"There is no mating between the lion and the eagle; the stag and the asp!
They could not love."
"Thou dreamy idealist!" Hotep laughed. "The half of great marriages are
moves of strategy, attended more by Set[1] than Athor.[2] Ta-user is mad
for the crown, Rameses for undisputed power. Each has one of these two
desirable things to give the other."
"And how shall they appease Athor?" Kenkenes demanded warmly. "Ta-user
loves Siptah, the son of Amon-meses, and Rameses will crown whom he loves
though he had a thousand other crown-loving, treaty-dowered wives!"
Hotep smiled. "I thought the four walls of thy world hedged thee, but it
seems thou art right well acquainted with royalty."
"Scoff!" Kenkenes cried. "But I can tell thee this: Rameses will put his
foot on the neck of Amon-meses if the pretender trouble him, and will wed
with a slave-girl if she break the armor over his iron heart."
Hotep laughed again and suggested another subject.
"The new fan-bearer," he began.
"Nay, what of him?" Kenkenes broke in at once.
"And shall we quarrel about him, also?"
"Dost thou know him?" Hotep queried.
"Right well--from afar and by hearsay."
"Do thou express thyself first concerning him, and I shall treat thee to
the courtier's diplomacy if I agree not.
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