House of Illusions (8 page)

The whole encounter with my superior had left me filled with an uneasiness that had not abated by the time I reached my own watersteps. Sending Setau for beer, I sat in the garden by the pond, watching its surface gradually fade from blue to an opaque darkness and then become slashed with orange as Ra rolled towards the wide mouth of Nut. I was not sure what distressed me most, the possibility that the woman was not insane after all, the astonishing and oddly threatening suspicion that Paiis knew all about her or the fact that in relinquishing the box I had abandoned any opportunity to learn the truth. The adventure, as far as I was concerned, was over.

Ra sank below the horizon. The lamps in the house behind me were lit. What had been shade above me became shadow all around me. It was not until the aroma of frying fish brought me to my feet that I remembered the appointment I had made with Takhuru. She would be furious. For once I did not care.

IT WAS JUST AFTER my disturbing meeting with the General that the dreams began. At first I ignored them, thinking that they had to do with the tongue lashing I received from Takhuru when I visited her to apologize for forgetting our visit to the woodworker. I had lost my temper with her, grabbed her wrist and shouted, and she had responded by slapping my face, kicking me in the ankle, and stalking away. Once I would have run after her, but this time I too turned on my heel and left her ridiculously crowded garden. After all, I had tendered an apology for nothing more than a lapse of memory, but she had behaved as though I had neglected to appear at the signing of our marriage contract and had accused me of caring for no one but myself. Now it was her turn to grovel. Of course she did no such thing. Takhuru’s blood was noble, her character proud and selfish.

A week went by. The month of Thoth merged into the month of Paophi, hot and endless. The river was close to its highest level for that year. A letter arrived from my mother stating that she was planning to remain on our estate in the Fayum for another month. I dictated a sequence of watches for my men at the General’s house, then took my gear into the barracks and spent the week on the training ground sweating out my irritation with Takhuru. We did not go out onto the desert. I returned home having been grazed with a spear across my shoulder blade. The accidental wound was not serious and soon closed, but as it healed it itched and I could not reach it in order to scratch.

Akhebset and I got noisily drunk and woke one dawn in the bottom of someone’s skiff with a whore between us. There was still no word from my betrothed and none from the General. I had imagined that he would let me know what he had done with the box, but I walked his halls and watched his door without seeing or hearing from him. I was in a peculiar state of mind, restless and agitated. My sleep became fitful, and then I started to dream.

I was lying on my back outside, staring up into a clear blue sky. The feeling was one of utter contentment and for a long time I remained motionless, full of a wholly satisfying and unreflective comfort. But presently I sensed movement and the sky was blocked out by a huge shape coming steadily closer. I was not afraid, merely diverted. As it came into focus I recognized it as a hand, the hennaed palm curled around the stem of a pink lotus bloom. Then it slipped out of focus again and I felt the flower tickle my nose. Vainly I tried to grasp it, flailing arms that were suddenly clumsy and unresponsive, and I woke with my arms above my head, the scab on my shoulder throbbing and my sheets wet with sweat. My room was dark, the house full of night silence. I sat up trembling, consumed by a terrible fear that was completely at variance with the pleasant details of the dream, and had to force myself to reach for the cup of water on the table beside my couch. My fingers were like sticks, barely obeying me. I drank and gradually became calm. Saying a prayer to Wepwawet, I settled to sleep, and the remainder of the night was uneventful.

It took me several hours the next morning to shake off the effects of the dream and by evening I had almost forgotten it, but that night it came again, identical in every way, and again I woke to darkness and fear. The third night it was repeated, and I began to sleep with fresh oil in my lamp so that I would see the friendly sanity of my own four walls when I opened my eyes with my heart skipping and my limbs weak.

