1997 - The Red Tent (36 page)

“No, it is true,” he said, dismissing my shrug. “Say nothing to diminish your repute, for no one has taken your place in Thebes. The lady of my master has miscarried twice and nearly died from a stillbirth. The physicians and necromancers have done her no good, and now the midwives fear to attend a princess who has had so much bad luck in childbed. Her own mother is dead, and she is afraid.

“My master dotes on this wife and wishes nothing more than to have sons by her. As-naat heard of your skills from her servants and asked her husband to search out the foreign-born woman with the golden hands who once served the women of Thebes. My lord depends upon me for all things and called upon me in this matter as well,” said Re-mose, his mouth growing smaller and more pursed at every mention of his master.

“Imagine my surprise when I learned that he sought none but my own mother. He was suddenly impressed by my lineage when he learned that you were a countryman of his,” Re-mose added ironically. “The vizier charged me to put aside duties of state, to walk into the Valley of the Kings and accompany you to his house. He ordered me not to return without you.”

“You do not like this man,” I said mildly.

“Zafenat Paneh-ah is vizier in Thebes at the king’s pleasure,” said my son, in formal but damning tones. “He is said to be a great diviner who sees into the future and reads dreams as easily as a master scribe perusing the glyphs of a schoolboy. But he is illiterate,” said Re-mose bitterly. “He cannot cipher or write or read, which is why the king assigned me, the best of Kar’s students, to be his right hand. And that is where I am now, wifeless, childless, second to a barbarian.”

I stiffened at the word. Re-mose noticed my reaction and colored in shame. “Oh Ma, not you,” he said quickly. “You are not like the rest of them, or else my father and grandmother would never have chosen you. You are fine,” he said. “There is no mother in Egypt better than you.” His flattery made me smile in spite of myself. He embraced me, and for a moment I regained the loving boy who had been my son.

We drank our beer in silence for a moment, then I said, “Of course I will follow you to Thebes. If the king’s vizier commands you to bring me, I will come. But first I must speak with my friend, Meryt, who is my right hand in the birth chamber and should come with me.

“I must talk with my husband, Benia, the master carpenter, so that he knows where I go and when I might return.”

Re-mose pursed his lips again. “There is no time for this, Ma. We must leave now, for the lady is in travail and my lord expects me every hour. Send the girl here to inform the others. I cannot tarry.”

“I’m afraid you must,” I said, and I left the room. Re-mose followed me to the kitchen and grabbed me by the elbow, like a master about to strike a disobedient servant.

I pulled away and looked into his face. “Nakht-re would sooner die than treat a relative—much less a mother—in this fashion. Is this how you honor the memory of the only father you ever knew? I remember him as a noble man to whom you owe everything, and whose name you dishonor.”

Re-mose stopped and hung his head. His ambition and his heart were at war, and his face showed the division in his soul. He fell to the ground and bowed low, his brow at my feet.

“I forgive you,” I said. “It will only take me a moment to prepare, and we will find my friend and husband on our path to Thebes.”

Re-mose raised himself from the ground again and waited outside while I prepared for a journey I hated to make. As I gathered my kit and a few herbs, I smiled at my own brazenness, shaming my powerful son for his rudeness, insisting on my farewells. Where was the meek woman who lived in Nakht-re’s house all those years?

Meryt waited for me at her son’s door, hungry for the news. Her eyes grew large when I introduced her to Re-mose, whom she had not seen since he was a boy. She covered her mouth in awe at the invitation to wait upon the wife of the king’s vizier, but Meryt could not accompany me. Three women in the town were due to give birth at any moment, and one of them was kin, the daughter of Shif-re’s brother. We embraced, and she wished me the touch of Isis and the luck of Bes. She stood at her door and waved gaily. “Bring me back some good stories,” she shouted, and her laughter followed me down the street.

Benia did not send me away with laughter. He and my son looked at each other coolly; Benia dipped his head in recognition of the scribe’s position, and Re-mose nodded at the carpenter’s authority over so important a workshop. There was no way for my husband and me to take a proper leave of each other. We exchanged our parting vows with our eyes. I would return. He would not be content until I did.

