Death Comes as End - Agatha Christie [30]
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.
‘You have done well, Yahmose,’ he said kindly. ‘You seem to have shown very good judgement and to have kept your head well.’
Yahmose coloured a little at this unexpected praise.
‘Ipi and Montu are, of course, expensive embalmers,’ went on Imhotep. ‘These canopic jars, for instance, seem to me unduly costly. There is really no need for such extravagance. Some of their charges seem to me much too high. That is the worst of these embalmers who have been employed by the Governor’s family. They think they can charge any fantastic prices they like. It would have come much cheaper to go to somebody less well known.’
‘In your absence,’ said Yahmose, ‘I had to decide on these matters–and I was anxious that all honour should be paid to a concubine for whom you had so great a regard.’
Imhotep nodded and patted Yahmose’s shoulder.
‘It was a fault on the right side, my son. You are, I know, usually most prudent in money matters. I appreciate that in this matter, any unnecessary expense was incurred in order to please me. All the same, I am not made of money, and a concubine is–er ahem!–only a concubine. We will cancel, I think, the more expensive of the amulets–and let me see, there are one or two other ways of cutting down the fees…Just read out the items of the estimate, Kameni.’
Kameni rustled the papyrus.
Yahmose breathed a sigh of relief.
III
Kait, coming slowly out from the house to the lake, paused where the children and their mothers were.
‘You were right, Satipy,’ she said. ‘A dead concubine is not the same as a live concubine!’
Satipy looked up at her, her eyes vague and unseeing. It was Renisenb who asked quickly:
‘What do you mean, Kait?’
‘For a live concubine, nothing was too good–clothes, jewels–even the inheritance of Imhotep’s own flesh and blood! But now Imhotep is busy cutting down the cost of the funeral expenses! After all, why waste money on a dead woman? Yes, Satipy, you were right.’
Satipy murmured: ‘What did I say? I have forgotten.’
‘It is best so,’ agreed Kait. ‘I, too, have forgotten. And Renisenb also.’
Renisenb looked at Kait without speaking. There had been something in Kait’s voice–something faintly menacing, that impressed Renisenb disagreeably. She had always been accustomed to think of Kait as rather a stupid woman–someone gentle and submissive, but rather negligible. It struck her now that Kait and Satipy seemed to have changed places. Satipy the dominant and aggressive was subdued–almost timid. It was the quiet Kait who now seemed to domineer over Satipy.
But people, thought Renisenb, do not really change their characters–or do they? She felt confused. Had Kait and Satipy really changed in the last few weeks, or was the change in the one the result of the change in the other? Was it Kait who had grown aggressive? Or did she merely seem so because of the sudden collapse of Satipy?
Satipy definitely was different. Her voice was no longer upraised in the familiar shrewish accents. She crept round the courtyard and the house with a nervous, shrinking gait quite unlike her usual self-assured manner. Renisenb had put down the change in her to the shock of Nofret’s death, but it was incredible that that shock could last so long. It would have been far more like Satipy, Renisenb could not but think, to have exulted openly in a matter of fact manner over the concubine’s sudden and untimely death. As it was, she shrank nervously whenever Nofret’s name was mentioned. Even Yahmose seemed to be exempt from her hectoring and bullying and had, in consequence, begun to assume a more resolute demeanour himself. At any rate, the change in Satipy