House of Illusions (4 page)

As I ran up the ramp and onto the deck of the craft, my kit and blanket under one arm and the offending box under the other, my Herald gave a loud guffaw.

“So she has finally found her fool!” he chortled. “Are you going to drop it overboard, young Kamen, or will your principles get the better of you? How did she persuade you to take it? With a quick roll on her doubtless flea-ridden mattress? You are carrying a load of trouble there, mark my words!” I did not reply. I did not even glance at him, and as he shouted the order to raise the ramp and cast off and the boat slid away from the bank into the glittering morning, I realized that I did not like him at all. My soldier had saved bread and beer for me. I sat in the shade of the prow and ate and drank with no appetite while Aswat and its sheltering vegetation slid away behind us and the desert swept around the few fields and isolated palms remaining. The next village was of course not far away, but as I brushed the breadcrumbs from my knees and drained the last of the beer, a weight of loneliness descended on me and I fervently wished this assignment to be over.

2

THE REMAINING EIGHT DAYS
of our voyage passed without incident, and on the morning of the ninth day we entered the Delta where the Nile divided into three mighty tributaries. We took its north-eastern arm, the Waters of Ra, which later became the Waters of Avaris and ran through the centre of the greatest city on earth. It was a relief to me to leave the silent aridity of the south behind and breathe the air of the Delta, more humid, heavy with the scents of gardens, alive with the reassuring sounds of human activity. Though the river had not yet begun to rise, there was water everywhere in ponds and placid irrigation canals, dimpling cool between the closely gathered trees, sparkling half-glimpsed in the tall papyrus thickets whose delicate fronds waved to the touch of a gentle breeze. White cranes stalked arrogantly in the shallows. Small craft plied to and fro beneath the dart of piping birds and our helmsman’s gaze never left the river as he carefully negotiated through them.

At the Waters of Avaris the view changed, for here we passed the temple of Bast, the cat goddess, and then the wretched shacks and hovels of the poor who crowded around the huge temple of Set and who filled the air between the temple and the rubble of an ancient town with a frenzy of dust, noise and filth, but soon the scene changed again and we had reached the vast canal that encircled Pi-Ramses, the city of the God. We took the right-hand arm, passing the seemingly endless panorama of warehouses, granaries, storehouses and workshops whose quays ran out into the water like greedy fingers to receive the goods that arrived from every corner of the civilized world and through whose gaping entrances the loaded workmen filed in a constant stream, bearing the wealth that was Egypt on their backs. Behind them I caught a glimpse of the sprawling faience factories. Their Overseer was the father of my betrothed, Takhuru, and I felt a surge of elation at the thought that I would see her again after so many weeks.

Beyond all this confusion was the peace and elegance of the estates of the minor nobles and officials, merchants and foreign traders. Here was my home. Here I would disembark for a few days of leisure before returning to my post on the estate of General Paiis and my labours in the officers’ school while my Herald sailed on through the closely guarded narrows that led at last to the Lake of the Residence. There the water lapped against steps of the purest white marble. The craft drawn up to them were fashioned of the finest Lebanon cedar and ornamented in gold, and the polite silence of extreme wealth cast a dreaming hush over lush gardens and deeply shadowed orchards. Here lived the Viziers and High Priests, Hereditary Nobles and Overseers, my future father-in-law among them. Here also a mighty wall surrounded the palace and environs of Ramses the Third.

One could not enter the Lake of the Residence without a pass. My family had access to the private domain, of course, and I had a separate pass enabling me to enter the house of my General and the military school, but today, as the helmsman pulled on the tiller and our craft nosed towards my landing steps, I thought of nothing but a good massage, a flagon of decent wine to complement our cook’s fine dishes and the clean touch of scented linens on my own bed. Impatiently I gathered up my belongings, released my soldier from his duty, took formal leave of the Herald May, and ran down the ramp, my feet touching the familiar coolness of our stone watersteps with delight. I barely heard the ramp being withdrawn and the captain’s command as the boat went on its way. Crossing the paving, I walked through the high metal gates which stood open, called cheerily to the porter who dozed on his stool within the entranceway of his small lodge, and entered the garden.

