Dagger

On the grassy area, Pemu made a goal amid great squealing from the older children.

"You know, it could be that I'd want Star to have a place she could be that wasn't Cirdon. That's a lot-"

"Of course," interrupted Khamwas.

"That's a lot to ask," Samlor repeated sharply. "And it's going to be more as she gets older, the way she, you know, learns things."

"Yes, I do know," Khamwas agreed with a smile. He plucked one of the gourds hanging beside him and turned it in his hands, letting the yellow and green stripes shine alternately in a spike of sunlight through the leaves massed above. "I would be honored."

"You were going to say," remarked Samlor to change the subject-and not to change it- "that you wanted something from me."

"Yes, I was," Khamwas agreed drily. "I was going to ask if you'd stay here with me for a little while, perhaps a month."

"You don't trust your brothers?" Samlor said with mild surprise. He twisted a gourd from its cap also. The rind felt waxy and cool in his hands, artificial rather than alive.

"I do trust them," Khamwas corrected, smiling. "And I don't-how shall I say it, fear for my life. But I'd like there to be one person who is-" he looked away, looked back, and smiled again " – my friend, in the next few weeks while I set up my household."

"You can order wax statues to row," said Samlor, picking up a memory the two of them shared from another age. "But you can't tell them how to do it."

"Exactly."

Samlor laughed. "People worry about the gold plate in the strongroom, but they forget about the eggs in the pantry till there's nothing for supper," he said. "Sure, I'll hang around for a while and help you get organized. Anyway, I haven't seen much of your city here."

"I need to get reacquainted myself," Khamwas said. "We'll go out together in the morning."

He rubbed the hidden book with the knuckle of the thumb hooked over the gourd. "It-" he began, then started over with, "We risked much, you and I, to win the book. But despite the difficulties, the dangers, I must admit it was easier than I had expected."

"Don't call your life blessed," said Tjainufi sourly, "until it has ended."

But the men's attention was absorbed by the children, Serpot ru

CHAPTER 26

"Is THE DISH to your taste, your highness?" said the priest, adding with a nod to Samlor, "Excellency?"

Samlor mumbled agreement while Khamwas continued to peer with rapt attention at the scene in the temple forecourt beneath them.

The bowl of mixed fruit slices had been chilled somehow. At least it felt cool after a day of ambling through Napata with a minimal entourage-Khamwas, Samlor, and the two footmen whom Khamwas' borrowed major domo absolutely insisted must accompany the prince. The i

One thing that Samlor had already decided about Napata was that the religious institutions here continued to do as well as they had in the time of Prince Nanefer. The silver spoon with which he ate his fruit was molded into delicate vine arabesques more estimable than even the metal itself.

"Samlor," Khamwas whispered urgenty. "Do you see her? There, going-"

He pointed. The priest who was acting as personal servant to the temple's guests craned his neck to follow the gesture but fell back two steps in embarrassment when he realized what he was doing.

Samlor leaned against the thick stone rail of the loggia and frowned in concentration at the bustle in the forecourt. A woman wearing a cape and headdress of shimmering red silk had just disappeared into one of the shops, accompanied by several maids. A pair of staff-bearing footmen remained outside, suggesting that they would use force if necessary to prevent their mistress from being jostled within.

"Somebody you know?" Samlor asked, cautious because he could sense Khamwas' agitation. He hadn't seen the woman's face, nor would it have meant anything to him if he had. But his companion had a lifetime of history in Napata, not a few weeks in the desert and two days in the capital. .

"I must learn who she is," Khamwas said, still whispering. He stared at the foreshortened doorway across the court as if intensity would give him clear vision of what went on inside. One of his hands clasped the rail while the other squeezed Samlor's knee hard enough to be disconcerting.

The whole situation was disconcerting.

"Well," said Samlor, shifting as he set down his bowl; his knee straightened, as if by accident, and flexed out of Khamwas' grip. "I'll go down and see what I can find out." He looked at his companion, waiting for a response to the question his tone had implied.

"Yes. .," Khamwas said, focused on the doorway. He turned sharply and added, "But you mustn't disturb her."

Samlor nodded and said with heavy irony, "Oh, you can trust me to handle the business with all the subtlety you would bring to it yourself."

A cloud softened Khamwas' intense features and he stared at the hand which had clasped Samlor so harshly. "I…," he said, looking up again as Samlor rose and shrugged his garments into place. "I'm sorry, my friend. She's very important to me in some way. I'm sure."

"No problem," Samlor grunted as he walked past the priest and lesser servants to the stairs within the temple.

No reason to imagine that it was a problem, and a dead certainty that Khamwas and the Book of Tatenen could handle any difficulty that arose.

But Samlor kept remembering a gri

The forecourt was busy, though from the height of the loggia it was obvious that there was more empty pavement than there were people. From the pavement itself, nothing but moving walls of people were visible.

Shrugging again-the brocade collar of his new tunic chafed him, though the fabric was soft enough-Samlor strode across the area. As he neared the far side of the court, his eye caught a flash of scarlet: not the woman but her tall headdress, leaving the shop and preparing to enter another one. He started after her, then thought again and stepped into the shop his quarry had just quitted.

The maid who waited while the shopowner wrapped a purchase was dressed even more strikingly than her mistress. Her skirt was of pleated linen, cut to beneath her navel in front but rising almost to shoulderblade level in back. Instead of an ordinary blouse or jacket, she wore the skin of a spotted cat pi

The head hung over her right breast. The beast's eyes had been replaced by topazes, and the maid's own irises were of the same tawny lambency.

"The cat won't bite," the woman said drily to Samlor.

He blinked, realized that he had paused with his hand resting on the doorjamb-and then realized that his mouth was open.

"Yes, sir, may I help you?" asked the shopman with a tinge of concern underlying his professional brightness. He was folding the second of a pair of carnelian earrings, elephants astride the globe of the cosmos, into a square of velvet.

"Ah, I-" Samlor said. "Ah, my business is with the lady."

"Is it indeed?" said the woman, giving him a look of appraisal as cool as that of a cook pricing fowls in the market.

"The, ah, the lady who was here a moment ago, in red," he plowed on. "I believe you may know her?"

"Know my mistress?" said the woman. When she smiled, her mouth opened as wide as the cat's. "Yes, I should say 1 do."

The shopman was listening to his customers in obvious interest. Samlor gave him a look freighted with the frustration he could not let loose on the woman. The man jumped, then trotted to the back of the shop muttering that he needed better ribbon.