Suzanne Robinson (18 page)

Seth’s eyes had their own catlike brightness when he finished his tale. He looked down at her They shared smiles. He seemed about to say something. Instead he stuttered and looked away. A flush crept across his face, and he excused himself from her presence.

A few more such occurrences assured Anqet that Seth, the brilliant commander and self-possessed sensualist, was ashamed. After he spent an hour looking at her as if she were one of the seven-headed reptiles of the underworld, Anqet resolved to ask him about his pledge of silence. With a newborn optimism, she let herself hope that whatever Seth had to say would explain why he had corrupted himself.

With a shake of her head, Anqet admonished herself.
The reason he’s a criminal doesn’t make him less of one.

They fought once when she tried to explain her plan for returning home.

“You think this little colt Menana will stop someone like Hauron? What an absurdity. I forbid it.”

“‘Forbid,’ do you? I have dependants to think of, and Hauron won’t be able to go against me when I’m no longer a maiden. I’ll do as I think wise, and that means going to Lord Menana.”

“Enough! If I hear that name from you once more, I’ll put you back in that crate.”

A change in the horses’ pace brought Anqet out of her reverie. They had reached the end of the road that cut across Seth’s lands. Ahead lay a gateway of limestone set in a thick, high wall that enclosed the main house, servants’ quarters, outbuildings, and gardens. Passing several gardeners and a laughing group of children, they drove through the gate and up to the front portico of Seth’s home.

Anqet surveyed the seat of the counts of the Falcon nome. She immediately felt at home, for Annu-Rest was in many respects a larger version of Nefer Although double the size of Nefer, it too had papyriform columns that
supported the roof of the portico, and the entrance was painted with a border of red and blue palmetto leaves. A colonnaded terrace ran completely around the house. Surrounded by palms and old sycamores, the effect was one of shady and classic Egyptian symmetry.

Beneath the columns of the entryway stood several people. Anqet recognized one as Seth’s personal body servant, who had come ahead of them to prepare for their arrival. Suddenly Anqet realized that the count had taken none of his military staff from Thebes with him. She was wondering why he would leave his men behind when she caught a glimpse of the others waiting in the portico.

They were women. Two of these were servants who plied an ostrich-feather fan and a fly whisk over a tall female. The woman was slender, with pale skin and a permanently dissatisfied frown on her painted lips. She was hung about the neck and waist with gold jewelry. Anqet took in the woman’s pampered skin and long-legged prettiness. She glanced at Seth, who was busy controlling the horses. She had never considered that he might have a wife.

A slug. That’s what she looked like. A white slug.

Seth pulled the horses to a halt and helped Anqet from the chariot. Anqet prepared herself to display cool politeness. Together they walked toward the portico. Anqet was aware of curious, laughing eyes watching them from all directions. Without fear or awe, the maids, gardeners, grooms, cooks, and other inhabitants of the estate hovered at a distance and called greetings to the master. Seth answered with easy camaraderie.

They were two paces from the step that led to the portico where the white woman awaited them when a shrill war cry assaulted their ears. Anqet heard a hollow
whoosh
, and a spear buried itself deep in the ground a palm’s width from Seth’s foot. Leaving Anqet crouched on the ground, Seth yelled a challenge. He plunged into the house and up to the room over the entryway from which the spear had been thrown. The sounds of a chase echoed out to the crowd. Seeing that no one else was disturbed,
Anqet stood up. She heard furniture crash, crockery splintering, and a dog barking wildly.

A thin streak of lightning shot out of the house; down the steps, and past Anqet. Seth raced after it. Anqet turned and watched the count scoop up the racing figure in both arms as it tried to dodge him. Seth uttered a loud growl, lifted his victim into the air, and crushed him in both arms. An exultant laugh escaped the boy who wrestled with the count. Anqet relaxed and smiled, along with everyone except the pale woman. This had to be Khet, Seth’s younger half brother Seth released the boy and led him back to stand in front of Anqet. Seth whispered to the youth.