There was no one about. The trees and shrubs lining the path stirred lazily in whatever small gusts of wind managed to dive over the high wall that enclosed our whole domain, and sunlight spattered through their branches onto the beds of blooms dotted here and there in the haphazard way my mother liked. Striding along, I soon came to the Amun shrine where the family regularly gathered to worship and I turned right, angling towards the house porch through more trees. Between their sturdy trunks I could glimpse the large fish pond away on my left where the garden pressed up against the rear wall of the estate. Its reed-choked verge and stone lip were deserted, the wide green lotus pads dotting its surface were motionless. There would be no flowers on them for several months yet, but dragonflies darted over them, gossamer wings trembling and glittering, and a frog leaped among them with a splash and a quick ripple.

I had almost drowned once in that pond. I was three years old, insatiably curious, never still. Briefly escaping from my nurse who, I admit, was sorely tried, I trotted to the water, my hands eager for fish, flowers and beetles, and tumbled head first through the reeds. I remembered the shock, then the delicious coolness, then the onset of panic as I tried to draw breath from the dark greenness all around me and found I could not. My older sister pulled me out and tossed me onto the lip where I vomited water and then screamed, more in rage than in terror, and the following day my father directed his Steward to find someone to teach me to swim. I smiled as I entered the gloom of the porch and veered right, into the reception area, that memory coming fresh and vivid for a moment. Pausing, I let out a great breath of satisfaction, feeling the discomforts and tensions of the past few weeks flow from me.

To my left the big room was open, broken by four pillars between whose bulk the sunlight streamed. Beyond them the garden continued with its well close by the inside wall separating the house from the servants’ quarters. The fruit orchard was so dense that the main wall running around the whole of my home could not be seen. Far to my right a small door led out to the courtyard where the granaries stood, and across the expanse of white-tiled floor the opposite wall held three doors, all closed. I looked longingly at the one nearest the pillars, for behind it was the bath house, but I crossed in the direction of the third door, my sandals leaving little siftings of grit as I went. I had almost reached it when the middle door opened and my father’s Steward came towards me.

“Kamen!” he exclaimed, smiling broadly. “I thought I heard someone come in. Welcome home!”

“Thank you, Pa-Bast,” I replied. “The house is so quiet. Where is everyone?”

“Your mother and sisters are still in the Fayum. Had you forgotten? But your father is at work as usual. Do you return to the General at once or shall I have fresh linen placed on your couch?”

I had indeed forgotten that the females of the family had decamped to our little house on the borders of the Fayum lake to escape the worst heat of Shemu, and would not come back to Pi-Ramses until the end of next month, Paophi, when everyone hoped the river would be rising. I felt momentarily dislocated. “I have two days’ leave,” I answered him, shrugging off my sword belt and handing him my kit together with the sandals I had also slipped off. “Please do have my couch made up, and find Setau. Tell him everything in my kit is filthy, my sword needs cleaning, and the thong on my left sandal is coming unstitched. Have hot water taken to the bath house.” He continued to stand there smiling, his eyes on the box under my arm, and all at once I became painfully aware of it weighing against my side. “Take this to my room,” I said hurriedly. “I picked it up on my journey and have no idea what to do with it.” He took it awkwardly, his other hand loaded with my belongings.

“It is heavy,” he commented, “and what strange knots have been used to tie it closed!” I knew that the remark was not an inquisitive one. Pa-Bast was a good Steward and minded his own business. “A message has come from the Lady Takhuru,” he went on in a different vein. “She asks you to visit her as soon as you have returned. Akhebset came here yesterday. He wants you to know that tonight the junior officers will be celebrating in the beer house of the Golden Scorpion on the Street of Basket Sellers and if you are home by then he begs that you join them.”

