by N. L. Holmes
Maya gave the sort of salacious laugh men indulged in when they talked of making sons. He and Hani walked along in companionable silence through the modest neighborhoods of working-class Waset—narrow streets closely packed with small walled properties—almost windowless houses of one or two stories in whitewashed mud brick, more or less well maintained. On the rooftop terraces, women hung laundry, shelled beans, and pounded grain. Men led donkeys loaded with supplies that could barely pass between the walls, while children ran up and down the street on errands or in that rare happy escape from the necessity of work. People called to one another or sang as they labored. The neighborhood was never silent and never without smells of cooking, smelting, and brewing. This was the world Maya had grown up in, a far remove from the quiet garden of Hani’s family home and his numerous servants and his country house and his boats.
Maya wasn’t sure how he felt about his neighborhood and his home. He both loved it and felt a little shame at its humble dimensions—and the attached workshop, with its inescapable reminder that here people toiled over forges and with dirty substances that hardened their hands and bowed their backs. Still, he’d passed a more-or-less happy childhood behind these walls that he now saw before him.
The gate was locked. It was a goldsmith’s shop, after all, and too many valuable things lay within—things that belonged to the king—for just anyone to be able to pass inside. Maya hammered on the door then whistled and yelled, “Mother! It’s Maya.” The stalwart old Nubian who guarded the gate unbarred it and grinned as he saw his young master. Maya and Hani passed through into the court. “Is Mother here?”
“She is, little master. Inside.”
In the square of light from the door, In-hapy, Maya’s mother, was bent over the worktable along with a number of men and boys, all of them big people except her. Hair covered with a scarf knotted at the back of her neck, she was perched on the high stool where Maya had seen her every day of his life, her nimble fingers plying a file against something tiny. Sparkles of gold dropped to the table around her as she worked.
“Mother!” Maya called. “Do you have a minute? Lord Hani wants to talk to you.”
She looked up and laid down her file, delight widening her eyes, which had been squinting against the flying gold dust. “Son! My lord!” She slid from her stool and came to greet them, bowing before Hani as if they weren’t the in-laws of a married couple.
“In-hapy. Blessings on the mistress of the house,” Hani said heartily. “I hope I’m not inconveniencing you. I promise not to keep you long.”
“Not at all, my lord. Come into the back, where it’s quieter. Can I offer you beer?”
“No, thanks. I just wanted to ask you a question, then I’ll let you get back to your work.”
In-hapy waddled before them through the mat-hung door into the house proper and urged them to seat themselves on the packed-earth floor strewn with cheap rugs and cushions.
I need to buy her some stools, Maya thought, a little irritated. But she can afford them herself. The fact was, his mother was quite prosperous. I suppose she’s just never even thought of how low-class it is to receive guests on the floor.
“Let me preface this by saying I don’t know any women other than my wife whom I might approach with a question like this. And I know her answer already.” Hani gave his amiable gap-toothed grin that made him resemble a small naughty boy. “Do you happen to know of any female physicians?”
Maya’s mother put a pensive finger to her mouth. “Let me think. I hope none of your family is sick, Lord Hani.”
“No, no.” He laughed. “Neferet, our youngest, suddenly wants to be a doctor, and I promised her I’d try to find someone for her to apprentice herself to.”
“Well, yes, in fact, there’s an old woman in the neighborhood who knows a good bit about healing. I don’t know if you could really call her a doctor. She’s surely no scribe. But everyone goes to her for potions and unguents. She’s had plenty of experience.”
“That should be a good place to start.”
“Her name is Khuit. She’s a widow. Her husband used to be a brewer who worked for the temple.” She looked up at Hani with a significant spark in her eye. “Good thing he’s already dead, says I.”
“Good thing indeed.” Hani got to his feet and dusted off his kilt. “Where does she live, do you know?”
“Go to the corner in this direction,” she said, pointing vaguely toward the entry. “Then down that alley to the fourth or fifth house. I no longer even remember which one. Thanks be to Sekhmet, we’ve all been healthy. The last time we went there must have been when Ipy got a stone fleck in his eye, and he’s all grown up now.”
