House of Dreams (27 page)

When I was allowed to raise my head Disenk handed me the copper mirror. The kohl around my eyes, sweeping my temples, caught all the light and sparked as I breathed. So did my skin. Magically I had become an exotic, seductive creature, a goddess in flesh. “Oh!” I gasped, hardly able to breathe, and Disenk firmly removed the mirror and began to place a dusting of red ochre on my cheeks and mouth. I could see her smile with satisfaction at her handiwork. When she had finished with my face she lifted my hair and pinned it to the top of my head, then she pulled a bowl towards her and knelt, lifting my foot into her lap. The orange liquid left her brush and went, cool and slick, onto my sole. My heart gave a great bound. “It is henna,” I whispered, and once again she smiled.

“No noble woman would be seen at a feast without henna on her palms and feet,” she said. “It is a sign of her position. It commands respect and obedience from her inferiors. The other foot please. Then I will paint your palms, and while the henna dries we will try on the wig.”

It was a beautiful, heavy affair of many tightly woven braids falling beyond my shoulders. Gold discs swung at the end of each braid and were set to frame the face of the wearer, and a straight black fringe across the forehead completed the effect. It felt like a crown as Disenk settled it firmly on my head. It brushed my bare skin lightly, regally as I turned this way and that, admiring my reflection in the mirror once again. Oh Pa-ari, I thought with delight. If only you could see your little sister now!

The henna was dry. Wordlessly Disenk lifted the blue linen, helping me into it. Softly it draped itself around my ankles, its gold border glinting. Its skirt was loose but the bodice hugged my figure. My right breast jutted uncovered. Disenk picked up the henna and gently painted my nipple with it. My mother would hide herself in shame, knowing that her daughter was about to appear to strangers dressed like this, I thought, but I will teach myself not to care. Aswat is far behind me now. My hands and feet are hennaed. I am the Lady Thu.

All that remained was the jewellery, and I did not suppose that Hui would let me keep any of it once the dawn came stealing cold into my room. There was a gold circlet studded with blue turquoise for my head, a great gold pectoral that encircled my neck and lay halfway over my breasts, five rings of gold in the likeness of ankhs and scarabs for my trembling fingers, and a gold armband from which hung tiny flowers whose centres were drops of turquoise. The unaccustomed weight of the wig and the finery caused me to move with more deliberation than usual but it was not unpleasant. Disenk surveyed her creation critically and was satisfied. “You are ready,” she pronounced, and I knew that she would be on display tonight as much as I. When the summons came I laid one reddened palm against her cheek and left her.

It was Harshira who stood outside the door, resplendent in gold-shot linen, a golden sash draped across his broad chest. I read no reaction to my transformation in his eyes but he bowed to me stiffly before leading the way along the passage. Dusk was filling the house and the stairs were dim but we descended into the sweet smell of scented lamp oil and soft yellow light. The servants were moving to and fro with tapers, driving back the impending darkness. They stopped and reverenced Harshira briefly as we passed them, and he nodded frostily, sailing on into a part of the building that had been forbidden to me until now.

We had turned right at the foot of the stairs. The passage here had widened into a stately hallway, blue-tiled, its ceiling sprinkled with painted stars. My glance fell from the Chief Steward’s rolling buttocks to my own feet pacing the spotless floor. Light glinted on the tiny gems sewn into my new sandals, one between each toe, and my skin gleamed with oil. The hem of the gossamer blue sheath brushed my ankles like the merest breath of air, shimmering with my movement, and as I came to a halt behind Harshira a gush of saffron perfume from my body rose out of its folds to my nostrils.

Harshira knocked on the imposing cedar doors that confronted us and a slave opened them at once. Within there was a tide of male conversation, a gruff burst of laughter, a sudden gush of scented heat and full light. The tiny turquoise pendants of my armband tinkled as I consciously unclenched my hands and let them fall loosely to my sides. “The Lady Thu,” Harshira intoned, and stood back for me to pass. I met his eyes. They said nothing. With a throat all at once gone dry I stepped into the room.

