Moses (8 page)

It was an awakening feeling of horror and disgust, without logic or social condemnation to support it, and therefore it was no more than an emotional current in the boy—and not a very deep one at that. But it was also part of his growth and part of the effect upon him of the strange and dangerous religion of Aton. His emotional response was fed by other impressions as well. For the first time in his life) he consciously reflected on the fact that few people in Egypt were like the inhabitants of the Great House, tall and full-fleshed and healthy. The Egyptians he saw in the city were smaller and thinner; unperfumed, strong with the odour of body and filth; often toothless, diseased; often skinny, with bloated bellies. The children ran naked like animals in the market—a jungle in which they fought for scraps, for crusts of bread; in which they begged and pleaded and stole.

But not from Moses or his cousins did they beg; they fled his path and covered their faces; and their elders bowed deeply or effaced themselves in one way or another. Where a prince of Egypt walked, a path was clear, and if by some accident one of the peasants touched one of the royal brothers, he would fling himself down and plead for forgiveness.

At first Moses enjoyed this, but he was unable to be habitually disdainful, as his cousins were. Very well for his mother, in her impassioned speech, to tell him to bear himself like a god; the notion sat poorly with him and in time the obeisance of the market place came to bore and even to irritate him. Then he went there only to buy. But buying was a great pleasure. Manhood called for something more than a boy's loincloth; and one of his first purchases was a dozen pleated linen kilts—the garment sacred to Egyptian nobility. Sandals followed, and then his fancy was caught by golden collars, with bracelet and belt to match. He bought a headband with a sphinx as a frontlet and a ring set with rubies.

In regard to his mother, he learned for the first time how to purchase release from guilt. He bought her bouquets of the brightest flowers he could find, red and black and yellow poppies, Kushite
nogus
which were like huge white orchids, roses, and the magnificent lilies, pink and pale yellow, that were cultivated in the morass of the Delta. He selected the choicest fruit for her—the magnificent melons for which Lower Egypt was justly famous; sweet grapes; pomegranates, picked fresh on the plains of Sharon and brought at all speed in the Philistine galleys; apricots and luscious plums; and for sweets, he sought out the best golden wine molasses from Canaan and the honey that the bees made from the flower gardens of Crete.

She had little enough appetite, and each time he brought her a gift, wine or fruit or flowers or a golden necklace, she scolded him petulantly and hinted that he was simply trying to make her forget all she heard about his carrying on with the sluts of the Great House.

True enough, the attitude of his royal cousins who were female changed a good deal with his accolade of manhood. Now he was legitimate prey in a practical sense, and the single son of the God-King's sister was no small match. But, more than that, Moses was an extraordinarily striking young man, and at the age of fourteen stood almost six feet in height—lean and hard. If, when judged alone, his bony face was hardly handsome, he nevertheless presented a strange and interesting contrast to his cousins.

He had no inner drive for the conquest of women and no uncertainties about their liking for him. The sight of a lovely girl, her breasts round and firm above her transparent skirt, her lips and nipples rouged, pleased him, without any great excitement. He felt that someday he would see one who pleased him so that he would not be able to pass his days without her; but there was more than enough time for this.

[10]

THERE WERE PARTS of the Great House where he had not been for years, and his exploration or re-exploration of odd corners was in good part an attempt to find again the golden, dreamy days of childhood, already so far in the past—as it seemed to him. One day, he stepped into a room, the door to which stood wide open, and which was open to the Nile on the opposite side. As the walls were coated with white lime, the room was filled with light. What had caught Moses' eye was a line of wooden cubbyholes on one of the side walls, each opening containing a toll of papyrus; and as he entered the room, he saw against the opposite wall a large slanting desk of cedar, if desk it was, the lower and outer edge of its surface about four feet high, and then slanting back and upward to the wall.

