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me.
    “Well?” he prompted. “What did you think of Nubia? Not too different from the trek into Sabaea we took together, is it? Sand and flies and plenty of heat. Did you get along well with your Royal Herald?” He laughed. “I see by your face you did not. And all for an officer’s pay. At least the army is teaching you to keep your temper, Kamen, which is a good thing. One rude word to His Majesty’s servant and you would be out on your ear.” He sounded regretful and I grinned openly at him.
    “I have no intention of being flung out of the army on my ear or my rump or even my nose,” I said. “Nubia was boring, the Herald an irritable man, and the whole assignment without incident. But it was better than sitting on a donkey day after day nearly dying of thirst, wondering if the desert brigands were going to attack and steal all the goods we had bartered so hard for and knowing we had to do it all over again in a few months.”
    “If you get a posting to one of the border forts as you so foolishly desire, you will have your fill of heat and boredom,” he retorted. “Who can I leave my business to when I die, Kamen? To Mutemheb? Trading is no occupation for a woman.” I had endured this argument many times before. I knew there was no barb in his words, only love and disappointment.
    “Dear Father,” I said impatiently. “You can leave it to me and I will appoint good stewards …” He waved me to silence.
    “Trading is not an occupation that can be delegated to servants,” he pronounced loftily. “There is too much room for dishonesty. One wakes up one morning to find nothing but destitution and one’s servants in possession of the estate next door.”
    “That is ridiculous,” I cut in. “How many caravans do you still lead in person? One in ten? Once every two years when you become restless? You trust your men as an officer must trust his soldiers …”
    “Now YOU are becoming pedantic,” he smiled. “Forgive me, Kamen. You must be longing for a bath. How was the river on the way back? The sailors were surely praying for Isis to cry so that the rising current would be stronger than the prevailing north wind and would float you home. How much longer did it take to come than to go?”
    “A few days,” I shrugged. “But we did not make sufficient time to put in where we had intended to each evening. My Herald had planned to spend his nights enjoying the hospitality of mayors who set good tables but more often than not we ate bread and dates on the bank of the Nile. By the time we were forced to camp overnight in Aswat, he had become decidedly disagreeable. There was a woman at Aswat who brought us food …” My father’s glance sharpened.
    “A woman? What woman?”
    “Just a peasant, Father, half-mad. I went into the temple of Wepwawet to pray and she was there, cleaning. I spoke to her because the doors to the inner court were locked and I wanted them opened. Why? Do you know of her?” His bristling eyebrows drew together and his eyes were suddenly clear and very sober.
    “I have heard of her. She pesters the Heralds. Did she pester you, Kamen?” The subject should have been a joke, but his gaze remained steadily grave. Surely he is not so protective of me that my encounter at Aswat has upset him! I thought.
    “Well not exactly pester,” I replied, though of course that was just what she had done. “But she did make a nuisance of herself. She tries to thrust a box at everyone important who passes, something she wants given to the One. Apparently she had already tried to give it to May, my Herald, on a previous occasion, and he had refused, so she attempted to force it on me.” The gaze that had defeated so many foreign hagglers with sacks of herbs at their feet continued to bore into me.
    “You did not take it did you, Kamen? I know the painful and fleeting compassions of youth! You did not take it?”
    I had opened my mouth to confess to him that I had indeed taken it, that she had