked past them into the welcoming gloom.
The debris of the noon meal was being cleared, and apart from the servants the hall was empty. The smell of the food nauseated Hori. He prowled about until he found an unopened jar of wine, broke the seal and took a long swallow. Then, hugging it to his chest, he went back outside. The hour for a drowsy retreat from the sun had come, and the house and grounds had settled to a drugged quiet. Hori padded along the path to the watersteps, veered away, and was soon reclining in his and Sheritra’s secret place. I will get very drunk, he told himself, and then I will get drunker still. I hate you, Father, but I hate that unscrupulous, scheming whore you married even more.
He drank, waited, and drank again, but the afternoon wore on towards sunset and he found himself as sober as the moment when he had begun. It was as though the wine were entering his mouth, diffusing through his body, then leaving through the pores of his skin and taking its potency with it. Hori remained painfully lucid, and at some point before he tossed the empty jar into the bushes and crawled back onto the path, he had decided what he would do.
The concubines’ house appeared to be deserted, but Hori knew it would not stay that way for long. The afternoon sleep had ended. Some of the women would be emerging to bathe, others to go into the city markets. He surmised that his father had spent the time with Tbubui but would probably have left her by now to perform his afternoon duties. Hori walked up to the door, greeting the keeper amiably, and demanded to be let in. The man asked his business, and when Hori told him that Second Wife Tbubui had invited him earlier in the day to come and share a few moments with her, stepmother to adopted son as it were, he bowed and stood aside. “Make sure we are not disturbed,” Hori ordered as he walked away. “The lady has been so busy lately that we have had little time to get to know one another and I am grateful to her for giving me this hour.” I suppose when she tells Father that the Keeper let me in he will have him dismissed, Hori thought, approaching Tbubui’s door. Well, it cannot be helped. He motioned to the servant on the entrance to be silent, knocked once and let himself through.
The room was glowing with the golden half-light of the hour and the wind-catcher was open, stirring tiny flurries of air. Nevertheless Hori could smell his father’s sweat as he came up to the disordered couch. Tbubui was lying much as he must have left her, Hori thought, a bunched-up sheet flung across her loins, her hair in sticky tangles, her skin damp. She watched him come without surprise, her heavy-lidded eyes following his advance incuriously. He halted and she smiled lazily.
“Well, Hori,” she said. “What do you want?” She drew the sheet up over her breasts without haste.
“I want to know why. Why did you many my father, whom I do not think you love at all, when you could have had me? Somehow I think you would prefer young flesh, Tbubui, to some old man fighting the encroachments of time.”
“I would not call Khaemwaset exactly old,” she objected, still with that indolent smile fixed on her mouth, “and there are certain advantages to being his wife. Wealth, influence, a title …”
“That is not it,” Hori said thoughtfully, “not all of it, anyway. I could have given you all those things in time, and you knew it. Anyway, why did you give him false information through Ptah-Seankh? Perhaps there is nothing to find at Koptos?”
“And perhaps there is more to find in Koptos than you could possibly imagine,” she broke in softly, her eyes narrowing. “Have you thought of that, luscious Hori? More than your mind can encompass. Oh, I could not risk dear Khaemwaset hearing the truth, not just yet.” She sat up in one graceful, taunting movement.
“But he will,” Hori said. He was still standing by the couch. “I am going to Koptos myself. I intend to leave tomorrow. I will ruin you before you can destroy him.”
She laughed condescendingly. “How attractive you are when you are angry!” she said. “And do you think he will believe anything you tell him after today? I can say what I like to you. You can dig around in Koptos all you want. He is blind to everything but me, and you will be wasting your time, Highness.”
I want to kill her, Hori thought with hatred. I want to put my hands around her pretty little throat and shake and squeeze until she stops laughing, until she stops smiling that supercilious, superior, taunting smile …
Tbubui swung her legs over the couch. Her smile had become broader. “You can’t kill me, though, can you, darling Hori? Oh yes, I see the need on your face. Would you like to make love to me instead?” She let the sheet drop and kicked it away, spreading out her arms. “Would you like what your father gets every day? I often think of you when he is writhing and groaning on top of me.”
“You are disgusting,” he managed, horror and anger turning his limbs to water, but her words had started the lust as well, more familiar than the anger, an old friend with whom he had been living for a long time.
She tilted her head and half closed her eyes, arching her back.
“Come young Hori,” she breathed. “Make love to me.”
With a cry he flung himself forward, intending to throw her to the ground and crush the life from her, but he found himself kissing her instead. She began to moan or laugh, he did not know which, deep in her throat, winding her arms about his neck, his waist, lower, lower. Frantically he tried to scrabble free and push her away, yet one hand closed over her breast and the other gripped her thigh. They fell onto the couch together. He could no more control his desire for her now than he could stop breathing, yet he despised her
, he despised himself.
With the fingers of one hand digging into her neck and the other fist pounding the mattress he rammed into her and in a short time he ejaculated with a great shudder and lay collapsed on her, muscles jerking. “I like it like that,” she said against his ear. “Yes I do,” and he pulled away with a cry and rolled from the couch. “Oh wonderful, hot young blood,” she went on. “Come and warm me again soon, Highness. I do not think you will be able to refuse, will you?”
He staggered to the door. The room was suffocating, pressing on his chest so that he could not breathe. Panic-stricken, he fumbled for the latch, wrenched it open and ran past the startled servant into the corridor. A few more steps took him outside. He burst from the shade of the portico into the blinding wall of sunlight, gasping and bent over. The Keeper ran after him. “Highness, are you ill?” the man was calling, but Hori ignored him. The sunlight was not so blinding after all. Ra was westering and his dying was staining the gardens lushly pink.
Hori forced himself into a shambling walk. Steadily he covered the ground between the concubines’ house and the main building, veered right, cut through the rear and entered the compound. The huge kitchens were belching the smoke of cooking fires and the strong aroma of the meat his mother had ordered for the evening meal. Hori’s stomach contracted in disgust but he went straight in. A steward was setting the trays that would be carried, groaning with food and flowers, into the hall. He did not recognize Hori at first, but then bowed awkwardly, caught off guard. Hori took a bowl and went from table to table filling it with bread, pomegranates, raw leeks, dates, apples. The steward watched him, open-mouthed. Hori nodded to him on his way out.
He carried the bowl carefully in front of him all the way back to his own quarters. The storm of loathing and shame within him was abating and he had begun to think clearly again. Antef was sitting on the floor outside Hori’s door, his back against the wall, desultorily tossing dice. He came to his feet at Hori’s approach, looking at his friend uncertainly. Hori motioned him inside. “Close the door,” he ordered. While Antef did so, Hori put the bowl of food carefully beside his couch. The thought of food at the moment made him sick but he believed he might need it later. “Bring that palette,” he said, indicating the scribe’s tools on the floor beside the large table where Hori used to work. For a second Hori reflected on the agreeable, carefree young man he had been, but the image had no reality. “Can you take a message, Antef?”
Scroll of Saqqara Page 43