I grinned ruefully at Pa-Bast. “A dilemma.”

“Yes indeed. But you could pay your respects to the Lady Takhuru after the evening meal and go on to the Golden Scorpion later.”

“I could. What is our cook offering tonight?”

“I do not know but I can ask.”

I sighed. “Never mind. He could serve stewed mice on chopped grass and it would be more toothsome than a soldier’s fare. Don’t forget the hot water. At once.” He nodded and turned away and I took the few steps to the third door and knocked sharply.

“Enter!” my father’s voice commanded and I did so, closing the door behind me as he rose from behind his desk and came around it, arms outstretched. “Kamen! Welcome home! The southern sun has burned you to the colour of cinnamon, my son! How was your journey? Kaha, I think we have done enough for now, thank you.” My father’s scribe rose from his position on the floor, gave me a quick but very warm smile, and went out, his palette in one hand and his pen and scroll in the other. Indicating that I should take the chair facing the desk, my father regained his own and beamed across at me.

His office was dim and always pleasantly cool as the only light came from a row of small clerestory windows up near the ceiling. As a child I had often been allowed to sit under his desk with my toys while he conducted his business and I had been fascinated by the squares of pure white light they cast on the opposite wall, light that gradually elongated as the morning progressed and slid down the jumbled shelves until those uniform but fluid shapes began to creep towards me across the floor. Sometimes Kaha would be sitting crosslegged in their path, his palette across his knees and his reed pen busy as my father dictated, and the light would slither up his back and seep into his tight black wig. Then I knew I was safe and could return to my wooden goose and the little cart with real wheels that turned and in which I loaded my collection of pretty stones, brightly painted clay scarabs and my great pride, a little horse with flared nostrils and wild eyes and a tail of real horsehair protruding from its rump. But if Kaha chose to take up his position slightly closer to my father’s chair, then my toys would be forgotten and I would watch, tranced with something akin to fear, as the healthy bright squares slowly became distorted rectangles that oozed down the shelves and began to seek me out with blind purpose. They never quite reached me before my mother called me for the noon meal and, of course, I realized as I grew older that it would have been impossible for them to do so once the sun stood over the house. Later I spent my mornings at school, not under my father’s desk, but even as a man full grown, sixteen years old and an officer of the King, I could not laugh at that childish fear.

Today it was an early afternoon light that diffused gently through the room, and I sat and regarded my father in its soft glow. His hands and face were heavily lined and toughened with years of travelling the caravan routes in blazing heat, but the runnels of his face had set in their own routes of humour and warmth and the blotching and coarseness of his hands only served to accentuate their strength. He was an honest man, bluff and straightforward, a masterful bargainer in the hard market-place of medicinal herbs and exotica but fair in his dealings and he had made a fortune doing what he loved. He spoke several languages including that of the Ha-nebu and the peculiar tongue of the Sabaeans and insisted that the men who led his caravans, though citizens of Egypt, shared a common nationality with those with whom he traded. Like the priests he belonged to no class and so was accepted into all circles of society, but he was in fact a minor noble, a distinction he did not particularly value, as, he said, he did not earn the title. Yet he was ambitious for me and proud of the convoluted negotiations that had netted the daughter of a great noble for my future wife. Now he sat back, running a beringed hand over his bald scalp to where the last of his grey hair clung in a semicircle between his large ears, and raised a pair of bushy eyebrows at me.

“Well?” he prompted. “What did you think of Nubia? Not too different from the trek into Sabaea we took together, is it? Sand and flies and plenty of heat. Did you get along well with your Royal Herald?” He laughed. “I see by your face you did not. And all for an officer’s pay. At least the army is teaching you to keep your temper, Kamen, which is a good thing. One rude word to His Majesty’s servant and you would be out on your ear.” He sounded regretful and I grinned openly at him.