When I had carried Amenmose up the lane and into the house, Tanefert had fallen to her knees, her mouth open in a silent howl of agony and relief. She held him in the vigil of her arms, and would not let go. When eventually, speaking to her gently, I had been able to prise him from her and lay him on his couch, she then turned to me and beat me with her fists, slapping my face with her hands as if she would tear me apart; and in truth I was glad to let her.

Then she washed the boy in cool water, with a cloth, with infinite tenderness, talking to him quietly. He was tired and fractious. Then she watched over him sleeping, as if she would never leave him again. Her own face was still wet with her tears. She avoided my gaze. I could not speak. I tried brushing my hand gently against her cheek, and she ignored it. I was about to withdraw it, but suddenly she grasped it, kissed it, and held on to it. I encircled her with my arms, and held her as tightly as she had held our son.

‘Never forgive me, as I will never forgive myself,’ I said, eventually.

She looked at me with her now-calm, dark eyes.

‘You promised me you would never allow your work to hurt our family,’ she said simply.

She was right. I put my head in my hands. She stroked my head, as if I were a child.

‘How did he take him?’

‘I had to find food for us all to eat. The children were sick of the same old dinners. They were bored, and frustrated. And I couldn’t stay inside the house all the time. It wasn’t possible. So I decided to go out to the market. I left the servant girl in charge of them. The guard was on the door. She says they were all playing in the yard, and she was doing the washing. And suddenly all she could hear was screaming. She ran out–and Amenmose had disappeared. The gate was open. The guard was lying on the ground, blood pouring from his head. Sekhmet had tried to stop him taking Amenmose. He punched her. That monster punched my daughter. It was my fault.’

She curled into herself, sobbing. Futile tears startled my eyes. Now it was my turn to comfort her in my arms.

‘That monster is dead. I killed him.’

Tanefert raised her tearful face, taken aback, and she saw it was the truth.

‘Please don’t ask me any more today. I will talk about it when I can. But he is dead. He cannot harm us any more,’ I promised.

‘He has harmed us too much already,’ she replied, with an honesty that broke my heart.

The girls’ heads appeared around the curtain. Tanefert looked up, and tried to smile.

‘Is he all right?’ said Thuyu, chewing her side-lock.

‘He’s asleep, so be quiet,’ I said.

Nedjmet stared at him.

But Sekhmet, when she saw him, broke down. I saw the black bruising around her eye, and the scratch marks on her arms, and the long grazes on her legs. She gulped and swallowed, and the plump tears came extravagantly.

‘How could you let that happen to him?’ she cried in her broken voice, hardly able to breathe.

I felt shame come upon me, like a mantle of mud. I kissed her gently on the forehead, wiped her tears, said to all of them, ‘I am so sorry,’ and then I walked away.

I sat on the low bench in the courtyard. From outside the walls of the house the sounds of the street came to me distantly, from another world. I thought about everything that had happened since the night Khety knocked upon the wall by the window. My own heart was knocking now, in my ribs. I had done my family a terrible wrong by leaving. It had not seemed so at the time. And perhaps I had had no choice. But Tanefert is right: there is always a choice. I had chosen the mystery, and I had paid the price. And I did not know how I could heal this.

It was Sekhmet who came out to find me. She was sniffing, and patting away at her face with her robe. But she sat down next to me, curled her legs elegantly beneath her, and leaned into my side. I put my arm around her.

‘I’m sorry, that was a horrible thing to say,’ she said quietly.

‘It was the truth. I trust you to tell me the truth.’

She nodded wisely, as if her head were just a little bit too heavy with thinking these days.

‘Why did that man take Amenmose away?’

‘Because he wanted very badly to hurt me. And he wanted to show me he could take one of the most important things in the world away from me.’

‘Why would anyone do such a thing?’

‘I don’t think I know. Perhaps I will never know.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He’s dead.’

She nodded, and thought about that, but she didn’t say anything more, and so we sat together, listening to the noisy chaos of life in the street, watching as the sun rose higher, dispelling the shadows, and listening to the sounds of the girls starting to prepare the meal in the kitchen, arguing and laughing again together.