The 22 Letters (9 page)

“What's an offering?” Beth asked.

Her aunt told her not to ask silly questions, everybody knew what an offering was.

Resh turned to her aunt. “Perhaps you'll tell us what it is then!” he said.

“Well, dear, it's—it's a thing the priests do,” said Aunt vaguely.

“If it was a thing the priests did, would it worry me?” demanded Resh. “It's a thing everyone in Gebal, has to do. Every man jack of us.”

One of the cousins clicked her tongue. “Oh dear,” she said, “you'll have to tell me what to do.”

“I don't mean
women
,” said Resh quite rudely. “I've no shortage of
them
.”

“Yes, Father,” said Beth sweetly. “Aren't you lucky to have us all to look after you?” Aunt and cousins looked at her with alarm, but she went on, “What do the men have to do, then.”

“It's a counting, you might say, as much as an offering,” her father said. He was usually prepared to explain things to Beth, though she did not always listen. “All the men of Gebal have to come before the King, to be numbered, and of course they have to give him something to show what sort of men they are. In this way the King knows how powerful his kingdom is.”

“He gets some nice presents, too,” said Beth, but her aunt told her not to be frivolous.

“But why should you be worried about a thing like that, Father?” Beth persisted. “You're quite rich, aren't you? And you're clever at carving and things. You could make something nice for him, I'm sure.”

“I think the King knows what I'm worth to him. It's not that.” Resh brooded in silence for a while, then burst out, “But how am I going to look as a family man, with no sons at my side? There'll be my own foreman with seven sons—and me, what have I got to show?”

“You have three fine sons, dear,” said Aunt soothingly.

“But where are they?” cried Resh, banging the table with his fist. “What can I say to the King? ‘One's gone off hunting in the desert, one's flirting with the women of Knossos, and another's simple in the head and got himself lost in the woods'?”

“Oh, Father, that isn't fair,” said Beth, and flushed. “I'm sure Zayin and Nun and Aleph would come back if they knew you wanted them.” But her father went on muttering: why couldn't he have a family that stayed at home and supported him. Beth could see that he was really worried.

“Oh, Father,” she sighed, “I wish I was some use instead.”

At that her father looked hard at her, then hid his face in his hands and said in a muffled voice he hoped it would not come to that. It was not in fact a very happy meal.

The summer days passed in Gebal and still there was no news of the sons of Resh. The search party had returned after combing the mountains and forests and finding nothing. The days and nights became hotter and stickier and more breathless. Whenever she could, Beth got up on to the city wall to catch what air there was. She envied the people who lived outside the walls, though most of them were poor, or foreign. Her father said that not long ago even good Giblite families could live outside the walls and feel safe, but these were troubled times and it was better to be inside. From the walls, Beth could see the ragged boys splashing in the harbor. How cool it must be for them, she thought. When she had been small, she had run about with the children who lived near the port. She was not allowed to do that any more—whether it was because her father was richer and more important or because she was older and more of a woman, she wasn't sure. But what
was
there for her to do?

One morning of oppressive heat she found herself putting on her old shabby dress again and tying her hair with a cloth. She had not really thought what she was going to do, and she had not even the excuse for going to the palace that she had had the last time. But she had got to the point when she had to get out of the house on her own again. She told the slave girl that she was going to carry the master's dinner to the palace, and the girl was quite happy not to have to make the journey in the heat.

The guards seemed more vigilant than last time when she approached the palace yard. A soldier in armor lowered his spear and pointed it at her, and asked what her business was in a stern voice. She did as she had done before, standing with lowered eyes and muttering: “Dinner for Resh, the overseer.”

But the sentinel merely replied, “No one allowed in,” and stood there. Beth flushed with anger at such obstructiveness.

“Is my fa—is my master to go without his food?” she burst out.

The soldier merely looked at her curiously, said it was not his business and she had better move along.