“How’s his eye?” Hani asked, a smile trembling on the corners of his mouth.
“Perfect. He’s my best journeyman. Sees like an eagle.” She turned to her son. “Maya, you may remember which house, but in any case, you can ask.”
“Thanks, my dear lady. May the Lord of the Horizon keep you in good health.” Hani dipped his head gratefully.
In-hapy bobbed up and down in a respectful bow. “And his blessing on you and yours, my lord.”
Maya leaned over and pecked his mother on the cheek. “Thanks for the dinner the other night. Sat-hut-haru loved it.”
The old woman’s wrinkled face lit up in delight. She waved at the men as they made their way out the gate under the benevolent gaze of the Nubian.
“I don’t suppose she’ll ever just call me Hani,” said Hani when they were out on the street once more.
“I think that would be very hard, my lord.” Maya laughed, realizing he had the same problem. He could never address his father-in-law as his social equal. “Habit dies slowly. ‘Stand according to your rank,’ as you put it so well in your aphorisms.”
“That’s all right. I can’t call Lord Ptah-mes just Ptah-mes either, although I think that would please him.”
They tromped down the dusty unpaved street to the first alley and turned to their left. Maya started counting houses. There was an empty lot, now planted with lettuce and cucumber, where a residence or maybe two had clearly been torn down, and that confused him. He stood, staring in annoyance at the broken row of houses.
Then a distant memory clicked in. He pointed. “It’s there—the one with no whitewash.”
They approached the faded door and knocked. No one answered. They waited a decent length of time, then Hani knocked again. “Anyone home?” he called. “We’re looking for Khuit.” He turned to Maya. “You’re sure this is the house?”
“Yes, it’s the house, love,” a rattly old voice said at their backs. The two men turned. Maya recognized immediately the wispy little bowlegged figure with a basket over her arm who confronted them. Khuit was exactly as he remembered her from his childhood—a shrunken little monkey of a woman who looked as if she had been left for forty days in the embalmers’ salts. She was dark and shriveled, with a toothless mouth and bright, twinkling eyes. “What can I do for you, love? Ah, it’s my little sweetheart, In-hapy’s boy too. Come in, come in.”
They followed her into the tiny low-ceilinged salon hung all over with pungent, musty-smelling drying herbs. Baskets of roots gave off a dank earthy odor. There was hardly room to walk through all the jars, baskets, pots, mortars, and cutting boards laid on the tables and on the earthen floor with no apparent order. A striped cat with round golden eyes watched the invaders from the midst of the clutter.
“My name is Hani son of Mery-ra. I understand you’re the healer in this neighborhood.”
“I am, I am. And have been for forty years. Need an enema?” She cackled, and Maya felt a hot flush creeping up his cheeks. He hoped Hani didn’t think this was the sort of person his mother consorted with.
But Hani laughed, seeming at ease in this world so different from his own. He looked extremely large in the tiny, cluttered room. “No, thank you. I’m here because my daughter wants to become a doctor. Mistress of the house In-hapy suggested you might be able to app
rentice her to you so she could learn something about medicine.”
“Well, then, I have had an apprentice or two over the years. Girls don’t seem so inclined to be healers anymore. Everybody wants to marry a rich man. Don’t ask me why.”
“Neferet is a very independent young lady,” Hani assured her. “Needless to say, we’ll pay you. Can I offer you a goat, or would you prefer something like grain?”
“A goat, my lord. A little she-goat. My little she-goat died, and sometimes there’s nothing like milk to cure a sick person.”
Maya, who caught an avaricious gleam in the old woman’s eyes, figured there was probably nothing like a little milk for the doctor either.
“Very well, my good woman. I’ll have her brother bring Neferet tomorrow morning, if that suits you.”
They made their goodbyes and set out down the road again. Hani said, “I need to go to Akhet-aten tomorrow, but you don’t have to come. Just finish those letters and help Neferet with her writing lessons. I should be back in about two weeks. And keep working on that son.” He winked sideways at Maya, who felt a surge of resolution.
