"Master, they will torture me."
"No, no." Yahmose turned his head with difficulty on the curved, wooden headrest. "Do not let the child be hurt. He is simple but honest. Promise me."
"Of course, of course," said Imhotep. "There is no need. It is clear the boy has told all that he knows - and I do not think he is inventing. Be off with you, child, but do not return to the far herds. Stay near the house so that we can summon you again if we need you."
The boy rose to his feet. He bent a reluctant glance upon Yahmose.
"You are ill, Lord Yahmose?"
Yahmose smiled faintly.
"Have no fear. I am not going to die. Go now - and be obedient to what you have been told."
Smiling happily now, the boy went off. The priest examined Yahmose's eyes and felt the rate at which the blood was coursing under the skin. Then, recommending him to sleep, he went with the others out into the central hall again.
He said to Imhotep:
"You recognize the description the boy gave?"
Imhotep nodded. His deep, bronze cheeks showed a sickly plum color.
Renisenb said: "Only Nofret ever wore a dress of dyed linen. It was a new fashion she brought with her from the cities in the north. But those dresses were buried with her."
Imhotep said:
"And the three strings of beads with the lions' heads in gold were what I gave her. There is no other such ornament in the house, it was costly and unusual. All her jewelry, with the exception of a trumpery string of camelian beads, was buried with her and is sealed in her tomb."
He flung out his arms.
"What persecution - what vindictiveness - is this! My concubine whom I treated well, to whom I paid all honor, whom I buried with the proper rites, sparing no expense. I have eaten and drunk with her in friendship - to that all can bear witness. She had had nothing of which to complain - I did indeed more for her than would have been considered right and fitting. I was prepared to favor her to the detriment of my sons who were born to me. Why, then, should she thus come back from the dead to persecute me and my family?"
Mersu said gravely:
"It seems that it is not against you personally that the dead woman wishes evil. The wine when you drank it was harmless. Who in your family did injury to your dead concubine?"
"A woman who is dead," Imhotep answered shortly.
"I see. You mean the wife of your son Yahmose!"
"Yes." Imhotep paused, then broke out: "But what can be done, Reverend Father? How can we counteract this malice? Oh, evil day when I first took the woman into my house!"
"An evil day indeed," said Kait in a deep voice, coming forward from the entrance to the women's quarters.
Her eyes were heavy with the tears she had shed, and her plain face had a strength and resolution which made it noticeable. Her voice, deep and hoarse, was shaken with anger.
"It was an evil day when you brought Nofret here, Imhotep, to destroy the cleverest and most handsome of your sons! She has brought death to Satipy and death to my Sobek, and Yahmose has only narrowly escaped. Who will be next? Will she spare even children - she who struck my little Ankh? Something must be done, Imhotep!"
"Something must be done," Imhotep echoed, looking imploringly at the priest.
The latter nodded his head with calm assumption.
"There are ways and means, Imhotep. Once we are sure of our facts, we can go ahead. I have in mind your dead wife, Ashayet. She was a woman of influential family. She can invoke powerful interests in the Land of the Dead who can intervene on your behalf and against whom the woman Nofret will have no power. We must take counsel together."
Kait gave a short laugh.
"Do not wait too long. Men are always the same - Yes, even priests! Everything must be done according to law and precedent. But I say, act quickly - or there will be more dead beneath this roof."
She turned and went out.
"An excellent woman," murmured Imhotep. "A devoted mother to her children, a dutiful wife - but her manners, sometimes, are hardly what they should be - to the head of the house. Naturally at such a time I forgive her. We are all distraught. We hardly know what we are doing."
He clasped his hands to his head.
"Some of us seldom do know what we are doing," remarked Esa.
Imhotep shot an annoyed glance at her. The physician prepared to take his leave and Imhotep went out with him onto the porch, receiving instructions for the care of the sick man.
Renisenb, left behind, looked inquiringly at her grandmother.
Esa was sitting very still. She was frowning and the expression on her face was so curious that Renisenb asked timidly:
"What is it that you are thinking, Grandmother?"
"Thinking is the word, Renisenb. Such curious things are happening in this house that it is very necessary for someone to think."
"They are terrible," said Renisenb with a shiver. "They frighten me."
"They frighten me," said Esa. "But not perhaps for the same reason."
With the old familiar gesture, she pushed the wig on her head askew.
"But Yahmose will not die now," said Renisenb. "He will live."
Esa nodded.
"Yes, a master physician reached him in time. On another occasion, though, he may not be so lucky."
"You think - there will be other happenings like this?"
"I think that Yahmose and you and Ipy - and perhaps Kait too had better be very careful indeed what you eat and drink. See always that a slave tastes it first."
"And you, Grandmother?"
Esa smiled her sardonic smile.
"I, Renisenb, am an old woman, and I love life as only the old can, savoring every hour, every minute, that is left to them. Of you all I have the best chance of life - because I shall be more careful than any of you."
"And my father? Surely Nofret would wish no evil to my father?"