Beth turned away and stood in the shade on the other side of the open space by the palace, holding the dinner bowl and not knowing what to do. She felt like crying with frustration. Then she saw another soldier marching up to the one she had just spoken to. The guard was changing. She heard the first say to the second something like “Same orders,” and the soldier marched away. Beth looked at the relief guard. It was the handsome young man who had let her in before. She waited until the first soldier was out of sight, then she went slowly up to the other. She did not bother to wipe the tears of frustration out of her eyes, but looked up at the soldier.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” she said. She knew he was not a sergeant.

“Hullo, girl,” said the soldier.

“I am the servant of Resh, the overseer.”

“He knows how to pick them, then. What's your name?”

Quickly she thought for a name. “Aina,” she said. “I am a slave, a captive. But I was not a slave in my own country.”

“You don't look like one,” said the soldier gallantly.

“I must see my master,” said Beth.

“Impossible,” said the soldier. “No one's allowed in. Special orders.”

Beth was going to ask “Why?” but decided against arguing. Instead she turned away sorrowfully. “They will beat me if I don't carry out my errand,” she said.

The soldier looked uncomfortable. “They flog me, too, if I disobey orders.”

Beth turned back quickly. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Would they? Then I must go away. It is better for me to be beaten than you.”

The young soldier had been made to appear less than heroic. “I'm not afraid what they'll do to me,” he said. “Look, maybe there's no harm in you just nipping in and out again. I'll take the responsibility,” he added proudly.

Beth gave him a look of gratitude and admiration. “Oh, thank you, Captain,” she said. “You
are
kind,” and leaving him a smile, she darted past before he could change his mind.
That
worked, too, she thought to herself, pleased with the success of her wiles, though what her father would have said …!

Things in the palace yard seemed quieter than they had been last time. The gangs of laborers were not there. The great stone had been set up on end and there was a handful of men working on it, perched on wooden scaffolding. Beth crept closer to see what they were doing. There was no clanging of heavy stone-mason's tools now, only a tapping and tinkling of little hammers and fine chisels. The men who were working were not muscular slaves but priestly looking men with intent faces. On one surface of the stone an elderly man was working with a pen and black ink. On the other sides, men were following the outlines he had made, cutting them into the stone. Beth stared, fascinated: there were birds and bees and beetles, snakes and fishes, little men walking and kneeling, and other signs which meant nothing to her, all neatly arranged in lines and columns. How she wished she could join them, and pass the time usefully drawing little creatures! But she knew that was impossible: this was the sacred writing of the priests, the secret of kings and gods. Aleph might learn it some day, if he was still alive. But she never could.

The men went on working without speaking or looking up. But as she stood there one of them dropped his mallet, almost at her feet. Without thinking, she picked it up and handed it back. The man muttered a word of thanks, then gave her a look of outraged astonishment. He had not expected to see a girl there, Beth thought. She glided away as quickly as she could without attracting any more attention.

She could not see her father anywhere; indeed, the whole place seemed strangely deserted. The paved court, too, looked as if it had been swept and tidied for some important occasion. And what was that great square object, standing half in the shadow of the wall, half in the dazzling noonday sun, wrapped and swathed in heavy cloth?

Beth heard measured footsteps approaching round a corner. Suddenly afraid, she ran and hid behind the swaddled Thing that stood against the wall, pulling a loose corner of the cloth round her. She heard voices coming nearer.

“And what,” said one voice, that seemed to be weary and strong, gentle and cruel at the same time, “is That?”

“That?” came another, rather pompous voice. “That, your Most Sublime Majesty, is a Stone. Wrapped up, as you see, to—ah, to protect it from the Weather.”

“Hmm!” came the first voice. “How thoughtful of somebody!” And the footsteps passed on, but Beth, stifling as she was in the stuffy cloth, had frozen in terror. “Sublime Majesty” were the words she had heard. It must be the King!

So that was why the palace yard was swept and deserted: King Abishram was making one of his rare tours of inspection. Beth summoned up the courage to peep from her cloth round the corner of the mysterious block. The procession of priests, soldiers, counselors and courtiers was passing on into the front court where the stone with the inscription stood. Perhaps that was what the King was going to see. Beth looked again at the back view of a figure at the rear of the procession, which seemed familiar. It was her father! Father walking with the King!—or at least in the same procession. Well, she couldn't go up to him now and offer him his dinner. But her fear of being discovered was overcome by a great curiosity as to what was going on.

