Does she ever show her reputed love for you by any real service?
Has she not always fomented discord between you all by whispering and repeating things that are likely to wound and cause anger?"
"Yes - yes, that is true enough."
Esa gave a dry chuckle.
"You have both eyes and ears in your head, most excellent Hori."
Renisenb argued: "But my father believes in her and is fond of her."
"My son is a fool and always has been," said Esa.
"All men like flattery - and Henet applies flattery as lavishly as unguents are applied at a banquet!
She may be really devoted to him - sometimes I think she is - but certainly she is devoted to no one else in this house."
"But surely she would not - she would not kill," Renisenb protested.
"Why should she want to poison any of us?
What good would it do her?"
"None. None.
As to why - I know nothing of what goes on inside Henet's head.
What she thinks, what she feels - that I do not know.
But I sometimes think that strange things are brewing behind that cringing, fawning manner.
And if so, her reasons are reasons that we, you and I and Hori, would not understand."
Hori nodded.
"There is a rottenness that starts from within.
I spoke to Renisenb once of that."
"And I did not understand you," said Renisenb.
"But I am beginning to understand better now.
It began with the coming of Nofret - I saw then how none of us were quite what I had thought them to be.
It made me afraid... And now -" she made a helpless gesture with her hands - "everything is fear..."
"Fear is only incomplete knowledge," said Hori.
"When we know, Renisenb, then there will be no more fear."
"And then, of course, there is Kait," proceeded Esa.
"Not Kait," protested Renisenb.
"Kait would not try to kill Sobek.
It is unbelievable."
"Nothing is unbelievable," said Esa.
"That at least I have learned in the course of my life.
Kait is a thoroughly stupid woman and I have always mistrusted stupid women.
They are dangerous.
They can see only their own immediate surroundings and only one thing at a time.
Kait lives at the core of a small world which is herself and her children and Sobek as her children's father.
It might occur to her quite simply that to remove Yahmose would be to enrich her children.
Sobek had always been unsatisfactory in Imhotep's eyes - he was rash, impatient of control and not amenable.
Yahmose was the son on whom Imhotep relied.
But with Yahmose gone, Imhotep would have to rely on Sobek.
She would see it, I think, quite simply like that."
Renisenb shivered.
In spite of herself she recognized a true description of Kait's attitude to life.
Her gentleness, her tenderness, her quiet loving ways were all directed to her own children.
Outside herself and her children and Sobek, the world did not exist for her.
She looked at it without curiosity and without interest.
Renisenb said slowly: "But surely she would have realized that it was quite possible for Sobek to come back, as he did, thirsty and also drink the wine?"
"No," said Esa. "I don't think that she would.
Kait, as I say, is stupid.
She would see only what she wanted to see - Yahmose drinking and dying and the business being put down to the magical intervention of our evil and beautiful Nofret.