House of Illusions (46 page)

“He has disappeared as well,” Kamen said. “Didn’t you know? I think he and Hui are somewhere safe together.”

“Does Paiis know where they are?” He shrugged.

“Perhaps. But I have the strangest feeling that the Prince knows.” I stared at him in horror and grabbed his arm.

“Gods, Kamen! Has Hui made a secret pact with the Double Crown? Sacrificed Paiis and Paibekamun and Hunro to save himself? Or even …” My fingers tightened around his warm flesh. “Even persuaded the Prince to condemn me also?”

“Now you are being foolish,” he chided me. “Pharaoh has pardoned you. You have served your sentence for your part in the conspiracy. Nothing can harm you now.” I released him and stared out from under the awning at the brilliant early afternoon. I think you are wrong, I said to myself. Hui can, if he chooses. I know this. Paiis is a crude blunderer compared to Hui’s slow, subtle thoughts. Hui has done something. But what?

At Kamen’s urging I choked down a few morsels of the delectable food the palace kitchens had produced for us and then lay back on the cushions, watching the linen roof of the canopy billow in the fitful breeze. Men and Nesiamun were engaged in some discussion involving the export of faience. Their voices and the mundane nature of their conversation were lulling, but I was tense with fear, caught in a formal and ponderous proceeding that must grind to its end and from which I could not escape.

“The Lady Hunro is not as beautiful as you described her in your account of your early days,” Kamen said. He was lying beside me, propped on one elbow, his head resting on his palm. His dark eyes smiled into mine. “I had expected to see a woman slim and willowy as a marsh reed, but there is already an air of old age about her. Has she been ill?”

“Only with disillusionment and regret,” I told him. “The years cannot be kind to a woman whose heart has shrivelled for want of loving.” He looked at me shrewdly.

“Then what strange love has kept you young, O my mother?” he murmured. I had no reply and was saved from having to think of one by the peremptory summons of the Herald. We filed after him back into the Throne Room.

The accused were already in their places. I did not know whether they had been fed or not. The judges were coming in and behind them six servants carrying fans. Taking up their stations, they began to move the air around us, the quivering white ostrich plumes noiseless as they lifted and fell. The Overseer and his scribe paced to the table, the scribe going to the floor and preparing his palette. The soldiers closed the doors and went to stand about the walls. From the back of the dais the Prince came forward, slid into his chair, and acknowledged our reverence absently. His glance went at once to Paiis. His smile held something smug, unpleasant. “Proceed,” he said to the Overseer. The man turned to me.

“Lady Thu,” he said. “Will you now rise and accuse the prisoners on the matter of the first charge.”

I had longed for this moment, longed for it, dreamed of it down all the hard years of my exile. In Wepwawet’s temple, cloth in my hand and painful grit under my bare knees, I had imagined how it would be while I scrubbed at the stone flags. Sometimes in the tiny garden I had managed to scrape out behind my hut, I would pause from my weeding and sit back on my haunches while vivid pictures rolled through my mind: myself creeping into Hui’s bedchamber, knife raised; myself seducing Paiis and then slitting his throat while he slept, satiated beside me; myself with a handful of Hunro’s hair, forcing her to the ground while she screamed and clawed at me.

But after these disturbing scenes, in which, I knew, lay the seeds of madness and a true despair, would come the saner but no less improbable vision of myself standing before Pharaoh and a room full of shadowy people, telling the story of my own seduction and the cold, deliberate plot that had lain behind it. The reality was smaller somehow, less dramatic, but my moment had come. Vindication was at hand. Rising, I bowed to the Prince, lowered my head to the Overseer, and turning towards the judges, I began, “My father was a mercenary …”

I spoke while the afternoon wore away, stopping occasionally to drink the water placed in my hand, pausing when emotion thickened my throat and threatened to undo me. I ceased to see the line of attentive men, the Prince slumped behind them with his eyes fixed on my face, the vague shape of the Overseer to my left. I forgot Kamen, breathing gently beside me. Gradually my words took life, or perhaps my life was lived again through my words, and with them came the images, sharp and clear, infused with fear or joy, uncertainty or surprise, panic or pride. Once more I sat in the desert with Pa-ari and cried out to the gods in my frustration. Once more I stood in the dimness of Hui’s cabin, Nile water dripping from my limbs, my nerve almost failing me. I remembered my first glimpse of Harshira, standing on Hui’s watersteps to bring order out of the chaos of disembarkation after the long voyage from Aswat to Pi-Ramses.