Anqet studied the boy. Khet was thirteen and had reached the age when boys abandon the nudity and side lock of childhood. Long of arm and leg, his hands and feet were disproportionately large, reminding Anqet of the paws of a young hunting dog. Khet had Seth’s upturned wide mouth, and shared the count’s athletic build and animal grace, yet his face lacked the angularity of Seth’s features. It also lacked the older man’s look of cynicism.

Khet straightened the short wig that framed his face. His heavy-lidded eyes took on a momentary gravity as he listened to Seth’s introduction. He bowed to Anqet.

“Welcome, my lady,” he said. “May thy ka find pleasure in this house.” He almost managed to utter the courtly formula without smiling, but as he finished, the boy broke out in a chuckle. “Seth! You’re home. I missed you so. Take me with you when you go back to court. Please. Lady Anqet, Seth says you’ve lost your home to a greedy relative. Don’t worry. You can stay with us. Seth will protect you. Did you know he saved me from a lion once?”

Over the boy’s head, Anqet looked at Seth. The count was smiling at his brother’s ingenuous chatter Khet linked his arm through Seth’s and walked between the two of them into the shelter of the portico where the white lady stood patiently.

“You’d think as Seth’s stepmother I would be accorded more respect. All I ask for is a small addition to the town
house at Memphis. We can buy the houses on either side of us and knock them down. Why, my father’s guest home in Abydos was much bigger.”

Anqet tried not to stare in wonder as she listened to the woman’s monologue. Rennut was the third wife of Seth’s father, whom he had married shortly before his death. The moment Rennut opened her mouth, Anqet’s burgeoning jealousy disappeared. With hardly a word to Seth or his guest, Rennut launched into a litany of complaints. Anqet was sure the woman kept a scribe whose sole duty was to record the trivial criticisms and lamentations she collected between her stepson’s visits.

The family was seated in one of the smaller chambers off the main feasting hall. Servants poured beer and served cold meat and fruit. Ignoring his stepmother, Khet stuffed food into his mouth until Seth took it away from him and sent the boy back to his instruction with his tutor.

The count listened to Rennut for the time it took to consume one beer Then he excused himself. He took Anqet through the feasting hall, a reception room decorated in turquoise and gold tiles, and into the portion of the house reserved for the family. As they passed a set of double cedar doors, they opened to reveal a Nubian in Egyptian garb. With an elongated build that made him resemble one of the columns on the terrace, the man had creamy brown skin and aquiline features that spoke of mixed blood. He said nothing to the count, but fell in step behind his master as the count walked to the next door.

Seth paused before the chamber and said, “This is Uni. He is your bodyguard. I don’t think you will need him, but I’ll sleep easier knowing he’s outside your door.”

“I’m sure you will,” Anqet said.

Seth laughed. He preceded her inside. There was an antechamber decorated in a geometric pattern of blue-grey interspersed with the ankh, symbol of life. Beyond lay a bedchamber that brought forth memories of Nefer.

Illuminated through windows sporting stone grill-work, the room had been painted with scenes of a young man and woman. On one mural, the two sat side by side,
sharing a golden cup. On another, they embraced while standing beside a garden pool. On yet another, they sailed in a yacht on the Nile with two boys. The man was bearded and tall, with the wide shoulders and narrow hips that were the legacy of the males of Seth’s family.

The woman was green-eyed. Her auburn hair flowed freely down her back, a curious departure from the formal hairstyles of most noblewomen in portraits. Seth’s mother stared out from the paintings with burning intensity, eyebrows arched. The murals filled the room with brightness from the rich red-brown and cream of the skintones to the deep blue-black of the painted grapes that trailed in vines up the walls and across the ceiling.

“This was my mother’s room,” Seth said. He touched one of the images of his parents. “Father had these scenes painted. I wish our life had been as peaceful as it’s shown on the walls.”

Anqet drew closer to Seth. They looked at the couple sailing with the three children. Without his telling her, Anqet knew he was thinking of the devotion of her own parents. She also sensed an internal skirmish in the man standing next to her A newly acquired urge to confide and share warred with the old shield of reticence. Suddenly Anqet knew that she must break through the flamboyant and provocative disguise he employed against the world. It got in her way, and she was tired of it. She eyed the count as he contemplated the mural.

Gently, with concern plain in her face and voice, she put a question to him. “Your father and mother fought?”

