Suzanne Robinson (20 page)

“Courage, Little Fire. He won’t stay long.”

Seth looked more closely at the boy. “It wasn’t your doing. He’s wrong to blame your mother’s death on you.”

Khet only hunched his shoulders. With the boy close at his side, Seth walked into the reception hall to greet his older brother. He paused after three steps into the room. Khet hesitated too. Sennefer, immaculate in pleats and gold-trimmed wig, stood beside a transformed Anqet.

The girl had worked devil’s magic. She had become mist and flame. Transparent white froth drifted about her body. Her neck, arms, and ankles gleamed with the crimson hue from ornaments of red jasper A band of thin sheet gold encircled her head like a diadem. Anqet lifted her head, and Seth took in the smooth, fragile slope of her forehead, the sinuous line of reddened lips.

She turned toward him. Seth managed a polite greeting and took a seat opposite Sennefer. Barely aware of the presence of Rennut, he pulled a stool next to him for Khet. He took a goblet that was handed to him but kept his eyes on Sennefer and Anqet.

The two were conversing as if they’d known each other for seasons. The jackals in Seth’s head yowled at the sight. Their clamor rose to a virulent scream when Sennefer leaned close to Anqet, took her hand, and kissed it. First he had had to listen to how this adolescent Lord Menana
was going to rescue her, and now Sennefer hovered over Anqet like a dragonfly.

Anqet inclined her head. Seth eyed her as she rose, took a harp from a table, and strummed a minor chord. Her voice trilled a sharp needle of excitement through him. She sang to his brother.

He lost track of the words while he watched Anqet’s mouth. Following the curved line of her lips, he lost himself in the memory of their feel and taste. Anqet’s singing filled his heart until Seth felt as if his ka was lifted up and floated on her words.

The world reformed around Seth. Anqet’s song had shattered it, so that only he and she existed in a bright and secret place away from everything.

Sennefer rose from his chair and bowed before Anqet, hands raised in submission. Seth wanted to kick him. His brother guided the singer to a place nearer his own chair. Seth glowered at Anqet. He didn’t hear Sennefer when the older man addressed him.

“Seth, are you ill? You haven’t heard anything I said.”

“What?” Seth couldn’t help the way he spat out the word.

“I asked how it was that Lady Anqet is with you when she told me over a week ago that she was going to sail for the North.”

“She changed her mind. Have some melon.”

Sennefer looked at Anqet. “Did you change your mind?”

Anqet remained silent.

“Sennefer, what are you doing here?” Seth glared at the man. “You’re supposed to be in Thebes helping Ay plan the king’s progress for the Feast of Opet.”

“I came to take Khet back with me,” Sennefer said with tranquillity. “He enjoys the holiday, and it would be a good opportunity for him to meet the high priest of Amun.”

Seth felt Khet stir at his feet. Curse Sennefer for disturbing the boy’s balance. It was time to end this gathering before his older brother could brew more trouble.

“It grows late, Little Fire,” Seth said to Khet. He took his younger brother by the hand. “Go to my body servant. He knows a treatment for strained muscles. Tell him to rub your neck with mukha oil.”

Khet smiled at him gratefully and left. Both Sennefer and Rennut started to talk at once. Seth ignored them and seared Anqet with his eyes. The girl gazed back at him, unaccountably at ease under his stare. As he looked at her, Anqet’s eyes shifted to look past his shoulder. Her lips pressed together. Seth felt a hand settle on his bare arm.

“Will you not greet me after so long an absence, my lord Seth?”

Seth turned. Gasantra moved up to him, brushing her exposed chest against him as she touched her lips to his. Seth backed away. He caught Gasantra’s hand as it roamed along his chest and led her to a seat next to Sennefer.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I invited the lady Gasantra,” Sennefer said. “I know how fond of her you are, and she hasn’t paid us a visit in months.”

Gasantra adjusted a fold of her gown where it tied below her breast. “I didn’t know you’d hired this corrupt
little asp, Seth. You can send her away. I had no idea you were so lonely, but I’m here now.”

Everyone stared at Gasantra.

The woman rested her arms on her chair and smiled at Seth. “After all, my love, she is a poor substitute. You must admit it.”

