pharaoh did not press into the borders of jakten, not even with a temporary peace between them. but neither did he keep only to his camp. the wakes were a place of moisture and curiosities for the young ruler; he found himself gazing over flora as much as fauna.
he had called for a hunt early that morning, for he had spotted a white stag among the tangled trees. but as the mazoi and their Horus hunted, they found themselves bedeviled by thorns or set by swampy mud, and eventually, swearing an epithet, khaemwaset had called a halt.
he and his own were used to wide-open sands, to the flat running of rocky steppes. this terrain confounded and frustrated them all, challenging pharaoh in a new way.
filthied but no less elegant, with determination he had returned to the place where the deer had first been seen, under a tangled band of willows which swayed eerie in little breeze as white mists refused to budge.