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Updated: May 2, 2025
"Seek out Hotep, who hath been keeper of the records at Pithom and ask him." "Did he tell thee?" Seti demanded. "Nay; I learned it from another source, not in the palace." The prince lapsed into silence, his eyes averted. Ta-user regarded him intently. Suddenly he raised his head. "Dost thou know the amount of his share?" he asked.
The queen and the Son of Ptah have quarreled, violently, over Seti," he continued in a low tone. "The little prince merited thy father's disfavor, because Seti espoused the cause of Ta-user in thy place, though he loves thee, and for that we can find no other reason the noble Har-hat also urged the king into the harsh sentence of the little prince.
As Kenkenes passed them on his way to the door her soft shoulders were squared; she had drawn herself as far away from the prince as she might and was otherwise evincing her discomfort extravagantly. Before them was Hotep, outwardly undisturbed, smiling and complacent. At one side was Ta-user, at the other Seti, and Io hung on Hotep's arm.
After some time Ta-user sent to him and conferred upon him the title of the Prince of Cush. To the friends of the young Pharaoh it was patent that he feared to meet Ta-user. Having succumbed once to her influence, to his undoing and the misery of his beloved Io, he dared not come under the all-compelling eyes of the sorceress again. So he surrendered his crown and his country for his soul's sake.
Ta-user leaned across the table, and sweeping the pawns away with her arms, said, with a smile: "Quarreling over a game of drafts! Which is in distress in need of allies?" "Come thou and be my mercenary, Ta-user," Masanath said with impulsive gratitude. "Rameses hath lost and demands restitution beyond reason."
Aside from these there were others in the group. Some were sons and daughters of royalty, cousins of the Pharaoh's sons and of Ta-user and Siptah; many were children of the king's ministers, and all were noble. Senci and Hotep's older sister, the Lady Bettis, a dark-eyed matron of thirty, presided in duenna-like guardianship over the rout. They sat in a diphros apart from the young revelers.
At last, succumbing to melancholia, he became a child, for whom Hotep reigned and for whom the queen cared with touching devotion. The story of Seti is history. It is needless to say that his rough usage at the hands of Ta-user awakened him, but it was long before he found courage to return to Io, the sweetheart of his childhood.
"Judge not for Rameses, I pray thee," she insisted, coming near him. "Knowing that I love him not, perchance he might be gentler with Ta-user did he see his peril." Again Har-hat laughed. "I am not blind, O little reluctant," he said. "I know the secret spring of thy concern for Egypt for Ta-user for Rameses. I have not told thee all the stake upon thy love for the prince.
Ta-user laughed very softly and delivered the young artist a level look of understanding from her topaz eyes. "I fear thou art indeed improvident," she continued, "if thou leavest thy future to others." "Then all the world is improvident, since it belongeth to others to shape every man's future. But Hotep, the lawgiver, denies this thing. He holds that every man builds for himself."
The pair started apart at sight of the princess. "A blessing on thy content, Ta-meri," the princess said. "And upon thine, Nechutes." The cup-bearer bowed and rumbled his appreciation of her courtesy. "Dost thou leave us, Ta-user?" his wife asked. "Aye, I return to the Hak-heb. O, I am glad to go. Would I could leave the same quiet here in Tanis that I hope to find in Nehapehu."
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