And I told of the darker things, my education at the hands of Kaha and then Hui, all calculated to prepare me for my entrance into the harem, changing my girlish ignorance into a violent prejudice against the King and a disillusionment with government in Egypt that would lead to my attempt on Ramses’ life. I did not spare myself, but neither did I cloak the purposes of the accused who had trained me like a hunting dog to one purpose and who had had no more regard for me than handlers with a valuable living tool.

Only once did I cry. When I described how I obtained the arsenic from Hui, mixed it in the massage oil, and presented it to Hentmira, the girl who had replaced me in Pharaoh’s affections, I could not prevent tears of remorse from spilling over. I did not try to wipe them away. This too was a part of my punishment, this public atoning, the final act to bring healing and wholeness to me. I had known that Hentmira would probably die. I had told myself that her fate was in her own hands, whether she chose to use the oil on Pharaoh or not, an evil argument that now filled me with self-loathing. At the time my hatred and panic had engulfed all else, but over the years of my exile I had come to deeply regret the callousness that had deprived a young woman of any chance to see her own hopes and dreams fulfilled.

I did not tell of my arrest or sentencing. Those things had little to do with the crime. The court knew how everyone from Hui down to his lowest kitchen slave had lied and left me to die alone. Nor did I speak of the Prince’s bargain with me where I should gain a queen’s crown if I kept the Prince’s virtues before his father. That was a private matter. The Prince might even have forgotten all about it. By the time I sat down, trembling and exhausted, I had laid bare the full dimensions of the plot against the throne. My part was over.

Another break was ordered, and as before, we were escorted out into the garden. I was shocked to see that the sun had almost set and the water in the fountain was splashing red. The evening air was cool and sweet with the aroma of unseen flowers. Suddenly I was ravenously hungry, and ate and drank immoderately. It was almost over, all of it. Tomorrow I could begin my life anew.

When we re-entered the throne room, the huge lamps about the walls had been lit and the fanbearers did not return. The judges took their seats looking listless and tired. The accused, too, seemed weary. The day had begun early for everyone. Only the Prince and the Overseer appeared fresh. They conferred briefly before the Overseer strode to his table. He motioned to Kamen. “King’s Son Pentauru, otherwise known as Officer Kamen, will you now rise and accuse the prisoners on the matter of the second charge.”

So Kamen in his turn bowed to the Prince and the Overseer and began his share of our story, his voice ringing out strong and clear. I listened attentively as he spoke of our first meeting when he and his Herald put in at Aswat and he undertook the responsibility of my manuscript not knowing that I was his mother. He did not falter when he described how he had taken it to General Paiis, his superior, and how shortly thereafter he had been commissioned to return to Aswat with orders to arrest me but his suspicions regarding the man accompanying him had grown as he proceeded further south. His words regarding the attempt on our lives and how he had killed the assassin and we had buried him under the floor of my hut were steady.

This is my son, I thought with a rush of wonder and pride. This intelligent, able, upright young man is flesh of my flesh. Who would have thought that the gods would grant me such a gift? I felt gratitude towards Men, sitting on Kamen’s other side with his arms folded and his head down as he also absorbed Kamen’s tale. He had been a good father to my son, and Shesira a worthy mother, raising him with a greater discretion than he would have received if he and I had remained in the harem. Kamen had learned selfreliance, modesty, an interior discipline that even now I myself could not lay claim to, and I knew that if I had been responsible for his rearing, young and selfish as I was, I could not have inculcated those things in him.

