“Who is already nine years old and in full health,” she cut in. “I have made sure that he is never alone, and two physicians examine him every day. Only you, His Majesty, and I know that Atum has decreed his death. Or so you said when you Saw for him.” Her mouth turned down. “Every other oracle predicted a long life full of successes. Everyone but you. And what of my daughters, mer kat? Death for every one of them, according to you. Could it be that Anubis is greedy for their souls or that Atum himself has decided to visit a punishment on Egypt’s ruling house for some reason unknown to us? Or perhaps the gift of Seeing has deserted you and you have resorted to lying.” She had leaned forward, the scorn in her voice all too familiar.
“We have walked this ground before, Empress. Why must we do so again? I have never lied to you, and in your heart you know it. You need me to See for you again, don’t you? Why?”
Her hands came up to cover her face, then she sat back. “My physician tells me that I am pregnant again,” she said dully. “I have given my King four daughters but only one son. He has other wives, Huy, some of them barbarian, foreign. I remain his friend, his most intimate companion, and the bedmate of his choice, but if I continue to produce daughters he will be forced to legitimize any one of his other women so that he may have more sons. The Horus Throne must be protected. One Hawk-in-the-Nest is not enough, particularly as you have predicted an early death for my darling Thothmes.” One hennaed palm rose briefly to cover her mouth, a gesture betraying such desperation and defencelessness that Huy was shocked. “Forgive my harsh words,” she begged. “They are spawned from fear and bitterness, two emotions I disdain but which seem to dog me all too often of late. Userhet! Come and pour us wine. It is shedeh, your favourite, Huy. Or would you rather have beer?”
Huy wanted neither. Tiye’s fingers shook as she raised her cup, draining half the red liquid before cradling it on her knee. She was very pale. Userhet had disappeared. “Please See for me now, tonight,” she begged. “I can’t sleep without a word from you.” The earlier hostility had vanished, but it would come back, Huy knew sadly. It always did.
“I will do as you wish,” he said, “but you must dismiss your scribe and send for Paneb, who will take down my words as usual.”
At a sharp order from Tiye, Anhirkawi uncurled from the floor, bowed to both of them, and waited in front of one of the double doors until a soldier let him out. At another command Userhet followed him. There were several minutes of quiet. Tiye had apparently regained most of her poise. Either that, Huy thought, eyeing her carefully, or the pomegranate wine is unusually potent. She sipped occasionally and gazed at the dimness of the far wall. You no longer trust my visions, Huy’s thoughts ran on, and yet what I said to you is true. In your consciousness I lie in order to preserve my position as mer kat, but deep in the recesses of your ka you know perfectly well that no one else will give you certainty. In spite of your crown, your life as a woman has been hard. You bore your children in rapid succession—Thothmes, Sitamun, Henurtaneb, Isis, and now the baby Nebetah, one female after another—and in spite of your youth and health you have begun to fear the damage each long pregnancy might be causing in that tireless body of yours. To make matters worse, I tell you that your beloved children will soon die, and only Sitamun will temporarily escape the Judgment Hall. If I had spoken fully of Sitamun’s disastrous end, what would you have said? Would you have bowed in humility to the will of Atum? Not the girl who came to my palace apartment in Mennofer all those years ago and demanded that I See for her. Not the young woman who constantly thwarted her mother’s attempts to turn her into an ideal wife for a King. Yet your intelligence and candidness won Amunhotep’s heart and mind, as Atum required. It is a hard thing to let go of one’s offspring, my Tiye, but if you are to maintain control of your husband you must overcome the fear and bitterness of which you spoke. Don’t you know that I am the one person in the whole of Egypt who requires nothing of you at all?
“Sitamun,” she said suddenly. “Her estate yielded well this year? She remains in good health?”
“You have my reports, Empress. As the Overseer of the Princess’s holdings I decide what crops must be sown and I see to the care and disposition of her herds. She prospers. Her tutors tell me that she has little interest in her studies but she enjoys watching her brother take his chariot lessons.”