A man stood at this desk, leaning over a large sheet of papyrus that was tacked on to the cedar, and working slowly and carefully with a copper quill that he frequently dipped into an inkpot suspended from the cedar surface. Also hooked on to the edge of the board were an assortment of devices strange to Moses, rules and graded curves and triangles and T-squares, all of copper. It was the first time that Moses had ever seen a work easel.

He had been there no more than a moment when the man, without turning from his work, said, “I imagine you are in the wrong place, Prince of Egypt.”

“Oh?” Did the man have eyes in the back of his head? “How do you know that I am a prince of Egypt?”

“Who else enters unbidden and stays?” he answered caustically.

“I'm sorry,” Moses hastened to say. “I didn't know you were working and that I would disturb you. I didn't know anyone was here. The door was open and I saw the rolls of papyrus.”

Still without turning, the man snorted, “By all that is holy or unholy, what kind of a prince is this who answers politely and with deference when he is scolded? Only because I consider my talent fairly valuable do I take the liberty of insulting the divine young blood around this place, but you are the first not to threaten to have me quartered and thrown to the crocodiles—a favourite means of execution among your brothers. Who are you? What is your name, Prince of Egypt?”

Tiptoeing closer, so that he might better see what the man did, Moses answered, “My name is Moses.”

“What Moses? Or do you have only half a name?”

“Only half a name, I'm afraid. I'm the son of the Princess Enekhas-Amon.”

“Oh yes, of course—the prince with half a name. The mystery prince of the Great House. Let me have a look at you, boy.” He carefully placed his pen in a holder and turned to Moses, revealing the lean and thoughtful countenance of a man of forty or so, grey-haired, and with a pair of dark, small eyes that seemed permanently narrowed in detached amusement. Yet he was obviously surprised to see the tall young man who stood facing him, observed him with interest, and finally smiled.

“Yes, for half a name, you hold your own. You don't look like half a man, Prince of Egypt. May I call you Moses? You don't seem as prone to vanity or anger as your brothers.”

“Call me Moses, yes, and I must explain that they are not my brothers. The God Ramses is not my father, and I am the only child of the divine Enekhas-Amon.”

The man nodded with appreciation at this.

“And who are you, sir?” Moses asked.

“No one very much, and of no station, low in birth and of common blood. My only good fortune is to have a trade and a skill. I am chief engineer in construction, at the bidding of the God Ramses and responsible to him alone. I am also very good at my work, if I may say so, and since of all the gods who ever sat on the Pharaoh Throne since Egypt lives, the God Ramses is most passionately fond of building—and knows more about it than most engineers, I may add—he endures me and my work. That is why I can take liberties. I have a caustic tongue and a nasty dislike for empty vanity, even when exhibited by those of divine birth. So long as the God Ramses desires another building or road or tomb, this will be tolerated. When or if he grows tired of this particular avocation, I will have my throat cut. Until then, I shall mind my own business and keep out of palace politics and say what I please. My name, Moses, is Neph, a plain, common name that poor people bestow on their children when their children are many and when poverty has dried their sense of poetry.

“I was one of eleven children—and now I am the only one alive. None of the others lived past a thirtieth year, and my father and mother laid themselves down and died when the great banker, Seti-Kaph, who held their land in mortgage, took it because they had a bad harvest and could not make payment. I don't know why I am telling you this, except that I seem to like you, and knowing a little about you, I suppose I pity you. My own fortune came when my mother's brother, who had become one of these new priests of the new era, succumbed to her pleading and had me apprenticed to one of the engineers engaged in building this Great House. For five years I cleaned his tools, scrubbed him, flattered him, and crawled on my belly before him. Yet, before this house was finished, I was drawing and changing plans. This very room was part of my design with the dream that I might work here some day. But since I remain a man who lives by his work as well as his wits, I must go back to it now, having told you the story of my life—and having failed, as I see, to shock you or drive you away.”

“I would like to stay for a while, if you will permit me?”

“It is not mine to permit. You are the prince.”