Seth’s hand made a fist against the painting. He was quiet for so long that Anqet thought he wasn’t going to answer.

“This house was a battleground,” he said without looking at her “When they weren’t making love, they fought. She never forgave him for taking her away from her tribe. She hated the Two Lands—the heat, the desert, the lack of rain. She would punish my father for bringing her here. When I was born I became the prize for which their battles were fought,”

Seth moved his hand to the spot where his father touched his mother’s shoulder. “They would fight, and each would tell me a different version of the quarrel. I remember each of them expecting me to side with each. They fought over what to plant in the garden, who to invite to feast, when to go to court, everything. But most of all, they fought over me.”

Seth stopped He glanced down at her as if surprised at his ability to confide in her She could see his effort to stop the words, but they tumbled from him as though compelled.

“I grew up feeling that if I hadn’t been born, they wouldn’t have fought. I kept thinking that without me to fight over, they’d have been happy. I was almost a man before I realized that the battles had nothing to do with me.”

Seth stopped again, but Anqet nodded her head in understanding. Her attention drew him on.

“And then there was Sennefer And Sennefer’s mother You know, he was six when I was born. His mother raised him to think he’d be Father’s heir She thought she was going to be a wife instead of a concubine. I suppose I can’t blame her for hating us. Father tried to be fair He made no difference between Sennefer and me, or Khet when he was born. It didn’t matter Sennefer thought I stole his place.

“Father made us share the schoolroom and would take us hunting together,” Seth said. “Sennefer cooperated, for Father’s sake, but he couldn’t help resenting me. I didn’t understand at first. Then one day Father mentioned that it would be my duty to provide for his ka. I was watching Sennefer He looked as if Father had driven a javelin through his heart. I was only ten, but I knew then that Sennefer believed my birth had cost him Father’s love. After that, I swore he’d never regret—”

Anqet watched Seth frown at the wall painting, deep in the memories of his wrecked childhood, so different from her own, so impoverished of trust and unselfish love.
Forgetting her own wrongs at Seth’s hands, Anqet slipped her hand in his.

“I’m sorry.”

She had a vision of a loving and lonely boy, torn between a father and mother too concerned with their own grudges to see what they were doing to their son. For that boy, love was an occasion for betrayal, guilt, and divided allegiance. Anqet’s heart burned with empathy. No wonder Seth had turned to his brother for affection. What had destroyed their precarious trust?

Anqet squeezed Seth’s hand. Perhaps now was the time for confidences. “Will you tell me about your pledge of silence?”

The count jerked his hand away and backed up. His lips pressed together He forced them apart.

“I wanted to … we have misunderstood one another from the first. Bareka! What is it about you that crumbles my will like sandy brick?”

“Seth!” Khet burst into the chamber, his face flushed. “That dung-beetle of a tutor says that if I want to be a soldier, I have to be a scribe first. I know how to write. Mostly. Enough for a soldier I won’t sit in a schoolroom for another two years. Please, brother I want to train under you.”

Seth took the boy by the shoulders, spun him around, and marched him to the antechamber “We’ll talk about this somewhere else, but first we’re going to embark on an instruction about the correct manner of invading a woman’s bedchamber By the infinite pantheon, I don’t think I was ever as much trouble as you are.”

Khet patted Seth’s arm, his brown eyes alight with humor “Yes you were. Sennefer says you were worse than locusts at harvest. He told me about the time you took his body slave’s place and poured wine over him instead of water in the bathing chamber.”

Anqet was proud of her restraint. She didn’t burst out laughing until the sound of the brothers’ bickering faded down the hall. She was still grinning when a maid came in with her possessions and offered to assist her in bathing.

Three days passed in an odd domestic hiatus that Anqet would have appreciated had she not been a prisoner, homesick, worried about where her uncle was and if he knew where she was. The only discomforting event was her discovery that Seth had placed her in the room that adjoined the master’s suite. The first night, she opened a door in her bedchamber that led to a short hall. She crossed the corridor into an expansive bedroom with its own terrace and garden. She was examining a rare incense tree when Seth came up behind her He bent and whispered in her ear, causing her to squeak in alarm.