“Yes, Ru, there they all are who I wish were somewhere else. And now here is a present for you, Ru, a chain of fine gold that I have worn myself. Keep it in memory of me and hang it about your neck when you attend upon the Queen, that it may make her think of one who is absent.”
“I thank you, Lord, though it seems that you seek to kill two birds with this stone of a gift, which I may show but may not sell. Well, lovers will think of themselves first, and I hope that one day if we should stand together in war—— Why, look! Here comes the Lady Kemmah, walking faster than I have seen her do for years. I think she must have some words for you.”
As he spoke Kemmah arrived.
“So I have caught you, Prince,” she said, puffing. “A pretty task for an old woman to toil across that sand in the heat like a cow after a lost calf, just to please a maiden’s fancy.”
“What is it, Kemmah?” asked Khian anxiously.
“Oh! little enough. To give you this which a certain one might as well have done herself, had she thought of it, and to pray you to wear it always for her sake, remembering that thereby she acknowledges you as her king as well as her lover, which of course she has no right to do, any more than she has a right to send you what she does. I told her so but she flew into a rage and said that if I would not take it, she would bring it herself as she could trust it to no one else. A pretty sight indeed that a Queen should be seen tearing across the desert after a departing scribe, for so the common people still believe you to be. Therefore come I must or bear her wrath.”
“I understand, Lady Kemmah, but what do you bring? You have given me nothing save words.”
“Have I not? Well, here it is,” and she produced from her robe some small object wrapped in papyrus on which was written, “The gift of a Queen to her King and Lover.”
Khian undid the papyrus. There within lay the royal signet of Nefra, the same which he had seen set upon her hand on the night of Coronation.
“This is the Queen’s ring,” said Khian, astonished.