House of Illusions (44 page)

I had loved two men and lusted after a third. One had denied the depth of his feeling for me so that he could use me. One had loved me for my virgin beauty and then tossed me away. And the Prince? Last night I had ended any possibility of being possessed by that tall, muscular body and I did not care. It was true. I did not care. My words to Ramses had been sincere. Today I was as old as he, as spent as he. I no longer wanted power, over men or the kingdom. I simply wanted to see justice done and then retire to some quiet backwater, far from both Pi-Ramses and Aswat, and live in seclusion with Kamen and Takhuru. Last night Ramses and I had healed the wounds long open in both of us and I felt, right to the heart of my ka, the change in me. It was as though I had been flooded with colour when grey was all I had known.

I went to the bath house for cleansing and massage, but afterwards I did not bother to send for the cosmetician. I ate and then wandered about the courtyard talking to the other women. Rumours of the arrests were circulating, causing ripples of excitement and speculation, but I did not speak of my part in the affair. I had no desire to satisfy the curiosity in the eyes that both welcomed and followed me.

Late in the afternoon a Royal Herald bowed before me and held out a thin scroll. Thinking it was a message from Kamen I broke the seal without examining the wax and discovered a few lines of hieratic script written, astoundingly, in the King’s own hand. “Dear sister,” I read. “I have instructed Amunnakht to deliver to you whatever pretty things you wish to own and I have commanded the Keeper of the Royal Archives to find and destroy the document rescinding your title. When you choose to leave the harem, my Treasurer will give you five deben of silver so that you may buy land or whatever else you choose. Perhaps a small estate in the Fayum will be available. Be happy.” It was signed simply “Ramses.”

I nodded my thanks to the Herald and entered my cell, a lump in my throat. So I was the Lady Thu again. I could henna the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet. I could hunt ducks in the marshes with the throwing stick if I liked. Five deben of silver would feed me for the rest of my life or … I tried to swallow away the lump that had become as big as a egg and threatened to force more tears. Or it would purchase a house and land, a place where I could grow vegetables and keep a cow and have a steward and labourers of my own.

Twice Ramses had mentioned the Fayum. So he remembered the estate he had deeded to me, teasing me and calling me his little peasant. We had visited it together. The land had been neglected, the house dilapidated, but he had allowed me to sleep within its empty womb for one night and when we returned to the palace I had set about hiring men to transform it. How I had loved it! The fields would nurture me, I had believed. We would own each other and it would reward my care with luxuriant crops and the safety and security of something that would not rust or fade or be lost.

But it had been taken away from me after my disgrace. Everything I had thought was mine had been snatched away and given to others. Who owned it now? I did not know. But Pharaoh had remembered how much his gift had meant to me, how although I had worn fine linen of the twelfth grade and gone about hung with gold, my heart was the heart of a peasant to whom land was a living thing, and he had moved now, quickly, before he was unable to make any more decrees, before … I sat for a long time, the papyrus cradled in my lap, and stared unseeingly at the far wall of my cell.

Another week went by before the trial began, and in that time Amunnakht took me into the huge, heavily guarded harem storehouses, opened an empty chest, and told me to fill it with whatever linens and jewellery I liked. I took not only sheaths, rings, necklets, anklets, earrings and arm and headbands but precious oils and fresh natron too. I found a cosmetic table with a hinged lid and stacked it with pots of kohl and henna. In a small room devoted entirely to medicines I took a box and put in it a mortar and pestle before selecting such an array of herbs and salves as I had not seen since I worked for Hui. “Am I being greedy?” I asked a patient Amunnakht, my eyes on the crowded shelves, one of the royal physicians standing by anxiously. I did not feel greedy. I felt quite calm and detached. I was collecting a future, and Ramses would know this.

“No, my Lady,” the Keeper replied, “but even if you were, it would not matter. The King wishes it.” He had addressed me by my title. Its restoration must be common knowledge then. Lifting down a small sack, I opened the drawstring and found myself looking at layers of dried kat leaves. I laid them on top of my other acquisitions.

