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"To Set with Amenmeses!" he exclaimed. "You know well, Userti, that the man is hateful to me with his cunning yet empty talk." "Indeed! I grieve to hear it, for when you hate you show it, and Amenmeses may be a bad enemy. Then if not our cousin Amenmeses who is not hateful to me, there is Saptah." "I thank you; I will not travel in a cage with a jackal." "Jackal!
There remains only Saptah his brother who is younger than herself " "So am I," murmured Seti, "by two long years," but happily Userti did not hear him. "Nay, my father," she said with decision, "never will I take a deformed man to husband." He was very angry, for his cheeks were flushed and his small eyes flashed.
I do not love Saptah, but one of the royal blood of Egypt a jackal! Then there is Nehesi the Vizier, or the General of the escort whose name I forget." "Do you think, Userti, that I wish to talk about state economies with that old money-sack, or to listen to boastings of deeds he never did in war from a half-bred Nubian butcher?" "I do not know, Husband. Yet of what will you talk with this Ana?
Last of all limped Saptah and, behold! the god bowed again." "How and why does it do these things?" I asked, "and at the wrong time?" "Ask the priests, Ana, or Userti, or Saptah. Perhaps the divine neck has not been oiled of late, or too much oiled, or too little oiled, or prayers or strings may have gone wrong.
Women oftimes respect those whom they hate and even will advance them because of policy, but let those whom they pretend to love beware. The time may come when you will yet be Userti's most trusted councillor." Now here I, Ana the Scribe, will state that in after days, when this same queen was the wife of Pharaoh Saptah, I did, as it chanced, become her most trusted councillor.
I tell of his divine Majesty whom I loved and love as my own soul, Seti Meneptah the second, whose day of birth was my day of birth, the Hawk who has flown to heaven before me; of Userti the Proud, his queen, she who afterwards married his divine Majesty, Saptah, whom I saw laid in her tomb at Thebes.
Yet on this day some god spoke with Saptah's voice making him a prophet, since in a year to come she did marry him, in order that she might stay upon the throne at a time of trouble when Egypt would not suffer that a woman should have sole rule over the land. But Pharaoh did not smile like the courtiers; indeed he grew angry. "Peace, Saptah!" he said.
"It seems so, Count Saptah, unless you stop your ears," replied Pharaoh. "She says she will not marry me," went on Saptah, "me who from childhood have been a slave to her and to no other woman." "Not by my wish, Saptah. Indeed, I pray you to go and be a slave to any woman whom you will," exclaimed Userti.
"But I say," continued Saptah, "that one day she shall marry me, for the Prince Seti will not live for ever." "How do you know that, Cousin?" asked Seti. "The High-priest here will tell you a different story." Now certain of those present turned their heads away to hide the smile upon their faces.
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