He might even have puffed out his chest a bit. “With pleasure, my lord.”
⸎
Nineteen days later, Hani disembarked from the ferry that had borne him back from Akhet-aten and made his way home through the deserted streets of Waset, victim of a curious sensation of foreboding that churned in his stomach like an ill-digested meal. He realized the moment he entered the house that something terrible had indeed taken place. From within came the loud, distraught weeping of several females and Mery-ra’s voice crying, “When did this happen?”
Hani’s heart began to thunder—the wild, flapping wings of a trapped bird. “Nub-nefer?” he called anxiously. “Is everyone all right?” And of course, first in his fears was that something had happened to Baket-iset, his invalid eldest daughter.
But then he heard her, too, saying, “Oh, poor Auntie!” And he feared lest it might be Nub-nefer’s brother, Amen-em-hut. Everyone expected from moment to moment that he would be arrested or beaten or worse.
Hani pushed his way into the salon to find the entire family gathered there with Anuia, his sister-in-law—as he had feared—sobbing hysterically in Nub-nefer’s arms. His wife looked up as he entered, tears running down her cheeks but her expression resolutely strong. Neferet swooped down on her father, hugging him close.
Hani squeezed her to him with one arm. “What is it, my dear?” he called across the room to his wife, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.
“Amen-em-hut,” she murmured brokenly. “He’s disappeared.”
Anuia let out another howl. “They’ve killed him! I know it!”
Hani’s stomach clenched with dread. Oh, great Hidden One, say it isn’t so. He’s only defending your honor. His brother-in-law, the priest of Amen-Ra, had refused to accept the closure of the Ipet-isut. He had obdurately complained about the heresy of the king to anyone who would listen—even murmured the dread word assassination. He was marked for the enmity of the government in every way.
With Neferet still on his arm, Hani approached his wife and hugged her and her sister-in-law, enfolding them both, as if he could really protect them from harm by this gesture. “Calm yourself, Anuia, my sister. Tell me what has happened.”
Nub-nefer guided the hysterical woman to a stool lest she crumble completely. Anuia’s homely face was deformed with weeping, her hands fluttering as she passed them aimlessly over her wig, her face, and her breasts as if searching for something—some perch, some rest. “Get Auntie a cup of water, my love,” Nub-nefer instructed Neferet, who darted away.
Hani squatted at Anuia’s side. “Calmly, now. What happened?”
“He... he was called up by the medjay two weeks ago. They interrogated him, warned him they had informers who knew what he was up to and that the king was watching him and that he’d better not try anything. And when he came home, he had a horrible bruise on his cheek and was limping, but he wouldn’t tell me what had happened. And the next morning, he was gone.” Her ragged words ripped completely into a yowl of fear and grief. “They’ve killed him! I know it!” She folded over her lap, face in hands, bawling pitifully.
Hani hauled himself to his feet, dread a lump of lead in his stomach. He and Nub-nefer locked eyes. His wife was near the edge of despair, he could see—she was exceedingly close to her only brother, who was just two years her senior—but the mother in her struggled to stay calm for the sake of those who depended on her. The suffering in her tear-reddened eyes struck Hani to the heart. How gladly I would take your pain upon myself, my love. Yet there’s nothing surprising in any of this. Amen-em-hut had made no effort to restrain his criticism of Nefer-khepru-ra’s suppression of the cult of the King of the Gods.
“Maybe he’s just hiding,” Hani suggested hopefully. “Have you checked your country place?”
Anuia managed to say, “That was the first thing I did, Hani. He’s not there. None of the servants have seen him. None of the other priests know where he is, either, and he hasn’t been seen anywhere around the Ipet-isut. The gates are locked anyway—he couldn’t have gotten in—and the estates of the god have been taken over. There are soldiers everywhere.” A wave of sobbing shook her. “He would have told me if he were going to hide someplace. He would have told me. He must be—”
“Let’s not jump to that conclusion, my sister,” Nub-nefer urged her, massaging her shoulder. She was trying to convince herself first of all, Hani knew. Neferet reappeared with a tall cup of water. She offered it to her aunt, who guzzled down a long draft, splashing it all over her bosom. Anuia passed it along to Nub-nefer, who drank with the same desperation and returned the cup to her daughter.