“Now that Thothmes is in Mennofer, she will have to find other means of entertainment.” Tiye’s tone was waspish. “You are in charge of her education, mer kat. Hire new tutors if necessary, but Sitamun must learn to care for something other than the glamour of the chariot.”
“She’s only eight, Tiye. She cares that she closely resembles you.”
“That is hardly an accomplishment.”
Huy was saved from replying by a flurry of movement at the door. Paneb came forward with his usual unhurried pace, knelt before Tiye and touched his forehead to the tiles, and at her word sat up and crossed his legs. Quietly he opened the drawer in his palette and said the prayer to Thoth as he prepared to work. Huy leaned forward, enfolding Tiye’s hand in both of his. For a moment their eyes met. Huy could not read her expression, but he noted that before her blue-dusted lids closed, her left eye was slightly bloodshot. The hour was late. Clearly she was as tired as he.
“A remarkable woman, isn’t she, mer kat?” Anubis was leaning his folded arms negligently against the back of Tiye’s chair, his jackal snout inches from the top of her bowed head, the golden kohl sweeping around his eyes glinting dully in the flickering lamplight. Thin gold chains slung across his chest winked at Huy, emphasizing the oiled blackness of the god’s skin. Thick golden bracelets crowded each strong wrist. “She’s given our increasingly dissolute young King five children in the space of nine years, all of whom but Sitamun will die before they reach maturity, yet she fights to keep a flame of hope burning inside her. Perhaps this one will be different. Perhaps this time the gods will reward me with a son who will survive to inherit all the wealth and power the Egyptian empire offers. An empire that you created, mer kat. How unfortunate that you are not a pharaoh with an able son! If anyone deserves to rule Egypt, you do, and your progeny after you. But wait! How foolish of me! You already rule Egypt, don’t you, mer kat, even though no son walks the halls of the palace behind you.” He laughed, a hoarse animal bark, lips drawn back from two rows of glistening white teeth.
Huy waited. He was well used to these goads and had stopped reacting to them long ago. Anubis unfolded his arms and, roughly grasping Tiye’s head, lifted it so that Huy could look directly into her closed face. Her breathing remained even. Her eyelids did not even flutter. “She wants you to tell her that a male child inhabits her womb,” Anubis went on harshly, “but the seed she carries is death, Great Seer, more death than you or she can possibly imagine—the eclipse of Ma’at and the destruction of this blessed country. A Queen, but worthy to be a King, is she not? And she knows it. She will indeed give birth to one, and then let Egypt beware!”
To his horror, Huy saw that the god was weeping. Tears were slipping over the lustrous fur of his doglike face and falling onto Tiye’s dark red hair, and where they landed, small uneven circles of grey appeared. Her features were aging also, the folds more pronounced, the corners of the mouth turned down in an expression of cruel petulance. Huy had seen her like this once before. Frantically he searched his mind, until with a savage gesture Anubis let go Tiye’s head and seemed to fling something at him. A familiar vision blossomed: Tiye and a royal man Huy did not recognize standing side by side in a place that resembled the inner court of a temple except that the roof was missing and scorching sunlight flooded the place. Huy could feel its heat, but more than the physical discomfort, it carried with it a sense of desolation so strong that he cried out.
“You chose to ignore this prophecy, didn’t you?” The image vanished. Anubis straightened. “The happy scene preceding it was altogether too convenient, wasn’t it? A way for Egypt’s Great Seer to demonstrate his wisdom, h
is closeness to Atum, his infallibility. Tiye as a Queen? A commoner like yourself elevated to the pinnacle of the aristocracy, and, moreover, at the will of Atum himself? How deliciously improbable, and what a challenge, to force those around you to agree!”
“It was not like that,” Huy protested—but it was. He vividly remembered the anxiety the vision had caused him and the relief he had felt when the scroll on which it was written had been sealed and stored away. He did not think he had been as arrogant at the time as Anubis had described him, but he had certainly pushed for a betrothal between Tiye and Amunhotep on the strength of only half the message the god had provided.
