Death Comes as the Endt Read online

  Renisenb sat on in a companionable silence.

  Presently she touched a roll of and asked "Is that fro..m my father ?”

  papyrus : ttori nodded.

  "What does it say ?" she asked curiously.

  She unrolled it and stared at those marks that were so meaningless to her untutored eyes.

  Smiling a little, Hori leaned over her shoulder and traced with his finger as he read. The letter was couched in the ornate style of the professional letter writer of HeracleoPølis.

  "The Servant of the Estate, the Ka servant Imhotep says: May your condition be like that of one who lives a million times.May the God Herishaf, Lord of Heracleipolis and all the Gods that are aid you. May the God Ptah gladden your heart as one who lives long. The son speaks to his mother, the Ka servant to his mother Esa. How are you in your life, safety and health ? To the whole household, how are you ? To my son Yahmose, how are you in your life, safety and health ?

  Make the most of my land. Strive to the uttermost, dig the OwUnd with your noses in the ,,work. See, if you are industrious ill praise God for you' Renisenb laughed.

  "Poor Yahmose I He works hard enough, I am sure.”

  Her father's exhortations had brought him vividly before her eyes, his pompous, slightly fussy manner, his continual exhortations and instructions.

  Hori went on: "Take great care of my son Ipy. I hear he is discontented.

  Also see that Satipy treats Henet well. Mind this. Do not fail to write about the flax and the oil. Guard the produce of my grain, guard everything of mine, for I shall hold you responsible. If my land floods, woe to you and Sobek.”

  "My father is just the same," said Renisenb happily. "Always thinking that nothing can be done right if he is not here.”

  She let the roll of papyrus slip and added softly: "Everything is just the same . . .”

  Hori did not answer.

  He took up a sheet of papyrus and began to write. Renisenb watched him lazily for some time. She felt too contented to speak.

  By and by she said dreamily: I2 "h would be interesting to know how to write on papyrus.

  Why doesn't everyone learn ?”

  "It is not necessary.”

  "Not necessa, perhaps, but it would be pleasant.”

  "You think so, Renisenb ? What difference would it make to you ?”

  Renisenb corsidered for a moment or two. Then she said slo,w, ly: ' Whenou ask me like that, truly I do not know, Hori.”

  Hori sai[," At present a few scribes are all that are needed on a large estate, but he day will come, I fancy, when there will be armies of scribes all over Egypt.”

  "That will be a good thing," said Renisenb.

  Hori said slowly:" I am not so sure.”

  "Why are you not sure ?”

  "Because, Renisenb, it is so easy and it costs so little labour to write down ten bushels of barley, or a hundred head of cattle, or ten fields of spelt,, and the thing that is written will come to seem like the real thing, and so the writer and the scribe will come to despise the man who ploughs the fields and reaps the barley and raises the cattlebut all the same the fields and the cattle are real0they are not just marks of ink on papyrus. And when all the records and all the papyrus roils are destroyed and the scribes are scattered, the men who toil and reap will go on, and E?ypt will still live.”

  Renisenb looked at him attentively. She said slowly: "Yes, I see what you mean. Only the things that you can see and touch and et are real . . To write down ' I have two hundred and forty bushels of barley' means nothing unless you ]uwe the barley. One could write down lies.”

  Hori smiled at her serious face. Renisenb said suddenly: "You mended my lion for me, long ago, do you remember ?' "Yes, I remember, Renisenb.”

  "Teti is playing with it now... It is the same lion.”

  ,S, he paused andthen said simply: When Khay went to Osiris I was very sad. But now I have come home and I shall be happy again and forget, for everything here is the same. Nothing i, changed at all.'-'' You really think that ?' Renisenb looked up at him sharply.

  "What do you mean, Hori ?”

  "I mean there is always change. Eight years is eight years.”

  "Nothing changes here," said Renisenb with confidence.

  "Perhaps then, there own be change.”

  Rensenb said sharply.

  "No, no, I want everything the ssme I”

  "But you yourself are not the same Renisenb who went awa!

  with Khay.”

  "Yes, I am I Or if not, then I soon shall be again.”

  Hori shook his head.

  "You cannot go back, Reniaenb. It ia like my measures here.

  I take a half and add to it a quarter, and then a tenth and then a twenty-fourth, and at the end, you see, it ia a different quantity altogether.”

  "But I am just Renisenb.”

  "But Reniaenb has something added to her all the time, so she becomes all the time a different Renisenb I”

  "No, no. You are the same Hori." "You may think so, but it ia not so.”