“Where was the last place you saw him?” Hani forced himself to ask calmly.
“In bed with me, the night before he disappeared.”
“Well, the soldiers certainly didn’t take him out of the bed while you slept. He must have gotten up safely in the morning. Wouldn’t one of the servants have seen him?”
Anuia shook her head, dabbing at her swollen nose with the back of a hand. “He’s been having trouble with his stomach. Sometimes he gets up in the night and walks around when he can’t sleep.”
A ripple of unease lifted the hair on Hani’s neck. “Outside, you mean? He leaves your property?”
“Sometimes. He walks around the streets. He says it helps him clarify his thoughts.”
Foolish man, Hani thought grimly. With the city as tense as it is now, anything could happen on the streets alone in the wee hours. He forced himself to smile. “Someone will have seen him, then. I’ll ask some of your neighbors’ gatekeepers. Maybe the neighborhood watchman.”
But Anuia said bitterly, “We hardly have any neighbors, Hani. They’ve all moved off to that place. That hellhole. Where that awful—”
“Enough, my sister.” Hani laid a gentle finger over her lips. “Don’t get yourself in trouble too. The children need you.”
He felt an urgent necessity to get away from such misery. Amen-em-hut might just as easily have been the victim of footpads or the desperate unemployed as of the royal police. Hani hoped the priest’s body wouldn’t float ashore from the River somewhere.
He kissed Nub-nefer and patted Anuia on the back. “I’ll go ask around.”
“I’ll go with you, son,” said Mery-ra from behind him. Hani had almost forgotten he was present.
“Thanks, Father. Let’s go to Amen-em-hut’s house and start with the servants.”
“I want to go, too, Papa,” said Neferet.
Hani’s first reaction was to say no, but there was really no reason why she couldn’t accompany them. It would be light a long while yet at this time of year. “Tell your mother where you’re going and that I said it was all right.”
The girl swooped upon Nub-nefer and whispered something to her. Hani’s wife looked up sharply and caught his eye. She gave him a weary nod as if she was too drained to ar
gue.
Neferet charged back to her father. “I’ll take my medical basket.”
“Your what?” Hani asked.
“My medical basket. If we find Uncle and he’s wounded, I may have to treat him.”
Hani and his father exchanged a look that under other circumstances might have been amused. “A generous impulse, my dear,” Hani said neutrally, but he had no expectation of finding the missing priest, wounded or otherwise.
They set off through the back streets of Waset, which were noticeably abandoned since the move of the capital. Many of the large walled houses of bureaucrats were empty, the whitewash peeling and the fading gates surrounded by weeds. Most of the inhabitants who remained were probably priests or lay employees of the Ipet-isut and other temples—servants of Amen, Mut, or Khonsu. The fact that they were now unemployed showed in the unkempt facades. Untended mud brick had already started to crumble. Painted gateways needed touching up. The smaller houses, jumbled cubes of unwhitened brick, had already begun the sad, slow march toward ruin. An occasional ill-fed dog roamed the alleys, and the few people Hani saw as they passed seemed furtive and suspicious. No one offered a friendly greeting as they might once have done. Even the intrepid Neferet edged closer to her father as they walked. Hani thought about Amen-em-hut wandering these streets alone in the dark and feared the worst.
“This is what our proud millennial city has come to, eh?” Mery-ra said, speaking for them both. He blew a heavy breath out through his nose, and Hani echoed it.
“I’m afraid Amen-em-hut must have embittered himself the more by his nocturnal rambles,” Hani said.
They arrived at the gate of his brother-in-law’s villa, a splendid property that testified to the generations of Nub-nefer’s ancestors who’d served the Hidden One for liberal recompense. It was defiantly well maintained. Hani knocked on the gate, hoping a doorkeeper would still be on duty. He’d never had the heart to ask Amen-em-hut what kind of toll the closing of the temples had taken on his finances.
