Seer of Egypt (25 page)

“He sleeps,” the servant whispered. “I stay with him all night, Great Seer.”

Huy nodded and left, closing the door quietly behind him and starting along the dim corridor. He was reluctant to rejoin the carousing going on below, but he knew that somewhere in the throng Ramose would be looking for him, although he had been unable to spot the High Priest among the densely packed bodies.

The noise hit him as he plunged into the reception hall. Servants were removing the tables. Many more people were dancing now, wine cups in their hands. Huy saw Anuket among them, one shoulder strap of her sheath hanging down her back, her wig slightly askew, her cheek smeared with kohl. She spotted him as he came forward and began to hurry towards him, but a familiar form blocked his view of her and Huy found himself enfolded in a crushing embrace. The High Priest’s smile filled his carefully painted face.

“Huy! I’ve been watching you up there with Nakht’s family. How well, how lordly, you look, my erstwhile pupil! I hear wonderful things about you. Do you remember how I caught you by the sacred Ished Tree? You were, what—five? You received a beating, and no one knew then how intertwined your fate would be with the Tree and the Book. Will you come to the temple before you go back to your estate so that we can catch up on all the news? It’s rather difficult to do tonight.”

Huy laughed. He felt genuinely glad to see Ramose, although when he left the priest’s care he had been desperate to escape the awe and near-veneration of the denizens of Ra’s domain. “Thothmes is eager to walk down that particular lane of memory with me,” Huy responded. “If I can tear him away from Ishat, we’ll certainly visit you, and the school.”

“Good.” Ramose looked about. “Henenu is here somewhere and is eager for a word or two with you. I think I shall summon my litter, pay my respects to the Noble Thothmes and his beautiful new wife, and return to my cell before the proceedings here become truly wild.” Embracing Huy again, he strode towards the dais, bowed, then bent forward to hear something Thothmes was saying to him.

Huy edged away from where Anuket was swaying. He wanted to find Henenu the Rekhet. He did not expect her to be drunk and dancing, but he threaded his way through the unruly mass of bodies anyway, his nostrils assailed by myriad different perfumes blending with human sweat and the rank odour of crushed blooms. Several young men loomed in his way, faces he recognized as fellow students, who embraced him and exchanged a few careless words before melting back into the press. There was no sign of the Rekhet, but just beyond the gyrating celebrants he came across Thothhotep and Paroi, Thothmes’ scribe, deep in conversation, their backs against the wall, forgotten wine cups beside them. At the sight of him they began to scramble up. Huy waved them back down.

“You look lovely tonight, Thothhotep,” he told her, and it was true. Wine and heat had brought a flush of colour to her thin cheeks. Lamplight glinted on the gold earrings he had bought for her. She had rather inexpertly attempted to tie up her hair with a white ribbon. Most of it had sprung free and was trailing about her ears. She had also limned her eyes crudely with kohl, from Ishat, Huy surmised. Even though her touch had been clumsy, the effect was pleasing. With a smile and the first hint of a genuine fondness for her, he saw her palette resting on the floor under the edge of her sheath.

“Thank you, Master.”

“Are you enjoying the evening?”

She returned his smile. “Yes indeed! I am privileged to be here, among so many noble people.”

Leaving them to whatever it was they had been discussing so seriously, Huy made his way to the open door, breathing in the sweet night air that came gusting to meet him. He was about to step past the guards and out into the darkness when a hand fell on his shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going without me, Master?” Anhur said. “It’s a grand night for cutting a Seer’s throat, with all these wine-addled aristocrats staggering about. They’ve begun to take over the rear garden, you know, but I think there’ll be more falling down and sleeping than copulating.”

Huy laughed. “Anhur. I’ve hardly seen you since we arrived.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve been watching you. So has that sister of the Noble Thothmes. I presume you know her well. She’s very beautiful, but the marks of dissipation are on her already. A pity. Now, the other one!” He shook his head in admiration. “The Lady Nasha. So much life bubbling up in her!”

“What have you been doing with yourself apart from watching me?” Huy asked, deliberately steering his soldier’s thoughts away from Nakht’s family. He loved this blunt man, had loved him ever since Anhur had been sent from Ra’s temple here in Iunu to guard him as he read and pondered the scrolls of the Book of Thoth that were kept at Thoth’s temple in Khmun. Amiable yet frank, Anhur had treated Huy like a son to be respected, protected, and occasionally comforted. Huy allowed him more freedom of speech than any of his other servants. The two of them had begun to walk slowly along the vine-hung path to the watersteps.

