The Crocodile Makes No Sound

by N. L. Holmes

  Having mentally sung his little song of joyful greeting to the rising sun, like the baboons of Ra, Hani made his way back through the mat that hung over the door of the house to keep out the flies. No one else was up yet except for some of the servants; he could hear the splash of water in the kitchen and a small thunder of wood for the oven dropped on the earthen floor. No longer did Pa-kiki, his second son, have to get up at dawn to go to school at the House of Life—the Per-ankh was closed, along with the temple that housed it. Hani and his father, both scribes, were putting the finishing touches to the boy’s education. Soon Pa-kiki would go to Akhet-aten to live with his brother and work at some low-level job in the Hall of the Royal Correspondence, beginning his rise through the ranks.

  Hani planted himself in front of the little shrine in his salon, where a small statue of the Hidden One, and homely images of Ta-weret, the Great One, and the dwarf god Bes—protectors of women and children—were honored with flowers and bowls of grain. These days, every shrine was supposed to feature some stele of the Sun Disk and the royal family, even in private devotions, but he didn’t feel that kindly toward his ruler and his ruler’s god. If he brought an Aten stele home, Hani could imagine what his wife, Nub-nefer, would say, she whose father and brother had each served as Third Prophet of Amen-Ra. Yet Hani was uneasy about giving some officious visitor an opening to carry dangerous tales about his lack of loyalty. He had enough against him already. Perhaps I ought to get at least a small one...

  Hani drifted toward the kitchen, following his nose. He hoped the heavenly fragrance of baking meant the cook would soon take some fresh bread out of the oven. Hani was hungry—hungry for bread and hungry for life. It was dawn in the season before the Inundation, after all. Time for good things to begin once more. One could believe, on such a morning, in the cycle of creation—that after the grim, confusing years of the immediate past, good would roll around again.

  ⸎

  Later that morning, Hani’s secretary and son-in-law, Maya, arrived, ready to begin dictation. The little man, too, was in a twinkling mood. He and Sat-hut-haru must have had a rousing evening. Hani chuckled. It still seemed impossible that his seventeen-year-old second daughter was a nebet per, a mistress of the house, and she’d traded her maiden’s braids for the long locks of a married woman.

  “Good morning, Lord Hani. I have these fair copies of the letters for you. Shall I read them aloud for your approval?” Maya seated himself cross-legged on the floor and unhitched his pen case from his shoulder. Thanks to the understanding of his superior, the high commissioner Lord Ptah-mes, Hani had been permitted to work in a domestic capacity rather than resign outright from his post. He hadn’t been sent abroad for a year and had seen to his duties from home, showing up at the capital from time to time—just often enough not to be conspicuously absent from the roster of assignments.

  “Go ahead, Maya. I’ll stop you if I hear anything I want to change.”

  Maya unrolled the first of the documents and began to read it aloud, but Hani’s thoughts drifted in and out as he remembered the troubles of conscience that had bumped his career off the expected road. “Let me look at that, son,” he said, reaching out a hand. “I’m distracted and didn’t absorb it.” He took the papyrus from the secretary and began to read. He had to anchor his attention firmly to avoid slipping away again—to the garden, to the river, to the reeds where the wading birds he loved awaited him.

  All at once, Hani was conscious of a rush of bare footsteps and a swirl of skirt bearing down on him. He dragged his eyes away from the letter to see that Neferet, his youngest, had approached with her usual impetuosity and was standing in front of him, hands on hips.

  “What can I do for you, my love?” he said, smiling at the sight of her dressed like a young lady, her child’s sidelock transmuted into the tiny braids of maidenhood. I can’t believe it. The last of our children, almost grown.

  “I’ve decided something, Papa,” she said earnestly and seated herself on the floor beside him, pulling up her skirt to cross her legs with greater ease. At thirteen, she was still the stocky, broad-shouldered little hoyden he loved, despite the dress. “I’ve decided I want to be a physician—a sunet.”

  “Is this something new? I don’t believe you’ve ever mentioned it.”

  “I thought you wanted to be a horse,” said Maya with a straight face. Hani tried not to laugh.