But the discovery that gave me real pleasure was a scribe’s palette complete with several unworn brushes of various thicknesses, a stack of papyrus, a sturdy scraper to smooth the sheets and pots of ink. Clutching these things to my now rather dusty breast, I smiled at Amunnakht. “Tie up the chest and seal it and store it for me,” I requested. “I will have to send for it when Kamen and I are settled somewhere. But I will take the scribe’s tools back to my cell with me. I want to write to the King.” He bowed without speaking and I left him then, stepping out into the heat of the day and walking quickly towards my courtyard. I had written nothing in my own hand since I had finished the story of my life in far away Aswat and I longed to feel the familiar shape of a brush in my hand and the palette across my knees. I would honour these things by pouring out my gratitude to the King.

I was warned the day before the trial began, and so I was ready when the two soldiers came in the early morning to escort me into the palace. Now, arrayed in blue linen and gold, my hands and feet were proudly hennaed and I wore rings at last, for my fingers had grown thin and soft again with Isis’s daily care.

We left the harem by the main gate and began to pace along the paved way that joined the wider avenue running to the imposing pillars that marked the public entrance to the palace, and all at once I realized that the lawns between the watersteps and the towering outer wall of the royal precincts were crowded with people. A murmur went up when I appeared, and the front line surged forward. Immediately more soldiers came running to surround me, roughly pushing through the press. I went on steadily, head high, while ripples of excitement shook the throng. I heard my name several times. “Captain, how do they know?” I asked the man at my elbow. He shrugged.

“The General Paiis is popular in the city and his arrest could not be hidden. The rest is rumour and speculation. They have come because they smell blood. They are not sure whose.” At that moment a voice called, “Mother!” and I had time for a brief glimpse of Kamen’s strained face before I was enveloped in his embrace. I held him tightly while his escort and mine struggled against the swell of bodies around us. He set me away smiling, but I thought he looked unwell. His eyes were bloodshot and darkly circled in spite of the kohl enhancing them. “The last time I saw you, you were barefoot and dressed in nothing but a coarse kilt,” he said. “I hardly recognize you now. You are truly beautiful.”

“Thank you, Kamen,” I said. “But you do not seem well.”

“No,” he responded shortly. “The waiting has been hard.”

“We must move, my Lady,” the Captain cut in urgently. “I do not wish to order violence to be done to these people.” Kamen raised his eyebrows at me.

“My Lady?” he queried. I nodded.

“I have made my peace with your father,” I said, “and he has given me back my title.” Behind him stood his adoptive father and Nesiamun and I greeted them briefly as together Kamen and I turned towards the pillars.

“Takhuru has offered prayers for our vindication every day since you and I parted,” Kamen told me. “She sends her blessings today.” For some reason this news annoyed me.

“That was kind of her,” I said more sharply than I had intended, and he put an arm about my shoulders and laughed.

“I am flattered by your jealousy,” he chuckled.

There were more soldiers fronting the pillars, swords drawn and spears extended. As we drew near them and they parted cautiously to let us through, I said, “Kamen, would you like to know the name that was chosen for you by the palace astrologers when you were born?” He glanced down at me, startled.

“Gods!” he breathed. “That is something I have never considered, but of course I was named before I was taken from you. Why now, Mother?” We had passed the protecting guard and entered the cool shadows of the pillars. At once the turbulent noise behind us fell to a muted mutter.

“Because when the Overseer of Protocol calls the names and titles of both the accused and us, the accusers, he will use both your original name and the one you bear now. I did not want you to hear it first from him.” In the pause that followed I could feel him tensing, preparing himself for what I would say.

“Tell me,” he said. I kept my eyes on the broad shoulders of the soldier in front.

“You were named Pentauru.” The tension went out of him and he grunted.

“Excellent scribe,” he said. “It is a peculiar choice for the son of Pharaoh, and not at all suitable for the soldier that I am. I do not like it. I will remain Kamen.”

We had come to a halt before the doors to the Throne Room. Usually they were kept open to accommodate the constant flow of ministers, petitioners and delegations, but today the Captain strode up and banged on them with one gloved fist. Evidently the trial was to be held here. They were pulled open, and with our escort now ranged behind us, we passed through. I do not like it either, I thought as the slap of our sandals echoed in the sudden vastness. I never liked it. Kamen is right to want to keep a name that honours the man who raised him and loves him, but I wish that Ramses had asked to see him, even though he is merely one royal bastard among dozens. How will this court treat him? With the deference that should be accorded to a halfbrother of the Heir? An Under Steward was leading us to seats placed along the right-hand wall and Kamen removed his arm from me. We sat in a row, Kamen, Men, Nesiamun and I. Footstools were produced. The soldiers took up their stations behind us.