Seth cursed under his breath and rounded on Sennefer But his words never left his mouth, for Anqet excused herself and glided from the room in silence. Seth’s eyes followed her, admiration for the girl’s dignity uppermost in his thoughts. He considered pursuing her, but Sennefer moved in on him. Rennut took Gasantra to the gardens, and Seth found himself at the mercy of his brother’s quiet disapproval.

There were six spiritual aspects to a person; the ka, the external life-force; the ba soul; the yakhu, or shining one; the name; the shadow; and the heart, seat of intellect and emotions. Anqet was busy composing a curse that would damn each of the aspects that composed the woman named Gasantra. She had read an especially virulent one on a temple wall in Memphis.

“Burning be on you,” Anqet said. “You shall have no soul thereby, nor spirit nor body nor shade nor magic nor bones nor hair nor utterance nor words. You shall have no grave thereby, nor house nor hole nor tomb.”

Anqet looked around the pavilion where she’d taken refuge after Gasantra’s insults. The words of the curse were powerful and evoked images she hadn’t counted on. She was angry with Gasantra, but not that angry. Even the obscene and obnoxious Lady Gasantra didn’t merit nonexistence.

Anqet damned the woman in her thoughts anyway. Her plan to evoke an admission of love from Seth had been spoiled by that lady’s presence. They were together at this moment, she was certain of it. Anqet wasn’t fool enough to think Seth would resist his old lover’s advances.

The idea of Seth and Gasantra together made Anqet clamp her teeth together in an effort to stop a yell of rage.
The words of her unfinished curse came back to her, but she waited for the rage to quiet. When she was confident that she could reenter the house with decorum, Anqet left the pavilion with Uni close behind. At the door to her room, Uni’s night replacement waited. Anqet nodded to the two men and sailed inside.

Discarding her borrowed costume, she bathed and donned a loose, filmy shift. Two hours later, she sat on the bed, having lost the battle to throw off her anger and go to sleep. She wasn’t staying in Annu-Rest with Gasantra. Why should she put up with the woman’s insults and watch her paw Seth? Anqet’s eye fell on the blocked door that connected her room with the count’s suite. By the goddess Hathor, she would tell him she wasn’t staying. She would tell him at once. He wasn’t going to sleep peacefully when she couldn’t.

Anqet shoved aside the furniture in front of the entrance. The door swung open to reveal shadows and moonlight that streamed in from the garden on her right. Before her, across the long chamber, stood the canopy that protected Seth’s bed. A breeze stirred the curtains that shrouded the enclosure. Ephemeral beams played across the distance between Anqet and the canopy, but they cast too little light. She couldn’t tell if the count lay within.

Anqet pulled her body erect and her shoulders back, and took a step toward the canopy. A soft thud of a door closing caused her to shrink back into the shadows.

Naked and entirely at ease, Lady Gasantra walked into the master’s suite from the foyer to Anqet’s left. Anqet’s eyes widened. Gasantra reached the canopy and turned her back to Anqet. The woman shoved the curtains aside to reveal a sleeping Seth. He lay on his stomach amid the tousled sheets, unclothed, facing Gasantra.

Anqet crept closer, still in the shadows, and ran her eyes over the long, clean lines of Seth’s legs and the curve of his buttocks, Even asleep, the man stirred her erotic urges.

Gasantra approached and sat beside the count on the
bed. Anqet turned away, intent on leaving as quickly as she could.

“Beautiful Seth, you refused my favors this night. I can’t allow you to do that.”

Anqet stopped and listened. She should have kept going, but it wasn’t in her power to ignore the fact that Seth hadn’t wanted the woman.

Gasantra was running her hands over Seth. He lay unaware while she caressed a line from neck to waist to hip. She eased him over on his back. Seth gave a sigh and tried to turn away, but Gasantra held him and kissed him. Anqet saw the woman’s hand reach between his legs and gently stroke. She began to look around the room for one of Seth’s throwing sticks. Seth’s moan brought her eyes back to the lovers. Gasantra had straddled her victim, imprisoned his arms above his head, and was attacking his lips with her mouth.

Anqet reached for a bronze vase that rested in a stand beside her and was ready to hurl it at the woman when she heard Seth’s voice.

“Gasantra!”

