"This from your brother and husband. Has the sister forgotten her brother? Has the mother forgotten the children that were born to her? Does not the most excellent Ashayet know that a spirit of evil life menaces her children? Already is Sobek, her son, passed to Osiris by means of poison.
"I treated you in life with all honor. I gave you jewels and dresses, unguents and perfumes and oils for your limbs. Together we ate of good foods, sitting in peace and amity with tables loaded before us. When you were ill, I spared no expense. I procured for you a master physician. You were buried with all honor and with due ceremonies and all things needful for your life in the hereafter were provided for you - servants and oxen and food and drink and jewels and raiment. I mourned for you many years - and after long, long years only did I take a concubine so that I might live as befits a man not yet old.
"This concubine it is that now does evil to your children. Do you not know of this? Perchance you are in ignorance. Surely if Ashayet knows, she will be swift to come to the aid of the sons born to her.
"Is it that Ashayet knows, but that evil is still done because the concubine Nofret is strong in evil magic? Yet surely it is against your will, most excellent Ashayet. Therefore reflect that in the Field of Offerings you have great relatives and powerful helpers. The great and noble Ipi, Chief Butler to the Vizier. Invoke his aid! Also your mother's brother, the great and powerful Meriptah, the Nomarch of the Province. Acquaint him with the shameful truth! Let it be brought before his court. Let witnesses be summoned. Let them testify against Nofret that she has done this evil. Let judgment be given and may Nofret be condemned, and let it be decreed that she do no more evil to this house.
"Oh, excellent Ashayet, if you are angry with this your brother Imhotep in that he did listen to this woman's evil persuasions and did threaten to do injustice to your children that were born of you, then reflect that it is not he alone that suffers, but your children also. Forgive your brother Imhotep aught that he has done for the sake of your children."
The Chief Scribe stopped reading. Mersu nodded approval.
"It is well-expressed. Nothing, I think, has been left out." Imhotep rose.
"I thank you, Reverend Father. My offering shall reach you before tomorrow's sun sets - cattle, oil and flax. Shall we fix the day after that for the ceremony - the placing of the inscribed bowl in the offering chamber of the tomb?"
"Make it three days from now. The bowl must be inscribed and the preparations made for the necessary rites."
"As you will. I am anxious that no more mischief should befall."
"I can well understand your anxiety, Imhotep. But have no fear. The good spirit Ashayet will surely answer this appeal, and her kinsfolk have authority and power and can deal justice where it is so richly deserved."
"May Isis allow that it be so! I thank you, Mersu - and for your care and cure of my son Yahmose. Come, Hori, we have much that must be seen to. Let us return to the house. Ah - this petition does indeed lift a weight off my mind. The excellent Ashayet will not fail her distracted brother."
II
When Hori entered the courtyard, bearing his rolls of papyrus, Renisenb was watching for him. She came running from the lake.
"Hori!"
"Yes, Renisenb?"
"Will you come with me to Esa? She has been waiting and wants you."
"Of course. Let me just see if Imhotep -"
But Imhotep had been button-holed by Ipy and father and son were engaged in close conversation.
"Let me put down these scrolls and these other things and I will come with you, Renisenb."
Esa looked pleased when Renisenb and Hori came to her.
"Here is Hori, Grandmother. I brought him to you at once."
"Good. Is the air pleasant outside?"
"I - I think so." Renisenb was slightly taken aback.
"Then give me my stick. I will walk a little in the courtyard."
Esa seldom left the house, and Renisenb was surprised. She guided the old woman with a hand below her elbow. They went through the central hall and out onto the porch.
"Will you sit here, Grandmother?"
"No, child, I will walk as far as the lake."
Esa's progress was slow, but although she limped, she was strong on her feet and showed no signs of tiredness. Looking about her, she chose a spot where flowers had been planted in a little bed near the lake and where a sycamore fig tree gave welcome shade.
Then, once established, she said with grim satisfaction:
"There! Now we can talk and no one can overhear our talk."
"You are wise, Esa," said Hori approvingly.
"The things which have to be said must be known only to us three. I trust you, Hori. You have been with us since you were a little boy. You have always been faithful and discreet and wise. Renisenb here is the dearest to me of all my son's children. No harm must come to her, Hori."
"No harm shall come to her, Esa."
Hori did not raise his voice but the tone of it and the look in his face as his eyes met the old woman's amply satisfied her.
"That is well said, Hori - quietly and without heat - but as one who means what he says. Now tell me what has been arranged today?"
Hori recounted the drawing up of the petition and the gist of it. Esa listened carefully.
"Now listen to me, Hori, and look at this." She drew the lion necklace from her dress and handed it to him. She added: "Tell him, Renisenb, where you found this."
Renisenb did so. Then Esa said: "Well, Hori, what do you think?"
Hori was silent for a moment, then he asked: "You are old and wise, Esa. What do you think?"
Esa said: "You are one of those, Hori, who do not like to speak rash words unaccompanied with facts. You knew, did you not, from the first how Nofret came to her death?"
"I suspected the truth, Esa. It was only suspicion."
"Exactly. And we have only suspicion now. Yet here, by the lake, between us three, suspicion can be spoken - and afterward not referred to again. Now it seems to me that there are three explanations of the tragic things that happened. The first is that the herd boy spoke truth and that what he saw was indeed Nofret's ghost returned from the dead and that she had an evil determination to revenge herself still further by causing increased sorrow and grief to our family. That may be so - it is said by priests and others to be possible and we do know that illnesses are caused by evil spirits. But it seems to me, who am an old woman and who am not inclined to believe all that priests and others say, that there are other possibilities."
"Such as?" asked Hori.
"Let us admit that Nofret was killed by Satipy, that some time afterwards at that same spot Satipy had a vision of Nofret and that, in her fear and guilt, she fell and died. That is all clear enough. But now let us come to another assumption; and that is that after that someone, for a reason we have yet to discover, wished to cause the death of two of Imhotep's sons. That someone counted on a superstitious dread ascribing the deed to the spirit of Nofret - a singularly convenient assumption."
"Who would want to kill Yahmose or Sobek?" cried Renisenb.
"Not a servant," said Esa; "they would not dare. That leaves us with but few people from whom to choose."
"One of ourselves? But, Grandmother, that could nor be!"
"Ask Hori," said Esa drily. "You notice he makes no protest."
Renisenb turned to him.