Re-mose and I walked out of the valley, saying little to each other. Before we began the descent from the valley to the riverbank, I put my hand on his arm, signaling him to stop. Turning to face home, I dropped a twist of rue from my garden and a piece of bread from my oven to ensure a speedy return.

It was dark by the time we reached the river, but we had no need to wait for the morning ferry. The king’s barque, lit with a hundred lamps, waited for us. Many oars rowed us, and in no time we were hurrying through the sleeping streets of the city and into the great palace, where Re-mose left me at the door to the women’s quarters. I was taken to a chamber where a pale young woman sat perched on her great bed, alone.

“You are Den-ner?” she asked.

“Yes, As-naat,” I replied gently, placing my bricks on the floor. “Let me see what the gods have in store for us.”

“I fear this one is dead, too,” she whispered. “And if it is so, let me die with him.”

I put my ear to her belly and touched the womb. “This baby is alive,” I said. “Fear not. He is just resting for the journey.”

At daylight, her pains began in earnest. As-naat tried to be quiet as befits a royal lady, but nature had made her a screamer, and she soon filled the air with roars at every pang.

I called for fresh water to bathe the mother’s face, for fresh straw, for lotus cones to freshen the room, and for five serving women, who gathered around their mistress to offer encouragement. Sometimes it is easier for the poor, I thought. Even those without family live in such close quarters to their neighbors that the cries of a laboring mother bring out other women like geese responding to the call of a leader in flight. But the rich are surrounded by servants too fearful of their mistresses to act as sisters.

As-naat did not have an easy time, but it was nowhere near the worst labor I’d seen. She pushed for long hours, supported by women who became her sisters, at least for that day. Just after sunset, she produced a skinny but healthy son, who roared for the breast as soon as he was held upright.

As-naat kissed my hands, covering them with joyful tears, and sent one of her servants to tell Zafenat Paneh-ah that he was the father of a fine son. I was taken to a quiet room, where I fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

I awoke the following morning drenched in sweat, my head throbbing, my throat on fire. Lying on the pallet, I squinted at the light pouring through the high windows and tried to remember the last time I had been ill. My head pounded, and I closed my eyes again. When next they opened, the light was draining from the room.

A girl sitting by the wall noticed I was awake and brought me a drink and placed a cool towel on my brow. Two days passed, or maybe it was three, in a blur of fevered sleep and compresses. When my head finally cooled and the pain subsided, I found myself too weak to stand.

By then a woman called Shery had been sent to attend me. I stared with an open mouth when she introduced herself, for her name, which means “little one,” sat oddly upon the fattest woman I’d ever seen.

Shery washed the sour smell from my body and brought me broth and fruit and offered to fetch anything else I might wish. I had never been waited upon like that, and while I did not enjoy her hovering over me, I was grateful for her help.

After a few days my strength began to return, and I asked Shery to tell me the news of the baby I had delivered. She was delighted by my question and settled her weight about her on a stool, for Shery loved an audience.

The baby was well, she reported. “He is ravenous, and has nearly worn off his mother’s nipples with constant feeding,” said Shery with a wicked grin. She had pitied her mistress’s childlessness, but found As-naat an arrogant snip of a mistress. “Motherhood will teach her everything,” my new friend confided.

“The father has named the boy Menashe, an awful name that must mean something fine in his native tongue. Menashe. It sounds like chewing, does it not? But you are of Canaan as well, are you not?”

I shrugged. “It was so long ago,” I said. “Please, continue with the story, Shery. It is almost magical, the way your words make me forget my aches and pains.”

She gave me a sharp look to let me know that flattery did not hide my reticence. But she continued anyway.

“Zafenat Paneh-ah is truly an arrogant son of a bitch,” she said, proving her trust in me by swearing about the master. “He likes to talk of his lowly beginnings as though this makes his powerful position even greater due to his rise. But this is no great thing in Egypt. Many great men—statesmen and craftsmen, warriors and artisans—are born of the lowly. Such is the case with your own husband, eh, Den-ner?” she asked, letting me know that my history was not entirely closed to her. But I only smiled.