  "Yes, yes, and Yahmose ia the same, so worried and so anxious, and Satipy bulIies him just the same, and she and Kait were having their usual quarrel about mats or beads, and prently when I go back they will be laughing together, the best of friends, and Henet still creeps about and listens and whines about her devotion, and my grandmother was fussing with her little maid over some linen I It was all the same, and presently my father will come home and there will ,be a great fuss, and he will say ' why have you not done this ? and ' you should have done that,' and Yahmose will look worried and Sobek will laugh and be insolent about it, and my father will spoil Ipy who ia sixteen just as he used to spoil him when he was eight, and nothing will be different at al/l" She paused, breathless.

  ,,Hori sighed. Then he said gently: 'You do not understand, Renisenb. There ia an evil that comes from outside, that attacks so that all the world can see, but there ia another kind of rottenness that breeds from within, that shows no outward sign. It grows dowly, day by day, till at last the whole fruit is rotten, eaten away by disease.”

  Renisenb stared at him. He had spoken almost absently, not as though he were speaking to her, but more like a man who muses to himself.

  She cried out sharply: "What do you mean, Hori ? You make me afraid.”

  "I am afraid myself.”

  "But what do you mean ? What ia this evil you talk about ?”

  He looked at her then, and suddenly smiled.

  "Forget what I said, Renisenb. I was thinking of the diseases that attack the crops.”

  Renisenb sighed in relief. "I'm glad. I thought, I don't know what I thought.”

  I4 CHAPTER II.

  Third month of Inundation, 4th day.

  SSTn'V was talking to Yahmose. Her voice had a high strident note that seldom varied its tone.

  "You must assert yourself. That is what I say l You will never be ued unless you assert yourself. Your father says this must be done and that must be done and why have you not done the others ? And you listen meekly and reply yes, yes, and excuse yourself for the things that he says shouldhave been done, and which, the Gods know, have often been quite impossible I Your father treats you as a child, as a young, irresponsible boy l You might be the age of Ipy.”

  Yahmose said quietly: "My father does not treat me in the least as he treats Ipy.”

  "No, indeed." Satipy fell upon the new subject with renewed venom. "He is foolish about that spoiled brat i Day by day Ipy ets more impossible. He swaggers round and does no work tft ie can help and pretends that anything that is aked of him is too hard for him [ It is a disgrace. And all because he knows that your father will always indulge him and take his part. You and Sobek should take a strong line about it.”

  Yahmose shrugged his shoulders. "What is the good ?”

  "You drive me mad, Yahmose, that is so like you I You have no spirit. You're as meek as a woman l Everything that your father says you agree with at once 1”

  "I have a great affection for my father.”

  "Yes, and he trades on that t You go on meekly accepting blame and excusing yourself for things that are no fault of yours You should speak up ,and answer him back as Sobek does. Sobek is afraid of nobody I' "Yes, but remember, Satipy, that it is I who am trusted by my father, not Sobek. My father reposes no confidence in Sobek.

  E{er!ahing is always left to my judgment, not his.”

  "And that is why you should be definitely associated as a partner in the estate! You represent your father when he is away, you act as ka-priest in his absence, everythin is left in you hnds, and yet you have no recognised authon'y. There should be a proper settlement. You are now a man of nearly middle age. It's not right that you should be treated still as a child.”

  x5 Yahmose said doubtfully, "My father likes to keep things in his own hands.”

  "Exactly. It pleases him that everyone in the household should be. dependent upon him, and upon his whim of the moment. It is bad, that, and it will get worse. This time when he comes home you must tackle him boldly, you must say that you demand a settlement in writing, that you insist on having a regularised position.

  "He would not listen.”

  "Then you must make him listen. Oh that I were a man l If I were in your place I would know what to do I Sometime I feel that I am married to a worm.”

  Yahmose flushed.

  "I will see what I can do, I,,might, yes, I might perhaps speak to my father, ask him "Not ask, you must dernand l After all, you have the whip hand of him. There is no one but you whom he can leave in charge here. $obek is too wild, your father does not trust him, and Ipy is too young.”

  "There is always Hori.”

  "Hori is not a member of the family. Your father relies on his judgment, but
he would not leave authority except in the hands of his own kin. But I see how it is; you are too meek and mild, there is milk in your veins, not blood! You don't consider me, or our children. 'Not till your father is dead ah'all we ever have our proper position.”

  Yahmose said heavily: "You despise me, don't you, Satipy ?”

  "You make me angry.”

  "Listen, I tell you that I will speak to my father when he comes. There, it is a promise.”

  Satipy murmured under her breath: "Yes, but how will you speak ? Like a man, or like a motlse ?”

  IIKait was playing with her youngest child, li e Ankh. The baby was just beginning to walk and Kait encoucaged her with laughing words, 'kneeling m front of her and waiting with out-stretched arms until the child lurched precariously forward and toddled on uncertain feet into her mother's arms.

  Kait had been displaying these accomplishments to Sobek, but she realised suddenly that he was not attendin[$, but was sitting with his handsome torehead furrowed into a trown x6 "Oh, Sobek, you were not looking. You do not see. Little one, tell your father he is naughty not to watch you.”

