Death Comes As the End (8 page)

‘Did she hate me?’ Renisenb spoke doubtfully. ‘I–tried once to be friends.’

‘And she’d have none of it? She hated you all right, Renisenb.’

Esa paused and then asked sharply:

‘Would it be because of Kameni?’

The colour rose in Renisenb’s face: ‘Kameni? I do not know what you mean.’

Esa thoughtfully: ‘She and Kameni both came from the North, but it was you Kameni watched across the courtyard.’

Renisenb said abruptly:

‘I must go and see to Teti.’

Esa’s shrill, amused cackle followed her. Her cheeks hot, Renisenb sped across the courtyard towards the lake.

Kameni called to her from the porch:

‘I have made a new song, Renisenb. Stay and hear it.’

She shook her head and hurried on. Her heart was beating angrily. Kameni and Nofret. Nofret and Kameni. Why let old Esa, with her malicious love of mischief, put these ideas into her head? And why should she care?

Anyway what did it matter? She cared nothing for Kameni, nothing at all. An impertinent young man with a laughing voice and shoulders that reminded her of Khay.

Khay…Khay.

She repeated his name insistently–but for once no image came before her eyes. Khay was in another world. He was in the Field of Offerings…

On the porch Kameni was singing softly:

‘I will say to Ptah: Give me my sister tonight…’

III

‘Renisenb!’

Hori had repeated her name twice before she heard him and turned from her contemplation of the Nile.

‘You were lost in thought, Renisenb, what were you thinking about?’

Renisenb said with defiance:

‘I was thinking of Khay.’

Hori looked at her for a minute or two–then he smiled:

‘I see,’ he said.

Renisenb had an uncomfortable feeling that he did see!

She said with a sudden rush:

‘What happens when you are dead? Does anyone really know? All these texts–all these things that are written on coffins–some of them are so obscure they
seem to mean nothing at all. We know that Osiris was killed and that his body was joined together again, and that he wears the white crown, and because of him we need not die–but sometimes, Hori, none of it seems
real
–and it is all so confused…’

Hori nodded gently.

‘But what really happens after you are dead–that is what I want to know?’

‘I cannot tell you, Renisenb. You should ask a priest these questions.’

‘He would just give me the usual answers. I want to
know
.’

Hori said gently, ‘We shall none of us know until we are dead ourselves…’

Renisenb shivered.

‘Don’t–don’t say that!’

‘Something has upset you, Renisenb?’

‘It was Esa.’ She paused and then said, ‘Tell me, Hori, did–did Kameni and Nofret know each other well before–they came here?’

Hori stood quite still for a moment, then as he walked by Renisenb’s side, back towards the house, he said, ‘I see. So that is how it is…’

‘What do you mean–“
that is how it is
”? I only asked you a question.’

‘To which I do not know the answer. Nofret and
Kameni knew each other in the North–how well, I do not know.’

He added gently: ‘Does it matter?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Renisenb. ‘It is of no importance at all.’

‘Nofret is dead.’

‘Dead and embalmed and sealed up in her tomb! And that is that!’

Hori continued calmly:

‘And Kameni–does not seem to grieve…’

‘No,’ said Renisenb, struck by this aspect of the question.

‘That is true.’ She turned to him impulsively. ‘Oh Hori, how–how
comforting
a person you are!’

He smiled.

‘I mended little Renisenb’s lion for her. Now–she has other toys.’

Renisenb skirted the house as they came to it.

‘I don’t want to go in yet. I feel I hate them all. Oh, not
really
, you understand. But just because I am cross–and impatient and everyone is so
odd
. Can we not go up to your Tomb? It is so nice up there–one is–oh,
above
everything.’

‘That is clever of you, Renisenb. That is what I feel. The house and the cultivation and the farming lands–all that is below one, insignificant. One looks beyond
all that–to the River–and beyond again–to the whole of Egypt. For very soon now Egypt will be one again–strong and great as she was in the past.’

Renisenb murmured vaguely:

‘Oh–does it matter?’

Hori smiled.

‘Not to little Renisenb. Only her own lion matters to Renisenb.’

‘You are laughing at me, Hori. So it
does
matter to you?’

Hori murmured: ‘Why should it? Yes, why should it? I am only a ka-priest’s man of business. Why should I care if Egypt is great or small?’

‘Look.’ Renisenb drew his attention to the cliff above them. ‘Yahmose and Satipy have been up to the Tomb. They are coming down now.’

‘Yes,’ said Hori. ‘There were some things to be cleared away, some rolls of linen that the embalmers did not use. Yahmose said he would get Satipy to come up and advise him what to do about them.’

The two of them stood there looking at the two descending the path above.

It came to Renisenb suddenly that they were just approaching the spot from which Nofret must have fallen.

Satipy was ahead. Yahmose a little way behind her.

