The King's Man (46 page)

Returning to the apartment, he forced himself to eat a small amount of bread and cheese, had Kenofer dress him in the sumptuous kilt, sandals, and jewellery he would have worn to any New Year’s celebration under the King’s gaze, and taking Perti and a small contingent of soldiers he walked across the garden and out through the gate, and turned left to where Ptah’s short canal lay glittering in the morning sunlight. He had declined Paneb’s offer to accompany him and had left his own scribe’s palette behind. “If the scroll is a part of the Book of Thoth, I won’t need the contents written down, thank you, Paneb,” he had said, “and if it isn’t, I have no interest in whatever it might contain.”

He did not open a conversation with Perti, who according to protocol had to wait for his master to speak first, but Perti seemed to sense his preoccupied mood and simply matched his stride as they accompanied the canal and were soon walking through the pylon and into the temple’s vast outer court. Here Huy paused. A flow of white-sheathed young women carrying sistra was emerging from the inner court and hurrying to where an untidy heap of sandals lay. Behind them came the three musicians who had joined the dancers in welcoming the god to the advent of a new day, and a priest stood just within the smaller court and watched them. A flood of chatter had broken out, but as the girls became aware of Huy and his escort it died away. One by one they slipped past Huy with bows and were gone. The priest was already striding towards him with a smile of welcome.

“Mer kat! I received your message and passed it on to our archivist, but there was little time to send a reply, and besides, we are all at your immediate service for as long as you are studying the scroll.” He halted and bowed. “I am Neb-Ra, Second Prophet of Ptah. My father was Second Prophet before me. I was little more than a child, but I remember your illustrious brother the noble Heby on his frequent visits to the temple during his years as Mennofer’s Mayor.” He had begun to shepherd Huy and the soldiers towards the entrance to the inner court. “If you will wait here, I will fetch Archivist Penbui, and also bring the servant I have assigned to see to your needs. Your personal guard is not really necessary—the temple guards are all well-seasoned men. But of course if you want them to attend you outside the House of Life, they will be cared for. No, do not remove your sandals. The doorway you see just this side of the inner court leads to the passage that will take you past the priests’ cells and on to the House of Life. Stand in the shadow—the morning is becoming hot.” With another bow, he disappeared.

Huy turned to Perti. “I don’t think there’s much to fear from the temple’s staff. All the same, I’d like familiar faces outside the House. I may be here all day, or you and I may be straggling back to the palace in a matter of moments.” His stomach gave a sudden lurch, and he could feel his heart throbbing against the soft linen of his shirt.
Very soon
, his mind whispered.
Very soon …

The man who had already performed several deep bows before he came up to Huy was clad in a voluminous white gown. The brown leather sandals on his wide feet had obviously been mended several times. His only piece of jewellery appeared to be a tiny golden ankh earring no larger than the lobe where it rested. His scalp was shaved. Extending both naked arms, he gave Huy a final reverence, and lifted a face seamed with age but dominated by a pair of merry brown eyes.

“Keeper, I think I know you,” Huy said. “Have we met before?”

“No, mer kat, but my brother Khanun was Keeper of the House of Life at Thoth’s temple in Khmun. He spoke of you often when we met. He was pleased to receive your letters.”

“Of course. I became fond of him on the occasions when I was forced to read the portions of the Book stored at Khmun. He was very kind to an unhappy boy. I promised to impart the meaning of the Book to him, but as yet I have not solved the riddle. Is Khanun still alive?”

“Unfortunately not, noble one. If the scroll in my care belongs to the Book, perhaps you will tell me the meaning so that I can include it in my prayers to Khanun.”

They had approached the door, gone through it, and were walking side by side along the open-roofed passage, Perti and the soldiers behind. Suddenly, on a wave of nostalgia, Huy missed his old friend, Khenti-kheti’s priest Methen, and his little cell in the god’s modest precinct at Hut-herib. A grand new temple to Huy’s first totem was rising on the foundations of that original shrine. Huy had personally chosen the architects and stonemasons who were to bring his vision to life, and construction had begun four years ago. It was a tribute to the god’s priest as much as to Khenti-kheti himself, but Methen was dead, and most of Huy’s devotion to the project had died with him.
I need you beside me now
, Huy said silently to the man who had carried him home from the House of the Dead and been his protector and mentor from then on.
You of all people deserve to be the first to receive Thoth’s wisdom. Nothing and no one can replace you
.