  Neferet shook her head impatiently, sending her braids flying. “Oh, that was when I was a little girl. I mean, I did want to be a chantress of Amen, but...” She shrugged, with an eloquent lift of the eyebrows.

  Although the impossibility of serving the Hidden One these days was a serious matter, Hani smiled nonetheless, because Neferet took after his side of the family and couldn’t carry a tune. Neither was she especially lissome, should she be inclined to serve as a temple dancer. Her dance style had about it more enthusiasm than grace, her father thought tenderly—unlike her two sisters.

  “Why, that’s a noble aspiration, my dear. You’ll have to study hard. Perhaps the priests of Sekhmet at Sau have a school that accepts girls.”

  “I’m smart. I’m smarter than Pa-kiki. Do I have to know how to read and write?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Most doctors seem to, but I’m not aware of any women in the scribal schools, so maybe women physicians don’t.”

  “We could teach you, couldn’t we, my lord?” offered Maya with a glance at his father-in-law. “You wouldn’t need to know the formal Speech of the Gods, just script.”

  She set her elbow on her knee and propped her chin on her fist, staring first at Maya then at her father. “I wonder if there are doctors who take care of animals.”

  “I can’t imagine there aren’t,” Hani said, recalling his days as an army scribe. “The king’s fancy chariot horses certainly had a doctor.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “But in the army, they’re all men.”

  Neferet nodded pensively. “What about cats and pet herons?”

  Hani was so overcome with affection for this suddenly serious girl that he reached out and tugged her braids with a smile. “I don’t know. You could start a whole new specialization. Be the first heron doctor.”

  “I could.” She got to her feet, seemingly unaware, or untroubled, that her skirt was caught up in the crack of her buttocks. “Let me go talk to Qenyt and see what she thinks about it.”

  Maya, at his side, was tee-heeing openly. Hani managed not to laugh until his youngest daughter had skipped away. Don’t ever change, he thought, his heart full.

  The two men settled back to work. The sun had swung from one side of the room to its noon position—its long matutinal shafts growing shorter until they no longer pierced the clerestories—when Hani crawled to his feet and stretched. “I guess we’re finished for the day, Maya. You can make good copies of those letters I just dictated, and we’ll go from there in the morning. At the end of the week, I’ll take them up to the Hall of the Royal Correspondence.”

  “Count on me, Lord Hani.” Maya knelt to gather his writing implements and rolls of papyrus. He looked up at Hani with a sudden anxious expression. “Sat-hut-haru and I are having dinner at Mother’s tonight.”

  Concerned by his look of unease, Hani asked, “Is there a problem with that?”

  The secretary stood and brushed himself off. He said in a hesitant voice, “I hope Sat-hut-haru won’t be disappointed. Mother just lives behind her shop. It’s nothing like your house.”

  Hani had noticed that Maya had never invited his bride to his mother’s home, and now he was beginning to get a sense of why. “Sati knows she’s a goldsmith. Why would she be disappointed?” But Hani realized that Maya must harbor all sorts of anxieties about his artisan-class birth, having married, as Maya had done, into the scribal class, where no one was ever permitted to forget that their way of life was best. “Do you think we’ve raised her to care about such things? She loves and admires your mother.”

  “But she’s never actually seen th
e house. She’ll picture me growing up there, and it will make her think of how different our pasts were.” His brow was pleated with insecurity.

  Hani clapped a fatherly hand on the little man’s shoulder. “Give her credit for seeing through that sort of thing, Maya. You’re a scribe now, and that puts you in the ruling class. The more credit to you for having done it on your own.”

  “Thanks to you, my lord.” Maya cast doglike eyes of gratitude upon his father-in-law. “Thanks to you for everything, or I’d never have been able to stay in school. I’d be keeping Mother’s books in the back of the shop.”

  Hani had served as Maya’s patron, sponsoring the higher education of a promising student who wouldn’t otherwise have been able to advance to the ranks of the House of Life. Touched by the young man’s gratitude but a little embarrassed, too, Hani mumbled self-deprecating noises. “It’s you she’s married, my friend, not your mother’s house. Don’t worry about it. If I’m wrong, I owe you a... a pot of beer. No, some of that wine I sent back from Kebni last year.”