On the seventh night the dream became more complex. There were rings on the orange-painted fingers and a whiff of perfume that mingled with the scent of the lotus as it brushed against my nose. The smell added a sense of desperation to the terror and I fought to make my fingers do my bidding, but try as I might I could not grab the petals. I woke gasping for breath, ran to my window, and tearing aside the rush matting covering it, I leaned out, sucking up the mild night air. Out there the moon was setting, tangled in black treetops. Directly below me the grain bins that huddled against the wall of the house cast fat shadows across the peaceful courtyard and then there was the surface of the Nile’s tributary, moving silently as it flowed towards the Great Green. Going back into my room, I gathered up my pillow and sheets and stepped out the window onto the roof, but lying looking up at the stars was too much like the dream and I soon returned to my couch. This time I could not sleep again. Curled in on myself I waited out the dark hours until the grey light that preceded Ra’s rising began to seep into my room. Drowsiness came with it and I tumbled at last into a deep slumber. I was late taking my watch that morning.

I decided to try drinking myself into such a stupor each night that no dream could penetrate the fug of wine fumes in my head. Instead of water, the cup beside my couch held Best Wine of the Western River that I quaffed without appreciation, but all I accomplished was a sore throat and a pounding head to add to the effects of the dream. I thought perhaps exercise might render me so exhausted that though I dreamed I would not wake up or even remember what was in the vision but it did no good. My fellow guards commented on my haggard looks, and I began to wake and stumble through my days in a daze of tiredness. I knew I should mend the rift that had appeared between Takhuru and myself, knew I should take her a gift and tell her I loved her, but she remained silent and I could not summon the energy to take any initiative in her direction.

On the fourteenth night, halfway through the month of Paophi, there was another change. It was as though the dream was the work of a magic artist who first sketched a bare outline and then proceeded to add not only many grades of colour and subtleties of definition but odours and finally sounds, for on that night, as the lotus caressed my face and I made my vain attempts to capture it, a voice began to croon. “Little one, darling one,” it half-sang, half-chanted. “Pretty, pretty little boy, sweetness of my heart,” and in the dream I smiled. The voice was female, young and lilting, slightly husky. It did not belong to my mother or my sisters or Takhuru, yet it sent waves of shock through me. I knew it, knew it in the blind marrow of my bones, and I woke with sobs aching in my chest.

Throwing on a linen shift, I went unsteadily along the hallway and knocked on my father’s bedroom door. After a moment a slit of light appeared under it. I waited. Finally he opened, his face puffy with sleep but his eyes as always clear and alert. “Gods, Kamen,” he said. “You look terrible. Come in.” He motioned me inside and followed me, closing the door. I sank into one of the comfortable chairs that flanked his window. He took the other, crossed his naked legs, and waited for me to speak. I forced myself to breathe deeply against the already easing constriction in my chest. Gradually my body became still. My father jerked his head at the half-empty cup of wine that stood on the small table between us. He had obviously been reading before he retired, for a scroll lay beside the goblet, but I shuddered and shook my head. “I should think not,” he said drily. “You’ve drunk half my stock in the last couple of weeks. What’s wrong? Is Takhuru being difficult?” I shifted in the chair.

“Tell me about my mother,” I said. His eyebrows shot up, then he understood.

“Your mother is dead,” he answered. “You know that, Kamen. She died giving birth to you.”

“I know. But what was she like? I’ve seldom thought about her. When I was a child, I imagined her as rich, young, beautiful, always laughing—the fantasies one would expect. What is the truth, Father? Did you know her well?”

He looked at me for a long time, the remaining band of his grey hair sticking out in tufts, the rumpled linen of his short sleeping kilt lying bunched above the bony protrusions of his knees, the fold of his old stomach hanging over it, and I loved him so much at that moment. Then he reached for the cup himself and took a deliberate sip. His eyes over its rim did not leave my own.

“I did not know her at all,” he replied. “The messenger who delivered you to this house simply told us that she had died in childbirth and your father was likewise dead, in the King’s service.”

“But surely the man did not just turn up out of nowhere and drop me into your arms! There must have been enquiries from you regarding the possibility of adopting an orphan, negotiations, an agreement! You must know something about my origins!” He glanced into his cup, sighed, set it back on the table, and folded his arms.

“Why are you asking me these things now, Kamen? You haven’t cared much about them before.”

Quickly, awkwardly, I told him about the dreams, and as I spoke they came back to me in all their strange mixture of pleasure and horror, so that by the time I had finished, the tightness in my chest was back and it was hard to draw breath. “I think I may be dreaming of myself as a baby,” I finished thickly, “and the hand that descends is my mother’s. But it is a hennaed hand, Father, covered in expensive rings. Was my mother a noblewoman? Or is the dream mixing fact and wishful fantasy?”

