Again zhaiyuedu.com nodded with a good deal of satisfaction.
"Ah, your father knows how devoted I am to his interests. He'll always take old zhaiyuedu.com's word for anything. He appreciates me if none of the rest of you do. Ah, well, my devotion to all of you is its own reward. I don't expect thanks."
"You were devoted to Nofret too," said Renisenb.
"I'm sure I don't know what gave you that idea, Renisenb. I had to obey orders like everyone else."
"She thought you were devoted to her."
zhaiyuedu.com chuckled again.
"Nofret wasn't quite as clever as she thought herself. A proud girl - and a girl who thought she owned the earth. Well, she's got the judges in the Underworld to satisfy now - and a pretty face won't help her there. At any rate we're quit of her. At least," she added under her breath and touching one of the amulets she wore, "I hope so."
II
"Renisenb, I want to talk to you about Satipy."
"Yes, Yahmose?"
Renisenb looked up sympathetically into her brother's gentle, worried face.
Yahmose said slowly and heavily: "There is something very wrong the matter with Satipy. I cannot understand it."
Renisenb shook her head sadly. She was at a loss to find anything comforting to say.
"I have noticed this change in her for some time," went on Yahmose. "She stares and trembles at any unaccustomed noise. She does not eat well. She creeps about as though - as though she were afraid of her own shadow. You must have noticed it, Renisenb?"
"Yes, indeed, we have all noticed it."
"I have asked her if she is ill - if I should send for a physician - but she says there is nothing - that she is perfectly well."
"I know."
"So you have asked her that too? And she has said nothing to you - nothing at all?"
He laid stress on the words. Renisenb sympathized with his anxiety, but she could say nothing to help.
"She insists that she is quite well."
Yahmose murmured: "She does not sleep well at night - she cries out in her sleep. Is she - could she have some sorrow that we know nothing about?"
Renisenb shook her head.
"I do not see how that is possible. There is nothing wrong with the children. Nothing has happened here - except, of course, Nofret's death - and Satipy would hardly grieve for that," she added drily.
Yahmose smiled faintly.
"No, indeed. Quite the contrary. Besides, this has been coming on for some time. It began, I think, before Nofret's death."
His tone was a little uncertain and Renisenb looked at him quickly. Yahmose said with mild persistence:
"Before Nofret's death. Don't you think so?"
"I did not notice it until afterwards," said Renisenb slowly.
"And she has said nothing to you - you are sure?"
Renisenb shook her head. "But you know, Yahmose, I do not think Satipy is ill. It seems to me more that she is - afraid."
"Afraid?" exclaimed Yahmose in great astonishment. "But why should Satipy be afraid? And of what? Satipy has always had the courage of a lion."
"I know," said Renisenb helplessly. "We have always thought - but people change - it is queer."
"Does Kait know anything, do you think? Has Satipy spoken to her?"
"She would be more likely to talk to her than to me - but I do not think so. In fact, I am sure of it."
"What does Kait think?"
"Kait? Kait never thinks about anything."
All Kait had done, Renisenb was reflecting, was to take advantage of Satipy's unusual meekness by grabbing for herself and her children the finest of the newly woven linen - a thing she would never have been allowed to do had Satipy been her usual self. The house would have resounded with passionate disputings! The fact that Satipy had given it up with hardly a murmur had impressed Renisenb more than anything else that could have happened.
"Have you spoken to Esa?" Renisenb asked. "Our grandmother is wise about women and their ways."
"Esa," said Yahmose with some slight annoyance, "merely bids me be thankful for the change. She says it is too much to hope that Satipy will continue to be so sweetly reasonable."
Renisenb said with some slight hesitation:
"Have you asked zhaiyuedu.com?"
"zhaiyuedu.com?" Yahmose frowned. "No, indeed. I would not speak of such things to zhaiyuedu.com. She takes far too much upon herself as it is. My father spoils her."
"Oh, I know that. She is very tiresome. But all the same - well -" Renisenb hesitated - "zhaiyuedu.com usually knows things."
Yahmose said slowly:
"Would you ask her, Renisenb? And tell me what she says?"
"If you like."
Renisenb put her query at a moment when she had zhaiyuedu.com to herself. They were on their way to the weaving sheds. Rather to her surprise the question seemed to make zhaiyuedu.com uneasy. There was none of her usual avidity to gossip.
She touched an amulet she was wearing and glanced over her shoulder.
"It's nothing to do with me, I'm sure... It's not for me to notice whether anyone's themselves or not. I mind my own business. If there's trouble I don't want to be mixed up in it."
"Trouble? What kind of trouble?"