Seth’s eyes were open and he lay staring at his lover His next words were drowned beneath Gasantra’s groping mouth. He tore his lips free and lifted her from his body. Before the woman could protest, he was out of the bed and standing.

“Get out,” he said.

Anqet grinned foolishly. Her heart did a bouncing dance in her chest.

“No,” Gasantra said. “I can please you. The evidence of that is plain.” Her gaze fastened on his erection.

Seth shook his head. “Leave me.”

“Leave you to that over-endowed whore, you mean. You would toss me aside for her? Ah, no, my stallion. I’ve waited for you too long. I don’t give away my possessions.”

Gasantra reached under the bed. Terror burst upon Anqet, for she knew what always lay beneath Seth’s bed. Gasantra came up with a dagger and flew at Seth. He
dodged her, but the blade caught him on the left biceps. Gasantra whirled around, ready to spring again.

Seth was never in great danger If she hadn’t been so angry and frightened, Anqet would have known this. At that moment, she only saw Seth in peril. As Gasantra raised her dagger arm, Anqet hurled the bronze vase like one of her own throwing sticks, and the vessel struck Gasantra’s arm, forcing her to drop the dagger. Seth grabbed and held the cursing woman while she tried to kick and bite him. The count saw Anqet and laughed.

“No need to hide, sweet one. She can’t get away.”

Anqet stayed where she was, for three men burst into the room; Seth’s body servant, Uni, and Anqet’s night guard. Seth handed the subdued Gasantra to Uni with instructions that she be escorted back to Thebes early the next morning.

“Lascivious half-breed.” Gasantra’s breasts heaved in rage. “May you be cursed with impotence.” She stalked to the door ahead of her escort, her breasts bouncing. “I warn you, Seth. You’re mine. No one else will take my place, especially not that little harlot of yours. You belong to me.”

“Then you shouldn’t wish me impotent,” Seth said to her.

The door shut. Anqet rushed to Seth and took his arm. Blood oozed from the cut. She took a kilt from a clothing chest, ripped it, and began to clean the wound. She was busy tying a bandage on the wound when she felt Seth’s hand on her hair. Anqet looked up and found the count’s eyes on her. His hand cupped her chin.

“What were you doing here?” he asked. He sounded uncertain, hesitant.

With the wound bound, Anqet had nothing to distract her from Seth’s unclothed nearness. She edged away from him, but he put his arm around her shoulders.

“I was coming to tell you I was leaving,” she said.

Anqet looked into Seth’s eyes. They were made black by the night and the moonlight. He was still, with the stillness of a wild creature faced with the outbreak of a
thunderstorm. Anqet held Seth’s stare, absorbed by the candor and hurt she perceived.

“Why do you want to leave me?”

She heard the pain.

“I wasn’t leaving you. I was leaving you and Gasantra.”

Seth bent to whisper in her ear. “There is no ‘me and Gasantra.’ There hasn’t been since the night I found you in her house.”

Anqet put her hand on Seth’s bare chest.

“Why?”

“Beloved, it has taken me many sleepless nights to find the answer to that question. I am obsessed.”

Anqet smiled. Seth looked down at her, a wrinkle of perplexity furrowing his brow. On his chest she traced the hieroglyphs symbolizing love.

“I will have the truth from you, my lord count. I want no more burrowing under the cover of spurious iniquity.” Anqet spread her hand wide over the count’s heart and waited.

Seth dropped his arms from her. He stepped back a pace and cocked his head to one side. Anqet could see the spasm of tension that passed through the muscles of his stomach and thighs.

The quiet whispered to her of defeat. Through the silence came Seth’s low whisper:

Seth held out his hand to her. “Come, beloved.”

He took her to the garden, to that secluded comer of wildness. There, upon a white cover from his bed, he knelt before Anqet and opened his arms. She knelt in front of him. Seth took her face in his hands and kissed her—slowly, with leisured expertise. After a while, the sounds of leaves brushing against each other, of the wind, of nocturnal insects, faded. Anqet fastened her arms about
Seth’s neck. The heat of his body taunted her through the insubstantial protection of her shift. Without interrupting their kisses, Seth placed his hands so that they almost touched her and ran them over her shoulders, arms, and thighs, then settled them on her waist.