Suddenly Satipy turned her head to speak to Yahmose. Perhaps, Renisenb thought, she was saying to him that this must be the place where the accident occurred.

And then, suddenly, Satipy stiffened in her tracks. She stood as though frozen, staring back along the path. Her arms went up as though at some dreadful sight or as though to ward off a blow. She cried out something, stumbled, swayed, and then, as Yahmose sprang towards her, she screamed, a scream of terror, and plunged forward off the edge, headlong to the rocks below…

Renisenb, her hand to her throat, watched the fall unbelievingly.

Satipy lay, a crumpled mass, just where the body of Nofret had lain.

Rousing herself, Renisenb ran forward to her. Yahmose was calling and running down the path.

Renisenb reached the body of her sister-in-law and bent over it. Satipy’s eyes were open, the eyelids fluttering. Her lips were moving, trying to speak. Renisenb bent closer over her. She was appalled by the glazed terror in Satipy’s eyes.

Then the dying woman’s voice came. It was just a hoarse croak.

‘Nofret…’

Satipy’s head fell back. Her jaw dropped.

Hori had turned to meet Yahmose. The two men came up together.

Renisenb turned to her brother.

‘What did she call out, up there, before she fell?’

Yahmose’s breath was coming in short jerks–he could hardly speak…

‘She looked past me–
over my shoulder
–as though she saw someone coming along the path–but there was no one–
there was no one there
.’

Hori assented:

‘There was no one…’

Yahmose’s voice dropped to a low, terrified whisper:

‘And then she called out–’

‘What did she say?’ Renisenb demanded, impatiently.

‘She said–she said…’ His voice trembled…‘Nofret…’

‘So that is what you meant?’

Renisenb flung the words at Hori more as an affirmation than as a question.

She added softly under her breath with growing comprehension and horror:

‘It was Satipy who killed Nofret…’

Sitting with her chin supported by her hands in the entrance to Hori’s little rock chamber next to the Tomb, Renisenb stared down at the valley below.

She thought dreamily how true the words were she had uttered yesterday–(was it really only such a short time ago?–) From up here the house below and the busy hurrying figures had no more significance nor meaning than an ants’ nest.

Only the sun, majestic in power, shining overhead–
only the slim streak of pale silver that was the Nile in this morning light–only these were eternal and enduring. Khay had died, and Nofret and Satipy–and some day she and Hori would die. But Ra would still rule the heavens and travel by night in his barque through the Underworld to the dawning of the next day. And the River would still flow, flow from beyond Elephantine and down past Thebes and past the village and to lower Egypt where Nofret had lived and been gay and light of heart, and on to the great waters and so away from Egypt altogether.

Satipy and Nofret…

Renisenb pursued her thoughts aloud since Hori had not answered her.

‘You see, I was so sure that Sobek–’

She broke off.

Hori said thoughtfully: ‘The preconceived idea.’

‘And yet it was stupid of me,’ Renisenb went on. ‘Henet told me, or more or less told me, that Satipy had gone walking this way and she said that Nofret had come up here. I ought to have seen how obvious it was that Satipy had followed Nofret–that they had met on the path–and that Satipy had thrown her down. She had said, only a short while before, that she was a better man than any of my brothers.’

Renisenb broke off and shivered.

‘And when I met her–’ she resumed, ‘I should have known then. She was quite different–she was frightened. She tried to persuade me to turn back with her. She didn’t want me to find Nofret’s body. I must have been blind not to realize the truth. But I was so full of fear about Sobek…’

‘I know. It was seeing him kill that snake.’

Renisenb agreed eagerly.

‘Yes, that was it. And then I had a dream…Poor Sobek–how I have misjudged him. As you say,
threatening
is not
doing
. Sobek has always been full of boastful talk. It was Satipy who was always bold and ruthless and not afraid of action. And then ever since–the way she has gone about like a ghost–it has puzzled us all–why did we not think of the true explanation?’

She added, with a quick upward glance:

‘But you did?’

‘For some time,’ said Hori, ‘I have felt convinced that the clue to the truth of Nofret’s death was in Satipy’s extraordinary change of character. It was so remarkable that there had to be something to account for it.’

‘And yet you said nothing?’

‘How could I, Renisenb? What could I ever
prove
?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Proofs must be solid brick walls of fact.’

‘Yet once you said,’ Renisenb argued, ‘that people
didn’t really change. But now you admit that Satipy
did
change.’

Hori smiled at her.

‘You should argue in the Nomarch’s courts. No, Renisenb, what I said was true enough–people are always themselves. Satipy, like Sobek, was all bold words and talk. She, indeed, might go on from talk to action–but I think she is one of those who cannot know a thing or what it is like until it has happened. In her life up to that particular day, she had never had anything to
fear
. When fear came, it took her unawares. She learned then that courage is the resolution to face the unforeseen–and she had not got that courage.’