  Sobek said irritably: "I have other things to think ofmyes, and worry about.”

  Kait leaned back on her heels, smoothing her hair back from her heavy dark brows where Ankh's fingers had clutched it.

  "Why ? Is there something wrong ?”

  Kait spoke without quite giving all her attention. The question wa.5 more than half mechanical.

  Sobek said angrily: "The trouble is that I am not trusted. My father is an old man, absurdly old-fashioned in his ideas, and he insists on dictating every single action here, he will not leave things to my judgment.”

  Kait shook her head and murmured vaguely: "Yes, yes, it is too bad.”

  "If only Yahmose had a little more spirit and would back me up there might be some hope of making my father see reason.

  But Yahmose is so timid. He carries out every single instruction my father gives him to the letter.”

  Kait jingled some beads at the child and murmured: "Yes, that is true.”

  "In this matter of the timber I shall tell my father when he comes that I used my judgment. It was far better to take the price in flax and not in oil.”

  "I am sure you are right.”

  "But my father is as obstinate over having his own way as anyone can be. He will make an outcry, will shout out, ' I told you to transact the business in oil. Everything is done wrong when I am not here. You are a foolish boy who knows nothing 1' How old does he think I am ? He doesn't realise that I am now a man in my prime and he is past his. His instructions and his refusals to sanction any unusual transactions means that we do not do nearly ss good business as we might do. To attain riches it is neeeary to take a few risks. I have vision and courage.

  My father has neither.”

  Her eyes on the child, Kait murmured softly: "You are so bold and so clever, Sobek.”

  "But he shall hear some home truths this time if he dares to find fault and shout abuse at me I Unless I am given a free hand I shall leave. I shall go away.”

  Kait, her hand stretched out to the child, turned her head sharply, the gesture arrested.

  "Go away ? Where would you go ?”

  "Somewhere I It is insupportable to be bullied and nagged at x7 by a fussy, self-important old man who gives me no scope at all to show what I can do.”

  "No," said Kait sharply. "I say no, Sobek.”

  He stared at her, recalled by her tone into noticing her presence.

  He was so used to her as a merely soothing accompaniment to his talk that he often forgot her existence a a living, tinklng, human woman.

  "What do you mean, Kait ?”

  "I mean that I will not let you be foolish. All the estate belongs to your father, the lands, the cultivation, the cattle, the timber, the fields of flax-all I When your father dies it will be ours, yours and Yahmose's and our children's. If you quarrel with your father and go off, then he may divide your share between Yahmose and Ipy, already he loves Ipy too much.

  Ipy knows that and trades on it. You must not play into the hands of Ipy. It would suit him only too well if you were to quarrel with Imhotep and go away. We have our children to think of.”

  Sobek stared at her. Then he gave a short surpris laugh.

  "A woman is always unexpected. I did not know you had it in you, Kait, to be so fierce.”

  Kait said earnestly: "Do not quarrel with y, our father. Do not answer him back.

  Be wise for a little longer. ' "Perhaps you are right, but this may go on for years. What my father should do is to associate us with him in a partnerahip.”

  Kait shook her head.

  "He will not do that. He likes too much to say that we are all eating his bread, that we are all dependent on him, that withom him we should all be nowhere.”

  Sobek looked at her curiously.

  "You do not like my father very much, Kait.”

  But Kait had bent once more to the toddling baby.

  "Come,,,sweetheart, see, here is your doll. Come, then, come . ..

  Sobek looked down at her black bent head. Then with a puzzled look, he went out.

  III Esa had sent for her grandson Ipy. The boy, a handsome, discontented-looking stripling, was standing before her whilst she rated him in a high shrill voice, peering at him out of her dim eyes that were shrewd al they could now see little.

  x8 "What is this I hear ? You will not do this, and you will not do that ? You want to look after the bulls, and you do not like going with Yahmose or seeing to the cultivating? What are things coming to when a child like you says what ne will or will not do ?”

  Ipy said sullenly: "I am not a child. I am grown now,, and why should I be treated as a child ? Put to this work or that with no say of my own and no separate allowance. Given orders all the time by Yahmose. Who does Yahmose think he is ?”

  "He is your older brother and he is in charge here when my on Imhotep is away.”

  "Yahmose is stupid, alow and stupid. I am much cleverer than he is. And Sobek is stupid too for all that he boasts and talks about how clever he is t Already my father has written and has said that I am to do t,h,e work that I myself choose “

  "Which is none at all, interpolated old Esa.

  "And that I am to be given more food and drink, and that if he hears I am discontented and have not been well treated he will be very angry. “

  ,,He smiled as he spoke, a,,sly upcurving smile.

  ' You are a spoiled brat, said Esa with energy. "And I shall tell Imhotep so.”