The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [86]
Nastasen was not much of a conversationalist. He applied himself to his food, and Murtek, though obviously dying to show off his English, confined himself to smiles and nods. Something warned me to follow his example, which was wise, for as I later learned, one does not speak until the person of highest status present has deigned to do so.
After demolishing a roast duck (and throwing the bones over his shoulder), Nastasen fixed his fine dark eyes on my face. Even when he pronounced the guttural sounds of his native tongue his voice was beautiful, a deep, mellow baritone. I understood only a few words, and deemed it best to admit not even to that, so I turned an inquiring smile on Murtek.
“The king’s son asks how old you are,” said that worthy.
“Oh, dear,” I said, in some confusion. “In our country it is not polite… Tell him we do not count the years as he does. Tell him… I am as old as his mother.”
A voice not far distant murmured, “Well done, Peabody,” and the old man translated what I had said.
Nastasen proceeded to ask me a series of questions that would have been deemed highly impertinent in civilized society, having to do with my personal habits, my family, and my relations with my husband. For all I knew, such questions might have been rude in this culture as well, but I was in no position to object, so I fended them off as well as I could. Emerson, seated at an adjoining table, was not so controlled as I; I could hear him gurgling and gasping with rage as the inquisition continued. The dear fellow assumed that the prince’s intimate questions betokened a personal interest in my humble self. I doubted this; though to be sure I also doubted that my claiming to be the age of his mother would deter him from adding me to his collection should he care to do so.
Having answered a good dozen or more questions, I decided I might venture upon a few of my own. “I hope your honored father the king is well?” seemed safe, but Nastasen did not seem to like it; his face darkened and he replied with a short, curt sentence.
The old gentleman took some liberties in the translation. “His Majesty is Osiris. He had flied to the sky. He is king of the western peoples.”
“He is dead?” I asked, surprised.
“Dead, yes, dead.” Murtek smiled broadly.
“But then who is king? Does His Highness have an older brother?”
The old man turned to the prince. The answer was a curt nod, and I realized that he had asked for permission to explain the situation, which he proceeded to do at some length and with a striking absence of grammar.
The king had only been dead a few months. (“The Horus flied in the season of harvest.”) In many other societies the eldest surviving prince automatically assumes the crown, but here the succession depended on a number of factors, the most important of which was the rank of the mother. The king had had a great number of wives, but only two of them had been royal princesses—the late king’s half-sisters, in fact. The survival of this particular custom, which was practiced in ancient Egypt as well as in the Cushite kingdom, did not surprise me. It made a certain amount of sense in terms of dogma as well as practical politics; for by marrying his sisters the king kept them out of the clutches of ambitious nobles who might be tempted to claim the throne by right of their wives’ royal birth, and also insured that the divine blood of the pharaohs would be undiluted. The children of lesser wives and concubines held noble rank, like the young count whom Tarek had introduced as his brother; but the sons of the royal princesses had first claim on the crown. For the first time in the annals of the kingdom, each of these ladies had one surviving son—who were exactly the same age.
When I questioned this remarkable statement, the old man shrugged. Not the same moment, the same hour, no; in fact, the noble Prince Tarek was somewhat the elder. But both had been born in the same year of His Majesty, and whenever there was a question—as, for instance, in the case of twins—the final decision