The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [95]
Nefret had brought David’s drawings for Sinuhe down from my study. Howard was not the only one who expressed his admiration; several of the others crowded round as he looked through them, handling them with an artist’s careful touch.
“Amusing,” said little Mr. Lawrence, rising onto his toes in order to see. “What’s the tale about, then? I don’t know it.”
I thought he sounded a bit patronizing, so I told him.
“Pharaoh was assassinated while his son, the Crown Prince Senusert, was fighting in Libya. There was a plot by some of the other royal sons to seize the throne from Senusert; but a spy got word to the prince and he set off for the palace as fast as he could go. ’The falcon flew, with his attendants,’ as David has shown him here, quite beautifully, in my opinion—the stalwart young soldier-prince who was the embodiment of Horus, with the god in shadowy falcon form flying overhead. The next drawing shows our friend Sinuhe lurking near the tent where he overheard the conspirators talking of the plot. Sinuhe then hid in the bushes …” I turned the page, and Howard burst out laughing.
“He’s got the old boy’s expression very nicely. Never saw a guiltier look.”
“That is one of the questions scholars have debated,” I explained, passing rather quickly over succeeding sketches, since Emerson was beginning to look surly. He does not like me to tell my little Egyptian stories. “Sinuhe was certainly guilty of something, for he fled from Egypt and almost died of thirst in the desert before he was rescued by a tribe of Asiatics, as he calls them. He became rich and successful in the service of the Asiatic prince. I am particularly fond of this drawing, which shows him with his wife, the prince’s eldest daughter, and their innumerable children. Doesn’t he look like a smug Victorian papa in fancy dress?”
Emerson cleared his throat. I went on quickly, “But as old age approached, he yearned for home. He sent a pitiful message to pharaoh, who told him all was forgiven and summoned him back from exile. He was clothed in fine linen and anointed with fine oil; a house and garden were given to him, and a tomb was built for him, and he lived happily until the day of his death.”
“What happened to his Asiatic wife and children? “Katherine asked.
“He abandoned them,” said Ramses. “He was a cad and a bounder and a dreadful snob.”
“It wasn’t very nice of him,” Nefret agreed. She was looking at the last delicately tinted drawing, which showed the old man sitting in the shade of green trees beside a blue pool where lotus blossoms floated. In the distance one could just make out the shape of the king’s pyramid, near which Sinuhe’s tomb had been built. The wrinkled face had a look of peace that was very touching.
“But in a way one can understand how he felt,” she went on. “No matter how much success and happiness he had attained, he was still an exile. He wanted to come home.”
“He was a cad, all the same,” Ramses said.
Nefret laughed, and Mr. Lawrence eyed Ramses askance. I believe he noticed the tone of irony in the words—in one word especially.
We finished the celebration with carol singing, as was our custom. Sentiment had succeeded merriment, and several of our guests choked a bit over the familiar and beloved songs. Karl broke down while attempting to render “Stille Nacht”; Jack Reynolds wrapped a sympathetic arm round his shoulders, proffered his own handkerchief, and took up the words in quite respectably accented German. I was pleased to see that the kindliness of the day had softened the American toward a man to whom he had scarcely spoken before; but I also made note of the fact that Jack could talk German. I hope I am as sentimental as the next person, but sentiment should not be