The Twice Born (9 page)

They sat together during the meal. Huy ate heartily out of a huge sense of relief. There were few unknowns left. He had thought that the class would be the last hurdle he had to jump, but as he was finishing his third shat cake Harnakht tapped him on the shoulder. “You are to have a swimming lesson after the sleep, Huy. I will take you to where you must go. Thothmes, if you’ve gorged yourself enough, Kay is waiting to lead you back to your cell. Haven’t you learned the way yet?” He strode off.

“To me this precinct is like an unending maze,” Thothmes sighed. “I hope I will have it clear in my mind before we move in together or I must suffer the shame of depending on you, a boy of my own age, to get me from here to there.” He swung his legs off the bolster and stood up. “I too am having swimming lessons. We have a house on the river, but my mother would never let me do more than wade about in the shallows. Is your father really a farmer? What does he grow?”

Huy decided that there was no malice in the question. His initial jealousy of Thothmes was beginning to fade under the boy’s transparent honesty, but he was still determined to become a pet.
Even though
, he thought rather dismally as he and Thothmes left the hall,
I did not start out well, having been reprimanded once for arrogance and then dragged around by this stupid youth lock
. In fact he was becoming used to the nakedness of his scalp and the feel of that one tress of hair brushing softly against his ear. It gave him the first faint intimation of belonging to this frightening yet interesting place.

He had time to reflect on the morning’s events before he fell asleep in the afternoon’s heat. He considered the strange beauty of the hieroglyphs, whose meanings were still unknown to him. He had enjoyed copying them even though the charcoal smudged and the bowls set out for washing hands before the meal were black with the soot. He had enjoyed seeing Sennefer beaten, too. He thought, with a surge of liberation, that he was going to like school after all. But most of all he remembered the young men who made up the highest class, the nobles’ sons, aloof from the activity of the rest of the room, with their kohled eyes and jewelled earrings, the thin thongs of their fine leather sandals, the gold about their necks and arms. Their youth locks were gone. Some had kept their shaved skulls. Some were wearing wigs. But a few had let their own hair grow back, and Huy thought he liked that best. All of them had hennaed palms, one of the marks of the nobility, and doubtless hennaed soles of their feet also. Huy tried to imagine himself as old as they, his voice as deep as theirs, his body as sleekly muscled, and gave up.

There was no snack waiting for him this time after his trip to the bathhouse. “People who swim after eating get pains in their bellies,” Harnakht told him when he complained. Huy always woke hungry. “Don’t worry, you greedy little worm. Pabast will bring you something after your lesson.” They smiled at one another. “You’re feeling better today, more at home. That’s good. Pick up a loincloth and I’ll show you where to go. Afterwards, will you escort Thothmes back to his cell? Kay and I have a wrestling lesson. No trotting about with you anymore!”

To Huy’s delight, the swimming lesson was conducted in the calm water of the lake that lay before the concourse leading to the temple pylon. Harnakht had led him out onto the training ground but had then turned left, following the outer wall of the precinct through a guarded gate until they came to the treedotted expanse of grass sweeping away to either side of the wide open area. A few skiffs and one or two larger vessels were tied to the poles before the watersteps. Worshippers were crossing and recrossing the concourse itself, and litter-bearers sat or lay in the shade, waiting for their employers to finish their prayers. Huy had hoped that his instructor might turn out to be the soldier who taught archery; he would have liked a closer look at someone so exotic. But the man shepherding the naked pupils by the edge of the lake, though tall and supple, had no military bearing about him. Thothmes was already present, standing apart from the others with his arms folded, as usual. Huy waved farewell to Harnakht and ran to join him.

That night he again played a few games of sennet with Harnakht by the friendly light of the lamp, and the older boy got out his own set of Dogs and Jackals and taught Huy something new. Afterwards, Huy climbed onto his cot and watched Harnakht perform his devotions.
I should ask Uncle Ker to bring me a likeness of Khenti-kheti next time he visits
, he thought,
and he can ask the priest at the shrine what prayers I should say. I like the hymn of praise to Ra and soon I shall be able to sing it with the others. I like the prayer to Thoth too. It is nicer to address the gods than I imagined
. Harnakht blew out the lamp and they said their good nights. Huy felt the familiar wave of homesickness curl towards him as the darkness descended, but this time it did not crash over him. It lapped at him gently, poignantly, bringing sadness but no tears, and he was able to turn on his side and close his eyes with something close to anticipation for what the morning might hold.

