“Greeting, Bakenkhonsu. How comes it that you are still alive? When we parted at Thebes I made sure——”
“That on your return you would find me in my tomb. Not so, Prince, it is I who shall live to look upon you in your tomb, yes, and on others who are yet to sit in the seat of Pharaoh. Why not? Ho! ho! Why not, seeing that I am but a hundred and seven, I who remember the first Rameses and have played with his grandson, your grandsire, as a boy? Why should I not live, Prince, to nurse your grandson—if the gods should grant you one who as yet have neither wife nor child?”
“Because you will get tired of life, Bakenkhonsu, as I am already, and the gods will not be able to spare you much longer.”
“The gods can endure yet a while without me, Prince, when so many are flocking to their table. Indeed it is their desire that one good priest should be left in Egypt. Ki the Magician told me so only this morning. He had it straight from Heaven in a dream last night.”
“Why have you been to visit Ki?” asked Seti, looking at him sharply. “I should have thought that being both of a trade you would have hated each other.”
“Not so, Prince. On the contrary we add up each other’s account; I mean, check and interpret each other’s visions, with which we are both of us much troubled just now. Is that young man a scribe from Memphis?”
“Yes, and my friend. His grandsire was Pentaur the poet.”
“Indeed. I knew Pentaur well. Often has he read me to sleep with his long poems, rank stuff that grew like coarse grass upon a deep but half-drained soil. Are you sure, young man, that Pentaur was your grandfather? You are not like him. Quite a different kind of herbage, and you know that it is a matter upon which we must take a woman’s word.”
Seti burst out laughing and I looked at the old priest angrily, though now that I came to think of it my father always said that his mother was one of the biggest liars in Egypt.
“Well, let it be,” went on Bakenkhonsu, “till we find out the truth before Thoth. Ki was speaking of you, young man. I did not pay much attention to him, but it was something about a sudden vow of friendship between you and the Prince here. There was a cup in the story too, an alabaster cup that seemed familiar to me. Ki said it was broken.”