“Keeping an eye on the Mistress as well,” Anhur replied. “Sharing the news with Seneb and the Governor’s other captains. If you go to the temple while you’re here, please take me with you. The temple guards were my friends when I worked there. I’d like to see them again, if you allow it.”

“Of course.” Huy’s ears had caught a familiar sound, the faint clicking of shells against one another. Peering ahead to where torches flared and guttered to either side of the watersteps, he saw a patch of greyness a short way in under the trees by the path. He pointed. “There’s the Rekhet. I want to talk to her. You can go back into the hall if you like, Anhur. I’m really in no danger here.”

Anhur grunted. “Only from wine-soaked women, I suppose. I won’t mind sitting in the grass for a while, Master. The air’s cool.”

Huy nodded and left him, cutting across the path and into the trees. The Rekhet was on a reed mat, her back against the trunk of a palm, her knees drawn up under her white sheath and both shell-hung arms folded across them. Seeing him come forward, her lined face broke into a smile. The cowries pinned into her grey hair clicked softly.

“Huy! I knew you’d find me tonight. This is a true pleasure. Let me look at you.”

Huy sank onto the sandy grass beside her. “Henenu,” he said after making sure there was no one within earshot. Few people were given the privilege of knowing her name. She was an exorcist and diviner of spirits and demons, who must on no account discover what she was called. A name held great power, and in the mind of a demon that knowledge could be used to destroy her.

She scrutinized him slowly in the faint orange light of the torches filtering through the trees. “You are sad,” she said at last, taking his hand in her warm fingers. “Setting your oldest friend free was an effort of the will that has left you empty. Yet the sacrifice is pleasing to Atum. It has given you a new strength, though you are not yet aware of it. How has it been to see Anuket again?”

The question was put very gently. Huy looked away to where the shadows deepened beyond the reach of the guttering torch flames.
How has it been?
he thought dismally.
It has been as though for years I have drunk directly from the tears of Isis, only to find that they have always been bitter to the taste. It has been like waiting every day for the arrival of a beloved friend who comes at last and drives a dagger into my heart and walks away. It has been a dying.

“You know,” he answered hoarsely, “I hardly recognized her. Nakht called her a poison to any man, but his words did not penetrate my consciousness at the time.”

“She was named under unlucky auspices. Do you remember? Many years ago Anuket used to be a chaste and innocent water goddess. In these days she has become a creature of wild licence, worshipped by those who seek satisfaction in the excesses of the flesh. She and the goddess Bastet have much in common. We cannot escape the twist of destiny our name bestows on us.”

“Nakht was furious,” Huy remembered. “Who told me that? Did she? Did Thothmes? No, it was Ramose. He read the stars and named her. Nakht made him do it over again—the time of her birth, the weight of luck carried by the day, the astrological chart. Ramose did so, but the name did not change. Oh, Henenu! Anuket told me once that she would rather be named Satis, after the goddess who stands at the entrance of the Duat to pour purifying water over each King as he enters the place of the dead. She told me that no totem of the goddess Anuket will ever stand in her bedchamber. And Ramose himself said that he cast her horoscope three times and conjured against the seven Hathors, and tied seven red ribbons about her limbs for seven days to bind any evil bau that might be hovering, but the name had to stand. He and Nakht almost lost their friendship over it. My Anuket was the water goddess, pure and good! What has she to do with the whore goddess of today!” He pulled his hand from Henenu’s grasp and covered his face with both palms, and the gesture served to break the dam behind which his disillusionment had been hiding all evening.

“Store her away in some deep niche of your mind and forget her,” the Rekhet said. “She is a source of great pain to her family, and particularly to her poor long-suffering husband, who is often on the point of divorcing her. But he loves her, I think. She dons coarse linen and spends many evenings in the beer houses of Weset. At home she drinks wine in which lotus petals have been steeped. She is addicted to the elation the brew gives her. So far I do not think that she has dared to stoop to adultery. She is fortunate to be married to a man of patience, but she is becoming an embarrassment to him. After all, he is the son of the Governor of the Uas sepat, of which Weset is the capital.”