Renisenb murmured in a low voice:

‘
When fear
came…Yes, that is what has been with us ever since Nofret died. Satipy has carried it in her face for us all to see. It was there, staring from her eyes when she died…when she said “Nofret…” It was as though she saw–’

Renisenb stopped herself. She turned her face to Hori, her eyes wide with a question. ‘Hori, what did she see? There on the path.
We
saw nothing! There
was
nothing.’

‘Not for us–no.’

‘But for her? It was Nofret she saw–Nofret come to take her revenge. But Nofret is dead and her tomb is sealed. What then did she see?’

‘The picture that her own mind showed her.’

‘You are sure? Because if not–’

‘Yes, Renisenb, if not?’

‘Hori–’ Renisenb stretched out her hand. ‘Is it ended now? Now that Satipy is dead? Is it truly ended?’

He held her hand in both of his in a comforting clasp.

‘Yes, yes, Renisenb–surely. And you at least need not be afraid.’

‘Renisenb murmured under her breath:

‘But Esa says that Nofret hated me…’

‘Nofret hated
you
?’

‘Esa says so.’

‘Nofret was good at hating,’ said Hori. ‘Sometimes I think she hated every person in this house. But you at least did nothing against her.’

‘No–no, that is true.’

‘And therefore, Renisenb, there is nothing in
your
mind to rise up against you in judgement.’

‘You mean, Hori, that if I were to walk down this path alone–at sunset–at that same time when Nofret died–and if I were to turn my head–I should see nothing? I should be safe?’

‘You will be safe, Renisenb, because if you walk down the path, I will walk with you and no harm shall come to you.’

But Renisenb frowned and shook her head.

‘No, Hori. I will walk alone.’

‘But why, little Renisenb? Will you not be afraid?’

‘Yes,’ said Renisenb, ‘I think I shall be afraid. But all the same that is what has to be done. They are all trembling and shaking in the house and running to the Temples to buy amulets and crying out that it is not well to walk on this path at the hour of sundown. But it was not magic that made Satipy sway and fall–it was fear–fear because of an evil thing that she had done. For it is evil to take away life from someone who is young and strong and who enjoys living. But I have not done any evil thing, and so even if Nofret did hate me, her hate cannot harm me. That is what I believe. And anyway if one is to live always in fear it would be better to die–so I will overcome fear.’

‘These are brave words, Renisenb.’

‘They are perhaps rather braver than I feel, Hori.’ She smiled up at him. She rose to her feet. ‘But it has been good to say them.’

Hori rose and stood beside her. ‘I shall remember these words of yours, Renisenb. Yes, and the way you threw back your head when you said them. They show the courage and the truth that I have always felt was in your heart.’

He took her hand in his.

‘Look, Renisenb. Look out from here across the valley
to the River and beyond. That is Egypt, our land. Broken by war and strife for many long years, divided into petty kingdoms, but now–very soon–to come together and form once more a united land–Upper and Lower Egypt once again welded into one–I hope and believe to recover her former greatness! In those days, Egypt will need men and women of heart and courage–women such as you, Renisenb. It is not men like Imhotep, forever preoccupied with his own narrow gains and losses, nor men like Sobek, idle and boastful, nor boys like Ipy who thinks only of what he can gain for himself, no, nor even conscientious, honest sons like Yahmose whom Egypt will need in that hour. Sitting here, literally amongst the dead, reckoning up gains and losses, casting accounts, I have come to see gains that cannot be reckoned in terms of wealth, and losses that are more damaging than loss of a crop…I look at the River and I see the life blood of Egypt that has existed before we lived and that will exist after we die…Life and death, Renisenb, are not of such great account. I am only Hori, Imhotep’s man of business, but when I look out over Egypt I know a peace–yes, and an exultation that I would not exchange to be Governor of the Province. Do you understand at all what I mean, Renisenb?’

‘I think so, Hori–a little You are different from the others down there–I have known that for some time.
And sometimes when I am with you here, I can feel what you feel–but dimly–not very clearly. But I do know what you mean. When I am
here
the things down
there
,’ she pointed, ‘do not seem to matter any longer. The quarrels and the hatreds and the incessant bustle and fuss. Here one escapes from all that.’

She paused, her brow puckering, and went on, stammering a little.

‘Sometimes I–I am glad to have escaped. And yet–I do not know–there is something–down there–that calls me back.’

Hori dropped her hand and stepped back a pace.

He said gently:

‘Yes–I see–Kameni singing in the courtyard.’

‘What do you mean, Hori? I was not thinking of Kameni.’

‘You may not have been thinking of him. But all the same, Renisenb, I think it is his songs that you are hearing without knowing it.’

Renisenb stared at him, her brow puckered.

‘What extraordinary things you say, Hori. One could not possibly hear him singing up here. It is much too far away.’

Hori sighed gently and shook his head. The amusement in his eyes puzzled her. She felt a little angry and bewildered because she could not understand.