Ask Kameni if that is not so."
Then she walked across the courtyard and up the steps to the porch.
Henet came out to meet her and the two women went into the house.
Renisenb turned slowly to Kameni.
"So it was you, Kameni, who helped her to do this to us?"
Kameni said eagerly: "Are you very angry with me, Renisenb?
But what could I do?
Before Imhotep left he charged me solemnly that I was to write at Nofret's bidding at any time she might ask me to do so.
Say you do not blame me, Renisenb.
What else could I do!"
"I cannot blame you," said Renisenb slowly.
"You had, I suppose, to carry out my father's orders."
"I did not like doing it - and it is true, Renisenb, there was not one word said against you."
"As if I cared about that!"
"But I do.
Whatever Nofret had told me, I would not have written one word that might harm you.
Renisenb - please believe me."
Renisenb shook her head perplexedly.
The point Kameni was laboring to make seemed of little importance to her.
She felt hurt and angry, as though Kameni, in some way, had failed her.
Yet he was, after all, a stranger.
Though allied by blood, he was nevertheless a stranger whom her father had brought from a distant part of the country.
He was a junior scribe who had been given a task by his employer, and who had obediently carried it out.
"I wrote no more than truth," Kameni persisted.
"There were no lies set down; that I swear to you."
"No," said Renisenb. "There would be no lies.
Nofret is too clever for that."
Old Esa had, after all, been right.
That persecution over which Satipy and Kait had gloated had been just exactly what Nofret had wanted.
No wonder she had gone about smiling her catlike smile.
"She is bad," said Renisenb, following out her thoughts.
"Yes!"
Kameni assented. "Yes," he said. "She is an evil creature."
Renisenb turned and looked at him curiously.
"You knew her before she came here, did you nor?
You knew her in Memphis?"
Kameni flushed and looked uncomfortable.
"I did not know her well... I had heard of her.
A proud girl, they said, ambitious and hard - and one who did not forgive."
Renisenb flung back her head in sudden impatience.
"I do not believe it," she said.
"My father will not do what he threatens.
He is angry at present - but he could not be so unjust. When he comes he will forgive."
"When he comes," said Kameni, "Nofret will see to it that he does not change his mind.
You do not know Nofret, Renisenb. She is very clever and very determined - and she is, remember, very beautiful."
"Yes" admitted Renisenb. "She is beautiful -"
She got up.
For some reason the thought of Nofret's beauty hurt her...
II
Renisenb spent the afternoon playing with the children.