Dagger

"He's a very discreet man," said Samlor, aware that his own desire for discretion had put the situation in the maid's hands. "As discreet as he is powerful."

He could feel Khamwas staring at his back, demanding some indication of success. Damn him, he could handle his own affairs if he was in such a hurry! Where did he get the notion that Samlor was a pimp?

The spotted cat, smaller than an adult leopard, rose and fell with the breasts it covered.

"He would spend an hour with your mistress," Samlor plowed on, proceeding with what he had started, "in the most complete secre-"

"What!" Pre cried, bringing stares from all directions. "Why doesn't he just offer money, then? Does he think my mistress is a whore?"

Samlor trembled. All his emotions were turned to lust for the splendid woman whose harangue was making a public fool of him. He didn't understand it, but he neve/understood much when he was thinking with his dick.

"You there," called Tabubu imperiously. "Samlor. Come here."

Feeling as though he were encased in crystal, Samlor obeyed the scarlet-garbed woman. He remembered that he had intended to speak with her before, but he could not imagine how he had presumed so far. Her voice was contralto, and it reverberated as if it were coming from a hot furnace.

"If Prince Khamwas has something to tell me," said Tabubu, "then he can visit me at my home tomorrow."

She was tall to begin with, and the red silk of her headdress waved above her like the plume of a volcano. Samlor faced the woman as he had faced death many times before.

And not even Tabubu's dominating presence could quell his desire for her maid Pre.

"He should remember," Tabubu added, "that I am a priest's daughter and not a common prostitute. Not common at all."

She turned away with a flash of the pendant swinging between her breasts. The staff bearers moved to block Samlor if he tried to follow their mistress toward the i

Samlor didn't notice them. For a moment he stood puzzled, though he knew that Khamwas would begrudge him every instant until he had reported.

Most people in Napata didn't even realize that Khamwas was alive, much less that he was accompanied-served, if you would-by a Cirdonian named Samlor hil Samt. Tabubu's knowledge was as striking as the woman herself. It was something for Khamwas to think about before he decided what he should do next.

As Samlor made his way back across the court, he thought of Pre clasping her arms around his shoulders and crossing her legs behind his buttocks as he thrust within her.

CHAPTER 28

THE STATE BARGE was too reminiscent of Nanefer's yacht for Samlor to find the river crossing pleasant, but Khamwas was so abstracted that he did not appear to recall the disastrous journey of his dream.

"Your highness," said the desperately fat, desperately perturbed major domo who had come from Osorkon with the apartment. "There's still time to reconsider, and I can only pray that you will. It simply isn't fitting for a member of the royal house to visit a commoner at home."

Khamwas continued to stare over the bow toward the approaching pier. He said nothing.

"Well, she's a priest's daughter," said Samlor, speaking because the gurgle of water made him jumpy and because he was trying to convince himself that what they were doing was reasonable. "A prophet's, her maid says."

His voice didn't silence the water bulging around the bow, either.

"A commoner," said the major domo flatly.

Pemu and Serpot had woven their father a chaplet of flowers and presented him with it as he boarded the barge. Khamwas' fingers touched the braided stems absently, then stripped the chaplet off and dropped it over the side. The petals had already begun to wilt in the sun.

The major domo sighed and pressed his lips together in an expression of pudgy disapproval.

Ankhtawi, the suburb across the Napata River from the capital, was not heavily populated, but the bank was divided among mansions whose grounds were more extensive than would have been possible on the east side. The barge had struck across the river in a slant that used the current to bring them downstream in the direction which the servants believed Tabubu's house lay. For some minutes the vessel had been coasting past landing stages of greater or lesser ostentation while servants whispered doubtfully among themselves.

The doubt was over. Pre stood in the midst of a group of gorgeously-attired retainers on the nearing dock. Today her breasts were covered by the skin either of a large monitor lizard or of a small crocodile.

"Welcome, Prince Khamwas^" she called as crewmen scurried around their oblivious master as they carried out the business of docking. "My mistress Tabubu awaits you."

The major domo was hopping from one foot to the other, afraid that the operation would be marred by curses or a crunch of wood on stone-and horrified that it was taking place at all.

"And welcome also to our entertainment, Samlor nil Samt," Pre went on. Her smile was as wicked as Samlor's thoughts.

The three-rung ladder hooked over the dockside for the guests to ascend was of ebony carved with serpentine patterns and gusseted at the joints with gold. Khamwas climbed it with the clumsy deliberation of a sleepwalker. His fumbling delay forced Samlor to suppress an urge to hurl his friend and companion aside into the water.

He was preventing Samlor from standing again beside Pre.

The major domo and the five lesser servants whom that worthy considered the minimum entourage (since the visit had to occur) followed, but Pre left them for the servants of her retinue. The maid strolled through the archway into the mansion's walled garden with Khamwas to one side and Samlor on the other.

Khamwas walked with the fixity of a coursing gaze-hound, but Pre's presence drew Samlor like an arm around his waist. He wanted to touch her, but he did not dare as yet.

The false amber eyes of what was surely a crocodile gri

The garden between the house and the river was more formal than that of the royal palace. Four narrow reflecting pools reached like sunrays toward the building, giving different aspects of the pillared facade to those on the central walk. Lilies with broad, blue flowers floated in the water, but at certain angles the distorted reflections of the pillars seemed to engulf the plants.

There were birds, hopping among the mandrakes, oleanders and chrysanthemums, but they rarely chirped.

Beside the house and to the right of the paved walk, another pool was almost hidden by a screen of powder-leafed shrubs-wormwood, closely planted against a bronze fence with inward hooks. There was no sound from the water, but the rank odor warned Samlor of what he would see when he peered over the shrubbery.

A crocodile, its head raised by the haunches of another of the reptiles, stared back at him. The nictitating membrane winked sideways across its eye, occluding but not hiding the slitted amber orb.

Samlor's fingers twitched toward the dagger in his belt; but Pre was striding on, and he followed.

The double doors into the house were of louvered wood, broad and high. They sprang inward as the procession approached, causing Samlor's heart to skip momentarily with a different animal emotion. . but they were moved by another pair of servants in scarlet livery. Only instinct had suggested otherwise.

Tabubu stood in the doorway. The hall behind her was double height, but a broad staircase curved from the floor to a railed mezzanine on the visitor's right. Tabubu offered her hand to Khamwas and gestured toward the stairs. "Greetings, noble prince," she said. "I have prepared refreshments for you above."