I watched Kamen’s eyes explore the sheer magnificence of this hall. The cavernous expanse of its floor and the walls as well were tiled in lapis so that one felt that one was deep under dark blue water shot through with golden sparks from the flecks of pyrite caught in the holy stone that only the gods were allowed to wear on their person. Golden bases as tall as I held large alabaster lamps and censers swung from gold chains, filling the air with fragrant bluish smoke. Servants arrayed like gods themselves, their blue-and-white tunics bordered in gold and their sandals jewelled, stood their watches at intervals around the walls, waiting to be summoned.

At the far end of the room, facing the entrance, a dais ran from wall to wall. It held two thrones of gold standing upon lions’ feet, their backs sheets of beaten gold depicting the Aten, its life-giving rays spreading out to embrace the divine spines that would rest against them. One, of course, was the Horus Throne, sacred to Pharaoh. The other was for the Great Royal Wife and Queen, Ast. I noticed that a third chair sat beside them. Here was the heart of Egypt’s power. Here the Holy One came to be worshipped and feted, to receive foreign dignitaries and send forth his decrees, and the soaring dimensions of the place were heavy with an atmosphere of awesome authority. Behind the thrones, to the left, was a small door leading, as I knew, to a modest robing room. I had been that way with Hui on my first visit to the palace when he had brought me into Ramses’ presence. I supposed that I should have to speak of that. I was here, after all, to accuse the Seer. But I did not want to think about it then.

The small door opened and there was a stir as about ten men filed through, crossed the dais, and took their places on chairs on the floor fronting it. I did not recognize any of them. “The judges,” Nesiamun whispered in response to a word from Kamen. “All formidable men but not all impartial I believe. Three of them are of foreign blood. We shall see.” I stared at them openly as they settled themselves, folding their ankle-length kilts about their calves and talking to each other in low voices. Their whispers ran around the hall in sibilant echoes. Most of them looked to be middle-aged or older apart from one, a rather good-looking young man with a keen eye and ready smile.

Their conversation died away. I could see them casting contemplative glances at me. Of course they knew who I was, having already read and heard all the evidence collected, but I could deduce nothing from their cool expressions. I felt a pang of anxiety. Perhaps they had considered the evidence inconclusive. Perhaps they had decided that it was impossible for such mighty and influential men as Paiis and Hui to be guilty of treason and I was lying and must now, after seventeen years, see my sentence fully carried out at last. But Ramses had pardoned me. The Prince had thought the evidence against those men strong enough to convene a trial. I was being foolish, allowing my surroundings and a few solemn-faced men to shake my security.

The rear door opened again and this time all the company rose and bowed, arms outstretched, for a Herald had emerged and was calling, “The Horus-in-the-Nest, Commander of the Infantry, Commander in Chief of the Division of Horus, The Prince Ramses, Beloved of Amun,” and behind him the Prince came, resplendent in ceremonial military attire. Flanked by his aides, he strode to the third chair on the dais and seated himself, crossing his legs and gazing down the hall. “Rise and sit,” the Herald concluded, taking his own place on the edge of the dais at Ramses’ feet, and I regained my chair and studied the man for whom my body had burned.

He had been somewhere in his early twenties when I first saw him in his father’s bedchamber and had mistaken him for Pharaoh himself. With his perfect soldier’s body, the grace of his movement, his wonderfully even features dominated by a pair of piercing brown eyes, he had fulfilled my girlish fantasy of everything I believed I would see when I came face to face with Egypt’s god. But he had been merely a prince then, not even the oldest royal son by birth, and in competition for his father’s favour with two of his brothers, also named Ramses. The man Hui had brought me to see, the god in whom the real power resided, had been a bitter disappointment. Rotund, lascivious and seemingly genial, it had been a long time before I saw past Pharaoh’s indifferent body and dismayingly ordinary personality to the dignity and clear-sighted intelligence of a god beneath. Prince Ramses had liked to spend much time alone in the desert, hunting or communing with the Red Land. He had cultivated an image of kindness and impartiality, but I had discovered that this mask hid an ambition as great as my own had been. He was as ready to use me to gain the approval of his father as Hui was to gain Pharaoh’s death, and I had taken the disillusionment very hard.