“The scroll,” he said abruptly. “You’ve unrolled it, Keeper Penbui?”

“Of course.” A group of acolytes had appeared and were pressing themselves against the rough wall of the passage in order to let Huy and his entourage pass by. They managed to bow, and Huy nodded to them, remembering his days as a boy at Ra’s temple school. “As Chief Archivist I am expert at the handling and restoration of ancient papyrus.”

“So the scroll is indeed ancient? Is it in need of restoration?” The question was vital and in asking it Huy felt his throat go dry. The previous scrolls the Book comprised had been in perfect condition.

Penbui smiled across at him. “The papyrus has darkened with age but is not in the least brittle, mer kat. I was able to unroll it easily.”

A dozen more questions sprang to Huy’s mind.
What of the hieroglyphs? Are they as ancient as the papyrus? Could you decipher any of them? How thick is the scroll?
Instead he said, “Is it proven that Imhotep was once a High Priest of Ptah here in Mennofer?”

“But of course.” Penbui had come to a halt before the closed doors of a long stone building that seemed to stretch all the way back to the high wall sheltering and surrounding the whole precinct of the temple. “We treasure several of his works to do with the use of magic, and a couple of his original plans for his King’s monuments. You didn’t know this?”

“No. Tell me, Keeper, do any of the hieroglyphs on the scroll match Imhotep’s hand?”

“Perhaps,” Penbui replied cautiously. “I am not sure.” He pulled open one of the doors. “Let us go in, noble one. I have prepared a table and chair for you and set out the relic. Do you require the skills of a scribe? I see that you have not brought your own.”

“No, thank you, Keeper.”

Penbui looked at him curiously then stood aside, and Huy entered Ptah’s House of Life.

The smell surrounded him at once, the slightly musty scent emanating from the thousands of books stored in the row upon row of alcoves and mingling with the odour of dust, stone, and ink. Huy paused, inhaling it with pleasure. It spoke to him of the schoolroom, of the slow learning of a scribe’s discipline, of knowledge imbibed and mastery hard-won. The air was still, cool, and quiet. The only illumination came from thin shafts of sunlight slanting down through the clerestory windows a long way above his head. Not far into the great room stood a table which held a plain oil lamp and a bundle that caught at Huy’s breath. Beside it a piece of carpet lay ready for the scribe Huy knew he would not need. A smaller table a step away had been covered with a linen cloth, two jugs, and two clay cups. Penbui had also paused.
As though we are paying homage to something sacred
, Huy thought, his eyes on the larger table where the treasure waited for him.
This moment is the culmination of all my years of struggle with the Book’s mysteries, enduring Anubis’s scoffing and, worst of all, carrying guilt and a sense of my own inadequacy day and night like a load of mud bricks I could not send tumbling to the ground
.

At an unspoken word the two men walked forward and Huy rounded the table to stand looking down on his prize. “The other volumes were encased in soft white leather,” he said, his voice falling flat in the motionless atmosphere.

Penbui shook his head. “No white leather, mer kat, and no wax seal either. Just a cedar box, warped and cracked with age and lack of care. One of our artisans is making a new box for it, but of course if you determine that it is indeed a missing part of the Book of Thoth it must be honoured with a sheath of white bull’s hide. In that case I pray that the One will allow it to remain under Ptah’s protection.”

“I shall urge His Majesty to do so.” Huy drew up the chair and sat, a gesture of dismissal.

Penbui bowed. “The jugs contain water and wine. A servant will be outside the doors to bring you whatever you need.” He hesitated, and in spite of his tension Huy smiled inwardly. He had never met an archivist who did not hover over his charges like a goose with her goslings.

“I promise I will not bring either water or wine over to this desk,” he said, “and if I need to consult some other text you might have here, I will send for you. I have one request: a bowl of water, a dish of natron, and a fresh square of linen so that I may wash my hands should they become sweaty.”

Penbui flushed, then smiled broadly. “My apologies, Master, for being a fussy old man. Your servant will bring the things I have omitted. I was somewhat flustered at the prospect of your presence here.”

