Hotep shook his head.
"Nay, any man may fill my position so he but knows when to hold his tongue and what to say when he wags it."
"O, aye," the sculptor admitted in good-natured irony. "Those be simple qualifications and easy to combine."
The scribe smiled.
"Mine is no arduous labor now. During my years of apprenticeship I was sorely put to it, but now I have only to wait upon the king and look to it that mine underlings are not idle. If another war should come—if any manner of difficulty should arise in matters of state, I doubt not mine would be a heavy lot."
The young man spoke of war and fellowship with a monarch as if he had been a lady's page and gossiped of fans and new perfumes.
Kenkenes looked at him with a full realization of the incongruity of the youth of the man and the weight of the office that was his.
But at close range the scribe's face was young only in feature and tint. He was born of an Egyptian and a Danaid, and the blond alien mother had impressed her own characteristics very strongly on her son.
He had a plump figure with handsome curves, waving, chestnut hair and a fair complexion. Nose and forehead were in line. The eyes were of that type of gray that varies in shade with the mental state. His temper displayed itself only in their sudden hardening into the hue of steel; content and happiness made them blue. They were always steady and comprehending, so that whoever entered his presence for the first time said to himself: "Here is a man that discovers my very soul."
Whatever other blunder Meneptah might have made, he had redeemed himself in the wisdom he displayed in choosing his scribe. Kenkenes had been led to ask how Hotep had come to his place.