The next day Merykara came to visit her brother, and spent most of the day with him. Her merry laughter and her childlike prattle cheered him. Nefer asked after Heseret, and wanted to know why she had not come also. Merykara answered evasively and invited him to play another game of bao. This time he deliberately opened his centre castle to let her win.
The next day the terrible news of the tragedy at Balasfura reached Thebes. The first reports were that Apepi and his entire family, including Mintaka, had perished in the flames. Nefer was stricken down again, this time by grief. Taita had to mix him another potion of the Red Shepenn, but within hours the wounds in his leg had turned. Over the next few days his condition worsened, and soon he was at the very frontiers of death. Taita sat with him and watched him tossing and raving in delirium while the livid scarlet lines of morbidity ran like rivers of fire up his limbs and his belly.
Then news came from the Lower Kingdom that Mintaka had survived the tragedy that had engulfed the rest of her family. When Taita whispered these wonderful tidings in his ear Nefer seemed to understand and respond. The next day he was weak but lucid, and he tried to convince Taita that he was strong enough to make the long journey to be with Mintaka in her bereavement. Gently Taita dissuaded him, but promised that as soon as Nefer was strong enough he would use all his influence to convince Lord Naja to allow him to go. With this goal to strive towards, Nefer rallied strongly once again. Taita could see him subduing the fevers and evil humours in his blood by sheer strength of will.
Lord Naja returned from the north, and within hours Heseret came to visit Nefer for the first time since his mauling by the lion. She brought him gifts of sweetmeats, a pot of wild honey in the comb, and a magnificent bao board made of coloured agate, with stones of carved ivory and black coral. She was sweet, infinitely gentle and concerned with his suffering, excusing herself for having neglected him.
'My dear husband, the Regent of the Upper Kingdom, the illustrious Lord Naja, has been away all these weeks,' she explained, 'and I have pined so much for his return that I was not fit company for anyone as ill as you have been. I was afraid that my unhappiness might affect you badly, my poor darling Nefer.' She stayed an hour, sang to him, and related some of the doings of the court, much of it scandalous. At last she excused herself: 'My husband, the Regent of the Upper Kingdom, does not like me to leave his side for long. We are so much in love, Nefer. He is a wonderful man, so kind and dedicated to you and Egypt. You must learn to trust him completely, as I do.' She rose to her feet and then, as though as an afterthought, she remarked lightly, 'You must have been relieved to hear that Pharaoh Trok Uruk and my dear husband, the Regent of Upper Egypt, have agreed for reasons of state to cancel your betrothal to that little Hyksosian barbarian, Mintaka. I was so sorry for you when I heard that such a disgraceful marriage was thrust upon you. My husband, the Regent of Upper Egypt, was against it from the very beginning, as I was.'
After she had gone Nefer sank back weakly on the pillow and closed his eyes. When Taita came to him a little later he was puzzled by the way in which he had relapsed. He removed the bandages and found that the infection in his injuries had flared up again, and that the malodorous pus streaming from the deepest wound was thick and yellow. He stayed with him through that night, exerting all his skill and his powers to ward off the shadows of evil that surrounded the young Pharaoh.
At dawn Nefer was in a coma. Taita was truly alarmed by his condition. It could not be explained entirely by the boy's grief. Suddenly he was startled and angered by a commotion at the door. He was about to call for silence when he heard Lord Naja's commanding voice ordering the guards to stand aside. The RRegent strode into the chamber and, without greeting Taita, stooped over Nefer's still form and peered into his pale, drawn face. After a long moment he straightened up and signed to Taita to follow him on to the terrace.
When Taita came out behind him he was gazing across the river. On the far bank a squadron of chariots was practising their evolutions, changing formations at full gallop. Strangely, there had been much warlike preparation since the treaty of Hathor. 'You wished to speak to me, my lord?' Taita asked.
Naja turned to him. His expression was grim. 'You have disappointed me, old man,' he said, and Taita bowed his head but made no reply. 'I had hoped that my way forward, my destiny as predicted by the gods, would be cleared by now of impediment.' He stared hard at Taita. 'Yet it seems that, far from allowing this come to pass, you have done all in your power to prevent it.'
This has been pretence. I have made a show of caring for my patient, while in reality I have been fostering your interests. As you can see for yourself, Pharaoh hangs over the great abyss.' Taita made a gesture towards the sick chamber where Nefer lay. 'Surely you can sense the shades drawing in more closely around him. My lord, we have almost obtained our object. Within days the way ahead will be cleared for you.' Naja was not convinced. 'I am reaching the limit of my patience,' he warned, and strode from the terrace. He passed through the chamber without another glance at the still form upon the bed.
During that day Nefer's condition fluctuated between deep coma and bouts of restless sweating and delirious ravings. When it became clear that the leg was giving him intense agony, Taita removed the linen bandages and found the whole of his thigh grotesquely swollen. The stitches holding the wound closed were strained and cutting deeply into the hot, purple flesh. Taita knew that he dared not move the boy while his life hung on such a slender thread. The plans that he had laid so carefully over the past weeks could not go forward unless he took drastic action. To interfere further with the wound in this condition was to risk a fatal poisoning of the blood, but there was no other course open to him. He laid out his instruments and bathed the entire leg in a solution of vinegar. Then he forced another heavy dose of the Red Shepenn between Nefer's lips, and while he waited for the drug to take effect he prayed to Horus and to the goddess Lostris for their protection. Then he took up the scalpel and cut one of the stitches that held the lips of the wound together.
He was taken aback by the way in which the flesh burst open and at the gagging flood of yellow corruption that poured out. He used a gold spoon to scrape it clean, and when he felt the metal strike some hard obstruction in the depths of the wound, he probed with ivory forceps and gripped the object in the jaws. At last he prised it free. He took it to the light from the doorway and found that it was a ragged splinter of the lion's claw, half as long as his little finger, which must have broken off as the beast was savaging Nefer.
He placed a gold tube in the wound to allow it to drain, then rebandaged it. By evening Nefer's recovery was miraculous. In the morning he was weak but the fever in his blood had abated. Taita gave him a tonic to fortify him, and placed the Periapt of Lostris on his leg. While he sat beside him in the noonday, gathering his resolve, there was a soft scratching at the shutters. When he opened them a crack, Merykara slipped into the chamber. She was distraught and had been weeping. She flung herself against Taita and hugged his legs.
'They have forbidden me to come here,' she whispered and she did not have to explain who 'they' were, 'but I know the guards on the terrace and they let me pass.'
'Gently, my child.' Taita stroked her hair. 'Do not distress yourself so.'
'Taita, they are going to kill him.'
'Who are they?'
'The two of them.' Merykara started sobbing again and her explanation was barely coherent. 'They thought I