“The Canaanite is handsome, no doubt about that. Women swoon at the sight of him—or at least they did when he was younger.

Men are drawn to him as well, and not only the ones who prefer boys.

“Of course, that beauty did not serve him well when he was young. His own brothers hated him so much they sold him to a pack of slavers—can you imagine an Egyptian doing such a thing? Every day I thank the gods that I was born in the valley of the great river.” “No doubt,” I said, surveying her girth, for there was no other land that could support such excess. Shery caught my meaning and grabbed at her midsection with both hands. “Ha, ha! I am a creature of amazing proportions, am I not? The king once pinched me and said that only dwarves please him more than the sight of someone as large and round as me. You would not believe how many men find this desirable,” Shery said. “In my own youth,” she began in a conspiratorial whisper, “I gave pleasure to the old king, until his wife grew jealous and had me packed off to Thebes.

“But that”—she winked—“is another story for another time. You want the history of this house, which is juicy enough,” she confided.

“Zafenat Paneh-ah was sold into slavery, as I said, and his new masters were swine, the most Canaanite of the Canaanites. I don’t doubt that he was beaten and raped and forced to do the dirtiest work. Of course, his majesty does not speak of that anymore.

“Zafenat Paneh-ah did not acquire that pompous name until recently. ‘The God Speaks and He Lives,’ indeed! They used to call him Stick, for when he first came to Egypt he was as skinny as his newborn son.

“When his owners came to Thebes, he was sold to Po-ti-far, a palace guard with sticky fingers who lived in a great house on the outskirts of the city. Because Stick was more clever than his master by half, he was put in charge of the garden, and then given oversight of the wine-pressing. Finally, he was set above the other servants in the house, for Po-ti-far loved the Canaanite boy and used him for his own pleasure.

“But Po-ti-far’s wife, a great beauty called Nebetper, also looked upon him with longing, and the two of them became lovers right under the master’s nose. There is even some gossip about who fathered her last daughter. In any case, Po-ti-far finally discovered them in bed together and he could no longer pretend not to know what was going on. So in a great show of anger and vengeance, he sent Stick to prison.”

By that point I had lost interest in Shery’s story, which apparently had no end. I wanted to sleep, but there was no stopping the woman, who did not see my hint when I yawned, or even when I closed my eyes.

“The Theban jail is no laughing matter,” she said darkly. “A hideous pit where men die of murder and despair as much as fever, full of madmen and cutthroats. But the warden came to pity his handsome inmate, who was neither hateful or insane. Soon he was taking his meals with the Canaanite, who spoke a good Egyptian by then.

“The warden was a bachelor and childless, and he treated Stick like a son. As the years passed he gave Stick responsibility for his fellows, until finally he was the one to determine which man slept near a window and which man was chained close to the latrine, so the inmates did what they could to bribe and please him. I tell you, Den-ner,” Shery said, shaking her head in admiration, “wherever this fellow goes, power seems to move into his hands.

“Meanwhile, the old king died, and the new king had a habit of punishing minor offenses against him by sending people to jail. If he was displeased by the texture of his bread at dinner, he might send the baker to jail for a week or even longer. Cupbearers, wine stewards, sandal-makers, even captains of the guard were sent to languish in that place, where they met Stick.

“Everyone was struck by his princely bearing and by his ability to interpret dreams and divine the future. He told one poor drunkard that he would not live out the week, and when he was found dead—not murdered, mind you, simply done in by years of strong drink—the prisoners proclaimed him an oracle. When a cupbearer returned from prison with a story about a jailer who saw into the future, the king sent for Stick and set him to interpret a series of dreams that had plagued him for months.

“It was not a difficult dream to divine, if you ask me,” said Shery. “Fat fish being devoured by bony fish, fat cows being trampled by skinny cows, and then seven fat stalks of wheat which were beaten down, leaving seven dead stalks.

“Any half-wit magician who pulls birds from beneath baskets in the marketplace could have interpreted that one,” Shery sniggered. “But the dreams haunted and frightened the idiot king, and it calmed him to hear that he had seven years in which to prepare for the coming famine. And so he elevated the jailer, an unlettered foreign-born conniver, to become his first-in-command.