She gave the King's retinue time to pass clear of the great doorway that led into the next court. Then, still carrying the dish, she stole to the doorway and peeped round. The King was standing before the stone of inscriptions, the scribes were kneeling in the dust before him, and the High Priest was holding forth.

“Your Divine Majesty will of course be able to read for Himself the inscription His servants are raising to His perpetual memory,” the priest was saying. “But,” he went on hastily, “His humble servants will not expect His Majesty to perform such a menial task as reading for Himself. His Divinity will perhaps permit His servants to expound the text for Him.”

I wonder if the King
can
read, thought Beth to herself. As the voice of the High Priest started intoning, she strained her eyes to follow the procession of little signs that marched across the face of the pillar, and almost persuaded herself that she was reading them line by line. The slim, pointed obelisk became a poem instead of a decorated stone. The words went like this:

I

ABISHRAM

KING OF GEBAL

FAVORED OF THE

GODS, OF THE LADY

BALATA-GEBAL, OF

RESHEF, GOD OF

BATTLE, OF ISIS, OSIRIS,

AND RA: I, ABISHRAM OF

GEBAL, COMMANDER OF

MANY ARMIES, COMMANDER

OF MANY NAVIES, EQUAL TO

PHARAOH HIMSELF, ARMED TEN

THOUSAND MEN, SENT THEM

TO THE NORTH TO SUBDUE THE

BARBARIANS. I BUILT A THOUSAND

SHIPS, I CUT TEN THOUSAND

CEDARS AND SENT THEM TO MINOS

IN EXCHANGE FOR MUCH GOLD.

I, ABISHRAM OF GEBAL, CUT MY

DWELLING OF DEATH IN THE LIVING

ROCK OF GEBAL SO THAT I MAY ABIDE

FOR EVER WITH MY PEOPLE AND MY CITY.

I, ABISHRAM OF GEBAL, COMMANDED A NUMBERING

OF MY PEOPLE AND MY WEALTH …

The voice of the High Priest broke off. “The work, is, of course, unfinished,” he said. “Does it please Your Divine Majesty so far?”

“I feel flattered,” said the King.

“Your Majesty is most gracious,” said the High Priest, bowing. “When the Offering and the Numbering is complete, we shall inscribe the details on the pillar. Though, of course, if Your Majesty wishes, and as it is well known all over the world that Your Majesty is Lord of a thousand thousands, we may put that number in immediately, if Your Majesty wishes?”

“No,” said the King shortly. “Count first, then inscribe.”

The King turned abruptly to go. Beth, suddenly panic-stricken, dodged back toward the pillars of the great door. But at that moment the dish, which she had rested on a projection of the stonework, fell with a clatter and smashed all over the pavement.

Beth saw the horrified gaze of the High Priest, who had been standing on the plinth of the monument and was the first to see her. Then the King followed the priest's gaze, and Beth saw and felt his piercing black eyes resting on her. And now the whole of the royal retinue had turned and were looking at her. She was too petrified to do anything. Two soldiers darted forward, took Beth by the arms, dragged her toward the King, and threw her in the dust before him.

“And
what
,” came the voice of the King, “is
that
?”

The High Priest looked hard at Beth. “Only a slave, Your Majesty. She shall be put to death for spying.”

“Deal with the matter,” said the King wearily.

Beth was too frightened to speak or look up. Then she heard a voice she knew—her father's, quavering with agitation.

“If it please you, my lord High Priest, the—the creature was not spying. She was bringing me my dinner. She is my—my slave.”

“Your slaves are badly trained, Chief Mason,” said the priest contemptuously. “It will be enough to have her soundly flogged. See to it.”

The two soldiers picked Beth up again, but her father was beside her, kneeling in the dust before the High Priest. “Your Exaltation!” he was pleading. “She is a tender maiden, not accustomed to being beaten, and free born. She is not a slave, she is—she is my daughter!”