zhaiyuedu.com gave her a quick, sideways glance.
"None, I hope. None that need concern us, anyway. You and I, Renisenb, we've nothing to reproach ourselves with. That's a great consolation to me."
"Do you mean that Satipy - What do you mean?"
"I don't mean anything at all, Renisenb - and please don't start making out that I do. I'm little better than a servant in this house, and it's not my business to give my opinion about things that are nothing to do with me. If you ask me, it's a change for the better and if it stops at that, well, we'll all do nicely. Now, please, Renisenb, I've got to see that they are marking the date properly on the linen. So careless as they are, these women, always talking and laughing and neglecting their work."
Unsatisfied, Renisenb watched her dart away into the weaving shed. She herself walked slowly back to the house. Her entry into Satipy's room was unheard, and Satipy sprang round with a cry as Renisenb touched her shoulder.
"Oh, you startled me. I thought -"
"Satipy," said Renisenb. "What is the matter? Won't you tell me? Yahmose is worried about you and -"
Satipy's fingers flew to her lips. She said, stammering nervously, her eyes wide and frightened:
"Yahmose? What - what did he say?"
"He is anxious. You have been calling out in your sleep -"
"Renisenb!" Satipy caught her by the arm. "Did I say - What did I say?"
Her eyes seemed dilated with terror.
"Does Yahmose think - What did he tell you?"
"We both think that you are ill - or - or unhappy."
"Unhappy?" Satipy repeated the word under her breath with a peculiar intonation.
"Are you unhappy, Satipy?"
"Perhaps... I don't know. It is not that."
"No. You're frightened, aren't you?"
Satipy stared at her with sudden hostility.
"Why should you say that? Why should I be frightened? What is there to frighten me?"
"I don't know," said Renisenb. "But it is true, isn't it?"
With an effort Satipy recovered her old arrogant pose. She tossed her head.
"I'm not afraid of anything - of anyone! How dare you suggest such a thing to me, Renisenb? And I won't have you talking me over with Yahmose. Yahmose and I understand each other." She paused and then said sharply, "Nofret is dead - and a good riddance. That's what I say. And you can tell anyone who asks you that that's what I feel about it."
"Nofret?" Renisenb uttered the name questioningly.
Satipy flew into a passion that made her seem quite like her old self.
"Nofret - Nofret - Nofret! I'm sick of the sound of that name. We don't need to hear it any more in this house - and thank goodness for that."
Her voice, which had been raised to its old shrill pitch, dropped suddenly as Yahmose entered. He said, with unusual sternness:
"Be quiet, Satipy. If my father heard you, there would be fresh trouble. How can you behave so foolishly?"
If Yahmose's stern and displeased tone was unusual, so too was Satipy's meek collapse. She murmured: "I am sorry, Yahmose,... I did not think."
"Well, be more careful in future! You and Kait made most of the trouble before. You women have no sense!"
Satipy murmured again: "I am sorry..."
Yahmose went out, his shoulders squared, and his walk far more resolute than usual, as though the fact of having asserted his authority for once had done him good.
Renisenb went slowly along to old Esa's room. Her grandmother, she felt, might have some helpful counsel.
Esa, however, who was eating grapes with a good deal of relish, refused to take the matter seriously.
"Satipy? Satipy? Why all this fuss about Satipy? Do you all like being bullied and ordered about by her that you make such a to-do because she behaves herself properly for once?"
She spat out the pips of the grape and remarked:
"In any case, it's too good to last - unless Yahmose can keep it up."
"Yahmose?"
"Yes. I hoped Yahmose had come to his senses at last and given Satipy a good beating. It's what she needs - and she's the kind of woman who would probably enjoy it. Yahmose, with his meek, cringing ways, must have been a great trial to her."
"Yahmose is a dear," cried Renisenb indignantly. "He is kind to everybody - and as gentle as a woman - if women are gentle," she added doubtfully.
Esa cackled.
"A good afterthought, Granddaughter. No, there's nothing gentle about women - or if there is, Isis help them! And there are few women who care for a kind, gentle husband. They'd sooner have a handsome, blustering brute like Sobek - he's the one to take a girl's fancy. Or a smart young fellow like Kameni - hey, Renisenb? The flies in the courtyard don't settle on him for long! He's got a pretty taste in love songs too. Eh? Hee, hee, hee."
Renisenb felt her cheeks going red.
"I don't know what you mean," she said with dignity.
"You all think old Esa doesn't know what's going on! I know all right." She peered at Renisenb with her semi-blind eyes. "I know, perhaps, before you do, child. Don't be angry. It's the way of life, Renisenb. Khay was a good brother to you - but he sails his boat now in the Field of Offerings. The sister will find a new brother who spears his fish in our own River - not that Kameni would be much good. A reed pen and a papyrus roll are his fancy. A personable young man, though - with a pretty taste in songs. But for all that I'm not sure he's the man for you. We don't know much about him - he's a northerner. Imhotep approves of him - but then I've always thought Imhotep was a fool. Anyone can get round him by flattery. Look at zhaiyuedu.com!"
"You are quite wrong," said Renisenb with dignity.
"Very well, then, I'm wrong. Your father is not a fool."
"I didn't mean that. I meant -"
"I know what you meant, child." Esa grinned. "But you don't know the real joke. You don't know how good it is to sit at ease like I do, and to be done with all this business of brothers and sisters, and loving and hating. To eat a well-cooked fat quail or a reed bird, and then a cake with honey, and some well-cooked leeks and celery and wash it down with wine from Syria - and have never a care in the world. And look on at all the turmoil and the heartaches and know that none of that can affect you any more. To see your son make a fool of himself over a handsome girl, and to see her set the whole place by the ears - it made me laugh, I can tell you! In a way, you know, I liked that girl! She had the devil in her all right - the way she touched them all on the raw. Sobek like a pricked bladder - Ipy made to look a child - Yahmose shamed as a bullied husband. It's like the way you see your face in a pool of water. She made them see just how they looked to the world at large. But why did she hate you, Renisenb? Answer me that."
"Did she hate me?" Renisenb spoke doubtfully. "I - tried once to be friends."