Hui was already rising, coming towards me, and for a moment he was all that I saw. He was smiling warmly, the moon god himself, all glimmering white and silver with his white braid threaded in silver hanging over one shoulder, the silver baboons, Thoth’s sacred animals, clustered on the pectoral across his white chest, the thick silver bracelets gripping his muscular arms, the silver-shot folds of his floor-length linen. He was strange and beautiful and my Master, and pride swept me as he took my fingers and raised them to his hennaed mouth. “Thu, you are the loveliest woman in Pi-Ramses,” he whispered, drawing me into the company, and it was then that I realized how silent the room had become. Six pairs of eyes were fixed on me, male eyes, appraising and curious. I lifted my chin and gazed back as haughtily as I could. Hui surreptitiously pressed my hand. “The Lady Thu,” he announced quietly. “My assistant and friend. Thu, these men are also my friends, with the exception of General Paiis, my brother, of whom you have perhaps already heard.”

He was uncurling from behind his small dining table, a tall, ridiculously handsome man with black eyes and a full, sardonic mouth. He was wearing a long yellow dress kilt instead of a red one but I recognized him immediately. It was all I could do, not to start forward and blurt out, “It’s you! Did you ever succumb to the drunken princess’s lust?” He bowed to me, grinning slowly.

“It is a pleasure to meet you at last,” he drawled. “Hui has told me a great deal about the excessively beautiful and impossibly clever young woman he has kept sequestered in his house. He has guarded you so jealously that I despaired of ever setting eyes on you. But …” He held up a playfully mocking finger, “the wait has been worthwhile. Let me introduce you to yet another General, my comrade in arms, General Banemus. He commands Pharaoh’s Bowmen in Cush.”

Banemus was tall also, with the tight physique of the serving soldier. His movements, as he rose and bowed, were abrupt and assured, but his eyes, under a mop of curly brown hair anchored with a purple ribbon, were kind. A raised red scar cut across the corner of his mouth and he fingered it absently from time to time. It looked fresh. “There is not much commanding to do in Cush at the moment,” he retorted, smiling. “The south is quiet and my men do nothing but patrol endlessly, gamble recklessly, and quarrel sporadically. It is to the east that Pharaoh looks with wary gaze.”

“He would do better to gaze within his own land,” another man broke in sharply, coming forward. He bowed to me shortly, officiously, his glance sweeping me noncommittally from head to toe. He reminded me of a pigeon. “Forgive me, Thu,” he said. “I am Mersura, Chancellor to the Mighty Bull and one of his advisers. When we here present get together we cannot resist the heated discussions that arise from the preoccupations of our several professions. I am happy to meet you.” He strutted back to his cushions and I felt Hui’s arm go around my shoulders.

“This is your table, between Paiis and myself,” he said gently, guiding me to it. He snapped his fingers and a young slave appeared, placing wine and a bouquet of flowers in my hands. “Before you sit, some final introductions.” The last three men were hovering behind him and I turned to them expectantly. “This is Paibekamun, High Steward to the Living Horus; Panauk, Royal Scribe of the Harem; and Pentu, Scribe of the Double House of Life.” They made their silent greeting and I returned it, murmuring my delight at their acquaintance. They murmured back politely, and while I settled myself behind my table, laid the flowers beside me on the floor, took a sip of wine, they watched me intently. The High Steward in particular had a dark, brooding air about him that was more than the awesome dignity of his exalted position at court. His regard was steady and completely cool. At first I endured it meekly, cowed by the impressive company into which I had been so summarily thrust, but before long I became annoyed.

“Do I have a blemish on my nose, Lords of Egypt?” I enquired brightly, and the tension in the room broke up. Paiis grunted his laughter. Hui chortled. Paibekamun the High Steward bowed again to me, this time with a little more respect.

“Your pardon, Thu,” he said with an icy smile. “I do not often succumb to such rudeness. Let us say that your beauty is somewhat startling. The palace is full of the loveliest women in the country but you are very unusual.”

“Oh yes!” I replied as he retired to his table. “Do let us say that, Lord Paibekamun! And let me say in my turn that I am honoured to be allowed to dine in such illustrious company.” I lifted my cup and drank to them and they toasted me back. Hui signalled, and at the end of the room his musicians began to play. Servants carrying steaming, laden trays poured through a door and began to serve us. Paiis leaned close to me.

“It wasn’t just flattery you know, Thu,” he assured me. “You really are exquisite. How do you come by your blue eyes?”

