Renisenb turned her head. Together they watched Nofret come slowly up the steep path that led up the cliff face.
She was smiling to herself and humming a little tune under her breath.
When she reached the place where they were, she looked round her and smiled.
It was a smile of amused curiosity.
"So this is where you slip away to every day, Renisenb."
Renisenb did not answer. She had the angry, defeated feeling of a child whose refuge has been discovered.
Nofret looked about her again.
"And this is the famous Tomb?"
"As you say, Nofret," said Hori.
She looked at him, her catlike mouth curving into a smile.
"I've no doubt you find it profitable, Hori.
You are a good man of business, so I hear." There was a tinge of malice in her voice, but Hori remained unmoved, smiling his quiet, grave smile.
"It is profitable to all of us... Death is always profitable..."
Nofret gave a quick shiver as she looked round her, her eyes sweeping over the offering tables, the entrance to the shrine and the false door.
She cried sharply: "I hate death!"
"You should not." Hori's tone was quiet.
"Death is the chief source of wealth here in Egypt.
Death bought the jewels you wear, Nofret.
Death feeds you and clothes you."
She stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that Imhotep is a ka-priest - a mortuary priest - all his lands, all his cattle, his timber, his flax, his barley, are the endowment of a Tomb."
He paused and then went on reflectively:
"We are a strange people, we Egyptians.
We love life - and so we start very early to plan for death.
That is where the wealth of Egypt goes - into pyramids, into tombs, into tomb endowments."
Nofret said violently: "Will you stop talking about death, Hori!
I do not like it."
"Because you are truly Egyptian - because you love life, because - some times - you feel the shadow of death very near..."
"Stop!"
She turned on him violently.
Then, shrugging her shoulders, she turned away and began to descend the path.
Renisenb breathed a sigh of satisfaction.
"I am glad she has gone," she said childishly.
"You frightened her, Hori."
"Yes... Did I frighten you, Renisenb?"
"N-no." Renisenb sounded a little unsure.
"It is true what you said, only I had never thought of it that way before. My father is a mortuary priest."
Hori said with sudden bitterness: "All Egypt is obsessed by death!
And do you know why, Renisenb?
Because we have eyes in our bodies, but none in our minds. We cannot conceive of a life other than this one - of a life after death.
We can visualize only a continuation of what we know. We have no real belief in a God."
Renisenb stared at him in amazement.
"How can you say that, Hori?
Why, we have many, many Gods - so many that I could not name them all.
Only last night we were saying, all of us, which Gods we preferred.
Sobek was all for Sakhmet and Kait prays always to Meskhent.
Kameni swears by Thoth, as is natural, being a scribe.
Satipy is for the falcon-headed Horus and also for our own Meresger.
Yahmose says that Ptah is to be worshipped because he made all things.
I myself love Isis.