“Yes, it was like that,” Anubis hissed, lips raised to reveal his pointed teeth. “And now Atum commands you to undo the harm your conceit has caused. All these years, Son of Hapu, all these years as a Seer, so many visions granted to you, and you still have not divined the difference between what is inevitable and what may be changed.”
Only a god can do that, Huy wanted to object. Such a subtlety of understanding is far beyond the reach of any Seer, no matter how able. None of the visions accorded me held the slightest hint that the events I saw were not predestined.
Yet there were moments of doubt, weren’t there? a small voice inside him answered. Times when the visions were fulfilled in unexpected ways or their events transferred to someone other than the petitioner. Then I was troubled.
“But not troubled enough,” Anubis said. He stepped back, and at once Tiye’s features smoothed. Colour returned to her hair and she took a slow, deep breath. “We have great sympathy for you, Huy,” the god continued. “Your intentions have been good. You made a choice in the innocence of youth when you stood before Imhotep in the Beautiful West and agreed to read the Book of Thoth. You could not have anticipated everything your decision implied, yet when you realized that the task of Seeing had been thrust upon you, you were obedient in spite of your rebellious desires. Atum, Thoth, Ma’at—we all know what you have lost and what Egypt has thus gained. You rule her well.” Once more the god’s jackal lips lifted, this time in a smile. “But you are human, you will die, and unless you find a way to disinherit the boy the Empress carries, all your work will have been in vain. Amunhotep is your tool. Use him.”
Huy had opened his mouth to ask just how the King might be used when he realized that his head was pounding, the god had gone, and Tiye was pulling her fingers out of his grasp.
“Well?” she said. “Did Anubis tell you the sex of my child? I am not afraid to hear it, Huy.”
Yes you are, Huy thought, watching her eyes. And my fear at the knowledge is now greater than yours. “You are carrying a male child, Majesty,” he said.
Her face lit up. Clapping her hands, she called the guards on the door to summon Userhet, and picking up her cup, she drained it quickly. “Good news!” she exclaimed. “Great news! Thank you, Huy! Amunhotep will be overjoyed! Now we must have more wine to celebrate!”
Huy shook his head, then winced. “Forgive me, Tiye, I must go home to my opium and my couch.”
Immediately she sobered. “Of course. You are in pain. You may go. Userhet, escort the Seer to his litter.”
The steward had come up to Tiye’s chair. Now he offered Huy his arm, and gratefully Huy took it, struggled to his feet, sketched a bow, and, followed by Paneb, escaped into the corridor, where he leaned against the wall.
“Perti, have my litter brought here—I can’t walk through the palace tonight. Userhet, go back to your mistress.”
He wished that Kenofer had accompanied him. The body servant would have been ready with Huy’s drug, but Huy had been unprepared for a Seeing. He was thirsty for water. Already the familiar black and white pattern was forming in front of his eyes, blocking his sight. By the time he and his attendants reached his house, he could not see at all. But before he allowed Kenofer to administer the opium and then undress him, he dictated the sum of his encounter with Anubis to his scribe. As always he remembered every word said, every inflection. Paneb would seal the scroll and place it in the chest with the accounts of all the other royal Seeings. Then Huy took the tiny ball of raw opium and stood while Kenofer removed his clothes, washed him, and helped him onto the couch. He could neither sleep nor think. He lay curled in upon himself like a child while the night wore away.
11
THE KING WAS CAUTIOUSLY PLEASED with Tiye’s news. “You didn’t see an early death for the child, I suppose?” he said to Huy as they stood together outside the entrance to Amunhotep’s tomb. “Must I order the masons to hew yet another room out of the rock below in sorry anticipation of a second son’s demise?” He waved a commanding arm at the gaping hole behind them. “I’m beginning to think that I’ve offended the gods in some way, although I can’t imagine how. I’ve poured gold and manpower into their glorification throughout Egypt. I’ve been obedient to the laws of Ma’at. What else can they expect of me?”
“All I know is that the Empress will give birth to another boy,” Huy replied. “Atum will not show me his fate until I’m able to touch him.”
