Death Comes as End - Agatha Christie [37]
‘I was thinking of Khay.’
Hori looked at her for a minute or two–then he smiled:
‘I see,’ he said.
Renisenb had an uncomfortable feeling that he did see!
She said with a sudden rush:
‘What happens when you are dead? Does anyone really know? All these texts–all these things that are written on coffins–some of them are so obscure they seem to mean nothing at all. We know that Osiris was killed and that his body was joined together again, and that he wears the white crown, and because of him we need not die–but sometimes, Hori, none of it seems real–and it is all so confused…’
Hori nodded gently.
‘But what really happens after you are dead–that is what I want to know?’
‘I cannot tell you, Renisenb. You should ask a priest these questions.’
‘He would just give me the usual answers. I want to know.’
Hori said gently, ‘We shall none of us know until we are dead ourselves…’
Renisenb shivered.
‘Don’t–don’t say that!’
‘Something has upset you, Renisenb?’
‘It was Esa.’ She paused and then said, ‘Tell me, Hori, did–did Kameni and Nofret know each other well before–they came here?’
Hori stood quite still for a moment, then as he walked by Renisenb’s side, back towards the house, he said, ‘I see. So that is how it is…’
‘What do you mean–“that is how it is”? I only asked you a question.’
‘To which I do not know the answer. Nofret and Kameni knew each other in the North–how well, I do not know.’
He added gently: ‘Does it matter?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Renisenb. ‘It is of no importance at all.’
‘Nofret is dead.’
‘Dead and embalmed and sealed up in her tomb! And that is that!’
Hori continued calmly:
‘And Kameni–does not seem to grieve…’
‘No,’ said Renisenb, struck by this aspect of the question.
‘That is true.’ She turned to him impulsively. ‘Oh Hori, how–how comforting a person you are!’
He smiled.
‘I mended little Renisenb’s lion for her. Now–she has other toys.’
Renisenb skirted the house as they came to it.
‘I don’t want to go in yet. I feel I hate them all. Oh, not really, you understand. But just because I am cross–and impatient and everyone is so odd. Can we not go up to your Tomb? It is so nice up there–one is–oh, above everything.’
‘That is clever of you, Renisenb. That is what I feel. The house and the cultivation and the farming lands–all that is below one, insignificant. One looks beyond all that–to the River–and beyond again–to the whole of Egypt. For very soon now Egypt will be one again–strong and great as she was in the past.’
Renisenb murmured vaguely:
‘Oh–does it matter?’
Hori smiled.
‘Not to little Renisenb. Only her own lion matters to Renisenb.’
‘You are laughing at me, Hori. So it does matter to you?’
Hori murmured: ‘Why should it? Yes, why should it? I am only a ka-priest’s man of business. Why should I care if Egypt is great or small?’
‘Look.’ Renisenb drew his attention to the cliff above them. ‘Yahmose and Satipy have been up to the Tomb. They are coming down now.’
‘Yes,’ said Hori. ‘There were some things to be cleared away, some rolls of linen that the embalmers did not use. Yahmose said he would get Satipy to come up and advise him what to do about them.’
The two of them stood there looking at the two descending the path above.
It came to Renisenb suddenly that they were just approaching the spot from which Nofret must have fallen.
Satipy was ahead. Yahmose a little way behind her.
Suddenly Satipy turned her head to speak to Yahmose. Perhaps, Renisenb thought, she was saying to him that this must be the place where the accident occurred.
And then, suddenly, Satipy stiffened in her tracks. She stood as though frozen, staring back along the path. Her arms went up as though at some dreadful sight or as though to ward off a blow. She cried out something, stumbled, swayed, and then, as Yahmose sprang towards her, she screamed, a scream of terror, and plunged forward off the edge, headlong to the rocks below…
Renisenb, her hand to her throat, watched the fall unbelievingly.
Satipy lay, a crumpled mass, just where the body of Nofret had lain.
Rousing herself, Renisenb