"Feelings were aroused.
They shouted so in the main hall that I could hear what was said in my room here.
By the way, were those really your intentions?"
Imhotep shifted uneasily as he murmured:
"I wrote in anger - in justifiable anger.
My family needed teaching a sharp lesson."
"In other words," said Esa, "you were merely giving them a fright.
Is that it?"
"My dear mother, does that matter now?"
"I see," said Esa.
"You did not know what you meant to do.
Muddled thinking, as usual."
Imhotep controlled his irritation with an effort. "I simply mean that that particular point no longer arises.
It is the facts of Nofret's death that are now in question.
If I were to believe that anyone in my family could be so undutiful, so unbalanced in their anger, as wantonly to harm the girl - I - I really do not know what I should do!"
"So it is fortunate," said Esa, "that they all tell the same story!
Nobody has hinted at anything else, have they?"
"Certainly not."
"Then why not regard the incident as closed?
You should have taken the girl north with you.
I told you so at the time."
"Then you do believe -"
Esa said with emphasis: "I believe what I am told unless it conflicts with what I have seen with my own eyes - which is very little nowadays - or heard with my own ears.
You have questioned Henet, I suppose?
What has she to say of the matter?"
"She is deeply distressed - very deeply distressed.
On my behalf."
Esa raised her eyebrows.
"Indeed.
You surprise me."
"Henet," said Imhotep warmly, "has a lot of heart."
"Quite so.
She has also more than the usual allowance of tongue.
If distress at your loss is her only reaction. I should certainly regard the incident as closed.
There are plenty of other affairs to occupy your attention."
"Yes, indeed."
Imhotep rose with a reassumption of his fussy, important manner.
"Yahmose is waiting for me now in the main hall with all sorts of matters needing my urgent attention.
There are many decisions awaiting my sanction.
As you say, private grief must not usurp the main functions of life."
He hurried out.
Esa smiled for a moment, a somewhat sardonic smile, then her face grew grave again.
She sighed and shook her head.
II
Yahmose was awaiting his father with Kameni in attendance.
Hori, Yahmose explained, was superintending the work of the embalmers and undertakers who were busy with the first stages of the funeral preparations.
It had taken Imhotep some weeks to journey home after receiving the news of Nofret's death, and the funeral preparations were now completed.
The body had received its long soaking in the brine bath, had been restored to some semblance of its normal appearance, had been oiled and rubbed with salts, and duly wrapped in its bandages and deposited in its coffin.
Yahmose explained that he had appointed a small funeral chamber near the rock tomb designed later to hold the body of Imhotep himself.
He went into the details of what he had ordered and Imhotep expressed his approval.