While my plate was heaped with delicacies and my cup refilled, I told him of my father’s roots in Libu, then I asked him about his family. He spoke readily enough about Kawit, his and Hui’s sister, and of his parents and forebears who had peopled the Delta for many hentis, but soon he brought the conversation around to me again, inviting me to talk about myself which I did with some hesitancy, aware of Hui eating quietly so close to me. I expected a rebuke from him but there was none.

The conversation sometimes flowed around me but more often was focused in my direction and I began to sense that I was being gently but expertly drained of information about myself. I was the polite centre of attention. I was the curiosity, the butterfly set free from its prison, and the experience was sweet. The food was wonderful, the wine heady, and the music wove with the warm virile voices, the darting men’s eyes, the sheen of sweat on their arms and in the hollows of their throats that formed as the night deepened. I found myself joking and laughing with them, my temporary shyness gone.

Only Hui was quiet. He ate and drank desultorily, gave his orders absently, then sat back on his cushions and watched his guests. He did not speak to me once and I was anxious lest I had somehow offended him, but that anxiety was thrust away by my enjoyment. I had arrived. Arrived where, was a question I did not then ask myself. I was the Lady Thu, at ease among Egypt’s greatest. It was a feast I would never forget.

Towards dawn the musicians retired and one by one the men rose amid a welter of soiled dishes and empty wine jugs, picking their way unsteadily through the wilted flowers and broken pastries to the door leading into the great reception hall and the porticoed entrance beyond. Hui took my hand and led me out with them. A scentless, warm wind met us, lifting the braids from my tired shoulders and pressing my crumpled linen against my thighs. The litters were waiting. Harshira stood in the shadows, ready to assist anyone too drunk to help himself. They took their farewells of me with wine-induced fondness, their voices loud in the blessedly cool air, and got into their litters and disappeared across the courtyard. But General Paiis lifted my fingers to his lips and then kissed me lightly on both cheeks. “Sleep well, little princess,” he murmured in my ear. “You are a rare and exotic bloom and it has been a delight to get to know you.” He swung away, springing into his litter and giving his bearers a curt command. He waved as the gloom swallowed him up and I thought deliriously— princess. He called me little princess and I am standing here in the same spot where he rejected that other princess, and I am the happiest woman alive.

Hui drew me back into the house, towards the familiar peace of his office. Once the door was closed behind us he invited me to sit but he perched on the desk, one long thigh crossed over the other, his legs the colour of milk under the still spotless, silvered kilt. I looked up into the red, kohl-rimmed eyes and as I did so he leaned down and lifted the heavy wig from my head, pulling out Disenk’s pins and then pushing his fingers tenderly through my hair. “You are flushed,” he remarked. “Are you tired now, Thu? Did the evening exhaust you? What is your opinion of my friends?” His touch was both soothing and arousing. Troubled, I bit my lip and looked away and instantly his hands returned to his lap.

“Your brother is charming,” I replied. “I am not surprised that the princess wanted to sleep with him. I heard an exchange between him and a royal lady from my window one night a long time ago.” Hui blinked in surprise and then laughed hoarsely.

“Paiis has a way with women. And do you want to sleep with him?”

“No!” I said aloud, laughing back, but thought giddily to myself, it is not the General who makes my breath come faster, it is you, Hui. I want to sleep with you. I want you to hold me in your arms, kiss me with those hennaed lips, I want your red, red eyes aflame with desire as they travel my naked body, your white hands sliding over my skin. You are my Master, my teacher, the arbiter of my days. I wish that you were my lover also. I shuddered.

“Good!” Hui retorted. “I think he would like to play with you for a while because you are a novelty, neither pampered noblewoman nor ignorant slave, but you will have the good sense to avoid any sweet traps he may set, won’t you? And what of the others?” I considered carefully. The effects of the wine I had drunk were wearing off, leaving my head heavy and my limbs cold.

“General Banemus is an honest man, I think. If he ever gave his word he would keep it. How did he get that scar?”

“Fighting the Meshwesh at Gautut, by the Great Green, four years ago,” Hui answered indifferently. “He acquitted himself so well that Pharaoh gave him command of the bowmen in the south. Pharaoh is not a man of sound judgement. He should have kept Banemus in the north.”