Recently widowed Renisenb returns with her young daughter to her father’s family. The family members become aggravated when the patriarch, Imhotep, brings home a young concubine named Nofret, who has him in her grip. It is not long before Nofret turns up dead at the bottom of a cliff. She easily could have fallen by accident, but slowly Renisenb and the family's scribe, Hori, begin to believe Nofret’s death was planned.