Yet, of late, Thi felt that the attempt to keep the young soldier near the Court had been ill-advised. For various rumors, vague hints of an alarming nature, had reached the ears of Menna the Overseer.
These ill-defined rumors had been promptly reported to Thi, with various embellishments, of course, on the part of Menna, son of Menna.
Without a doubt, someone who knew the Court, someone who was familiar with the secret intrigues of harem life in the palace, had been quietly spreading broadcast palace secrets of a most terrifying nature.
One report had it that the present Pharaoh was a Syrian, born before Thi’s parents came down into Egypt.
It was hinted that Yakab the Chancellor was his true father. Had they not both the same extraordinarily attenuated figure? Did not both suffer from the same racking cough? Did not both speak with a marked lisp? Thi, the Queen-Mother, was almost stout; the late Pharaoh had been a corpulent man, in his youth possessed of unusual strength. The face was that of Thi, perhaps, but the body that of Yakab the Chancellor!
Yes, it was plain that Thi had done away with Pharaoh’s former wife, the Lady Hanit; that Menna and Thi had planned the murder of the true heir to the throne, the Lady Hanit’s son, in order that Yakab’s son, by Thi, might ascend the Egyptian throne.
Finally it was whispered that the murdered Prince still lived; that he had escaped from Menna, son of Menna, into whose baleful charge he had been placed.
All unwittingly, Ramses had been drawn into this maelstrom of palace intrigue. His name was frequently mentioned in connection with the probable succession to the throne.
The subject of a successor to the Horus Throne was one of great importance at this moment. Queen Noferith had borne the king but girls—“five little beams of Shu the sun-god” their royal father had playfully called them. And of these one had recently become the perfume of the heavenly lotus which the sun-god holds to his august face!
Pharaoh felt sure that Ramses himself knew nothing of these rumors. In many a bitter discussion with his mother and Menna the Overseer Pharaoh had frequently stated his conviction that Ramses would utterly condemn such traitorous thoughts should they ever come to his ears.