Huy smiled back and watched Penbui flit through the half door. It closed quietly.

My dear Keeper, I am probably older than you
, Huy thought as the silence crept around him.
I exist in a limbo of timelessness by virtue of Atum’s desire. Shall I be released now, today, with the meaning of the Book revealed clearly to me at last?
He sat waiting, palms flat on the surface of the table to either side of the scroll, and presently the door opened to admit a laden servant who bowed to Huy and set water, natron, and two linen cloths beside the clay cups with the smooth precision of long practice. Bowing again, he left, and Huy was free to touch his prize at last.

As he held it gently in order to turn it, he was enveloped in a glorious yet slightly sour aroma he recognized at once. His ears filled with the whisper of leaves brushing against each other and he was a youth again, sitting under the branches of the sacred Ished Tree that grew at the centre of Ra’s temple, the first volume of the Book of Thoth lying under his terrified fingers. “Time …” the tangle of moving shadows sighed as his younger self sat with eyes fixed on the far wall, afraid to look down at what lay on the palette resting across his folded knees. “Time …” Huy shook himself, and hooking his fingers carefully under the lip of the papyrus, he drew the scroll open.

He had not seen the delicate, almost painfully beautiful script since he had read what had appeared to be the last volume of the Book just before his fifteenth Naming Day, but he recognized it at once and his heart gave a thud and began to pound in his ears. The language was archaic, but as before he was able to follow it with ease.
This is real
, he was thinking deliriously even as his gaze skimmed the characters.
I was right, Methen. The Book lacked finality. Will it now reveal a practical application for its convoluted and obscure wisdom? Will I see it, perhaps even experience it, for myself?
He wanted to unroll the scroll all the way in order to discover whether the equally familiar hand that had penned so many explanations for him in the past might have done so again. But he took a deep breath and returned to the beginning.

I Thoth, the Heart of Atum, now set down the Bridge of

which I am a part.

It is Ra who rests in Osiris; it is Osiris who rests in Ra.

Secret, mystery, it is Ra, it is Osiris.

Three gods are all the gods: Amun-Atum, Ra, Ptah, who

have no equal.

He whose name is hidden is Amun, whose countenance is

Ra and whose body is Ptah.

Amun-Atum, Ra, Ptah, Unity-Trinity. His image can never

be drawn, nothing can be

taught of him, for he is too mysterious for his secret to be

unveiled, too great and

too powerful to be approached … one would fall dead at

once if one dared to pronounce

his secret name …

He who began the becoming the first time. Amun-Atum

who became at the beginning,

whose mysterious emergence is unknown. No Neter had

come before him who could

reveal his form. His mother who made his name does not

exist. A father who could

say “I engendered him” does not exist. It was he who

hatched his own egg. Powerful,

mysterious of birth … God of gods, who came from

himself. All the divine entities

became after he commenced himself.

He who manifested himself as heart, he who manifested

himself as tongue, in the

likeness of Atum, is Ptah, the very ancient, who gave life

to all the Neteru.

The King is all Neteru, the divinities, the hypostases of

Atum which are

his limbs. The King becomes in becoming.

The soul of the master of heaven is born, and shall become.

Come then Ra in thy name of the living Khepri … illumine

the primordial darkness

that Iuf may live and renew itself.

Holding the papyrus firmly open, Huy glanced up for a moment.
Thoth is indeed curving back to the beginning as the last scroll I read said he would. He is restating the contents of the first four scrolls, putting the difficulties into concepts that might be easier for a reader to understand. He wants to be understood because he is Atum’s heart, and the Lord of Ra’s Bau. So far I find no problems. Amun-Atum enunciates, he speaks from his heart. Ptah takes this vital word and materializes the Neteru, the great archetypes. And of course, as the High Priest of Ra at Iunu told me once, Ra himself is not the sun, not light, but penetrates the sun, and lights the primordial darkness so that Flesh may live and renew itself. What Flesh? And what darkness? Of the Nun or the twelve houses of night? How odd it is, and yet how right, that I should be sitting here at the end of my long search, considering matters that became familiar to me even before I left my school!
His gaze returned to the scroll.