Web of Evil (Hani's Daughter Mysteries, #2) by N.L. Holmes

Author:N.L. Holmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WayBack Press
Published: 2024-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

“You left the girls in the village?” Nub-nefer cried. “Hani, my love, I thought you were going to look out for them.”

Hani squirmed. He feared he’d made a mistake in his determination to trust the maturity of his daughter and her friends. “That was my intention, my dove. I thought they’d be safe in broad daylight.”

“Well, let’s hope they have the sense to come back before it’s no longer daylight.”

The two of them stood inside the vestibule, in the semidarkness. The rest of the family was outside under the grapevine—he could hear the laughter and chatter of his daughters and the chanting of the children, who were involved in some raucous game.

It pained Hani to have been the instrument of his wife’s disquietude. “I can rejoin them if you think that would be a good idea.”

“If it starts to get late and they’re still not back. But I suppose we have to give them room to prove themselves.” She put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. Her voice echoed straight into Hani’s heart. “Neferet has given us more anxiety than all the others put together. She’s good-hearted and smart, but she doesn’t have a healthy dose of fear about things. And Mut-tuy is worse, although who can blame her? She’s just a child. Neferet should be setting an example.”

“I continue to hope,” said Hani with a strained smile. “Between the good influence of Bener-ib and Baket’s oracular assurance that the duckling will be all right, I have to be optimistic.”

Nub-nefer drew back and stared her husband fiercely in the eye. “When I see how terrorized those little girls are and how cowed poor Ta-em-resefu has grown over the years, it makes me realize what a terrible person our girls are up against. You have to apprehend him, Hani. Don’t leave these poor people alone and vulnerable.”

“I know,” he said uneasily. “I won’t. I have some questions to ask Ta-em-resefu, then I’ll head back to the village.” He sighed. “I’d just as soon leave poor Dapurazo out of it. He’s only here for business on behalf of his king, but he seems to have gotten emotionally involved. He has the same kind of curiosity that Neferet has.”

“He’s a nice man,” Nub-nefer said. “He blends quite well into what must seem like the very foreign environment of our family.”

Hani bent to kiss the top of his wife’s hair. “Shows his good taste.”

“Is he married, do you know?”

Hani laughed. “Who are you trying to match him with? No, actually, I believe he’s a widower.”

“I just wondered if he had children of his own. He’s very at home around them.”

“He’s never mentioned any.”

Unsurprisingly, Ta-em-resefu and her daughters were outside with Mery-ra, Maya, Dapurazo, Baket-iset, Sati, and the latter’s children. Tepy, at ten, was a regular little father of the family. He’d organized his siblings and the orphans into teams and was putting them through game after game. The resultant chaos provided the adults with an amusing spectacle. But

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