Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,130

It was certainly not my mind. I stalked into the bed chamber and Kheperren demanded, ‘What do you here, lady? Didn’t he tell you to keep away if anything happened? He would not involved you in his ruin!’

‘Oh, be silent,’ I snarled. ‘How can I not be involved in his ruin? The Pharaoh gave us to each other, put our hands together. I am his and he is mine and he cannot repudiate me now. What is happening? Do you know?’

‘No.’ Kheperren did not seem to resent my tone. Actually it was a pity, as it would have been a great relief to my feelings to be able to scream at someone; but I suppose it was for the best.

‘He was called and went, and he has been sitting outside the temple of the Aten for hours. The King is inside the temple. That monster Huy is walking about with a huge smirk on his filthy face—how I would like to hand him over to my Nubian irregulars! They can keep a prisoner alive for weeks, screaming in agony all the time.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘They could abolish the screaming by cutting out his tongue, of course. We do not want to keep the children awake.’

I was keeping step with him as he paced from one side to the other of the large room. I was interested as he instructed me as to exactly what, and in what order, the Nubian irregulars do to their most precious enemies, and the recital pleased my heart. I got a truly evil pleasure out of imagining Huy suspended from a tree upside down with bone needles thrust into his phallus. But even the ingenious Nubians run out of tortures in the end. As time passed, Kheperren put an arm round my shoulders, and we walked more slowly.

Eventually we sat down in the Great Royal Scribe’s chair together.

‘You’re afraid for him, aren’t you?’ he asked me. It was stupid question. But he was trying to communicate and I had walked out some of my bitter rage.

‘Yes, and you?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

‘Soldiers must be used to waiting for an attack,’ I commented. He snorted.

‘That’s the army. Hurry to get all prepared and every detail finished. Then wait. I have waited on the hills in Apiru country, lady, and in the jungles where the vile Kush lurk. I have sat all night and listened for any noise in the dead silence, a noise which might mean that the sentries have been surprised and killed and that an attack in force by the merciless shepherds is about to break upon the tents. I have waited three days together for rescue when Horemheb left us watching a border post and we were besieged. I have waited until my teeth hurt with gritting together and my body was exhausted just from the strain. But I have never sat in a cool delightful palace and waited, lady, and it is terrible beyond any battle. There at least I knew who the enemy were, and at the last I could fight for my life.’

‘Terrible,’ I agreed. ‘For even the Widow-Queen Tiye says that there is nothing to be done, and that lady would have no compunction about any action if she thought that it would work.’

He was very like Ptah-hotep, if my love had been a soldier. His back felt the same under my hands, the long and beautifully arranged muscles. I had not been aroused when I had made love with my sister Merope. Now I was feeling an entirely inappropriate interest in Kheperren. I shook myself. The palace insanity was catching.

And we sat there for hours, and nothing happened, and no news came.

Ptah-hotep

I had been sitting for a long time, thinking about my life and putting it into order and perspective. Not many who die are given this time to think, and I was grateful for it. I knew that the King had arranged to dismiss the Royal Women before dark, and wondered if my summons had anything to do with that, though I could not see how it would. When the soldiers came at last to take me to the King, I gathered up my scribe’s tools and walked between them into the immense temple of the Aten.

The pillars soared up beyond sight. The temple was lined with beaten gold, and the light of the westering sun struck such blinding brilliance from the walls and floor of the central hall that I was dazzled. I could still not really see