If I closed my eyes, I could hear faint echoes of his royal father’s tones as his recitation of the facts drew to a close, and I had already noted, as surely all in the room had noted, the striking physical similarity between the Prince listening on the dais and his earnestly gesticulating half-brother. The blood of a god coursed through Kamen’s veins. If the King had signed a marriage contract with me as I had begged him to do in a frenzy of desperation, the prospect of incarceration in the harem for the rest of my life driving me to the inevitable humiliation I had suffered in the presence of many of his watching ministers, then my son would have been fully royal and entitled to all the riches and deference the Prince enjoyed. He might even have been named the Horus-in-the-Nest, the Heir. Firmly I quashed the thought that had begun to curl inside me like thin smoke. You really are an ungrateful and greedy woman, Thu, I chided myself. Will you ever stop wanting everything?

14

AFTER KAMEN HAD SAT DOWN,
with a smile for me and a low word to his adoptive father, Men himself and Nesiamun rose in their turn and spoke briefly of their involvement. It had been slight and they soon fell silent. When they had finished, there was a general loosening throughout the room. Men yawned and stretched surreptitiously and the judges fell to whispering among themselves. But the moment did not last long. The Overseer called for order. “The evidence has been heard,” he said. “The time for condemnation is at hand. His Highness will speak.” Ramses stirred. He leaned forward, his face blank.

“Stand up, Paiis,” he said. Paiis’s head swivelled in his direction. An expression of puzzlement flitted across his face, a mere twinge of surprise, before he obeyed. The protocol of a court proceeding required that after the evidence was presented the judges, who had been acquainted with it before the case was heard, would rise one by one and immediately give their verdict. It would be left to whatever dignitary was presiding to decide on and pronounce the sentence. Ramses flicked a hand over the line of men beneath him. “Look at them, General,” he commanded. “What do you see?” Paiis cleared his throat. He had taken up a soldier’s stance, legs apart and hands behind his back, but now his fingers were creeping towards his jewel-studded belt.

“I see my judges, Highness,” he replied, his voice husky from disuse. Ramses smiled grimly.

“Do you indeed?” he snapped. “Then how fortunate you are, General. Unhappily I must tell you that your eyes are deceiving you. Shall I clarify your vision? It will give me great pleasure to do so. Or perhaps you would like to assert that I am the one under the influence of a mirage while your sight remains clear. Well?” The room was no longer full of drowsiness. The silence was breathless with anticipation. I looked in complete confusion from the Prince to the judges and then at Paiis. What was happening? Paiis’s fingers were now twined tightly around his belt. He had gone very pale. One blue-painted eyelid twitched briefly.

Suddenly the Prince came to his feet. “Speak, you cur!” he shouted. “Whine and cringe while you explain how you can see ten judges while I can only discern four! Shall I name the phantoms of my mirage or shall you?” Paiis licked his lips. The henna had worn off them as the day had progressed. Now they were a sickly white. The judges were sitting like ten wooden dolls, staring at him stiffly.

“I do not understand, Highness,” Paiis managed. The Prince gave an exclamation of disgust.

“Egypt has poured her blessings into your hands,” he said, “and in return for her trust you have done your best to pervert her heart and render her impotent. Ma’at cannot survive in a country bereft of justice, and justice cannot survive in a country where judges can be corrupted. Or Generals. Do you agree?”

Judges corrupted. “… not all impartial I believe …” Nesiamun had said. My perplexity began to resolve itself. No wonder Paiis had looked so smugly confident. A decision of six against four would have meant that he could leave the court a free man. But how had Prince Ramses known? Paiis was saying nothing. “I wish to add another charge to the two already levied,” Ramses went on. “That during the time of your house arrest you secretly invited to your estate two of the men you knew to have been appointed to judge you. You offered them food and drink. You offered them gold if they would find you innocent following these proceedings. They agreed. You used another judge, one chosen from among the ranks of the army, to extend your invitation. Stand up, Hora.” The young Standard Bearer got to his feet, his expression solemn. Turning, he prostrated himself before Ramses. “You have incurred the extreme displeasure of the God by not reporting the General’s intention before the judges entered his house,” Ramses said harshly. “For that, you are relieved of your position as Standard Bearer and your military commission is revoked. However, you were honourable enough to report the General’s contemptible ploy to the Overseer of Protocol, therefore you will suffer no physical punishment. Leave this room.” Hora came to his feet.