“As the harbinger of constant bad news, are you becoming as suspicious of Atum’s prognostications as I am, Uncle?” Irritably, Amunhotep waved away the cup of water a servant was offering. “You’ve given Thothmes the title of Troop Commander and allowed him to begin drilling the soldiers stationed at Mennofer in his spare time away from Ptah’s temple. A sensible position for the heir to the Horus Throne. Can it be that you doubt the prediction of his early death?”
“All I know is that the Prince won’t see his twenty-first year,” Huy answered. “And no, Majesty, I’m sorry, but I don’t doubt the word of Atum. I continue to See for many of the courtiers with the accuracy the god provides.”
“Tiye insists on coddling the boy,” Amunhotep said testily. “Two physicians and even a guard in his bedchamber, even though she’s aware of the years ahead that have been allotted to him. Hopefully another son in the nursery will set her mind at rest. It will certainly do so for me. A second male child strengthens the possibility of a peaceful succession.”
Not according to Anubis, Huy thought moodily. Your marriage to Tiye was a mistake of my own arrogant making, and I’m commanded to undo the harm I’ve done. But how? How may I use Amunhotep to do so? All these deaths to come, are they the result of a marriage that wasn’t meant to be? Will Atum wipe all trace of this royal family from Egypt’s sacred history?
“Wake up, Uncle. You’re not even listening to me.” Trailed by his entourage, Amunhotep began walking towards the scattered piles of bricks not far away. His sunshade bearer hurried to catch up to him. “Let’s see what progress is being made on my new palace. Already I can imagine the magnificence of my finished funerary temple, but why are the labourers working so slowly on this?”
“Because you keep changing the architects’ plans and driving poor Hori and Suti to distraction, not to mention Men, the Overseer of Works. They’re also responsible for the ongoing construction of your funerary temple, and Amun’s temple at the Southern Apt.”
“A beautiful tribute to Amun and myself,” Amunhotep said. “Your design is glorious and harmonious, and the avenue of holy sphinxes lining its short distance from Ipet-isut very grand, but it’s been twelve years since its foundation was laid and still it isn’t ready to be consecrated. Everything slow slow slow! I’m impatient to take up residence on this side of the river, away from the noise and stench of Weset. Hurry them up, Huy.”
“I can if Your Majesty will stop interfering and leave my architects alone.”
Suddenly Amunhotep’s infectious grin broke out. “And will you forbid Anhur to take me fishing and send me to my room if I disobey?” He laughed. “Very well, dearest Uncle, I leave my future comfort in your hands. Let’s get out of this infernal heat. I want my couch.”
They boated across the river, now at its lowest ebb, and parted, the King to his apartments and Huy to his house. His bearers were waiting, sprawled drowsily in the sparse shade c
ast by the tired trees lining the canal to the palace’s entrance. Huy left the curtains of his litter open as he was carried the short way to his house. The river path, dusty and deserted at that time of the day, soon began to run between the river and the poppy fields that formed a protective area around Huy’s estate. Here the bearers paused to allow Huy to answer the challenge of the soldiers before turning towards his sheltering wall through the desiccated plants. Their appearance was deceptive. Leaves yellow, dry stems bent towards the arid sand, they looked dead, but Huy knew that the precious drug had already been harvested from the pods and the seeds carefully collected to be sown the following spring. Guarding the arouras against thieves was a boring necessity, and Huy and Amunnefer made sure that the men stationed on the perimeter of their lucrative venture were amply compensated.
Two gates gave access to Huy’s domain. One faced north into the poppy fields and the other spanned the canal leading from the river and running past the house to the luxuriant garden beyond. Now, in the middle of Mesore, the canal was dry. The guard on the northern gate admitted the litter, and soon Huy was alighting under the pillars that fronted his reception hall.
Amunmose emerged from the shadows and bowed. “Paneb has gone to his afternoon sleep but wants you to be prepared to deal with the seven scrolls on your desk this evening, Master,” he said, following Huy as he entered the coolness of the great room. “Kenofer is also asleep on his mat before your door but begs to be woken if you need him. The Lady Nasha has not returned from the house of the Lady Thuyu. Captain Perti—”
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