“Only with your permission, Neph, will I stay. I would like to watch you as you work.”

“Very well. But I would appreciate it if you did not speak to me. I don't like to talk when I work.”

Moses nodded, and the engineer returned to his drawing. From behind his back and at enough distance to be sure that he would not disturb him, Moses watched him with increasing fascination. He had never seen anything like the pen the engineer used. It had a slit down the side to the point, and each time Neph withdrew it from the ink, he wiped it clean with a piece of chamois, leaving ink only in the slit, which he kept upward as he used the pen. It left a clean, thin line on the papyrus, and mostly he used it with one or another of the guide instruments.

Equally interesting was Neph's numerical notation. Mathematics had not been the strongest part of Moses' education, and beyond the use of several types of abacus (an instrument common to all Egyptian calculation) the use of the royal cubit as a pace measure, and the notation of numbers through simple brush strokes, he had almost no mathematical knowledge. He noticed that Neph did not refer to his abacus, which hung from the wall, but used as a basic system a method of numbering Moses had never seen before—and one which puzzled him until he realized that it was numbering. It was based on a rectangle, each side counting as one, the completed square as four, crossed as five, and crossed from the opposite direction as ten. This was as far as Moses could follow it, although it extended into further and more complex forms. He was aching to ask about it, but kept his lips closed and tight. In the same way, he tried to guess how distance was measured. He knew the cubit sign for stride, foot, hand and finger, but only the sign for stride was used by Neph—that being subdivided and multiplied with numbers.

While Moses had been led into grappling with abstractions, through the teaching of Amon-Teph, his life had been such that he had never before encountered an abstract of distance, space and elevation. His involvement here became so intent that when Neph finally turned to look at him, Moses was at first unconscious of his scrutiny; and the engineer sat there, staring in his own amazement at a prince of Egypt lost in the contemplation of a building plan. He said, not unkindly,

“Well, Moses, sir, what do you see in my plans that engrosses you?”

“I don't know,” the boy answered slowly, but so intensely and with his brows knit in so puzzled a frown that the engineer was able to comprehend his inner excitement, his amazement and his bewilderment—and was also moved to wonder whether this strange prince met every new aspect of life with the same intense interest. Neph, in spite of a long-standing distaste for the royal children who thronged the palace, found his own curiosity pricked; in a fashion his heart went out to the prince, and be found himself regretting that this was not some simple peasant lad of low blood whom he could befriend and perhaps apprentice to his trade. Another part of his mind warned him to stay clear of the gods' relatives, to mind his own business, and certainly not to get involved with the son of Enekhas-Amon.

“Do you know what I'm doing here?” he asked Moses, his voice sharp enough to make him regret his caution. Certainly there was no harm in treating the prince as decently as he would treat any other human being; and, more gently this time, he said, “I mean this,” pointing to the papyrus. “Do you know what it is?”

“I think so,” Moses nodded. “No—I'm not sure. I've never seen anything like it before. I thought first that it was some kind of a drawing of a house, but if it is, why do the walls lie flat around the open floor, and why is the roof off by itself?”

“Such is education in the royal school,” Neph shrugged. “What do they teach you—that we build houses by throwing the stones in at random? Do you know that everywhere in the world Egypt is known as the land of the stones—because we have built in stone as no others have? Do you think we build at play? For every house, every tomb, every plaza, every temple—yes, for every monument or statue of fountain or pool, for the stone benches for the idle to dally on or the wharves where the ships tie up or the warehouses where they store their cargo—for all of it and for each part of it, there must be a plan like this one, a plan drawn to careful scale, with every measurement of the utmost precision. Only when the plan is complete to the last tiny detail can we calculate how much material and how many workers we will require—and then actually get to the building, which also requires the plan for every step of construction. As to why it is all open and flat—I am not one of your palace decorators, titillating the eyes of nobles. I must see all of the building at once. When it stands complete, then the roof and the walls will be where they belong.”