It was only afterwards that she began to realize their truth.
She set out mechanically to join Kait and the children where they were clustered by the little pavilion, but found that her footsteps lagged and then ceased as if of their own volition.
She was afraid, she found, to join Kait, to look into that plain and placid face, in case she might fancy she saw there the face of a poisoner.
She watched Henet hustle out on the porch and back again and her usual sense of repulsion was, she found, heightened.
Desperately she turned towards the doorway of the courtyard, and a moment later encountered Ipy striding in, his head held high and a gay smile on his impudent face.
Renisenb found herself staring at him.
Ipy, the spoiled child of the family, the handsome, willful little boy she remembered when she had gone away with Khay...
"Why, Renisenb, what is it?
Why are you looking at me so strangely?"
"Was I?"
Ipy laughed.
"You are looking as half-witted as Henet."
Renisenb shook her head. "Henet is not half-witted.
She is very astute."
"She has plenty of malice, that I know.
In fact, she's a nuisance about the house.
I mean to get rid of her."
Renisenb's lips opened and closed. She whispered, "Get rid of her?"
"My dear sister, what is the matter with you?
Have you too been seeing evil spirits like that miserable, half-witted black child?"
"You think everyone is half-witted!"
"That child certainly was.
Well, it's true I'm inclined to be impatient of stupidity.
I've had too much of it.
It's no fun, I can tell you, being plagued with two slow-going elder brothers who can't see beyond their own noses!
Now that they are out of the way, and there is only my father to deal with, you will soon see the difference.
My father will do what I say."
Renisenb looked up at him.
He looked unusually handsome and arrogant.
There was a vitality about him, a sense of triumphant life and vigor, that struck her as above the normal.
Some inner consciousness seemed to be affording him this vital sense of well-being. Renisenb said sharply:
"My brothers are not both out of the way, as you put it.
Yahmose is alive."
Ipy looked at her with an air of contemptuous mockery.
"And I suppose you think he will get quite well again?"
"Why not?"
Ipy laughed.
"Why not?
Well, let us say simply that I disagree with you.
Yahmose is finished, done for - he may crawl about for a little and sit and moan in the sun.
But he is no longer a man.
He has recovered from the first effects of the poison, but you can see yourself, he makes no further headway."
"Then why doesn't he?" Renisenb demanded.
"The physician said it would only take a little time before he was quite strong and himself again."
Ipy shrugged his shoulders. "Physicians do not know everything.
They talk wisely and use long words.
Blame the wicked Nofret if you like - but Yahmose, your dear brother Yahmose, is doomed."
"And have you no fear yourself, Ipy?"
"Fear?
I?"