  Maya threw back his head and gave a great hoot of laughter. “It’s a deal, Lord Hani.” He let himself out the door with a bit of the old swagger back in his steps.

  Hani was shaking his head in affection and pity at the sensitivity of the young when his wife, Nub-nefer, glided in, barefoot and silent, from the back of the house. She was still trim and beautiful, with great fringed black eyes and a perfectly bowed mouth.

  “Ah, my dearest. There you are.” He opened his arms to her, his heart expanding, and she pecked him on the cheek.

  Her face was puckered with the effort to control her laughter. “Neferet has decided she wants to be a heron doctor. I thought you would be pleased.”

  “It’s a step up from wanting to be a heron,” Hani said with a grin. “Our little girl is growing up.”

  “No point in even taking her ambitions seriously at this age. They change every day.”

  “Perhaps, although it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a physician in the family. I mean, one who treats humans, not herons.”

  Nub-nefer looked at her husband, wide-eyed. “Do you mean that? You think she should really study medicine?”

  He shrugged cautiously, feeling he had stepped into a trap. “If that’s what she wants, why not?”

  “But, Hani, who ever heard of a woman doctor?” She made an exasperated noise. “She might as well treat herons, for all the patients she’d get.”

  “Yet there are such, my dear. I know I’ve heard of it. I think the priests of Sekhmet at Sau may accept girls for study.”

  Nub-nefer gave him an accusatory look. “Have you been encouraging her in this scheme, Hani? Because she said exactly the same thing.”

  “No, I swear, my love. Today is the first time I’ve even heard she was interested. And maybe it’s just a whim. But if she is interested, why shouldn’t she pursue it? She’s smart.”

  Her lips pursing, Nub-nefer hummed dubiously. Hani maintained a prudent silence until his wife finally blurted, as if ashamed to have to say it, “Isn’t it a little working-class—a woman going to patients’ houses with a basket of herbs? A village healer, for the sake of the Hidden One?”

  “Male doctors are scribes, my doe, and often priests. They have very elevated status. Wouldn’t it be the same for women doctors?” Hani didn’t want to sound argumentative, so he used his best mild, reasonable, diplomatic voice.

  “Who’s going to teach a girl to read and write, Hani? Don’t set her expectations high just to have them dashed in her face, please.”

  Hani wanted to laugh, but he saw that Nub-nefer was really concerned for her passionate little girl, so he said gently, “Her father, grandfather, both brothers, brother-in-law, and all her uncles know the Speech of the Gods, my dear. She won’t lack for teachers.”

  Nub-nefer turned her eyes away, brows contracted. She murmured, “It doesn’t seem feminine to me.”

  “To me, the mystery has always been why doctors are male, when men generally have so little feeling for the sick or weak. I think a feminine touch would be much superior.”

  Nub-nefer seemed to debate with herself in silence. Then she said stiffly, “I see I can’t argue with you, dear. Your mind is made up.”

  “Not at all. And it isn’t my mind at stake here. It’s Neferet’s. She’s only thirteen. She may very well change goals. In a year or two, she may prefer simply to get married and forget all about the scribal life. And that would be fine. But if she persists, I think we should support her.” He turned Nub-nefer’s chin back toward him. “Don’t you?” He smiled at her beguilingly, and she seemed to soften in spite of herself.

  “She’ll probably be obsessed with some new scheme before the end of the year.” Nub-nefer sighed, no doubt hoping it would be so, and shrugged.

  Hani bent to kiss the sweet slope between her shoulder and neck. He thought of Neferet, groping to find herself, of Maya, so concerned that his wife think well of him, and of his own eldest son, Aha, desperate to impress the king. “I pity the young.”

  “Well, I pity the old,” said his father, Mery-ra, from the doorway. “It’s a hard walk here from Meryet-amen’s in the sun.”

  “I’ve told you to take my litter whenever you need it, Father,” said Hani in mock severity. “But oh, no. You want to look manly in the sight of your lady friend. You’re too proud.”

  Mery-ra chuckled, his belly bouncing. “Or too forgetful. I’m afraid I’d leave it there.”

