Cursed Times - Only Yesterday! Sequel to Wattys 2015 winner!

Chapter 18: Seisi - In Vino Gravitas Part 1

'Are you sure this sludge is drinkable?' Having prodded the inside of her beaker of wine with an index finger, Rani-Ra presented the results of her foray dripping off her finger with suspicious viscosity. 'Whose idea was this?'

'Don't blame me, ' Ranofer said.

'Leave Seisi alone.' Trueth kept turning the beaker around and around on the rough wooden table; the squeaking made Seisi probe his teeth with his tongue. Far too often in the recent past he had not been able to maintain a proper standard of hygiene.

A rotting grape got expelled from its home cluster in the vines overhead and landed on their table with a splat. It missed Trueth's drink, but not by much. Seisi had known his noble friends would not appreciate the inferior quality of alcoholic beverage—come to think of it: any beverage—offered by his favourite taverna. He never came here for the wine; he came to unwind, to be an anonymous part of an anonymous crowd of low-ranking priests, scribes and temple servants. And of course, he came for the gossip. Given that his occupation as Imhotep's informer seemed to have become a permanent fixture, he depended on the type of intelligence a visit to the wine-house would yield.

As dubious as the liquid refreshment might appear, it still was vastly superior to the brew they served in the beerhouses closer to Ineb. That type of rot gut would certainly have caused the perfect eyebrows of his beloved to rise.

'May I ask why you are grinning like that? I just don't understand how you can be in such a good mood given the circumstances.' Trueth downed her drink all at once.

Such haste was not prudent, Seisi thought and thumped her on the back as some of the residue went down the wrong way.

'I understood we all wanted to forget our worries for a while. You desired to stay away from the palace as well as Imhotep. The 'Garden of Bes' is the closest place I know where you can take your drink in safety. Well, mostly,' he said.

Trueth peeped into the pitcher of water they had been given. 'You sure this doesn't come straight from the Nile?'

'Not straight no,' Seisi responded.

Trueth put the water back. 'More wine!' She waved at the beefy waiter and raised a finger. He acknowledged her order with a nod, slung a disreputable towel over his shoulder and disappeared into the rancid gloom of the taverna's interior.

'Is this wise?' Seisi asked.

'Most likely not, ' Trueth said. 'But as you said, we're here to forget.'

'We could eat something,' Ranofer suggested with a nervous twitch of his nose.

'I would advise against it.' Seisi had tried once. No more.

'How can you think of food when our brother is... . ' Rani-Ra did not yet have the Blessing; she could not give her unfortunate twin the type of empty-eyed visual reproach Metjen had honed to perfection. She still got disturbingly close.

The waiter had waddled up with another pitcher of wine and a basket containing limp flatbread. 'Can I tempt you to some of our specialties, oh noble ones, oh holy scholar? I can offer you—'

'—we thank you. We have all we need,' Seisi made walking movements with his fingers. The waiter bowed from the hip and shifted his portly form across towards the more promising customers populating his vine-shaded courtyard.

'I'm so not hungry.' Rani-Ra kept crumbling the flatbread to pieces until Trueth put a hand over hers, stilling the movement.

'Will you stop this, please? We don't know he's gone. Well, he is. To the universe I mean. But other than that... .'