House of Illusions (18 page)

Her words were generous, but to toss her into the maelstrom of the city without so much as a pair of sandals for her feet was unthinkable. I could not hide her in my house as one of our servants. Pa-Bast’s sharp eye would spot her eventually. Perhaps Takhuru would shelter her. Nesiamun’s estate was vast, much larger than ours, and employed many more people both inside and out.

But could I hide her at all? What of my captain, the sailors, the cook and his assistant? Would they at some time, in some beer house, innocently let slip the knowledge that I had told them the mercenary had stayed on in Aswat with further business on the General’s orders? Such gossip would come to Paiis’s ears eventually. All I could do was pray that it came to him after the woman had found her way into the palace.

She was sitting with her head now resting on the knuckles that were digging into her temple. She seemed calm enough, and I supposed that nearly seventeen years in Aswat must have taught her the kind of patient fatalism I had yet to learn. If she was aware of my scrutiny, she gave no sign. I studied the pleasant curve of her jaw, the uncompromising slope of her small nose, the tiny lines that radiated from the corners of her eyes. She had pushed her unruly hair behind one ear, revealing a slender neck burned almost black by the sun, and all at once I could see her as she must have been with kohl encircling those exotic blue eyes, with red henna on her mouth and her hair soft and gleaming, surmounted by a circlet of jewels. As though she had read my thoughts, she repeated suddenly without turning round, “I was beautiful once.”

“You still are,” I replied, a lump in my throat. “You still are.”

6

IT WAS MIDDAY
when I tied the woman’s hands behind her and led her down the ramp and onto the busy quay of Pi-Ramses’ warehouse district. We had made good time. The return journey had taken eight days, and I congratulated my sailors and gave them three days’ leave. I had let it be known that I was to be met in the city’s central district by an escort from the prison. There were always soldiers at the quays, waiting to conduct precious cargo to the temples or the palace. Some of them could be presumed to be waiting for me. Dismissing my men and telling them to return the boat to the military pier for inspection before I had it returned to the General, I led the woman into the shadow of one of the warehouses, slipped the rope from her wrists, and together we merged with the crowds. She had raised the hood on her cloak, and attracted no attention.

The day was pleasantly warm. The month of Athyr was about to give way to Khoiak and the worst of the summer heat was over. It would be a long, dusty walk to Takhuru’s gate, but try as I might, I had not been able to think of any other way to reach it without suspicion. I pushed through the usual noisy city chaos of braying donkeys, creaking carts and shrieking stallkeepers with the woman behind me, my mind on the problems ahead. Would Takhuru be at home?

How could I take the woman past Nesiamun’s gateguard? How much time did I have before Paiis received word that my sailors had returned and I still lived?

The throngs became less dense as we moved away from the warehouses and into the district of the markets. People clustered about the goods on display, and we were able to walk more quickly. Trees began to appear, under whose grassless shade the old men crouched in their dirty loincloths, gesticulating and croaking to one another as the city foamed around them. Occasionally I glanced back but she was always just behind me, her bare feet covered now in white dust, her cloak brushing her ankles. We wove our way through a group of worshippers clustered about a small Hathor shrine, and a whiff of incense smoke stung my nostrils briefly before we were past it. The Feast of Hathor on the first day of Khoiak was fast approaching and all Egypt would be celebrating the Goddess of Love and Beauty.

I thought of my women as I strode along. Takhuru, lovely and wilful, with her fit, pampered young body. My mother, Shesira, always exquisitely dressed, always wearing some expensive necklet or bracelets or rings my father had lavished on her. My sisters, Mutemheb and Tamit, with their pale skin untainted by too much exposure to the sun, their delicate linens and fragrant hair oils and pots of precious perfumes. Behind me trudged a pair of coarse, splayed feet, a body kept wiry not by the indulgence of exercise but the necessity of hard work, a face touched all too often by the withering fingers of Ra. Yet I had not lied when I told her that she was still beautiful. Her glittering blue eyes held a wealth of knowledge and experience completely foreign to the women of my social acquaintance. Hers was an attraction without artifice. Arrayed in all the splendid accoutre-ments of the royal harem, she must have been an irresistible prize indeed.

I left her sitting under a tree with her feet in the water just out of sight of the guards at the entrance to the Lake of the Residence, and meeting their challenge I passed the familiar row of imposing gates and marble watersteps. The Seer’s pylon cast no shadow in the mid-afternoon light but as I walked by I caught a glimpse of movement just beyond it and called a greeting to the old gateward. He did not respond. Smiling to myself in spite of the anxiety that filled me, I went on.

Nesiamun’s porter welcomed me effusively and assured me that Takhuru was at home. I threaded my way through the abundance of garden statuary and entered the house, sending a passing servant to tell her that I was in the entrance hall.

I had resigned myself to a long wait. I was used to waiting for Takhuru. She was almost always late and never offered an excuse for her tardiness in the lofty and unreflective presumption, I thought, that she was the centre of the world. But I had paced the hall and was about to seat myself in one of the fragile cedar chairs scattered about when she came running from the rear of the house. When she saw me she halted. I stared at her in amazement, for she had flung a loose tunic over limbs that gleamed with oil. Her face was unpainted and her hair had been piled haphazardly on top of her head. I had never before been allowed to see her in such disarray. “Kamen!” she blurted. “Did I keep you waiting? I’m sorry. I’ve been taking a massage. Forgive my appearance. I did not expect you so soon …” Her voice trailed away. Her glance did not hold the mild disapproval I usually saw if I dared to present myself to her in less than spotless condition. My kilt was stained and wrinkled and the dust of the city clung to my legs and had sifted into my hair, but she seemed not to notice. She continued to stand there, one bare foot over the other, chewing her lip. After a puzzled moment I went to her, took her hot hand, and kissed her gently on the cheek.