“Stop!” Huy came close to jamming a hand across her mouth. “Every one of your words hurts me! My love for her is dead as of tonight, but I desire her again in every memory of my days in Nakht’s house! Can nothing save her?”

Henenu leaned close. “Not you, Huy. Not you. If Nakht had given her to you in marriage as you begged him to do, she would have annihilated your gift and reduced your soul to the level of a grovelling beggar seeking any show of affection from her, no matter how slight. When will you accept your celibacy as a necessary portion of Atum’s gift?”

“Never! I chose to read the Book of Thoth. That was all. I did not choose celibacy, or my inability to get drunk like everyone else. Those things were secretly added to the result of my choosing.”

“True. But see what compensations Atum has provided! The King now takes care of you as Egypt’s most valuable living person, and you will continue to gather fame and riches about you as you heal and predict the future and guide those in authority.” She turned away. “Go home to Hut-herib. Keep examining the Book that resides whole and bright in your mind, until understanding comes to you. Pray. Order your life as simply as you are able. I love you, Huy. Continue to write to me.”

He was dismissed. He kissed her soft, lined cheek and rose. “I love you also, Henenu. Keep the demons away from me.” He thought of asking her for one of her cowrie shells. They were an excellent protection against the malevolence of the unseen world, even those made of clay. Henenu’s were genuine, and fiercely expensive. Instead, he bowed to her in homage to her prescience and retraced his steps to where Anhur was sitting cross-legged in the dimness.

He yawned as Huy came up to him. “I took a look into the hall a while ago,” he said as he hauled himself to his feet. “The Noble Thothmes and Lady Ishat have gone. The Lady Nasha also. The crowd is thinning out, but so far no one is seeking the barges. Will you sleep now, Huy? You seem very tired.”

“I am. Let’s see if we can cross the hall without being accosted.”

At the foot of the stairs, they parted. There had been no sign of Anuket or her husband, to Huy’s relief. He said good night to his captain, mounted the stairs, and entered his own room. Tetiankh was asleep on his pallet by the couch and Huy did not wake him to be washed. Quickly, he threw off his clothes, removed his jewellery, and crawled onto his couch, blowing out the lamp as he did so. Darkness and silence descended.
They are making love, Thothmes and Ishat,
he thought as he turned on his side and closed his eyes.
I must not imagine it. He will make her happy, and that is all that matters. My dearest Ishat, playmate of my childhood, friend of my youth, your destiny is a pleasant one. Unlike Anuket’s.
He groaned.
What shall I say to her tomorrow?
he wondered.
She will hunt for me, I know it.
The image of Anuket hunting him was somehow sinister, and Huy was aware of being glad that sleep was claiming him at last.

He woke, feeling grimy and enervated, when Tetiankh began to raise the reed window hangings. Cool morning air flowed into the room. Sitting up, Huy reached for the fresh water his body servant had placed beside the couch and drank rapidly. “No food, Tetiankh?” he wanted to know.

The man began to gather up Huy’s soiled clothes. “A meal has been set out in the garden for those who were unable to get to their litters or barges last night,” Tetiankh told him. “It’s mostly a selection from the feast, with today’s bread and milk added. If you will go down to the bathhouse, Master, and secure a place, I shall take these to the washerman, put your jewellery away, and join you at once.”

“There’s a queue in the bathhouse?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” He grinned across at Huy. “Sore heads and grass-stained kilts are the least of it. Ptahhotep has had to send for more natron and oil. He miscalculated the number of guests who would be unable to go to their homes. Dismiss me, Master.”

Huy did so, wrapped himself in a sheet from the couch, and cautiously let himself out into the passage. It was empty. Padding barefooted along it, he descended the rear stairs and entered the bathhouse. It was crowded with naked bodies and harried servants but curiously quiet. The bathing slabs were all occupied. The room was pleasantly humid and redolent with the scents of perfumed oils, jasmine, and lilies, Huy decided, inhaling deeply. Ptahhotep and his assistant steward stood in the doorway leading to the interior of the house, ready to answer any demand. Huy glanced towards the garden. Under the shade of the huge sycamores, the benches were all occupied by recumbent figures being shaved or oiled. Huy wondered whether he should grab up some natron and go to the river to wash himself. He was about to approach the salt dishes when someone touched his arm. Turning, he found Anuket’s husband, Amunnefer, smiling at him.