“You’re snoring.” Harnakht’s voice came out of the gloom.

Huy had been almost asleep. He giggled. “No I’m not.”

“You are. You ate too much today. Little pig.”

Huy smiled contentedly, and unconsciousness claimed him.

He made swift progress at his lessons in the coming months, having spent a good deal of his time at home decorating the walls with the paints his uncle had given him. Coupled with a steady hand and an accurate eye, he had an innate intelligence that responded immediately to the challenge of the bewildering array of symbols presented each morning. Many of them encapsulated a concept as well as the single component of a word. Such economy delighted him. He worked cheerfully, earning few reprimands from his teacher and no beatings at all.

His youth lock ceased to be an annoyance, indeed Huy soon took pride in it as a mark of his status; he belonged to an elite. Not yet truly aware of the magnitude of his debt to his uncle, he nevertheless began to appreciate the feeling of unity that one tress of hair exemplified. Once a week Pabast appeared with razors and basin and meticulously shaved Huy’s skull. The chore was done in silence. Huy did not forget the servant’s earlier disparaging remark. Soon he was able to braid the lock and tie his white ribbon at its end rather than its root. Both tasks caused him frustration. Thothmes, who had worn a lock almost since birth, painstakingly taught Huy how to divide the hair into three strands and weave them together. He gave Huy an ornate copper mirror less dented than the one Huy had brought from home. Huy soon grew tired of seeing his face distorted in a frown of irritation while his fingers tangled in the smooth mane he was struggling to make acceptable to his teacher’s critical eye.

He had finally moved his few belongings out of Kay and Harnakht’s cell and joined Thothmes in the next compound after expressing a genuine gratitude to the older boy who had been so kind to him. Harnakht had shrugged and punched him gently on the arm. “You’re not leaving the city, Huy,” he had said. “I’ll still be seeing you every day, so you won’t have a chance to miss me.” But Huy, although he was delighted to settle into his very own room, knew that he would indeed miss the comforting presence of the lanky, affable youth, particularly at night when he sometimes dreamed of his home and woke with an ache of sadness that only the dawn could dissipate.

Thothmes’ half of the cell was always tidy. He did not drop his soiled linen on the floor for Pabast to retrieve, as Harnakht had carelessly advised Huy to do, but folded it and laid it on top of his tiring chest. If he scattered crumbs or fruit pips on his cot, he would pick them all up and place them on his plate. Spilling his morning milk signalled a minor disaster that necessitated an immediate change of bed linen. Although he went to the bathhouse naked like every other boy, he was always careful to carry his sandals so that his feet might remain clean on the walk back to the cell. Huy’s happy disorder distressed him so much—although, generously, he made no comment about it—that Huy did his best to be neater. Thothmes’ ribbon was never soiled, and often his last chore of the day was to immerse it in the compound’s pool and scrub it with his personal supply of natron and a piece of stone until the dust and grime fell away.

Like Harnakht, Thothmes said his evening prayers before his own totem, in this case the god Ra, who stood with the sun-disc headdress on his noble hawk’s head beside Thothmes’ cot. As the son of the Governor of the sepat, Huy was not surprised at his roommate’s choice. He was impressed by the care Thothmes lavished on the statue, dusting it every evening, washing it reverently, and often laying small offerings of food or a flower or two at its feet. “Ra is the father of the gods,” Thothmes explained on their first evening together. “He is also the father of mankind and every other living creature, born from his tears and sweat. How is it that you don’t know these things, Huy? Did your father not teach you about the gods?”

Huy felt suddenly ashamed of his parents. The emotion was new, and it frightened him, so he pushed it away. “I don’t think they care much for the gods,” he said slowly. “I mean, they don’t spend much time praying, and we don’t go to Khenti-kheti’s shrine regularly. But my mother gave me my Nefer amulet, so perhaps it’s not that they don’t care.” He had said almost the same thing to Harnakht not long ago. “I think they are too busy and live too far from the shrine.”

“Well, can they not hire a litter, at least on feast days?”