“I have missed you, Takhuru,” I said dutifully. “Are you quite well? You seem flustered.”

“Well?” she repeated. “Oh yes, Kamen, thank you, I am very well. But I must talk to you at once. I have something very important to show you. It has been hard, waiting nearly three weeks for you to return. Come up to my room.” I felt a rush of indulgent affection for her. She was looking up at me with flushed face and bright, expectant eyes, yet the tension in her fingers and her awkward stance betrayed an anxious desire of some sort.

“I will,” I said. “But first I must talk to you. Something has happened, Takhuru, something rather terrible. Can I trust you?” She withdrew her hand.

“Of course.”

“This is not some frivolous secret you can gossip about with your friends,” I warned her. “You must swear to keep it to yourself. Hathor’s feast day is coming. Swear by Hathor!” She took one step away. “I so swear,” she faltered. “Kamen, you are frightening me.”

“I’m sorry. Come into the garden where we will not be overheard.”

She followed me into the glare of the afternoon without argument, and her silence, more than anything else, convinced me that something had deeply disturbed her, for otherwise she would not risk leaving the house undressed and unpainted for fear she might be seen. I led her into the privacy of the shrubbery, and pulling her down onto the grass I told her everything. I knew that I was taking an enormous chance, but if I could not trust Takhuru as my betrothed, what reason would I have to trust her as my wife? Paiis was a frequent visitor to her house. He and her father were old acquaintances. And Paiis was the Seer’s brother.

As I spoke, relating the woman’s story and then the dreadful events of the past weeks, it came to me like the unfolding of a piece of embroidered linen that the Seer must have known what Paiis had planned. Perhaps the instigation of Thu’s destruction had even come from him. I had read the manuscript. Hui was a cold, ruthless man who had used a young girl and then abandoned her to the blind finality of a royal judgement. Would killing her now mean anything more to him than brushing away a bothersome fly? Particularly if the machinations of his past, so long forgotten, were in danger of at last being revealed? I had read and believed the story, damning and utterly convincing as it was. If it had fallen into the King’s hands, might his reaction not have been the same? Supposing Paiis had opened the box, read it, and recognizing its power to persuade had passed it to the Seer, and together they had decided first that Thu must die and second that I must die also just in case I too had found it credible?

Takhuru watched me intently. She did not interrupt. Her eyes moved from mine to my mouth and back again and she sat completely still. At last I fell silent, and after a while, during which she was obviously deep in thought, she touched my knee. “You believe all this, Kamen?” It was the woman’s oft-repeated question. I nodded.

“Yes, I do. I have now staked my career and perhaps my very life on its veracity.”

“Then I believe it too. And she is outside, by the river? This peasant woman? What do you want me to do with her?” I did not miss the note of mild disdain as well as apprehension in her voice. I could not blame her for either.

“There are many servants in your employ, Takhuru. Tell your Steward that she followed you in the market-place, begging for a position, and you could not refuse her plight. Put her in the servants’ quarters but be sure that any work you give her keeps her well out of sight. Perhaps she could tend the gardens.” Takhuru wrinkled her nose.

“Why can’t you take her to your house, Kamen, and let her tend your garden?”

“Because,” I pointed out gently, “we have far fewer servants than Nesiamun, and Pa-Bast would simply turn her out or pass her on to another household. Please do this for me, Takhuru.” My begging did not sweeten her. Instead she spoke sharply.

“For you, Kamen, or for her? Or for both? Is she beautiful? After all, you were on the river with her for days and days.” I sighed inwardly. Oh women!

“My dearest Takhuru,” I said. “You have heard me well. I know you have. She was beautiful once, the beloved of the King, but that was seventeen years ago. Now she is nothing more than a woman desperate for our help. She needs us. And will you try to think of some way she can slip into the palace?” At that Takhuru brightened.

“If she was once a concubine, she must know the palace well,” she said. “I will ponder this problem with her. Actually, Kamen, I have never seen a concubine and I am most interested.” She leaned forward earnestly. “I do understand the gravity, and the strangeness, of it all,” she insisted. “I will treat none of it lightly. But, Kamen, my news for you is even more momentous. Will you hear it now?” I got up.

“No,” I said brusquely. “Not now. Get me a servant’s armband for her, Takhuru, so that she can pass the guards. She has been waiting for a long time and must be hungry and thirsty. I will go and fetch her.” Takhuru made as if to speak again. Her mouth opened, then closed in a firm line and she scrambled up and walked away. Before long she was back with a thin copper bracelet dangling from her fingers.

“I told the Steward that I had hired a new servant,” she said, handing me the band. “Bring her to my room, Kamen, and then I simply must talk to you.” That expression of eagerness coupled with hesitancy flitted across her face again before she turned towards the house. I made my way quickly through the garden and out the gate.

The woman was asleep under her cloak in the shade of one of the sycamores, both hands pillowing her brown cheek, her hair spread over the grass. I watched her briefly, noting the way her long black lashes fluttered as she dreamed, then I squatted and touched her shoulder. She came awake at once, eyes opening to fix me with their straight blue stare. I gave her the armband. “I have spoken with Takhuru,” I said. “I told her everything. She has agreed to take you into her employ and keep your secrets.”

“You trust her.” It was a statement, not a question, and I nodded.

“I don’t know what tasks you will be set,” I offered, with a vague and irrational feeling that I should apologize to her for suggesting that she work at all, and once again she seemed to divine my thoughts. She smiled, pushing the armband over her knuckles and shaking it onto her wrist.

“I am used to hard labour,” she said matter-of-factly. “I do not care what kind of work I am ordered to do. All I ask is that your betrothed allow me time to swim every day and if possible keep me away from all guests and visitors.”