  “I doubt if she’ll break it up for firewood the first time that happens,” said Nub-nefer dryly. “I leave you gentlemen to your mischief. I need to go cauterize some wounded animals.” She headed for the rear of the house but then, at the door, turned back. “Would you go to a woman doctor to be treated, Hani?” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Are you sick?” Mery-ra looked at his son in surprise.

  “No, no. It was a rhetorical question. Neferet has been talking about wanting to be a sunet, and Nub-nefer wants me to admit that no one would ever go to a female doctor.”

  “Women would, I should think. I’ll bet the king’s harem has a female doctor.”

  Hani looked at him, impressed. “An excellent idea, my noble father. I may ask around.”

  Mery-ra pursed his lips to hide a grin. “The next time you’re in the king’s harem, eh?”

  Hani set off for the bedroom, but his father called after him, “What under the sun did she mean about cauterizing animals?”

  With a laugh, Hani said over his shoulder, “She’s going to start lunch. It’s a little medical humor.”

  ⸎

  The next morning, Maya appeared for work in a golden mood, a spring in his step and a snippet of song on his lips. The evening had gone splendidly, and he could see he’d worried for nothing about how Sat-hut-haru would confront his modest childhood home. She was better than some shallow, spoiled rich girl; he should have known. She’d admired his mother’s skills and looked around with fascination at the neat compaction of workshop and living quarters, oohing and aahing over everything as if it had been palatial. They had encountered a slightly awkward issue of size that he hadn’t even thought to worry about in advance—because Maya and both his parents were dwarfs, their few pieces of furniture were low, and Sati’s knees had to turn aside so she could sit at the table. But she managed the maneuver with such adorable grace that no one would have thought it was a compromise.

  What a girl. Her bones are silver, and her flesh is gold, like a goddess, Maya thought, pride swelling within him. And of course, Mother’s servant was an excellent cook, so the meal had been as much a work of art as the magnificent jewels she turned out for the king and his ladies.

  “Good morning, Maya. You look radiant. Things must have gone well last night after all,” Lord Hani said with a wide smile that bared the gap between his teeth. His little brown eyes twinkled.

  “Oh, yes, my lord. Your daughter was the perfect guest, as I should have expected. Mother gave me these for you.
” He presented the little meat pies she had wrapped in linen for Sati’s parents. “She said to stick them in the oven for a few moments to heat them, although I like them cold.”

  Hani sniffed the package. Then he unrolled the wrapping and extracted a pie. “Perhaps I’d better make a judgment about that.” He bit off half the little triangular pastry and chewed, his eyes closed in ecstasy. “There’s cumin in them. And tamarind. Sublime! Be sure Sat-hut-haru learns to make these delights!”

  Maya beamed. “I will, my lord. With pleasure.”

  Hani scoffed down the last of the pie and licked his fingers. “Before we start work, let me ask you something, my friend. Does your mother happen to know of any women physicians?”

  Maya twisted his mouth in reflection. “I have no idea, but I can ask. No one is sick, I hope?” Then he remembered Neferet’s new ambition and answered his own question. “Ah, to study with.”

  Hani nodded and prepared to seat himself then seemed to have second thoughts. “Would In-hapy mind if we disturbed her briefly this morning to ask, do you think?”

  “Not at all, my lord.” Maya hung his writing case, which he had just removed, back on his shoulder, and the two men headed for the street.

  “You know, I thank Khonsu the Traveler every day that I’m not somewhere in Kebni or A’amu right now and that I’m able to perform these little services for the children,” Hani said as they walked along with their mismatched strides. He was a broad, thickset man whose heavy, rolling gait made Maya think of a wrestler or a sailor. He was solid, in every sense. Maya loved him—adored him—far more than the father he barely remembered. “They’ll all be grown and out of the house soon, and how sad I would be not to have any memories of their childhood.”

  “I guess we should make offerings for Lord Ptah-mes, eh, my lord? It’s thanks to him you were given a domestic assignment. And me too,” Maya added, heat rising up his cheeks.

  Hani glanced down at him from the corners of his little brown eyes. They were crinkled with a knowing smile. “‘Take a wife while you’re young, that she make a son for you,’ eh, Maya? ‘She should bear for you while you’re youthful.’”