“No, they can’t,” Huy snapped, and like the shame, a full understanding of his parents’ status opened out in his mind for the first time. There was a gulf between him and the small, intent boy sitting cross-legged on the cot opposite. It was larger and somehow different from the gap separating his father from his uncle Ker. If he had considered the matter at all, he had seen Uncle Ker as a little bigger than his father, taller and fatter, and thus more full of whatever it was that made Uncle Ker able to give him the presents his father could not. But now, seeing them both in his mind’s eye, he realized that in fact Ker was slighter and shorter than Hapu. Ker’s skin was paler, his hands uncalloused, his linens softer.
We are poorer than Uncle Ker
, he thought with shock.
I knew it, but did not really know it until now. And even Uncle Ker is not a nobleman, like Thothmes’ father
. “They can’t because they are not rich enough,” he answered his new friend carefully. “They have plenty of food and a servant, but they cannot afford either the time or the cost of visits to the shrine.”

“I’m sorry, Huy,” Thothmes said. “Perhaps when you grow up and become a scribe you will be able to give them their own litter. Here comes Pabast with the lamp. Shall we play knucklebones tonight?”

Huy asked many questions about Ra over the next few weeks. When he was satisfied with Thothmes’ answers, he retrieved his precious scarab and under Thothmes’ admiring gaze he set it at the feet of the god. “You have convinced me of Ra’s power,” he said. “I have missed looking at this treasure, and now, under Ra’s protection, it will be safe and I can enjoy it whenever I want.” He told Thothmes the story of his Naming Day and found himself talking at length about Ishat. “She’s only a girl, but she’s clever and she likes the right games,” he finished. “I expect she would do well here at school.”

“I don’t think girls come here,” Thothmes objected. “Princesses are taught in the palace. Some of the daughters of my father’s friends are learning to read, but they have tutors at home.” He made a face. “I wouldn’t like to have girls in the school. They complain a lot and make a fuss about silly things. Can you imagine a girl learning to swim?” Both boys had been doing well at their swimming lessons. Huy did not want to start an argument by telling Thothmes that Ishat, a year younger than himself, could already swim like a fish.

Huy’s uncle visited him on the last day of the following month, Mekhir. He arrived just as the morning’s class was over and Huy, summoned by one of the temple priests, rolled up his mat and ran into the corridor, where Ker was waiting. The man bent and opened his arms and Huy literally jumped into them. “Uncle Ker! You smell like home!” he shrieked.

Ker hugged him and set him on his feet. “Gods, Huy, can you have grown in just two months?” he exclaimed. “You look very well. Are you happy? The Overseer tells me that you are settling down without trouble. My barge is moored on the lake of the canal and I have permission to give you your meal on board. Would you like that?” Huy grabbed his hand, not knowing whether he wanted to laugh or cry. “Your mother and father and Aunt Heruben all send their love,” Ker went on, turning towards the inner court of the temple. “We miss you so much, but we are very proud of you.”

Huy tugged him to a halt. “There’s a better way to the lake,” he said importantly. “We take it when we have our swimming lessons. Let me show you. Oh, Uncle Ker, I am so pleased to see you!”

“You look fine in your youth lock,” Ker remarked as hand in hand they came out onto the parade ground and followed the left-hand path under the shadow of the wall. “I will tell your mother that she need not grieve for all your curls. She’ll be pleased that you wear the amulet she gave you.” Huy, overcome with a pang of sheer longing for her pretty face, could not reply.

The barge was like an old friend, and running up its ramp Huy remembered the storms of panic that had assailed him on the journey upriver to Iunu. It seemed hentis ago. Now he had two homes, one here and one in the Delta. Mindful of Thothmes’ good manners and of his own position as a legitimate resident of the temple, he bowed to the helmsman and the sailors gathered in the shade the prow was casting over the deck, and waited for his uncle to indicate that he might sit on one of the cushions by the cabin. Ker’s eyebrows rose but he said nothing. The sailors greeted Huy good-naturedly. Ker gestured at the feast set out on the cloth and Huy collapsed beside it with a sigh of pure pleasure. The sun was warm, the barge was barely rocking on the sparkling surface of the lake, and if he took long enough over his meal his classmates would be arriving for their lesson and would see him being feted on this handsome vessel. Even the scornful Sennefer might be envious.