“You are an astute young man,” my father said slowly. “I never met your real mother but I knew a little about her by reputation. She was indeed young and beautiful and very rich when she gave birth to you. She was not a noblewoman.”

“What was she then? Was she from a merchant family like this one? Do I have grandparents, here in Pi-Ramses perhaps? Do I have other sisters or perhaps a brother? How could she be an officer’s wife and be very rich?”

“No!” my father broke in emphatically. “Put that idea right out of your head, Kamen. You have no brothers or sisters, and as for grandparents, we were not told of any other family you might have.”

“But rich. You said so yourself.” The pain in my chest was growing so that I wanted to press my fist to it. “Was my father wealthy? What of his family? Surely the army archives will hold records of my father’s lineage and service!” My father’s lips tightened. Colour began to creep up his neck.

“No. I have checked the records myself. There is nothing. I have told you all I know, my son. I beg you, be content with that.” He had called me “my son” deliberately but I could not let it go.

“Nothing in the records? Not even his name? What was his name?” And why had I never asked that question before, or any of the other questions crowding into my mind? Had I been tranced for sixteen years? My father leaned forward and placed a hand firmly on my thigh. His skin was very hot.

“Kamen,” he said loudly, “understand and believe this. I know nothing about your natural father except that he was a military officer, even though I anticipated this conversation some years ago and did my best to discover who he was. I have just told you everything possible about your mother. I love you. Shesira, my wife, loves you. Mutemheb and Tamit, my daughters, your sisters, love you. You are handsome and healthy and lack for nothing. You are betrothed to noble blood. Be content. Please.” He sat back and his hand went to his head, smoothing down the wiry grey disorder of his hair in a familiar gesture of what I knew to be discomfiture. “As for the dreams, they will pass. You are of an age that signals the beginnings of mature reflection and that is all. Now go back to bed. Wake Setau and take a massage to help you sleep.” He rose and I stood with him. He embraced me, holding me tightly, kissed me on both cheeks, and led me to the door. “Light incense for Wepwawet,” he told me as I slipped out. “He has always been your guide.”

Yes he has, I thought as I made my way back to my own room. He is my link with my true past, and he is not only a God of War but also the Opener of the Ways. I wish that he would speak to me. Perhaps he is speaking to you, another part of my mind responded. Perhaps he has sent the dreams in order to impart some urgent knowledge.

But another, more sinister thought occurred to me and I paused, my hand on the latch of my door. My mother’s spirit has come to me. It needs something. It has ceased to rest. It will torment me until I understand. Where is her tomb? My father’s tomb? Gods, what is happening to me? I turned from my door, ran down the stairs, and roused my servant. Under his capable hands my body relaxed and the stabbing in my chest went away, but it took me a long time to fall asleep.

For the one glorious night following I rested completely. It was as though talking with my father had leached some of the dream’s potency, and I woke refreshed and eager to begin my duties. The scab on my shoulder came loose, leaving no more than a thin red scar. I was invited by Akhebset’s family to a boating party to celebrate the good height of the annual flood and I accepted happily. Outside in the garden, as I headed for the General’s house, the gardeners were sorting the new seeds to be planted, and all Egypt seemed to be in festivity, matching my mood. But that night the dream returned like some recurring fever, and dawn found me on my knees before Wepwawet, incense cups in my hands and prayers of desperation on my lips. I muddled through my watch like a man drugged with poppy, then returned home, bathed, changed my linen, and set off to see Takhuru.

I was admitted to her entrance hall and left to wait for so long that I was about to leave, but in the end a servant bade me follow him to her private quarters. I was past feeling any annoyance at her for this petty revenge, and when I was announced and she rose from her cosmetic table, I put my arms around her and held her tightly. She resisted, her body stiffening, but then she melted against me and her hands crept up my naked back. She had been painting for the evening but her hair had not yet been braided. It foamed around her head and I pushed my face into it, smelling its cleanliness and the hint of cinnamon that always clung to her.