Women, both of them...
And surely with no reason for killing...
Yet Henet hated them all... Yes, undoubtedly Henet hated them.
She had admitted hating Renisenb.
So why should she not hate the others equally?
Renisenb tried to project herself into the dim, tortured recesses of Henet's brain.
Living here all these years, working, protesting her devotion, lying, spying, making mischief... Coming here, long ago, as the poor relative of a great and beautiful lady.
Seeing that lovely lady happy with husband and children.
Repudiated by her own husband, her only child dead... Yes, that might be the way of it.
Like a wound from a spear thrust that Renisenb had once seen.
It had healed quickly over the surface, but beneath evil matters had festered and raged and the arm had swollen and had gone hard to the touch.
And then the physician had come and, with a suitable incantation, had plunged a small knife into the hard, swollen, distorted limb. It had been like the breaking down of an irrigation dike. A great stream of evil-smelling stuff had come welling out...
That, perhaps, was like Henet's mind.
Sorrow and injury smoothed over too quickly - and festering poison beneath, ever swelling in a great tide of hate and venom.
But did Henet hate Imhotep too?
Surely not.
For years she had fluttered round him, fawning on him, flattering him... He believed in her implicitly.
Surely that devotion could not be wholly feigned?
And if she were devoted to him, could she deliberately inflict all this sorrow and loss upon him?
Ah, but suppose she hated him too - had always hated him?
Had flattered him deliberately with a view to bringing out his weaknesses?
Supposing Imhotep was the one she hated most?
Then to a distorted, evil-ridden mind, what better pleasure could there be than this - to let him see his children die off one by one?
"What is the matter, Renisenb?"
Kait was staring at her.
"You look so strange."
Renisenb stood up.
"I feel as though I were going to vomit," she said.
In a sense it was true enough.
The picture she had been conjuring up induced in her a strong feeling of nausea.
Kait accepted the words at their face value.
"You have eaten too many green dates - or perhaps the fish had turned."
"No, no, it is nothing I have eaten.
It is the terrible thing we are living through."
"Oh, that." Kait's disclaimer was so nonchalant that Renisenb stared at her.
"But, Kait, are you not afraid?"
"No, I do not think so." Kait considered.
"If anything happens to Imhotep, the children will be protected by Hori.
Hori is honest. He will guard their inheritance for them."
"Yahmose will do that."
"Yahmose will die too."
"Kait, you say that so calmly.
Do you not mind at all? I mean, that my father and Yahmose should die?"
Kait considered a moment or two.
Then she shrugged her shoulders.
"We are two women together. Let us be honest.
Imhotep I have always considered tyrannical and unfair.
He behaved outrageously in the matter of his concubine - letting himself be persuaded by her to disinherit his own flesh and blood.
I have never liked Imhotep.
As to Yahmose - he is nothing.