Free Orphan of the Sun by Gill Harvey

interspersed with spurts of laughter. Now that the working week had ended, the murmuring seemed deeper as more male voices joined in.
    She turned at the sound of footsteps. It was Mose, standing uncertainly at the top of the stairway. Meryt held out her arm and the eight year old came to stand next to her.
    â€˜Have you finished writing down all the presents?’ Meryt asked him.
    Mose nodded. ‘Tuya brought two more ducks. The others brought bread and vegetables.’
    â€˜We won’t go hungry then, will we?’
    Mose smiled briefly, but he seemed preoccupied. Meryt thought of her exchange with Baki, and felt a stab of fear.
    â€˜Is something troubling you, Mose?’ she forced herself to ask.
    Mose dug his finger into a little hole he had made in the mud brick. Meryt watched him, seeing from his furrowed brow and pursed lips that his mind wasworking furiously. At last, he looked up. ‘When you get married, will you still come and see us?’ he asked.
    It was like a punch in the stomach. Meryt stared at her little cousin speechlessly for a moment. ‘Who says I’m getting married?’ she whispered eventually.
    Mose’s face brightened. ‘You mean you’re not?’
    â€˜I don’t want to, no.’
    â€˜But Baki said …’
    â€˜Don’t listen to Baki. He was teasing me.’ Meryt felt desperate. If everyone assumed she was going to marry Ramose – even the children – there would be little chance of getting out of it.
    Mose’s calm eyes gazed at her. She could tell he wasn’t convinced, but his next words surprised her all the same. ‘You shouldn’t have to marry if you don’t want to,’ he said.
    Meryt touched his arm. These days, little escaped the eight year old, and she felt glad that he understood. But the pressure was mounting. Senmut would demand a decision before long.
    When Baki returned, it was not on foot but in Senmut’s muscular arms. The neighbouring women had left to greet their own menfolk, and Meryt was sitting with Nauna preparing fruit. She watched from the courtyard as her uncle carried her cousin inside and laid him down in the back room. Baki was whimpering, his shorn head making his dark eyes seem all the wider as he stared up at Senmut and Tiathrough his pain. Meryt thought of his boasts earlier that day, and shook her head grimly.
    Tia knelt beside him and held his hands. ‘May Isis protect you – life, prosperity, health,’ Meryt heard her whisper. ‘May your suffering be taken from you. Peshedu, have mercy on my son.’
    Senmut left her to it and walked through to the courtyard. He seemed in good spirits, and smiled expansively. ‘How are the preparations going?’ he asked. ‘The guests will be arriving soon. Are you ready to serve, Meryt?’
    Meryt shook her head, and scrambled to her feet. ‘No, Uncle. I’ll get ready now.’
    It was a role she hated. Senmut could not afford to buy any servants or to hire them for an evening’s revelry. Of course there was Nes, but she was employed by the government only to grind the grain. So whenever Senmut had friends around, he expected his niece to play the part of a hired hand.
    Meryt went through to the middle room and opened a wooden casket. She took out a mirror of highly polished bronze, a little pot of kohl and another of red ochre, and a string of cowrie shells. Quickly, she slipped off her linen dress and packed it into the casket. She was slinging the cowrie string around her hips when Senmut came into the room.
    â€˜I’ll need my best kilt and wig,’ he said. ‘Tia’s busy with Baki. Bring them to me when you’re ready – I’ll be on the roof.’
    Meryt nodded, and reached for the kohl pot. Witha little brush, she gave her eyes a thick black outline, trying not to smudge the edges. Then she dabbed some of the red ochre on to her cheeks and reached into the casket